Greeks say no to austerity

January 26, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Yesterday's vote may be a turning point in the post-war European integration project.

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A radical left-wing party vowing to end Greece's painful austerity program won a historic victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, setting the stage for a showdown with the country's international creditors that could shake the eurozone. Alexis Tsipras, leader of the communist-rooted Syriza party, immediately promised to end the "five years of humiliation and pain" that Greece has endured since an international bailout saved it from bankruptcy in 2010.

Ukraine's president said Sunday that intercepted radio and telephone conversations prove that Russia-backed separatists were responsible for firing the rockets that pounded the southeastern city of Mariupol and killed at least 30 people. The attack on Mariupol, a strategically situated port city that had been relatively quiet for months, alarmed the West and looked likely further to aggravate relations with Russia. Putting the blame squarely on Moscow, President Barack Obama said the US would work with its European partners to "ratchet up the pressure on Russia."

From the prime minister to ordinary people, Japanese were shocked Sunday at a video purportedly showing one of two Japanese hostages of the extremist Islamic State group had been killed. With attention focused on efforts to save the other hostage, some also criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's drive for a more assertive Japan as responsible for the hostage crisis. A somber Abe appeared on public broadcaster NHK early Sunday demanding the militants release 47-year-old journalist Kenji Goto unharmed. He said the video was likely authentic, and offered condolences to the family and friends of Haruna Yukawa.

In fierce fighting Sunday that killed more than 200 combatants, Nigerian troops clashed with Islamic extremists who attacked Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeastern Nigeria, from three fronts. At the same time the insurgents continued scorched-earth attacks on villages 125 miles to the south in Adamawa state, killing residents, looting and burning homes and abducting dozens of trapped women and children, according to Vandu Kainu and other escaping survivors. The multiple attacks come as US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital nearly 1,000 miles southwest of Maiduguri, to encourage peaceful elections on Feb. 14 in Africa's most populous country.

A winter that has largely spared the Northeast thus far is about to arrive with gusto: a storm the National Weather Service called "potentially historic" could dump 2 feet or more of snow between New York and Boston. Blizzard conditions with heavy snow and powerful winds are possible in both cities starting Monday and into Tuesday, and snow should arrive in some areas before daybreak – just in time for the start of the work week.

A top UN official in the fight against Ebola greeted just three patients at one treatment center he visited last week in Sierra Leone. Families in Liberia are no longer required to cremate the remains of loved ones to halt the spread of the virulent disease. And in the streets of Guinea's capital, it is rare to see the formerly ubiquitous plastic buckets of bleach and water for hand washing. Ten months after it dawned on health officials that they were facing an unprecedented Ebola outbreak in West Africa, experts and officials agree the tide is turning, although previous lulls have proved short-lived.

“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.

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