The good, the bad and the ugly...

The news items that make for indictment, absurdity, surprise and shame, up to you to choose which is which.

• In Haiti it has been discovered that of the $1 billion aid given after the earthquake. The Red Cross was red-faced and outraged by the accusation of filmmaker Michelle Mitchell that NGOs literally stole the money and people are still living in $12 tents. The sordid saga continues unabated.
• In the UK a rogue tweet turned red to crimson in a rehearsal for a VIP death when a reporter sent a message that HM Queen Elizabeth II had died. Surely, the Queen was not amused.
• India’s globetrotting PM, Narendra Modi, went to the USA and gave them visas on arrival. The US reciprocated the gesture by refusing visas to the official Indian archery team invited by the US to take part in the World championships. So much for that.
• The Maggi noodle saga also in India became a bit more heated. Even supporters of the two-minute snack began to point out why only this product had been chosen out of hundreds of consumer items made by foreign companies and a sordid record where arsenic was found in baby milk. Slowly there is a lobby asking: What’s the hidden agenda and why are other companies not being brought to book. A nation where over a billion people eat unhygienic food is only this brand of noodle a threat?
• In the US the adopted dad of the famous for nearly nothing Kardashians turned from gold medal winner at the Olympics to a cover model for Vanity Fair after undergoing a series of operations. While it may have caused laughter the agony of making such a change is underscored by medical science which says it requires a lot of conviction.
• China went into deep grief after a cruise ship keeled over in a storm drowning over 400 people in the worst ever maritime tragedy in modern Chinese history. As the huge vessel was righted after the storm abated cabins are being searched and the toll could rise even more. The Chinese government said: There will be no cover-up of the investigation. The captain and first officer are being interrogated.
• The already sticky FIFA scandal takes an even uglier twist with information coming that the 2010 vote of the World Cup was actually won by Morocco but skewered to hand it over to South Africa. The stink over allegations for future tourneys and the selected venues can only get murkier as more evidence of colossal wrongdoing come into the open.
• Scandal continues to reign in sport as famous athletics coach Alberto Salazar had doped US 10,000-meter record holder Galen Rupp in 2002. The world class long distance runner known for his marathon efforts is now really up the creek without a paddle. In the present circumstances his position as head of the Nike Oregon Project might well be in jeopardy in the undercurrent of the ongoing FIFA probe.
• In Pakistan a bit of shock for most citizens as Nobel prizewinner Malala Yousufzai’s attackers have supposedly been set free. Of the ten indicted and given life sentences for the 2012 attack, eight are supposedly out and about. The government has made no clarification on this issue.
• The Rohyinga boat people are no longer a news story even as Europe rescued 3,500 Africans from the high seas. Almost no country is willing to take them in and the global expressions of pity become largely meaningless. The last time a people were literally marooned was when the Vietnam boat people in the late seventies were escaping Viet Cong reprisals.