An Australian state MP has been prevented from entering the United States, and fellow travelling politicians have been given no reason for the move. Lebanon-born Khalil Eideh, a Labor MP in Victoria, was stuck in Vancouver on Friday after a United Airlines staffer told him he was not allowed to board a flight to Denver with the rest of the group. “The United Airlines staff knew he had been denied entry to the US before any of us,” the Sex party MP Fiona Patten told AAP from Denver on Friday. “He was incredibly upset … disbelieving.” Patten said Eideh was not told why he wasn’t allowed on the plane.

Labor MP Natalie Suleyman said Eideh was originally told he was not booked on the flight before the check-in staff broke the bad news. “They said “you’ve been denied entry to the States,” Suleyman said. Eideh was given no explanation, she said.
Eideh was born in Tripoli in Lebanon to Syrian parents who follow the Alawite Islamic faith. He moved to Australia in 1970 aged 15 and later became a mail officer with Australia Post. From the 19 years up until he entered parliament in 2006 he was managing director of Bluestar Logistics, a trucking company based in Melbourne’s west.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump’s new communications director has launched an extraordinary, foul-mouthed tirade against two senior colleagues, raising the prospect of all-out civil war at the White House. Anthony Scaramucci told an interviewer that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic” who will be asked to resign, and that Scaramucci is not like Steve Bannon, the chief strategist, because “I’m not trying to suck my own cock”.

The profane language was shocking even by the standards of the Trump era and suggested that a major staff shake-up is imminent. New Yorker correspondent Ryan Lizza wrote that Scaramucci called him on Wednesday night, angry that Lizza had tweeted that the communications director was having dinner at the White House with Trump; his wife, Melania; Fox News host Sean Hannity; and former Fox News executive Bill Shine. “Who leaked that to you?” Scaramucci demanded, according to Lizza’s account. When the journalist refused to disclose his source, Scaramucci allegedly threatened: “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over.”(theguardian)…[+]

Pakistan’s supreme court has removed the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from office in a unanimous verdict over corruption allegations that will further upset the country’s unstable political landscape. The verdict by the five-member court caps a year of political controversy over corruption allegations unleashed by the 2016 Panama Papers leak.

The governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), said Sharif had stepped down immediately. The party must now choose an interim prime minister to be accepted by parliament. The ruling will throw the governing party and the country at large into turmoil ahead of elections due next year. The 10-year disqualification of Sharif cut short the third tenure of a man who has been a leading figure in Pakistani politics for nearly three decades since his first term from 1990 to 1993. It is the most serious political ramification yet of the Panama Papers leak, which detailed financial dealings of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.(theguardian)…[+]