Late Saturday, with just 12 hours before polls were to open, local election officials said they had discovered printing flaws on the ballots and destroyed them.

Many people in the area have relatives in Russia, for example, and over the weekend all airplane flights between the two countries were halted as they imposed mutual sanctions, complicating travel.

Both cities where the vote was canceled had fallen under rebel control last year but were recaptured by the Ukrainian military, and Sunday would have been the first opportunity for citizens to express their views in an election.

“Over 300,000 voters in the largest Ukrainian-controlled city of Donbass could not exercise their constitutional right because the authorities decided to hide their total loss by disrupting the election,” the Opposition Bloc said in a statement Sunday.

The dispute focused on the ballots, which had been printed by a typographical shop in Mariupol owned by an oligarch with ties to the Opposition Bloc, Rinat Akhmetov.

In private, however, commanders and intelligence officials are far more direct. They report that from the North Sea to Northeast Asia and even in waters closer to American shores, they are monitoring significantly increased Russian activity along the known routes of the cables, which carry the lifeblood of global electronic communications and commerce.

“The level of activity,” a senior European diplomat said, “is comparable to what we saw in the Cold War.

The operations are consistent with Russia’s expanding military operations into places like Crimea, eastern Ukraine and Syria, where President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to demonstrate a much longer reach for Russian ground, air and naval forces.

“Cables get cut all the time — by anchors that are dragged, by natural disasters,” said Mr. Sechrist, who published a study in 2012 of the vulnerabilities of the undersea cable network. But most of those cuts take place within a few miles from shore, and can be repaired in a matter of days.

The role of the cables is more important than ever before. They carry global business worth more than $10 trillion a day, including from financial institutions that settle transactions on them every second. Any significant disruption would cut the flow of capital. The cables also carry more than 95 percent of daily communications.

And a decade ago, the United States Navy launched the submarine Jimmy Carter, which intelligence analysts say is able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on communications flowing through them.

Citing public remarks by the Russian Navy chief, Adm. Viktor Chirkov, Admiral Ferguson said the intensity of Russian submarine patrols had risen by almost 50 percent over the last year. Russia has increased its operating tempo to levels not seen in over a decade. Russian Arctic bases and their $2.4 billion investment in the Black Sea Fleet expansion by 2020 demonstrate their commitment to develop their military infrastructure on the flanks, he said.

“This involves the use of space, cyber, information warfare and hybrid warfare designed to cripple the decision-making cycle of the alliance,” Admiral Ferguson said, referring to NATO. “At sea, their focus is disrupting decision cycles.”

On Saturday, the broadband provider said on its website that the stolen customer data had been less sensitive than initially thought and did not include complete credit card numbers or customers’ passwords, for instance.

TalkTalk’s efforts to play down the impact of the data breach have not stopped British authorities from criticizing the company and the failure of its online security systems

Shares of TalkTalk are down 8 percent since the hacking attack was confirmed on Friday.

More recently, as new technologies have offered more avenues to increase surveillance and data collection, the court has reiterated its position in a number of leading cases against several countries, including France, Romania, Russia and Britain, condemned for having infringed the right to private and family life that in the interpretation of the cour

unnecessary “wide-ranging and particularly serious interference with the fundamental right to respect for private life” and personal data, this court reaffirmed the outstanding place privacy holds in Europe

If European governments and parliaments do not respect fundamental principles and judicial obligations, our lives will become much less private. Our ability to participate effectively in public life is threatened, too, because these measures curtail our freedom of speech and our right to receive information — including that of public interest. Not all whistleblowers have the technical knowledge Mr. Snowden possessed. Many would fear discovery if they communicated with journalists, who in turn would lose valuable sources, jeopardizing their ability to reveal unlawful conduct in both the public and private spheres. Watergates can only happen when whistleblowers feel protected.

First, legislation should limit surveillance and the use of data in a way that strictly respects the right to privacy as spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, European data protection standards, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and that of the European Court of Justice. These norms oblige states to respect human rights when they gather and store information relating to our private lives and to protect individuals from unlawful surveillance, including when carried out by foreign agencies.

Third, security agencies must operate under independent scrutiny and judicial review. This will require intrusive oversight powers for parliaments and a judiciary that is involved in the decision-making process to ensure accountability. Countries that have adopted controversial surveillance laws should reconsider or amend them. And those considering new surveillance legislation should do so with great caution.

