NEWS SUMMARY AND INTELLIGENCE REPORT SUNDAY 3/31-MONDAY 4/1/2019
(ADDITIONS EDITING UPDATES POSSIBLE UNTIL MONDAY 545 AM EASTERN US TIME)
A private investigator for Amazon and "Washington Post" owner Jeff Bezos says that Saudi Arabia hacked into Bezos's phone and accessed his data.
Gavin de Becker says he and a team of experts have concluded with "high confidence" that the Saudis tapped into Bezos phone.
The findings turned over to federal officials.
De Becker wrote in the "Daily Beast" that the phone hacking:
De Becker also said the Saudis have been targeting Bezos since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consultate in Istanbul last October.
Khashoggi wrote for Bezos's "Washington Post".
Also in the mix is the "National Enquirer" publication of information about an extramarital affair involving Jeff Bezos and the February allegation that the owner of the "Enqurier" American Media Incorporated, friendly to President Trump, was trying to blackmail Bezos.
Gavin de Becker says he and a team of experts have concluded with "high confidence" that the Saudis tapped into Bezos phone.
The findings turned over to federal officials.
De Becker wrote in the "Daily Beast" that the phone hacking:
"gained private information"
about Bezos.
De Becker also said the Saudis have been targeting Bezos since the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consultate in Istanbul last October.
Khashoggi wrote for Bezos's "Washington Post".
Also in the mix is the "National Enquirer" publication of information about an extramarital affair involving Jeff Bezos and the February allegation that the owner of the "Enqurier" American Media Incorporated, friendly to President Trump, was trying to blackmail Bezos.
North Korea says a raid on its embassy in Madrid, Spain was a "grave terrorist attack". Members of a shadowy group tied to US intelligence agencies "Cheolima Civil Defense" claimed responsibility for the break-in and taking of computers just days before President Trump met North Korea's ruler Kim Jong-un in Vietnam in February.
In Malaysia, a Vietnamese woman accused of spraying the nerve agent VX onto the face of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un's half brother Kim Jong-nam has entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge.
Doan Thi Huong was originally accused of murder but after her guilty plea to causing hurt by potentially deadly means she was given a three year, four month sentence starting at her arrest in February 2017. Malaysian law allows for her early release in May of this year.
An Indonesian woman accused in the case was freed by Malaysian authorities early this year after the country's attorney general intervened.
The women say they thought they were part of a prank when they approached Kim Jong-nam at the Kuala Lumpur Airport and sprayed him in the face back in 2017.
In Malaysia, a Vietnamese woman accused of spraying the nerve agent VX onto the face of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un's half brother Kim Jong-nam has entered a guilty plea to a lesser charge.
Doan Thi Huong was originally accused of murder but after her guilty plea to causing hurt by potentially deadly means she was given a three year, four month sentence starting at her arrest in February 2017. Malaysian law allows for her early release in May of this year.
An Indonesian woman accused in the case was freed by Malaysian authorities early this year after the country's attorney general intervened.
The women say they thought they were part of a prank when they approached Kim Jong-nam at the Kuala Lumpur Airport and sprayed him in the face back in 2017.
German police released 11 men who were arrested in pre-dawn raids early Saturday morning.
The German police acted on suspicion that there were arms and explosives caches where the men lived and that they were planning terrorist attacks.
The men, who were mostly from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan, released after police found no evidence to support their suspicions.
He's a comedian who's portrayed the President of Ukraine, but now Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won the first round of Ukraine's presidential election. Zelenskiy projected to win just over 30 percent of the vote while incumbent President Petro Poroshenko is expected to win just about 18 percent of the vote.
The two will face each other in a runoff election April 21st.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is vowing a "strong economic program" admitting his ruling Islamist AK Party suffered some setbacks in local government elections.
The secularist CHP Party appears to be leading a tight race for mayor in Turkey's capital city Ankara while the AK Party appears to hold a narrow lead for mayor in the country's largest city Istanbul.
But the opposition CHP candidate for mayor of Istanbul claims victory.
Not all votes were counted as of late Sunday night.
In Venezuela, the government of Nicolas Maduro decreeing a shorter work day and the closing of schools to deal with nationwide power shortages.
Protests throughout the country Sunday with widespread anger over the shortages of electricity and water. Fires being lit in the streets into the night as a form of protest. Police and hooded government supporters took to the streets to put down protests sometimes firing live ammunition.
Interim President Juan Guaido told the BBC that Maduro cannot be removed from power without the assistance of the armed forces.
Guaido calling for a meeting of the National Assembly at 5pm Monday.
In the face of weeks of protest demanding his resignation President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria decided to reshuffle his cabinet Sunday. While Bouteflika is keeping his Prime Minister and will himself remain as Defense Minister, 21 of 27 cabinet posts were shuffled.
In Canada the opposition leader, Andrew Scheer of the Conservative Party, says he isn't buying attempts to shield Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from the fallout of a phone conversation between a top civil servant and the former Justice Minister released Friday.
Civil Service Chief Michael Wernick telling Jody Wilson-Raybould she could run into a "collision" with Trudeau if she didn't consider a "deferred prosecution agreement" for the construction-engineering firm SNC-Lavalin in a criminal case involving bribery allegations.
More on the story from CBC News in Canada.....LINK
Pope Francis visiting Morocco, a predominately Muslim country, over the weekend. He met Muslim leaders, migrants and celebrated Mass for the small Catholic community at a community center in Rabat.
Some Papal quotes from the trip:
"The issue of migration will never be resolved by raising barriers"
And to Moroccan Catholics at Mass an admonition against trying to convert people saying:
"this always leads to an impasse"
and:
"Please, no proselytizing"
And last but not least and certainly NO APRIL FOOLS Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg writing in the "Washington Post" and other publications internationally over the weekend that its time for the government and social media industries to enact both laws and standards of practice for social media.
The "New York Times" analyzes Zuckerberg's call for regulation....LINK
And that's the way it really is as we come into this Monday morning April 1st, 2019.
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