The number of women and girls at risk for female genital mutilation (FGM) in the United States has more than doubled in the past 10 years, according to new figures released on Friday.

The data, the first on FGM in the U.S. for a decade, is being published to coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM.

More than half a million women and girls in the U.S. are at risk of undergoing FGM in the U.S. or abroad, or have already undergone the procedure, including 166,173 under the age of 18, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). Immigration to the U.S. from African and Middle Eastern countries—where the practice of FGM is a deeply entrenched cultural tradition—is the sole factor for the rise in numbers, says Mark Mather, a demographer at PRB who led the data analysis. There has not been an increase in the practice happening in the U.S. itself, he says.

Of importance, says Mather, is that these are estimates of the number of women and girls who are at risk of having FGM sometime in their life, or have already had it: “Not all of these women and girls have undergone the procedure, we’re just trying to come up with our best estimate of potential risk,” says Mather. “Given that we’ve seen a lot of new immigrants, especially from Africa, it’s become a more important issue here in the U.S. and in Europe as well.”

African immigration to the U.S. has doubled every decade since 1970, with more than 1.8 million African-born people now living in the U.S., according to Census data. Immigrants from Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt, all countries that perform FGM (also known as female circumcision), accounted for 41 percent of total African immigrants. According to the latest numbers, nearly one in five girls at risk for FGM in the U.S. are from Egypt, which tops Somalia as the most at-risk country.

The last large-scale study of FGM in the U.S. was released by the African Women’s Health Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2004 and found more than 227,000 American women were at risk of or had undergone FGM. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is set to publish long overdue federal data in the coming months; the last federal survey on the FGM in the U.S. was done by the Department of Health and Human Services in 1997 and found roughly 168,000 women had undergone or were at risk from FGM, based on census data from 1990.

An unpublished draft of the impending CDC report seen by Newsweek more or less matches the PRB study, counting 513,000 women and girls living with FGM in the U.S. today. 

Mansoura Mohamed with her husband Ragab and young daughter near their home in Assiut, Egypt, Jan. 31st, 2015.Christina Rizk/UNFPA

According to the PRB, California is the state with the largest number of at-risk women and girls, with 56,872, followed by New York, with 48,418, and Minnesota, with 44,293. In terms of cities in the U.S., New York, Washington and Minneapolis-St. Paul are the metropolitan areas with the largest numbers of at-risk women and girls. Hawaii is the only state with zero women and girls at risk, according to the data. However, Mather points that while there may be some at risk in the state, the number is so small that it didn’t show up in the sample data.

Included in the data are girls at risk of being sent back to their family’s origin country to undergo FGM—a practice widely known as “vacation cutting”—or having a traditional midwife or cutter sent to perform FGM in the U.S.  

Globally, around 130 million women and girls are living with the effects from FGM and around 3 million undergo the procedure annually, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The practice, known to be performed in 29 countries and usually at the hands of midwives or physicians, involves cutting the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Depending on local customs, it could also include additional modifications ranging from cutting away part of the clitoris to removing the inner and outer vaginal lips before sewing the remaining skin together, leaving a small hole for urination and menstrual blood.

The practice predates religion and has no religious significance in either Islam nor Christianity. However, communities of both faiths continue to circumcise their daughters, believing it will cleanse or purify the girl, ensure she remains sexually chaste, prevent cheating on her future husband and keep her behaving well.

In the past year, FGM has come under greater scrutiny in the international community. In Egypt, where female circumcision is illegal, a doctor named Raslan Fadl was sentenced to two years in prison for manslaughter in January for performing an FGM operation that killed 13-year-old Sohair al-Batea in 2013. This was the country’s first FGM conviction. The U.K. also had its first-ever FGM trial this year, but Dr. Dhanuson Dharmasena, who was accused of illegally performing FGM on a woman in London days after she gave birth, was acquitted on Wednesday.

Immigration to Western countries where FGM is not traditionally practiced means health care providers have had to adapt to the harmful medical consequences of FGM. Greater awareness, along with better data—last month, Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, U.K., reported treating 1,500 cases of FGM in the past five years—has led to acknowledgement of the specialized health care needs of women have had FGM, like psychological trauma and greater attention during childbirth due to pain, possible genital tears and the danger posed to the unborn child.

The case of Dharmasena only came about because the midwife noticed what he was doing—restitching the patient after she had given birth—and warned him it could be constituted as FGM.

FGM has been illegal in the U.S. since 1996, but an amendment to the law banning vacation cutting wasn’t passed until 2012. In 2006, Khalid Adem, an Ethiopian immigrant, was the first person convicted of performing FGM in the U.S. after prosecutors alleged he cut his daughter’s clitoris with a pair of scissors.

On Thursday Rep. Joe Crowley, D-New York, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, introduced new legislation, supported by international human rights group Equality Now, that aims to create a national strategy to protect girls in the U.S. from FGM. Crowley, who has a 14-year-old daughter, passed a law in 2012 that helped close a loophole that allowed parents to take their children abroad for vacation cutting. He says the new bill will take further action, like establishing a hotline for at-risk girls and better education for teachers and health care workers. FGM is a sensitive subject, he says, but one that needs to be talked about, especially because it robs girls of a chance at a normal life.

“I want my daughter to experience fulfilled life at its whole. I want it not only for my daughter but for all girls to have that opportunity,” says Crowley. “For millions of girls that’s been taken away from them, often by their own family.”  

The introduction of the law was timed to coincide with the U.N.’s Zero Tolerance Day, held annually to celebrate the progress that’s been made toward FGM elimination—like the passing of legislation banning it in countries like Kenya, Guinea-Bissau and Uganda—but also recognize what still needs to be done.

“It’s an important moment for everybody to reflect on the harms of this practice, on the commitments that have been done at the international level,” says Nafissatou Diop, the coordinator of the UNFPA-UNICEF joint program on FGM. “We have girls fighting for their rights, we have communities, religious leaders, women, men, who are saying no to the practice of FGM.”

The focus of this year’s Zero Tolerance Day is the medicalization of FGM, which is on the rise in several countries. Around 20 percent of those who undergo FGM will endure it at the hands of a medical practitioner, says Diop. While many parents know it’s harmful, they think there’s a reduced risk if their daughters are cut by a health professional who is trained in saving lives and knows how to stop bleeding.

According to Diop, many health providers are pressured into providing FGM services by their communities. But, she adds, FGM performed by a doctor “is not safer. FGM cannot be safe.”

In some parts of the world, medicalized FGM is even more common. For example, in Egypt around 77 percent of girls who undergo FGM are cut by health personnel. Prevalence there is so widespread that in many rural areas and villages, doctors, for whom FGM is a source of income, earning them between 100 and 200 Egyptian pounds per case, have never seen an uncut woman.

Medical schools in the country—where cutting off part of the clitoris is the main form of FGM—do not cover it in any curriculum, but groups like UNFPA and the Egyptian Ministry of Health are training doctors on what to do when a family brings them a girl and ask for her to be circumcised.

"The challenge is that you need to work on many levels. You need to work on people's convictions, that this practice does not do what they think it does," says Germaine Haddad, program officer at the UNFPA Egypt office.

Changing deep-seated cultural customs and behaviors will be tough where pressure from society and family members to continue tradition is intense. Without being circumcised, many parents believe their daughter won’t be a good wife and, more importantly, a good person.

“[A girl] has to go through this because [if she doesn’t] she’s going to face more consequences,” says Diop, “because what is worse than being rejected by your community?”

