Author: Chris Kodo

“In the interest of patron safety and in consultation with all relevant emergency services, we have decided to err on the side of caution and cancel performances on the main stages today only.”

About 50,000 people were expected to attend this year’s festival, most of whom paid between A$189 ($130) for a single day pass and A$399 ($275) for three full days.

Pictures and videos posted on social media showed pooling muddy water and dozens of festival goers dressed in ponchos braving heavy rain. Many lamented the bad organization of the event, sharing their “nightmare experiences” on social media of dealing with snaking traffic jams and bogged vehicles as people tried to get into and out of the festival grounds.

One attendee, who said he’d been stuck in his car for 8.5 hours, likened the event to Australia’s “Fyre Festival” — an event touted as a five-star experience in the Bahamas in 2017 that offered little more than tents and bad sandwiches.

“No staff, no information, think this is Australia’s Fyre festival. A hell scape at Splendour,” he said.

Others called for the festival to be canceled in the interest of public safety. “I’m honestly of the opinion that if you put the safety of both staff and attendees first, then you should cancel,” said one Facebook user.

But the organizers vowed the show could would continue on Saturday and Sunday. “Please be assured that our event team is working very hard to provide the best experience possible under the current circumstances,” they said in a statement.

“We look forward to Saturday and Sunday programming moving ahead as planned.”

As much of the world has sweltered during summer heatwaves, Australia has experienced a particularly wet winter, punctuated by flooding along the eastern coast.

Experts the climate crisis had increased the frequency and intensity of the La Nina weather system, generating above average rainfall.

Devastating floods hit New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, earlier this month, damaging homes still waiting repairs from the previous floods and forcing businesses to shutter.

A female journalist says she was forced to publicly retract some of her reports about Afghanistan after being threatened with prison by the Taliban.

Lynne O’Donnell, an Australian columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, alleges that she was detained, abused and forced to post a series of tweets stating her articles were false.

She has since left Afghanistan.

The Taliban confirmed they had detained Ms O’Donnell and claimed she had falsified reports.

Afghanistan has become an increasingly hostile place for journalists, with the current regime cracking down on press freedoms, Human Rights Watch says.

Since regaining power last year, the Taliban have also been tightening restrictions on women. They are banned from travelling without a male guardian and secondary schools are shut for girls.

Speaking to the BBC after the ordeal, Ms O’Donnell said she had travelled to Kabul to see how the country had changed since she left almost a year ago.

“I went in good faith,” she said, adding that she had gone straight to the foreign ministry when she had arrived on Sunday to declare that she was in the country as a foreign correspondent – a requirement of the regime.

But not long afterwards, a three-day game of cat-and-mouse with the Taliban ensued, during which she was “detained, abused and threatened”, she wrote in a Foreign Policy article about her experience.

She said she was accused of “breaking their laws” and “offending Afghan culture,” with the Taliban claiming articles she had written – including one about LGBTQ+ people in Afghanistan and another on the forced marriage practices of Taliban militants – were lies.

Ms O’Donnell – former bureau chief for news agencies AFP and AP in Afghanistan – stands by her reporting.

She said the Taliban had asked her to reveal her sources for these articles. But she had refused.

The Taliban foreign ministry said Ms O’Donnell was not asked to reveal her sources, but said she had failed to produce any proof which showed she had not fabricated the reports.

Ms O’Donnell said that after refusing the Taliban’s requests, she was then forced to tweet an apology or face prison.

She added that she was also made to film a video stating that she had not been coerced into writing the tweets.

“They were bullies. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid to some extent. But I wasn’t terrified,” she told the BBC.

She was later released and was allowed to board a plane out of the country.

Speaking about her decision to go back to Afghanistan, she said: “I knew that I was taking a risk in going there: they lock up, they abuse, they beat, they kill journalists who are Afghans. They have a history of taking foreigners hostage to use as leverage. I didn’t know that that wouldn’t happen to me.”

She added that she would not be returning to Afghanistan as it would be “reckless” to do so.

But writing in Foreign Policy, she said she would not stop watching or caring.

The Ministry of Defence has been issued a Crown Censure after a 20-year-old marine recruit died during exercise.

Ethan Jones drowned while taking part in an exercise of a night beach landing at Tregantle beach, Cornwall, in 2020.

The censure was issued by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigated the incident.

A Crown Censure is a way in which HSE formally records the decision that a Crown body failed to comply with health and safety laws.

It said as part of the recruits’ final training, they “took part in an exercise which included disembarking from a landing craft into the sea and wading to shore”.

Recruit Jones, of Radstock, Somerset, was found “floating next to the landing craft” after the depth of water was deeper than anticipated, with a number of recruits submerged and having to be rescued.

“HSE found the MoD failed to undertake a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, failed to properly plan, failed to properly supervise, and therefore failed to ensure the safety of their employees during what should have been a routine training exercise,” it said.

The Royal Marines were ordered by a military safety watchdog to check the depth of water before disembarkation training, and to improve its training safety methods.

The MoD admitted to breaching its duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act by accepting the Crown Censure.

Source: bbc

The ILGA-Europe, an organization working for LGBTQ rights in Europe, ranks Russia as one of the worst countries in Europe for LGBTQ people, above only Azerbaijan and Turkey.

“Living in the closet is impossible. It is too hard, it is pointless,” Kasatkina said. “Living in peace with yourself is the only thing that matters.”

