Saab continues development of new torpedo

by Richard Tomkins
Linkoping, Sweden (UPI)
Feb 23, 2015

Swedish defense company Saab is to continue development of a shallow-water lightweight torpedo for the Swedish Navy.

The work from the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration is worth about $20.7 million and includes has maintenance agreements for the Hydra sonar system and other underwater systems.

Saab said the orders come under a letter of intent it signed with the organization to support the Swedish Armed Forces' underwater capabilities through 2024.

"The new lightweight torpedo order represents another important step in developing a new generation underwater weapon, in collaboration with FMV and the Swedish Navy," said Gorgen Johansson, head of Saab's Dynamics business area. "Based on the proven Torpedo 45 with its outstanding shallow-water anti-submarine warfare capability, the new lightweight torpedo will deliver significant performance improvements to deal with evolving threats in international scenarios."

The contracts for maintenance of underwater systems and the Hydra sonar system are for support of their operational systems, Saab said, but additional details were not disclosed.

"Saab has been responsible for the maintenance of the Swedish Navy's underwater weapons for many years. We are pleased to announce that we have now expanded this responsibility to include the Hydra sonar system," said Agneta Kammeby, the head of Dynamics' Underwater Systems business.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Saab_continues_development_of_new_torpedo_999.html.

Norway's Nobel Peace Prize committee replaces chairman

March 03, 2015

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize awarding Norwegian Nobel Committee on Tuesday elected a new chairman to replace Thorbjoern Jagland, whose six-year tenure has been lined with controversies.

Jagland will remain a member of the voting panel but was a contentious leader, attracting criticism for his dual role as committee chairman and head of the European Council when the prize was awarded to the European Union in 2012. His leadership also was clouded by the decision to give the prize to Barack Obama in 2009 after he had just been elected president, and the 2010 prize to the jailed dissident Liu Xiabo drew fury from China.

The former labor politician was replaced by the panel's deputy chairman, Kaci Kullmann Five, a former conservative party leader. She denied that Jagland's ousting had anything to do with pressure from China, which froze diplomatic ties to Norway after the 2010 award.

The composition of the committee reflects the power structure in Norway's Parliament which appoints the members. The leadership change follows 2013 parliamentary elections that brought the Conservatives into power after years of Labor Party rule.

Tuesday's panel meeting also reviewed the candidates for this year's prize after nominations closed at the beginning of February. The committee said they numbered 276 — two less than last year's record — with 49 nominations for organizations and 227 for people.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute keeps the names of nominees locked up for 50 years, but lawmakers and members of peace organizations who are qualified to name candidates can reveal their choices independently.

Nominees mentioned include Saudi blogger Raif Bedawi, jailed for 10 years and sentenced to 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam and Flemming Rose, an editor at Danish broadsheet daily Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005-2006.

Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor turned fugitive, Edward Snowden, and Pope Francis have been nominated for the second year in a row. Other candidates include the often-nominated Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, a group committed to Japan retaining its pacifist constitution and Egypt's Maggie Gobran, a Coptic Christian who works in the slums of Cairo.

Estonia's ruling pro-Western Reform Party wins election

March 02, 2015

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia's ruling Reform Party has emerged as the overall winner in the Baltic country's general election dominated by economic issues and security concerns over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

With all votes counted, Prime Minister Taavi Roivas declared victory early Monday. Polls had predicted a close race between the governing center-right coalition and the opposition Center Party, favored by ethnic Russians.

Roivas' pro-Western, liberal party won 28 percent of the votes to take 30 seats, three seats less than in the previous election but five more than the main opposition centrists. The ruling coalition now holds 45 seats in the 101-seat Parliament, down from 52 after the previous election in 2011, meaning reforms in the government composition are expected although mainstream policies likely will remain the same.

Even though Estonia is a NATO member, many are worried that Moscow will try to increase its influence in the former Soviet republic, where one-fourth of its 1.3 million residents are ethnic Russians. All main political parties strongly support defense spending and a continuation of the NATO presence in Estonia, which together with neighbors Latvia and Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union for nearly five decades.

"I think NATO's pledge to defend Estonia doesn't mean anything. We're located in a buffer zone and NATO just reacts too slowly," said Ivari Manni, a 51-year-old designer who voted at a Tallinn shopping center. "Estonia should adopt a Swiss-style home army model, where guns are kept at home."

The main electoral differences focused on economic questions, including tax reforms. Estonia has continued to show strong growth even as many of its European partners are struggling. All wage earners pay a flat 20 percent income tax, which opposition centrists want to change to a progressive tax system — a move supported by the minority government partner, the Social Democrats.

The Reform Party is opposed to abolishing the current tax system, focusing instead on job creation to improve the economy of Estonia, a member of the eurozone since 2011. Preliminary results showed a 63.7 percent turnout in the electorate of almost 1 million, up from 63.5 in 2011.

Some 176,000 votes were cast electronically, setting a record in the country, which pioneered online voting in 2005.

Colombia welcomes naming of US special envoy to peace talks

Bogota (AFP)
Feb 23, 2015

President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday welcomed the appointment of a US special envoy to Colombia's talks with FARC rebels as a strong signal of Washington's interest in a peace agreement.

The United States announced last week it has named Bernard Aronson, a former assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, as a special envoy to the talks, which have been underway in Havana for more than two years.

"The United States doesn't do that every day," Santos said in a television interview. "They very rarely take a political decision to name someone as a special envoy to solve a problem."

"It's a signal that says the United States is really interested in finding a solution to the problem," he added.

Aronson, who came out of retirement to take the assignment, is known for his role in resolving the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The United States, which sees Colombia as one of its closest allies in the region, has been deeply involved in Bogota's counter-drug and counter-insurgency efforts over the past 15 years under its "Plan Colombia" program of military and economic cooperation.

Colombia's civil conflict, the oldest in Latin America, has claimed more than 220,000 lives over the past half century.

Santos's government has been in peace talks since November 2012 with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest rebel group with an estimated 8,000 fighters.

