The Kurds could show the way in Iraq

August 12, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

They can go it alone. It would be better if they helped all Iraqis see the power of inclusivity.

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The Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, senior US officials said Monday. Previously, the US had insisted on only selling arms to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been losing ground to Islamic State militants in recent weeks. The officials wouldn't say which US agency is providing the arms or what weapons are being sent, but one official said it isn't the Pentagon. The CIA has historically done similar quiet arming operations.

A day of anger over a fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in suburban St. Louis turned to mayhem as people looted businesses, vandalized vehicles and confronted police who sought to block off access to several areas of the city. The tensions erupted after a candlelight vigil Sunday night for 18-year-old Michael Brown, who police said was shot multiple times the previous afternoon after a scuffle involving the officer, Brown and another person in Ferguson, a predominantly black suburb of the city. Afterward, a convenience store was looted. Several other stores along a main road near the shooting scene were broken into, including a check-cashing store, a boutique and a small grocery store.

A drive-by shooting in a New Orleans neighborhood that has struggled with crime since being ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 left a man and an 18-year-old woman dead and five others wounded, three of them children, police said. A woman and two children, aged 2 and 4, were in critical condition and a 13-year-old girl and a 37-year-old woman were in stable condition after the shooting in the Lower Ninth Ward, Officer Frank Robertson, a police spokesman, said in a news release. He said all were in front of a house when a dark car occupied by men drove up, opened fire and sped off. The slain man appeared to be in his late 20s, Robertson said in an email.

The Red Cross will lead an international humanitarian aid operation into Ukraine's conflict-stricken province of Luhansk with assistance from Russia, the European Union and the United States, Ukraine said Monday. The Kremlin earlier announced that it was dispatching the humanitarian convoy into eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russia separatists are battling the central government in Kiev. Officials in Kiev took pains to specify Monday that the Ukrainian government was behind the humanitarian convoy initiative, and that Moscow was only one of several countries involved.

Federal regulators are warning consumers about the risks of using virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Monday that it will begin fielding complaints from people who rely on products such as bitcoin and online exchanges for such currencies. In issuing an advisory warning, the agency noted that the currencies are not backed by the government, have volatile exchanges rates and are targeted by hackers and scammers. And unlike bank accounts, bitcoin-based deposits are not federally insured.

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell ended a meeting in his office by touting the effectiveness of an anti-inflammatory pill marketed by the wealthy businessman who showered him and his wife with thousands of dollars in gifts and loans, a state official said Monday. Sara Wilson, director of the Virginia Department of Human Resource Management, testified about the meeting as the public corruption trial of McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, entered its third week. The McDonnells are charged in a 14-count indictment with accepting more than $165,000 in gifts and secret loans from former Star Scientific Inc. CEO Jonnie Williams in exchange for promoting his company's nutritional supplements, primarily Anatabloc.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto signed into law on Monday new rules governing a historic opening of the state-run oil, gas, and electricity industries to foreign and private companies. President Peña Nieto said that the government will let potential investors know by Wednesday which blocks of gas and oil fields will be open for them.

“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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