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CUI BONO? Understanding ISIS.....

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In September, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani rhetorically asked an NBC correspondent about ISIS: "Who financed them? Who provided them with money? It's really clear -- where do the weapons come from? The terrorists who have come from all the countries, from which channel [did they enter], where were they trained, in which country were they trained? I don't think it is somehow difficult to identify this information." ISIS money has come from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and to a lesser extent Iraq,

Turkey and Qatar's reasons for supporting ISIS have much to do with oil and the politics of refugees. An Iranian pipeline to Syria and then on to Turkey was fine with Syria and Turkey as long as Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were getting along. But with the Syrian civil war spilling hundreds of thousands of refugees into Turkey, Erdoğan's affection for Assad morphed into animosity.

Only a few years earlier, the families of Assad and Erdoğan had vacationed together. The wives---Assam al-Assad and Emine Erdoğan--were headline worthy friends because they visited each other without their husbands. The leaderships of Turkey and Syria held joint cabinet meetings, eliminated visa requirements and even discussed economic union. The Turkish ruling party, the AKP developed a widely heralded narrative "two peoples, one state."

But Assad's repression drove hundreds of thousands of Syrians into Turkey, as Erdoğan faced rising dissent, new Kurdish unrest, and an uncertain election. Erdoğan's remedy, in part was to focus on the "Assad problem, " calling for "regime change."

Doha had its own difficulties with Assad. For several years, the Syrians planned an oil pipeline transiting Syria. Iran planned to tap oil fields that ran deep into Qatar, much in the fashion that Kuwait once drilled Iraq's Rumala fields in the early 1990s. Incensed and incentivized, Doha acted against Assad and his Iranian backers.

ISIS's annual expenditure was said to be 2 billion dollars a year; Acting like a a Fortune 500 firm, ISIS issued a slick annual reports in 2012 and 2013, itemizing attacks and other successes and targets.

The monies ISIS has accessed are breath taking. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hegel put it, "They're beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded."

A campaign of maneuver--involving towed field guns, armored tracked vehicles, including tanks-plowing at speed through a trackless desert. ISIS columns advanced using satellites, and thermal cameras. This kind of campaign is not within the competence of depleted Al Qaeda fighters, or of volunteers from the ranks of Libya's militia, no less the disaffected Europeans flocking to ISIS ranks.

The ISIS invasion that reached to Mosul and the gates of Baghdad was abetted by leadership from Saddam Hussein's long-disbanded army, including colonels and generals, and by Baath Party officials. ISIS' push into Iraq gave Sunni elites their opportunity to strike back at their nemesis, Prime Minister Nuri El Maliki.,

After taking Mosul, the Islamic State installed a Baathist and former Iraqi army general, Azhar al-Obeidi, as the new governor. Another former Baathist general, Ahmed Abdul Rashid, was named governor of Tikrit. These are among the people, said former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack, with "a long history of running Iraq.... [I]t just feels right and natural to the people that they should be in charge."

Notwithstanding ISIS claims that is an agent of a seventh century wisdom, ISIS operates like a multinational mercenary army, with a marketing and media subsidiary, employing professionals to conduct a savvy marketing campaign. The repulsive YouTube snuff films released to horrify and goad the West may appeal to psychopaths. But most of ISIS media efforts, like "The Clanging of the Swords IV" -- a feature length film-- use drone-born cameras, slow-motion graphics, complicated special effects, professionally mixed sound tracks, and expensive cameras.

ISIS has access to state of the art computer and social media, including widely available smart phone "apps" like Dawn of Glad Tidings, software that posts tens of thousands of tweets a day, using third-party accounts--making ISIS messages all but impervious to firewalls. ISIS also devised "Diaspora"--a decentralized network, hosting recruiting materials with production values commonly found in Madison Avenue produced ads for soup or soap. "Diaspora" is all but impervious to firewalls and electronic counter-measures. The ultraconservative desert traditions of the earliest Muslims would not seem to cultivate this type of talent without the most expensive kind of help.

Despite still swelling ISIS ranks, amazing initial success, ISIS money and backing are slipping away. In early August, when ISIS fighters decided to move north towards Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish regional government, it was the start of their undoing. Within hours, President Obama sent fighter jets and heavily armed American advisors to assist in the rescue of the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Soon, France joined in arming Peshmerga fighters. Then the United Kingdom and Germany loosed their stores of light arms. Germany sent special units. And, then, Iran joined the United States in pressing Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki to step down.

ISIS was rocked, but not down, partly buoyed by continued Turkish support. The Turks still held up U.S. supplies for Kurdish fighters. But then Vice President Biden chastised the Turks for supporting ISIS. To drive the point home, the Turks were compelled to rescind a celebratory victory party, on the occasion of gaining a much coveted Security Council seat at the United Nations. The Turks had received letters from 160 members promising them support for their bid for seat. They thought they were a shoo-in. But this September, the Americans withdrew support. When the secret votes were counted, all Turkey could garner was 60 votes. As one astute Turkish observer noted, Obama might not have left a horse's head on Erodogan's pillow, but it amounted to the same thing.

By early November, Turkey allow the Peshmerga safe passage across the Turkish frontier in order to join the fight against ISIS in Syria. And only in the last few days, Vice President Biden and Erodogan ended little publicized talks with an announcement of $135 million for humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees, including those in Turkey. There was no mention of the American-run NATO base at Incirlik, Turkey. NATO base at Incirlik, Some commentators wrote that the continuous unmanned operations from Incirlik would also include manned strikes.

Though it is clear that Turkey has tacked to a strong wind, Turkey is painfully aware that the American-led effort to arm Kurds against ISIS will accelerate a redefinition of a hundred-year old regional order defined in the detritus of World War One. The Levant's remodeling has began with the succession of American interventions. ISIS is dangerous, to be sure, but it is just a part of America and the region's new calculus. How to face an unwelcome future defined by power, interests, oil, and religion is the puzzle. The resignation of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hegel augers that America's bearings are unsteady, still.

Russia Is Returning to Soviet Military Strategy

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the moscow times


French President Francois Hollande has essentially vetoed the transfer of the first Mistral helicopter carrier to Russia. The Elysee Palace announced that Moscow's actions in Ukraine do not create the necessary conditions for the transfer of the warship. In response, Russian officials threatened to appeal to international arbitration and sue France for 3 billion euros -- against the purchase price of 1.2 billion euros for two Mistral carriers -- and several State Duma deputies have called for a ban on imports of French wine.

The situation has obviously reached an impasse. The Kremlin shows no intention of budging on its Ukraine policy and the French authorities worried that they might ultimately see their Mistral ship landing Russian troops on Ukraine's Black Sea coast. The Mistral deal seems to have run aground for the foreseeable future.

In an attempt to put a good face on a bad situation, the Defense Ministry hurried to declare that the warships were not all that necessary anyway. If that is true, why did Russia agree three years ago to put up so much money for them? I think the Mistral deal symbolized the attempt to establish military cooperation between Russia and the West, and France's refusal to transfer an already completed ship indicates the failure of that attempt.

Then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made the initial decision for political reasons. First, he wanted to express his gratitude to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy for helping Moscow overcome its international isolation following the Russia-Georgia War of 2008.

Second, Moscow discovered during that war that its weaponry had become hopelessly obsolete. According to reports, the marines of Russia's Black Sea Fleet received orders to make a landing in Abkhazia and began loading the landing craft on board. However, technical problems caused the loading process to drag on for five days -- that is, over the entire length of the war. Obviously, a landing craft built 30 years ago is practically useless for short, intense local conflicts.