His government has also held preliminary talks with the country's other guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN by its Spanish acronym.

The FARC has observed a unilateral ceasefire since December 20, but Santos has refused to reciprocate, insisting that a comprehensive peace agreement be reached first.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Colombia_welcomes_naming_of_US_special_envoy_to_peace_talks_999.html.

Brazil top court approves graft investigation of politicians

March 07, 2015

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The Supreme Court late Friday approved an investigation of dozens of top politicians, including a former president and leaders of congress, for alleged connections to what prosecutors call the biggest graft scheme ever uncovered in Brazil.

In total, 54 people are to be investigated by the attorney general, including 21 federal deputies and 12 senators — though that figure is expected to grow as evidence is gathered on corruption involving the state energy company Petrobras.

The investigations and any possible trials will take years to play out, but the action throws the young second term of President Dilma Rousseff into further disarray as she faces dueling political and economic crises. She is not being investigated despite serving as chairwoman of the Petrobras board for several years as the kickback scheme played out.

Experts say the investigations could create further gridlock in congress just as Brazil and its sputtering economy desperately need fiscal and political reform measures passed. But the investigation is widely viewed as a necessary evil for the nation's democracy to advance and shake off deep-rooted impunity for the rich and powerful.

"You can't put this genie back in the bottle. People are going to have to face the consequences," said Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. "There used to be the idea that people in positions of power in Brazil were untouchable. They're no longer untouchable."

Federal investigators revealed a year ago that they had started an investigation into the scheme, and efforts until now focused efforts on big construction and engineering firms that allegedly paid over $800 million in bribes and other funds. The money purportedly won them inflated contracts with Petrobras, and prosecutors say some of that cash flowed into the campaign coffers of the president's Workers' Party and its allies.

During the first phase of the inquiry, investigators struck plea bargain deals with several "operators" who said they helped move the money around in the deals, along with former top executives from Petrobras who acknowledged raking in hundreds of millions in bribes. That testimony paved the way for the opening of investigations into politicians who also allegedly benefited from kickbacks.

Among those the high court said would now be investigated are former president and current senator Fernando Collor, who was forced from the presidency by a corruption scandal in 1992 before making a political comeback in recent years.

Also to be investigated are Senate leader Renan Calheiros and Eduardo Cunha, who is the leader of the lower house. Both are members of the powerful Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, part of the governing coalition led by the Workers' Party. Both have already shown they are ready to create serious gridlock in congress because of the investigation.

Rosemary Segurado, a political scientist at the University of Sao Paulo, said the two congressional leaders would use the investigation as a "bargaining chip" if Rousseff's government doesn't help protect them in some fashion, "causing problems by blocking important projects." She cited tax, fiscal and political reforms needed as Brazil's economy stalls into recession.

Also on the investigation list are Rousseff's former chief of staff and current senator, Gleisi Hoffman; Rousseff's former Energy Minister Edison Lobao; and Antonio Palocci, a former finance minister under the previous president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and who was Rousseff's first chief of staff.

Under Brazilian law, the Supreme Court must approve any investigation of legislators or top officials in the executive branch. Any criminal charges or trials of such figures must also must be approved and judged by the top court.

In an emailed statement, the Workers' Party said that it was "proud to lead governments that have relentlessly fought corruption. It was the governments of Lula and Dilma who have most fought corruption, strengthening the oversight and control agencies and guaranteeing the independence and autonomy of federal prosecutors and the federal police."

The scandal has seriously damaged the reputation of Petrobras, Brazil's largest company. It is responsible for tapping upward of 100 billion barrels of offshore oil found in recent years, wealth that leaders have repeatedly said they view as the nation's "passport" to achieving developed-world status. But the debt-plagued company is struggling — it was recently downgraded to junk status by Moody's Investors Service and it said this week it would sharply cut back investment and sell off assets.

Associated Press writer Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Victory for Argentine leader as judge rejects cover-up case

February 27, 2015

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday firmly dismissed allegations that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez tried to cover up the involvement of Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center, easing a crisis for her government fed by the death of the prosecutor who brought the case.

Judge Daniel Rafecas said the documents originally filed by the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman failed to meet "the minimal conditions needed to launch a formal court investigation." "There is not a single element of evidence, even circumstantial, that points to the actual head of state," the judge said.

Nisman had filed the complaint just days before he died on Jan. 18 under mysterious circumstances. Polls show many Argentines suspect officials had some hand in the death, though Fernandez and aides have suggested the death was actually aimed at destabilizing her government.

While the decision can be appealed, the judge's scathing wording appears to substantiate government insistence that Nisman's case was baseless, though his death still casts a shadow across the administration.

"Rafecas' decision gives the government some breathing room," said Roberto Bacman, director of the Center for Public Opinion Studies, a South American research firm. Before Thursday's decision, "the government had only been receiving bad news."

Tens of thousands of Argentines marched through the capital last week demanding answers a month after he was found in his bathroom with a bullet in his head. Nisman had asked judges to authorize a formal criminal investigation of the president, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other figures on allegations that they agreed to grant impunity for eight Iranians accused in the attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association in which 85 people died. In return, he said, Iran would increase trade with Argentina.

The prosecutor who took over the case after Nisman's death, Gerardo Pollicita, renewed his request. Rafecas also rejected Nisman's theory that the deal was linked to an agreement for the two countries to jointly investigate the bombing. He noted that the 2013 agreement, scuttled by Congress, never took effect.

Investigators say they are trying to determine if Nisman was killed or committed suicide. The president initially suggested the 51-year-old prosecutor had killed himself, then did an about-face a few days later, saying she suspected he had been slain.

She suggested that he might have been manipulated by disgruntled rouge intelligence agents, and pushed through a law to reform the spy service immediately after Nisman's death. Congress gave final approval to the measure earlier Thursday.

"Even with the dismissal of the charges against her, there are still questions about who killed Nisman," said Shannon O'Neal, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations a U.S.-based foreign-policy think tank.

