World AM News Briefs For Wednesday 14 August 2019
Hello Australia!! - Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement and Beijing may be about to clash - Russia's conflicting information after a deadly nuclear mishap - The search for a missing teen ends but the mystery deepens - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:
There are concerns that protesters in Hong Kong have over-played their hand and given Beijing the propaganda tools it needs to crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. Protesters occupying the Hong Kong Airport assaulted a man they believed to be an undercover police officer, beating him, tying him to a luggage carrier and parading him around. When Hong Kong police went into the airport terminal to get him, protesters fought the officers - they knocked one cop to the ground and took his baton, beating him with it and forcing him to draw his gun in self-defense. The police beat a strategic retreat and thousands of protesters bugged out of the airport within a couple of hours. It's not clear if they're planning to return or if flights which have been cancelled for two days will resume.
Authorities have been signalling that they are running out of patience. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says the protests have pushed the situation to "the brink of no return". Beijing has repeatedly referred to the protesters as terrorists, and has shown video of dozens of Chinese People's Armed Police (PAP) vehicles massing just across Hong Kong's territorial border in Shenzhen. There are even fears that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) could be sent in to restore order. Right now, President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party officials are at their annual retreat at the Beidaihe resort on the Yellow Sea; whatever the government decides to do about Hong Kong could coincide with the end of that summit later this week.
Anyway..
Russian authorities are urging residents of the village of Nyonoksa on the White Sea to evacuate, days after an accident with a nuclear missile killed - but then that evacuated order was canceled. It's prompting talk of a potential cover-up, because Russia still hasn't revealed the nature of what happened last week in the accident that killed five scientists and reportedly two more people. Russia's state weather service said radiation levels in the area spiked by up to 16 times after the accident.
Medical examiners in Malaysia will perform an autopsy on a body found yesterday, now identified as 15-year old Nora Quoirin. The special needs teen from London had gone missing in the the rainforest outside the Dusun Resort, not far from Kuala Lumpur, on 4 August. Her parents said the nature of her disability meant that she didn't go anywhere alone, and they suspect she was the victim of a terrible crime.
A 43-year old El Al airlines flight attendant is dead five months after being infected with Measles, one of those diseases we all thought had been on the run but has come roaring back thanks to anti-vaxxers. Rotem Amitai did get her first vaccination, but never received the second course. She was infected by a passenger on an El Al flight from New York to Jerusalem, where the mother of three was hospitalized in a coma just days after returning. El Al paid tribute to Ms. Amitai, and added that "once the case became known, the company worked to vaccinate all the company's air crews."