Migrant Crisis
A RECORD NUMBER OF MIGRANTS WERE SAVED IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
More than 4,200 were rescued from small boats and dinghies
Migrants arriving on the island of Lampedusa in August 2007 (Photo by Sara Prestianni via)
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Over 4,200 migrants were rescued from boats off the coast of Libya on Saturday, the Italian coastguard said – more than ever before in a 24 hour period
A total of 4,243 people were taken off small fishing boats and rubber dinghies in 22 operations carried out by ships from countries including Italy, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Britain.
At least 17 people were reported dead in one of the boats, the Italian navy said
Fifa Corruption
SEPP BLATTER ACCUSED THE US AND UK OF A CAMPAIGN TO TOPPLE HIM
He said the Fifa arrests last week were motivated by revenge
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After being re-elected as Fifa president on Friday, Sepp Blatter launched an attack on the US justice system and the British press following arrests and charges of bribery against senior Fifa officials.
Blatter said that an FBI investigation, which accuses 18 Fifa executives of 47 counts of money laundering, bribery and racketeering totalling just under £100 million, was timed to damage his chances of re-election.
Swiss police working with the FBI arrested seven senior Fifa officials, including vice-presidents Jeffrey Webb and Eugenio Figueredo, on Wednesday.
“No one is going to tell me that it was a simple coincidence, this American attack two days before the elections of Fifa. It doesn’t smell right,” said Blatter, adding, “The English were the candidates for 2018 and they lost, so it was really the English media and the American movement.”
Tory Cuts
TORY PLANS TO CUT BENEFITS WILL PUT 40,000 CHILDREN INTO POVERTY
But, you know, they’re going ahead with them anyway
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Tens of thousands of children will face living in poverty under government plans to cut benefits, a leaked civil service paper showed this weekend.
The internal government report marked “sensitive” sent to work and pensions secretary Ian Duncan Smith said that “around 40,000 more… children might, in the absence of any behaviour change, find themselves in poverty as a result of reducing the cap to £23,000”.
Under Conservative plans announced in the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday, the maximum amount families will be able to claim will be reduced from £26,000 to £23,000.
Very Severe Punishments
THE CREATOR OF SILK ROAD WAS SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON
Ross Ulbricht was the “face of cybercrime”, said US prosectors
Ross Ulbricht
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The creator of Silk Road, a dark web site that enabled over £130 million worth of anonymous drug deals, was sentenced to life in prison by a US court this weekend.
Ross Ulbricht, a 31-year old physics graduate, was given five sentences: two for life, one for 20 years, one for 15 years and one for five years, and he’ll have no chance of parole.
Ulbricht’s defence lawyers argued that he’d been the victim of a complex hacking plot making him the “fall guy” for its true operators.
More Bad News for Nick Clegg
NICK CLEGG WAS BANNED FROM RUSSIA
The former Lib-Dem leader was blacklisted, along with 88 others
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Nick Clegg was banned from Russia, according to a Russian government blacklist handed to an EU delegation in Moscow this weekend.
The former deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats joined 88 other European politicians and military leaders whose visas have been revoked by the Russian Federation.
Last year, Clegg banned Liberal Democrat MPs from attending the Sochi Winter Olympics and said Russia should be stripped of its right to host the 2018 World Cup in response to the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines jet by Russian-backed rebels.
The EU complained that the list was “totally arbitrary and unjustified”.
Plane Banter
A ‘DIRTY SANCHEZ’ STAR APOLOGISED FOR GETTING SHITFACED
Matthew Pritchard got drunk on a flight and pissed on Dolph Lundgren
Matthew Pritchard (Screen shot via)
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Matthew Pritchard, a star of the MTV show Dirty Sanchez, has apologised after getting drunk on a flight during the Gumball Rally, stripping naked and urinating on Dolph Lundgren.
Pritchard, 42, said he’d combined alcohol with xanax, which he didn’t realise you’re not supposed to do, before “running up and down the flight naked, and [proceeding] to pee on Dolph Lundgren’s feet”.
“Apparently Dolph was not too happy,” he said, though added that the actor had accepted an apology “like a gent”.
The flight was taking Pritchard and other Gumball participants from Amsterdam to Portland, then onto Reno, Nevada, where they would continue the rally to San Francisco.
“I don’t know why I wasn’t arrested at the airport,” said Pritchard.