While the decision will no doubt be scrutinized in very polarized Argentina, many constitutional lawyers had argued in recent months that Nisman's case was weak. Rafecas, 46, is a recognized expert on the Holocaust with a reputation as a champion of civil rights for many cases he has overseen involving crimes during the country's military dictatorship that ended in 1983.

While he was appointed to the federal bench in 2004 by Fernandez's predecessor and husband, the late President Nestor Kirchner, Rafecas has also overseen cases against the current government, making enemies along the way.

The respect he has in the Jewish community, one of the largest outside of Israel, will also go a long way toward getting people to accept the decision. Rafecas' ruling "deserves the the utmost respect," said Julio Schlosser, president of the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations.

Fernandez also shuffled her Cabinet on Thursday, replacing three ministers with close aides. Anibal Fernandez, who had been the presidency's general secretary, will replace Jorge Capitanich as Cabinet chief. Fernandez's post will now be taken by Eduardo De Pedro, a lawmaker and leader of La Campora, a political group that is ultra-loyal to the president and that is led by her son, Maximo Kirchner.

The center-left government also named Daniel Gollan as new health minister. He replaces Juan Manzur, who is expected to run for governor in his home state of Tucuman during the October elections. "It's quite possible that the Cabinet reshuffle is connected to Nisman scandal but it's also her last administration," O'Neal said. "Argentina is heading into a series of gubernatorial elections and presidential elections in the fall so this is also a time of lots of political maneuvering."

Associated Press writer Luis Andres Henao contributed to this report from Santiago, Chile.

Lightning kills five in Tanzania school

Dar Es Salaam (AFP)
Feb 23, 2015

A lightning strike in Tanzania killed four school children and their teacher on Monday as they sheltered in their classroom, a teacher said.

"Lightning struck at a classroom at Nyakasanda village and a teacher and four pupils died on the spot," said William Lituhi, local leader in the Kasulu district of eastern Tanzania's Kigoma region.

A total 17 other school-children were injured in the explosion.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Lightning_kills_five_in_Tanzania_school_999.html.

Party of Lesotho's prime minister ahead in election results

March 02, 2015

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The party of Lesotho's prime minister on Sunday led in initial results from an election in the mountain kingdom, which held an early vote in an attempt to overcome tension among political factions.

Lesotho's election commission said Prime Minister Thomas Thabane's All Basotho Convention party was ahead with wins in 35 out of 80 voting districts. Some supporters of his party, which performed well in the area of the capital, Maseru, took to the streets to celebrate the early results.

The Democratic Congress of Pakalitha Mosisili, a former prime minister, was second with 10 district victories in Saturday's election. The Lesotho Congress for Democracy, a party led by Mothetjoa Metsing, the prime minister's deputy, had won two.

More results were expected on Monday morning. Last year, Thabane suspended parliament after his coalition government splintered. He fled to South Africa, alleging he was the target of a coup attempt, and returned under the protection of South African forces.

Lesotho has a mixed election system, using voting districts as well as results in the nationwide popular vote to determine who gets the 120 seats in parliament. The country has 1.2 million registered voters.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Lesotho on "the peaceful conduct" of the elections, and said "the successful completion of this process will be an important step in Lesotho's return to political normalcy," according to a statement released by his spokesman.

Widespread winds and eedback from supermassive black holes

Keele, UK (SPX)
Feb 24, 2015

Astronomers have discovered that the winds from supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies blow outward in all directions, a suspected phenomenon that had been difficult to prove before now.

These new findings, by an international team of astrophysicists, were made possible by simultaneous observations of the luminous quasar PDS 456 with ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's NuSTAR X-ray telescopes, and support the picture of black holes having a significant impact on star formation in their host galaxies.

At the core of every massive galaxy in the Universe, including our own Milky Way, sits a supermassive black hole, with a mass some millions or billions of times that of our Sun. Some of these black holes are active, meaning that their intense gravitational pull causes matter to spiral inward, and at the same time part of that matter is cast away through powerful winds.

"We now know that quasar winds significantly contribute to mass loss in a galaxy, driving out its supply of gas, which is fuel for star formation," said Dr Emanuele Nardini, of the X-ray Astrophysics Group at Keele University in the UK and lead author of the study. "This study provides a unique view of the possible mechanism that links the evolution of the central black holes to that of their host galaxies over cosmic time."

With the shape and extent of the winds determined, the researchers could then figure out their power and answer general questions about the degree to which they can quench the formation of new stars.

Astronomers think that supermassive black holes and their galaxies co-evolve together, regulating each other's growth. For more than a decade astronomers have investigated the correlation between the mass of stars in the bulge of a galaxy and the mass of its central black hole, yet it is by no means obvious that the black hole could have an impact on its host galaxy as a whole.

"Black holes of this kind are very powerful, but their gravitational field only extends over the very inner parts of a galaxy," explains Dr Nardini. "For black holes to really influence the star-forming activity of an entire galaxy, there must be a feedback mechanism connecting the two on a global scale."

One possibility is that the propagation of winds driven by the black hole's accretion activity plays a role and, as reported in the journal Science, Dr Nardini and collaborators have obtained the first solid evidence supporting this scenario.

The researchers have looked at PDS 456, a galaxy that lies just over two billion light-years away and that hosts an exceptionally active black hole with a mass of one billion Suns. PDS 456 is a quasar, a class of galaxies that appear as a point source because the activity of the central black holes outshines the brightness produced by their stars.

A comprehensive view of the accreting activity of this quasar could be obtained by observing PDS 456 simultaneously with ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory and NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission. The observations were performed on four occasions in 2013, and once again in 2014.

Since the early X-ray detections, this quasar revealed a strong absorption feature caused by iron nuclei that have been stripped of all but one or two of their electrons.

"The absorption line is blue-shifted with respect to its expected energy in the laboratory, indicating that it arises in a gas that is moving away from the black hole; in other words, we are seeing an outflowing wind," explains Dr Nardini. This line has now been detected in many other quasars, but due to its relative vicinity to us, PDS 456 offers ideal conditions to observe it in detail.

