<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57bb1c91dd0895c3698b479e-875/screen shot 2016-08-22 at 15.50.31.png" alt="Drug drone" data-mce-source="Met Police" /><p class="source"><span>Met Police</span></p><p class="caption">A drone next to a bag.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Police are cracking down on criminals using drones to smuggle drugs and smartphones into prisons after three incidents were recorded in quick succession.</p><p>London Metropolitan Police<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-37152665"> have formed a drone patrol unit known as Operation Airborne</a> to catch the smugglers.</p><p>Earlier this month, officers observed a man acting suspiciously close to London's Pentonville Prison, <a href="http://news.met.police.uk/news/drones-recovered-close-to-prison-180246" target="_blank">according to a statement</a> issued by the London Metropolitan Police service on Monday.</p><p>He ran away after seeing the police but he dropped two bags containing an unspecified quantity of Class B drugs and mobile phones, police said.</p><p>Two other drones have been spotted by Pentonville prison, according to police. One crashed, while the other - containing a large quantity of drugs and two mobile phones - was stopped mid-flight by an officer.</p><p>Detective chief inspector Steve Heatley said in a statement: "These recovered drones carried a substantial amount of Class B drugs, legal highs and a large quantity of mobile phones; we are able to intercept them thanks to the vigilance of officers and the public.</p><p>"We work closely with the prison service to gather intelligence in order to carry out proactive operations to arrest and prosecute such offenders."</p><p>No one has been arrested in connected with the three incidents.</p><p>This isn't the first time that drones have been used illegally. Indeed, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drones-police-crime-reports-uk-england-safety-surveillance-a7155076.html" target="_blank">The Independent reported</a> that drone complaints to <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> police soared 352% in a year. Some people have used them to spy on people, while others have flown them dangerously close to commercial airliners.</p><p class="tagline"><div id="categorypromo" style="border:1px solid silver; min-height:114px; padding:4px;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/research-store?IR=T&amp;utm_source=House&amp;utm_term=CtgrPr-Drones&amp;utm_campaign=CtgrPr#!/THE-DRONES-REPORT/p/47962272/category=11987294"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f86d1a6bb3f7d9276eb46a-150/drones-4.png" style="float:left; margin-right:8px" /></a><strong> Get THE DRONES REPORT now!</strong> Commercial drones are already a reality. <strong>BI Intelligence</strong> takes an in-depth look at the most important aspects, including market forecasts for commercial applications, regulatory process, and the leading players.  <strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/research-store?IR=T&amp;utm_source=House&amp;utm_term=CtgrPr-Drones&amp;utm_campaign=CtgrPr#!/THE-DRONES-REPORT/p/47962272/category=11987294">Get the Report Here »</a></strong></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/clear-storage-space-iphone-fast-2016-8">6 ways to clear up storage space on your iPhone </a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="h4dHhlNTE67kFc3Gqv8H18X-RduoDruB" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'h4dHhlNTE67kFc3Gqv8H18X-RduoDruB',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Drug drones: London police are cracking down on UAVs delivering illegal substances to prisoners

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b15574d1ae6624d008b4aff-1400/ap18150784771875.jpg" border="0" alt="Peru President Martin Vizcarra cocaine drug bust" data-mce-source="(Carlos Lezama/Peruvian Presidential Press Office via AP)" data-mce-caption="Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra walks between seized packages of cocaine in Chancay, Peru, May 30, 2018." /><p class="source"><span>(Carlos Lezama/Peruvian Presidential Press Office via AP)</span></p><p class="caption">Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra walks between seized packages of cocaine in Chancay, Peru, May 30, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Peruvian authorities intercepted more than a ton of cocaine at the end of May.</strong></li><li><strong>The drug packets were labeled with images of kingpins 'El Chapo' Guzman and Pablo Escobar.</strong></li><li><strong>Such markings are common, and in this case they were reportedly meant to indicate the drugs' purity.</strong></li></ul><hr /><p>Police in Peru intercepted more than a ton of cocaine destined for Spain last week, uncovering the drugs hidden in a shipment of frozen fish, stored in packets emblazoned with photos of drug lords Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Pablo Escobar.</p><p>The 1,150 kilos of cocaine were captured about 50 miles north of Lima. Hector Loayza, chief of Peru's anti-drug police, <a href="https://www.mininter.gob.pe/content/polic%C3%ADa-antidrogas-decomisa-m%C3%A1s-de-una-tonelada-de-coca%C3%ADna" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the drugs were to leave Peru through the port at Paita, near the northern border with Ecuador. He said the drugs would be worth $45 million once in Spain.</p><p>The operation also led to the arrest of 12 people - eight Peruvians and four Colombians. None of those captured had any links to Guzman or Escobar, Loayza said, adding that the images of the drug lords were used to show "<a href="https://www.apnews.com/68c6a5c614004872a412a365f9ab1a74/Per%C3%BA:-incautan-droga-con-logos-Pablo-Escobar-y-Chapo-Guzm%C3%A1n" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the purity</a>" of the drugs being smuggled.</p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b1557411ae66220008b4b11-1280/27588488457e4d7926bc9o.jpg" border="0" alt="Peru cocaine drugs Pablo Escobar El Chapo Guzman" data-mce-source="Peru Interior Ministry" data-mce-caption="Packages of cocaine labeled with images of Mexican drug lord Joaquin &amp;quotEl Chapo&quot; Guzman and Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar, on display after being seized by Peruvian police, May 20, 2018." data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mininter/27588488457/in/album-72157696858539514/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mininter/27588488457/in/album-72157696858539514/">Peru Interior Ministry</a></span></p><p class="caption">Packages of cocaine labeled with images of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar, on display after being seized by Peruvian police, May 20, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>In the photos, Guzman appears in a dark baseball cap while holding a rifle. Escobar appears sitting on a motorcycle. Guzman was captured for a third time in Mexico in January 2016, and a year later he was extradited to the US, where he <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/juror-identities-el-chapo-guzman-federal-trial-secret-2018-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">will face trial starting in September</a>. </span></p><p><span>Escobar, who built one of the largest drug-trafficking empires in history, was gunned down on a Colombian rooftop in December 1993. Escobar was being hunted by the US and Colombian governments and other groups in Colombia, but the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/who-killed-notorious-drug-kingpin-pablo-escobar-heres-what-we-know-2015-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">details of his death remain murky</a>.</span><span></span></p><p><span>Packages of cocaine are frequently labeled with images or other symbols, often to convey messages about their contents or destination.</span></p><p><span>In the past, Peruvian police have <a href="https://www.apnews.com/68c6a5c614004872a412a365f9ab1a74/Per%C3%BA:-incautan-droga-con-logos-Pablo-Escobar-y-Chapo-Guzm%C3%A1n" target="_blank" rel="noopener">captured</a> cocaine packets labeled with photos of Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi in his Barcelona uniform, with the coat of arms of Spanish King Philip VI, and with the Star of David. Other packages have been marked with photos of horses, birds, or dolphins.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b1557411ae66222008b4ad7-1280/42458632451f1ddb2e80fo.jpg" border="0" alt="Peru cocaine drugs Pablo Escobar" data-mce-source="Peru Interior Ministry" data-mce-caption="A packet of cocaine with an image of Pablo Escobar, on display after being seized by police in Peru, May 30, 2018." data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mininter/42458632451/in/album-72157696858539514/" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mininter/42458632451/in/album-72157696858539514/">Peru Interior Ministry</a></span></p><p class="caption">A packet of cocaine with an image of Pablo Escobar, on display after being seized by police in Peru, May 30, 2018.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>In September 2016, Spanish police intercepted nearly 2,000 pounds of cocaine hidden in a commercial shipment of bananas, broken up into packets labeled <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cocaine-seized-in-shipment-of-bananas-in-spain-2016-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">with "FIFA" stickers</a>. Earlier this year, police in Spain made their largest bust of cocaine ever, finding <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-spanish-police-make-record-cocaine-bust-in-algeciras-port-2018-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nearly nine metric tons</a> of the drug in packets labeled "iPhone."</p><p>Loayza, the head of the anti-drug police, said 25 metric tons of cocaine have been intercepted so far this year, which he attributed to "<a href="https://www.mininter.gob.pe/content/polic%C3%ADa-antidrogas-decomisa-m%C3%A1s-de-una-tonelada-de-coca%C3%ADna" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the good work</a>" done by agents making use of intelligence. A day before the packages bearing images of Escobar and Guzman were displayed, Peruvian police <a href="https://www.mininter.gob.pe/content/polic%C3%ADa-nacional-decomisa-114-kilos-de-coca%C3%ADna-de-alta-pureza-en-el-vraem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">intercepted 114 kilos</a> of cocaine heading toward Bolivia.</p><p>Loayza also said that in recent years, most of Peru's cocaine has headed for Europe, where it typically fetches a higher price - $40,000 to $70,000 a kilo, compared to $20,000 to $25,000 a kilo in the US, though <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-2016-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prices fluctuate</a> based on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-cocaine-cost-in-the-us-2016-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">location and where the drugs are in the supply chain</a>.</p><p>Peru is the world's second-biggest producer of cocaine. Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia produce almost all of the world's supply of the drug - though <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-cocaine-is-made-2017-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Colombia churns out</a> more than the other two countries combined.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-coast-guard-bust-1-billion-worth-cocaine-2017-3">Here's what $1 billion worth of cocaine looks like</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/ot6bkK0T-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

