World AM News Briefs For Friday, 17 June 2016
Good Morning Australia!! - A crazed right-winger apparently supporting a "Brexit" murders a British MP on the street - Obama goes to Orlando - Searchers recover one of the black boxes from the EgyptAir flight that crashed into the sea - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:
A man screaming "Britain First!" stabbed and shot UK parliamentarian Jo Cox as she greeted constituents in West Yorkshire, and left her bleeding out on the street. The 41-year old Labour MP died in hospital. Police arrested a 52-year old local man identified in media reports at Tommy Mair, whose younger half-brother said has obsessive compulsive disorder and scrubbed his skin with Brillo pads. Jo Cox, who just joined parliament in the last elections, is being praised as someone who could have been a future leader of the party. Prior to running for office, she spent years in public service for the charity OxFam. She is survived by her husband and two children. The Britain First campaign, which is pushing to leave the European Union in next week's "Brexit" vote, disavows the attack.
US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden went to Orlando, Florida to comfort the families of the 49 people slain at the Pulse LGBT nightclub over the weekend. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Amway Center in the city center as the president consoled relatives inside; cameras were kept at a respectful distance. The gunman was able to buy a military assault weapon (from a retired cop, btw) despite a history of spousal abuse, violent threats, and being investigated by the FBI for making statements in support of terrorists. It has reignited the debate over gun control in the US, although it's doubtful that the power NRA lobby will allow its Republican toadies to pass new legislation.
Thousands of people marched in France to honor the police official and his police officer wife who were killed inside their own home by a another chunk of low-hanging fruit who was inspired and enabled by online jihadist propaganda. They marched from the police stationed where the couple worked in the Paris suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie to their home in Magnanville. The France murders happened at day after the Orlando Massacre.
In a rare turnabout, Pakistan police arrested a woman who threw acid on a male friend who refused to marry her. Acid attacks are unfortunately common in Pakistan and India, but it is unusual for a woman to attack a man this way - 80 percent of such attacks are men attacking women in so-called "honor killings".
The UN High Commission on Human Rights is for the first time accusing Islamic State of "genocide" for atrocities committed to the Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq (.pdf link). IS has systematically killed Yazidi men and boys, and sold the women as slaves. The commission's report says the major powers should do more to help the Yazidis, at least 3,200 of whom are being held by IS.
Searchers recovered the cockpit voice recorder from EgyptAir Flight MS804, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea last month. The unit was damaged and had to be picked up by robots in three pieces - but the memory is intact. All 66 passengers and crew on board were killed when the Paris-to-Cairo flight plunged into the sea on 19 May. The cause is still unknown.
France has expelled the far-right ringleader of the Russian football hooligans who've caused so much trouble at the Euro 2016 football tournament. Alexander Shprygin is among 20 Russian fans being deported, and was detained on a bus travelling from Marseille - where Russians clashed with UK fans - to Lille, where therewas much less violence outside the stadium because of the police crackdown.
Venezuelan police arrested around 400 people for looting stores in the coastal village Cumana where the country's food shortages are particularly painful. The opposition accuses the Socialist government of mismanaging food distribution. The government accuses the wealthy conservative elite of sabotaging the economy, and noted that most of the 100 shops looted were not food stores at all, but rather sold designer goods. "These are fascist groups which are generating unrest," said lawmaker Diosdado Cabello of the ruling party. "Don't come to me with this fairy tale that these are spontaneous protests," he said on television.
A Kenyan court has dismissed a case challenging the legality of anal examinations as proof of homosexuality, which is still illegal in the East African nation for some idiotic reason. Two men sued police after being ordered to undergo the tests, seeking to make it unconstitutional; they're going to appeal. The tests are considered ridiculous and worthless by the medical community. A recent investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that many LGBT people in Kenya have "daily safety concerns".
The San Diego Zoo's new Koala Joey gets his first medical check-up.