More athletes around the world are choosing to come out publicly. Last year’s Tokyo Olympics featured more out LGBTQ athletes — at least 186 — than any previous games.

But even with increased visibility, many LGBTQ people around the world continue to face persecution. In the US, state lawmakers have introduced at least 162 bills targeting LGBTQ Americans in the first half of 2022 — a record year for such legislation.

Once operational, the KF-21 is expected to be armed with a range of air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles — and possibly even air-launched cruise missiles. The twin-engine fighters will come in single- and two-seat versions.

On Tuesday, the jet was equipped with four mock-up Meteor air-to-air missiles and an infrared search-and-track system, and reached speeds of around 400 kilometers per hour (250 mph).

The KF-21 is a joint project between South Korea and Indonesia in which Seoul holds 80% of shares.

While only 65% of the KF-21’s parts are of South Korean origin, its maiden flight still marks a significant achievement for a country that doesn’t have a lengthy history of aircraft production.

The only other countries to have developed and flown an advanced supersonic jet fighter are the United States, Russia, China, Japan, France, Sweden and a European consortium of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Of those, only the US and China have deployed domestic-made fifth-generation fighter jets — planes that feature stealth technologies, radar-jamming capabilities and avionics that integrate onboard and remote data to give pilots a real-time picture of their operation, according to NATO’s Joint Air Power Competence Center.

While the DAPA calls the KF-21 a 4.5-generation fighter jet because it lacks such features as an internal weapons bay that would make it more stealthy, analysts say it may be able to fly higher and faster than the newest US-made fifth-generation fighter, the F-35.

“The KF-21 is the first fighter aircraft made with domestic technology, and it indicates that South Korea is now able to build fighter aircraft on its own. It will also be a stepping stone to develop better fighter aircraft and operate locally developed arms,” DAPA said last year.

Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, on Wednesday called the KF-21’s flight an “impressive” milestone.

“The program has significantly enhanced South Korean aerospace capabilities particularly in design, manufacture, airframe components and avionic systems,” said Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer.

The KF-21 is expected to replace South Korea’s F-4 and F-5 fighters, third-generation US-designed jets introduced in the 1960s.

As production runs are increased, it could also replace South Korea’s fourth-generation F-16s and F-15Ks, Abraham Ait, chief editor of Military Watch Magazine, wrote in The Diplomat in 2020.

South Korea also operates F-35 stealth fighters.

Layton said when operational the KF-21 would improve South Korea’s defensive and offensive capabilities in the air.

“Given the parlous state of the aging North Korean air force fighters, the KF-21 considerably over matches them,” he said.

Layton said South Korea’s F-35s have superior stealth capabilities to the KF-21 and are better to penetrate an enemy’s radars.

“The (South Korean) air force will then have a mix of F-35s for strike operations and KF-21s for air defense operations. This concept makes good use of the F-35, which is optimized for attacking ground targets whereas the KF-21 has been optimized for air-to-air missions,” he said.

The KF-21 has significant export potential because it is expected to be cheaper than the F-35s the US sells to foreign militaries.

Thailand, the Philippines, and possibly even Iraq “could be leading clients for the fighter,” Ait wrote, adding that each of those countries operates the same kind of aircraft the KF-21 has been designed to replace. Those countries also have been customers for South Korea’s indigenously developed FA-50 light-attack fighter.

President Yoon said after Tuesday’s test that “a turning point has been created for the expansion of our defense industry exports.”

The decision comes roughly a month before the Wisconsin’s August 9 primaries and establishes the ground rules for the state’s high-stakes elections this year. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, is seeking a second term, and Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican, is up for reelection in a race that could help determine which party controls the US Senate. And the 2024 presidential contest will likely turn on the election outcome in Wisconsin and a handful of other battleground states.

In a statement Friday, Evers called the decision “another in a long line of Wisconsin Republicans’ successes to make it harder for Wisconsinites to exercise their right to vote, to undermine our free, fair, and secure elections, and to threaten our democracy.”

Rick Esenberg — the president of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which brought the lawsuit challenging drop boxes and collecting ballots on behalf of other voters — said the decision provides “substantial clarity.”

“Wisconsin voters can have confidence that state law, not guidance from the (Wisconsin Election Commission), has the final word on how Wisconsin elections are conducted,” he said in a statement posted on Twitter.

The Wisconsin Election Commission’s guidance easing voting procedures during the pandemic has faced intense criticism — including calls to dismantle the bipartisan body — from some Wisconsin Republicans after President Joe Biden narrowly won the state by fewer than 21,000 votes in 2020.

Drop boxes have grown in popularity in recent elections in the Badger State: More than 520 ballot drop boxes were used in the 2020 general election, with that number increasing to 570 across 66 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties during spring elections in 2021, according to numbers cited in Friday’s decision.

In the opinion, Bradley — who was appointed to the high court in 2015 by then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican — drew comparisons to rigged contests found in totalitarian states, such as North Korea and Syria.

“The illegality of these drop boxes weakens the people’s faith that the election produced an outcome reflective of their will,” she wrote.

Critics of the 2020 election have not offered evidence that widespread fraud altered the results of the presidential race.

But former President Donald Trump has argued, among other things, that election administrators improperly eased voting rules during the pandemic in key states. In a post on Truth Social, Trump seized on Friday’s ruling to claim he had won Wisconsin because of the use of drop boxes.

Officials with the election commission said Friday they were reviewing the ruling and planned to meet Tuesday to discuss its impact on upcoming elections.

Source: bbc