Drug smugglers in Peru are using photos of 'El Chapo' Guzman and Pablo Escobar to promote their products

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/545351e869beddf16ebd6af4-1200-924/andy-rubin-16.jpg" border="0" alt="Andy Rubin"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/">Flickr/Joi Ito</a></span></p><p class="caption">Andy Rubin.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>In October, Google's Android boss Andy Rubin <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/andy-rubin-out-of-google-2014-10">left the company</a> with plans to <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">run a startup incubator for hardware-focused companies.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rubin was working on robotics for Google before he left, but no word on what his new fund will focus on.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rubin's new venture - called Playground Global - <a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1638842/000163884215000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml">has now raised a $48 million</a> fund, per an SEC filing <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/04/06/ex-google-exec-andy-rubin-raises-48-million-for-hardware-incubator/">we first saw thanks to Fortune's Dan Primack</a>.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Rubin will serve as the managing director, and the organization's board of directors include ex-Googler <span>Matt Hershenson, </span>former Microsoft executive <span>Peter Barrett, and Bruce Leak, who co-founded WebTV.</span></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Playground Global is a venture capital fund, according to the regulatory filing. No investors were identified in the filing.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">However, Redpoint Ventures <a href="http://www.redpoint.com/andy-rubin-joins-redpoint">subsequently announced </a>that Rubin will be joining their firm as a partner, and that it was the first investor in Playground. Redpoint is where Rubin first incubated the idea that became Android. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Redpoint's Jeff Brody cites Rubin's curiosity about cutting-edge technology as a reason why they're so excited to work with him: </span></span></p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span>Whenever I visit Andy, he always has the newest thing, the yet-to-be available gadget.  Years ago, he smuggled from Japan the smallest flip phone in production. He kept robotic dogs as pets. Andy bought one of the first Segways and immediately drove it up a half-pipe, just to see how the gyroscopic systems would react. At Google, he modified a huge auto manufacturing robotic arm to make a cappuccino and stamp the Android logo on it in chocolate. Later, he had a near life-size humanoid robot that followed you around. </span></span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/update-iphone-ios-82-storage-space-2015-3">Apple sneaked in an annoying new feature in its latest iPhone iOS update - but there's also an upside</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="1lNXIwdDpL971hXnjojOrnEC3peyfh7O" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', '1lNXIwdDpL971hXnjojOrnEC3peyfh7O',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Former Android boss Andy Rubin has raised $48 million to fund hardware companies and joined a VC firm

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images" title_caption="Apple CEO Tim Cook. His company does not want you to know what's happening in the GT bankruptcy case." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5307ca086da811e165403407-960/apple-ceo-tim-cook-15.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5307ca086da811e165403407-1200-924/apple-ceo-tim-cook-15.jpg" alt="apple ceo tim cook" border="0" /></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mexican-president-enrique-pe%C3%B1a-nieto-arrives-to-deliver-a-news-photo/173311534">Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images</a></span></p><p class="caption">Apple CEO Tim Cook. His company does not want you to know what's happening in the GT bankruptcy case.</p></div><p></p></div></div>There is nothing more routine than a company bankruptcy filing in federal court. It happens every day.</p>
<p>But, there's a unique bankruptcy filing happening right now. </p>
<p>A company called GT Advanced, which was supposed to supply Apple with screens for the iPhone is going bankrupt. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Apple is battling to keep one part of the $1.5 billion bankruptcy case a total secret. </span></p>
<p>Media companies are now fighting in court to undo Apple's secrecy bid.</p>
<p>We reached out to Apple for comment but did not hear back.</p>
<p>The GT Advanced story is odd. GT Advanced sells supplies to make sapphire, which is a durable, scratch-resistant material. GT struck a deal with Apple to start making its own sapphire, which could be used for iPhone 6 screens. Weeks before Apple announced the iPhone 6, there were reports that Apple would be using sapphire screens from GT Advanced. </p>
<p>But Apple ended up not using GT's glass in the iPhone 6. It turns out <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/14/second-executive-of-apple-supplier-sold-shares-after-trouble-surfaced/">GT struggled to make the glass to Apple's standards</a>. And now GT - which has 1,100 employees and $1.5 billion in assets, according to court papers seen by Business Insider - is out of business.</p>
<p>Another eye-opening aspect of the case is that Apple had a contract provision allowing it to <a href="http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/13/gt-advanced-court-filings-reveal-50m-penalty-apple-imposes-for-leaking-product-information/">fine GT $50 million per incident</a> if it leaked any information about its business. And two execs at GT <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/exec-gt-advanced-technologies-sold-stock-before-bankruptcy-2014-10">sold stock before the company went bankrupt</a>.</p>
<p>GT, unsurprisingly, is furious, and it wants to air its dirty laundry in public, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/102083500">according to the Financial Times:</a></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Ahead of a court hearing on Wednesday in New Hampshire, GT's lawyers are arguing that even more information about its relationship with Apple should be published, in the interests of creditors and shareholders.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">In filings last week, the Arizona-based manufacturer called its supplier agreement with Apple "oppressive and burdensome".</p>
<p>Apple has <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/243014154/Apple-Motion-to-Seal-Arguments-in-GT-Advanced-Bankruptcy">filed a motion in New Hampshire federal bankruptcy court</a> opposing the bankruptcy petition of GT. Apple also wants its request <a href="http://recode.net/2014/10/14/apple-asks-courts-permission-to-challenge-gt-bankruptcy-in-secret/">to be considered in secret, </a>Re/code notes.</p>
<p>The company traditionally dislikes leaks. Apple's latest<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-6-launch-in-china-2014-9"> iPhone 6 release was plagued by leaks</a> before the launch. One <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-detains-worker-for-iphone-6-leak-2014-9">worker at Apple supplier Foxconn in China was detained</a> for allegedly smuggling iPhone 6 parts out of the factory.</p>
<p>Apple was<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-surprised-sapphire-maker-gt-advanced-technologies-went-bankrupt-2014-10"> reportedly surprised that GT went bankrupt</a>. The move came after Apple apparently didn't make a payment to GT of $139 million when the company failed to meet some technical requirements.</p>
<p>But Apple may lose its fight to keep the GT case under wraps: the Dow Jones Co., parent of the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg have successfully intervened in the case, and the judge will now hear arguments as to whether that secrecy will continue.</p>
<h3>Here is what the WSJ is complaining about:</h3>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/543e5e55ecad04b5607e846b-923-700/screen shot 2014-10-15 at 12.02.21 pm.png" alt="Apple GT" border="0"><p class="source"><span>US Federal Bankruptcy Court</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>The whole thing is very strange. While bankruptcies are often contentious - after all, they involve people who are angry that they're owed money, and people who are angry that they went out of business - they aren't often secret. The broad purpose of bankruptcy court is to figure out what assets the company has left, and how they should be divided among the people who are owed money. Bankruptcies don't generally concern themselves with the details of the proprietary technological knowledge of the out-of-business company. GT has described the bid to keep everything secret "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-gt-advanced-asks-bankruptcy-court-to-keep-documents-secret-2014-10">unusual (and perhaps unprecedented).</a>"</p>
<p>Because Apple and GT have so far made their filings under seal, it's not clear what, exactly, Apple is afraid of.</p>
<p><strong>Here is one clue. In its motion, Apple specifically mentions that it wants its contracts kept a secret:</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/543e5f4e69beddef2d7e846a-1110-319/screen shot 2014-10-15 at 12.31.24 pm.png" alt="Apple GT" border="0"><p class="source"><span>US Federal Bankruptcy Court</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p><strong>It also may be worried about details of its research getting out:</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/543e60b66bb3f7f359f8c042-1096-383/screen shot 2014-10-15 at 12.54.42 pm.png" alt="apple gt" border="0"><p class="source"><span>US Federal Bankruptcy Court</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p>

