Saturday, June 24, 2017
Trump appointee: Obama Kenyan creampuff, Facebook boss self-hating Jew, climate scientists as cultists
William C Bradford, director of the Department’s Office of Indian Energy, also appeared to believe Mr Obama might refuse to step down after his two terms of office, asking “what will we do? Is a military coup the only answer?”
The messages were posted on a since-deleted Twitter account, @Brute_Bradford, The Washington Post revealed.
Previously Mr Bradford caused controversy when he wrote an article claiming some academics who criticised US foreign policy were Islamist Fifth Columnists who could be treated as “unlawful combatants” and subjected to “coercive interrogation, trial, and imprisonment”.
Strong earthquake injures two in Japan
The Japan Meteorological Agency says a magnitude 5.6 quake struck about 7am on Sunday in Nagano prefecture, about 190 kilometres west of Tokyo. The US Geological Survey measured the magnitude at 5.2.
Authorities say two people had minor injuries, one in Otaki village and the other in Kiso town.
The Fire and Damage Management Agency reported multiple incidents of fallen roof tiles and broken glass.
Japanese television broadcaster NHK showed a worker in Kiso picking up glass from a shattered show window at a Nissan car dealer.
Source: Strong earthquake injures two in Japan | Perth Now
Blac Chyna in ambulance after a ‘drunk driver’ into the back of her Rolls Royce in LA – YouTube
Blac Chyna was involved in a car accident in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles County on Saturday morning.
The mother to Rob Kardashian’s daughter Dream was seen in the back of an ambulance after the incident.
Nebraska Democrat caught on tape criticizing Rep. Steve Scalise: ‘I’m glad he got shot’
A Nebraska Democratic official has been removed Thursday from his chairman post after recordings emerged in which he said he was glad that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot and that he wished he had died.
In the recording, Phil Montag, who was the volunteer co-chairman of the Nebraska Democratic Party’s technology committee, criticized Scalise by saying “his whole job is to … convince Republicans to (expletive) kick people off (expletive) health care.”
“I’m glad he got shot. … I wish he was (expletive) dead.”
The recording was posted on YouTube and other sites…
Air Asia flight forced to turn around after engine failure
A spokesman for Perth Airport said the Air Asia flight left Perth just before 7am today.
The pilot identified a technical issue with the A330 airbus on flight D7237 more than an hour into the journey and turned back to Perth. It landed safely at 10am.
PerthNow understands there was a single engine failure.
The spokesman said that Fire and Emergency Services had been called to meet the plane, as a precautionary measure, but there was no indication anyone had been hurt.
A spokeswoman for Air Asia could not comment on claims more than 350 people were on board.
Passengers said they heard a bang about 8.30am and then the plane started shuddering.
Sophie Nicolas said she heard a small explosion from the left wing.
“You could tell by the cabin crew’s reaction that it was really bad,” she said.
She said the Captain then announced the plane would be returning to Perth.
“He said ‘I hope you all say a prayer, I’ll be saying a prayer too and let’s hope we all get back home safely,” she said. “It was terrifying.”
Father of three Dave Parry said after the bang, a smell similar to an engine seizing wafted through the cabin for a minute or two.
“I had a sense the plane was turning and then the Captain announced that it appeared the left engine had seized,” he recounted.
“He said ‘we don’t know the details of why, we will get back to you’.”
Passengers near the left engine were asked to tell cabin crew if they saw what happened or any problems with the left engine.
Passengers were asked to stay calm and reminded of safety procedures. They practised the brace position for landing during the seemingly interminable journey back to Perth.
Another passenger said the pilot warned them the return journey would be slower because they had the power of only one engine and to try to limit the shuddering.
Mr Parry said the most frightening time was the minutes they waited in the brace position as the plane came in to land as they could not see what was happening.
After the plane landed safely, everyone on board applauded the pilots.
“The Captain did a very good job, he was reassuring and then we landed safely,” one man said.
Once they landed they were told a blade had sheared off the left engine.