Several species of sea slugs can actually photosynthesize like plants, harnessing energy from the sun to produce food. Perhaps the most impressive example is a little green creature called Elysia chlorotica, which can eat algae when it's very young and then spend the rest of its 10-month life basking in the sun, no eating necessary.

Instead of just digesting the algae, the animals steal little components within them called chloroplasts that carry out photosynthesis, using sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugars. But these cellular mini-machines need constant upkeep and repair to stay running — scientists have long wondered how an animal would be able to provide for its continued function, considering it is devoid of the necessary plant genes for this process, of which there are hundreds if not thousands.

Sidney Pierce, at the University of South Florida, and colleagues have used an advanced imaging technique to show that one algal gene involved in photosynthesis is present in the genome of E. chlorotica— and is identical to a gene in the algae that the sea slug eats. These genes were present in larval and adult slugs who were not exposed to algae, meaning they must have gotten the genes from their parent(s) and not their environment, according to a study published in The Biological Bulletin. (Sea slugs are hermaphroditic and can self-fertilize, although this is not usually the case.) Known as prk, the gene encodes an enzyme used in photosynthesis that isn’t found in animals.

This study lends support to previous work by Pierce and others that has found more than 50 algal genes in slug cells. It also suggests the gene moved from the algae to the slug via horizontal gene transfer, a process also used by humans to genetically modify organisms in lab conditions. And it stands to reason that there might be other genes in the slug that got there via the same mechanism, the study says.

Knowing more about how this process happens naturally could have potential applications for gene therapy, which seeks to use horizontal gene transfer to insert DNA into human cells. This has proved notoriously tricky for people, but the slug seems to have it taken care of.

For now, the mystery remains with the slug. "If I knew that, I'd have figured out how gene therapy works and I'd be a millionaire and retired," Pierce told me.

How does this seem, for basic fairness?

A judge presides over a trial. The defendant complains about his bias, but the judge does not recuse himself. He runs the trial, and at its end he writes his verdict and decides on the sentence. Then, because he does not want his own biases to become a matter of controversy again, he decides to step aside at the last minute so that another judge can read out what he has written. Same trial, same verdict, same sentence, different voice.

No one could possibly claim that such a procedure is fair, or indeed anything more than an effort to rescue a tainted procedure by an underhanded final act. No one, that is, except the United Nations Human Rights Council.

This week William Schabas, the head of the council’s “investigation” of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza fighting with Hamas, resigned. He did so because it has emerged that he was a paid consultant to the PLO. But his investigation is finished, so he has done all the damage that he can—except for his additional potshots at Israeli officials this week.

Israel refused to cooperate with this U.N. Human Rights Council “investigation” because of its obvious, built-in bias against Israel—and Schabas’s own. In 2009, he asked why the International Criminal Court was “going after the president of Sudan for Darfur and not the president of Israel for Gaza.” That was the notorious war criminal Shimon Peres, of course, and only in the United Nations is such a remark considered irrelevant when selecting someone to lead an “impartial” inquiry.

Schabas will be applauded inside the U.N. system for resigning so as to avoid compromising the integrity of the investigation. Impossible: The inquiry was stacked from the outset. Israel was right to refuse cooperation.

The report will be issued in March, and its findings are entirely predictable: It will attack Israel and pretty much ignore Hamas. This entire episode is a reminder of why Israelis do not trust the United Nations, and an example of how the U.N. continues to exacerbate rather than help solve problems in the Middle East.

Elliott Abrams is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This article first appeared on the Council on Foreign Relations website.

Embattled Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he will fight a challenge to his leadership at a party-room meeting next week after disgruntled government lawmakers on Friday sought to oust him following weeks of divisive speculation.

A member of Abbott's ruling conservative Liberal Party, Western Australian MP Luke Simpkins, sent an email to colleagues to announce he will seek a vote on the party's top two positions at a scheduled party meeting in Canberra on Tuesday.

Abbott has faced a torrent of criticism in recent weeks over policy decisions ranging from his handling of the economy to awarding an Australian knighthood to Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip.

No member of the government has so far indicated a direct challenge to Abbott, although most media attention has focused on Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a former party leader toppled by Abbott.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, deputy leader of Abbott's party, has also been touted as a potential successor but Abbott said she would stand with him.

"I have spoken to Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and we will stand together in urging the party room to defeat this particular motion and in so doing ... to vote in favor of the stability and the team that the people voted for at the election," Abbott said in a brief televised statement.

Bishop issued a statement urging support for the incumbent leadership team.

Opinion polls have consistently shown voters prefer Turnbull to lead the party, but his support for environmental steps against carbon has alienated some on the party's right.

"It's really for Turnbull to put his hand up and whether he has the numbers," said University of Sydney political science professor Peter Chen.

If Turnbull didn't stand, Chen said Abbott's government would likely "trundle towards annihilation at the next election", which is due in about 18 months.

ABBOTT "FRIENDLESS" - BOOKMAKERS

Financial markets were little moved by the leadership upheaval.

"Progress on the budget is going be tough whoever is leading, given the Senate is so fragmented," said Kieran Davies, an economist at Barclays. "In any case, government borrowing costs are being kept at record lows by the global search for yields, and that's not going to change."

Bookmakers, however, offered short odds on Turnbull claiming the leadership, with Sportingbet having him at A$1.50 versus A$2.75 for Abbott and A$3.75 for Bishop.

"There has been overwhelming support for Mr Turnbull and he has attracted more than 80 percent of bets placed in this market since Monday,” said Sporting bet's Andrew Brown.

"Mr Abbott has been friendless and we’ve barely seen a cent for him," he said.

Simpkins told Sky News he decided to call for the motion based on feedback within his electorate, and not at the behest of other senior party members.

"What people are saying to me is that there is a disconnect and that they don't know what his plan for the future is," Simpkins told Sky News. "They don't know what he wants to achieve, and sadly they're no longer listening."

Turnbull, a former businessman, lawyer and journalist, lost the leadership by a single vote in 2009.

Bishop is well regarded in the party for her performance as foreign minister, particularly for leading Australia's case at the United Nations following the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine last year.

Removing Abbott would need support from more than 51 of the 102 members of the federal Liberal party at the party-room vote.

In an attempt to assuage critics, Abbott has agreed to abandon some of his most controversial and divisive plans in recent weeks, including reviewing the goods and services tax and scrapping an expensive paid parental leave program.

If Abbott is removed, he would be the third prime minister to lose their job in a party-room mutiny since 2010 and Australia's sixth prime minister in eight years.

The costumes tend to weigh in the hundreds of pounds but Lola Rodríguez is used to feeling an unusual burden of responsibility for a 16-year-old. Lola is bidding to be selected as Las Palmas carnival queen 2015 in her native Canary Islands, despite the fact that, legally, she is a man.

Lola is not the first transgender woman to take part in the pageant on the island of Gran Canaria, where carnival virtually stops all other activity in its tracks for two weeks in February. But she is the first trans minor to be a candidate. “I have always loved carnival and felt it very intensely, so I am living a dream,” the slim, dark-haired schoolgirl says, during her presentation before the media when her candidacy was announced. “It gives me the chance to inform society about diversity so it was too wonderful an opportunity to let it pass me by.”

Lola admits she has been unusually lucky. She has loving parents who listened to what she was telling them about her identity almost as soon as she had learned how to speak. Some of her teachers helped her along the way too. Lola says she has always been a girl but she was given the wrong body. Maisi, her mother, recalls the day that her four-year-old son said in the bath that he was a girl and wanted to behave like one. Maisi and her husband, Miguel, were happy to let their child dress in his mother’s clothes at home and get dolls for Christmas. But at school and in the street, young Lola maintained the appearance of a boy. “I was afraid because I didn’t really understand what was happening to me, and I was afraid that people would reject me. But at the same time, pretending to be somebody different was painful; it was as if I had to disguise myself every time I went out.”

