Aug. 14, 2014 UN SIGNALS RED ALERT IN IRAQ The United Nations has declared the situation in Iraq a “Level 3 emergency,” its highest for a humanitarian crisis, as deadly fights between the army and ISIS terrorists killed at least four children west of Baghdad, AP reports. This came as U.S. troops and aid workers arrived on Mount Sinjar yesterday to help Yazidi refugees taking shelter. According to the Pentagon, the people were fewer in number and in better conditions than earlier thought, making a rescue mission unnecessary, The Washington Post reports. GAZA TRUCE EXTENDED Israel and Hamas negotiators agreed late yesterday on a five-day extension to the temporary truce despite Israeli strikes in response to alleged rocket fire in the last hours of the previous ceasefire, The Guardian reports. According to Haaretz, the Palestinian delegation to Cairo will meet with several Palestinian leaders before returning to the Egyptian capital Monday for more talks. A Wall Street Journal report says that Washington halted the transfer of Hellfire missiles Israel requested during the Gaza offensive. This apparently came after senior U.S. officials “were caught off guard last month when they learned that the Israeli military had been quietly securing supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon without their approval,” the newspaper writes. VERBATIM “I can only write one word at a time, one sentence at a time, one book at a time,” Game of Thrones author George RR Martin told the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Four books and four accompanying TV series later, he says he can't rush the two books yet to be completed. POLICE BRUTALITY IN FERGUSON, MO. SWAT police officers attacked demonstrators in Ferguson, Mo., last night as they peacefully gathered to protest the Saturday police killing of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown. According to The New York Times, “scores of police officers in riot gear and in armored trucks” trained their guns on the crowd and fired tear gas and rubber bullets, while a police spokesman said protesters threw Molotov cocktails. Several people were arrested, including a Washington Post journalist and two reporters from the The Huffington Post. Read the Washington Post writer’s account here. For more, check out this Slate video of yesterday’s violence. |