World AM News Briefs For Wednesday, 2 May 2018
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Email to friendGood Morning Australia!! - Fire collapses a high rise tower in Brazil - Two surreal tales of Trump's weird doctors - The Koreas stop shouting at each other - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:
Firefighters in Sao Paulo, Brazil are sifting through a giant heap of debris that used to be a 26-storey building that caught fire and collapse overnight. One person is confirmed dead, several are missing, and sniffer dogs are deployed to help search the massive debris pile.
Inequality in Brazil's financial capital is terrible and getting worse under the post-democracy government, and the tower was occupied by homeless families pretty much up to the top floors, despite a lack of elevators and spotty electrical hook-ups. "The lifts had been taken out and those empty air shafts formed a chimney. There was also a lot of combustible material, such as wood and paper which helped fuel the fire," said Sao Paulo fire brigade Captain Marcus Palumbo, hinting that the lift shafts might have been used as garbage chutes, while scrap wood and other materials subdivided the floor space.
Suicide bomb blasts killed 27 to 42 people at a mosque in eastern Nigeria, in an area where Boko Haram has attacked in the past.
Sajid Javid is the UK's new Home Secretary, and is promising to "do whatever it takes" to solve problems faced by the Windrush generation. The children of predominantly-Caribbean immigrants from Commonwealth countries have frequently and wrongly been denied benefits, pensions, and healthcare they were legally entitled to under over-zealous Tory immigration policies. As a second-generation migrant himself, Javid said he was "angry" at the treatment of the Windrush Generation, and disowned the "hostile environment" they faced. Critics note that before Javid became Britain’s first home secretary from an ethnic-minority background, he supported and voted for those policies as an MP.
Armenia's "Velvet Revolution" leader has for now been denied the Prime Minister's office by the governing and conservative party of the PM he forced from office with weeks of street protests. In Parliament, 45 member voted for Nikol Pashinyan for interim prime minister, but he needed 53 to secure a majority in the 105-seat chamber. So, the ruling party agreed not to put up a candidate, but it won't let Mr. Pashinyan through, either. Pashinyan, supporters still filling the capital streets, called for a general strike to begin on Wednesday.
More than 1,000 "Black Bloc" anarchists infiltrated the giant May Day rally in Paris and did what anarchists do best: Clashing with police, burning cars, and vandalizing businesses. Cops arrested at least 200 people. Sidelined were the organizers of the rally, plus Union and social activists who condemned the violence. Better off in Athens, where thousands of workers marched on May Day against unemployment, crippling austerity measures, and the international bailout packages which sap any progress Greece when the payment comes due. "The situation is getting worse every day. There cannot be a way out from the bailout packages as long as we have debts. The rest is fairytales and you know it," said controversial former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.
Actress Ashley Judd is suing disgraced former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein for the alleged smear campaign she says cost her a role on the "Lord of the Rings" movies and others. Judd's career took a downturn that coincided with her rejection of Weinstein's sexual advances, and director Peter Jackson said that he had taken Judd and Mira Sorvino's names off of a casting list for "Rings" after the Weinstein company claimed they were "nightmares" to work with and should be avoided "at all costs". Jackson apologized to both women and said he'd been fed false information. Other known Weinstein victims and #MeToo advocates backed Judd; police in
The orange clown Donald Trump's goonish personal bodyguard and a lawyer stormed the office of Trump's former personal doctor of 35 years, and made off with Trump's medical records. Dr. David Bornstein said he felt "raped" after White House aide and ex-NYPD detective Keith Schiller and lawyer Alan Garten showed up unannounced and took the files in February 2016. He said when he called the Trump organization for an explanation, they snapped, "You're out!" Weird story, eh? Especially since all it would taken was a short phone call and filling out a form to get the files transferred to the White House. Makes one wonders what was in those files, that they had to be seized through physical force and intimidation.
Meanwhile, the White House says sleazebag physician Dr. Ronny "Candyman" Jackson is still on the job, despite new accusations on top of the percocet dispensing, public drunkenness, and hostile workplace stuff that got him yanked from consideration for heading the Veterans Administration. It turns out that Vice President Mike Pence's team warned Trump that there was a growing problem with Jackson from a confrontation last year when Pence's wife was sick at Walter Reed Hospital. Jackson allegedly barged into the situation where he had no authority and attempted to intimidate the Vice President's physician, going as far as to threaten his ability to practice medicine again, and eventually obtained her personal medical information - when it wasn't his business.
The two Koreas have begun taking down huge speaker arrays along the border that both sides used to blast propaganda broadcasts into the other's territory. It's part of a string of symbolic gestures after the historic Korean summit last week. Last week, the two sides agreed to end hostilities and work on denuclearizing the peninsula.