The limited Turkish strikes came after the P.Y.D. declared last week that Tal Abyad was part of an autonomous region in northern Syria that the Kurds call Rojava. Turkey views the development as a national security threat because it could inflame separatist sentiments among its own Kurds

Russia’s ties to the P.K.K. and the P.Y.D. date to the days of the Soviet Union, and it is believed to be offering support to Syrian Kurds.To register its displeasure, Turkey recently summoned the ambassadors of Russia and the United States to raise concerns over support to the Syrian Kurds.

50 tons of ammunition in northern Syria to a coalition of Arab and Kurdish fighters who were preparing to battle the Islamic State near its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

Instead, Semyonovka’s 12-foot, silver-colored Lenin with his right arm extended had been propped back up on a plinth in a discreet, leafy park. “We want to preserve this small corner of Soviet history,” said Mr. Papchenko, 67, a stout former school principal whose multiple gold molars attested to his own life in the U.S.S.R.

Vladimir Vyatrovich, 38, a historian and the head of Ukraine’s National Memory Institute, predicted somewhat rashly that if the effort succeeded in Ukraine, it would cause fateful reverberations next door.

The laws dumped the Soviet traditions for commemorating World War II, opened up what K.G.B. secret police archives remained in Ukraine and sought to rehabilitate certain Ukrainian independence fighters whom Moscow had long pilloried as Nazi collaborators.

A fight has emerged over the Communist symbols, however, not unlike that between supporters and opponents of the Confederate battle flag in the southern United States.

Ukrainians want to instill in the next generation.

“They behave like Bolsheviks: ‘We have to wipe out the past!’ ” said Georgiy V. Kasyanov, a historian and education reform activist. “They think the Soviet legacy can be destroyed by destroying statues of Lenin or by renaming streets, which is false. They are wrestling with ghosts.”

By the time of the Maidan uprising in Kiev that toppled the pro-Russian government in February 2014, Ukraine was down to about 1,300 Lenins, he says. Another 500 have come crashing down since

Some efforts proved more successful than others. One of the largest Lenin statues in Ukraine, in the city of Kharkiv, was dismembered.

Apart from the statues, 910 cities and towns need new names, as do tens of thousands of streets.

Each City Hall has until Nov. 21 to make the changes. If they do not, Parliament will do it for them by Feb. 21.

In Kiev, a television comedy show suggested the modern, landmark Moscow Bridge be renamed the Not Moscow Bridge.

And continue to. A woman wearing a navy blue bathrobe, hearing why foreigners were visiting recently, came bowling over, shaking her fist.

The seeds are being planted at new facilities in Lebanon and Morocco, allowing scientists to resume the important research they've been doing for decades, away from the barrel bombs of Aleppo.

The gene bank in Aleppo, run by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, is one of the most important in the world and includes more than 135,000 varieties of wheat, fava bean, lentil and chickpea crops, as well as the world's most valuable barley collection.

ICARDA representative Thanos Tsivelikas, who is overseeing the withdrawal from the vault, describes the operation as "a rescue mission; these seeds cannot be replaced.

Relocated to Lebanon, Solh opens the door to a vault on the Agricultural Research and Educational Center of the American University of Beirut campus in the Bekaa Valley. This is where the seeds ICARDA received back from Svalbard are housed.

It is the plant from which the wheat we eat today originated 10 millennia ago.

A 10-minute drive away and just across the mountain range from Syria, a new vault is being built by ICARDA.

parallel project is being set up in Morocco to ensure that humanity always has access to this irreplaceable cache of genetic material.

Researchers are looking at ways to improve food crops with existing and extinct-in-nature genetic lines that are more adapted to the challenges that may lie ahead with global warming.

"You know that climate change is a reality and climate change is changing the whole environment in terms of more drought, hotter environments and even new diseases."

" The father told Basha through tears, "I stood far away as they put him in the ground."

t was quickly picked up by social media at a time when little else on Yemen's war seems to gain much attention.

quickly

Two rival factions are vying for power in Yemen: the Shiite Houthi rebel movement and the backers of ousted President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

Fareed

The battle for control triggered the formation of an Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, to intervene on behalf of the Hadi's internationally recognized government.