Then-Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who clashed openly with defense industry officials, had his own reasons for the deal. His deputy stated very frankly that the Defense Ministry had no intention of financing ineffective defense industry products. The Mistral purchase was to have been a signal to the defense industry that effectively said: "Either you produce what the Defense Ministry needs, or we will purchase our weapons abroad."

But the most important thing in my opinion is that the Mistral represents a new philosophy for Russia's naval military policy. Russia inherited its entire fleet from the Soviet Union, and that surface fleet was built for one main objective: to protect and support the operations of submarines so that, in the event of hostilities, those subs could fire their missiles at the United States before being destroyed. Today's Russian fleet carries out the same task.

However, the Mistral is built for the fundamentally different naval objectives of carrying out anti-terrorist and anti-pirate operations and evacuating Russian citizens from states convulsed by internal conflicts -- in short, for all operations related to the so-called "projection of force." Russian admirals did not welcome changing the combat mission of the fleet and therefore opposed the Mistral. Shipbuilders were even more upset about the deal because they knew they lacked the capability to produce a comparable vessel.

Thus, Russian admirals and defense industry firms stand to benefit the most from France's refusal to deliver the Mistral warships and from Russia's return to a Soviet-style closed economy. That means the Russian armed forces will receive only the military equipment the domestic defense industry is capable of producing -- whether they need it or not.

With oil prices falling, corrupt officials see defense spending as their last opportunity to pocket government funds -- and they have no intention of sharing that windfall with foreign defense industry competitors. Putin's recently announced policy of substituting Russian goods for previously imported products will enable those senior officials to siphon off a significant portion of budgetary funds while blaming the failure of the government's plan to modernize the military on the insidious machinations of the West. That is what seems to be happening during the endless series of meetings Putin holds with Russia's defense industry leaders.

Russia's plans to project its force to distant locations with the help of the Mistral warship turn out to be unnecessary now that Moscow is rapidly spiraling downward into a confrontation with the West. The Russian navy can again focus on the former tasks of attacking a potential enemy's aircraft carrier groups and protecting nuclear submarines long enough to launch their missiles. That means the admirals do not need any additional training and that Russia's 30- to 40-year-old weapons will suffice for the current Cold War.


WHO Revises Ebola Death Toll, Lowers Numbers Of Deaths In Liberia

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GENEVA, Dec 1 (Reuters) - A surge in Ebola deaths reported by the World Health Organization at the weekend arose from about 1,000 Liberian deaths wrongly ascribed to the disease, the WHO said, and were removed from an updated data set released on Monday.

The revised data from the World Health Organization shows the three worst hit countries have suffered 5,987 deaths, nearly 1,000 fewer than previously reported.

"Liberia's figures came in but they've since said these were actually non-Ebola deaths that were reported as part of our Ebola deaths and we will be taking them off. So the whole world went up and the whole world will come down again," WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward told reporters.

Data published at the weekend put Liberia's death toll at 4,181, up from 3,016 two days earlier. The WHO's new set of figures published on Monday showed Liberia with a death toll of 3,145 out of 7,635 cases as at Nov. 28.

Sierra Leone had almost as many cases, with a cumulative 7,109 Ebola patients over the course of the epidemic, with 1,530 deaths. Sierra Leone has had 5,831 laboratory-confirmed Ebola cases, more than twice the number in Liberia, where the majority of Ebola patients are "suspected" or "probable" cases.

The third worst-hit country, Guinea, has had 1,312 deaths out of 2,155 cases, the WHO data showed. The number of deaths in Mali was shown as six, one less than in the previous data release on Friday, out of eight cases.

There was no accompanying text to explain the figures. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Patients React To Their HIV Tests In Nation With One Of The Highest Rates

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MAPUTO, Mozambique -- Sitting outside her home with a thatched roof made mostly of reeds, Maria Amelia, 46, was preparing to take her first-ever HIV test. She was slightly anxious and made an admission that explained why.

"Honestly I've never used [a condom] before. I cannot lie to you," she told The Huffington Post last month through a translator in Boane, a district of Maputo province in southern Mozambique.

As World AIDS Day is commemorated Monday, Amelia is one person who illustrates the need for HIV and AIDS awareness. She said she hadn't had access to condoms previously and was receiving her first-ever HIV test through a free door-to-door program administered by Aconselhamento e Testagem em Saúde na Comunidade (ATSC), a program operated by the government. It receives support from Jhpiego, a nonprofit health organization that is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and provides services in developing countries.

The initiative is one of many ways HIV services are physically being brought to people's homes, encouraging proactive measures in a culture in which prevention and health care isn't a top priority, experts say.

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Maria Amelia, 46, receives her first-ever HIV test, offered through a door-to-door service in Maputo, Mozambique.


Mozambique has one of the highest HIV and AIDS rates in the world at 11.5 percent among adults ages 15 to 49, according to the World Health Organization.

The country's HIV services are funded by the Mozambican government, nongovernmental organizations, and countries including the U.S., which provides money through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Amelia, who was separated from her husband and has a son, pointed out that there is a lack of awareness about the issue in Mozambique.

She listened intently as an ATSC health worker educated her about HIV prevention and provided an overview of the test. The worker showed her a photo book depicting ways HIV is contracted and preventative measures she could take.

A health worker sterilized equipment taken out of a backpack and gave her a test by drawing blood from her finger. Her results would be available 15 minutes later.

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Health workers go door-to-door with HIV testing kits and counseling materials in Maputo, Mozambique.


The ATSC team would go on to visit other households after Amelia's, all of which had consented to an HIV test. Alfredo Elias Macicame, an ATSC field officer overseeing the test, said his organization works with community leaders to set up home visits. Jhpiego has tested more than 1.2 million people for HIV and offered counseling as well since 2008.

"We build trust. That's how people let us into their homes," he said.

As Amelia waited for her test results, she received training that included instruction on how to use a condom.

After the time elapsed, she learned her HIV status. Although the government did not allow her to share the results with media, she was all smiles and said: "It's very nice to know about my status now. I'm so happy I know the results."

Irondina Tomas received her HIV test results, just days after learning that her husband, Lucas Oliveira, had tested positive.

She, too, tested positive, she told Huffington Post last month at a hospital in Boane, Mozambique. The silver lining was that their 6-year-old son, Neilito, was negative, she said.

Oliveira said as soon as he got the results of his test -- the first he'd taken in his life -- he immediately had his wife and son go to the clinic as well.

"After I was tested I wanted to rapidly tell my wife so she would get tested and safeguard our son. Thank God he's not infected," Oliveira told HuffPost through a translator.

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Lucas Oliveira, Irondina Tomas, and their son, Neilito, discuss their HIV test results at a hospital in Maputo, Mozambique. Oliveira and Tomas tested positive. Neilito tested negative.


The rate of HIV transmission from mother to child is 15 to 45 percent, the World Health Organization reports.

The family's relief quickly turned to practical discussion at Boane Hospital, where they received the diagnosis, as they discussed with hospital staff the treatments available and said they understood HIV is not a death sentence.

"I'm ok. All I want is to be treated and get antiretroviral treatments," Oliveira said.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) involves taking at least three antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, aimed at suppressing the HIV virus and preventing the progression of HIV to AIDS. Over the past decade, providing antiretroviral therapy for poor and middle-income countries saved an estimated 4.2 million lives, according to WHO.

But Mozambique faces many challenges, such as patients who don't keep up with prescribed ARV usage, experts say.

