The Islamic State vs. a chaise lounge

December 07, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

President Obama addressed the Islamic State threat Sunday. The real threat defies simplistic promises and solutions.

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Negotiators adopted a draft climate agreement in Paris Saturday, but the agreement is cluttered with brackets and competing options, leaving ministers with the job of untangling key sticking points in what is envisioned to become a lasting, universal pact to fight global warming. The U.N. talks outside Paris are at their midway point, and the 48-page draft agreement has been sent along to environment and foreign ministers who will work on it next week.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry set off an uproar in Israel on Sunday after warning that the country, through its continued West Bank occupation, will become a "binational state." Kerry's words describe a scenario that would mark a failure of U.S. policy and end to Israel's existence as a country that is both Jewish and democratic. The U.S., the international community and many Israelis have endorsed the "two-state solution" — establishing a Palestinian state and ending Israel's control over millions of Palestinians in territories occupied in the 1967 war.

Iraq's president said Saturday he wants Turkish troops out of Iraq, calling their presence a violation of international law. Turkey has had a military battalion equipped with armored vehicles in the Bashiqa region close to Mosul in the northern Ninevah province for the last five months as part of a training mission to help local forces fighting the Islamic State. There is no word why Iraq's central government is only now making an issue of the training mission's presence.

French voters cast ballots Sunday for regional leaders in an unusually tense security climate, expected to favor conservative and far right candidates and strike a new blow against the governing Socialists. Marine Le Pen's anti-immigration National Front is hoping the two-round voting that started Sunday will consolidate political gains she has made in recent years — and strengthen its legitimacy as she prepares to seek the presidency in 2017.

Thousands of South Koreans, many wearing masks, marched in Seoul on Saturday against conservative President Park Geun-hye, who had compared masked protesters to terrorists after clashes with police broke out at a rally last month. The march Saturday was organized by labor, farmer and civic groups to protest what they say are setbacks in labor conditions and personal and political freedoms under Park's government. About 14,000 people turned out for the demonstration, police said.

National legislative elections in Venezuela on Sunday were a serious electoral test for its socialist system, with results expected today. Until recently, the opposition was seen as coasting to its first major electoral victory since Chavez became president in 1998, with Venezuelans tired of rampant crime, routine shortages of basic goods and inflation. But support for the government has grown slightly in recent polls.

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