Apple Is Waging An 'Unusual And Unprecedented' Battle To Keep Its Secrets In A $1.5 Billion Bankruptcy Case

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5600f45add0895ca198b4574-3619-2714/ap_72222179656.jpg" alt="AP_72222179656" data-mce-source="AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool" data-mce-caption="A devotee carries an idol of Hindu elephant headed god Ganesha to immerse it in the Arabian Sea during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai, India, Monday, Sept. 21, 2015. The festival is celebrated as the birthday of Ganesha, the Hindu god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune." /><p class="source"><span>AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool</span></p><p class="caption">A devotee carries an idol of Hindu elephant headed god Ganesha to immerse it in the Arabian Sea during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai, India, Monday, Sept. 21, 2015. The festival is celebrated as the birthday of Ganesha, the Hindu god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! Here's what you need to know on Tuesday.</p><p><strong>1.</strong> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-hungary-army-gets-new-powers-as-europe-struggles-with-refugee-crisis-2015-9">Hungary gave its army the right to use weapons</a>, such as tear gas and rubber bullets, against migrants in a "non-lethal way, unless it cannot be avoided."</p><p><strong>2. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-car-launch-date-rumors-2015-9">Apple plans to release its first car in 2019</a><span>, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.</span></p><p><strong>3</strong>. The US Department of Justice has launched a criminal probe into<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-is-launching-a-criminal-investigation-into-vws-falsified-emissions-figures-2015-9"> allegations that </a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-is-launching-a-criminal-investigation-into-vws-falsified-emissions-figures-2015-9">Volkswagen used software </a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-us-government-is-launching-a-criminal-investigation-into-vws-falsified-emissions-figures-2015-9">to fool smog testers</a> into thinking the carmaker's diesels were a lot cleaner than they actually were.</p><p><strong>4</strong><strong>.</strong>Burkina Faso troops have entered the capital Ouagadougou and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-burkina-army-enters-capital-begins-talks-with-coup-leaders-offical-2015-9">started negotiating the surrender of the general who staged a coup last week</a>.</p><p><strong>5. </strong>Republican Governor<span> <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/report-scott-walker-dropping-out-2015-9">Scott Walker of Wisconsin has dropped out of the US presidential race</a>, after polling at the bottom of the Republican field.</span></p><p><strong>6. </strong><span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-venezuela-and-colombia-agree-to-restore-ambassadors-after-spat-2015-9">Venezuela and Colombia have agreed to</a><span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-venezuela-and-colombia-agree-to-restore-ambassadors-after-spat-2015-9"> progressively reopen the border</a> <span>between the two countries</span> after <span>Venezuela closed the common border last month in a crack down on smuggling.</span></span></span></p><p><strong>7. </strong>A huge overnight price increase for the tuberculosis drug <span>cycloserine - which shot up in price <span>from $500 to $10,800 after being acquired last month by <span>Rodelis Therapeutics -</span></span></span><span> is <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/tuberculosis-drug-price-hike-rescinded-2015-9">now being reversed after it was repurchased by its previous owner</a>.</span></p><p><strong>8. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/a-man-who-used-to-be-the-kremlins-banker-is-suing-russia-for-10-billion-2015-9"> Sergei Pugachev</a>, the man who used to be known as "the Kremlin's banker,"<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/a-man-who-used-to-be-the-kremlins-banker-is-suing-russia-for-10-billion-2015-9"> is suing Russia </a><span class="s1"><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/a-man-who-used-to-be-the-kremlins-banker-is-suing-russia-for-10-billion-2015-9">for over $10 billion</a> over the state's appropriation of his assets.</span></p><p><span class="s1"><strong>9. </strong><span>Hundreds of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-muslim-pilgrims-mass-in-mecca-for-hajj-2015-9">thousands of pilgrims from around the world have started moving from the holy city of Mecca to nearby Mina</a> for the start of the hajj, the world's largest annual gathering.</span></span></p><p><strong>10.</strong> <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-6s-sold-out-release-date-2015-9">Every model of Apple's iPhone 6S is already sold out</a>, even though the smartphones don't officially debut until September 25.</p><p><strong>And finally ...</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-perfect-pre-roman-era-tomb-discovered-at-pompeii-2015-9">Archaeologists have discovered a Pre-Roman era tomb in perfect condition at Pompeii.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/1998-mclaren-f1-auction-15-million-dollars-2015-6">This 1998 supercar could auction for $15 million</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Rsc3hodTqM0OE0pn7eL8MJ-yolA-SZHN" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'Rsc3hodTqM0OE0pn7eL8MJ-yolA-SZHN',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

The 10 most important things in the world right now

<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/542911b769bedd6b4a974c1e-1200-924/volcano-25.jpg?maxX=800" border="0" alt="Volcano" width="800"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Kyodo</span></p><p class="caption">Volcanic smoke rises from Mount Ontake, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures, central Japan, September 27, 2014.</p></img></div><p></p></div></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Hi! Here's what you need to know for Monday.</span></p>
<p><strong>1. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-activists-defy-police-tear-gas-as-protests-continue-overnight-2014-9">Police fired tear gas on thousands of pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong's financial district</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong>2. <strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/world/middleeast/refugees-flood-turkish-border-as-isis-steps-up-attacks-on-syrian-kurds.html">Syrian Kurdish refugees continue to flood the Turkish border</a>, bringing the total the number of Kurds seeking a safe haven to more than 150,000. "The Kurds fear a massacre, especially after recent Islamic State attacks on Kurdish civilians in Iraq," The New York Times writes. </strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>3. <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/HOME?SITE=AP">Afghanistan's new president, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, was sworn in on Monday.</a><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/isis-commons-vote-iraq-raf-bombing-michael-fallon"><br /></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>4. President Obama said in a CBS interview on Sunday that U.S. intelligence agencies "underestimated Islamic State activity inside Syria," <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/29/us-mideast-crisis-syria-obama-idUSKCN0HN0QN20140929">according to Reuters</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">5. <strong><strong><a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/eu-to-publish-details-of-probes-of-tax-deals-benefiting-apple-fiat-1411908859">European Union regulators will publish details of an investigation involving Apple's tax arrangements with the Irish government</a>, and whether the firm made illegal deals. </strong></strong></strong></p>
<p><strong style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">6. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/billions-fly-out-the-door-at-pimco-1411948188">Investors withdrew around $10 billion after Bill Gross left PIMCO</a>, the Wall Street Journal reports. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/africa/ebola-epidemic-sierra-leone-quarantine.html?ref=world"><br /></a></strong></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">7. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalonia-declares-referendum-on-independence-from-spain-for-9-november-9759547.html">The Spanish prime minister will hold an emergency meeting Monday to respond to Catalonia's call for a formal independence referendum on Nov. 9</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">8. An<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/japanese-volcano-eruption-survivors-heartbreaking-stories-victims"> eruption on Mount Ontake in Japan is believed to have killed 31 people </a>after the volcano erupted on Saturday without warning. <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/26/uk-hongkong-china-idUKKCN0HL06A20140926"><br /></a></strong></strong></strong></p>
<p><strong>9. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-lenovo-says-21-billion-ibm-x86-server-deal-to-close-on-wednesday-2014-9">Lenovo will close a $2.1 billion takeover of IBM's x86 server division on Wednesday</a>, Reuters reports.<strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/sports/baseball/derek-jeters-finale-yankee-stadium.html"><br /></a></strong></strong></p>
<p><strong>10. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/technology/personaltech/glum-sign-for-apple-in-china-smuggled-iphones-go-begging-.html">Smuggled iPhone 6's aren't selling as well in mainland China as expected</a>, The New York Times reports. </strong></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And finally ...</span></strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11126599/Newly-weds-George-Clooney-and-Amal-Alamuddin-make-first-appearance-since-marriage.html">George Clooney and lawyer Ama Almuddin are married</a>!</strong></p>

