Hello Australia! - PM Turnbull tells haters that "it is not compulsory to stay in Australia" - The head of a Sydney Mosque delivers a similar smack down, although just a tad more bluntly - A US city settles with the family of a man murdered by a cop - The world's smartest man says we should fear capitalism - And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:
The world's smartest man says mankind's biggest worry isn't robots or aliens - Professor Stephen Hawking says capitalism, greed, and inequality are the problems. In a Reddit "ask me anything" session, Hawking wrote: "If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution." And unfortunately, he said the world seems to lean towards the latter.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is calling for Australians to show "respect for each other, respect for our country, respect for our shared values". This is a week after the shooting of a police accountant Parramatta by a 15-year old allegedly put up to it by Islamist extremists. At the same time, Mr. Turnbull is telling those who to hate preachers to take off: "It is not compulsory to live in Australia, if you find Australian values are, you know, unpalatable, then there's a big wide world out there and people have got freedom of movement," Turnbull said.
Those sentiments were echoed not only by Opposition leader Bill Shorten, who extended the invitation to leave to anyone who doesn't like the place regardless of religion; but also by the chairman of the Parramatta Mosque. Neil El-Kadomi told those attending Friday Prayers that "if you don't like Australia, leave", adding that "we do not need scumbags in the community". Ouch. Mr. El-Kadomi told Muslims in Australia that they are to be in a country that has freedom of religion.
Immigration Minister Peter Peter Dutton is confirming that the government is in talks with the Philippines and other nations about possibly resettling refugees that Australia won't take in. This is despite the lack of success with the program that would resettle refugees in Cambodia - criticized both as an expensive failure, since only four people have taken up the offer; but also blasted by human rights groups noting Cambodia's poverty, corruption and human rights abuses. Critics fear a similar deal with the Philippines will face all of the same shortcomings. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young accuses Dutton of trying to slough off Australia's responsibilities onto other countries: "It's a trade of human lives and it's time the minister was up front about it," she said.
The UN is proposing that Libya's competing parliaments form a unity government. Right now, an Islamist-backed parliament is in Tripoli - after rebels chased the internationally-recognized into internal exile in the east. UN envoy Bernardino Leon would bring the two together, with a member of the Tripoli parliament as Prime Minister. Both parliaments would have to approve the proposal, and the eastern faction seems especially suspicious.
A city in South Carolina in America's South-East will pay US$6.5 Million to the family of an African-American man who was murdered by a white cop. The North Charleston City Council approved the settlement to Walter Scott's family by a 10-0 vote. Last April, North Charleston officer Michael Slager claimed that he shot and killed Scott because the man allegedly tried to take his taser weapon. What Slager didn't know was that a bystander hiding behind a fence recorded the cop shooting Walter Scott in the back and planting the taser on the body. When the video went viral, NCPD fired Slager and charged him with murder.
Authorities arrested nine Sao Paulo police officers who are suspected of carrying out an extrajudicial killing spree on the outskirts of Brazil's largest city. Witnesses saw the masked executioners attacking their targets at various locations on 13 August. Prosecutors say the hits were revenge for the earlier killing of an off-duty police officer in the same area.
Rome's mayor Ignazio Marino resigned after revelations he charged A$31,000 in ritzy restaurant meals to his official charge account. This follows last year's scandal in which Marino was found to have several outstanding parking tickets; and this year's criticism of his failure to stop a glitzy funeral for a mob boss in his decaying city. Marino said he'd pay back the restaurant bills.
Nigerian health officials are determining if a man who died in hospital this week had Ebola. The patient arrived at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in the country's southeast on Wednesday. Ten people including the staff that treated him are under quarantine. Nigeria was declared Ebola-free a year ago, after several months of containing the killer virus brought into the country by a Liberian businessman. In all, 19 people were infected of whom seven died. But hundreds of kilometers away in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, more than 11,300 people died in the epidemic, which isn't over yet.