Cape Town has run out of water due to climate change.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/0...121145902.html

* For context, each person in the US uses four times that amount per day.

If they don't have significant rainfall before April 21, the government will turn off the taps and open up water collection sites.

And Milos Zeman gets a second term as President of The Czech Republic by eeking out a victory over his centrist, pro-EU opponent. Zeman is in his 70's, in poor health, married a woman over 20 years his junior, is a climate change denier, hates immigrants (especially Muslims) and is pro-Russia.

Sounds like somebody we know in America...

Israel criticizes bill banning statements implicating Poland in Holocaust

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he instructed his ambassador to meet Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to express opposition to the bill, which would make using phrases like “Polish death camps” punishable by up to three years in prison.

preview of US 2020 election campaign:

Why even go through the pretense of an election?

"Germans only" food bank bans foreigners

The charity Essener Tafel called it a temporary restriction necessary because the share of foreigners using the food bank had soared to 75% in recent years.

The charity says it helps about 16,000 poor people in Essen, a city in the western industrial Ruhr region.

Vandals have sprayed "Nazis" on the charity's delivery vans.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the latest politician to criticise [its] decision to bar foreigners from receiving free food.

Not sure if this is worth linking because it is the lead story of todays New York Times, so most have probably seen it, but there was some great reporting in this overview of the Saudi crackdown on political opponents corruption:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/11/w...T.nav=top-news

My favorite part is where the Saudis buy an Arab TV network just so they can spite Turkey by cancelling some popular Turkish dramas. lol this is a US ally.

Ironic use of the word Vandal itt

they both are

I was referring to Saudia Arabia wih that "this." Obv Erdogan's Turkey sucks too, but that's kind of beside the point.

https://twitter.com/vicenews/status/973230708608196609

My state, South Australia, went to the polls today. Unfortunately the center-right Liberal Party gained power. The center-left Labor Party have been in for 16 years though, and the politics is all pretty centrist. Interestingly, the centrist, populist SA Best party, who were tipped to be a force, look to have got zero seats.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43447624

Turks have taken Afrin.

There is organizing going on for demonstrations on March 24th. If you are near a large city it will probably be at a Turkish consolate or embassy if they have one.

Turkey is now vowing to expand the invasion even into Iraq!

Where the **** is the UN on this?

personal relationship with the trump family > UN approval

Just for a bit of variety in terms of heads of state in trouble for dodgy dealings with foreign powers around elections, Sarkozy, ex president of France, has been mise en examen (which is something like charged with but not quite in the UK / US legal system) for receiving literal suitcases of cash from Colonel Gadaffi in the run up to the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy won that and was fairly friendly to Libya for a time, but was also around in 2011 when things didn't go so great for the plucky Libyan lad.

Not much on English language sites yet, but below's a decent article from a day or so ago when he was arrested for questioning. It's a financial case that's been going on for five years, so don't expect much more soon, but here in France it's grand chose.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-funding-libya

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/976575701750083584

fake news, trump was the only one to make money with qaddafi

"Don't forget. I'm the only one -- I made a lot of money with Qaddafi, if you remember," Trump told "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson in an interview that aired Sunday. "He came to the country and he had to make a deal with me because he needed a place to stay."

"He paid me a fortune, never got to stay there, and it became sort of a big joke," Trump added.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-str...-with-qaddafi/

Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to issue messages that might interfere with other states”.

It said Assange’s recent behaviour on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations”.

The move came after Assange tweeted on Monday challenging Britain’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury earlier this month.

I missed this story at the time, this is from June last year. An Australian Senator put forward a motion in parliament while simultaneously breastfeeding her baby daughter, a world first apparently. Take 30 seconds to watch the video imo, it's kind of endearing. One of those times I feel good about my country.

The desire some people seemingly have to allow children into everyone's workplace is not something I'm on board with at all.

I doubt the children are very keen on you either.

Perhaps not, but I’m the one trying to work.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that a child can never be in the workplace but they certainly shouldn’t be there all the time.

Is anyone actually arguing for that? Seems like quite the strawman

I don't know.

I guess to be more clear I think they should be there rarely. I definitely think people have argued otherwise although I don't know if that includes anyone here.