VIDEOS: Air Asia flight forced to turn around after engine failure | Perth Now
Southern Utah wildfire grows reaching 62.7 square miles (162.4 square kilometers)
The fire near the town of Brian Head is 8 percent contained and has destroyed at least 13 homes, fire officials said. About 1,000 firefighters and support personnel are battling the blaze, which started June 17 by someone using a torch to burn weeds.
More than 1,500 people have been evacuated from several hundred homes and cabins, fire information officer Erin Darboven said Saturday night. Evacuation orders were given in nearby alpine communities that are generally known for second homes as a weekend getaway for Las Vegas residents.
High winds and hot weather continue to intensify the fire but conditions are expected to improve Sunday before winds return Monday.
Officials said firefighters are trying to fully extinguish hot spots in the southwest corner in order to allow Brian Head residents to return.
Source: Southern Utah wildfire grows, crews make slight gains
Geelong Cats v Fremantle Dockers: Joel Selwood knocked out in opening minute
Several teammates waved to the bench for help. A buggy was brought out to carry him off but Selwood eventually dismissed the buggy and was helped off the ground by two trainers.
Halfway to the boundary Selwood trotted unassisted from the ground.
Source: Geelong Cats v Fremantle Dockers: Joel Selwood knocked out in opening minute
Battle of the Sexes trailer: Emma Stone + Steve Carell’s tennis drama is perfect for Oscar season
Yemen faces ‘worst cholera outbreak in the world’ with over 200,000 cases
“We are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world,” UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) chief Anthony Lake and World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Margaret Chan said in a joint statement.
Every day there are 5000 new cases, and the disease has reached nearly every governorate of the impoverished Arab country, they said.
More than 1300 people have already died from cholera, a quarter of them children.
“This deadly cholera outbreak is the direct consequence of two years of heavy conflict,” the UN agency chiefs said, pointing to destroyed health, water and sanitation systems.
In addition, malnutrition has made children vulnerable to infections.
In the Yemeni war, pro-government forces and their Saudi-led allies are fighting against the Houthi rebels, who are backed by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran.
Source: Yemen faces ‘worst cholera outbreak in the world’ with over 200,000 cases | SBS News
The blockade on Qatar is a smokescreen. Here’s what’s behind it
Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani is Qatar’s ambassador to the United States.
Today is Day 18 of the diplomatic, economic and social blockade of Qatar by several of its Arab neighbors, and so far, no conditions for the lifting of the blockade have been presented to us. On Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: “The more time goes by, the more doubt is raised about the actions taken by Saudi Arabia and the UAE [United Arab Emirates]. At this point we are left with one simple question: Were the actions really about their concerns regarding Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism, or were they about the long-simmering grievances between and among the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries?”
Our government has maintained, from Day 1, that the blockade has nothing to do with the accusations that have been leveled against Qatar. The allegations that Qatar supports terrorism and that Qatar is a secret ally of Iran are, as the State Department suspects, just a smokescreen for an attempt to infringe upon Qatar’s sovereignty and punish Qatar for its independence.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have portrayed their anti-Qatar campaign as an attempt to force Qatar to abandon its “support for terrorists,” though they know that we do not, have not and never will support terrorism. They know terrorism poses just as much of a threat to Qatar as it does to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and every other nation.
The second big lie in this smear campaign is that Qatar is a secret ally of Iran. The Saudis, the UAE and every government in the Gulf maintain diplomatic and trade relations with Iran. In fact, Iran’s biggest trading partner is the nation now leading the anti-Qatar blockade: the UAE. But more important, Qatar has been providing vital support to the opposition in Syria — which is battling against government forces allied with Iran.
Behind the smokescreen, we believe that the blockading nations are seeking to isolate and punish Qatar for our independence and to retaliate against us for supporting the true aspirations of people against tyrants and dictators.
There must always be a doorway to end discord, and Qatar has always believed that dialogue, negotiation and compromise are solutions to violence and conflict. We have fostered those discussions through an “open-door” foreign policy throughout our history.