Prior to this study, astronomers used this absorption feature to learn that the wind is blowing at one third the speed of light. But the data were not enough to determine the amount of matter and energy carried away from the black hole. This is where the new observing campaign made a difference, allowing the astronomers to uncover something new: not only they could see the absorption caused by the iron ions, now they also detected direct emission from those ions.

"It was a most welcome surprise," says Dr Nardini.

The emission signature in the spectrum was detected at a slightly lower energy than the absorption feature, indicating that the emitting ions lie outside our line of sight.

"We are seeing material that is flowing away from the black hole, not only towards us but in every direction," he adds.

Such a pair of emission and absorption lines is called a P-Cygni profile, as it was first observed in the variable star P Cygni. It is characteristic of a gaseous envelope expanding away from the central source, and it was never before observed in a wind launched from the vicinity of a supermassive black hole.

With this new feature detected in the spectra of PDS 456, the astronomers could finally study the geometry of the wind blown by the black hole, revealing a wide, almost spherical outflow of matter.

"Knowing the speed, shape and size of the winds, we can now figure out how powerful they are," comments Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, who is a co-author on the paper and the principal investigator of NuSTAR.

The data indicate that the outflowing material amounts to about ten times the mass of the Sun every year, and that the kinetic power it releases into the surroundings is about 20 per cent of the total energy emitted by the quasar.

The wide shape of the wind suggests that the black hole must have quite an impact on the host galaxy, and the estimated amounts of mass and energy that are being blown away seem to confirm that the outflow is able to trigger an effective feedback mechanism on the galaxy as a whole.

While the black-hole wind consists of ionized gas, its power has the potential to set larger outflows into motion, eventually driving away the galaxy's reservoir of molecular gas - the raw material that is needed for stars to form.

Because PDS 456 is relatively nearby by cosmic standards, in this new study astronomers might be witnessing the early stage of a feedback process that more distant quasars underwent around 10 billion years ago, when supermassive black holes and their fierce winds were much more common and possibly contributed to regulating the star-forming activity of the galaxies we observe today.

"This is a great example of the synergy between XMM-Newton and NuSTAR," says Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton project scientist at ESA. "The complementarity of these two X-ray observatories is enabling us to unveil previously hidden details about the powerful side of the Universe."

Source: Space Daily.

Kremlin critic Navalny released after 15 days in custody

March 06, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — Leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was released Friday after spending 15 days in custody and vowed that he and his supporters will not be intimidated by the slaying of a top Kremlin critic.

Navalny, the driving force behind the 2011-2012 mass protests in Moscow, said the killing of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov will not lead him to scale down his campaign against President Vladimir Putin's government.

"This act of terror hasn't achieved its goal, it will not frighten me or my comrades," Navalny said after his release. "We will not reduce our efforts, we will not step back." Navalny walked free after serving the sentence handed down by a Moscow court, which found him guilty of violating the law when he distributed leaflets in the subway campaigning for an opposition rally. The protest was turned into a mourning march to pay tributes to Nemtsov.

Nemtsov, 55, a former deputy prime minister and one of Putin's most vehement critics, was killed just outside the Kremlin hours after a radio interview in which he denounced the president for his "mad, aggressive" policies in Ukraine. Before his death, Nemtsov was working on a report about Russian involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine.

The West accused Russia of backing the separatist insurgency there with troops and weapons, the accusations the Kremlin denied. "Our task is to expose those lies and open the Russian society's eyes to Russian soldiers dying on the territory of brotherly Ukraine," Nemtsov's friend, Ilya Yashin, told The Associated Press. Yashin said he and fellow opposition activists had found some of Nemtsov's documents and would try to continue his efforts.

No suspects have been detained in Nemtsov's killing, despite a reward of 3 million rubles (nearly $50,000) offered for information related to the case. Kremlin critics say the spiteful nationalist propaganda on state television, which cast Nemtsov and other liberals as Western stooges, helped prepare the ground for his killing.

"The atmosphere of mad aggression created by the state television ... has signaled that you could do anything to the people expressing a different view, this will benefit the Motherland," Dmitry Muratov, the editor of the Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper critical of the Kremlin, told the AP.

Yashin also said Putin bears political responsible for Nemtsov's death because he encouraged "hatred, intolerance and aggression toward a part of society that disagrees with the current political course."

Many believe that Nemtsov's death in a tightly secured area near the Kremlin wouldn't have been possible without official involvement, and could be an attempt to scare other government foes. Putin dubbed Nemtsov's killing a "provocation." The nation's top investigative agency echoed that comment, saying it was looking into whether Nemtsov had been a "sacrificial victim" to destabilize Russia. It added that it was also investigating possible involvement of Islamic extremists because of Nemtsov's support for Paris terror attack victims, a possible Ukrainian link and Nemtsov's personal life.

Nemtsov and other Russians who supported the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shootings had faced threats, Muratov said. "With all possible reservations, I would look in that direction," he added. He voiced hope for a thorough official probe, adding that the investigator in charge of the case had solved the double murder of a human rights lawyer and a Novaya Gazeta reporter who were killed by extremist nationalists in Moscow in 2009.

30,000 marchers in Moscow mourn slain Putin foe

March 01, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — For the tens of thousands bearing flowers and tying black ribbons to railings in honor of slain Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, the solemn march through the Moscow drizzle on Sunday was a time for silence, not slogans.

The marchers occasionally broke into chants of "Russia without Putin," or "Say no to war," but often the only sound was the steady thwack of police helicopters overhead or the hum of police boats patrolling the shores of the Moscow River.

While the killing of Nemtsov has shaken the Russian opposition, which sees the Kremlin as responsible, it is unclear whether his death will be enough to invigorate the beleaguered movement. Despite the Ukraine conflict and Russia's economic crisis, support for President Vladimir Putin has been above 80 percent in the past year.

