Crafting a fair bargain

November 08, 2013 - Daily News Briefing

Iran is attempting to get painful economic sanctions lifted. The US et al. are trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

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The Senate has approved a bill outlawing workplace discrimination against gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans. The vote reflected the nation’s rapidly evolving attitude toward gay rights nearly two decades after Congress rejected same-sex marriage. The final tally was 64 to 32. Despite the bipartisan vote, the measure’s chances in the House are dim. Speaker John Boehner calls the shots, and he opposes the bill.

The top commander of Congo’s M23 rebel movement and about 1,700 of his fighters surrendered to Ugandan authorities following defeat by Congolese troops, a Ugandan military official said Thursday. The move raised hopes the rebels might sign a peace settlement after 19 months of a brutal insurgency that displaced thousands of people in eastern Congo’s North Kivu Province.

International experts have verified all but one of Syria’s 23 declared chemical weapons sites after receiving video and photographic evidence that shows a facility near the contested northern city of Aleppo has been dismantled and abandoned, the inspectors said Thursday. The Syrian government provided the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations with the photographs and footage of the facility, the OPCW-UN said in a statement.

A Russian rocket soared into the cosmos Thursday carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts to the International Space Station ahead of the first-ever spacewalk for the symbol of peace. Video streamed by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported a flawless docking with the space station about six hours after the craft blasted off from Russia’s manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ingested lethal radioactive polonium before his death nine years ago and had high levels of it in his body that could not have been accidental, Swiss scientists confirmed Thursday. The Swiss lab examined Arafat’s remains, his underclothes, and a bag he had with him in the days before his death in a Paris hospital and found that the polonium and lead amounts could not be naturally occurring.

The European Central Bank startled investors Thursday with a surprise cut in its benchmark interest rate aimed at boosting a hesitant recovery in the 17 countries that use the euro. The bank lowered the benchmark refinancing rate to a record low 0.25 percent from 0.5 percent at a meeting of its 23-member governing council in Frankfurt, causing stock markets to rally and the euro to slump.

The Pakistani Taliban chose the ruthless commander who planned the attack on teenage activist Malala Yousafzai as the militant group’s new leader Thursday, and it ruled out holding peace talks with the government. Mullah Fazlullah was unanimously appointed the new chief by the Taliban’s leadership council, or shura, after several days of deliberation, said the head of the council, Asmatullah Shaheen Bhitani.

Compiled from wire service reports

“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.

Compiled from wire service reports

“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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