Julian Assange ghost-writer: He is greasy, greedy, childish, secretive and ‘probably a little mad’
Andrew O’Hagan was an ardent supporter of WikiLeaks, or at least the romanticized idea of it, when he began ghostwriting Julian Assange’s autobiography in January 2011. O’Hagan, one of Britain’s finest contemporary essayists, is passionate about speaking truth to power. He believed the world needed a transparency organization exposing power’s lies and abuses, such as those committed by the American and British militaries during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
After years of in-depth conversations with Assange, O’Hagan came to believe that Assange had sabotaged the transparency agenda. The biography project collapsed before Assange moved into the Ecuadorian Embassy during August 2012, but O’Hagan tried to help Assange until late 2013.
As would Trump, by this point. They share this too. They’re both embarrassingly mono-mined leaders with such a gigantic chasm where their empathy should be. The idea that each of these men are not only leaders but see themselves as being sui generis, one-off leaders of mankind, is absolutely flabbergasting self-delusion. They can’t speak to people. The idea of weakness obsesses them. Again and again, they fail to lead.
I feel absolutely bamboozled that anyone would be as naive to imagine that promoting Donald Trump, seemingly in league with Russian forces, would be a freedom-fighting act. … This is the kind of person Julian decides to campaign for. And it is baffling and ruinous to the cause, his cause…
“He is thin-skinned, conspiratorial, untruthful, narcissistic, and he thinks he owns the material he conduits,” you describe Assange, “abusive and monstrous in his pursuit of the truth that interests him … he is probably a little mad, sad, and bad.” Any further thoughts since you wrote those words?
…It’s what somebody like Assange and somebody like Trump have in common: You get into a room, and they just run at the mouth. They’re so confident and self-involved they don’t understand that there are degrees of difference, of opinion, of experience. They’re mono-minded, and they don’t listen. Ultimately they’re careless. Trump doesn’t have the character to be president; carelessness will bring him down. Assange is similar, up to the present minute: His confidence, and his old fear of appearing weak, is fatal.
MORE: He was an ardent WikiLeaks supporter. Then he got to know Julian Assange. – Vox
Dockless bike share: privacy and safety concerns voiced ahead of Sydney launch
A number of dockless bike startups, modelled after services that have become extraordinarily popular in Asia, are launching or have recently launched in Australia.
Reddy Go, founded by Sydney resident Donald Tang, will start in Sydney next month, Fairfax Media reported, while the Singaporean company Obike launched in Melbourne last week in competition with the state’s publicly funded Melbourne Bike Share program.
The companies allow users to locate bikes on a smartphone app and leave them wherever their journey ends, instead of returning them to a fixed docking station as in long-established schemes such as those in London and Paris. The bikes are locked and unlocked with a QR code or combination generated by the app.
REPORT #F1 #AzerbaijanGP: Lewis Hamilton snatches pole from Valtteri Bottas in Baku
Hamilton’s advantage was all about the second and third sectors where he lit up the timing screens as he nailed apex after apex in the tighter sections of the street circuit. The pressure was on after a mistake at Turn 16 on his first attempt left him second to Bottas and it was amplified when the session was suspended to allow marshals to clear Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull, which had hit the barriers at Turn 6 with 3:33 left on the clock. When Q3 restarted Bottas was able to lower his benchmark, but it was no match for Hamilton’s 1:40.593 that smashed the circuit record by over a second and secured the the Mercedes driver’s 66th career pole.
Both Ferraris were a second adrift of Mercedes and it was Kimi Raikkonen, not championship-leader Sebastian Vettel, who joined the Mercedes drivers in the top three. Vettel had missed out on practice time due to a hydraulics issue in FP3, which also required an engine change that put Ferrari on the back foot ahead of qualifying. However, it was very nearly worse for Vettel as he only had a 0.038s margin over Max Verstappen in fifth when the chequered flag fell at the end of the session…
MORE: Lewis Hamilton snatches pole from Valtteri Bottas in Baku