Since mass anti-Putin protests brought hundreds of thousands to the streets of Moscow in 2011 and 2012, Putin has marginalized and intimidated his political opponents, jailing some, driving others into exile, and ramping up fines and potential jail time for those detained at protests.

The 55-year-old Nemtsov was among the few prominent opposition figures who refused to be cowed. But while many at the march expressed respect for his long political career and grief at his loss, few believed that his death would spark major change in Russia because of the Kremlin's control over national television, where a vast majority of Russians get their news.

"Maybe if 100 people were to die people would rise up, but I don't really believe in that," said Sergei Musakov, 22. "People are so under the influence of the (TV) box that they will believe anything that television tells them. If it tells them that terrorists from the Islamic State group came to Russia in order to blow up the fifth column, they'll believe it."

The Kremlin had identified Nemtsov as among the leaders of a "fifth column," painting him and other opposition figures as traitors in the service of a hostile West. About 30,000 people attended the march, making it the largest opposition rally in more than a year. The demonstrators bore Russian flags and signs that read "I am not afraid" or "Propaganda kills." At the site where Nemtsov was killed, a pile of flowers grew by the minute, as mourners tossed down bouquets of every color.

Nemtsov was gunned down shortly before midnight Friday as he walked across a bridge near the Kremlin. The killing came just hours after a radio interview in which he denounced Putin's "mad, aggressive policy" in Ukraine.

At the time of his death, Nemtsov was working on a report that he believed proved that Russian troops were fighting alongside the separatists in Ukraine, despite the official denials. No one has been arrested in the killing. Investigators said they were looking into several possible motives and have offered 3 million rubles (nearly $50,000) for information about the shooting.

TV Center, a station controlled by the Moscow city government, broadcast a poor-resolution video from one of its web cameras that it said shows Nemtsov and his date shortly before the killing. The station, which superimposed its own time code on the footage, circled figures that it said were Nemtsov and the woman walking across the bridge on a rainy night. A snowplow that moved slowly behind the couple obscured the view of the shooting.

TV Center then circled what it said was the suspected killer jumping into a passing car. The authenticity of the video could not be independently confirmed. Investigators said Sunday they were again questioning the woman, Ukrainian citizen Anna Duritskaya. Russian media have identified her as a model and shown photos of her in alluring poses.

Fellow opposition activists said they hoped Nemtsov's death would encourage people to take action, rather than intimidate them. "Essentially it is an act of terror," said Ilya Yashin, an opposition leader and friend. "It is a political murder aimed at frightening the population, or the part of the population that supported Nemtsov or did not agree with the government. I hope we won't get scared, that we will continue what Boris was doing."

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister who joined the opposition, told the crowd the killing should be a turning point for Russia "for the simple reason that people who before thought that they could quietly sit in their kitchens and simply discuss problems within the family, now will start reconsidering everything that's going on in our country."

Since Nemtsov's death, investigators, politicians and political commentators on state television have suggested numerous motives for the attack. The most popular theory seemed to be that Western secret services were behind the hit, with the aim of destabilizing Russia. Putin's spokesman said the president saw the attack as a "provocation" against the state.

Some bristled at Western coverage that suggested Nemtsov was killed for his relentless opposition to Putin. "We haven't even recovered, the man hasn't even been buried, and the West is shoving down our throats that Russia supposedly has killed a key opposition politician," Dmitry Kiselyov, an influential television anchor famous for his anti-Western broadcasts, said on his Sunday evening show.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had no intelligence on who was behind the shooting. "The bottom line is we hope there will be a thorough, transparent, real investigation, not just of who actually fired the shots, but who, if anyone, may have ordered or instructed this or been behind this," Kerry said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Kiselyov noted that while Nemtsov was known in Russia from his political activity in the 1990s, when he served as a deputy prime minister overseeing reforms, he was no longer popular. The anchor suggested that the West may have believed his death would resonate more with average Russians than his political activity: "When he was alive, Nemtsov was no longer necessary to the West, he had no prospects. But dead, he was a lot more interesting."

For those at the march, it's that rhetoric on state television that makes the prospects for change dim. "From my experience, trying to convince people isn't possible," said Mikhail Trofimenko, a 42-year-old screenwriter. "I think things will only get worse, but I hope that by some miracle Russia will not fall apart and remain a united country."

He held up a painting of the Russian flag riddled with four bullet holes, the number found in Nemtsov's body. Another mourning march was held earlier Sunday in St. Petersburg, drawing several thousand people.

Nelly Prusskaya, a 66-year-old doctor, said she came to pay her respects to Nemtsov. "I also came to say that I'm against the war in Ukraine," she said. "I'm against political murders."

Lynn Berry in Moscow and Irina Titova in St. Petersburg, Russia, contributed to this report.

Prominent Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov shot dead

February 28, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic Russian opposition leader and sharp critic of President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down Saturday near the Kremlin, just a day before a planned protest against the government.

The death of Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy prime minister, ignited a fury among opposition figures who assailed the Kremlin for creating an atmosphere of intolerance of any dissent and called the killing an assassination. Putin quickly offered his condolences and called the murder a provocation.

Nemtsov was working on a report presenting evidence that he believed proved Russia's direct involvement in the separatist rebellion that has raged in eastern Ukraine since last April. Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of backing the rebels with troops and sophisticated weapons. Moscow denies the accusations.

Putin ordered Russia's top law enforcement chiefs to personally oversee the probe of Nemtsov's killing. "Putin noted that this cruel murder has all the makings of a contract hit and is extremely provocative," presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

President Barack Obama called on Russia's government to perform a "prompt, impartial and transparent" investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice. Obama called Nemtsov a "tireless advocate" for the rights of Russian citizens.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Nemtsov committed his life to a more democratic Russia, "and to strong relationships between Russia and its neighbors and partners, including the United States."

