‘The great tragedy of the century’

March 12, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Ukraine is the latest world problem, but it should not eclipse the most serious one: Syria.

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The missing Boeing 777 jetliner changed course over the sea, crossed Malaysia and reached the Strait of Malacca – hundreds of miles from its last position recorded by civilian authorities, Malaysian military officials said Tuesday, citing military radar data. The development added confusion into what is emerging as one of most puzzling aviation incidents in recent years, and it has raised questions about why the Malaysia Airlines flight apparently was not transmitting signals detectable by civilian radar or sending distress calls after it turned back. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials said two Iranian men traveling on the flight with stolen passports who had bought tickets to Europe were probably not terrorists.

The head of the US Senate Intelligence Committee accused the CIA Tuesday of criminal activity in improperly searching a computer network set up for lawmakers investigating allegations that the agency used torture in terror investigations during the Bush administration. Democrat Dianne Feinstein, in an extraordinary speech on the Senate floor, publicly aired an intense but formerly quiet dispute between Congress and the spy agency. She said the matter has been referred to the Justice Department for further investigation.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said Tuesday he would like more US troops in the country to guarantee its security within NATO, which Poland joined 15 years ago this week. Formerly a Warsaw Pact nation, Poland joined NATO in 1999.

A friend of Oscar Pistorius testified in the Olympian’s South African murder trial Tuesday that the athlete twice fired guns, for which the double-amputee is charged with firearms violations. Pistorius denies guilt in both events, which took place before he shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Feb. 14, 2013. But his friend Darren Fresco testified Tuesday that Pistorius shot a gun through a car’s sunroof, after having an altercation with police and months later in a separate incident was holding a gun when it accidentally fired in a busy restaurant.

Democratic senators clocked an all-nighter, working in shifts into Tuesday morning to warn of the devastation from climate change and the danger of inaction. Addressing a nearly empty chamber and visitor gallery, more than two dozen speakers agreed with each other about the need to act on climate change. Republicans largely stayed away, arguing hours earlier that regulation would cost Americans jobs in a sluggish economy.

An Israeli airstrike killed three Gaza militants on Tuesday near an area where an unmanned Israeli surveillance aircraft crashed earlier in the day, a Gaza official said. The Israeli military said the Skylark drone experienced a technical malfunction and it was investigating what caused it to go down. Israel uses drones to gather intelligence on militant activity in Gaza, a territory governed by the Palestinian Islamic militant group Hamas, and where several other armed groups also operate.

More than half of Syria’s school-age children – 2.8 million and counting – cannot get an education because of the devastation and violence from a civil war now entering its fourth year, the UN children’s agency said Tuesday. Most of those – 2.3 million of Syria’s nearly 5 million children who should be in classes – remain within Syria’s borders, as education and health services collapse and classrooms are bombed or used as shelters and military barracks.

A Soyuz capsule carrying a US-Russian crew returning after spending nearly six months on the International Space Station landed safely on the steppes of Kazakhstan. NASA said in a live TV broadcast that the capsule carrying American Mike Hopkins and Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy touched down as scheduled southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan at 9:24 a.m. local time Tuesday. They spent 166 days in orbit on the space station.

US employers advertised slightly more jobs in January than in December, a sign that hiring should remain steady in coming months. The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers posted 3.9 million job openings, up 1.5 percent from December. That is still below November’s nearly six-year high of 4.1 million, the first month that openings topped 4 million since March 2008.

A military judge on Tuesday dismissed the jury in the midst of an Army general’s court martial on sexual assault charges to give prosecutors and defense lawyers time to hammer out a plea deal in the closely watched case in Fort Bragg, N.C. Judge Col. James Pohl made the highly unusual move after new evidence indicated that political concerns may have improperly influenced military officials’ rejection of a previous plea offer by made by Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair.

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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