At the age of 11, she met some people who had had similar experiences. She realised she was transgender. She told everyone that she was Lola. “At secondary school, it was difficult at first. There was no information on this kind of issue for the children in our classes so it was something completely unknown and I experienced a certain amount of rejection,” she recalls. “In Spain there is still a problem in terms of educating people in these matters. It remains taboo and something to be hidden.” Having overcome her own difficulties, Lola wants to be as visible an example to others as possible. “For me, being transsexual is just something normal and very positive. It breaks my heart to see people suffer discrimination.”

Pablo Almodóvar of the Canary Islands Gamá LGBT association, one of the groups sponsoring Lola’s carnival queen bid, agrees that the transgender experience remains something of a final frontier in the fight for minority rights and freedoms in Spain. In 2005, under the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the country became the third in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. In the last Pew Research Center “Global Views on Morality” survey (2013), only 6% of Spaniards described homosexuality as morally unacceptable, the lowest figure out of  the 40 nations analysed. “But for transsexuals, there is a greater level of invisibility; there is still a lot being kept in the closet,” says Almodóvar, who adds that the Canaries, with its “transgressive” carnival-related traditions of drag queen contests and a major focus on gay tourism is more LGBT-friendly than other parts of Spain.

That publicly embracing a different gender identity can still be a painful and lonely process is borne out by the experience of Diego Neria Lejárraga, a Spaniard from Plasencia, who, in January, was granted a private audience with the pope. Lejárraga, who had gender reassignment surgery to turn his body into that of a man eight years ago at the age of 40, says he was rejected by many of his fellow townsfolk, including Catholic clergymen. He refuses to divulge specific details of his papal encounter, but told a radio station on his return from Rome that meeting Pope Francis had been a “gift from heaven” and that he had found “a friend, a man who is all goodness”.

Before facing adult issues of legal identity and access to surgery, under-18s have to cope with the hormones released by their own bodies during puberty, with potentially devastating effects on their appearance and sexual identity. Lola aspires to lead a campaign to help other transgender minors access the hormone-blocking treatment she was given. “That was a very positive step that everyone needs when they have a body which is wrong for them and the changes start.” At 13, she was prescribed anti-androgens but in many other parts of Spain different laws mean that would not have been possible. In Galicia only adults can be prescribed these drugs, while other regional health authorities set the minimum age at 16.

The effects of the drugs are reversible. If someone like Lola were to stop taking them, her male hormones would kick back in. As well as an endocrinologist, a psychiatrist has to sign off on the treatment after evaluating the extent of the minor’s discomfort with the gender they were born with and the behaviour patterns that conform to the sex with which the child identifies. “It’s a crime that this treatment is not available to minors in other regions, just plain evil,” says Miguel, Lola’s father. “It doesn’t hurt anybody and it’s not even expensive. It is just a question of ideology, of ignorance and, I would say, a lack of empathy. If this happened to the daughter of one of those politicians who are against this treatment, I am sure he wouldn’t think the same.”

The amount of publicity Lola is attracting concerns Miguel, a social worker, but is outweighed by pride in having a daughter who is using her platform as a contestant to help others who are less fortunate. “I am astonished at how brave she is, appearing before the media and saying that a society without discrimination is everyone’s responsibility.”

Lola’s outfit for carnival is being designed by the young deaf designer Isaac Martínez with the backing of Gran Canaria Accesible, a public initiative aimed at making the island a world leader in integration and inclusivity for the disabled and other minorities. And the name of the dress? “It’s called Life is Beautiful,” says the would-be carnival queen’s father. “Just like Lola.”

Discount UK retailer Poundland has announced plans to buy 99p Stores for £55 million, a far cry from the penny pinching the bargain shops are known for. The proposed merger of the two popular brands saw Poundland’s shares rise by more than 9%, and could increase sales by 50%, experts said.

Along with a £47.5 million cash consideration and new Poundland shares worth £7.5 million, the company would acquire 251 shops from the 99p and Family Bargains network that serves two million customers per week.

Chief executive of Poundland Jim McCarthy doesn’t seem to have any buyer’s remorse yet, calling the move a good deal for everyone, and one that will provide “better choice, value and service for 99p Stores’ customers”, according to a statement released by Poundland.

Loyal 99p shoppers shouldn’t fret yet though. Although both parties have agreed to the decision, the transaction still needs to be approved by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and that could take at least two months.

For the 2013 accounting year, Poundland boasted near £1 billion in sales compared to 99p’s reported £370.4 million and £6.1 million in underlying earnings, according to the Telegraph.

However, the rival bargain shops have been duking it out for years. In 2009, Poundland had to drop its prices by 3% to compete with its counterpart, which 99p co-founder Hussein Lalan held up as proof of “the impact we must be having on Poundland that they have had to change their business model”.

According to Steve Jones, head of retail insight at food and grocery researchers IGD, the deal is good as gold: “Poundland’s acquisition of 99p stores will increase its sales and number of stores by around 50%.”

Established in 1990, Poundland already serves five million per week in their 600 existing UK stores, the Telegraph reported. A trial shop called Dealz was even opened in Torremolinos, Spain in July that, if successful, could take Poundland to European markets where discount shops are less common.

But it’s not just Poundland that’s winning the discount race. Jones says that discount shopping overall is a hot commodity.

“The UK food and grocery discount market is a fast growing one,” Jones said, adding that research conducted by IGD showed that four out of ten people shopped in a high street discounter for their food and groceries last month.

A new model to predict the outcome of the UK election has put the chances of any one party gaining an outright majority at just 5.5%, with the most likely outcome being a coalition or working alliance between Labour and the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Developed by polling company Populus, the model uses both national and constituency polls to calculate the probability of the various outcomes of the May 7th election - the most closely contested in living memory.

The model puts the likelihood of a coalition in which ’s Labour is the largest party at 64%, one in which David Cameron’s Conservative party is the largest at 30.4%, and an outright majority for Labour or the Conservatives at just 2.7% and 2.8% respectively.

Populus/Hanover

The most likely outcome predicted by the model is a Labour coalition or alliance with the SNP at 23.7%, an outcome which would see the Scottish nationalists demanding increased powers for Holyrood and perhaps even a new referendum on Scottish independence. Most polls see the SNP winning between 30 and 40 seats in Scotland, up from six at present, and potentially unseating prominent Labour and Lib Dem figures such as shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander and chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander.

The second most likely outcome is a Labour coalition with the Liberal Democrats at 20.4%, while the third most likely is a Conservative government relying on an alliance with both the Lib Dems and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from Northern Ireland.

The rise of minority parties such as the UK Independence Party (Ukip), the SNP, Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru and the Green Party has strained Britain’s ‘first-past-the-post’ voting system, traditionally famous for delivering strong, majority governments. With both major parties almost neck-and-neck in the polls, both in the low 30s, there is a prospect of the largest party being forced to form a coalition with two other parties in order to secure a working majority - an unprecedented situation in British politics.

The Populus model, puts the overall likelihood of a three-party coalition or alliance at 36.4%.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Rick Nye, managing director of Populus, said the polling company would be updating the model week by week, and assessing the likelihood of who would become prime minister after May 7th. He also pointed out that the largest party would not necessarily be the one to form a government.

The model also takes into account certain political realities, such as the probability of parties forming coalitions. The SNP, for example, has ruled out forming an alliance with the Conservatives.

