1 Unrest continues in Missouri (BBC) US police say
they have arrested 31 people during another night of angry protests in the town
of Ferguson in the state of Missouri. Unrest flared hours after President Obama
called for calm following the fatal police shooting of unarmed black teenager
Michael Brown on 9 August. The US attorney general is due to visit Ferguson on
Wednesday to meet federal officials investigating the killing. The National
Guard has been deployed to support police operations.
The killing of Mr Brown by a white policeman in a
street has inflamed racial tensions in the largely black community of Ferguson.
A new poll by the Pew Research Center has found US reaction to the police
killing of Michael Brown falls along distinct racial lines. Officer Darren
Wilson shot the teenager last week after reportedly stopping him for walking in
the street.
Police Captain Ron Johnson said officers were forced
to use tear gas and stun grenades on Tuesday after they came under "heavy
gunfire" and were attacked with petrol bombs and bottles. President Barack
Obama said he recognised that in many communities in the US a "gulf of
mistrust" existed between local residents and law enforcement. "In
too many communities, too many young men of colour are left behind and seen
only as objects of fear," he said.
Earlier, a former New York pathologist hired by Mr
Brown's family performed an independent post-mortem examination. Dr Michael
Baden said he believed six bullets struck the teenager, two of which may have
re-entered. "All of the gunshot wounds could have been survivable, except
the one at the top of the head," he said.
Witnesses have said Mr Brown was shot as he held his
hands up in a position of surrender, while the police and supporters of Mr
Wilson have said he fired during a fight with Mr Brown. The officer who shot Mr
Brown, Darren Wilson, has been suspended with pay since the shooting. Mr
Brown's family have called for his arrest.
2 Signs of another Iraq muddle (Straits Times) The
United States is at risk of getting sucked into another misadventure in Iraq,
three years after President Barack Obama ended what he called a dumb war. That
entanglement of dubious justification left Iraq - the fabled Mesopotamia of
antiquity - in a shambles for the net gain of one dictator's removal. (Of
course, America also coveted the oil.)
Mr Obama has consistently argued that there is no
American military solution to Iraq's existential dilemma spawned by conflicting
regional allegiances based on ethnicity and faith. Just last week, when
ordering air strikes to evacuate persecuted minorities fleeing the murderous
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, Mr Obama said he would not
allow the US to be dragged into another war in Iraq.
But military operations unfolding in the past 48
hours show he is being pulled along by the dynamic of war. He seems to have
little choice, given the threat of ISIS militants establishing a firmer hold on
the ground. In Baghdad, the central government, which controls only about half
of the country after losing territory to the ISIS advance, is pressing the US
to widen its air attacks on ISIS positions, including around the region of the
capital.
Pressure also is growing from Mr Obama's Atlantic
allies, principally Britain, to extend the scope of intervention to counter the
ideological virulence that ISIS represents. This is much like a reprise of
Afghanistan and the Taleban. Yet, if the Americans end up fighting the Iraqi
government's war to evict the extremists and shut down their caliphate, it will
be war all over again as no such campaign is possible without the use of
troops.
3 UK bosses’ gender pay gap at 35% (Simon Goodley in
The Guardian) Women bosses are still earning only three-quarters as much as
their male colleagues, meaning they would have to work until they were nearly
80 to catch up with men's lifetime earnings, according to new figures .
More than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act outlawed
less favourable pay and conditions in the workplace, the data shows that
discrepancies in salaries widen at the higher echelons of management, with a
"midlife pay crisis" particularly hitting female managers aged over
40, who earn 35% less than men. The average pay gap between men and women aged
between 46 and 60 stands at £16,680 a year, while among company directors men
take home £21,084 more than their female colleagues.
Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered
Management Institute (CMI), said: "This is all about apathy and ignorance.
Companies think it is not a problem for them, so they don't do anything about
it. There are very few good guys." Including men and women managers of all
ages, the CMI said that the pay gap stands at £9,069, with men getting an
average salary of £39,461 where women get £30,392.
This means women are earning only three-quarters
(77%) of what men in full-time comparable jobs earn," the CMI said.
"Yet the gap is far worse for women aged 40-plus, where the problem is
twofold. Not only does the salary gap increase with age and seniority, but
there is also a persistent "bonus pay gap". The average bonus for a
female director stands at £41,956, while for male directors the average payout
is £53,010."
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