World AM News Briefs For Thursday, 15 September 2016
Good Morning Australia!! - Colin Powell blasts Trump in a leaked email - Prosecutors set a date to question Julian Assange - The misguided persecution of an Ebola survivor ends - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:
First things first: A Panda cub at a Chinese zoo is trying to roll over, but just can't quite do it yet. But if he keeps up like this, he will have abs of steel.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell is sort of confirming the content of purported leaked emails in which he says the Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump is a "national disgrace", and an "international pariah" who "is in the process of destroying himself". Powell, a republican himself, is still a relatively respected retired statesman despite his involvement with the George W. Bush administration. When reporters contacted him about the appearance of the emails on DCLeaks.com he said he had "no further comment" but was "not denying it". General Powell didn't too go easy on Hillary Clinton, either, criticizing the way she handled her private email server controversy showed "hubris".
Meanwhile, fascist demagogue Donald Trump backed out of his pledge to reveal his medical records. Instead, he staged a low-grade, reality-TV stunt on a questionable medical talk show and nothing was actually revealed. Suffice to say, it was just another Trump scam and the corporate media was taken in.
Hillary Clinton is still off the campaign trail until Thursday, sidelined while recovering from pneumonia.
Ecuador says its London Embassy permanent houseguest Julian Assange will be questioned on 17 October about a Swedish rape allegation. Sweden police will present a list of questions to an Ecuadoran prosecutor, who will question Assange. The results will be reported back to a Swedish prosecutor to determine if the case goes on. Assange refuses to leave the Ecuadoran Embassy and go to Sweden for questioning for fear of being extradited to the United States for revealing classified secrets in 2010.
A Brazilian judge in the next few days will rule on a prosecutor's request for file corruption charges against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, over a luxury seaside flat. Prosecutors claim he owns it and failed to declare it, Lula denies it. The flat was built by a construction company implicated in a corruption scandal at state oil company Petrobras.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon is asking the US and Russia to pressure their respective allies in Syria to allow crucial civilian aid shipments to go through to besieged placed such as rebel-held eastern Aleppo. 48 hours into a ceasefire brokered by the major powers, trucks with a month's worth of food for 40,000 people are stacked up at the Turkish border, unable to get through to where they are needed. The good news is that a monitoring group reports no fatalities in the first two days of the cease fire.
French police arrested a 15-year old boy in an alleged terror plot. He's the second teen to be arrested since Saturday for alleged terror links, as investigators move quickly to put down a plot they say was to strike at the heart of Paris near Notre Dame Cathedral and other targets.
UK authorities threw out misconduct charges against 40-year old Pauline Cafferky, the Scottish nurse who survived Ebola and a series of nasty side effects after returning to the UK from helping fight the epidemic in Sierra Leone in 2014. You'll recall she spent a month in isolation in London's Royal Free Hospital back then. Know-it-all backseat drivers from the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) attempted to claim she had been dishonest and negligent in not reporting her elevated temperature upon arrival at Heathrow, putting other people in danger. NMC and Public Health England backed down, and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: "Sending my very best wishes to Pauline Cafferkey. Her bravery is an inspiration to all of us."
South Africa is barring a despicable US "pastor" from entering the country on a religious crusade because of his stated views that homosexuality is punishable by death. Steven Anderson has also frequently prayed for the death of US President Barack Obama. South Africa has some of the world's most Liberal laws concerning LGBT rights, and stands out as a free country in Africa where gays and lesbians are frequently targeted with violence. Anderson claims his views are backed by the christian bible, but haters hide behind that stuff all the time.