A separate YouGov poll published in the Times newspaper today found that the election campaigns of all four major national parties so far are viewed as being dishonest. 54% of those polled said that the Conservative campaign had been dishonest, with 25% saying it was honest, compared to scores of 52% to 26% for Labour, 53% to 20% for the Lib Dems and 52% to 22% for Ukip. Only the Green Party’s campaign is seen as honest, although only by a fairly narrow margin, with 38% saying the party has been honest and 26% saying it’s been dishonest.

Updated | According to the SITE Intelligence group, a jihadist threat watchdog, the Islamic State (ISIS) claimed that an American hostage was killed in a Jordanian airstrike on the terrorist group on Friday. The woman's name, Kayla Mueller, was previously withheld for her safety. Her family confirmed the name and publication of it to NPR after the ISIS claims were widely publicized. The strike was in northern Syria and Mueller was allegedly killed when the building she was held captive in collapsed.

According to jihadist information translated by SITE, the airstrike hit ar-Raqqah at noon local time during prayer time. "Allah made their pursuit disappointed and deterred their cunning, and no mujahid was injured in the bombardment, and all praise is due to Allah," the translated message read. 

Mueller is believed to be the last American hostage ISIS had in captivity. She was captured in August 2013 while driving in Aleppo with her boyfriend. According to Didier François, a French reporter held captive by ISIS and later released, female hostages "had a bit more freedom of movement" than the male hostages, however, "being a woman doesn't make it easier" in captivity. During François' interview with CNN, he offered little information about the American female hostage, worried that he might impact her treatment in captivity. 

The Jordanian government launched a series of airstikes against ISIS after the group claimed responsibility for the death of a Jordanian pilot, a first lieutenat. The group released a video of him being burned to death and Jordanian officials said their response to the Islamic State would be "strong, earthshaking and decisive."

ISIS' claims could not be verified. The United States State Department could not confirm reports that the hostage was killed in the airstrike, according to Reuters. White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz told reporters the administration had "not seen any indication to corroborate those claims [of her death]" but is "deeply concerned" about the report. 

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available. 

Libyan politicians from rival factions have travelled to Ukraine and Russia in the hope of bolstering ties with Kiev and Moscow, according to the Libya Herald.

A hardline politician from the Islamist Libya Dawn group, Abdurrahman Sewehli, who fiercely opposed the creation of the internationally-recognised government and House of Representatives (HoR) legislature in eastern Libya, was pictured meeting with Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin in Kiev yesterday.

The Libya Herald report - which also reveals that former Libyan foreign minister and representative of the HoR President, Mohamed Abdulaziz, travelled to Moscow to allegedly bolster military relations with Russia - cites sources claiming Sewehli made the trip to Ukraine in order to “acquire arms and munitions from Ukraine for Libya Dawn” that would convert two Soviet-era MiG 23 aircrafts into fully-functionable fighter jets, although Newsweek was unable to independently verify these claims.

Any potential negotiations between the Ukrainian government and a Libyan politician aligned to a non-state actor would contravene the United Nations arms embargo placed on Libya in September 2011 following the fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

There is a long-standing relationship between Libya and Russia, with the Soviet Union supplying arms to Tripoli throughout the 1980s. According to former British ambassador to Libya Sir Richard Dalton, some of the factories which produced planes sold to the Gaddafi regime, which may have ended up in the hands of non-government forces in Libya, are located in what is today independent Ukraine.

When asked about the unverified reports that Sewehli travelled to the Ukrainian capital to secure arms, an NGO worker familiar with the situation on the ground in Libya, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such negotiations would not be unexpected: “I think there is some truth in it. Everyone seems to bypass the arms embargo and no one is respecting it.”

“It’s surprising that someone like [Sewehli] is able to travel and leave Libya at will,” they added. “Why would a hardline Libya Dawn commander and politician be there? You can get some political support but I would assume that weapons are part of the deal.”

The United States refuses to recognise the Libya Dawn-backed General National Congress (GNC) and instead supports the internationally-recognised parliament, situated in the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk, which Abdulaziz’s HoR is aligned to.

“The United States government does not recognise the Government of National Salvation [another name for the GNC] in Libya, and is not engaged with any person purporting to act on behalf of [GNC leader] Omar al-Hassi or the GNS,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters last month.

Therefore, any negotiations centred on arms dealings between Russian officials and Abdulaziz in Moscow would not contravene the UN arms embargo.

Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the Arms Transfers and Arms Production Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, says that the United Nations embargo on Libya, as implemented by UNSC resolution 2174, specifically determines that any party that wishes to supply arms to Libya can only do so if it is to the “recognised authorities” - which rules out Libya Dawn - and if they have received approval from the Sanctions Committee which must be notified of any arms transfers beforehand.

“If [Ukraine supplied weapons to Libya Dawn] they would be in breach of the UN embargo and I think the U.S. would be particularly unhappy about that and the EU too. It certainly would not make people happy and it would undermine [Ukraine’s] credibility,” says Wezeman.

“If they were to even negotiate [on arms with Libya Dawn] then they would already be out of line. These embargos stipulate that you are not allowed to be involved in any way the transfer of arms to anyone else but the Libyan authorities.”

Sir Richard Dalton, says that “arms dealers salivate” over power vacuums such as the one in Libya where conflict is raging and the the idea that weapons may find their way to Libya from outside powers are concerning.

“I would find any external arms supply highly negative because I don’t think either side can win militarily and we want to see the fighting dampened down in order to support the calls for ceasefires,” he said.

If confirmed, Dalton says he would “expect Western countries to speak to Kiev and say ‘please do not fall into this trap because your arms dealers might make a buck but it's going to be negative”.

The reports come at a time when German chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have flown to Kiev and Moscow to seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Ukraine’s restive eastern regions. Wezeman warns that any dealings with non-state actors such as Libya Dawn “would only undermine their international standing” when it needs support from the international community.

Libya continues to be beset by unrest as rival militias vie for control of the eastern city of Benghazi against the Operation Dignity forces of former Libyan military commander General Haftar. Last month, ISIS’s branch in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, launched an attack on the Corinthia hotel, regularly frequented by Westerners, killing nine people - including five foreign nationals.

An Italian policeman has been accused of using a website designed to help travellers find a place to stay to lure women to his home where he would allegedly drug and rape them.

35-year-old Dino Maglio is facing trial for the alleged rape of a 16-year-old Australian girl whom he admits to have drugged with a tranquiliser before he had sex with her. However, an investigation carried out by the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), in collaboration with theGuardian newspaper, has revealed several other women who also say that Maglio sexually abused them when they stayed at his house.

The women allege that they arranged to stay at Maglio’s house through the website Couchsurfer.com, which allows people to offer their spare beds or sofas for travellers to stay on.

Cecilia Anesi, a reporter from IRPI, explained how they had launched a whistleblowing platform which one of the women came across, and used to get their story out. “It ensures complete anonymity so allowed them to share their stories without revealing their identities straight away,” she said.

According to Anesi, one immediate problem the women say they came across was that because Maglio had allegedly given them a substance, it sometimes took some time for them to remember what had happened, and by the time they realised they had often left Italy already. “Some of them told their local police but were informed there was nothing they could do either because it was too long ago, or the medical check found nothing, or something else,” Anesi says. “Apart from [the UK’s] Scotland Yard no other police force sent any files to the Italian prosecution office.”

She explains how the women therefore turned to journalists as they realised they weren’t getting any results talking to the police and after they had discussed their stories with IRPI reporters for over a number of months the women asked to be put in touch with a lawyer so they could attempt to prosecute Maglio.

