World AM News Briefs For Friday, 29 January 2016
Good Morning Australia!! - Metal detectors catch two guns in luggage near a Disney theme park - WHO officials are worrying about the rapid spread of Zika - The Affluenza kid is back in Texas - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:
The UN World Health Organization is sounding an "extremely high" alert over the Zika Virus, expecting as many as four million infections in the coming year. "Last year the disease was detected in the Americas, where it is spreading explosively," said Director General Margaret Chan at a special meeting of the WHO in Geneva, adding that she found it "deeply concerning" that the virus had now been detected in 23 countries in the Americas. There is no vaccine or cure for Zika, and officials in Brazil have linked it to some 4,000 cases of microcephaly in newborn infants since October; the serious condition can cause lifelong developmental problems.
The "Affluenza" teen is back in the US after being deported to Mexico. Ethan Couch is infamous in the US for having killed four people in a drunk driving wreck in Texas, only to be given probation instead of prison because his lawyer convinced a sympathetic judge that the deer boy suffered from "affluenza" and couldn't distinguish between right and wrong because of his wealthy upbringing. He fled south of the border to avoid questioning about allegedly violating his 10 year probation by being caught on video drinking alcohol at a party.
An immigrant boat sank off of the Greek island of Samos, killing at least 24 people. The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said nine of the 24 bodies pulled from the sea were children. At least 224 men, women and children have died trying to reach Europe so far in 2016, and hundreds of thousands died in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas last year.
Police searched two homes in Melbourne's north in connection with Mohomed Unais Mohomed Ameen. Authorities searched the homes in Meadow Heights and Craigieburn for information on the 41-year old Sri Lankan-born Australian, who authorities say is linked to men allegedly involved in foiled Anzac Day terror plot. Ameen appeared in a recent Islamic State propaganda video, in which he urged Muslims with medical training to come to work at an IS "hospital" in Syria, and claims the terrorist group has doctors from Australia, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia.
French police arrested a 28-year old man trying to check into a hotel near Disneyland Paris with two guns and a Koran in his bag. Hotel New York's security team stopped the man when his bag went through the X-ray machine at the front door, and they turned him over to police. A female companion is still being sought. The hotel is only 18 kilometers from Disneyland Paris, the most-visited theme park in Europe that attracts as many as 10 million visitors per year. France is still under a state of high alert after last November terrorist attacks that killed 130 people.
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was tearful and patriotic at the ceremony opening the newspaper's new offices. Just released from 18 months in prison in Iran on trumped up charges, Rezaian says his captors lied to him: "For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me The Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight, that the U.S. government would not lift a finger for my release." In truth, the US negotiated his released and the release of five others from Iran. "No other country in the world would do so much for an ordinary citizen," Rezaian added.
El Nino fueled storms and waves have battered the Northern California coast near San Francisco, causing a cliff beneath an apartment complex in the town of Pacifica to start falling apart. Residents have been evacuated.