The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/52d90a896da811e85fdd0e75-1200-924/apple-68.jpg" border="0" alt="apple" /><p class="source">REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon </p><p class="caption"><keyword id="6354427" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Apple">Apple</keyword> Inc. CEO Tim Cook (R) and China Mobile's Chairman Xi Guohua (L) with iPhones pose with a customer at an event celebrating the launch of Apple's iPhone on China Mobile's network at a China Mobile shop in Beijing January 17, 2014. Apple Inc is finally launching its iPhone on China Mobile Ltd's vast network on Friday, opening the door to the world's largest carrier's 763 million subscribers and giving its China sales a short-term jolt. </p></div></div></div></span>BEIJING (Reuters) - Apple Inc is finally launching its iPhone on China Mobile Ltd's vast network on Friday, opening the door to the world's largest carrier's 763 million subscribers and giving its China sales a short-term jolt.</p>
<p>Underlining how much the launch means for Apple, Chief Executive Tim Cook was on hand as the carrier's flagship store opened in Beijing's financial district.</p>
<p>With <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua alongside, Cook gifted signed iPhones to a handful of customers and posed for pictures.</p>
<p>The long-awaited deal could trigger a limited turnaround for <span class="highlight">Apple</span>, whose fortunes have wavered in <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> in the face of stiff competition from market-leader Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and up-and-coming local rival Xiaomi Tech.</p>
<p>Samsung had a 21 percent share of <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span>'s smartphone market in the third quarter of 2013, with <span class="highlight">Apple</span> trailing in fifth place with just 6 percent, according to research firm Canalys.</p>
<p>But the arrival of the iPhone could be a double-edged sword for <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile, with some analysts predicting a costly subsidy war as rival carriers compete to lure customers.</p>
<p>"I don't see a price war coming where <span class="highlight">Apple</span> is engaged in the war, but I do think you're going to see a subsidy war coming," said Michael Clendenin, managing director of Shanghai-based RedTech Advisors.</p>
<p>"<span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile, if they're not making their targets on sales for these phones, they're going to increase the subsidies... It's like airlines: the other guys will fall like dominoes, so <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Unicom will do it and <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Telecom will do it."</p>
<p><span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile's iPhone sales are expected to reach 12 million in its 2014 fiscal year, but its subsidies will leap 57 percent to 42.4 billion yuan ($7 billion), up from 27 billion yuan in its fiscal year 2013, wrote Cynthia Meng, a Jefferies analyst, in a December note.</p>
<p>For the basic 16GB iPhone 5S, with no subscriber contract, <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile is charging 5,288 yuan ($870), the same as on <span class="highlight">Apple</span>'s <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> website. The carrier is charging 4,488 yuan ($740) for a basic iPhone 5C, again the same price as on <span class="highlight">Apple</span>'s <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> site.</p>
<p><span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Unicom Hong Kong Ltd and <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Telecom Corp Ltd slashed their iPhone prices by as much as 1,288 yuan ($210) following the announcement that a deal had been struck between <span class="highlight">Apple</span> and <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile. The pair have also offered a range of cut-price deals on contracts.</p>
<p>These offerings and the launch of the iPhone on <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile come in the weeks running up to Chinese New Year, when people traditionally exchange gifts of money in red envelopes and retail sales jump.</p>
<h3>SALES CANNIBALISATION</h3>
<p>After taking years to hammer out a deal with <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile, <span class="highlight">Apple</span>'s sales in <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> should get a short, sharp boost as subscribers make the most of the double-whammy of the iPhone's arrival and the rollout of high-speed 4G mobile networks.</p>
<p>Reservations for iPhones had already hit 1.3 million on Wednesday, according to a <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile spokeswoman, although Reuters checks showed that there were multiple registrations using fake ID numbers.</p>
<p>But the rewards are expected to be short-lived for the Cupertino, California-based company, which faces a deeper problem in <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> of having fallen out of favor with consumers who are increasingly opting for domestic offerings.</p>
<p>Another issue is the thriving grey market for iPhones, where users can buy handsets typically smuggled from Hong Kong and then sign up for a <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile contract. <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile already has 45 million iPhone users in<span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span>, according to a company spokeswoman.</p>
<p>"You need to consider the cannibalization for sales to <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Unicom, <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Telecom and the grey market, so even though there's an addition from <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile it will also impact sales from other channels as well," said CKLu, a Taiwan-based analyst with Gartner.</p>
<p>"If we really want to see the expansion of sales we'll have to wait for the next version of the iPhone. If <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile gets first launch and their subsidies are attractive people will probably rush to the iPhone that <span class="highlight"><span class="highlight">China</span></span> Mobile can provide."</p>
<p>($1 = 6.0557 Chinese yuan)</p>
<p>(Additional reporting by Adam Rose; Editing by Alex Richardson and Kenneth Maxwell)</p>

Apple China Mobile Launch Could Spark A Costly Subsidy War

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e39c416bb3f73853c66d19-1200-924/alejandro-gonzlez-irritu.jpg" border="0" alt="Alejandro González Iñárritu"><p class="source"><span>Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu swept the 2015 Academy Awards. He and his producers took home golden statues for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture for his film "Birdman."<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But more than a decade before his Oscar-winning turn," <span>González Iñárritu made a 10-minute long short film for BMW's "BMW Films" <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> campaign.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>In 2001, the German automaker recruited a series of big-name filmmakers - such as&#xa0;<span>González Iñárritu, Ang Lee, Tony Scott, and John Woo - to make a series of short vignettes staring actor Clive Owen as "the driver," along with a slew of BMW cars.&#xa0;</span></span></span></p><p><span>In González Iñárritu's contribution, "Powder Keg," a veteran war photographer named Harvey Jacobs (played by Stellan Skarsgaard) witnesses a brutal massacre by Latin American military forces. The United Nations dispatches a BMW X5 SUV, driven by Owen, to smuggle the photographer out of the country.&#xa0;</span></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54eb8beb6da8115d3821716a-916-687/bmw-films-powder-keg-1.png" border="0" alt="BMW Films Powder Keg"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvKVaqTqzqg">Youtube/BMW Films/ Jay Romney Martin</a></span></p><p class="caption">The photographer.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>As the Driver and Jacobs flee towards to the border, the photographer recounts the many horrors of war he has encountered over the course of his career while expressing deep regret over his inability to stop the atrocities. As they speak, the photographer, who was shot during the massacre, instructs the driver to give his film and dog tags to his mother.<p>Soon, the military is alerted and pursues the BMW. Eventually, the car does make it to border - only to be confronted by border guards. As a guard interrogates the Driver, a wounded Jacobs takes pictures. Startled by the camera, the guard points a gun at the Driver's head.&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54eb8c0069beddec2485da71-860-645/bmw-films-powder-keg-2.png" border="0" alt="BMW Films Powder Keg"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvKVaqTqzqg">Youtube/BMW Films/Jay Romney Martin</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>After a few tense moments, the Driver pushes the gun away before backing the silver BMW into the army truck behind it. Gunfire rings out as the SUV flees towards the safety.&#xa0;<p>They reach safety, but it's too late. The photographer had died. We later learn that the Jacobs' photos of the massacre earned him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Overall, BMW Films' series of eight vignettes proved to be very received and remain popular on YouTube even a decade later.</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">See the complete film here:</span></p><div><div><iframe width="800" height="450" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FgOOU0z_Pik?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div></div><p class="embed-spacer"></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

