Saturday, July 22, 2017

Six In The Morning Saturday July 22

Justine Damond shooting: Police chief Janee Harteau quits


A police chief in the US state of Minnesota has resigned after one of her officers fatally shot an unarmed Australian woman.
Justine Damond was killed after she called the police to report a woman screaming outside her home in a quiet suburb of Minneapolis last week.
Police chief Janee Harteau had earlier said it "should not have happened".
The city's mayor accepted her resignation, saying she had lost confidence in Ms Harteau.
Ms Damond's death provoked outrage in her homeland, where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called it "inexplicable" and "a shocking killing".
The 40-year-old yoga and meditation teacher, originally from Sydney, was shot when she approached a police car after reporting a suspected rape.




Polish senate approves bill to give government influence over courts

Protesters gather in cities across country with critics saying legislation is further step towards authoritarianism

Poland’s upper house of parliament has approved a supreme court overhaul, defying the EU and critics at home who say the legislation will undermine democratic checks and balances.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Warsaw and cities across Poland for candlelit vigils to protest against the draft bill, as the senate debated it late into the night. Some protesters carried Polish and European Union flags, chanting: “Free courts.”
To become law, the proposal still has to be signed by the president, Andrzej Duda, an ally of the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.


Just because Donald Trump jilted the Paris Accord doesn't mean the rest of America will sit on its hands

Thirteen states and more than two hundred city mayors have pledged to abide by the Paris goals, despite Trump's decision





Apparently I should be glad of the cool spell Phoenix is enjoying this weekend.
We are forecast to hit a mere forty degrees celsius, actually only a tad below the average high temperature for the time of year. A few weeks ago it touched a 49 degrees in the shade. Nature’s oven.
It was so hot some flights out of Sky Harbor, the city’s airport, had to be cancelled. Simplistically put, that kind of heat made the air too thin for aircraft to attain the lift needed for take-off. Other variables are involved, like altitude, runway length and the kinds of planes in question, but on one day in late June the complex equations for safe flying got too dodgy for normal operations.

Philippines extends Mindanao martial law to end of year

Philippine lawmakers have voted in favor of extending martial law in the troubled southern province of Mindanao for some five months. Government troops are battling "Islamic State"-affiliated groups in the area.
In a special joint session of parliament, Philippine legislators agreed on Saturday to extend President Rodrigo Duterte's martial law in Mindanao until December 31.
The Senate voted 16-4 in favor of extension, whereas the vote in the House of Representatives was 245-14.
"The motion to extend the proclamation of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is hereby approved by the Congress," House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez announced after the vote.
Ahead of the vote, Philippine authorities said that martial law in the country's south was needed to stabilize a region where "Islamic State" (IS) was gaining influence.

U.S. warship crew found likely at fault in June collision

Today  05:10 pm JST


The crew of the USS Fitzgerald was likely at fault in the warship's collision with a Philippine cargo ship in June and had not been paying attention to their surroundings, according to initial findings in an investigation, a U.S. defense official told Reuters on Friday.
Multiple U.S. and Japanese investigations are under way into how the USS Fitzgerald, a guided missile destroyer, and the much larger ACX Crystal container ship collided in clear weather south of Tokyo Bay in the early hours of June 17.
The collision tore a gash below the Fitzgerald's waterline, killing seven sailors in what was the greatest loss of life on a U.S. Navy vessel since the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen's Aden harbor in 2000.
"There was not a lot that went right leading up to the crash. There were a string of errors, but they did a lot after the collision to save lives and the ship," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Al-Aqsa: UN slams Israel killings of young Palestinians


UN chief calls for probe into deaths of two teenagers and young man as tension grows over al-Aqsa restrictions.


The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he "deeply deplores" the killings of three Palestinians - one of whom was shot by a settler - as anger boiled over increased Israeli restrictions at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa compound.
Guterres condemned the killings and called for an investigation early on Saturday, hours after mass protests by Palestinians around the holy site turned deadly.
He urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to refrain from actions that could further escalate the volatile situation in Jerusalem's Old City, saying that religious sites should be spaces for reflection, not violence.




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