A Minister's aide selling sex on line is a security threat and other editorial views from around the world

US-french bromance blossoms - The Scotsman

Macron has found a way to become Trump’s biggest critic and best friend on the world stage
Emmanuel Macron has crushed Donald Trump’s hand in a vice-like grip, publicly snubbed him by swerving away to greet Angela Merkel first, cheekily repurposed the US president’s favourite slogan in the cause of climate change, and even made a public appeal to US scientists to move to France because of the Republican tycoon’s antiscience rhetoric.
And yet, there the French president was, giving a speech to the US Congress in Washington, on the first official state visit of the Trump presidency. In a tweet before the address, Trump said this was “a great honour and seldom allowed to be done … he will be GREAT!”
Somehow Macron seems to have managed to become Trump’s greatest critic, but also perhaps his greatest friend on the global stage and certainly within the European Union. Somehow, he’s become the world’s “Trump whisperer”.

A tempest in an oil patch - The Globe and Mail, Canada 

Yet another Canadian university is in an uproar over a controversial figure’s imminent presence on campus. Only this time it’s not coming from the left. Instead, it’s the University of Alberta’s deans of business and engineering, of all people, denouncing the school’s decision to give an honorary doctorate of science to the environmentalist and broadcaster David Suzuki.
To read their public letters protesting the decision, you might think the university had invited Robert Mugabe to give its convocation address.
The dean of business, Joseph Doucet, said he understood that many alumni and supporters were feeling not just “disappointed” but “betrayed.”
Dean of Engineering Fraser Forbes called the controversy “the worst crisis… we’ve faced in more than three decades.”
“I am not surprised by the level of outrage being expressed across the entire breadth of our engineering community,” he went on. “Surely such is to be expected when one’s fundamental values are so directly questioned!”

Okay, let’s all take a deep breath, shall we? Yes, Mr. Suzuki can be strident. He wants the oil sands to be “shut down.” His views on economics are crude. We do not agree with his extreme approach to curbing climate change.
But he is also an impressive and accomplished figure. ... Mr. Forbes makes a telling claim when he says the decision to honour Mr. Suzuki has “directly questioned” the “fundamental values” of the engineering community.
Even if he were right, isn’t questioning fundamental values exactly what universities are supposed to be about?

Private risk to security - Daily Mirror, London 


HISTORY is littered with political sex scandals. Some are mere tittle-tattle, others, such as the Profumo Affair, are matters of greater seriousness.
Our expose today falls into the second category. We reveal that an aide to a senior Government minister has a lucrative second income from working for a “sugar daddy” website.
How people conduct themselves in private is not generally a matter of public interest. But it is if she’s a civil servant with access to confidential documents concerning matters of state, and who boasts she runs a minister’s life.
There are implications for national security when someone at the centre of Government leaves themselves open to threats of blackmail.
Then there is the question of whether the recruitment process and vetting procedures for Whitehall staff are sufficiently robust.
You cannot put too high a premium on the importance of national security.
If there is a risk of it being compromised then it is right the public should know.

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