However, Anesi points out that they are at the very beginning of proceedings. “Maglio is not in court yet - the first hearing is 17th March so we don’t know what will happen,” she says. It is not clear if Maglio will face prosecution for the allegations - so far he has maintained that the attack on the Australian was the only time he had done such a thing.

Maglio is being held in a military rather than regular prison for his own protection, the Guardian reports, and according to court documents, on the day police raided his house he was hosting two other Couchsurfer guests, one of whom showed signs of having been drugged.

In statements collated by IRPI journalists, the women all describe being given tea or wine to drink by Magilo, and feeling woozy or falling asleep completely. One American student who was 20 when she visited Italy describes how after drinking some tea she began to lose control of her body. “I got up to go to the toilet but felt weird,” she said. “I felt my legs weak, like I was drunk, but I hadn’t drunk anything. [...] I got back to bed and fell asleep immediately.”

She says she felt too intensely tired to fight off Magilo when he began to take her clothes off before he raped her. “Considering the condition I was in I couldn’t possibly have agreed to have sex or perform sexual acts... [He] obviously knew there was something wrong with me but he kept on having sex with me… I believe I have been raped.”

The 16-year-old Australian was travelling with her mother and sister at the time of the alleged attack. She told police that she felt like she was “sleep-walking” and was hardly able to open her eyes. She also told investigators that Maglio had told her: “I can’t stop because you are too beautiful.”

Anesi says that some of the women had got in touch with Magilo afterwards to ask what had happened. “He told them: ‘Yes of course we had intercourse, you liked it, you wanted it, we liked each other.’ That’s the problem with these kind of attacks - there’s a strong psychological component when trying to raise the truth.”

Couchsurfer's chief executive Jennifer Billock, told Newsweek that safety was a top priority and that the website is constantly “evolving our tools and processes to find and halt abusers of our system”.

“We’re reminded that these women could have been any of us, our friends or family,” she added.

Before I was a doctor, I was a dad. My oldest daughter was 2 years old when I started medical school, so I did a little bit of parenting without the benefit of any medical knowledge at all.

I remember her two-month visit well. It was one of the few visits that my job allowed me to make, and my baby girl was getting her first set of shots (after leaving the hospital).

I’ll be honest; I hadn’t given it much thought. I was fully immunized as a child, and I’m pretty sure I was fully re-immunized when I signed my life over to the U.S. Navy.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love my child—I did. And I still do. My girls are amazing, and I’d do anything for them. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t educated—I was. And I still am (much more so than I was then).

But I figured that there was a reason why the CDC recommended vaccines, and I doubted that it had anything to do with conspiracy theories. They knew more about them than I did, for sure. I was a naval officer and could talk all day about how splitting atoms makes submarines move (it’s classified), but vaccines were a topic with which I was unfamiliar.

My wife and I hadn’t really talked about it; we just planned to go with the pediatrician’s recommendations—after all, we picked him because we trusted him. My daughter would be getting three shots that day, the combination of which would protect her against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, H. flu, pneumococcus, and polio. Seemed like a good deal. Ain’t nobody got time for polio.

But the doctor threw us a curve ball. There was another, newer vaccine that was…a little more optional. This one was designed to prevent rotavirus, which could apparently cause some pretty severe diarrhea in kids. Unlike the others, it was an oral vaccine–no needles involved. And while it wasn’t required by schools, the CDC recommended it.

The doctor didn’t seem to care much either way, and he left it up to us: “Just think about it, and the nurse will be by in a few minutes.”

So we thought about it. It was “recommended” but not “required.” I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

The information sheet he gave us said it could cause something called “intussusception.” I wasn’t sure what that was, but it sounded bad.

I didn’t get it when I was a kid. (But looking back, I didn’t get a lot of the currently recommended vaccines when I was a kid.) And I did OK.

And it was supposed to prevent what? Diarrhea? Didn’t exactly seem life-threatening.

I vaguely remembered hearing that there was an “anti-vaccine movement.” Hadn’t really read much about it, but maybe they were onto something.

And the last thing I wanted to do to my baby girl was make a decision that could hurt her.

We were still thinking about it when the nurse came in. “So, what did you decide about the rotavirus vaccine?”

“We’ll do it,” I replied confidently, consciously repressing the thought that if anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself.

She got the rotavirus vaccine that day. And again at her four- and six-month visits. She’s fine.

Over the last seven years, I’ve gained a little perspective. I’ve learned quite a bit about microbiology, physiology, and the function of the immune system. I’ve admitted numerous children to the hospital for dehydration due to rotavirus or similar illnesses, and I know that about 90 percent of severe rotavirus infections can be prevented by this vaccine.

And even though the vast majority of cases in the U.S. will recover completely with supportive treatment, the rotavirus vaccine has been shown to prevent about 30,000 hospitalizations per year in the U.S. and to save about $125 million per year in associated costs. Worldwide (mostly in countries not fortunate enough to have access to quality medical care), rotavirus kills about 453,000 children every year.

As far as safety goes, I know that the chance of the rotavirus vaccine causing intussusception in my baby is remote (about 1.5 in 100,000 children, or 0.0015 percent). Especially considering that intussusception is a treatable condition, those are pretty good odds.

But I didn’t know any of that then. What it came down to for me, in that moment, was trust. Trust in the doctor that we had chosen to care for our child. Trust in the CDC’s recommendations. Trust that the scientists and physicians who develop and study vaccines knew more about them than I did. Trust that no one was trying to harm my child.

I know, the rotavirus vaccine isn’t currently in the running for Most Hotly Contested Immunization, but I totally understand where vaccine-hesitant parents are coming from. I’ve been there. I hesitated…but I vaccinated. And I’d do it again.

Chad Hayes writes a blog, Chad Hayes, MD, which is where this article first appeared. Follow Hayes on Facebook and Twitter @chadhayesmd  

The Ukrainian parliament has approved a motion to allow commanders in the armed forces to fire at army deserters and use force against servicemen for “negligence” or “drinking alcohol” while on duty.

The motion was discussed in a session yesterday afternoon, with 260 MPs passing it out of a total 320, according to Ukrainian news agency Unian - surpassing the necessary 226 votes needed to pass the bill. It will now be added as an amendment to the current Ukrainian legislation on the regulations imposed on commanders' actions toward their charges.

The act will allow commanders to “utilise drastic measures” - defined by the UN as the use of force and firearms - towards officers caught acting “negligently” or in violation to the code of conduct during combat duty or while they are on border patrol. The new act adds “drinking alcoholic or low-alcoholic beverages” while on duty as an offence punishable by force.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international watchdog documenting violations of human rights, has spoken out against the move. “Using force to harm or kill when someone is ‘negligent, deserts or drinks alcohol while on duty’ is unlawful under international law,” Yulia Gorbunova, a HRW researcher in Ukraine says.

“It is a disproportionate response which could constitute punishment in violation of international standards,” she adds. “Force in the army can only be used in self defense or where the person is posing an imminent threat to others. Shoot to kill would be an extrajudicial execution and is unlawful,” Gorbunova concludes.

When asked if there was a serious problem with discipline and desertion within the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian armed forces did not comment.

Balázs Jarábik, a researcher for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, specialising in central and eastern Europe, believes the new law is not as surprising as it seems, but rather “an old Soviet practice.” Asked if the new law indicates a lack of commitment in Ukrainian troops he replied “Not at all.”

“The armed forces are very committed - look at the battle for Donetsk airport or the fierce fight for Debaltsevo. Kiev could not even order those folks to withdraw,” he said referring to the fierce  battle for Donetsk’s airport which has been ongoing since September, and the Ukrainian forces defence of the small town of Debaltsevo in the face of advancing rebel militants.

