Tag: PARIS

Senior Sri Lankan officials ‘withheld intel on terrorist attacks’

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The head of Sri Lanka’s parliament has made damning accusations against senior officials in the government, alleging that they withheld intelligence about impending attacks on churches, hotels and politicians.

A series of Easter Sunday bombings at Sri Lankan churches andhotels killed at least 359 people. Authorities have made dozens of arrests in the aftermath.

“Some top intelligence officials hid the intelligence information purposefully. Information was there, but the top brass security officials did not take appropriate actions,” Lakshman Kiriella, leader of the parliament, said Wednesday

Kiriella claims that Sri Lankan authorities received a warning from Indian intelligence about possible attacks on April 4, and that this information was shared at a Security Council meeting, chaired by President Maithripala Sirisena, on April 7 but was not shared further.

“Somebody is controlling these top intelligence officials,” Kiriella added. “The Security Council is doing politics. We need to investigate into this.”

Meanwhile, former army chief and Minister of Regional Development Sarath Fonseka told parliament that he believed the attacks had been planned for some seven or eight years.

ALSO ON RT.COMTerrorists needed ‘at least 7-8 years’ to plan Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka

A confidential April 11 security memo contained names, addresses, phone numbers and movement patterns of the attackers from the National Thowheeth Jama’ath group suspected of carrying out the spate of attacks. Sri Lankan authorities also knew as far back as January that the group was stockpiling weapons and detonators.

Government minister Rauff Hakeem described it as a “colossal failure on the part of the intelligence services,” as in-fighting between Sri Lanka’s president and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe appears to have prevented effective action being taken to avert the danger.

“If the names of the persons involved were already known, why were they not arrested?” he added.

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ACTIVISTS DRESSED AS CLOWNS PROTEST ‘DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR’

Activists Dressed As Clowns Protest 'Drag Queen Story Hour'

Honk honk

 | Infowars.com – APRIL 23, 2019

Activists dressed as clowns interrupted a local ‘drag queen story hour’ event in New Orleans to draw attention to the absurdity of the situation.

Drag queen story hour, which first surfaced in 2015, sees men dressed as women tour public libraries and schools across the United States and Canada reading books to children.

According to the group’s website, the aim of the project is to capture “the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and give kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”

Conservatives are strongly opposed to the concept, arguing that it exposes children as young as 2-years-old to sexuality.

The backlash grew last month after it was revealed that a man who was charged with sexually assaulting a child was allowed to read to kids at a library in Houston.

Activists with the American identity movement decided to protest a drag queen story hour in New Orleans by dressing up as clowns and crashing the event.

They carried a banner which read ‘Drag Queen Story Hour – Adult Entertainment For Kids! Welcome to Clown World – Honk Honk’.

Judging from the clip the group posted to Twitter, they were asked to leave in a hurry but managed to make their point.

The ‘clown world’ meme is based on the premise that identity politics has left western society so muddled and confused that the only way to respond to it is with nihilism in clown form.

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WaPo headline linking anger at Sri Lanka terrorist attacks to ‘far right’ draws Twitter’s ire

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The Washington Post is under fire for printing a story with a contentious headline, implying that anger over the recent spate of bombings in Sri Lanka is unique to the “far right.”

Titled “Christianity under attack? Sri Lanka church bombings stoke far-right anger in the West,” the piece drew outrage online far and wide for its recklessly phrased headline.

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In its story, the Post cites right-wing leaders and activists across the US and Europe – such as Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally party – who view the bombings in Sri Lanka as part of a greater attack on Christianity.

While the Post does acknowledge that “Christian minorities are targeted around the world,” some took the piece itself to be a religious slight.

“If you [need] any further proof that the Washington Post is anti-Christian, check out this asinine headline,” one user said on Twitter.

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BBC News On Sri Lanka Attack: ‘Muslims Left Nervous And Afraid’

By Chris Menahan

Won’t somebody think of the Muslims?

From BBC News:

Muslims left nervous and afraid

The BBC’s Anbarasan Ethirajan writes from the capital, Colombo:

Sri Lankans are yet to come to terms with this wave of unprecedented bomb attacks.

It is believed some Muslim youths were radicalised after clashes between the majority Sinhala Buddhists and Muslims last year in the central district of Kandy.

There have been videos on social media showing hardline Islamists and Sinhala hardliners promoting hatred after that violence.

But very few expected such massive attacks a year later. And why were Christians targeted? They are also a minority in Sri Lanka.

It’s an eternal mystery, folks.

The country experienced suicide attacks by Tamil Tiger rebels during the civil war that ended in 2009.

