Recorded conversation with former lawyer raises uncomfortable questions for Donald Trump, and New Zealand wants its flag back.
Swedish student seeks to stop man’s deportation, fails
A Swedish student, Elin Ersson, prevented the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker from Sweden by protesting on board a plane at the Gothenburg airport, The Guardian reports.
The social work student at Gothenburg University bought a ticket for the flight after she and other asylum activists found out that a young Afghan was due to be deported on it. “In fact, he was not on the plane but activists discovered another Afghan man in his 50s was on board for deportation,” The Guardian reports.
“As she entered the plane, Ersson started to livestream her protest in English. The video received more than 4 million hits on Tuesday,” the report adds. The footage shows her facing both sympathy and hostility from other passengers as she refused to sit down, holding up the flight.
“When an angry passenger, who appears to be English, tries to seize her phone, she tells him: ‘What is more important, a life, or your time? … I want him to get off the plane because he is not safe in Afghanistan. I am trying to change my country’s rules, I don’t like them. It is not right to send people to hell,'” the report adds.
Both Ersson and the man were escorted off the flight. While her protest has made a strong statement online about Sweden’s tough asylum regime, the man will still be deported, and Ersson faces arrest.
Trump may have offered hush money to model ‘lover’
A recorded conversation with his former lawyer Michael Cohen suggests US President Donald Trump paid hush money to keep a former Playboy model quiet about their alleged affair, CNN reports.
Karen McDougal has alleged she had an extramarital affair with Trump about a decade ago.
This is significant because making undisclosed payoffs to hide potentially embarrassing information about a political candidate can be treated as a violation of US campaign financing laws, BBC noted in a related report.
“Presidential candidate Donald Trump is heard on tape discussing with his attorney Michael Cohen how they would buy the rights to a Playboy model’s story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier,” CNN reports.
Macron takes the blame for row over security guard episode
French President Emmanuel Macron has broken his silence on the controversy surrounding his bodyguard’s attack on protesters in May, saying, “I’m to blame”, The Guardian reports.
Alexandre Benalla, a member of Macron’s inner circle, has been indicted for gang violence and impersonating a police officer after footage of him attacking demonstrators at a May Day protest surfaced.
Macron was heavily criticised for his silence on what has become the most serious scandal in his 14-month presidency, and bolstered his image as a “rich man’s President”. He said what happened on 1 May was “serious … and for me a disappointment and a betrayal. But that’s it”.
“The Élysée Palace, which knew about Benalla’s assault the following day, kept it quiet for more than two months. He was initially suspended from his job for two weeks, and it was only last week, when Le Monde newspaper published video footage of the attack, that police summoned Benalla for questioning. He was put under official investigation on Sunday and was sacked after the crisis escalated,” the report adds.
US envoy to UN suggests Arab states don’t care about Palestine
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has accused West Asian nations of not doing enough to financially help Palestine and assist them in the peace process, reports Al Jazeera.
“Where are the Arab countries when it comes to supporting compromises that are necessary for peace?” Haley said during a UN Security Council meeting. “Where are the Arab countries when it comes to encouraging reconciliation between Palestinian factions, which is essential to peace?”
She also took the chance to highlight US aid for Palestine.
‘China can rely on Pakistan, no matter the outcome of the election’
Pakistan’s consulate general in Hong Kong, Abdul Qadir Memon, has said that, no matter who wins the election, Islamabad will remain committed to the country’s ongoing infrastructure projects with China.
The South China Morning Post reports that despite rising debt levels, Pakistan has vowed to maintain its commitment to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Imran Khan, the leader of the PTI, seems to be on track to become the next prime minister. “Khan has been critical of the $62 billion in Chinese infrastructure projects planned for Pakistan, and has wielded the programme to criticise former prime minister Nawaz Sharif,” the report adds.
“But the PTI and other leading parties all showed support for the CPEC in the run-up to the election, and Khan has praised China as an example for his country to lift people out of poverty,” the South China Morning Post reports.
New Zealand wants its flag back from Australia
“The acting prime minister of New Zealand accused Australia this week of copying his country’s 116-year-old flag, and demanded that Australians come up with a new design,” The New York Times reports.
Winston Peters, who is filling in for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern while she is on maternity leave, told state-owned media that Australia should “change their flag and honour the fact that we got there first”.
New Zealand adopted its flag in 1902, and Australia did not formally adopt its flag until 1954, although a version of it was flown in 1901.
Relations between Australia and New Zealand have been strained recently over an Australian policy to deport New Zealanders convicted of crimes.
Trump’s ‘Walk of Fame’ star has been destroyed
President Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been smashed by a man with a pickaxe, CNN reports.
Donald Trump’s star completely destroyed along the Hollywood walk of fame. pic.twitter.com/b1bpLhmG2X
— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) July 25, 2018
According to The LA Times, the man called police on himself.
Trump’s Walk of Fame star has been the subject of repeated vandalism since 2016. “People often stomp with anger on the star, others kick their heels over the star, and some spit. The last time, someone put a sticker over the star,” a street performer said.
A street artist constructed a tiny wall around the star in 2016, and the star was dug up by a pickaxe and broken by a sledgehammer in October that year too.