There are other roadblocks as well. In June, Inter Press Service reported that while about one-third of the people who have HIV are on ARV therapy in Mozambique, the country experiences periodic shortages of the drugs that have detrimental effects. The shortages are caused by challenges with procurement, distribution and infrastructure in the impoverished country, Jose Enrique Zelaya, head of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in Mozambique, told the outlet.

"Basically, the problem lies in poor planning from the health ministry and in the process of distribution according to demands," Zelaya said.

The Mozambique Ministry of Health did not respond to a request for comment.

Oliveira, who works as a farmer, said he is appreciative that ATSC will deliver drugs to him once a month. He said he would not have known about resources available or the gravity of the issue if a co-worker hadn't told him about getting tested.

"This treatment, I consider it a family issue -- protecting my family," he said. "Now I will convince friends to get tested, too."

Jessica Prois reported from Mozambique on a fellowship from the International Reporting Project.

Gill Rosenberg, Canadian-Israeli Woman Feared Kidnapped By ISIS, Says She's Safe

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A Canadian-Israeli woman who was feared kidnapped by the Islamic State over the weekend appears to have posted a message on Facebook debunking reports of her capture.

Gill Rosenberg wrote on her Facebook page on Monday that she is "safe and secure."

hamid karzai

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper also reported earlier on Monday that Kurdish media carried unverified statements from Rosenberg, in which she stated that she was fine.

A former IDF soldier who joined up with Kurdish militias to fight against the Islamic State, Rosenberg had been the subject of a Canadian government inquiry after rumors circulated on jihadist forums over the weekend that she had been taken prisoner in the Syrian town of Kobani.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the 31-year-old from White Rock, a suburb of Vancouver, served two years in the Israeli army. While in Israel in 2009 she was arrested as part of an international fraud ring and brought to the United States to serve time in jail. Haaretz reports that in the years since, Rosenberg began contacting Kurdish militias via the internet, before traveling to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside them against the extremist militants.

The Rising Costs of U.S. Income Inequality

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aftertax income


BERKELEY, Calif. - During the last several decades, income inequality in the United States has increased significantly -- and the trend shows no sign of reversing. The last time inequality was as high as it is now was just before the Great Depression. Such a high level of inequality is not only incompatible with widely held norms of social justice and equality of opportunity; it poses a serious threat to America's economy and democracy.

Underlying the country's soaring inequality is income stagnation for the majority of Americans. With an expanding share of the gains from economic growth flowing to a tiny fraction of high-income U.S. households, average family income for the bottom 90 percent has been flat since 1980.

According to a recent report by the Council of Economic Advisers, if the share of income going to the bottom 90 percent was the same in 2013 as it was in 1973, median annual household income (adjusted for family size) would be 18 percent, or about $9,000, higher than it is now.

The disposable (after tax and transfer) incomes of poor families in the U.S. have trailed those of their counterparts in other developed countries for decades. Now the U.S. middle class is also falling behind.

During the last three decades, middle-income households in most developed countries enjoyed larger increases in disposable income than comparable U.S. households. This year, the U.S. lost the distinction of having the "most affluent" middle class to Canada, with several European countries not far behind. Once the generous public benefits in education, health care, and retirement are added to estimates of disposable family income in these countries, the relative position of the U.S. middle class slips even further.

The main culprit behind the languishing fortunes of America's middle class is slow wage growth. After peaking in the early 1970s, real (inflation-adjusted) median earnings of full-time workers aged 25-64 stagnated, partly owing to a slowdown in productivity growth and partly because of a yawning gap between productivity and wage growth.

Since 1980, average real hourly compensation has increased at an annual rate of 1 percent, or half the rate of productivity growth. Wage gains have also become considerably more unequal, with the biggest increases claimed by the top 10 percent of earners.

Moreover, technological change and globalization have reduced the share of middle-skill jobs in overall employment, while the share of lower-skill jobs has increased. These trends, along with a falling labor force participation rate during the last decade, explain the stagnation of middle class incomes.

For most Americans, wages are the primary source of disposable income, which in turn drives personal consumption spending -- by far the largest component of aggregate demand. Over the past several decades, as growth in disposable income slowed, middle and lower income households turned to debt to sustain consumption.

Personal savings rates collapsed, and credit and mortgage debt soared, as households attempted to keep pace with the consumption norms of the wealthy. For quite some time, growing income inequality did not slow consumption growth; indeed, "trickle-down consumption" pressures fostered more consumer spending, more debt, more bankruptcy and more financial stress among middle and lower income households.

The moment of reckoning arrived with the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Since then, aggregate consumption growth has been lackluster, as middle- and lower-income families have been forced to reduce their borrowing and pay down their debt, often through painful defaults on their homes -- their primary (and often their only) asset.

As these families have tightened their belts, the pace of consumption spending and economic growth has become more dependent on earners at the top of the income distribution. Since the recession ended in 2009, real consumption spending by the top 5 percent has increased by 17 percent, compared to just 1 percent for the bottom 95 percent.

The recovery's pattern has reinforced longer-run trends. In 2012, the top 5 percent of earners accounted for 38 percent of personal-consumption expenditure, compared to 27 percent in 1995. During that period, the consumption share for the bottom 80 percent of earners dropped from 47 percent to 39 percent.

Looking to the future, growing income inequality and stagnant incomes for the majority of Americans mean weaker aggregate demand and slower growth. Even more important, income inequality constrains economic growth on the supply side through its adverse effects on educational opportunity and human capital development.

Children born into low and high income families are born with similar abilities. But they have very different educational opportunities, with children in low income families less likely to have access to early childhood education, more likely to attend under-resourced schools that deliver inferior K-12 education, and less likely to attend or complete college.

The resulting educational attainment gap between children born into low and high-income families emerges at an early age and grows over time. By some estimates, the gap today is twice as large as it was two decades ago. So the U.S. is caught in a vicious circle: rising income inequality breeds more inequality in educational opportunity, which generates greater inequality in educational attainment. That, in turn, translates into a waste of human talent, a less educated workforce, slower economic growth, and even greater income inequality.

Although the economic costs of income inequality are substantial, the political costs may prove to be the most damaging and dangerous. The rich have both the incentives and the ability to promote policies that maintain or enhance their position.

Given the U.S. Supreme Court's evisceration of campaign finance restrictions, it has become easier than ever for concentrated economic power to exercise concentrated political power. Though campaign contributions do not guarantee victory, they give the economic elite greater access to legislators, regulators, and other public officials, enabling them to shape the political debate in favor of their interests.

As a result, the U.S. political system is increasingly dominated by money. This is a clear sign that income inequality in the U.S. has risen to levels that threaten not only the economy's growth, but also the health of its democracy.

This piece also appeared on Project-Syndicate.org

© Project Syndicate


Russia's Expanding Global Influence

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Russia's new agreement to sell Nigeria arms to combat Boko Haram (BH) is evidence of its desire to expand its global geopolitical influence as well as enhance its reputation for being willing to step in where the West will not. At issue is not simply a common desire on the part of both governments to extinguish extremist movements such as BH, but an interest in finding alternative ways to bypass the conventional arms trade. The arms sale will go some way toward countering Mr. Putin's current personae as a bad boy in the global arena.