The Oscar-winning director of 'Birdman' once made an awesome short film for BMW

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f63a0769bedda14fd23755-499-374/central-java-executions.jpg?maxX=600" border="0" alt="Central Java executions" width="600"><p class="source"><span>Wikimedia Commons</span></p><p class="caption">Nusakambangan is located on a remote island off the coast of Central Java, circled on the map.</p></img></div><p></p></div>In a state of "national emergency" over illicit drug use, Indonesia has angered other countries over its policy of executing foreign criminals. </p><p>Specifically, the country has been shipping criminals to Nusakambangan, a remote "<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2015/03/04/a-look-at-indonesias-prison-island-nusakambangan/?mod=WSJBlog">prison island</a>" in Central Java.</p><p><span>In January 2015 alone, Indonesia executed six people there, five of them foreigners, The </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/world/asia/bali-nine-indonesia-drug-executions-angers-nations.html">New York Times</a><span> reports. Sixty-four others, 58 of them from abroad, recently lost their final appeals.</span></p><p>Most notably, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/us-indonesia-executions-australia-idUSKBN0LZ2JC20150304">two Australian drug smugglers</a>, Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, were have been transferred there to be executed. The two were convicted <span>in 2005 of being ring leaders of the "Bali Nine" - a group of nine Australians who attempted to smuggle 18 pounds of heroin into Australia from Denapasar Airport.</span></p><p>The men's futures have ramped up tensions between Indonesia and Australia as well as many other countries. Outspoken prime minister Tony Abbott expressed his revulsion over the impending execution, saying Indonesia owes Australia a favor for the $1 billion in aid sent during the 2004 tsunami. Indonesian citizens responded by <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-31588901">gathering coins in the streets</a>.<span><br /></span></p><p>Australia, Brazil, and the Netherlands have since removed their ambassadors, and France has lodged a diplomatic protest, according to the Times.</p><p>Indonesia President Joko Widodo, however, sent a clear message. "Don't interfere with the executions, because it is our right to exercise our laws," he told reporters, according to the Times.</p><p>The island itself houses the country's highest security prison, known to some as "<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2015/03/04/a-look-at-indonesias-prison-island-nusakambangan/">Indonesia's Alcatraz</a>" - although inmates have access to healthcare and can participate in activities, like jewelry-making and gardening.</p><p>After multiple failed attempts at appeal, <a class="cite">Sukumaran</a><span> and </span><a class="cite">Chan </a>arrived Wednesday at <span>Nusakambangan</span>. Although Indonesia's attorney general refused to confirm when the executions would occur, the two Australians are staged to die by firing squad with seven other foreigners, according to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/03/world/asia/ap-as-indonesia-executions.html">Times</a>.</p><p><span>Right now, 134 inmates await execution at</span><span> </span><span>Nusakambangan - 38 of them are foreigners, a spokesman for Indonesia's penitentiary division told the </span><span></span><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indonesiarealtime/2015/03/04/a-look-at-indonesias-prison-island-nusakambangan/">Wall Street Journal</a><span>.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f7847feab8eab82d0297b5-1200-600/myuran-sukumaran-indonesia-executing-foreign-prisoners-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Myuran Sukumaran Indonesia executing foreign prisoners"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Nyoman Budhiana/Antara Foto</span></p><p class="caption">Australian death row prisoners Andrew Chan (C) and Myuran Sukumaran (L) are seen in a holding cell waiting to attend a review hearing in the District Court of Denpasar on the Indonesian island of Bali, in October 8, 2010.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Indonesia is executing foreign criminals on a remote prison island

