Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Six In The Morning Wednesday March 22


Flight ban on laptops 'sparked by IS threat'

An aircraft cabin ban on large electronic devices was prompted by intelligence suggesting a terror threat to US-bound flights, say US media.
The US and UK have announced new carry-on restrictions banning laptops on certain passenger flights.
The so-called Islamic State group (IS) has been working on ways to smuggle explosives on to planes by hiding them in electronics, US sources tell ABC.
The tip-off was judged by the US to be "substantiated" and "credible".
Inbound flights on nine airlines operating out of 10 airports in eight countries are subject to the US Department of Homeland Security ban.
Phones and medical devices are not affected.




'Disputed by multiple fact-checkers': Facebook rolls out new alert to combat fake news

Feature – which flags content as ‘disputed’ – trialled on story that falsely claimed thousands of Irish people were brought to the US as slaves


Facebook has started rolling out its third-party fact-checking tool in the fight against fake news, alerting users to “disputed content”.
The site announced in December it would be partnering with independent fact-checkers to crack down on the spread of misinformation on its platform.
The tool was first observed by Facebook users attempting to link to a story that falsely claimed hundreds of thousands of Irish people were brought to the US as slaves.


World abandoning coal in dramatic style raises hope of avoiding dangerous global warming, says report

Donald Trump may be planning a revival of the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, but the rest of the planet appears to be going green instead



As Donald Trump pledges to put coal miners back to work in the United States, the rest of the world appears to have suddenly started moving in the opposite direction, abandoning the dirtiest of fossil fuels after 10 years of expansion, according to a new analysis.
Boom and Bust 2017, compiled by US environmental group the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and research group CoalSwarm, reported a 62 per cent fall in the number of new coal-fired power stations being built worldwide in 2016 and a 48 per cent drop in “pre-construction activity”.
Such a dramatic slowdown, they argued, meant that the world could now hope to keep global warming to within two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the point at which climate change is thought would become particularly dangerous.

Two German-born terror suspects to be deported from country

Two men who police believe planned an attack in the city of Göttingen have failed in their bid to avoid deportation. The Algerian and Nigerian will be repatriated to Africa despite both being born in Germany.
The pair, who investigators say were part of the radical Islamist scene in the central German city of Göttingen, have failed to win temporary legal protection from deportation.
The 27-year-old Algerian and 22-year-old Nigerian were arrested last month in connection with a plot to carry out what police said was a "potentially imminent terror attack."
The two men, who had been under surveillance for some time due to their alleged support for the "Islamic State" (IS) armed group, were both born in Germany and live with their parents in Göttingen.


She became the face of a terror attack; this is what happened next

Updated 0732 GMT (1532 HKT) March 22, 2017
Nidhi Chaphekar lay motionless, afraid to move, on the floor of the departures hall of Brussels' Zaventem Airport after it had been hit by twin blasts.
In the hours and days after the suicide bombings, the flight attendant's image -- picked up by international media outlets around the world -- would sum up the horror and tragedy of the attack.
Wednesday marks a year since the blasts shook Brussels airport followed by explosions at a metro station in the city; 32 people were killed and over 300 more were injured. ISIS would later claim responsibility for both.

Long a way station for refugees, immigrants, Mexico now playing host

The number of refugee applicants could reach 20,000 this year, more than double the 2016 total, causing Mexicans to begin asking what they want their welcome mat to look like.

Staff writer

Five times over the past 14 years, Melvin, a young Honduran, attempted to cross the southern border of the United States. Five times, he was caught and deported back to Central America.
On his sixth bid to leave Honduras late last year, however, he decided to halt his journey much closer to home. Melvin and his family, who suffered death threats and extortion by local gangs in Honduras, applied for refugee status in Mexico, and are now awaiting the government’s response.
“We can walk around freely now,” says Melvin, standing with his family in their sweltering, one-room rental here in a neighborhood of low-slung concrete homes, not far from the northeast border of Guatemala. “In Honduras, someone is always looking for you.” [Even publishing his full name could make it dangerous for his family, which is why only refugees' first names are used in this story.]










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