These are the headlines we are tracking for you in this episode of On the News Line:
Debt: A US national security threat
The US national security director has told the senate intelligence committee that the country’s colossal debt poses a serious threat to America’s economic and national security. Daniel Coats said the nation’s debt which stands at over twenty trillion dollars, is likely to escalate due to recently passed fiscal measures in Congress. US government figures show that the country’s debt has witnessed a one-hundred and twenty-three percent spike over the past decade. Much of the debt is blamed on the previous administration’s efforts to break free of the financial crisis. The US total debt is now nearly 105 percent of Gross Domestic Product, just shy of its highest level since the Second World War.
Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza Strip
A new revelation has exposed a yet another dark side of Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization says a total of 54 Palestinians died last year waiting for what it has described as record low Israeli medical permits. It said the Israelis had only granted on-time permits to half of those who wanted to seek medical care outside the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip. This, the World Health Organization says, clearly shows the depth of suffering imposed on people in the coastal enclave. The case has once again brought into the spotlight an old suspicion that the Israelis are pushing ahead a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.