3-Minute Headline News from TRUNEWS 8/28/14

Turkey’s Erdogan sworn in as president, consolidates power

Tayyip Erdogan was sworn in as Turkey’s 12th president on Thursday, cementing his position as its most powerful leader of recent times, in what his opponents fear heralds an increasingly authoritarian rule.

Reading the oath of office in a ceremony in parliament, Erdogan vowed to protect Turkey’s independence and integrity, to abide by the constitution and by the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern secular republic.

Russian forces inside Ukraine

Russian forces have entered Ukraine,” the country’s president declared Thursday, cancelling a foreign trip and calling an emergency meeting of his security council. Reports from analysts to separatist rebels to NATO and U.S. officials backed up that assessment.

President Petro Poroshenko summoned the council as the strategic southeastern town of Novoazovsk appeared firmly under the control of separatists and their Russian backers, a new front in the war in eastern Ukraine between the separatists and Poroshenko’s government in Kiev.

ISLAMIC STATE GROUP KILLS CAPTURED SYRIAN SOLDIERS

The Islamic State group has killed dozens of Syrian soldiers it captured after overrunning a military base in northeastern Syria, shooting some and using knives on others in the latest brutal mass killing attributed to the extremists, activists said Thursday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the militants rounded up the soldiers in the arid countryside on Wednesday near the Tabqa airfield, three days after seizing the base in heavy fighting. The government troops were among a large group of soldiers from the base who were stuck behind the front lines after the airfield fell to the jihadi fighters.

EBOLA CASES COULD EVENTUALLY REACH 20,000

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa eventually could exceed 20,000 cases, more than six times as many as are now known, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

A new plan by the U.N. health agency to stop Ebola also assumes that the actual number of cases in many hard-hit areas may be two to four times higher than currently reported. If that’s accurate, it suggests there could be up to 12,000 cases already.

JPMorgan probes possible cyber attack

JPMorgan Chase & Co is investigating a possible cyber attack and working with law enforcement authorities to determine the scope.

The bank was taking additional steps to safeguard sensitive or confidential information, though it did not see unusual fraud activity at this time.

The FBI said it was investigating several U.S. financial companies have been victims of recent cyber attacks.

Immigration could set stage for big U.S. budget showdown

Conservatives in the U.S. Congress who object to President Barack Obama’s immigration policies are threatening to tie a must-pass budget bill to the issue, making for a possible showdown in September and raising the specter of a government shutdown.

“The president is determined to act where House Republicans won’t,” Earnest said, citing support from the business community, religious leaders, labor unions and law enforcement. “It would be a real shame if Republicans were to engage in an effort to shut down the government over a commonsense solution (on immigration).”