Nemtsov assailed the government's inefficiency, rampant corruption and the Kremlin's Ukraine policy, which has strained relations between Russia and the West to a degree unseen since Cold War times. In an interview with the Sobesednik newspaper, Nemtsov said earlier this month that his 86-year old mother was afraid that Putin could have him killed for his opposition activities. Asked if he had such fears himself, he responded by saying: "If I were afraid I wouldn't have led an opposition party."

Speaking on radio just a few hours before his death, he harshly criticized Putin for plunging Russia into the crisis by his "mad, aggressive and deadly policy of war against Ukraine." "The country needs a political reform," Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio. "When power is concentrated in the hands of one person and this person rules for ever, this will lead to an absolute catastrophe, absolute."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Nemtsov a personal friend and a "bridge" between the two countries. He said on his Facebook page that he hopes the killers will be punished. Nemtsov's lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said the politician had received threats on social networks and told police about them, but authorities didn't take any steps to protect him.

The Russian Interior Ministry, which oversees Russia's police force, said that Nemtsov was killed by four shots in the back from a passing car as he was walking over a bridge just outside the Kremlin shortly after midnight.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Yelena Alexeyeva told reporters that Nemtsov was walking with a female acquaintance, a Ukrainian citizen, when a vehicle drove up and unidentified assailants shot him dead. The woman wasn't hurt.

Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister now also in opposition, said he was shocked. "In the 21st century, a leader of the opposition is being demonstratively shot just outside the walls of the Kremlin!" Kasyanov told reporters as Nemtsov's body placed in a plastic bag was removed on a rainy and cold night, as the Kremlin bells chimed nearby. "The country is rolling into the abyss."

Sunday's rally was pushed to the city's outskirts by the authorities, but Kasyanov said the rally organizers decided that they will stage a demonstration in the center of the capital to commemorate Nemtsov. Officials' failure to authorize it would be certain to cause anger and could lead to unrest.

Garry Kasparov, a former chess champion who worked with Nemtsov to organize protests against Putin and now lives in the United States, said the killing shows that Putin and those who support him are lying when they say their popular support is strong.

"If you have 86 percent support, why do you kill someone like Boris?" he said. "He maybe can reach two million people online at best. A demonstration brings out a hundred thousand people at most. So if you are so confident, why do that?"

Opposition activist Ilya Yashin, who last spoke to Nemtsov two days before the killing, said he had no doubt that Nemtsov's murder was politically motivated. "Boris Nemtsov was a stark opposition leader who criticized the most important state officials in our country, including President Vladimir Putin. As we have seen, such criticism in Russia is dangerous for one's life," Yashin said.

Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky told Ekho Mosvky radio that he did not believe that Nemtsov's death would in any way serve Putin's interests. "But the atmosphere of hatred toward alternative thinkers that has formed over the past year, since the annexation of Crimea, may have played its role," Belkovsky said, referring to the surge of intense and officially endorsed nationalist discourse in Russia since it annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Irina Khakamada, a prominent opposition figure who co-founded a liberal party with Nemtsov, also blamed a climate of intimidation and warned that the murder could herald a dangerous destabilization. "It's a provocation that is clearly not in Putin's interests, it's aimed at rocking the situation," she said in remarks carried by RIA Novosti news agency.

Russia's human rights commissioner, Yelena Panfilova, said "it wasn't just a shot in Nemtsov's back, it was a shot in the back of Russia." Vladimir Ryzhkov, a longtime political ally of Nemtsov, blamed Putin for fueling "the atmosphere of hatred toward those with different views, the atmosphere of violence and aggression that now exists in the country."

After Nemtsov's body was taken away, people put flowers at the spot where he was killed. "It's because of his activism, which was very important," said one, Yevgeniya Berkovich. "It's political in any case. Even if it was done by some random street cleaner who went crazy and had a gun, it's because he got it into his head that this is now the fashion."

Nemtsov served as a deputy prime minister in the 1990s and once was seen as a possible successor to Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first elected president. After Putin came to power in 2000, Nemtsov became one of the most vocal critics of his rule. He helped organize street protests and exposed official corruption.

He was one of the organizers of the Spring March opposition protest set for Sunday, which comes amid a severe economic downturn in Russia caused by low oil prices and Western sanctions. Nemtsov said during a radio interview just before his death that it was hard to live under constant intimidation and pressure.

"I won't hide the fact that the opposition is under strong pressure," he said. "Lies are spread about the people, and one has to be a very strong person to cope with all this. I know this from my own experience."

Associated Press writers Peter Leonard in Kiev, Ukraine and Jake Pearson in New York contributed to this report.

Russia offers Iran new missiles despite sanctions

Moscow (AFP)
Feb 23, 2015

Russia has offered Iran advanced surface-to-air missiles after scrapping a similar deal in 2010 because of UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, the state defense company said Monday.

Any such a deal is likely to go down badly in Washington as Western countries seek to keep up the pressure on Iran to agree a comprehensive deal on its nuclear activities.

Sergei Chemezov, head of the Rostec corporation which manages Russia's defense industry, said Moscow has offered to supply Antey-2500 missiles, an upgraded version of the S-300 air defense system that figured in the previous contract.

"We have offered them the Antey-2500," Chemezov was quoted as saying by RIA-Novosti news agency.

But he added: "The decision has not been made yet."

Moscow signed a contract in 2007 to deliver S-300 missiles to Iran worth $800 million.

The deal was intensely criticized by the United States and Israel, and Moscow later dropped it as being in breach of UN sanctions.

A UN resolution adopted in 2010 bans the supply, sale or transfer to Iran of missiles or missiles systems.

Chemezov said the Antey-2500 is a more modern version of the S-300, which Russia no longer makes. The same surface-to-air missiles were reportedly delivered to Venezuela in 2013.

Now under Western sanctions itself over the conflict in Ukraine, Russia -- a permanent member of the UN Security Council -- has strengthened its alliance with Iran.

During a visit to Tehran by Russia's defense minister last month, the two countries signed a military cooperation agreement touted as a joint response to US "interference".

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_offers_Iran_new_missiles_despite_sanctions_999.html.

