Ghostbusters hit with racial slurs
Actress Leslie Jones, who stars in the all-female Ghostbusters reboot, says she has been bombarded with racist tweets. The Ghostbusters reboot has become a particular focal point for misogynist abuse because of its female cast, leading to an orchestrated online campaign to make the trailer the most disliked in YouTube history. “I don’t know how to feel. I’m numb. Actually numb. I see the words and pics and videos. Videos y’all. Meaning people took time to spew hate.”
Brexit buffoonery goes on tour with Boris
Last week’s announcement that European Union exit campaign leader Boris Johnson would become Britain’s foreign secretary was greeted in global capitals as a joke or a twisted insult. Such is the depth and duration of Johnson’s columnist-clever insults, international reaction to his appointment has been overwhelmingly negative. Johnson is widely viewed as inherently untrustworthy, a buffoon bizarrely elevated to become Britain’s premier representative abroad.
The great refugee gap
The world’s six wealthiest countries – the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the UK – host less than 9%, or 2.1 million, of the world’s refugees, according to an Oxfam report. More than half of the world’s refugees – almost 12 million people – live in Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon and South Africa, places that make up less than 2% of the world’s economy.
Hottest June
Last month was the 14th straight month of record-breaking global temperatures, according to Nasa and Noaa. June 2016 was 0.9C hotter than the average for the 20th century, and the hottest June in the record which goes back to 1880. It broke the previous record, set in 2015, by 0.02C. The 14-month streak of record-breaking temperatures was the longest in the 137-year record
Many Turks back authoritarian Erdoğan
The enduring popularity of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, perplexes some western observers, who know him mainly for his increasingly authoritarian actions. In recent days, western leaders have expressed alarm at the purge instigated following the failed coup attempt. Since Saturday about 35,000 officers, soldiers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, teachers and university deans have been detained, fired or suspended as Erdoğan attempts to isolate anyone his government perceives to be a threat. But outside city hall the crowds saw him mainly as a saviour. “We love our president so much,” said Ersin Korkmaz, a 29-year-old civil servant who was draped in a Turkish flag and accompanied by his two young daughters.