<p><em><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f46bb4eab8ea94346d991b-556-642/screen shot 2015-03-02 at 8.53.21 am.png" border="0" alt="michael weiss isis inside the army of terror book cover"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578">ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>In this excerpt from <em><em>"<a href="http://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578" target="_blank">ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror</a>,"</em></em> co-authors Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan explain how ISIS funds its nascent caliphate.</em></p><p>ISIS has married its authoritarian governance with a remarkably successful war economy.</p><p>FSA and Islamist groups that controlled oil fields in eastern Syria, for example, did dedicate some of the revenue to run schools and supply electricity, telecommunications, water, food, and other services.</p><p>Some villages and towns saw a decline in such services because ISIS distributed oil revenue to other towns under its control in Syria and Iraq, establishing its own pan-territorial patronage system.</p><p>As a result, in oil-rich areas, warlordism-a side effect of strictly localized rebel governance- dropped steadily.</p><p>ISIS also forced municipality personnel to work, unlike previous groups that had allowed Syrian state employees to continue to re- ceive their salaries (mostly from the regime) while they sat at home and did nothing, no doubt with attendant kickbacks. "The streets are cleaner now; 70 percent of the employees were not working, even though they received salaries," said a former media activist with the FSA from Deir Ezzor.</p><p>"They cancelled the customary day off on Saturday; they're supposed to make Thursday the day off instead." Regulations and price control are another area in which ISIS's governance proved successful. It banned fishermen from using dynamite and electricity to catch fish.</p><p>It also prohibited residents in the Jazira from using the chaos of war to stake new land claims, principally in the Syrian desert, where they had tried to build new homes or establish businesses, much to the chagrin of their neighbors. ISIS also limited the profit margins on oil by-products, ice, flour, and other essential commodities.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54be4c96ecad043a3b5a677d-1079-1106/isis wheat.jpg" border="0" alt="isis wheat"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Regional map and chart of Iraq's wheat procurement in 2014 as of August, with locations of grain silos under the control of Islamic State.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Before ISIS controlled eastern Syria, an oil well produced around thirty thousand barrels per day, and each barrel sold for two thousand Syrian pounds-eleven dollars at the current exchange rate. Local families that worked in refineries would make two hundred liras (a little more than one dollar) on each barrel they refined primitively. After ISIS took over, a barrel of oil became cheaper because it fixed the price of a liter of oil at fifty pounds (thirty cents).</span></p><p class="layoutArea">ISIS also banned families from setting up refineries close to residences under the threat of confiscation, a policy that led some families to quit the oil business altogether. Collectively, price control and regulations balanced the decline in resources and services.</p><p class="layoutArea">Subsidies from Gulf countries, where many of those who live in ISIS-controlled areas work, also helped some families afford electricity-generating engines and oil by-products.</p><p class="layoutArea">"Those in the Gulf who used to send once a month now send twice a month because they understand the situation," said the former FSA media activist. "Also, there is no big difference in value. In 2010 a kilo of chicken was 190 pounds [$1] and is now 470 [$2.60]." </p><p>Oil was a major revenue generator for ISIS until the coalition air strikes began. Before that, ISIS was thought to have earned mil- lions of dollars a month from oil in Syria and Iraq-$1 to 2 million a day. The revenue dropped significantly after the air strikes. But oil smuggling to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan, and to other areas in Syria and Iraq, still makes significant revenue for ISIS.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54f46ee7eab8ea92416d9918-1200-1000/iraq-map-23.0.jpg" border="0" alt="iraq isis map"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://energypolicyinfo.com/">Energy Policy Info</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The sharp decline in oil production affected civilians more than it affected ISIS, which could still generate wealth from other sources, but it hampered ISIS's ability to provide for the local communities, especially much-coveted materials such as gas cylinders. "I estimate that the impact of air strikes was 5 percent," said the media activist, who still lives in Deir Ezzor. "They affected oil primarily. Food is plenty, and most of it comes from Turkey or Iraq. Borders are open; if you don't like prices here, you go to Anbar. I see the situation as normal." </p><p>ISIS's oil market savvy has impressed and shocked many ob- servers, although Derek Harvey isn't one of them. "I know for a fact that the Saddamists who were smuggling the oil in the '90s, to evade UN sanctions, are now doing so for ISIS," he said.</p><p>"People are saying that they're selling it for thirty-five dollars a barrel. What we bombed recently is some of the local refineries. If you're selling it at that price, it's fifty to fifty-five dollars off the current market price. But here's what happens: these middlemen are selling it, and there's a kickback coming back in to ISIS's senior leaders. They're getting another twenty, twenty-five dollars a barrel in kickbacks, but that's not on the books or being factored in by everybody. It's going back into the kitty of financiers at the top of the pyramid. The ISIS fighters in Deir Ezzor would not be aware of that."</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54243b4ceab8ea037dc3e28c-874-559/screen shot 2014-09-25 at 11.56.19 am.png" border="0" alt="isis oil before after "><p class="source"><span>Dept. of Defense/Amanda Macias/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A photo showing an ISIS-controlled oil refinery that the US-led coalition bombed.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Locals in eastern Syria had learned to survive on remittances from the Gulf and local economies even before the uprising. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">High oil prices led many to rely less on agricultural products since the energy had to be spent pumping water from the Euphrates or Tigress rivers to their farmlands many miles away.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> After the war started, cheaper oil revived the Syrian agribusiness-smuggling and livestock trade markets began booming again.</span></p><p>When ISIS seized control of the Jazira, people were already buying their own oil for irrigation and electricity and didn't need to rely on subsidized services.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Germany's foreign intelligence agency,the Bundesnachrichten- dienst (BND), has cautioned against "overblown" speculation about ISIS's high oil revenue because there is a tendency to discount the massive overhead and spending inside its territories. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But, as per Harvey, ISIS pockets most of this revenue, as it sometimes taxes residents for services supplied by the regime, such as electricity and telecommunication. Unlike Islamist groups that operated regime-established facilities for the local communities gratis, ISIS has developed a surcharge economy to replenish its own coffers.</span></p><p class="column">ISIS also makes millions from zakat (different forms of Islamic alms payable to the state). Zakat is extracted from annual savings or capital assets (2.5 percent), gold (on values exceeding $4,500), livestock (two heads out of 100 heads owned by a farmer), dates, crops (10 percent if irrigated by rain or a nearby stream or river, and 5 percent if irrigation costs money), and profits (2.5 percent).</p><p class="column"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e5d7dc6da8111d1399a7ec-840-587/isis ppl.jpg" border="0" alt="isis ppl"><p class="source"><span>Screen grab</span></p><p class="caption">ISIS militants pose during a video.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p class="column">ISIS also imposes annual taxes on non-Muslims living in its territories, especially Christians (4.25 grams of gold for the rich and half of that for moderate-income individuals). It makes money by stealing dressed up as civil penalties: it confiscates the properties of displaced or wanted individuals or as punishment for fighting ISIS.</p><p class="column">This includes, of course, enormous stocks of weapons and ammunition as part of its community disarmament policies. While donations from foreign sponsors constitute a meager percentage of its treasury, deep-pocked individuals, whether foreign donors or members who have joined the group, still contribute to the group.</p><p class="column">More significantly, ghanima (war spoils, which in ISIS's definition encompasses robbery and theft) is one of the group's largest and most valuable sources of income. ISIS seized millions of dollars worth of American and foreign military equipment after it forced three Iraqi divisions to flee in June 2014, and it has also seized large stockpiles of weapons as well as equipment, facilities, and cash from Syria's regime and rebel groups.</p><p class="column"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53dfb91669bedd103f98b73d-1200-706/rtr3wj9q.jpg" border="0" alt="isis tank syria"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Militant Islamist fighters take part in a military parade along a street in northern Raqqa province on June 30, 2014</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p class="column">Artifacts are also lucrative for ISIS-one man interviewed in Turkey said trade in artifacts grew during ISIS rule,with one of his cousins smuggling into Turkey golden statues and coins found in Mari ancient ruins, eleven kilometers away from Albu Kamal.</p><p class="column"><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">Michael Weiss </em><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">is the editor in chief of the Interpreter and a <em>widely published journalist with a focus on developments in Syria, Turkey, and Russia. He is the co-author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578" target="_blank">ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror</a>." Follow him on Twitter: </em></em><em style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss" target="_blank">@michaeldweiss</a>.</em></p><p class="column"><em style="line-height: 1.5em;"><em>Republished with permission from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/ISIS-Inside-Terror-Michael-Weiss/dp/1941393578" target="_blank"><em>ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror</em></a> by <em>Michael Weiss</em>. Copyright © 2015 by <em>Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan</em>. Reprinted by arrangement with Regan Arts. All rights reserved.</em></em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