Cambodia PM says work on mega-dam will not start until 2018

February 24, 2015

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Construction of a massive dam in southwestern Cambodia will not start until at least 2018, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday, in an apparent effort to stop heavy opposition to the project which has focused criticism on him.

Hun Sen's comments came a day after Spanish activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, who had campaigned against the dam, was deported for overstaying his visa. "From now until 2018, there will be no permission to build (the dam)," said Hun Sen, whose mandate as prime minister ends in 2018. "Now I beg you to stop talking about it."

Gonzalez-Davidson was a co-founder of non-governmental group called Mother Nature, which has vocally opposed construction of the hydropower dam in southwestern Cambodia's Koh Kong province. Cambodia has signed a deal to build the mega-dam with China's state-owned Sinohydro, but both sides have said more studies were needed before any construction begins.

The project, one of several dams being built by Chinese companies in Cambodia, sparked strong disapproval from the political opposition and environmental groups. In September, Gonzalez-Davidson led a protest that briefly blocked a government convoy from driving to the proposed site of the dam, in the Areng Valley of the Cardamom Mountains.

Environmental groups say the dam would destroy the natural habitat across a vast expanse of one of Southeast Asia's last great wilderness areas, which contains some of Cambodia's most profuse wildlife, including the world's largest population of almost extinct Siamese crocodiles.

Gonzalez-Davidson's visa expired Friday and the government refused to extend or renew it. On Monday, Prime Minister Hun Sen publicly appealed to Gonzalez-Davidson to leave the country and he was deported Monday evening.

"His visa had expired and he refused to leave Cambodia as ordered from the ministry, therefore we had no choice but to deport him," said Gen. Khieu Sopheak, an Interior Ministry spokesman. Without naming the activist, Hun Sen said Tuesday that foreigners should not give advice to Cambodia on forest conservation or the construction of dams.

Cambodia expels Spanish environmental activist after arrest

Phnom Penh (AFP)
Feb 23, 2015

Cambodia deported a Spanish environmental activist Monday after he was arrested in Phnom Penh, officials said, a move described by a rights group as the government's latest attempt to stifle dissent.

Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, co-founder of the advocacy group Mother Nature, has been an outspoken and long-time campaigner against plans for a controversial dam in a protected forest area in the southwestern province of Koh Kong.

Interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told AFP earlier that authorities were compelled to "expel" him as he refused to leave the country voluntarily after his visa renewal application was refused.

Gonzalez-Davidson, a fluent Khmer speaker who has lived in Phnom Penh for years, was put on a plane bound for Thailand late Monday, an immigration official at the capital's airport, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The Spaniard, who has been lobbying to halt the construction of Stung Cheay Areng hydroelectric dam, urged Cambodian nature lovers to "stay strong" in a text message to his group before being deported.

"The battle is yours to be won. For Nature, our Life," he said, according to a statement released by Mother Nature.

The organization claims the proposed dam in Koh Kong would flood a valley home to around 1,500 ethnic minority people and destroy a unique ecosystem.

Sopheak said Monday that the activist's visa was not renewed because of complaints filed against him by the energy ministry and the Koh Kong governor.

But Am Sam Ath of local rights group Licadho said the deportation was directly linked to Gonzalez-Davidson's vocal opposition to the proposed dam.

"The arrest will harm the government's reputation," Ath said.

Gonzalez-Davidson was arrested at a Phnom Penh restaurant on Monday and detained just hours after strongman premier Hun Sen warned the defiant activist to leave Cambodia voluntarily or face being blacklisted from the country.

Hun Sen, who marked 30 years in power in January, has said the economic benefits of a series of controversial dams outweigh environmental concerns in a country where a quarter of the population still lacks electricity.

Nine dams, including several funded by China, are set to open by 2019.

Once they are operational the government has said they will together generate more than 2,000 megawatts, serving all of Cambodia's provinces.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Cambodia_expels_Spanish_environmental_activist_after_arrest_999.html.

Humpback whale freed from netting off Hawaii coast

by Brooks Hays
Maui, Hawaii (UPI)
Feb 23, 2015

After spending all of last week circling Hawaii's Big Island with its tail entangled in hundred of feet of fishing netting, a 40-ton humpback is now swimming free. During a rescue operation lasting several hours on Friday, experts with NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard were able to cut the line away from the whale's tail.

The 45-foot long humpback was first spotted off Hawaii's Kona Coast on February 13, but the whale proved difficult to locate, delaying a rescue operation until the whale surfaced in safer waters. A rescue attempt was nixed last Monday when the whale moved into rough seas.

"We decided to stand down and be patient and wait for the weather," Ed Lyman, the marine mammal response manager for NOAA, told West Hawaii Today. "It's hard enough to be towed behind a whale in a calm sea. We had to be patient."

On Friday, with calmer seas and good weather in their favor, the rescuers trailed the whale in an inflatable as the marine mammal remained close to the ocean surface.

A special knife affixed to a pole was used to cut away the tangled netting piece by piece.

"We had to make three approaches, four cuts was enough for last wrap to get gear off her," Lyman told local news station KHON2. "We went by the back and went really well, very slow, very methodical."

The rescuers used a GoPro camera to peer below the ocean's surface and ensure they'd removed all the rope. Only a short piece was left, embedded in a wound in the whale's tail that experts said would likely heal and slough off.

The NOAA's search and rescue efforts were assisted by the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as the West Hawaii Marine Mammal Response Network, and several other local organizations.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Humpback_whale_freed_from_netting_off_Hawaii_coast_999.html.

Ancient and modern cities aren't so different

Santa Fe NM (SPX)
Feb 24, 2015

Despite notable differences in appearance and governance, ancient human settlements function in much the same way as modern cities, according to new findings by researchers at the Santa Fe Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder.

Previous research has shown that as modern cities grow in population, so do their efficiencies and productivity. A city's population outpaces its development of urban infrastructure, for example, and its production of goods and services outpaces its population. What's more, these patterns exhibit a surprising degree of mathematical regularity and predictability, a phenomenon called "urban scaling."

