Kukil Bora, International Business Times,

The Islamic State group, which is said to be the world’s wealthiest terrorist organization with diversified sources of funding, received up to $45 million in ransom in the past year, according to a United Nations expert.

Yotsna Lalji, who monitors sanctions against al Qaeda, said in a meeting of the U.N. Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee that as much as $120 million in ransom was estimated to have been paid to terrorist groups between 2004 and 2012, and ISIS collected between $35 million and $45 million in 2013 alone, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

According to Lalji, al Qaeda and its affiliates have made kidnapping “the core al-Qaida tactic for generating revenue,” in recent years. She also pointed to a 2012 video recording in which al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri provoked militants worldwide to abduct Westerners.

Lalji said that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, operating from Yemen, received $20 million in ransom between 2011 and 2013. On the other hand, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, operating in North Africa, got $75 million over the past four years, AP reported.

James Rosebush, On Leadership

Not all leaders are game-changers.

Game-changers are supercharged leaders.

They stir the pot, alter the strategy, move the ball, and redesign the construct. They shift and alter. They are the leaders that affect history.

Here are few signs you may — or may not — be one. 

1. You're restless.
You have a low tolerance for boredom. People might advise: "get calm, quiet and centered, slow down." But if you look at people who have introduced new technologies that have changed the world — from John D. Rockefeller to Elon Musk — their stories are ones of restlessness. It's OK if you are or are not. We need a balance in society of the restless and the calm.
2. You worry.
Worry can be converted into positive energy, but you have to know how to do it, to link opportunity to it, and to impersonalize and de-victimize yourself from it. Sit yourself down in chair and place another chair opposite you. Put the worry in the other chair and talk to it. Master it. Tell it what to do and that you are going to use it as a catapult for leadership. De-couple it from your own personality. Doing this can have powerful results. It unchains the mind. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, told me that even she worried every time she got up on stage. She harnessed it, used it as fuel. Worry did not defeat her.

Michael B Kelley - Business Insider

The US and Turkey are headed for a showdown over Syria, as evidence mounts that Ankara is enabling groups that Washington is actively bombing.

Discord between the two allies is now more public than ever following a new report by Dr. Jonathan Schanzer and Merve Tahiroglu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Bordering on Terrorism: Turkey’s Syria Policy and the Rise of the Islamic State" details Turkey's apparent willingness to allow extremists — including militants from the Islamic State (aka IS, ISIS, or ISIL) — and their enablers to thrive on the 565-mile border with Syria in an attempt to secure the downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

"The IS crisis has put Turkey and the US on a collision course," the report says. "Turkey refuses to allow the coalition to launch military strikes from its soil. Its military also merely looked on while IS besieged the Kurdish town of Kobani, just across its border. Turkey negotiated directly with IS in the summer of 2013 to release 49 Turks held by the terrorist group. In return, Ankara reportedly secured the release of 180 IS fighters, many of whom returned to the battlefield. 

"Meanwhile, the border continues to serve as a transit point for the illegal sale of oil, the transfer of weapons, and the flow of foreign fighters. Inside Turkey, IS has also established cells for recruiting militants and other logistical operations. All of this has raised questions about Turkey’s value as an American ally, and its place in the NATO alliance."

  BEIRUT: Inspection conducted by Lebanon’s National Social Security Fund in 2013 indicated that 3,311 employees eligible for social security insurance were …