According to Jarábik, Kiev’s major military challenges are to do with its administration, and issues regarding recruitment and allegations of corrupt leadership are particularly problematic.

“Crucially, Ukraine failed to ensure the necessary quantity of soldiers altogether in the standard four mobilization rounds during the last annual cycle,” Jarábik adds. According to a statement made by the deputy commander of Ukraine’s armed forces Vladimir Talaylay, 78,000 people had been called up for duty by last month, but only 46,000 new recruits were enlisted into the military as a result.

The Ukrainian armed forces announced earlier this week they may resort to call up women aged over 20 in the next recruitment cycle to make up the numbers.

Along with Ukraine’s troops a series of volunteer battalions have formed with the backing of wealthy businessmen, the most famous of whom is Igor Kolomoyski, who reportedly funds the volunteer Aidar, Azov, Dnepr-1, Dnepr-2 and Donbas battalions.

The existence of such units has remained a controversial topic as there are no universal rules about who regulates their practices.  

“Many of the volunteer battalions partially assimilated in the army are paid for by oligarchs,” Jarabik says. “Ukrainians increased their military spending this year but indeed corruption remains a big issue,” Jarábik adds. 

“The Ukrainian population is increasingly tired under economic duress as well, as what they perceive as Russian aggression. They don’t think their post-Maidan leadership treat them with the necessary honesty and dignity.”

According to UN figures the conflict in eastern Ukraine has already killed over 5,000 people and displaced close to a million both internally and externally.

Soon after the announcement that Harper Lee’s long-awaited second novel was to be published, some fans and critics’ excitement turned to suspicion: The author, who published her best-selling To Kill a Mockingbird 55 years ago, has a well-documented history of avoiding the spotlight. Lee hasn’t given an interview in 50 years, and in the past she has even expressed wishes that the sequel to her classic novel be published posthumously to avoid press attention.

Some people say that Lee’s decision to release the follow-up novel, Go Set a Watchman, may be more than a simple change of heart. Friends of the author, many fellow residents of the Meadows of Monroeville assisted-living facility in Alabama, said on Wednesday that Lee, 88, is in a fragile mental state and may have been manipulated, reports the local blog AL.com. Lee suffered a stroke in 2007 that left her with a series of health problems, including severe loss of hearing and sight.

People close to Lee told the blog that the author’s lawyer, Tonja Carter, has been increasingly isolating her from family and friends. Carter currently wields power of attorney and has reportedly been taking a more active role in the author’s affairs since Lee’s sister, Alice, passed away in November. Her sister, who practiced law with Carter, had acted as the author’s attorney.

In an interview with International Business Times, Lee’s biographer, Charles J. Shields, said he doubted “whether Alice would have allowed this project to go forward.”

Janet Sawyer, a restaurant owner who resides at Monroeville and has known Lee for years, echoed the sentiment, telling and AL.com: "I don't think she agreed to do it. I think it's her attorney being greedy, because Ms. Lee was a very private person who didn't like a lot of publicity." Neighbor Sue Sellers, speaking to The New York Times, said Lee on more than one occasion had spoken about her fear of releasing the sequel, thinking it could incite negative criticism and inevitable comparisons to her Pulitzer Prize–winning debut novel.

Carter has not offered any public comments on the matter.

HarperCollins, which has acquired the rights to publish the sequel, said earlier this week in a press release that Carter unearthed the unpublished manuscript “in a secure location,” where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee wrote the sequel in the mid-1950s, and was quoted as saying: “After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

How involved Lee was in making the decision, though, remains unclear. HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said in an interview with CBS Atlanta that he hadn’t seen Lee in eight years and hadn’t had direct contact with her regarding publishing the new book. He told the site that he had relied on the words of Andrew Nurnberg, a literary agent who described the author as “enthusiastic” about Go Set a Watchman.

On Wednesday, Carter relayed a statement that is said to be from Lee: “I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to ‘Watchman.’”

Go Set a Watchman centers on Mockingbird’s young protagonist, Scout, as an adult. It is set to be released in July and has already clocked in at number one on Amazon’s best seller list.

Sengalese-American hip-hop artist Akon is throwing an anti-ISIS charity concert in Iraqi Kurdistan this March, according to a video announcement made by the rapper on Thursday. Proceeds for the concert will support families of Kurdistan's unofficial military, the Peshmerga, who are currently fighting against Islamic State militants.

“I am so excited to be there to visit that 8,000-year-old city to perform live at the Hariri Stadium in March,” says Akon, whose real name is Aliaune Thiam, in the video. The 28,000-capacity stadium is the third-largest stadium in Iraq.

The Peshmerga have been defending the region against Islamic State militants since they began seizing a third of Iraq and Syria in June.

Nearly 1,000 Kurdish fighters have been killed since fighting broke out, according to the latest figures provided by the Peshmerga Ministry, with another 4,596 wounded and undergoing treatment, according to reports from Kurdish news agency Rudaw.

Surrounded by Turkey and Syria, Iraqi Kurdistan has a history of struggle for autonomy in Iraq despite having an independent governance and ethnic identity.

However, the region has united against ISIS. On 3 February, Kurdish president Masoud Barzani said the forces were ready “to go into the final war”, and revealed to the London-based news agency Arabic Hyat that more than 3,000 Islamic State militants had been killed since the insurgency, according to reports from Rudaw.

Working alongside the Rwanga Charity, Akon will hold the concert in Erbil, the largest city and capital of the Kurdistan region. Although the concert will be free of charge, any charitable proceeds will go to family members of the Peshmerga.

Noor Matti, who works at a local radio station in Erbil, says the concert, part of the Xoli Raperin soccer tournament, is a landmark occasion for the city.

“It’s a big deal because it will be the first time a famous American musician has performed in Erbil,” he told local news agency BasNews.

Akon is the co-founder of the Konfidence Foundation, an organization that focuses on the promotion of health and education for youth in Senegal, West Africa and the United States.

A dedicated-sales website has been established to help sell the cookies that a young Girl Scout in Indianapolis was on her way to pick up when she was shot earlier this week.

Sinai Miller, 9, was leaving her apartment with her mother and sisters on Tuesday afternoon to pick up boxes of cookies when a stray bullet hit her leg. She was transported to Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health in a stable condition, emergency medical crews said, and has returned home to recover from her wound.

With cookie booths set to open in Indiana on Friday, the Girl Scout council set up a “Cookies for Sinai” website to sell cookies in Miller’s name while she recovers. According to TheIndianapolis Star, more than 2,000 boxes had already been sold as of Thursday.

“The Girl Scout movement is deeply saddened to hear this news about one of our Girl Scouts. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family,” reads a statement emailed to Newsweek from Girl Scouts of the USA. “Unfortunately, 1 in 7 school-aged girls has experienced violence in her own neighborhood. As a society, we need to do better and ensure the safety of all children in all communities.”

Girl Scouts of the USA did not provide further comment on the number of boxes sold when reached by email Friday. Girl Scouts of Central Indiana could not immediately be reached for comment.

“We cannot complete our mission to build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place when they are afraid to play in their own neighborhoods,” Deborah Hearn Smith, chief executive of Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, said Thursday.

We are so sad that one of our Girl Scouts was injured last night during a random act of violence. Our thoughts are with her and her family.

— girlscoutsIN (@girlscoutsIN) February 4, 2015

According to several outlets, police are looking for the SUV from which a shooter fired indiscriminately, as witnesses described the shooting.

In an opinion column for the Star, Tim Swarens posed a challenge to the city of Indianapolis: “Let’s buy Girl Scout Cookies. In a big way,” he wrote Thursday.