The U.S. has turned down repeated requests from Nigeria to purchase weapons to fight BH, but U.S. law prevents arms sales to countries with poor human rights records. Nigeria is well known for inter-communal and political violence, and according to Human Rights Watch, the Nigerian police have been involved in frequent human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and arbitrary arrests. The Nigerian army has been accused of committing human rights abuses in combatting BH. That said, the absence of effective military means for the army to combat BH is a national security threat to the region, and by extension, the U.S. - so Russia is actually doing the U.S. a favor by stepping in.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, while the U.S. was the world's number one arms exporter in 2013 and accounted for more than 36% of global arms exports, China was in second place with about 11%, and Russia in third place with just 5%. Mr. Putin no doubt sees arms exports as a way to generate much needed revenue - particularly given the dramatic fall in the price of oil this quarter, and the sanctions imposed by the West - so this transaction with Nigeria occurs at a particularly opportune time for the Kremlin. Russia will apparently be providing a loan to Nigeria to pay for the sale of helicopter gunships and other significant equipment, but sees the opportunity to derive long-term arms sales from Nigeria and surrounding countries as a result.

Earlier this year, Mr. Putin also inserted Russia in the middle of an arms conflict between the U.S. and Iraq, when the Obama Administration refused to sell fighter jets and other arms to the then government of Nouri al-Maliki. In June, Russia agree to sell a dozen Soviet era jets to Baghdad, not only enhancing the Kremlin's influence in Iraq, but by extension in Syria, because of the potential impact the jets would have in combatting the Islamic State. In other words, a continuation of Russia's basic posture in the region - a combination of opportunistic muscle flexing and building its commercial interests.

Like it or not, the Kremlin is having success in expanding its military and commercial footprint in areas where the U.S. and the West appear to be having declining influence. So, Russia gets to have its cake and eat it, too - masquerading as a white knight while simultaneously meeting its foreign exchange needs and expanding its global footprint. The Nigeria arms sale will likely be the first of many to come in war-torn regions where extremist groups are rising and U.S. influence is falling. On the grand chess board of global geopolitics, Russia is scoring some real points.

How this will translate into meaningful long-term foreign policy remains to be seen. More than likely, Russia will continue to score 'singles' as it expands its global arms sales, but it is unlikely to change its basic foreign policy posture. Given the current state of affairs vis-à-vis the number, veracity, and longevity of extremist movements around the world, the Kremlin will likely find it has a useful role to play as an opportunistic white knight for some time to come. In the process, and despite the odds, its military and geopolitical influence in the world will continue to rise.

*Daniel Wagner is CEO of Country Risk Solutions and author of the book "Managing Country Risk".

Ebola and the Mobile African

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They say Ebola hasn't changed, but Africa as a continent has. Previous outbreaks of the disease met an Africa that was already embroiled in its own issues: Plummeting growth rates, civil wars, an unrelenting AIDS epidemic and a laundry list of negative accolades that culminated in the continent's crowning as a "Hopeless Continent" by The Economist in May 2000.

Ebola hasn't changed, but Africa has. Over the past decade, we became a continent rising; rapid democratization swept through the continent and focus returned to improving lives through education, technology, improved sanitation and healthcare. Four countries officially shed the rags of "developing", stepping into the much-hyped glow of middle income status. In 2014, Africa is richer, better educated and hungrier than ever before (and not the kind of hungry one would ordinarily see on a late night television spot featuring Africans dust-tinged and literally two steps from lifeless, complete with a vulturous orbit of flies). Today's African is hungry for opportunity and driven to reap the benefits of business opportunities across and beyond the emerging continent. For today's African, there is a blow more devastating than Ebola - It's immobility.

Outbreaks in relatively remote and sparsely populated areas, made Ebola outbreaks of the past four decades (there have been over a dozen), easier to contain and eradicate. In Sierra Leone today, once a person is diagnosed with Ebola, all family members are driven into quarantine. Rapid urbanization and population growth have made this a necessary precaution, but it comes with obvious limitations. In Waterloo, a central transport hub on the country's western coast, the impact has been problematic not just economically, but socially; While parents and other caretakers are taken into quarantine, hundreds of children are being left orphaned for temporary amounts of time or longer.

Grassroot organizations like Build on Books are helping to combat the disease and its ensuing externalities. Founded in 2009 as an NGO sending book donations to Sierra Leone from the UK after the 11 year civil war, the organization has since evolved to cater to issues ranging from water to sanitation, food provision and most recently, the Ebola epidemic.

"When Ebola reached Waterloo, we already had the logistics and team on the ground to respond quickly," says Build on Books' founder Lori Spragg who, together with former math teacher Rosetta Kargbo, mobilized teams for Ebola prevention workshops and food delivery to 300 quarantined people around Waterloo and the young children often left behind as a result. According to some estimates, Sierra Leonean children have been orphaned by Ebola (UNICEF estimates this number could be as large at 7000) - far beyond what the community's orphanages can handle. Build on Books volunteers deliver cooked meals and drinking water to keep orphaned children fed and hydrated. They also act as interim health officials, detecting early signs of Ebola through regular temperature checks - actions can make the difference between death and survival.

Other organizations are also showing support in ways that mirror how far Africa has come as a continent technologically. Accra-based Bitcoin remittance company Beam, recently partnered with Sierra Leone's Splash Mobile Money, to facilitate the donations on which grassroots organizations like Build on Books depend. Mobile money has been an inextricable part of Africa's recent success story, fuelling quicker and cheaper access to funds by effectively turning any feature phone or smartphone into a bank account. While services like Western Union and bank transfer services like SWIFT have long existed, the use of Bitcoin technology is significantly expanding access to funds through speedier transactions at considerably lower cost:

Payment Processor Fee: 1%-3%
Typically charged by companies like Visa, MasterCard, Paypal to accept money from the sender.

Fixed Transfer Fee: USD 2 - 30
Fixed amount charged by Bank or Money Transfer Organizations (MTOs). It commonly known as the SWIFT fee during international bank wires, the Transfer fee during MTO transfers.

Foreign Exchange Fee: 3%-15%
This is charged by banks or MTOs to convert foreign to local currency

Typically only about 85% of a donation's value will reach charities through the above methods. With Bitcoin technology, this value could be as high at 98%.

Beam also works with LunchBoxGift, part of 'Let them help themselves out of poverty' (LTHT) a charity founded by London-based Sierra Leonean Memuna Janneh, who have delivered over 2,600 hot meals to seven vulnerable communities in Freetown so far. Capitalizing on the almost feeless nature of Bitcoin transactions (0.0001 Bitcoins per transaction regardless of the sent amount, which is less than $0.10) Beam is a testament to the transformative capabilities of technology, helping grassroots stay fearless in the face of Ebola eradication efforts. Together with Splash Money, they have pledged 100% of profits from donations through the platform, to Ebola relief efforts. Other commendable efforts include those of EngAyde, a web platform dedicated to disseminating information on Ebola and coordinating relief efforts targeted at Sierra Leonean diaspora through their Facebook page, as well as the National Ebola Response Recruitment Drive.

As the battle against the Ebola rages on, it's safe to say that threats to African mobility, while problematic, have taken us back to the roots of what we do well: Building resilient communities through innovative workarounds.

Fifty Cents a Father

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The support and understanding of the male partner is necessary for all women going through pregnancy and childbirth. It is especially important when it comes to HIV testing during pregnancy and follow-up care and support for those living with HIV. Male involvement has been shown to reduce HIV-related stigma and fear of HIV testing during pregnancy due to violence and abandonment.

In Malawi, 40,000 babies are born with HIV every year. Without any intervention, two-thirds of these children will not reach their first birthday. With the use of antiretrovirals, the transmission of HIV from mother to baby can be reduced, but many times the first step towards health is through the support of the community.

