World News Briefs For Sunday, 28 May 2017

Hello Australia!! - A global IT failure grounds one of the world's biggest airlines - Shappelle Corby has ended her Indonesian nightmare - The G7 blames it on Trump - Rock loses another legendary voice - And much more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

Thousands of travelers were stranded when British Airways canceled all Saturday flights out of London's two biggest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick.  The airline says "a major IT system failure" caused severe disruption to flight operations worldwide.  "Our IT teams are working tirelessly to fix the problems," said British Airways CEO Alex Cruz.  "We believe the root cause was a power supply issue and we have no evidence of any cyberattack."  The system outage occurred on Britain's spring bank holiday weekend.  Arriving flights are expected to be able to land on Sunday.

While you were sleeping, Shappelle Corby returned to Australia for the first time since being convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia twelve years ago.  Many believe she was treated too harshly, getting nine years in prison and three on parole for smuggling a little more than four kilos of reefer in her surfing gear.  Indonesia's harsh drug laws do not differentiate between relatively harmless Marijuana and deadly drugs like heroin and cocaine.

The final communique from the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Sicily was written to acknowledge that Donald Trump is a big, fat pain in the arse. 

While the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom reaffirmed "their commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement", the missive singles out the orange clown as "in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics".  Trump has threatened to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement and claims global warming is a "Chinese hoax"; he claims he'll issue his final word on the deal this week.

Afterward, the leader of the free world German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "The whole discussion on the topic of climate was very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory."  As if to demonstrate Trump's status as the odd man out during the G7 meeting, Ms. Merkel with British PM Theresa May and the leaders of Italy, France, Germany, Japan, and Canada strolled the streets of Taormina, Sicily. 


Morbidly obese Trump was unable to keep up and literally followed behind his allies in a golf cart.  By any measure, Trump's introduction to Europe has been a complete disaster; the orange clown says he hit a "home run".

Trump's son-in-law and closest advisor Jared Kushner approached Russia about using the Kremlin secure cryptographic system to open a channel of communications with Vladimir Putin that would bypass diplomatic channels and US intelligence agencies.  The Washington Post and New York Times said Kushner took this idea to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who is believed to be a spy recruiter.  The purpose for this is not clear, and Kislyak did not take him up on the offer.  It should be noted that Kushner reportedly did this two months after it was known that Russia interfered with the US presidential election.  There are growing calls on the White House to remove Kushner's top-level security clearance while this is investigated. 

A man known to police as a participant in racist and extremist rallies slashed the throats of two men who tried to stop him from harassing Muslim women on a commuter tram in Portland, Oregon.  35-year-old convicted felon and white male christian terrorist Jeremy Joseph Christian lobbed verbal abuse at the women because they wore hijabs on the first night of Ramadan.  Cops knew all about him, they even disarmed him of a baseball bat at an earlier racist rally, but they didn't think he was a threat because he's "mentally ill".  In America, cops have this annoying habit of assuming the guilt of minorities while making excuses for white criminals.

Greater Manchester Police have released images of suicide bomber Salman Abedi on the night he attacked Manchester Arena killing 22 people exiting a pop music concert. 

Investigators say there are now eleven people under arrest in the investigation into how Abedi pulled off the bombing, and they've identified the flat in which the bomb was assembled.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte "joked" that his soldiers can rape women as they take back Mindanao Island from an Islamist rebellion backed by foreign fighters.  "I alone would be responsible" for anything troops did under martial law;  Duterte said, "I will go to jail for you.  If you happen to have raped three women, I will own up to it."  Mind you, he's saying this about his own people, Filipina citizens of the country's southern-most island.  Duterte has joked about rape before, most disgustingly about an Australian missionary who was raped and murdered during a Philippine prison riot in 1989 - Duterte said he wants to have been "first in line".

China has finally formally arrested a Taiwanese rights activists who disappeared two months and was apparently detained in secret.  Li Ming-che is a community college worker known for supporting human rights.  He was arrested in the southern province of Hunan on suspicion of subversion of state power.  Taiwan says the charges are vague and unconvincing.

Chile has begun construction on the aptly named Extremely Large Telescope, 3,000 meters up on a mountain in the Atacama Dessert.  It will be the world's largest optical telescope, some five times larger than the top observing instruments in use today.  It is hoped the new gadget will help astronomers to find more smaller planets, get clearer images of larger ones, and possibly examine their atmospheres to see if life is present.

Fans and friends paid their respects to the late Chris Cornell at a graveside service in Hollywood, with top music and movie stars in attendance.  The 52-year-old Soundgarden and Audioslave lead singer committed suicide after a gig on 17 May.  Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello read the eulogy:  "The demons he wrestled with were real, but he harnessed those demons and rode them like a mother-flipping chariot of lightning strapped with Marshall stacks to make some of the greatest rock'n'roll of all time."  Cornell's ashes were buried next to the grave of punk rock pioneer John "Johnny Ramone" Cummings.

Southern Rock pioneer Gregg Allman has died at his home in Savannah, Georgia at age 69.  The singer, guitarist, and champion of the Hammond B-3 organ formed the Allman Brothers band in the 1960s with his elder sibling and slide guitar legend Duane, blending rock and roll with the gospel, soul, and blues they embraced on African American radio stations in their youth as well as country music pervasive in the US South. 

Gregg Allman was the band's primary composer in the early days, known for "Midnight Rider", "Whipping Post", and "Black-hearted Woman"; covers of "Stormy Monday" and "Statesboro Blues"; and later scoring a solo hit in the 1980s with "I'm No Angel" ("Ramblin' Man" and "Jessica" were guitarist Dickey Betts' songs, BTW).  Thirty years of drug and alcohol abuse ended in the 1990s, but the bills came due last year when he sought a liver transplant.  Recalling the deaths, ODs, and assorted tragedies associated with the Allman Brothers over the years in his 2012 autobiography "My Cross to Bear", he wrote:  "I don't know if I'd do it again," closing with, "If somebody offered me a second round, I think I'd have to pass on it."  Gregg Allman leaves a vast and trailblazing musical legacy, five children, and six ex-wives including Cher.