Finding the right way to compromise

June 24, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

The issue in both Iraq and Ukraine is structuring a compromise that incorporates opponents and decreases opposition.

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The last of Syria's acknowledged stockpile of chemical weapons has been handed over to Western governments for destruction, the organization charged with overseeing the elimination of such weapons said Monday.

The final eight percent of the 1,300-ton stockpile, which included mustard gas and raw materials for making sarin nerve gas, have been loaded onto Danish and Norwegian ships in the Syrian port of Latakia, said Ahmet Uzumcu, the director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Speaking at a press conference in The Hague, Uzumcu acknowledged that it is possible Syria has avoided declaring some part of its arsenal.

"I can't say that Syria doesn't have any chemical weapons anymore," he said. However, he added that is true for any country that his organization cooperates with, and Syria's declared arsenal was close to estimates made by external security analysts and experts.

A magnitude-8.0 earthquake was widely felt in communities along Alaska's sparsely populated Aleutian Islands on Monday, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

Natasha Ruppert, a seismologist with the Alaska Earthquake Center, said the communities that would have suffered damage are also under tsunami warnings, so people may not have been able to get out and check for damage yet.

The earthquake recorded at 12:53 p.m. local time was initially reported with a magnitude of 7.1, but Ruppert says that was upgraded to 8.0. The quake was centered about 13 miles southeast of Little Sitkin Island.

It was recorded at a depth of 60 miles, which is relatively shallow for an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands. The shallower the quake, the more likely it will be felt.

The National Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas between Nikolski to Attu, on the Aleutian Islands. A warning means significant inundation is possible or occurring. Residents are being warned to move inland toward higher ground.

Israel's prime minister on Monday warned the warring parties in Syria against any attempt to heat up tensions with Israel, hours after the Israeli air force carried out a string of airstrikes in Syria in response to a deadly cross-border attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would respond with even tougher force if there are any further attacks against his country.

"Last night we operated with great force against Syrian targets that acted against us, and if needed we will use additional force," he told members of his Likud Party. "We will continue to forcefully hurt anyone who attacks us or tries to attack us."

The Israeli military said the air raids struck nine targets in neighboring Syria.

The Syrian government says a series of Israeli airstrikes targeting troops killed four people and wounded nine others in its first comment on the incident.

A statement issued by the Foreign Ministry also said the attacks caused extensive damage to Syrian army positions and equipment.

It said five Israeli warplanes carried out the raids, which were accompanied by mortar rounds and tank shells. It called the attack a "flagrant violation" of its sovereignty and accused Israel of backing rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The South Korean army captured a soldier Monday who it says killed five comrades and then fled into the forest where he holed up with a rifle for two days before shooting himself as pursuers closed in.

The massive manhunt ended when the 22-year-old sergeant, surnamed Yim, shot himself in the upper left chest as his father and brother approached, pleading with him to surrender, a Defense Ministry official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules, said Yim was taken to a hospital but his life wasn't in danger. He didn't elaborate.

Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said the soldier would be handed to military investigators later. Soldiers retrieved Yim's rifle and ammunition at the site.

Troops had been chasing Yim since authorities said he killed five fellow soldiers and wounded seven Saturday night. He then fled his frontline unit with his standard-issue K2 assault rifle.

He fired Sunday on the soldiers chasing him, injuring a platoon leader. On Monday, officials said a South Korean soldier was wounded by suspected friendly fire.

Earlier Monday, troops surrounding Yim in the forest tossed him a mobile phone so he could talk to his father. They also threw him bread and bottled water. His parents went to the area to try to persuade him to surrender.

It wasn't clear what triggered the rampage; there was no indication that South Korea's bitter rival, North Korea, was involved.

Pope Francis journeyed Saturday to the heart of Italy's biggest crime syndicate, met the father of a 3-year-old boy slain in the region's drug war, and declared that all mobsters are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

During his one-day pilgrimage to the southern region of Calabria, Francis comforted the imprisoned father of Nicola Campolongo in the courtyard of a prison in the town of Castrovillari.

In January the boy was shot, along with one of his grandfathers and the grandfather's girlfriend, in an attack blamed on drug turf wars in the nearby town of Cassano all'Jonio. The attackers torched the car with all three victims inside.

The boy's father and mother already were in jail at the time on drug trafficking charges. The pope had expressed his horror following the attack and promised to visit the town.

Francis embraced the man. He asked the pope to pray for the boy's mother, who was permitted to leave prison following her son's slaying and remains under house arrest. The pope also met two of the boy's grandmothers.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said Francis told the father: "May children never again have to suffer in this way."

The world's largest atom smasher is gearing up for its second three-year run after 16 months of maintenance and upgrades.

The Large Hadron Collider, which was used to discover a long-theorized subatomic particle, is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around a 17-mile tunnel on the Swiss-French border near Geneva. The world's top particle physics lab known by its French acronym CERN said Monday that the $10 billion collider is being improved and is on track to resume early next year at double its former energy level.

Once it restarts, two beams will be fired again within the collider at the same time in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the Big Bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe. The next CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time.

"The machine is coming out of a long sleep after undergoing an important surgical operation," said Frederick Bordry, director for accelerators and technology at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

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.