BRIEF – ME! – DAILY NEWS BRIEFING
In today’s briefing update, US President Trump has threatened sanctions on Baghdad after lawmakers called for American troops to leave the country.
Hezbollah has vowed retaliation against the US following the killing of Iran’s top general Soleimani. The Hezbollah leader said US military bases, troops and warships will be the targets.
Film Director Terry Gilliam has called the #MeToo movement a ‘witch hunt’, and moans ‘white men are to blame for everything.’
In the UK, top bosses will earn an average salary in just three days in 2020. According to a study, FTSE 100 bosses will earn more than £29,000 in three days.
Berlin police have stopped activists from dismantling an installation said to hold Holocaust victims’ remains.
Entertainment, disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein’s trial starts today in NY. He is facing five charges of rape and sexual assault.
ALL this and more in today’s news briefing – A daily roundup of all the news headlines that you need to know, summarised as part of WTX News Briefing.
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Trump threatens sanctions on Baghdad after lawmakers call on US troops to leave
Arab News reports President Trump has threatened sanctions against Baghdad after Iraq’s parliament called for US troops to leave the country. Trump said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air-base there.
“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air-base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it,” Trump told reporters.
He added that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, “we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
Read the full story on Arab News
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Hezbollah vows retaliation against the US for Soleimani killing
Aljazeera news says Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has promised to target US forces in the region in retaliation for the killing of top Iranian and Iraqi commanders in a US drone attack earlier this week.
“It is the American military who killed them and it is them who will pay the price,” Nasrallah said during a speech to a large crowd.
He said targets include “US military bases, soldiers, officers and warships.”
“Touching any civilian anywhere in the world would only serve Trump’s policies,” he said. But once he sees “the coffins of American soldiers and officers begin to return home” he would realise that “he has lost the region,” Nasrallah added.
Read the full story on Aljazeera
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‘White males are blamed for everything wrong with the world’: Terry Gilliam lashes out at #MeToo & ‘offended’ people
RT News says film director Terry Gilliam called the #MeToo movement a ‘witch hunt’ and lamented how sensitive people have become with his brand of humour.
In these strange modern times, even a liberal director like Gilliam can end up sounding like a conservative voice.
Speaking about the #MeToo movement, he said despite there being real victims, the movement was driven by mob mentality.
“Yeah, I said #MeToo is a witch hunt”, Gilliam said.
Gilliam said many who came forward should have taken more responsibility for their situation.
Read the full story on RT News
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Top bosses ‘earn average salary within three days’
BBC News says bosses of Britain’s leading firm will be paid more within three working days of 2020 than the average employees’ annual wage, according to research.
FTSE 100 chief executives starting work on 2 January will by 17:00GMT today have been paid more than the average wage of £29, 559 the reports suggests.
Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said the apparent pay gay was “concerning.”
The figures – based on the latest available data – suggests the average FTSE 100 chief was paid £3.46m in 2018, equivalent to £901.30 an hour.
The average full-time annual salary of £29,559 works out at £14.37 an hour, the report said, meaning that top bosses earned about 117 times their average employee.
Read the full story on BBC News
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Berlin police block activist from dismantling left-wing installations said to hold Holocaust victims’ remains
Fox News reports amid rising anti-Semitism in Europe, local Jewish activists in the liberal capital of Germany said they’re upset that Berlin police stopped them from dismantling an installation made by left-wing artists which allegedly held remains of victims of the Holocaust.
The Performance Art Committee said about 20 members attempted to cut down a pillar holding an urn that the left-wing Center for Political Beauty placed in front of German parliament last month.
The International Auschwitz Committee condemned the installation last month. Auschwitz survivors were “aghast at this installation, which hurts their feelings and the eternal peace of the death of their murdered relatives,” the committee said.
Read the full story on Fox News
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Harvey Weinstein rape trial to begin in New York
Sky News says the trial of movie producer Harvey Weinstein is due to begin in New York today.
The 67-year-old movie mogul is facing five charges of rape and sexual assault involving two women. He has pleaded not guilty.
The two-month trial at New York’s Supreme Court is expected to be the focus of intense media scrutiny.
Dozens of women including Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, have made allegations of sexual abuse and harassment against Weinstein since the publication of revelations in the New York Times in 2017.
Read the full story on Sky News
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