But the ruthlessness with which the latest attacks were carried out show that the country’s task this time will be challenging.

It is a different kind of battle. In the meantime, Sri Lankan Muslims are left nervous and afraid.

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MUELLER REPORT CONTAINS CLAIM RUSSIA TAPED BILL CLINTON, MONICA LEWINSKY HAVING PHONE SEX

Mueller Report Contains Claim Russia Taped Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky Having Phone Sex

Reference was redacted from public version of report

By Steven Nelson

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report mentions a claim that Russians recorded President Bill Clinton having phone sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky — but the reference was redacted from the version released to the public.

The redaction is likely to anger Republicans, because the allegation has been known since at least 2001 and the Mueller report’s reference to a claim that President Trump watched prostitutes urinating in a Moscow hotel room was not struck out.

Clinton allegedly was recorded by Russia in the 1990s, allowing Russia to learn of the affair before American officials. A reference to the Clinton intercept was redacted from the Mueller report to protect “personal privacy,” but sources told the Washington Examiner that the context makes clear what was blacked out.

According to the report, Center for the National Interest President Dimitri Simes sent Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner a 2016 email with recommended talking points to counter Hillary Clinton’s Russia attacks. The email referenced “a well-documented story of highly questionable connections” between Bill Clinton and Russia.

[Related: Monica Lewinsky: ‘If. f–king. only’ a four-page summary of the Starr Report was released]

At a meeting in New York, Simes told Kushner the details: Russia allegedly recorded President Clinton on the phone with Lewinsky, opening questions of foreign leverage over the ex-president-turned-potential first spouse.

“During the August 17 meeting, Simes provided Kushner the Clinton-related information that he had promised. Simes told Kushner that, [redacted],” the Mueller report says. “Simes claimed that he had received this information from former CIA and Reagan White House official Fritz Ermarth, who claimed to have learned it from U.S. intelligence sources, not from Russians.”

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Ermarth, 78, a 25-year CIA veteran and chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 1988 to 1993, said he was concerned with the wording in the report. He said the report inaccurately suggests he mishandled classified information, when in fact he used public sourcing.

“The line in the Mueller report that says any of this was based on intelligence information is the product either of faulty remembering by Dimitri or a flawed inference … or a hostile fabrication by the Mueller people,” Ermarth said. “[The report wording] implies my misuse of intelligence or use of intelligence that is classified in this context. And that is completely false.”

Ermarth thinks he told Simes that the Clinton-Lewinsky phone call was intercepted while the president was traveling on Air Force One, but that detail is believed to not have been conveyed to Kushner or included in the report.

[Also read: Monica Lewinsky dishes details on infamous dress]

The former CIA officer, who was not interviewed by Mueller, said he discussed the intercept with Simes during a trip to Washington in either 2014 or 2015. The story’s omission from the Mueller report hints at a double standard for the Clintons, he said.

Mueller spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment, as did Simes. A White House spokesman and Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell did not respond to requests for comment.

The report was redacted by Justice Department leadership in cooperation with Mueller’s team. There were 855 redactions, according to the Smoking Gun. Only 7% of of those redactions were justified by “personal privacy,” according to an analysis by Vox. Most information was withheld because it involved grand jury deliberations or because it could harm an ongoing criminal case.

According to the report, Simes told investigators Kushner appeared to consider the phone-sex story “old news,” as news outlets had long ago reported that Russia had advanced knowledge about Lewinsky. Meanwhile, Kushner told Mueller’s team he did not receive information from Simes that could be “operationalized” and doubted new negative information could be unearthed on the Clintons.

Though the report was redacted to protect the former president’s privacy, it does reference an alleged sex tape featuring Trump watching prostitutes urinate in a Moscow hotel. The Mueller report says Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze texted former Trump attorney Michael Cohen that he “[s]topped flow of tapes from Russia.” Rtskhiladze told Mueller’s team that “he was told the tapes were fake, but he did not communicate that to Cohen.”

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Starbucks rolls out drug needle disposal bins to follow up addict-friendly open bathroom policy

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Starbucks is installing needle-disposal boxes in its US bathrooms after getting fined over its lack of response to a spike in needle-stick injuries among employees under its addict-friendly “open-door” bathroom policy.

The coffee behemoth has installed the boxes in 25 cities after the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) slapped the company with a $3,100 fine for endangering workers. Starbucks was penalized for failing to provide sharps-disposal containers “in or near bathrooms where contaminated sharps were commonly found,” failing to make the Hepatitis B vaccine available to employees who could be exposed to the disease through contaminated needles, and failing to provide proper training and “exposure-control programs.”

