World AM News Briefs For Monday, 13 February 2017
Good Morning Australia!! - The White House is not trusted by its own intelligence agencies - New concerns after North Korea tests a missile - Swiss voters take a step towards openness - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:
The North Korean missile launched yesterday was a modified intermediate-range Musudan model missile, and not a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It was launched from North Pyongan Province and traveled for 500 kilometers before plunging into the Sea of Japan. This was condemned by practically everyone in the world: Acting South Korean President Hwang Kyo-ahn said: "The South Korean government and the international community are working together to take punitive actions appropriate for this launch." Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the "missile launch is absolutely intolerable. North Korea must fully comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions".
The US National Security Agency (NSA) and others in America's 17-branch intelligence community have ceased sharing sensitive information with the White House because of the ties of senior members of the Trump administration have to Russia. "Since January 20, we've assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM (situation room)," says a Pentagon official to security expert and former US Naval War College John R. Schindler, writing in his column in the New York Observer. The report is remarkable in two ways: First, it confirms earlier reports from Israel's conservative newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that intel agencies don't trust Trump; Second, Schindler's column appears in the newspaper owned by Donald Trump's own son-in-law Jared Kushner. Last week, CNN reported that the intel agencies have confirmed that Russia has compromising information on Trump that could be used to influence his policy-making decisions.
Peru's former president Alejandro Toledo was not on a flight from San Francisco to Israel; but even if he were, Israeli officials say he's not getting in until his affairs in Peru are settled. Mr. Toledo, Peru's president from 2001-2006, is wanted for allegedly taking bribes from the Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, which has been implicated in corruption up and down South America. Some believe that Toledo might try to avoid his problems by flying to Israel, where his wife has dual citizenship and which does not have an extradition treaty with Peru.
Swiss voters decided to loosen the country's notoriously strict citizenship laws. Almost 60 percent of voters decided to allow third-generation immigrants - those born in Switzerland and whose grandparents and parents are/were permanent residents - to bypass interviews and tests in their naturalization quests. In other words, people who have lived as Swiss do for three generations no longer have to prove themselves. It seems like a small, common-sense tweak to some very hard-and-fast rules, but it is a very significant shift of public opinion in the closed, mountain-bound nation during an era of xenophobic politicians claiming victories across Europe.
Things appear to have calmed down a bit in France on Sunday, after violent clashes with cops that followed a peaceful protest against police brutality. Many are indignant over the apparent police rape of a 22-year old black man, who was hospitalized with a ten centimeter gash caused by a cop's truncheon. A police internal investigation added fuel to the fire by actually claiming the man's injuries - which required major surgery to repair - were an "accident'. But three officers involved in the incident have been charged with aggravated assault, and a fourth one is being investigated for rape. Critics say black and Arab men in France face unfair treatment by police every day.
Tens of thousands of protesters are not letting up in Bucharest, filling the capital city's Victory Square to demand the Romanian government step down. The protests started two weeks ago when the government passed an emergency ordinance that would have watered down corruption laws; the government backed down, but the protesters say that's not enough.
A "prankster" shot off pepper spray at the Hamburg airport in Germany, causing officials to evacuate the terminal. About 50 people complained of irritated eyes, nose, and throat.
Jazz and soul singer Al Jarreau is dead in Los Angeles at age 76, after checking into hospital complaining of exhaustion.