World news wrap: Deals reached, tragedies revisited
LONDON -- This week in world news, a deal was reached that President Obama says will make the world a safer place, his Israeli counterpart called him a liar, Greece was handed a spoonful of bitter medicine, a contemporary murder mystery remained unsolved, and a man was sentenced to prison for his role decades ago in the murder of more than 300,000 people.
We've got a deal
After 18 days of heated negotiations, senior diplomats from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia managed to seal a deal that will lift a battery of sanctions against Iran in exchange for the Islamic Republic putting the brakes on its suspect nuclear program.
Iran will all but cease its enrichment activities and allow international inspectors greatly increased oversight of its nuclear work for 10 years. President Obama, who was keen to see the deal inked as a major cornerstone of his foreign policy legacy, said with the agreement in place, the "international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not be able to develop a nuclear weapon... Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off."
But is it a bad deal?
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has led the charge against the Iran nuclear deal, which he dubbed an "historic mistake" as soon as it was agreed.
Netanyahu, who like many Israelis considers Iran an existential threat and doesn't trust the ruling Islamic clerics, told CBS News' Scott Pelley the deal would only give the Iranian "terror machine" more room to maneuver.
And the Israeli Prime Minister is not alone. Many in the U.S. Congress are extremely wary of the diplomatic concessions made in the deal, and angry that it will almost certainly be cemented in international law months before lawmakers have had a chance to scrutinize it closely and vote on whether it should even have been adopted by the U.S. government in the first place.
Greece hangs on
Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras convinced his flailing nation's European creditors on Monday that Athens can tighten its belt and pay back its debts, likely securing a three-year bailout to worth $93 billion to keep the Greek economy on life support.
While the details of the deal remain to be thrashed out, and the concessions he had to make - which will mean even deeper austerity cuts for Greeks - may have doomed him politically, Tsipras seems to have appeased Greece's financial overlords sufficiently to keep the country in the eurozone. For now.
MH17
One year ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine, making 298 civilians who had nothing to do with the civil war raging in the region victims of the bloodshed.
Russia, which has backed the Ukrainian rebels from the beginning of the conflict, claims it was a Ukrainian government jet or missile that downed the Boeing 777. That flies in the face of still-mounting evidence suggesting it was in fact the rebels who pulled the trigger, likely thinking they were firing on a Ukrainian military aircraft.
The official international investigation is due to give its report in October, likely declaring the culprit, but the recent history of the Ukraine conflict suggests even that is unlikely to end the casting of blame by either side.
Accountant of Auschwitz
Germany sentenced a 94-year-old former Nazi death camp guard to four years in prison as an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews.
Oskar Groening never denied his moral guilt for his role at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, admitting he was tasked with collecting the prisoners' stolen valuables and logging them for his Nazi commanders.
In one of the most remarkable moments of the historic trial - which effectively lowered the bar for murder convictions in Germany - one Auschwitz survivor forgave Groening for his actions.