Context is everything, and in Malawi, men are often the primary decision-makers at all levels of the household. As a result, their influence can greatly affect their partners' attitudes and behaviors. Reason and experience show that if men understand the importance of health care services early in pregnancy, the couple is more likely to be tested for HIV, and women who are pregnant and living with HIV are more likely to enroll in PMTCT.

With the support of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), UNICEF and the Ministry of Health of Malawi launched the Male Champion Model in 2012. Through the program, "champions" encourage other men to be involved in the health of their partners.

So far, 3,400 male champions in six districts have been trained. According to Beatrice Chigamba, Head Nurse at Ngabu District Clinic, "This seems to be having a dramatic effect on the number of women testing for HIV during pregnancy, which is ultimately decreasing the number of babies being born with HIV."

Watch UNICEF's "Fifty Cents a Father" video for World AIDS Day 2014 below:

Plumber Caught Dancing On The Job Has All The Fly Moves

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Sometimes you just need to stop everything, close your eyes and dance, dance, dance.

Just ask this plumber from Scotland. He knows exactly what we're talking about.

dancing-plumber


Plumber Mark Topen, 52, has become something of an Internet celebrity after one of his colleagues secretly captured a video of him boogying on the job.

“It’s not something I would do all the time because it can be disrespectful to do it in people’s homes but this house was empty,” Topen, who lives in Dundee, Scotland, told the Evening Telegraph of his on-site frolic. “Sometimes the job can be stressful, so it’s good to take the pressure off if you can.”

The video of Topen’s dancing has racked up more than 400,000 views since it was posted on YouTube last week, and the plumber says he’s already been approached in public for his autograph.

“I’ll admit that it was a bit embarrassing at first but I suppose that is what is funny about it and I can see that now,” he told the Evening Telegraph of his sudden fame.

“It’s good to know that people are laughing with me and not at me,” he added later.

Just keep dancing, dude. Keep dancing.

H/T Viral Viral Videos

Obama's Plan To Close Guantanamo Suffers Another Setback

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's 5-year-old campaign to close the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered a major setback as lawmakers finalizing the annual defense policy bill rejected steps toward shuttering the facility.


Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Monday that the final bill omits a provision giving the president the authority to transfer terror suspects to the United States if Congress signs off on a comprehensive plan to close the prison.


Levin had pushed for the authority and hailed it in May as creating "a path to close Guantanamo." With lawmakers rushing to complete the defense bill in this month's lame-duck session, Levin said proponents were unable to prevail.


"Our language ... (on Guantanamo) ... will not be in," Levin said.


The House and Senate are expected to vote and overwhelmingly approve the sweeping policy bill in the coming days, sending it to Obama.


The president has pushed to close the post-9/11 prison since his inauguration in January 2009. He has faced strong resistance from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress who don't want terror suspects housed in U.S. facilities and have warned of suspects returning to the fight when they are transferred back to their home countries.


In its version of the defense bill in May, the Senate Armed Services Committee included a provision that would authorize the transfer of terror suspects to U.S. soil "for detention, trial and incarceration, subject to stringent security measures and legal protections, once the president has submitted a plan to Congress for closing Guantanamo and Congress has had an opportunity to vote to disapprove that plan under expedited procedures."


The House version of the defense bill prohibited the transfer to U.S. soil, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers who have repeatedly and successfully fought White House efforts to move detainees prevailed in the final version of the defense bill.


Currently, the prison holds 142 men, including 73 already cleared for release.


Last month, the Pentagon said it sent a Saudi citizen who has spent the past 12 years detained at Guantanamo to his homeland. The transfer of Muhammad al-Zahrani was based on the conclusion of a U.S. government board that has been re-evaluating the need to continue holding some of the men as prisoners.

Test-Takers In China, South Korea Likely Cheated On Last Two SATs

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Some students in two Asian countries likely cheated on the SAT exams administered in October and November of this year, the Educational Testing Service has confirmed.

In October, scores were withheld from residents of South Korea and China as ETS, which administers the test worldwide, investigated possible cheating on the exam administered that month. Following a review, the firm determined that "a small number of test-takers had an unfair advantage on the test," ETS spokesman Thomas Ewing told The Huffington Post on Monday. "ETS is contacting directly these test-takers to inform them that valid scores cannot be provided."

Citing confidentiality concerns, Ewing declined to say how many scores were invalidated but noted that "the majority of scores" are valid.

The withholding of scores was concerning for some test-takers because it came just before the early application deadline for many American schools. On Nov. 21, College Board, which owns the test, released the scores to those October test-takers who were not found to have had an unfair advantage, ETS told The Washington Post.

"We regularly conduct administrative reviews in order to ensure that illegal actions by individuals or organizations do not prevent the majority of test-takers who have worked hard to prepare for the exam from receiving valid and accurate scores," Ewing said.

According to Ewing, ETS also "received credible information" about the SAT given in November in Asia, which led it to launch an investigation and put scores on hold for "test-takers at Chinese test centers and Chinese test-takers who registered with a Chinese address and tested internationally." The exam can be taken at only a few private schools in China, so many students sit for the SAT outside the country.

The repercussions for cheating on the SAT are not hugely punitive. "If a test-taker is found to have gained an unfair advantage on their test or there is substantial evidence that they have violated security protocols, their scores are not processed or reported to universities," Ewing said.

"[E]ssentially ... there is no real consequence to cheating other than to have a score invalidated," The Washington Post reported.

ETS learns of possible cheating situations "from a variety of sources, including test-day reports from center supervisors, anonymous tips sent to us by email or phone, from post-test analytics, and other methods," Ewing said. The firm encourages people to report allegedly dishonest behavior.

In an October statement, ETS noted the existence of "organizations that seek to illegally obtain test materials for their own profit," The New York Times reported. Test prep companies are sometimes willing and able to obtain illegal copies of the exam before it is given, and some students will pay to obtain the questions and answers.

In May 2013, the test was canceled throughout South Korea after tutoring companies allegedly obtained and distributed an advance copy. In 2007, SAT scores were invalidated for all students who took the test in South Korea after some saw at least a portion of the test beforehand.

The SAT will be given next in South Korea this Saturday, Dec. 6.

'God Gave This Land to Them'

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Pat Boone wrote the words to Exodus.

If you're below a certain age, Pat Boone is some random dude you need Google to ID, and Exodus is the new Ridley Scott 3D film with Christian Bale as Moses and a wicked cool CGI Red Sea.

To Boomers, Pat Boone was the un-Elvis in white bucks, Charlton Heston owns Moses, and the real Moses movie is The Ten Commandments. Exodus was Otto Preminger's Zionist epic based on the 1958 Leon Uris novel, and its score won Ernest Gold an Academy Award. It had a big theme -- buum BUUM, BUUM BUUM -- but no words, because Preminger and Gold couldn't agree on them.

A year after the picture came out, Pat Boone put the score on the record player, and when those first four notes sounded, he heard words. This land. Is mine. He grabbed the nearest thing to write on, a Christmas card, and got the rest of the lyric down. "The Exodus Song" became a hit Andy Williams single. I still have the sheet music; it cost 60 cents. I learned to play it espressivo e doloroso on the piano, singing the words as heroically as an 11-year-old could. The song became, as he put it, "the second Jewish national anthem," and recently Boone donated the Christmas card to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.

Last week, when I saw a billboard for Ridley Scott's Exodus, that song effortlessly materialized. Some strong synapses are hanging on to that lyric, from the covenant:

This land is mine,
God gave this land to me,
This brave and ancient land to me.