"human catastrophe" that had killed or wounded more than 27,000 people as of midsummer, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and has left 80%

Four out of every five Yemenis are lacking the most basic things, including water, food, adequate medical care, and shelter, according to OCHA.

For all this suffering, that doesn't mean Yemenis have given up.

"Fareed saw burial of neighbor kid killed by Houthi shell & was traumatized. Hence pleaded #DontBuryMe .. #Yemen" Hishal al-Omeisy, a prominent Yemeni activist, posted on Twitter. The hashtag originally started in Arabic, but as the story spread, more users began using the English version."A child in #taiz told his father after he was injured: do not bury me. Sadly, the father could not [fulfill] his son's call.#Dontburyme" Kawkab Ahmed, a Turkish observer, said on the microblogging site

Puntland region of northern Somalia, and thus unlikely to be persecuted or reached by the Amniyat, which operates mostly in southern Somalia.

Sources within Somalia's security apparatus estimate that about 100 fighters would likely defect to ISIS, among the estimated 1,400-strong insurgent group.

"Al-Shabaab won't have a jihadi legitimacy if they don't have muhajideen (foreign fighters) within their ranks," the source said. "They were built on welcoming foreign fighters, and having them in the movement's hierarchy from the very first day."

One analyst explained ISIS' effectiveness in using modern technology to recruit new members

ISIS may be more appealing to younger, more impressionable jihadis.

"Many Muhajirs (foreign fighters and members of the diaspora) were trying to leave and the harakah (leadership) is trying to make them stay."

l-Shabaab's leadership, however, is still very much pro-al Qaeda. Its most recent propaganda video, showing a deadly attack on Burundian soldiers fighting for the African Union in Southern Somalia, used quotes from the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the group's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. "This is a subtle way of intimating the leadership's loyalty to al Qaeda," says a source close to Somalia's intelligence service, NISA.

Nigeria's Boko Haram group and now to East Africa, potentially as far as the borders of Kenya.

The defection also shows a certain division within its ranks. The source close to Al-Shabaab told CNN he thought it was "the worst idea ever."

Somalia said its battle against terrorists will not be affected by any name changes.

r they change their name, affiliation or not," said Abdisalam Aato, the government spokesman.

"There was not a lot of time," one U.S. official told CNN on condition of anonymity. "The threat of execution was imminent."

The firefight represents the first time U.S. forces stepped into combat against ISIS in Iraq, one U.S. official said.

Thirty troops from Delta Force on an "advise and assist role" participated in the raid when Kurdish "Cobra" commandos were overwhelmed after entering the walled compound on their own, the official said.

Four Peshmerga soldiers were wounded, officials said

70 Kurdish hostages were rescued.

The mission did not represent a change in U.S. tactics in Iraq, Cook said.

White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the Pentagon, not the White House, signed off on the operation under the U.S. military mission against ISIS.

there are 70 people whose lives were saved as a result of this," Cook said.

20 ISIS fighters were killed and six were captured

In a statement, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of the U.S. Central Command, described the mission as "complex and highly successful."

"Our gratitude and heartfelt condolences go out to this young man's family, his teammates and friends."

The operation came more than a month after Kurdish security forces said the Islamist militant group ISIS kidnapped dozens of men near Hawija. It wasn't immediately clear whether the overnight rescue was related to this early September kidnapping.

Eight Israelis have been killed after being stabbed, shot or run over by Palestinians, violence that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas of inciting partly with his talk about the Jerusalem holy site.

wounded 1,850 in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Prior to leaving Amman for Saudi Arabia, Kerry announced not only the apparent surveillance video, which was proposed by the Jordanian King, but also Israel's pledge "to continue to enforce its longstanding policy on religious worship at the Temple Mount.

Israeli forces currently check people and bags outside the site, but do not patrol inside the premises.

He added that Israel does welcome coordination between its authorities and those from Jordan, "including to make sure visitors ... maintain restraints and respect for the sanctity of the area.

Some Russian airstrikes have appeared to hit areas controlled by various rebel groups, including some that are supported by the United States.Why Russia is pressing the 'accelerate' pedal in Syria

Russia denied on Thursday that it used cluster munitions.

After all, in spite of the shock and awe of his air campaign, Putin's Syrian military operation, for now, is limited, and so are his goals: avert the defeat of Assad's army, preserving -- for now, at least -- its government, and guaranteeing that Russia's interests must be protected in any future political settlement.