TAFRIKINOMICS: How ISIS funds its caliphate

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e65e09ecad04ed187d2df5-1200-858/rtr4l5bp.jpg" border="0" alt="erdogan"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Umit Bektas </span></p><p class="caption">Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan addresses the media at the Presidential Palace in Ankara January 12, 2015. </p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Turkey's notoriously lax border policies are starting to catch up with Ankara and its allies who are trying to counter ISIS, Yaroslav Trofimov of <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/porous-syria-turkey-border-poses-challenge-in-fight-against-islamic-state-1424334057">The Wall Street Journal reports</a>. </p><p>"Turkey's policy from 2011 and until mid-2014 was that anyone and everyone who wanted to fight Assad was welcome to go to Syria and do so," Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-washington-institute-for-near-east-policy">Washington Institute for Near East Policy</a>, told The Journal.</p><p>"That policy has ended now - but it's very hard to go back to a nonporous border because you have already allowed all these smuggling networks to be established."</p><p><span>Throughout the Syrian civil war, Turkey's southern border has served as a transit point for <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/this-is-how-isis-smuggles-oil">cheap oil</a>, weapons, foreign fighters, and pillaged </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/opinion/isis-antiquities-sideline.html">antiquities</a><span>. As the conflict progressed, the fighters taking advantage of this loose border enforcement were more and more radical.</span></p><p><span>Turkey cracked down last year and now regularly deports or bars people suspected of wanting to join insurgents in Syria and Iraq. But Western officials told WSJ that "<span>more vigorous efforts to seal the border would expose Turkey to retaliation" from ISIS<span> (aka Islamic State, IS, ISIL, or Daesh)</span>.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Turkey is trapped now - it created a monster and doesn't know how to deal with it," one Western diplomat told WSJ.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Reuters" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e65d9869beddd65001829b-960/screenshot 2015-02-19 17.02.22.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e65d9869beddd65001829b-1200-388/screenshot 2015-02-19 17.02.22.png" border="0" alt="syria refugees" /></a><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>The November report <span>"</span><a href="http://defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/publications/bordering-on-terrorism.pdf">Bordering on Terrorism: Turkey's Syria Policy and the Rise of the Islamic State</a>" <span>details Tu</span><span>rkey's apparent willingness to allow extremists - including militants from ISIS - and their enablers to thrive on the 565-mile border with Syria, part of Ankara's ongoing attempts to trigger the downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. </span></span></p><p>Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> of Democracy and a co-author of the report, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-collision-course-with-turkey-2014-11">described Turkey's predicament</a> to Business Insider in November.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"They've inadvertently created a mechanism that can yield blowback for them that could be extremely painful," <a href="https://twitter.com/JSchanzer">Schanzer</a>, a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, told BI. </span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"You have a lot of people now that are invested in the business of extremism in Turkey. If you start to challenge that, it raises significant questions of whether" the militants, their benefactors, and other war profiteers would tolerate a big crackdown.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54e661e2ecad04dc257d2dfb-1200-800/rtr4nfvd.jpg" border="0" alt="turkey border"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Osman Orsal</span></p><p class="caption">Turkish soldiers monitor the border line as they stand guard near the Akcakale border crossing in Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, where Islamic State militants control the Syrian side of the gate, January 29, 2015.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The "Bordering on Terrorism" report cites an email from Turkey-based BuzzFeed reporter <a href="https://twitter.com/mike_giglio">Mike Giglio</a> that highlighted his concern about </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">the "level of ISIS support among the 1-million-plus Syrians living in Turkey. I don't see how they can successfully weed out ISIS supporters from among these refugees."</span></span></p><p><span>Consequently, Turkey has fueled an enemy that Ankara and its allies are struggling to contain or aggressively counteract.</span></p><p>"ISIS has many spies here in Turkey, and not just spies but killers. They have points where they can cross the border anytime they want," a smuggler and former fighter with the US-backed Free Syrian <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/porous-syria-turkey-border-poses-challenge-in-fight-against-islamic-state-1424334057">told WSJ</a>. "The Turks are afraid of ISIS, and so they don't want to make problems for ISIS."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Turkey 'created a monster and doesn't know how to deal with it'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/550036feecad043c65e80f7a-734-556/screen shot 2015-03-11 at 8.28.26 am.png" border="0" alt="Roman Seleznev "><p class="source"><span>Department of Justice</span></p><p class="caption">Roman Seleznev poses with his yellow Dodge Challenger SR automobile in front of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia, in this undated handout photo taken from his mobile phone and used in U.S. government court documents, and released to the media on March 10, 2015.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>A Russian national accused of hacking into dozens of US businesses and stealing millions of dollars worth of credit card information was living the high life before he was arrested in the Maldives by US officials last July, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-11/accused-russian-hacker-on-tropical-holiday-nabbed-by-u-s-agents">Del Quentin Wilber of Bloomberg reports</a>.</p><p>Computer wizard <span>Roman Seleznev - who is currently awaiting trial in Seattle on 40 felony counts of<span> bank fraud, intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft - </span>managed to evade the Secret Service for more than a decade. <span>Russia does not have an extradition treaty with the US, so </span>as long as Seleznev remained on Russian soil, he was safe from US investigators.</span></p><p>The 30-year-old son of prominent Russian lawmaker stole more than <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-08/russian-charged-by-u-s-as-hacker-is-duma-member-s-son">200,000 credit cards</a> under the online pseudonym "Track2" from businesses across the US, including the Phoenix Zoo and a Waterville, Maine jeweler. Stores reportedly suffered a combined financial loss of more than $1.2 million between 2009-2011, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-08/russian-charged-by-u-s-as-hacker-is-duma-member-s-son">according to the indictment.</a> His schemes are now considered <span>the precursors to the major hacks at Neiman Marcus and Target. </span><span><br /></span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/550043cf69bedddf57597bcf-578-434/628x471-1-4.jpg" border="0" alt="628x471 1"><p class="source"><span>Department of Justice</span></p><p class="caption">A photo seized from a computer belonging to Roman Seleznev shows him posing in front of one of his boats.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span><span>Seleznev drove<span> fancy cars, owned numerous luxury homes, and often took</span> his family on exotic vacations in the Indian Ocean - one of which, to a <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Piles-of-cash-bunches-of-bling-and-a-public-6021422.php#photo-7398240">5-star, </a><span><a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Piles-of-cash-bunches-of-bling-and-a-public-6021422.php#photo-7398240">$1,470 a night</a> </span>resort in the Maldives, proved to be his last.</span></span></p><p><span><span><span>Bloomberg reports that he Secret Service, closely monitoring <span>Seleznev's</span> travels, solicited the help of the <span>Maldivian police superintendent (with whom the State Department has a close relationship) in capturing <span>Seleznev before he boarded his flight home to Russia. </span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span>Local police were instructed to arrest Seleznev the moment he handed over his passport and transfer him to Secret Service custody. The plan worked, and Seleznev was hustled onto a private jet bound for Guam. From there, Seleznev was flown to Seattle where he is now awaiting trial.</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55005639eab8ea3833583936-946-438/screen shot 2015-03-11 at 10.48.11 am.png" border="0" alt="Maldives guam"><p class="source"><span>Google Maps</span></p><p class="caption">This map shows the jet's route from the Maldives to Guam.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></span></span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Needless to say, the operation outraged the Russian government, who likened the arrest to "kidnapping" and called it "the latest unfriendly action by Washington," the Moscow Times reported.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/550041f3eab8ea5f5f583937-378-471/628x471-5-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Roman Seleznev"><p class="source"><span>Department of Justice</span></p><p class="caption">Photos seized from computers belonging to Roman Seleznev - a Russian man accused of making millions of dollars hacking point-of-sale machines to steal credit card information - show the 30-year-old and his associates living large.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>"This is not the first time that the U.S. government, ignoring a bilateral agreement on mutual legal cooperation regarding criminal issues, has conducted a literal kidnapping of a Russian citizen," <span>The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a </span><a href="http://mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/newsline/8ECA5B1B8B21D43A44257D0F002DB77E">statement</a> shortly after <span>Seleznev was detained.</span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span>He </span>is currently being held in the SeaTac Federal Detention Center in Seattle, and was kept in isolation in the <span>"special housing unit" until September. But</span> not even solitary confinement could keep him from breaking the rules: in August, <span>Seleznev's</span> attorney smuggled a cell phone into the prison which Seleznev used to make an unpermitted call, according to <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Piles-of-cash-bunches-of-bling-and-a-public-6021422.php#photo-7398240">Seattle PI.</a></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span>A few weeks later, prison staff <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Piles-of-cash-bunches-of-bling-and-a-public-6021422.php#photo-7398240">intercepted a message</a> from an "an old communist friend" and associate of Seleznev's, who warned him that "lawyers are so greedy … they will (expletive) you like a dirty cat." <span>Seleznev has been provided with a public defender, but prosecutors say he has more than enough money to cover his own legal expenses. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/550049a1ecad049235e80f78-628-465/628x471-4-1.jpg" border="0" alt="628x471 4"><p class="source"><span>Department of Justice</span></p><p class="caption">Piles of cash lie around Seleznev's home, as seen in found photos found on his computer.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span><span><span><span><span><span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Seleznev's father has said that Roman will die in custody if he does not receive daily medication for a brain injury he suffered in 2011 when he was vacationing in Marrakech, Morocco. Seleznev faces up to 30 years in prison for the bank fraud charges alone, and an additional 10 years for each charge of identity theft.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>"This important arrest sends a clear message," Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-accused-kidnapping-russian-hacker-roman-valerevich-seleznev-following-arrest-1455796">said in a statement</a>.</span></span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span> "Despite the increasingly borderless nature of transitional organized crime, the long arm of justice - and this Department - will continue to disrupt and dismantle sophisticated criminal organisations."</span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Notorious Russian hacker 'kidnapped' by US was nabbed in the Maldives