“It’s a simple act, yes, but it’s not just symbolic. The money raised through cookie sales helps pay for life-affirming experiences such as camp for girls like Sinai,” Swarens wrote. “So let’s step up and push back against the violence around us. Let’s turn something ugly into something sweet. Let’s send a we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it message.”

Nuclear units in the Russian navy have engaged in exercises in the international waters underneath the North Pole, a move which analysts believe is a thinly veiled response to yesterday’s news that NATO is to reinforce its eastern European border with Russia.

“In particular we focused on hazard and threat detection, but also on missile launching and navigation manoeuvres, ice reconnaissance, submerging and emerging from ice, using torpedoes to undermine ice and many other issues,” North Fleet captain Vadim Serga said.

Among the units which took part in the exercises were the crews of several Borei-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines, an upgrade of Russia’s old Delta 3, Delta 4 and Typhoon nuclear vessels.

The Russian captain also added that the Fleet’s crew were given theoretical as well as practical exercises, which were led by vice admiral Anatoly Shevchenko, whose nuclear submarine has ventured underneath the North Pole ice several times before.

“Under his guidance nuclear submarine crews learned about previous voyages under the Arctic, studying issues of tactical maneuvering of weapons,” Serga added.

According to the North Fleet spokesperson the aims of today’s mission was so that younger crewmen to become better versed in Arctic warfare.

However, Elbridge Colby an expert in nuclear force and intelligence at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), believes the timing of the snap exercise is effectively a “threatening reminder” to NATO of Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

“The Russians have been deliberately upping the public side of their nuclear exercises recently for strategic purposes. They have both been increasing the number of exercises they are performing and they have also been making them more public,” Colby says.

“On one side this is definitely intended as a show of national strength to the Russian public but it is also designed to demonstrate Russia’s strength and nuclear options to NATO and the West.”

While Colby says Russia has not made an explicit threat, he believes the country intends to “heighten fear” in the West. “Over the last year the number of exercises has definitely increased. Russia’s ‘nuclear signaling’ has upped quite a bit in the last year or so and we can consider those exercises as specific acts to make it part of the general public’s mental picture in NATO member states that Russia is a dangerous opponent,” Colby adds.

The Arctic and North Pole is a highly disputed territory due to the huge oil deposits located in the area. Apart from Russia, five other nations currently have claims over the territory, all of whom are NATO members: the U.S., Canada, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.

While the alliance did not comment on Russia’s recent activities, a spokesperson at the Norwegian armed forces played down Russia’s move.

“We are well aware of the fact that both nuclear capable, and conventional Russian submarines on a routine basis operate both in the waters surrounding the icecap and underneath the northern ice cap,” the spokesperson said.

When asked if the Norwegian armed forces were aware of this particular Russian exercise in the arctic, the spokesperson refused to comment, but insisted “It is not a cause of concern”.

Russia brought all of its armed forces, stationed in territories adjacent to the North Pole, under one command last year and is currently in the process of building a military drone base 420 miles off the coast of Alaska.

A secret court has ruled that the UK surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), spied on British citizens unlawfully up until December 2014.

The decision marks the first time since the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), the only UK court which oversees the GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, has ruled against an intelligence and security service since it was established in 2000.

The IPT posted a message on their website this morning reading: “The regime governing the soliciting, receiving, storing and transmitting by UK authorities of private communications of individuals located in the UK, which have been obtained by US authorities… contravened Articles 8 or 10 of the European convention on human rights.”

Article 8 provides the right for respect of "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", while article 10 refers to freedom of expression.

The legal challenge against GCHQ was brought against them by three human rights and privacy groups: Amnesty, Liberty and Privacy International. They began legal proceedings just a month after whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed the global surveillance carried by the American National Security Agency (NSA) and GCHQ -  in particular the Prism and Tempora surveillance programmes.

While the Prism programme, which allows governments to tap into servers of firms including Google, Apple and Facebook, was acknowledged by the U.S. and UK governments in summer 2013, the UK government continue to refuse to confirm the existence of Tempora  - the GCHQ programme which allows them to secretly place data interceptors on fibre-optic cables that carry internet data in and out of the UK.

While acknowledging that they are thrilled with the outcome of the case Carly Nyst, the legal director of Privacy International describes parts of the trial as “absurd”.

“It’s taken two years to get here and we finally have recognition. Snowden gave us the evidence we needed to do this, and the documents kept coming as the case developed. Up until then it was easy for people to dismiss us as crazy or paranoid,” Nyst says.

However, because the of the government’s continuous refusal to confirm or deny the existence of Tempora much of the court proceedings had to be argued using hypothesis. “The whole thing had to be based on hypothetical facts because they just wouldn’t admit that any of the allegations were true. They basically said: ‘We weren’t doing it, but even if we were, it would be lawful’. It was an absolutely absurd process at times.”

Nyst recalls one particular moment where this ongoing struggle became particularly ridiculous. “There was this one moment where the judge asked them how to correctly pronounce Tempora and they literally refused to refuse to confirm or deny whether the pronunciation was correct.

Sometimes it did really feel just so bizarre - almost dystopian-esque court proceedings.”

The United States has deployed an additional number of Black Hawk helicopters to Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, raising the prospect of a widening rift between Baghdad and the Kurds over their role in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).

The helicopters are intended to increase the capability of the coalition forces to rescue downed pilots after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) halted its air operations due to safety concerns following the capture of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh by ISIS. However, U.S. officials have declined to confirm if this development will bring UAE back into the coalition fold.

“The United Arab Emirates has demanded that the United States put in place a more effective search-and-rescue system in Northern Iraq, close to the battleground, instead of basing aircraft for such missions much farther south in Kuwait,” says Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an analyst on Kurdish politics for the Jamestown Foundation.

However, according to the New York Times the Iraqi government has been angered by the stationing of the helicopters in the Kurdish capital, with officials in Baghdad voicing their complaints to U.S. officials that the deployment will increase Kurdish calls for independence.

Baghdad had explicitly protested the American decision to deploy the Black Hawks to Kurdistan, a senior U.S. administration official reported. However, the official declined to reveal how many helicopters were being dispatched to the region.

“Erbil is much closer to ISIS territory than Baghdad, so it’s quite logical that they place them in Erbil. Black Hawks are reconnaissance and rescue helicopters, they are not meant to carry out combat missions,” adds van Wilgenburg.

Last month, 5,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters backed by coalition airstrikes, launched a large-scale operation against ISIS in northern Iraq, recapturing a 300-mile swathe of territory including the towns of Makhmour, to the east of Iraq’s second-city of Mosul, and the towns of Zimar and Wannah, west of Mosul.

However, this recapturing of territory sparked further fears in Baghdad that the Kurds will maintain their hold on the Iraqi territory and use it as leverage in future negotiations on Kurdish independence.

A senior Kurdish federal official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Newsweek, said that the land would never be handed back. “All the current military operations that involve the Peshmerga are implemented in coordination with the international military coalition and the central government is aware of it, but, in the Kurdish areas, we will never ever let Arabs control them again,” the official warned.

“We are not ready to fight, terrify our fighters’ souls to liberate these areas and hand them to a traitor who would sell it to the killers. We will not allow this scenario to take place again in these areas.”

The Kurds’ success on the battlefield in northern Iraq has also led to disagreement between Erbil and Baghdad over their respective roles in any potential operation on the city of Mosul, which ISIS seized last summer.

Iraqis believe that the battle against “[ISIS] is everyone’s to fight”, according to Hamed al-Khudari, a senior Shia lawmaker, while Kurds believe that Arab-Sunnis within the city must liberate the territory themselves.