...to the defiant finish:

To make this land our home,
If I must fight,
I'll fight to make this land our own.
Until I die -- this land is mine!


Today, some people embrace the literal meaning of "The Exodus Song." There are plenty of places in scripture where God gives land to the Jews, and if Holy Writ says so, that's as clean as a deed of title can be. But there's more to the real estate story than that. Nina Paley's 2012 animation of Andy Williams' pipes shows a succession of conquering Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Jews, Babylonians, Macedonians, Seleucids, Romans, Caliphs, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, Palestinians and others who also said this land is theirs, and also in the name of God, gods, divine rulers, divine prophets and holy texts.

Eleven years old is the same age as the British actor Isaac Andrew, whom Ridley Scott has stunt-cast as God in his Exodus. When I learned "The Exodus Song," when I sang, "God gave this land to me," I knew whom "God" and "me" referred to, and I knew that "gave" meant "gave." This was still several years before I got an inkling of the carnage cultivated over the millennia by one righteous God or another; before I understood that there was such a thing as the history of colonialism and imperialism, which is about political and economic domination; before I learned how often indigenous peoples have discovered that they've been discovered, and their land is not their ancestors' or theirs or their children's anymore.

This was also before the events depicted by Uris and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, like every other narrative of Zionism I grew up on, was contested by a generation and more of Israeli historians, journalists, military leaders, political figures and artists. This openness to historical reality doesn't diminish the idealism and right to self-determination of that nation's founders, doesn't mitigate the horror of the Holocaust that impelled its establishment, doesn't accept the tragic spiral of terror and counterterror visited on its inhabitants. But it does make it harder to hold fast to origin stories in which right always battles wrong and never battles right.

"God gave this land to them" is a sentiment I don't think I've ever encountered in history, let alone in song. Historical revisionism doesn't displace one god with another. It replaces divine narratives with secular ones that are less flattering and less thrilling. It's uncomfortable to think about Thanksgiving's origin in gratitude to a Christian God for enabling the massacre of Native Americans who worshiped heathen spirits and inconveniently preceded the colonists. It's dispiriting that America's conquest of its continent, and beyond, was widely believed to fulfill the manifest destiny allotted to white people by Providence. It may be a heretical thought, but the founding of modern Israel had more to do with mortal men and women than with the coming of Moshiach or the second coming of Christ.

Earlier this year, Pat Boone predicted that President Obama's birth certificate will be revealed as a forgery. In a new poll, 49 percent of Americans say that recent natural disasters are signs we're living in the End Times. People believe stories, whether they're true or not. They have undeniable explanatory appeal. "The Exodus Song" tells one helluva powerful origin story. That's why the 11-year-old in me wants to keep singing it. But a fable is not a fix.

This is a crosspost of my column in the Jewish Journal, where you can reach me at martyk@jewishjournal.com.

These Countries All Have Religious Symbols On Their Flags. Can You Guess Which Is Which?

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Sixty-four, or one-third, of the world's countries have religious symbols on their national flags, according to a recent article by Pew Research.

Pew analyzed data from ConstituteProject.org, the CIA World Factbook and country-specific government websites to identify the countries around the world that display religious imagery on their national flags. Of these countries, 31 have Christian imagery, 21 have Islamic symbols, three have Hindu/Buddhist symbols, two have specific Buddhist imagery, one has Jewish imagery and six display symbolism from other traditions.

Commenters on the article raised two primary concerns: Where is Vatican City and what do Austria's horizontal stripes have to do with religion?

In response to the former, author Angelina Theodorou noted that the countries included in her analysis were based on those in Pew's Religious Restrictions report, which did not include the Vatican.

Regarding Austria's seemingly secular flag, Pew Communications Director Katherine Ritchey directed HuffPost Religion to the CIA World Factbook, which states that the country's flag makes reference to Duke Leopold V's blood-soaked white robe following a battle during the Third Crusade. Needless to say, the stories behind these religious flags aren't always pretty.

Take a look at these stunning flags and test your flag knowledge by taking our quiz below! (Flag images have been cropped to highlight their religious symbols. And don't worry: we randomly selected 20 of the 64 so you don't have to sit here all day.)

The Biggest HIV/AIDS Research Breakthroughs Of 2014

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There’s a lot to be optimistic about in the global fight against HIV and AIDS. By the end of 2013, 12.9 million people were taking life-saving anti-retroviral therapies that suppress the virus and help people lead long, healthy lives -- 11.7 million of which were from low- and middle- income countries, according to the World Health Organization.

Groundbreaking research is uncovering better ways to keep AIDS at bay and prevent HIV infection and transmission. There’s even some promising evidence that HIV’s ability to cause AIDS is weakening over time, as the result of genetic mutations.

To celebrate these advances, as well as World AIDS Day, we’ve rounded up a list of the most exciting HIV and AIDS findings of 2014.

There Could Soon Be A Better Way To Administer Anti-Retroviral Drugs
Researchers are studying several different injectable drugs that can suppress the virus for months at a time, as opposed to a daily pill. Pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmith Klein and Jansen are working together to develop monthly injection treatments, reported the South African site Times Live back in October. Monthly injectables could help people stay on top of their HIV-suppressing therapies better than daily pills and could even function as a preventive treatment, according to Times Live, but the technology is still five to seven years away. In the same vein, researchers are also testing if vaginal rings that release anti-retroviral drugs slowly, over time, will be able to protect women from contracting HIV, according to the South African site Health-E.

Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies Could Be Alternative To Anti-Retroviral Therapies
Broadly-neutralizing antibodies are immune cells that have been shown to neutralize multiple strains of HIV, as opposed to antibodies that can only neutralize specific viruses. Broadly-neutralizing antibodies are crucial in an epidemic where there are nine different subtypes of HIV around the globe. These viruses also continue to change and mutate once inside someone’s body.

While anti-retroviral drugs can suppress levels of the virus successfully, levels of HIV go shooting up if the drug is ever stopped. Not so with BNAs, say researchers at Rockefeller University. There, scientists working with mice have shown that BNAs can prevent what’s known as “viral rebound” -- when levels of HIV increase after treatment is stopped.

Promising Vaccines Protect Monkeys, Lead To Human Trials
Researchers are making progress toward the possibility of vaccines, according to Harvard medical school professor Todd Allen, Ph.D. Allen runs his own research lab at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard, where he uses genome sequencing to study how the virus interacts with a host’s immune system. Allen is hopeful that “development of an HIV vaccine is within our reach.“ Allen is especially optimistic about how experiments with monkeys demonstrated a way to protect them from SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus, a disease analogous to HIV in humans).

For instance, researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health may soon begin a preliminary human trial based on research they completed injecting monkeys with long-lasting AIDS drugs. They found that these drugs prevented SIV infection, even though the monkeys were being exposed to SIV via the vagina or anus (to simulate vaginal or anal sex), reported the New York Times.

Circumcision Is Flipping The Gender Script When It Comes To HIV/AIDS Protection
In other prevention news, more communities are championing circumcision as a way to prevent HIV infection. HuffPost’s Jessica Prois found in Mozambique that circumcision campaigns were a unique way for teen boys and men to take responsibility for their own sexual health. The campaigns also represented a generational shift, reported Prois, from a time when men wanted to prove their manhood through risky and unprotected sex.

