Building the right sort of union

August 14, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Strains are showing in Mr. Putin's new Eurasian Economic Union because of his Ukraine policies.

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Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday he will not relinquish power until a federal court rules on what he called a "constitutional violation" by the president to replace him with a member of his own party. The embattled premier has grown increasingly isolated, with Iraqi politicians and much of the international community lining up behind Haider al-Abadi, a fellow member of his Shiite Dawa party tasked by the president with forming a new government that can unite the country in the face of an onslaught by Sunni militants.

Calling the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan "catastrophic," France said Wednesday it would start supplying arms to the Kurdish forces fighting Sunni extremists from the Islamic State group.The sudden announcement that arms would begin to flow within hours underlined France's alarm at the urgency of the situation in Iraq, where the Islamic State fighters are threatening the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. The shipment of French arms, which the government refused to describe, follows the United States' increased role in fighting back the Islamic State extremists.

Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday, throwing the October election into disarray and causing big swings in local financial markets. Mr. Campos' private jet crashed in bad weather as it prepared to land in the coastal city of Santos, just south of Sao Paulo, killing all seven people on board, the Sao Paulo state fire department said. Television images showed smoke billowing from the crash site in a residential area.

More than two months' worth of rain fell in two hours on New York's Long Island on Wednesday, causing flash flooding and swamping cars on roads that were turned into rivers during the morning rush hour. A total of 13.1 inches was measured at Long Island's MacArthur Airport in Islip, said Christopher Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Weather Service. Lauren Nash, a National Weather Service meteorologist, told The New York Times that total rainfall in Islip, on Long Island reached more than 13 inches by 8 a.m., beating the previous daily record of 6.7 inches. The Seaford Oyster Bay Expressway was partially closed due to flooding, police said, and television video of other roadways showed cars submerged up to their windows. The weather system was the same one that drenched Washington and Baltimore on Tuesday, Vaccaro said.

Six French climbers died in a fall on France's Mont Blanc after a night of snow and wind on Western Europe's tallest mountain, officials said Wednesday. The six included five experienced climbers and a guide. An investigation to uncover the exact cause of the accident was underway. The climbers were taking part in a two-week mountaineering course with the guide and were reported missing overnight when they failed to return to a refuge. They had been on a planned trip to the Aiguille d'Argentiere, which tops out at 12,800 feet.

Archaeologists excavating an ancient mound in northern Greece have uncovered what appears to be the entrance to an important tomb from about the end of the reign of warrior-king Alexander the Great, officials said Tuesday. Alexander, who started from the northern Greek region of Macedonia to build an empire stretching as far as India, died in 323 B.C. and was buried in Egypt. His fellow royals were traditionally interred in a cemetery near Vergina, far to the west, where the lavishly-furnished tomb of Alexander's father, Philip II, was discovered in the 1970s. But archaeologists believe the apparently unlooted Amphipolis grave, which is surrounded by a surprisingly long and well-built wall with courses of marble decorations, may have belonged to a senior ancient official.

“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.

“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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