Last year, the president of the Kurdistan region, Marsoud Barzani, pleaded with the international community to provide military aid as ISIS edged closer to its territory. Italy, France, Australia, Britain and the U.S. have since all pledged arms to the Kurds, bypassing the traditional move of delivering military aid to Baghdad first before it was transported to Kurdistan.

Remarks by President Barack Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday comparing the barbaric actions of ISIS to those of medieval Christian crusaders have drawn ire from his critics on the right.

Speaking about ISIS, Obama said, “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

He added, “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Soon afterward, on Foxnews.com, Todd Starnes cited Robert Jeffress, pastor at a Dallas mega-church, in arguing that the New Testament does not call on believers to commit acts of violence toward nonbelievers, while noting that the Koran does. Jeffress is known for once attempting to remove books about children with gay parents from a public library in Texas, and for claiming Mormonism was “a cult” when Mitt Romney, a Mormon, was running for president in 2012.

Popular conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote on Twitter: “ISIS chops off heads, incinerates hostages, kills gays, enslaves girls. Obama: Blame the Crusades.”

Obama, meanwhile, continues to stress the difference between those who perpetrate violent acts of terrorism—he said ISIS represents not the religion of Muhammad but “a death cult”—and peaceful Muslims. It’s seemingly a distinction his critics do not grasp.

Some members of Congress and noisy portions of the media and blogosphere are vexed by President Barack Obama’s refusal to declare war on “radical Islam.”

Their distress seemed to be only exacerbated by the president’s measured and sensible response to Fareed Zakaria during a CNN interview last Sunday when asked, “Are we in a war with radical Islam?”

The president’s response, worth rereading in full, was just what it should be: a serious discussion with the American people about a complex problem with no easy solutions, including a clear explanation of why terminology can be dangerous.

ZAKARIA: Lindsey Graham says that he's bothered by the fact that you won't admit that we're in a religious war. There are others who say that the White House takes pains to avoid using the term "Islamic terrorists."

So my question to you is are we at…are we in a war with radical Islam?

OBAMA: You know, I think that the way to understand this is there is an element growing out of Muslim communities in certain parts of the world that have perverted the religion, have embraced a nihilistic, violent, almost medieval interpretation of Islam.

And they're doing damage in a lot of countries around the world.

But it is absolutely true that I reject a notion that somehow that creates a religious war because the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject that interpretation of Islam. They don't even recognize it as being Islam.

And I think that for us to be successful in fighting this scourge, it's very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9 percent of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we're looking for--order, peace, prosperity--and so I don't quibble with labels. I think we all recognize that this is a particular problem that has roots in Muslim communities, and that the Middle East and South Asia are sort of ground zero for us needing to win back hearts and minds, particularly when it comes to young people.

But I think we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject this ideology.

ZAKARIA: Others say that you downplay the importance of terrorism. You want to downgrade it as a threat to the United States.

OBAMA: Look, I have to talk to the families of those who are killed by terrorists. I have to talk to the families of soldiers of ours who fought to make sure that Al-Qaeda couldn’t carry out attacks against us again.

So I think I'm pretty mindful of the terrible costs of terrorism around the world.

What I do insist on is that we maintain a proper perspective and that we do not provide a victory to these terrorist networks by overinflating their importance and suggesting in some fashion that they are an existential threat to the United States or the world order.

You know, the truth of the matter is that they can do harm. But we have the capacity to control how we respond in ways that do not undercut what's, you know, what’s the essence of who we are. That means that we don't torture, for example, and thereby undermine our values and credibility around the world.

It means that we don't approach this with a strategy of sending out occupying armies and playing whack-a-mole wherever a terrorist group appears, because that drains our economic strength and it puts enormous burdens on our military.

What's required is a surgical, precise response to a very specific problem. And if we do that effectively, then ultimately these terrorist organizations will be defeated because they don't have a vision that appeals to ordinary people. It is--it really is, as it has been described in some cases, a death cult or a entirely backward-looking fantasy that can't function in the world. When you look at ISIL, it has no governing strategy. It can talk about setting up the new caliphate, but nobody is under any illusions that they can actually in a sustained way feed people or educate people or organize a society that would work.

And so we can't give them the victory of overinflating what they do and not--and we can't make the mistake of being reactive to them. We have to have a very precise strategy in terms of how to defeat them.

Here are three more reasons not to declare a “war on radical Islam”:

1. There is no consensus on the definition of “radical Islam.”

ISIS or Al-Qaeda or al-Shabab provide an easy answer to this question and it is clear that we are at war with these groups. But being in a fight with specific groups and specific people in those groups is a lot different from being at war with a certain nebulous space on the spectrum of Muslim belief.

Who will be the authority in the United States who will decide what is acceptable for Muslims to believe and what is not? Americans have never been comfortable with government making judgments about religious belief, but at the same time, a considerable body of conservative opinion appears to believe that Islam in any form is sympathetic to violence against non-believers.

Will U.S. Muslims be subjected to loyalty tests? Will we close our borders to Muslim students who wish to study at our universities? Who will provide guidance to the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus on identifying the “enemy”? Will we rely on authoritarian regimes in Egypt or the Gulf to define “true Islam”?

2. There is no implicit change to U.S. foreign policy after having declared a war on “radical Islam.”

Could we deal with Jordan, which tolerates elements of the Muslim Brotherhood but at the same time has been subjected to the butchery of ISIS? How about Saudi Arabia, a country wedded to a form of Islam that many Muslims find extreme?

Would we need to reject any notion of reaching agreements with Iran because of its official religious stance? Would the millions of Egyptians who believe in a very traditional form of Islam become the enemy along with the jihadists attacking Egyptian institutions?

Do we put a new list of countries on the terrorism list? Would we only deal with so-called moderate Muslims, whatever that may mean?

3. Declaring rhetorical wars would be a victory for the terrorists we want to defeat, as the president said in his interview.

Their objective is to be seen as the legitimate face of and defenders of Islam. For a superpower like the United States, or even a power like France, to declare war on radical Islam serves to legitimize a group of people that we should be making every effort to marginalize.

The Western media—not to mention politicians—have an obligation to treat the topic with a greater degree of seriousness and less vacuous name-calling. Media outlets need to think through how their dramatic descriptions of ISIS murders (and not just whether to show the acts) may act to encourage these publicity-hungry terrorists.

Fear mongering is terrorism’s oxygen and their recruitment tool. They need to be pushed to the margins in all possible ways.

So what can we do?

The United States and its allies are in a conflict with certain groups that would like to convince the world that they are the true representatives of Islam.

We will succeed in that war only if we stay focused on the key element of counterterrorism strategy: excellent intelligence gained through maintenance of a first-rate intelligence community and sharing of intelligence with others; the ability to project deadly force when needed against specific groups and targets who wish us harm; and enlistment of Muslim and non-Muslim countries and communities around the world to do their fair share in combating terrorism and addressing its root causes—be those poor governance, weak states, religious incitement, or psychologically marginalized individuals looking for outlets for their rage.

Preventing the attraction to terrorism, as opposed to attacking known terrorists, is a long-term project that requires a serious approach. The contrived debate about labeling terrorism is both counterproductive and at odds with an American value system that separates religious belief from political considerations.

Those actually doing the fighting against terrorists deserve better than bumper sticker slogans to guide their actions. They should not be asked to fight a dimly understood religious war.

Richard LeBaron, U.S. ambassador (ret.), was the founding coordinator of the U.S. Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications Strategy. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. This article first appeared on the Atlantic Council website.