ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Vehicles of the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) to Ukraine near Debaltsevo, eastern Ukraine, February 20, 2015. (Reuters/Gleb Garanich) The OSCE monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine has finally arrived in the town of Debaltsevo, after a local militia provided guarantees of security. At the same time Kiev and rebels in Lugansk gave independent reports of prisoner swaps. Representatives of the OSCE special monitoring mission (SMM) in eastern Ukraine arrived at the town of Debaltsevo in the Donetsk region, the mission's spokesperson Michael Bociurkiw announced on Saturday. Access to the area, which had reportedly been a sticking point at the Minsk peace talks, and which continued to be a scene of fighting between the anti-government forces and Kiev troops, was possible with the militia's guarantees of security, Bociurkiw told Ukraine's 112 tv channel. The observers arrived at Debaltsevo along with the Internation

Video of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being marched along a Libyan beach before being beheaded by black-clad members of ISIS is hard for any civilized person to watch, but experts who made it through the sickening, five-minute clip told FoxNews.com Friday they came to the same conclusion: The footage was faked. No one holds out hope the victims, mostly poor fishermen who had gone to Libya to scratch out a living, are still alive. But several anomalies in the video, which was posted online Feb. 15, indicated to trained eyes that at least some of the production was done on "green screen" with background added later, perhaps to disguise the real location of the atrocity. A day after the clip went viral, Egyptian warplanes struck hard at an eastern port city near Tripoli, where the video appeared to have been shot. Fox news continues: “The Islamic State’s manipulation of their high-production videos has become commonplace,” said Veryan Khan, editorial director of the Florida-ba

Reuters / Carlos Gutierrez A US scientist spoke to RT saying he is worried intelligence bodies could try to use the weather as a weapon. He called on the CIA to open up and be more transparent, and wants research to be conducted globally to limit the possibility of hostile use. Professor Alan Robock is wary that US government agencies are interested in funding climate change research to see if new technologies could help to turn the weather into potential weapons. He cited the example of putting a cloud in the stratosphere like those formed from volcanic eruptions, which could be used to try and tackle global warming. He said this would reflect sunlight and cool the Earth, while it would be very cheap and quick, but it would produce a lot of side effects. One such problem with this technology is it could potentially block sunlight from reaching a certain country if carried out on a large scale. One just has to look back at the effects the eruption of Mount Krakatoa in 1883 had on the E

Reuters / Gleb Garanich Ukrainian troops and rebels in the country’s east have been blaming each other for sporadic ceasefire violations. Both sides say they only respond to attacks launched by adversary forces and question the possibility of heavy artillery withdrawal. The ceasefire is largely holding in eastern Ukraine, the head of the OSCE mission there, Ertugrul Apakan, said Monday. He added that the one exception was Debaltsevo, a town where an estimated 5,000 Ukrainian task force remains trapped, surrounded by rebel forces. "The situation in Debaltsevo is still tense,” the envoy of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said Monday, Tass reported. “The Ukrainian forces continue shelling. And they are still trying to break through the encirclement from the outer side. It is impossible to cease fire completely there. That is why the self-defense forces have to respond.” He also said the rebels were “ready to provide a ‘green corridor’” for the

By Daniel McAdams After a marathon 17 hour negotiation session, the leaders of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine agreed on an upgraded ceasefire plan, "Minsk II," that lays out 13 points to be implemented by the west-backed government in Kiev and the independence-seeking regions in eastern Ukraine. While there is much to be skeptical about in such an agreement -- the devil is always in not just the details but especially in the interpretation of the agreement -- there is one point of the plan that appears very much worth pondering. According to a translation of the 13 points, point number ten reads: All foreign troops, heavy weapons and mercenaries are to be withdrawn from Ukraine. Illegal armed groups would be disarmed, but local authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk would be allowed to have legal militia units. There are two very significant points to ponder in this statement to which all sides agreed. First, it is most likely that when proposing this point, France and Ge

Boko Haram in failed cross-border attack on Bosso, Nigeria. On February 6, Boko Haram launched an attack along the northeast extremity of its border with Niger. The attack was repelled by a combination of Niger troops and Chadian air power. According to state-controlled news outlets in the country, four soldiers were killed and 13 injured. Boko Haram reportedly suffered over 100 casualties, a figure that should be taken with a grain of salt given the tendency to exaggerate government victories. The Niger military is in need of some good news following the embarrassing rout of a multinational base in Baga (on the shores of Lake Chad) in early January. The attack will likely embolden lawmakers in Niger to pass an upcoming proposal to send troops to Nigeria to fight Boko Haram. The vote comes on the heels of Chad’s recent pledge to provide 2,500 troops to a 7,500-large multinational force under the flag of the African Union (AU).

In Yemen there is no longer a government or a president. On January 22, after the Houthi, (Zaydi Shiites) militiamen in the north besieged the presidential palace in Sana’a, both interim President (since 2012) Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah (of a caretaker government which secured parliamentary confidence in December 2014), resigned. Washington has closed its embassy and many other countries, Western and non, have done likewise. Four southern governors, including those from Aden and Abyan, which has been the epicenter of the US drone campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), have refused to resign, in solidarity with President Hadi. Houthi militias dispersed an impromptu pro-government demonstration days after the takeover; the occasion served as an opportunity for the Houthis to wield some power as they brandished weapons in the streets and made numerous arrests. The Houthi religious-political-military movement was born in the eighties in the