In South Africa, societal norms about circumcision and male sexual health have also shifted over the years. Since 2007, more than 1.5 million men have undergone the procedure, reports Voice of America. http://www.voanews.com/content/south-africa-sees-male-circumcision-as-way-to-reduce-hiv-infections/2538279.html

A Better Way To Prevent Mother-To-Baby Transmission
Researchers think they’ve identified the best drug regiment to prevent mother-to-baby transmission: a three-drug regimen during pregnancy, as opposed to one drug during pregnancy, one drug during labor and two more after birth. A Nov. 2014 international clinical trial, sponsored by the National Institutes Of Health, found that the triple-drug regimen was safer and more effective than the standard protocol.

More than 3,500 HIV-positive women from seven different countries enrolled in the trial, which compared HIV infection rates of newborn babies after their mothers had taken either the triple-drug treatment or the control treatment. Only 0.5 to 0.6 percent of babies contracted HIV after their moms took the triple-drug treatment, as opposed to 1.8 percent of babies from the control group. The trial’s findings support the World Health Organization’s recommendations for how to treat pregnant women with HIV.

Awareness And Access Still Have A Long Way To Go
It’s important to note that there’s still a long way to go in making sure everyone has access to the treatment they need to lead a healthy life. HIV/AIDS still affects approximately 35 million people worldwide, and not all of them have adequate access to anti-retroviral drugs or even primary health care.

For instance, in the U.S. only three in ten Americans with HIV are keeping their virus levels low with regular treatment, and only half of gay and bisexual men with AIDS are getting the care they need.

Meanwhile, in countries like Mozambique with severely limited access to primary health care, traditional healers are often people’s only option for treatment, and they often end up delaying vital HIV treatment. A study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center found that HIV-positive people in rural areas of the country had delays in treatment that were 2.4 times longer than those who didn’t visit a traditional healer. Among those who visited the traditional healer, 56 percent reported that “curses” were to blame for their HIV symptoms. Also, 55 percent of those who saw one healer said that they were cut with a razor blade and then had herbs rubbed into the cuts.

Iran Bombing Islamic State In Iraq, U.S. Official Confirms

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is aware of Iranian bombing activity in the same national airspace where planes aligned with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State are operating, a defense official told The Huffington Post Monday evening.

The official said he believes the Iranian bombing is unlikely to end as long as the Shiite-dominated nation feels threatened by the Sunni extremist group, also called ISIS. The bombing will not require a U.S. response unless Iran presents an immediate threat to U.S. forces in the air, he said.

"We are aware of that. I wouldn't say we're necessarily concerned with it -- we kind of have our eyes on it," the official said. He noted that the Iranian bombing has been taking place near the Iranian border, in a different part of Iraq than most U.S. and coalition activity. The official said he could only confirm reports of the bombing on the condition of anonymity.

While previous reports have said that Iran has provided weapons and equipment to the Iraqi government, the official's comments represent the first confirmation that Iran's own air force is involved in the fight in Iraq against the Islamic State.

The fact that the U.S. is not challenging this level of Iranian involvement is the strongest evidence yet that the Obama administration sees the controversial Iranian government as a tactical partner in the Middle East.

The official said the sheer extent of U.S. involvement in Iraq makes undetected Iranian air activity there unlikely. "We are there pretty heavily in the air if you include [intelligence collection], so just looking at those facts we have a pretty good pic of what's happening in Iraqi airspace. We would not be operating in Iraq without having a clear picture," he said.

The official's comments offered evidence for recent claims about an Iranian jet in Iraqi skies made by IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, a British defense analysis firm, and Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper. The plane, both outlets said, was spotted in Al Jazeera video footage from late November assisting Iraqi forces -- a key U.S. on-the-ground ally -- as they battled ISIS militants near the Iranian border in their biggest campaign since the summer.

Neither could verify whether the jet was Iranian: Both made the claim by noting that only Iran and Turkey, a member of the U.S.-led coalition that has yet to militarily target ISIS, fly the kind of jet seen in the video. They also differed slightly on their timelines for the sighting, with IHS Jane's dating the footage to Nov. 30, while Haaretz saying on Dec. 1 that it was from "a few days ago."

The official said the U.S. became aware of Iranian bombing in Iraq "earlier than" the recent claims, and that the U.S. military is aware that the planes are part of Iran's air force.

These Striking Wedding Photos From Kenya Are Guaranteed To Take Your Breath Away

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Wedding photographer Jonas Peterson has shot brides and grooms in all sorts of beautiful places around the world, but he says this recent wedding in Kenya might be the most spectacular of the bunch.

"I didn’t know Africa would touch me so deeply," the Melbourne-based photographer wrote on his blog. "It sung to me in a way I didn’t know possible, found new chords and played on strings I didn’t know I had inside me."

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Credit: Jonas Peterson

In late September, Nina -- a wildlife photographer and senior marketing advisor to wild cat conservation organization Panthera -- and her fiancé Sebastian tied the knot in Masai Mara, Kenya in front of 60 of their closest friends and family.

According to the bride, the way that nature and the landscape were entwined in their celebration of love was nothing short of surreal and almost impossible to put into words. We'll allow the gorgeous photos below to do the talking:



In a blog post published on Once Wed on Monday, the bride detailed the many ways Mother Nature "was with [them] every moment of the wedding":

Approaching the ceremony site in our safari Land Rover, the clouds were building up to an unusually dramatic storm, yet on the other side of the horizon, the sky was perfectly blue and the sun was shining. As we walked down the aisle the white rose petals at the center of the ceremony had attracted a number of white butterflies that circled around us on the ground...At the end of the ceremony the sky was almost black. As we were walking back down the aisle and the Maasai started singing and jumping, a herd of wildebeest stormed across the savannah and the wind started blowing...Just as we got into our car, the sky opened and huge raindrops started falling. The groom wondered (as did some guests) whether the love of his life had made a deal with Mother Nature.


For more incredible photos from the big day, check out the slideshow below:



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Halfway Home: A Training Guide for Finishing the Race to End AIDS

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For the last few years, I have run a half marathon in Washington, DC. On race day, those running a full marathon join us for the first half of the course. Together, we run through some of the most scenic spots in the city--past monuments and across bridges, surrounded by enthusiastic crowds. Then, around mile 13, the course splits: half-marathoners to the left, marathoners to the right. It is always at that point in the race that two distinct feelings emerge--relief that I am nearly finished, and awe at the full-marathoners who, having already run so far, essentially have to do it again. And, not only do they have to keep running, but they have to run on a course decidedly less scenic, through gritty neighborhoods and highways where far fewer people come out to cheer.

Make no mistake: the fight against AIDS is a full marathon. This year, according to a new ONE report, the world reached a tipping point in the fight against this disease, with more people newly added to life-saving antiretroviral treatment than those who became newly infected with HIV. This is a major milestone worth celebrating, more than three decades in the making. But it only marks the half-way point--our split in the road. And just like my racecourse in DC, the road ahead for those who want to see an end to AIDS is unfortunately not an easy, downhill jog, but one that comes with challenging terrain. Our new report outlines three major concerns keeping us up at night, and each threatens to derail the progress we've made.

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Women wait outside the PMTCT/Antenatal unit at Tema General Hospital, Ghana. Credit: John D McHugh/(RED)

First and foremost, there is still not enough money to control the disease. We are at least $3 billion short annually of the amount needed to control the disease, even though total resources for AIDS reached a high-water mark in 2013. The international donor funding that exists is unsustainable, with the vast majority contributed by just three countries - the US, the UK, and France. Meanwhile, many African governments are not meeting their own health spending promises and private sector resources are nowhere near where they could or should be. More countries and private sector actors need to step up their contributions to HIV/AIDS if we're serious about controlling and ultimately ending the disease.

