World AM News Briefs for Tuesday, 18 April 2017

Good Morning Australia!! - North Korea threatens "thermonuclear war" - Emboldened Erdogan appears to be shutting doors to Europe - Trump screws up a kiddy party - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Turkish ruler Recep Tayyip Erdogan's blatant power grab has left his country even more bitterly divided than it was just a few days ago.  From the stage before a victory rally - the conservative audience segregated with men on one side, women and children on the other - Erdogan told European election monitors to "know their place" and accused them of having a "crusader mentality".  Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said the vote "took place on an unlevel playing field and the two sides of the campaign did not have equal opportunities".  The referendum - the text of which wasn't printed on ballots - gives him sweeping new powers such as: appointing and sacking ministers at whim; dissolving parliament; and declaring emergencies.

Turkey's opposition parties are demanding the referendum results be set aside because of the gross and flagrant irregularities.  Late on Sunday, election officials changed the rules of the referendum to allow stacks of "discovered" ballots without official stamps from local poll workers to be counted.  And then, Erdogan won with 51.4 percent.  Yeah, I know, right?  The opposition now says that as many as 2.5 million "unsealed" ballots without the official stamp were cast and counted, which would have been invalid in past elections.  But things were hinky even before that decision - one man recorded video as election judges stamped a stack of ready-made "yes" votes for Erdogan, showing that they didn't even care they were being watched.

After gloating over the result, Erdogan broadened the schism with Europe by suggesting that the death penalty is back on the table, saying that referendums might be held on joining the European Union and bringing back capital punishment - an obvious conflict.  France's president and Germany's foreign minister said that any further cooperation with Turkey will be based on whether the nation maintains democracy and forbids capital punishment.  European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker already said last month that any return of the death penalty in Turkey would be a "red line" in the country's stalled EU membership bid.

ANYWAY..

North Korea is accusing the US of turning the Korean peninsula into "the world's biggest hotspot" and creating "a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment".  In response to annual US-South Korean military drills, Pyongyang's UN Ambassador Kim In-ryong claimed his country is "ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US".  Given the North's failed missile test over the weekend, it's not clear how Pyongyang plans to carry that out.  Maybe putting a stamp on a nuke and mailing it to Washington?  Earlier, dimwitted hick US Vice President Mike Pence visited the border separating South and North Korea and squinted just like tough guy presidents do in the movies. 

"North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region," Pence said.  Rawr, tiger!  You know, it's almost like he's rehearsing for another job...

Donald Trump managed to completely screw up the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, the first time that's even been done.  Whereas past Easter Egg Rolls attracted 30,000 or more people, Trump's only brought 21,000.  Which was better than expected because they only ordered 18,000 eggs.  Some little Trump fan asked his hero to sign his hat, so Trump did it but threw the hat to the crowd rather than return it to the disappointed kid.  And when it came time to cite the Pledge of Allegiance, the orange clown failed to put his hand on his heart until he was reminded by wife Melania Trump - an immigrant.  At least Twitter enjoyed the debacle.

Moving along..

Paraguay President Horacio Cartes will not seek a second term in office, taking his country back from the brink of a constitutional crisis.  Cartes and his conservative pals set off rioting and the burning of parliament after they tried to change the constitution to allow for consecutive second terms - something many Latin American countries ban because the memories of fascist dictatorships in the 1970s and '80s are still fresh.

South Korean prosecutors charged impeached former president Park Geun-hye with corruption in an alleged pay-to-play scheme that embroiled the nation's top corporations.  Park could face life in prison if convicted.

Five people were killed when a small airplane crashed into a supermarket in Lisbon, Portugal.  The dead include the Swiss pilot, three French passengers, and a local truckee who was killed as he tried to unload at the store. Several people were injured.

"The Fate of the Furious" has broken the record for biggest opening weekend, revving up more than half a billion dollars - US$532.5 Million - in ticket sales.  Less car-centric than past installments, Vin Diesel's first foray without the late costar Paul Walker was down sharply in US receipts but made up for it on the international market - especially China.