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ISIS, Nusra militants number 3,000 on Lebanon-Syria border: report

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January 6, 2015

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BEIRUT: ISIS and Nusra Front militants holed up in Syria’s Qalamoun area on the border with Lebanon do not exceed 3,000 …

The Oil Slump Is Squeezing Iran

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January 5, 2015

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Uncategorised

Nicholas Blanford, Christian Science Monitor

A slump in global oil prices and nuclear-tied sanctions are squeezing the group’s patron Iran, which is already funneling billions of dollars to the Syrian regime.

As Iran tightens its belt, Hezbollah has had to impose salary cuts on personnel, defer payments to suppliers and reduce monthly stipends to its political allies in Lebanon, according to a wide range of political and diplomatic sources in Beirut, including friends and foes of the powerful Shiite party.

The financial difficulties do not pose an immediate threat to Hezbollah’s political and popular standing in Lebanon. Moreover, the flow of Iranian largesse is controlled by Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Iran’s supreme leader, and isn’t part of the government’s oil-dependent budget.

But the belt-tightening underlines just how reliant Hezbollah is on Iranian largesse to pay its ever increasing army of fighters, as well as to bankroll its massive social welfare network of schools and hospitals upon which much of its Shiite support base depends.

It Isn’t Clear Which US Official Is Actually In Charge Of The War Against ISIS

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January 5, 2015

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Uncategorised

James Weirick, Task & Purpose

In the summer of 216 BC, during the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian military leader Hannibal, after his epic crossing of the Alps, led his numerically inferior army into a battle that would end with 50,000 Roman infantry killed. The Battle of Cannae effectively destroyed the Roman army as a fighting force.

One of the Romans' major problems during the battle was the lack of a unified military command. When two consular armies joined forces and fought as one unit, as was the case at Cannae, the consuls would exercise command on alternate days. This resulted in confusion about who was ultimately in command of the army.

The Romans learned this bloody lesson at Cannae and made the necessary change to ensure that there was no confusion about who was in command. By 202 BC, at the Battle of Zama, the Roman commander Scipio Africanus was the general-in-chief of the Roman armies in Africa. This unified command was one of the keys to Scipio Africanus defeating Hannibal and has become a cornerstone principle of Western military doctrine. Over two thousand years later, the United States has failed to recognize the importance of the concept.

Amal Clooney Clarifies Near Arrest in Op-Ed, Urges Release of al-Jazeera Journalist

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January 5, 2015

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Uncategorised

Rishi Iyengar @iyengarrishi

The human-rights lawyer, who married Hollywood actor George Clooney last year, said the incident that led to an arrest warning from Egyptian authorities had nothing to do with her representation of Mohamed Famy

Amal Clooney, the international human-rights lawyer currently representing jailed al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Famy, called for his release in an op-ed on Sunday, while also clearing up a recent report that she was threatened with arrest by authorities in Egypt, where Famy is currently detained.

The op-ed, published by the Huffington Post and co-authored by Famy’s other counsel Mark Wassouf, expresses reservations against the proposed retrial of Famy following the cancellation of his and two colleagues’ jail sentences. “A re-trial process is lengthy and its outcome is uncertain,” the op-ed reads. “It is also not clear how a new process would fix any of the deficiencies in the original trial.”