Second, HIV/AIDS is increasingly concentrated among those who are harder to reach. Compared with the rest of the adult population, HIV prevalence is much higher among marginalized populations--roughly 28 times higher among people who inject drugs, 19 times higher among men who have sex with men, and 12 times higher among sex workers. Many of these groups face intense stigma, social ostracizing, and discriminatory laws that force them into the shadows and keep them from seeking AIDS treatment and prevention services. In order to accelerate HIV prevention gains, we must ensure not just more resources, but better targeted programs tailored to the political sensitivities on the ground and designed to reach these groups more effectively. Customized shoes molded to the feet of our marathon runners, so to speak.

The third threat is the fragility of progress to date. As the Ebola crisis has highlighted in recent months, diseases can exploit weak health systems and quickly turn the clock back on success. Also, a country that passes the tipping point also doesn't guarantee that it will stay there. A good example is Ghana, which, according to the report, reached the tipping point and was a real leader on AIDS in 2012 but slid backwards, behind the curve, in 2013. In fact, 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa who weren't at the tipping point previously slipped further backwards last year, losing more ground.

So, although we've reached the half-way point in our race to end AIDS, it's not yet time to take a victory lap. We must do all we can to keep the momentum up for the second half, and prepare for the headwinds we all expect to face. That will require the world to invest the proper resources upfront to build more effectively-tailored programs that can reach the most marginalized populations. And, like a marathon, it will also require significant endurance to finish strong, even if our muscles start to fatigue and the cheering crowds thin out along the way -- for finishing the race, and ultimately defeating this cruel disease, will be a prize worth winning.

Congressmen Worry The State Department Can't Speak ISIS's Language

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WASHINGTON -- As foreign fighters stream into Syria and Iraq to bolster the Islamic State, some congressmen are concerned that the State Department's effort to halt that flow faces a serious language barrier.

During Tuesday morning's House Foreign Affairs joint subcommittee hearing on "ISIS and the Threat From Foreign Fighters," two lawmakers questioned the qualifications of a U.S. official handling that aspect of the crisis in Syria.

"Do you speak Arabic?" Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) asked Robert Bradtke, who serves as the State Department's senior adviser for partner engagement on Syria foreign fighters.

"I do not speak Arabic," Bradtke responded.

Watch the video above.

"Do you have any expertise in the Arab world? Did you ever serve?" Connolly followed.

Bradtke, a 40-year State Department veteran, said the Middle East was not his "primary expertise" but noted his extensive diplomatic travel experience.

"But you were never assigned to the region?" Connolly closed.

"No, I was not assigned to the region," Bradtke said.

Back in March, Bradtke was called out of retirement to serve as the lead U.S. diplomat on the foreign fighter issue. His job is "engaging foreign partners to prevent and interdict foreign extremist travel to Syria," a spokesperson told Reuters in May.

But should that task have gone to someone who (a) knows Arabic or (b) has significant experience in the Middle East? Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said at the hearing that the State Department lacks the needed diversity of expertise, adding that he has prodded the government for nearly a year to hire more scholars with these skills.

"It is about time that the State Department hire its first Islamic legal expert to work full time on that, maybe a couple," Sherman said. "It's time that at least somebody be hired at the State Department not because they went to a fancy American school or because they did well on the Foreign Service exam."

Bradtke testified that he was appointed to the ISIS job because of his ability to work with a wide swath of countries and officials. Besides his service as ambassador to Croatia, his State Department biography notes time as executive assistant to then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher, as well as fluency in French, German, Russian, Italian and Croatian.

"I don't think the fact that I don't speak Arabic has been a hindrance," Bradtke said, citing successful meetings he has had with Islamic leaders around the globe about steps their countries can take to deter the Islamic State's growth.

Connolly also asked if foreign militants attracted to the Islamic State's cause come from Arab countries. Bradtke said that many do.

Without disparaging Bradtke's service, Connolly supported Sherman's point that the State Department needs to bring along more officials with Middle East experience.

"This region is unraveling," Connolly said. "It is a long-term challenge, if not threat, to us and to the West. It is profoundly disturbing what is happening, and we have to have expertise in the region."

For more on the hearing, read here.

Will Russia's Eastern Game Plan Work?

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Co-authored by William Witenberg a contemporary artist focused on abstract painting

There is no question that sanctions and the decline in oil is hurting the Russian economy. Oil and gas account for 70% of Russia's economy. The ruble's decline has cushioned the effect of the decline in the oil price but Russia is vulnerable to western sanctions and its exposure to the dollar is something Putin is aggressively seeking to diminish.

Interestingly, in three ways the Russian government is trying to delink the ruble and the dollar.

Russia's projected growth of the economy in 2015 will not surpass 1% by even the most optimistic projections. What does Russian leadership do to mend this sinking boat?

Russia's Finance Ministry has approved the proposal to increase the volume of ruble settlements on export contracts. In practice, this will mean that all new export, and possibly some revised current, contracts will be concluded with the calculations in rubles. Now settlement mechanism between the EU and Russia is as follows: buyer pays the purchase in euros, bank will convert euros into US dollars, transferred to the account of the exporter, only then local bank will convert dollars into rubles. Soon it will be different: buyer pays in euros, bank converts directly into rubles, bypassing dollar and transfers the amount to the account of the exporter. This new pattern should appeal to many foreign partners in Russia, especially in the EU. There is no need to buy huge amounts of dollars to pay Russia for gas, oil, metals and other commodities. The dollar link is removed.

Russia's joint plans with China, are even bigger. According to Putin, now the annual Russian-Chinese trade turnover is about $ 90 billion. But by 2020 it is planned to increase to $ 200 billion; but without most the transactions having the dollar as a unit of account. The two countries will buy from each other in rubles and yuan. Or - there are plans - to introduce a new international currency. After extensive talks between the governments of China and Russia Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia Mikhail Sukhov and Assistant to the Chairman of the People's Bank of China Jin Qi signed an agreement on currency swaps for settlement in national currencies. Russian and Chinese banks must use the ruble and yuan in mutual settlements to eliminate the monopoly of the dollar. To date, the Bank of China is the fifth largest state-owned banks in China and is the first Chinese commercial bank, which opened an office in Russia. The use of the ruble and yuan in the calculations will not only reduce Russia's dependence on the fluctuations of the dollar, but will increase the efficiency of conversion operations. In turn, over the past few years, China has done a lot to make yuan global reserve currency. Or at least, to make sure that dollar ceases to being the sole one. Beijing has already managed to create dollar-less currency exchanges with several countries. The list includes Malaysia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the European Union and now Russia.

This linking of the ruble with other currencies can be seen in with transactions between Iran and Russia. The two countries are moving closer to signing a $ 20 billon commodity deal that will help both countries economies to be independent of the Western countries and recent sanctions. According to this five-year memorandum; Russian equipment, machinery and consumer goods are to be supplied to Iran that is currently deprived of any such goods because of the US sanctions. In response, Russia will be transferred Iranian oil, that is now the focus of a western trade embargo. Russian companies will also gain access to participation in projects for the construction and reconstruction of power generation and networks in Iran.

Such an agreement would mean that the entire Iranian oil (except for Iran's "share" and China's share) for the term of the contract will go through Russia. Russia will simply buy all wholesale volumes (in the framework of the agreement on the exchange of technological products or other products covered by US sanctions) and then can sell it to anyone it wants. In huge volumes and at convenient Russia prices. This oil without leaving oil terminals of Iranian port will be shipped directly from there to the traditional customers - but as property held by the contract by Russian Federation.
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