The Ukraine conflict must be contained

July 18, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

If the skies of Eastern Europe are no longer safe for air travel, the Ukraine crisis has, in effect, become a global crisis.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday instructed the military to begin a ground offensive in Gaza, an official statement from his office said. Reuters witnesses and Gaza residents reported heavy artillery and naval shelling and helicopter fire along the Gaza border. Israel and Palestinian militants in the densely populated enclave have been fighting a cross border war for 10 days. Hamas said Israel's ground incursion into the Gaza Strip that started on Thursday would have "dreadful consequences". On Thursday night, loud thuds and flashes of orange light lit the sky in the eastern Gaza strip as Israeli gunboats fired shells and tracer fire, while artillery and helicopters fired over the border, Reuters witnesses on both sides of the border said.

A Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane and Ukrainian troops were fired upon by missiles from a village inside Russia, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council said Thursday. The alleged episodes mark what Ukraine says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine who have been seen to have substantial quantities of powerful weapons in recent weeks. Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet hit by the air-to-air missile Wednesday evening was forced to bail after his jet was shot down. He said the rockets launched at Ukrainian troops were fired from the Russian village of Kuibyshevo.

Robbers fleeing a California bank took three women hostage and threw two of them from their getaway vehicle, as they fired repeatedly at police during a high-speed chase. Police shot out their tires but the shooting continued, fatally wounding two suspects and the last hostage. The violence in this central California city erupted Wednesday afternoon when officers responded to a report of a robbery at a Bank of the West branch and spotted three men taking three female hostages from the bank at gunpoint, Stockton police officer Joe Silva said.

Gunmen carried out a pre-dawn rocket attack on Kabul International Airport on Thursday, temporarily shutting down the facility and setting off a gun battle with security forces in which four attackers were killed, officials said. The militants occupied two buildings which were under construction some 700 meters north of the facility, and were using them as a base to direct rockets and gunfire toward the airport and international jet fighters flying over Kabul, said Afghan army Gen. Afzal Aman. Kabul Police Chief Mohammed Zahir Zahir later said four of the attackers were killed and that the attack was halted without any civilian or police casualties.

Worsening wildfire activity prompted the governor's offices in both Washington and Oregon to declare a state of emergency, a move that enables state officials to call up the National Guard. Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has issued an emergency declaration in response to wildfires Wednesday. Authorities in Central Washington State urged residents of nearly 900 homes to flee a wildfire fueled by strong winds that was tearing through timber in its path late Wednesday.

Even though Rupert Murdoch's $76 billion bid for rival media giant Time Warner Inc. has been rejected, that doesn't mean the change sweeping through the TV and film industries will stop any time soon. The cash-and-stock bid by Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. was partly meant to counter consolidation among US TV distributors like Comcast-Time Warner Cable and AT&T-DirecTV. The more must-have channels like HBO and Fox News Channel are assembled under one company, the stronger that company's bargaining position in demanding licensing fees from the TV distributors, no matter how big they get.

“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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