NEWS IN BRIEF

Date: 28 February 2015 - 21:35

News ID: ۱۱۴۹۴

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed on Friday to use all means at his disposal to hunt down militants such as "Jihadi John" after the killer was identified as a Kuwaiti-born computer programming graduate from London.
The black-clad militant brandishing a knife and speaking with an English accent was shown in videos released by Islamic State (IS) apparently decapitating hostages including Americans, Britons and Syrians.
"When there are people anywhere in the world who commit appalling and heinous crimes against British citizens, we will do everything we can with the police, with the security services, with all that we have at our disposal to find these people and put them out of action," Cameron said.
Cameron refused to comment on the identification of "Jihadi John" as 26-year-old British militant Mohammed Emwazi, but said that people should get behind the security services, which he praised as impressive and dedicated to defending Britain.
Emwazi was known to the security services, which had tried to recruit him, according to prisoners' group Cage. The case has sparked debate about whether the security services let him slip through their grasp to join IS in Syria.

ABU DHABI (PRESS TV) – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has denied reports of selling military supplies to Ukraine despite earlier statements by senior Ukrainian officials confirming an arms deal with the UAE.
"An agreement on cooperation in defense technologies the UAE and Ukraine signed recently does not stipulate any contracts for deliveries of weaponry to the Ukrainian side,” said Faraj Faris al-Mazrouei, an adviser to UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as cited in a Friday report by the Emarat Al-Yawm news portal.
According to the report quoting al-Mazrouei, the deal signed between Ukraine and the UAE was only one element in a future system of cooperation between the two nations in the field of military technologies.
The development comes as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said earlier this week after a meeting with top UAE officials that military technical-cooperation agreements were signed to bolster Ukraine’s arms industry, which he said would secure several export orders.
He further described the deals as "extremely important, so we have the money to modernize our armed forces.”
Additionally, Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister, stated in a post on his Facebook page that the UAE-Ukraine deal would include "the supply of certain types of arms and military equipment to Ukraine” by the UAE.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives gave final approval on Friday to a one-week stopgap spending bill for the domestic security agency, averting a partial shutdown with just hours to spare before a midnight deadline.
After a chaotic day that featured an embarrassing rebuke to Republican House Speaker John Boehner from angry conservatives, the House voted 357-60 to keep the lights on at the Department of Homeland Security for at least one more week.
The Senate had already passed the one-week extension a few hours earlier. President Barack Obama was expected to quickly sign it.
The dizzying twists and turns in the days-long political battle raised fresh questions about Boehner's ability to manage his caucus of restive conservatives and the prospects for legislative achievement in the new, Republican-run Congress.
Earlier on Friday, the House rejected a three-week funding extension for the agency when conservatives rebelled because the bill did not block Obama's executive orders on immigration. On a second try late in the evening, House Democrats provided the votes to pass a one-week extension.
Democrats said they were optimistic a bill with nearly $40 billion in department funding for the full fiscal year, already passed by the Senate, would advance in the House next week.