A prayer for peace in the Middle East

June 09, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

What happened in Rome yesterday didn’t have the look and feel of power politics.

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Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid has criticized Israeli settlement construction in isolated parts of the West Bank as a waste of money and threatened to bring down the country’s governing coalition if it heeds hard-line calls to annex settlements. Lapid delivered his speech Sunday at a high-profile security conference in the coastal town of Herzliya. He said it makes no sense to continue investing in infrastructure in areas that will never remain part of Israel. Instead, Israel should dismantle these settlements, Lapid said.

Bulgaria’s prime minister has ordered on Sunday a halt to construction work on the Gazprom-led South Stream pipeline project planned to bypass Ukraine as a transit country and consolidating Russia’s energy grip in Europe. Plamen Oresharski said after meeting US Sens. John McCain, Christopher Murphy, and Ron Johnson that he has ordered all work on the disputed project to continue only after consultations with Brussels.

China’s foreign minister met with his Indian counterpart on Sunday, hoping that his two-day visit with India’s new leaders will spur stalled trade between the Asian nations and ease decades of tensions between them. Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which took power late last month, for its “sincerity and enthusiasm” in immediately reaching out to China and other countries, according to an interview published Sunday in The Hindu newspaper.

Vietnamese and Philippine naval personnel played football, volleyball, and tug of war Sunday in a rare display of camaraderie in the South China Sea, where their territorial rifts with China have flared alarmingly. The daylong sports festival was held on Vietnamese-occupied Southwest Cay Island and also included cultural presentations, the two countries’ navies said in a joint statement.

Egypt’s newly sworn-in president vowed Sunday that there would be no reconciliation with anyone who had “committed crimes” or “adopted violence” against Egyptians, a thinly veiled reference to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was addressing a gathering at a Cairo presidential palace hours after he was sworn in as Egypt’s president before the Supreme Constitutional Court.

In a rare comment on FIFA issues by a World Cup sponsor, Adidas said it was concerned about renewed allegations of corruption. The World Cup ball provider spoke out following claims of financial wrongdoing linked to Qatari former FIFA board member Mohamed bin Hammam and his country’s successful 2022 World Cup hosting bid.

An Oklahoma company has created a protective blanket that developers say could give children a better chance of surviving debris from a tornado – or bullets from a 9 mm handgun. The Bodyguard Blanket, made by ProTecht, is a bulletproof pad that features backpack-like straps, which allows users to put it on and then duck and cover.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

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