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But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.

Israel’s advantage has never looked more lopsided. In contrast to the earlier phase of the war, Israel this week deployed its extensive intelligence capabilities and overwhelming firepower in targeted bombings with limited civilian casualties less likely to raise the world’s ire.

“There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Israel doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,” said Michael B. Oren, an Israeli historian and a former ambassador to the United States. “That overlooks a broader historical view that Israel’s entire existence has been a war of attrition, and we’ve won that war.”

Ban Ki-moon today voiced his regret that Israel has launched a ground offensive against Gaza, despite calls for restraint, and stressed that there can be no military solution to the conflict which flared up over a week ago.

escalated

I urge Israel to do far more to stop civilian casualties. There can be no military solution to this conflict.

Brazil’s Foreign Policy Ambitions And Global Geopolitics – Analysis

Brazil has been unable to acquire the decisive status it has long desired due to its failure to complement diplomacy with a commanding lead in its military power.

To gain the military status it desires, Brazil must not only increase investments in an expanded domestic infrastructure, but also must decide to strengthen its military capabilities and improve its cooperation with the United States as well as with the European Union.

searching for new measures that will have more impact than the economic sanctions imposed so far, without risking major damage to their own industries or a military escalation that could spiral out of control.

new package of sanctions targeting Russia’s banking, energy and defense sectors, but expressed skepticism that the measures would force Moscow to reverse course.

provide arms and more intelligence to Ukraine’s beleaguered military.

With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO’s military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev’s beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday.

The specter of an uprising of reanimated corpses also poses a significant challenge to interpreters of international relations and the theories they use to understand the world. If the dead begin to rise from the grave and attack the living, what thinking would -- or should -- guide the human response?

For our purposes, a zombie is defined as a reanimated being occupying a human corpse, with a strong desire to eat human flesh

Because they can spread across borders and threaten states and civilizations, these zombies should command the attention of scholars and policymakers.

The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has urged other countries to "deploy their civil defence and military assets, and medical teams, to contain the epidemic".

"As soon as their family member shows more severe symptoms, like bleeding, they will seek to bring them in a treatment centre anyway," says Brice de la Vigne, MSF's director of operations.

Senegal, where many UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have their regional offices, is expected to become a logistical hub.

86% of Israeli Jews said they supported the war.

Fewer than 10% agreed that it was time to stop

"There is no pressure on people – this is authentic support. People think this is a just war."

pro-Russian rebels

Talks have foundered on Russia’s refusal to halt or even acknowledge what Ukraine and its Western supporters say is a steady flow of fighters and military hardware into Ukraine from Russia.

Lifted by battlefield gains in recent weeks, the mood in Kiev was bolstered further on Tuesday by news that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had accepted an invitation from Mr. Poroshenko to travel to Kiev this weekend, and that the European Union was considering a new round of economic assistance.

The Syrian government has ramped up airstrikes in Raqqa since August after insurgents seized an airbase and other military posts, capturing and executing dozens of soldiers and forcing remaining Syrian troops out of the area.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has previously called for support to fight the militants, but western governments have been hesitant to back a leader that has been accused of routinely carrying out dangerous tactics against militants, including the indiscriminate dropping of barrels packed with explosives that have killed scores of civilians across the country over the past three and a half years.

We have no interest in seeing Russia weakened or its economy in shambles. We have a profound interest, as I believe every country does, in promoting a core principle, which is: Large countries don't bully smaller countries,"

Pro-Russian separatists are blamed for the attack on residential areas in the port city, Donetsk regional police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said on his Facebook page.

Another 102 people were injured, at least 75 of whom needed hospital treatment, and many suffered shrapnel injuries, Mariupol City Council sai

Meanwhile, Ukraine is broke, and without the military means to move against the Russian-backed rebels. Most of the victims are civilians who struggle with hunger and dislocation in the rubble of the combat zones and die in the constant exchanges of shells and rockets.

resident Vladimir Putin has sharply cranked up his direct support for the rebels in the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, while continuing to baldly deny it and to blame all the violence on the United States.

its allies will actively use their good offices with Kiev to seek a workable

The three months of increasingly intense fighting between pro-Kiev forces and eastern separatists have unleashed both sides' worst instincts and demonstrated their high tolerance for loss of civilian life.

These developments exclude any recovery of Ukrainian statehood, even in its dysfunctional post-Soviet form. The Ukrainian state, as it emerged after the Soviet dissolution, is finished.

s such our platform is comprised of the following: 1. To remain in the region and be apart of the nation’s long-term economic and social recovery and development. 2. To ensure employees, families and communities are aware of the disease and are taking the best precautions to avoid infection and stigma. 3. To share experiences and resources, including trained personnel and practices, to assist governments and partners to mobilize quickly to control the spread of the disease. 4. To offer loan or gift-appropriate assets and resources essential to the deployment of an integrated response by donors, militaries, host governments, NGOs and community-based organizations. 5. To make available information about needs of various organizations and first responders, so that they may be connected with corporate giving. 6. To commit to learning from this outbreak and working together to support a strong healthcare system in the affected counties. 7. To raise international awareness and advocate for a larger global coordinated effort to combat Ebola. 8. To advocate for open trade and humanitarian corridors by air, land and sea.

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The U.S. government is sending flimsy plastic aprons and gauze masks to the Africans with assurances that the donning and removal processes are where the majority of the risk to caregivers is realized. This is simply not true. As is evident by the precautions currently being taken in the U.S. and other developed countries, multiple layers of protection are employed by health workers, and cadavers are treated as highly infectious.

President Obama has sent nearly 5,000 members of the U.S. military to West Africa to assist in trying to stop the spread of the disease for a very good reason — the problem is quickly spinning out of control, and has the potential to become a serious national security concern.

Since 2010, the Department of Defense has partnered with Tekmira Pharmaceuticals to develop a vaccine for Ebola. Tekmira was given ‘fast track’ authority to develop a vaccine earlier this year.

A senior European diplomat in Geneva involved in health issues, who was not authorized to speak publicly, lamented the limited international response. “The scale of the epidemic is what the international community is still not getting,” the diplomat said. “It’s becoming obvious that what you need is to scale up by a factor of 20. There’s not enough international coordination and imagination going into this.”

uba sent 165 doctors and nurses last week, China has expanded a medical team deployed there, and British personnel are scouting sites for at least five new centers and 700 additional beds that will bring the total closer to the World Health Organization’s target of about 1,300 beds.

United States delivers on a pledge to provide up to 17 100-bed units, said Dr. Ian Norton, who is coordinating foreign medical teams for the W.H.O. In Guinea, the W.H.O. says there are four treatment centers working with 160 beds available, with 100 more beds needed.

He sketched out three dominant approaches: realism, liberalism, and an updated form of idealism called "constructivism."

Realism focuses on the shifting distribution of power among states.

Liberalism highlights the rising number of democracies and the turbulence of democratic transitions.

The effort has been messy, inefficient and expensive, often lagging the epidemic’s twists in tragic ways.

Despite difficulty filling positions, the W.H.O. now reports that it has more than 700 people working at 77 field sites, the largest emergency response in its history.

Charities with no background treating Ebola patients began running hospitals specialized for Ebola care, some of which were built by militaries and others staffed by hundreds of personnel from China and Cuba who were also facing Ebola for the first time and trying to overcome language challenges.