Donald Trump has been accused of “spreading hate” after he retweeted unverified anti-Muslim videos from a fringe far-right UK political leader.

In a particularly outrageous morning on Twitter, the US President also implied that one of his fiercest critics, cable news host Joe Scarborough, may have been involved in the death of a co-worker.

The anti-Muslim videos were tweeted without explanation in the early hours of Wednesday morning from the President’s personal Twitter account to his nearly 44 million followers.

Britain First is a UK-based far-right political party that is vehemently anti-immigration. Current campaigns include to ban the BBC from “discriminating against white Britons”, to stop the expansion of mosques and the “persecution” of leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen. Ms Fransen was arrested and questioned days ago over a speech made in Northern Ireland earlier this year. (more…)

A young man, known as Ali, has been arrested after allegedly planning to carry out a terrorist attack with an automatic rifle at Melbourne’s Federation Square on New Year’s Eve.

The 20-year-old man, who lives with his parents and siblings in Werribee, was allegedly planning to shoot and kill as many people as he could in an attack.

He was arrested by heavily armed police on Synnot Street, Werribee, in front of shocked bystanders on Monday afternoon.

Victoria Police deputy commissioner Shane Patton said the man, an Australian-born Muslim with Somali parents, tried to buy an automatic firearm through “face to face interactions” but was ultimately unsuccessful.

“The potential of the attack is catastrophic. This is a person who has expressed an intention to try and kill as many people as he could. It’s horrendous,” Mr Patton told reporters on Tuesday. (more…)

Green MP Golriz Ghahraman is under fire for her role as a lawyer in cases before the tribunal which inquired into Rwanda’s genocide. New Zealander Phil Quin lived in Rwanda for three years and is a strong critic of the defence of those accused of genocide and of Ghahraman’s involvement.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), an entity of the UN, was charged with bringing the worst genocide perpetrators, planners and political champions to justice.

Since about two million Rwandans took part in the killings in some form or other, less egregious crimes — say, murdering one or two neighbours, or stealing their cattle — were dealt with at the grassroots level. Known as Gacaca, these community courts heard more than one million cases, most resulting in non-custodial sentences like community service. Gacaca is rightly seen as best practice in post-conflict reconciliation. How can you deliver justice for victims and their families without entrenching divisions and incarcerating millions of working age men and women? Rwanda found a way.

At the ICTR, a would-be New Zealand politician decided to use a year in Africa to volunteer as an intern for the defence team. Golriz Ghahraman was not one of the 200 lawyers appointed by the UN. Her presence was voluntary. The ICTR was famously cashed up — it cost more than US$2 billion to secure only 61 convictions. Since recent publicity of Ghahraman’s time in Rwanda, one argument waged at me  —  that defendants deserve a lawyer — is a shameless red herring. Nobody is disputing this, least of all me, but the notion Ghahraman’s skills were needed when there were more than three high-end, properly accredited, lawyers for each one of the accused is beyond a joke. It was work experience. (more…)