But has this always been the case?

SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt researches urban dynamics as a lead investigator of SFI's Cities, Scaling, and Sustainability research program. When he gave a talk in 2013 on urban scaling theory, Scott Ortman, now an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at CU Boulder and a former Institute Omidyar Fellow, noted that the trends Bettencourt described were not particular to modern times. Their discussion prompted a research project on the effects of city size through history.

To test their ideas, the team examined archaeological data from the Basin of Mexico (what is now Mexico City and nearby regions). In the 1960s -- before Mexico City's population exploded -- surveyors examined all its ancient settlements, spanning 2000 years and four cultural eras in pre-contact Mesoamerica.

Using this data, the research team analyzed the dimensions of hundreds of ancient temples and thousands of ancient houses to estimate populations and densities, size and construction rates of monuments and buildings, and intensity of site use.

Their results, published in the new AAAS open-access journal Science Advances this month, indicate that the bigger the ancient settlement, the more productive it was.

"It was shocking and unbelievable," says Ortman. "We were raised on a steady diet telling us that, thanks to capitalism, industrialization, and democracy, the modern world is radically different from worlds of the past. What we found here is that the fundamental drivers of robust socioeconomic patterns in modern cities precede all that."

Bettencourt adds: "Our results suggest that the general ingredients of productivity and population density in human societies run much deeper and have everything to do with the challenges and opportunities of organizing human social networks."

Though excited by the results, the researchers see the discovery as just one step in a long process. The team plans to examine settlement patterns from ancient sites in Peru, China, and Europe and study the factors that lead urban systems to emerge, grow, or collapse.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ancient_and_modern_cities_arent_so_different_999.html.

Who's who in coalition against IS jihadists

Baghdad (AFP)
Feb 23, 2015

The US-led coalition against the jihadist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria groups more than 60 countries, of which a dozen are taking part in air strikes.

Washington is carrying out its strikes in Syria with the help of Arab allies - Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

In Iraq it has the active support of seven Western countries - Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France and the Netherlands.

The coalition has since August carried out 2,000 air strikes, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on February 8.

While excluding the deployment of ground troops, coalition countries have also sent more than 1,000 military trainers to work with Iraqi forces.

Below are contributions from the main coalition members:

UNITED STATES: The US started to bombard IS positions in Iraq on August 8, 2014 and extended operations to Syria on September 23.

The 2016 budget earmarks $8.8 billion for the fight against IS.

Around 1,830 American soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq to assist its armed forces in equipment, training and intelligence.

- STRIKES ON IRAQ -

AUSTRALIA: Canberra sent eight RAAF F/A18s to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to take part in air strikes. On October 19, it announced sending 200 members of its special forces as advisers in Iraq. It has also sent military equipment and humanitarian aid to Iraqi Kurds.

BELGIUM: Brussels has committed six F-16 fighter jets and 120 troops, based in Jordan.

BRITAIN: London has deployed eight Tornado fighter bombers and started to conduct air strikes on September 30.

The government announced in October the redeployment from Afghanistan to Iraq of several of its Reaper drones.

In late 2014, London announced the deployment of several hundred extra British soldiers to Kurdish zones of northern Iraq and to near Baghdad to train Iraq's infantry and help them fight against improvised explosive devices.

London has delivered machine-guns and ammunition to Iraqi Kurdish forces.

CANADA: Ottawa has deployed six F-18 fighter jets to Kuwait to take part in strikes in Iraq and officially deployed 69 members of its special forces to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

In the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and IS, Canadian special forces in January exchanged gunfire with jihadist fighters in Iraq.

FRANCE: Paris joined air strikes in Iraq on September 19, 2014. On Monday, it deployed the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Gulf to work alongside the USS Carl Vinson.

The ship carries 12 Rafale and nine Super Etendard fighters, in addition to nine Rafales in the UAE and six Mirage fighters in Jordan operating over Iraq, along with a maritime patrol and a refueling aircraft.

The Charles de Gaulle strike group includes an attack submarine, a French anti-aircraft frigate and the HMS Kent, a British anti-submarine frigate. A total of 2,700 sailors are involved, including 2,000 on the carrier itself.

NETHERLANDS: Apart from six F-16 fighter jets based in Jordan for missions in Iraq, and two others in reserve, The Hague on October 5 announced it was deploying 250 soldiers in Iraq as trainers.

- STRIKES ON SYRIA -

SAUDI ARABIA: The leader of the Gulf monarchies has been taking part since September in air strikes on IS positions in Syria and has accepted moderate Syrian rebels for training and equipping.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Abu Dhabi resumed air strikes on February 10 in Syria, having suspending the raids after IS captured a Jordanian pilot in December.

On February 7, the UAE ordered a squadron of F-16 warplanes to be stationed in Jordan to support it in strikes against the IS.

BAHRAIN: Home of the US Fifth Fleet, Manama has taken part from the start in air strikes in Syria and on February 16 announced the deployment of fighter jets in Jordan.

JORDAN: A neighbor of both Iraq and Syria, the kingdom has also taken part in strikes in Syria since the outset.

It stepped up raids after the February 3 announcement of the execution of Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh, burned alive by IS which captured him after his plane crashed.

On February 5, Jordan also joined air strikes on Iraq.

QATAR: Doha has supported air strikes in Syria, making available its Udeid air base, home of Centcom, the US central military command for the Middle East and central Asia.

TURKEY: Concerned by Kurdish activities, it joined the coalition on October 2 but has declined to take military action. After months of difficult negotiations, it signed a February 19 accord with the US to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels.

The US government hopes the program can start by late March and the first trained rebel forces become operational by year's end.

Other countries, including the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Norway and Spain, have either sent hundreds of soldiers to train Iraqi or Kurdish forces, or hosted training. Others have delivered arms and ammunition.

Source: Space War.
Link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Whos_who_in_coalition_against_IS_jihadists_999.html.