NEWS IN BRIEF

Date: 24 June 2015 - 21:32

News ID: ۱۵۳۶۵

ATHENS (Reuters) – Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras flew to Brussels to meet Greece's international creditors on Wednesday to try to bridge gaps on key elements of the proposals made by his left-wing government to shore up state finances in return for vital loans.
Athens had proposed increasing VAT, corporate tax and pension contributions in order to meet budget targets, but Tsipras told aides that creditors had not accepted the revenue-raising measures, a Greek government official said.
"This strange attitude can only mean one of two things: either they do not want an agreement or they are serving specific interests in Greece," Tsipras said in a tweet.
Markets reacted nervously to the comments from Athens, but a European Union official close to the talks, who declined to be named, made clear talks were continuing:
"Nothing has broken down, negotiations are going on and the meeting with Tsipras will go ahead as planned."
Still, with time running out before the June 30 deadline when Greece has to repay 1.6 billion euros ($1.79 billion) to the International Monetary Fund or go into default, another EU official close to the talks said major differences remained.
"Positions before the meeting with Tsipras are still apart on many points," the source said, listing pensions, VAT and corporate taxation. "There was not much progress yesterday."

WASHINGTON (Press TV) – The US Department of Defense has released a book of instructions on the rules of war, detailing acceptable ways of killing the enemy and says that journalists also can be terrorists.
The "Department of Defense Law of War Manual” explains that shooting, exploding, bombing, stabbing, or cutting the enemy are acceptable ways of killing your enemy, but the use of poison or asphyxiating gases is not allowed.
Surprise attacks and killing retreating troops are also permitted in the Pentagon manual.
The 1,176-page book states that journalists can be labeled "unprivileged belligerents,” an obscure term that replaced "unlawful enemy combatant” that was first used during the administration of President George W. Bush.
"In general, journalists are civilians. However, journalists may be members of the armed forces, persons authorized to accompany the armed forces, or unprivileged belligerents,” the manual states.
"Unprivileged belligerent" would refer to someone not offered the rights of the Geneva Conventions, and who would be denied prisoner of war status and can be detained indefinitely.
"It gives them license to attack or even murder journalists that they don’t particularly like but aren’t on the other side,” said Chris Chambers, a professor of journalism at Georgetown University.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Powerful thunderstorms packing heavy rain and high winds lashed the U.S. Middle Atlantic region late on Tuesday, killing one person, snarling travel and cutting off power to hundreds of thousands of customers.
The fast-moving band of storms stretching from Virginia to southern New Jersey dumped up to one inch (2.5 cm) of rain in less than an hour in some places, said Jim Hayes, a National Weather Service meteorologist in College Park, Maryland.
"The storms were intense but they were moving pretty quickly," he said.
Police in Montgomery County, Maryland said a 79-year-old man died after his pickup truck hit a tree that had fallen across the roadway, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Washington D.C.
Private forecaster AccuWeather said the storms would reach into northern New England through the evening as a cold front intersected with hot and humid air.
Winds of up to 70 miles per hour (113 kph) were recorded in southern New Jersey, and the line of storms stretched westward into West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
About 74,000 homes and businesses were without power in northern Virginia and in the Washington and Baltimore areas, power companies reported.