Putin flew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Moscow for a surprise visit, hinting at a possible political solution.

But Ukraine, for now, is forgotten in the fervor here in Russia over Syria.

Syria, the Russian president said this week, "can become a model for partnership in the name of common interests, resolving problems that affect everyone."

In his view, the U.S. botched it by trying to dictate to the world.

This time, he says, the world can make the right choice, "the choice in favor of peace."And, in Putin's eyes, they will have him to thank.

scrappily clad in plaid shirts as well as camouflage gear, and armed with hunting rifles alongside their ancient AK-47s.

On October 11, more than 100 parachutes floated down through the night sky over northern Syria

The United States is trying to help relieve the shortage of supplies.

The YPG, a Kurdish group of some 30,000 fighters, is the senior partner in the Syrian Democratic Forces, which also includes some smaller Arab and Christian groups

instalment in a new U.S. strategy

failure

pallet of ammunition.

A Kurdish commander in the province of Hasakah confided

"train and equip"

raw courage of YPG fighters, nor of the Kurdish Women's Defense Unit (YPJ) that fights alongside them.

"They throw themselves into battle, have no sense of covering fire, just charge at the enemy," said a Dutch veteran who is now a sniper with the YPG.

Just weeks ago, a massive vehicle bomb blew up the entrance to the YPG headquarters here.

The camp appears to have been occupied by an elite squad of suicide bombers,

Kurds, Assyrian Christians, different Arab tribes. They fight together and against each other.

e.Other Arabs here resent that the Kurds were slow to join the insurgency against the regime, preferring to sit it out. Even now, the YPG co-exists with a substantial contingent of Syrian soldiers inside Hasakah city. "We have nothing to do with them, though sometimes we have an agreement not to encroach on an area," Commander Lawand told CNN inside the YPG's bombed headquarters. "We are the real opposition to the regime, but first we must fight the terror groups."That's just what the U.S. wants to hear. In the wake of its failed efforts to train and equip moderate rebel groups elsewhere in Syria, there is a lot riding on the Kurds and their Arab allies. American airstrikes were instrumental in helping the Kurds save the city of Kobani on the Turkish border and then pushing ISIS back. In a country of shifting alliances, it's a proven partnership.

The Kurds had expected it would take them weeks to defeat ISIS in Tal Abyad. In the end, victory took just two days.

stronghold of Raqqa, about 100 km south.

The people gathered here don't want to talk on camera. They say they have relatives in Raqqa, where ISIS is firmly in control.

1,000 lira (Syrian pounds -- roughly equivalent to $4.60),

In one of the ISIS security buildings, the militants' black flag still ominously dominates the walls.

Tal Abyad came under ISIS control a short while later. Rather than flee to neighboring Turkey, the family chose to stay -- begrudgingly obeying ISIS' draconian laws

The greatest proportion of refugees comes from Syria, where a brutal civil war over the last four and a half years has killed perhaps a quarter of a million people,

Since Monday, the IOM said, 18 people are believed to have drowned trying to reach Europe since Monday, in two incidents.

In little more than 18 months, China has reclaimed more than 2,000 acres at three main locations in the Spratly Islands

I advise the U.S. not to create such a self-fulfilling prophecy."

China from engaging in reasonable, legitimate and legal activities in its own territories

coming within 12 miles of the coastline during President Barack Obama's visit to the state, U.S. officials told CNN at the time.

"U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations are global in scope and executed against a wide range of excessive maritime claims,

The rest of the region, wary of China's intentions in the disputed waters, is likely to welcome the U.S. move.

Poling said under maritime law, artificial islands were not usually afforded the 12-mile territorial zone,

After Zarqawi's death in 2006, AQI created an umbrella organisation, Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). ISI was steadily weakened by the US troop surge and the creation of Sahwa (Awakening) councils by Sunni Arab tribesmen who rejected its brutality.

Some estimate that IS and its allies control about 40,000 sq km (15,000 sq miles) of Iraq and Syria - roughly the size of Belgium. Others believe they control closer to 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) - about the size of Jordan.

IS members are jihadists who adhere to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and consider themselves the only true believers. They hold that the rest of the world is made up of unbelievers who seek to destroy Islam, justifying attacks against other Muslims and non-Muslims alike.