The Ukraine tragedy

February 04, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

A conflict that didn't exist a year ago is again widening, and civilians are increasingly being endangered.

Subscribe Now to read this post!

To read this post and thousands more articles, subscribe today!

A video released online Tuesday purportedly shows a Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State extremist group in Syria last month being burned to death by his captors following a weeklong hostage drama.The Associated Press was not immediately able to confirm the authenticity of the video. Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, 26, fell into the hands of the militants in December 2014 when his Jordanian F-16 crashed near Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the group's self-styled caliphate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Tuesday for scrapping a UN commission, which is tasked with investigating potential war crimes committed last summer in Gaza, after the inquiry's chief resigned amid accusations from Israel that he was biased against the country. Mr. Netanyahu said the commission, set up by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, was an "anti-Israeli body" that had a proven track record of doing nothing about true human rights violations around the world. The UN commission is due to issue its report next month.

Standard & Poor's is paying about $1.38 billion to settle government allegations that it knowingly inflated its ratings of risky mortgage investments that helped trigger the financial crisis. The McGraw Hill Financial subsidiary Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC reached a settlement with the Justice Department over ratings issued from 2004 through 2007. The settlement also resolves lawsuits filed by the attorneys general of 19 states and the District of Columbia.

The United Nations' top court ruled Tuesday that Serbia and Croatia did not commit genocide against each other's people during the bloody 1990s wars sparked by the breakup of Yugoslavia. The ruling could help put to rest lingering animosities between the Balkan neighbors. The International Court of Justice said Serb forces committed widespread crimes in Croatia early in the war, but these did not amount to genocide. The 17-judge panel then ruled that a 1995 Croat offensive to win back territory from rebel Serbs also featured serious crimes, but did not reach the level of genocide.

The gap in bachelor-degree attainment between the nation's richest and poorest students by age 24 has doubled during the last four decades, according to a report released Tuesday. The percent of students from the lowest-income families — those making $34,160 a year or less — earning a bachelor's degree has inched up just 3 points since 1970, rising from 6 to 9 percent by 2013. Meanwhile, college completion for students from the wealthiest families has risen dramatically, climbing from 44 to 77 percent.

Cuba has published the first photos of Fidel Castro in more than five months, showing the 88-year-old former leader engaged in what appears to be a lively conversation with a university student. Nearly two dozen images were published virtually simultaneously on the websites of Cuba's main state media outlets around midnight Monday. In them, Castro is seated and discussing current events with the head of the main Cuban student union. A first-person account by student leader Randy Perdomo Garcia says the meeting took place on Jan. 23.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" will not be Harper Lee's only published book after all. Publisher Harper announced Tuesday that "Go Set a Watchman," a novel the Pulitzer Prize-winning author completed in the 1950s and put aside, will be released July 14. Rediscovered last fall, "Go Set a Watchman" is essentially a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," although it was finished earlier. The 304-page book will be Lee's second, and the first new work in more than 50 years.

“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.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

“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.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

Subscribe Now to read this post!

Are you sure?

Forgot to add folder?

Tags Error