By summer 2019, Starbucks plans to have the boxes everywhere “deemed necessary” – which, considering that Americans are now more likely to accidentally die from an opioid overdose than a car crash, may be most of the country. Store managers can request a box for their location if they don’t want to wait for the rollout.

“We have had zero toilet clogs and zero needles found in an unsafe place since we had them installed last month,” an employee told Business Insider. “It’s been really wonderful.” 

Thousands of employees signed a petition last year demanding the boxes be installed, tired of worrying about needle-sticks and other dangers and complaining that “the frequency of needles being left in the bathrooms…increased significantly in recent months” after Starbucks began an official policy of allowing non-customers to use the bathroom.

Employees’ gratitude stands in sharp contrast with what until very recently was corporate denial. The OSHA probe was sparked in October by a complaint from an employee who was stuck by a needle while cleaning the bathroom. Investigators soon found these injuries so common that a second employee filed a similar complaint while they were investigating the first, according to the agency’s report. Neither employee was contacted by Starbucks’ corporate office, yielding another demerit from OSHA. Starbucks claims employees who feel unsafe performing a task (such as disposing of stray hypodermics) can speak to their managers, but needles are often concealed in trash bags or other hard-to-see places and employees who get stuck may end up saddled with huge hospital bills for emergency room visits and antiviral medication.

Many Starbucks employees say drug use in their bathrooms spiked last year after the coffee chain changed its bathroom policies to allow open access following the controversial arrest of two black men in Philadelphia who asked to use the bathroom without buying anything.

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ALLEGED SRI LANKA SUICIDE BOMBER: “ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH MUSLIMS SHOULD BE KILLED”

Alleged Sri Lanka Suicide Bomber: "Anyone Who Disagrees With Muslims Should be Killed"

Extremist statement went unnoticed

 | Infowars.com – APRIL 21, 2019

One of the alleged suicide bombers responsible for the terror in Sri Lanka previously made a video in which he stated “anyone who disagrees with Muslims should be killed.”

Imam Mohamad Tawhidi posted a video of Islamic extremist Zahran Hashim uttering the statement, which was made in front of a backdrop showing a knife and blood.

“We spend hours exposing extremists every day. This video & its background went unnoticed due to language barriers. If he was exposed & brought to the attention of the authorities, he could’ve been stopped,” tweeted Tawhidi, who in a separate tweet criticized YouTube for hosting Hashim’s radical content.

According to reports, Hashim was responsible for the suicide bombing at the Shangri La hotel.

As we previously reported, journalist Saif Khalid claimed that reporting the name of Hashim was “Islamophobic”.

This tweet was vulgar but not surprising given that Khalid works for Al-Jazeera, which is owned by the Islamist Qatari government.

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‘They are Christians’: Obama & Clinton lambasted for calling bombed Sri Lankans ‘Easter worshipers’

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Some people believe prominent Democrats deliberately avoided using the word “Christian” when condemning bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday as part of a policy to undermine Christian faith in the US.

The eight bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, which killed almost 300 people on Easter Sunday, sparked worldwide condemnation. But the way some US politicians expressed their condolences sparked a minor outcry among conservative Americans. Former President Barack Obama and the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, were blasted for using the term “Easter worshipers” instead of “Christians” when referring to the victims of the attacks.

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Three Sri Lankan Christian churches were targeted by the perpetrators, implying that the Christian minority was in the crosshairs. Some commentators in the US said Obama and Clinton were in the wrong when they failed to name the religion.

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Particular ire was sparked by the fact that both US politicians didn’t hesitate to use the word “Muslim” when expressing condolences to the victims of last month’s massacre at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

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Notably, Obama and Clinton were not the only US figures, who used the term in remarks about the bloodshed in Sri Lanka. So did Adam Schiff, the Democrat chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

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And the same goes for US Attorney Trent Shores.

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The criticism is based on the perception that the Democratic Party is bent on downplaying America’s Christian roots for the sake of sensibilities of people adhering to other religions. The sentiment is probably best reflected in Fox News’ coverage of the supposed “war on Christmas” in the US.

In this particular case, however, the notion may be misplaced, one commenter pointed out. Christian churches are not exclusively Christian places of worship there, quite the contrary.

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In Sri Lanka, Christianity plays a unique role of serving as a bridge between people by welcoming both the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnic groups. Considering that Tamil separatism was behind a bloody 25-year-long civil war on the South Asian island, which ended just a decade ago, one can understand why this role is highly appreciated.

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