Don’t let Afghanistan backslide

December 30, 2013 - Daily News Briefing

After more than a dozen years of nation-building, the world can’t afford to let Afghanistan slip away from civilization again.

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Israel has announced the names of 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners it will release this week. All have served sentences of between 19 and 28 years. Under heavy pressure from US Secretary of State John Kerry, the sides resumed peace talks in July. As a precondition, the Palestinians were forced to drop a demand for a halt in settlement construction. In exchange, Israel agreed to release 104 of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners it holds. This week’s release will be the third of four planned phases.

Saudi Arabia has pledged $3 billion to Lebanon to help strengthen the country’s armed forces and purchase weapons from France, Lebanon’s president said Sunday, calling it the biggest grant ever for the nation’s military. Michel Sleiman, who made the surprise announcement in a televised national address, did not provide any further details. The Lebanese Army has struggled to contain a rising tide of violence linked to the civil war in neighboring Syria.

About 20,000 people protested in Ukraine’s capital on Sunday, maintaining more than a month of rallies opposing the government’s decision to shelve a key deal with the European Union. But the turnout on a clear, cold day was markedly lower than at previous rallies, which had attracted hundreds of thousands of people in Kiev.

The defending NFL champion Baltimore Ravens will be at home for the playoffs, having been eliminated by the Cincinnati Bengals, 34-17, Sunday. The Ravens became the sixth Super Bowl champ in the last 12 years that failed to advance to the postseason.

A German magazine lifted the lid on the operations of the the National Security Agency’s hacking unit Sunday, reporting that American spies intercept computer deliveries, exploit hardware vulnerabilities, and even hijack Microsoft’s internal reporting system to spy on their targets. Der Spiegel’s revelations relate to a division of the NSA known as Tailored Access Operations, which is painted as an elite team of hackers.

Rockets from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Sunday, causing no injuries but sparking an Israeli reprisal shelling in a rare flare-up between the two countries.

Dozens of lawsuits seeking damages from the federal government for hurricane Katrina-related levee failures and flooding in the New Orleans area are over. US District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. has dismissed the cases. The move comes more than a year after a federal appeals court overturned his ruling that held the US Army Corps of Engineers liable for flooding caused by lax maintenance of a shipping channel.

The organizers of New York’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration announced Sunday that US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will lead the final 60-second countdown and push the ceremonial button to signal the descent of the Times Square ball. Sotomayor is a native of the Bronx borough of New York City.

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.

Rockets from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Sunday, causing no injuries but sparking an Israeli reprisal shelling in a rare flare-up between the two countries.

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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