<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54ada721eab8eaf356aff2c7-800-563/2010425kcikpa586.jpg" border="0" alt="North Korean General Kim Yong Chol"><p class="source"><span>KCNA</span></p><p class="caption">North Korean General Kim Yong Choi.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>In a fast-changing region, one thing has long been a constant: the utter disregard that the mafia dynasty ruling North Korea evinces for the welfare of ordinary people. So growing evidence of liberalising reforms in North Korea is tantalising.</span></p><p>"Reform" remains a taboo word in the North. But new measures in the countryside appear to sanction people farming for the market rather than for the state. It represents a tacit abandonment of state collectives in favour of family farming, and seems already to have had an effect.</p><p>For the first time in decades, North Korea grew nearly enough to feed itself last year. Thanks to better harvests, the North Korean economy could grow by 7.5% this year, compared with annual growth of little more than 1% for a decade, reckons the Hyundai Research Institute, a think-tank in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Asia's basket case could prove to be its fastest-growing economy.</p><p>Caveats abound. North Korea divulges little useful data, and last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was not allowed in to conduct field checks. Many homes still have too little to eat--North Koreans on average consume a little over half the number of calories of their rich brethren in South Korea (for other comparisons, see chart on next page). Still, anecdotal evidence suggests that change in this benighted country is under way.</p><p>The agricultural experiment seems to have been devised in secret after Kim Jong Un came to power just over three years ago following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il. It was set in motion from 2013. Initially, it allowed groups of about a dozen labourers to register as agricultural work teams, effectively reorganising the big socialist collectives that have been a feature of North Korean agriculture since the 1950s. Farmers were also allowed to retain 30% of a new quota on production--a much bigger share than before. In addition, they could keep (ie, sell on the market) any excess harvest above the quota. Previously any surplus would have gone to the state.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5494838ceab8ea2d5046e3c3-1200-800/rtx12250.jpg" border="0" alt="North Korea" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Jason Lee </span></p><p class="caption">Labourers work at a construction site in Pyongyang July 28, 2013.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Under a plan referred to as the May 30th measures, those teams were shrunk again last year, to the size of a typical family, while their share of the quota was enlarged to 60%. Even the permitted size of families' kitchen gardens, which are far more productive patches than land tilled for the state, have been expanded dramatically, from 100 square metres to 3,300 square metres. For Andrei Lankov, a longtime watcher of North Korea at Kookmin University in Seoul, the new measures, a quasi-privatisation of state land, are nothing short of revolutionary.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A second area of experimentation, in state industry, is equally striking. Under the May measures, state factory managers may appoint their own employees, set workers' salaries, buy raw materials on the market and sell part of their production there too. Like farmers, managers will need to pay their dues to the state. Yet, says Mr Lankov, that is not so different from paying corporate taxes in a capitalist economy.</span></p><p>The regime is also promoting special economic zones (SEZs) with gusto, thanks to a new law on them. Andray Abrahamian of Choson Exchange, a non-profit group that organises business workshops in North Korea, describes a "palpable energy and excitement" among officials in charge of SEZs.</p><p>The oldest zone is the export-processing hub of Rason, in the north-east of the country near the borders with Russia and China. It was set up in 1991 and languished for years. But recent development has been swift. Chinese firms have paved roads linking its port to the Chinese border. Last July a new port terminal, linked to a freight railway to Russia, was launched. At a recent forum in Seoul on doing business in North Korea, Mark Kim, a Korean-American who operates a shoe factory in Rason, said his football boots were "selling like hot cakes" in the North (though he has yet to make a profit). Rason has also become the first place in North Korea where you are allowed to own your home.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54948389ecad04cf3f46e3ca-1200-858/rtr30la1.jpg" border="0" alt="North Korea" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Bobby Yip</span></p><p class="caption">A waitress at a restaurant watches a state media television broadcast of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attending a party meeting in Pyongyang April 11, 2012.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The government has announced a further 19 SEZs since 2013, small hubs of between two and four square kilometres for everything from tourism (Chinese occasionally holiday in the North) and software development, to fertiliser- and rice-production. Nearly every North Korean city now has one or two zones (though, Mr Abrahamian says, they remain "underfunded and underconnected").</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Reforms have been announced before, in 2002. Aiming to motivate labourers by aligning state and market prices, Kim Jong Il declared that subsidies to state-owned firms would be withdrawn, while farmers could sell any extra produce in small-scale markets. Yet by 2005 these measures had been rolled back. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This time round, comparisons to China's economic lift-off from the late 1970s are being made more readily.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Though his father died peacefully in his bed, Kim Jong Un may think his only chance of survival is change. Some analysts argue that he shows far more desire to improve livelihoods than his father ever did. Pak Pong Ju, the architect of the 2002 experiments (who has seen the fruits of Chinese reforms for himself), has re-emerged from the political wilderness and is now Mr Kim's prime minister. Mr Kim visits orphanages and amusement parks, and regularly speaks of improving people's quality of life. He has positioned himself as the champion of a growing urban consumer class in the capital, Pyongyang.</span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/549483886bb3f7870f2b2094-1200-800/rtr30jp2.jpg" border="0" alt="North Korea" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Bobby Yip</span></p><p class="caption">Workers prepare the plot at Daedonggang Fruit Farm, with 125 hectares (309 acres) of apple trees, on the outskirts of Pyongyang April 10, 2012.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet there are grounds for scepticism. Perhaps the best that can be said of the new measures is that they try to narrow the gulf between the regime's upbeat propaganda ("Make fruits cascade down and their sweet aroma fill the air on the sea of apple trees at the foot of Chol Pass!") and the sordid reality of the lives that many North Koreans lead.</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A new generation of North Koreans has little recollection of families depending on the state for all their needs, says Sokeel Park of Liberty in North Korea, a group that works with defectors. A disastrous currency confiscation in 2009 hit small traders hardest, cementing distrust of the state. It even instilled a degree of defiance in those who had to work against the state system to survive.</span></p><p>Young urban North Koreans recently defecting to the South claim not to have been afraid to criticise the Kims among close friends and family. This group, hooked on foreign media being smuggled into the North, now refers to itself as "awoken", says Mr Park.</p><p>As ever more information from outside is ferreted into the country on DVDs and USB drives, state rhetoric and reality grow further apart. Parts of the regime understand this. Some of the impetus for the market-oriented measures, says Christopher Green of Daily NK, a news source with informants in the North, is to bring rhetoric and reality closer into line.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54948386ecad04994046e3c8-1200-800/rtr2sakp.jpg" border="0" alt="North Korea" style="color: #000000;"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Damir Sagolj  </span></p><p class="caption">Pak Su Dong, manager of the Soksa-Ri cooperative farm in an area hit by floods and typhoons shows damage to agricultural products in the South Hwanghae province September 29, 2011. In March 2011, the World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that 6 million North Koreans needed food aid and a third of children were chronically malnourished or stunted.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In other words, the regime may not be leading change so much as responding to it. The collapse of the public distribution system, through which the command economy used to apportion goods, including food, was both a cause and consequence of the famine. Informal trading and smuggling networks, and black markets for food, sprang up as a result of it. The state has on occasion tried to suppress these markets, but has no more succeeded than with its attempts to reinstate the distribution system.</p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Today, three-quarters of what most people earn probably comes from an unregulated private economy. A forthcoming book, "North Korea Confidential", by James Pearson and Daniel Tudor (a former correspondent for The Economist), says that nearly all North Koreans lead a "double economic life", supplementing measly rations and puny state wages of as little as $1 a month with extra work in their spare time.</span></p><p>To an extent, the recent top-down measures may be an acknowledgment that the bottom-up change of the past 15 or so years is irreversible. In fact, the regime has a growing interest in the non-state economy. Officials tolerate private trade partly because they get a cut--in effect running a protection racket. Many have become entrepreneurs themselves, managing state firms for private profit. The Kim family itself gets money from such firms. To the extent that the state has recently cracked down on smuggling from China, it is in order for Mr Kim and the elites around him to get a bigger share of the pie, according to Kim Kwang Jin, an analyst and North Korean defector who once worked in the regime's "royal-court" economy.</p><p>Yet official corruption and protection rackets point to the limits of reform. There are rumours of local officials taking a cut of farmers' crops. Concerned about losing influence and privileged access to food, some officials are also trying to revive the state plan, says Randall Ireson, an expert on North Korean agriculture. Meanwhile, farmers will continue to depend on ropy government agencies for essential materials such as fertiliser and oil. As for last year's higher yields, they come at a price: emptying water reservoirs during a dry spell has left the country facing even more severe shortages of electricity than usual.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54948383ecad04d73f46e3cd-1200-800/ap581303578647_15.jpg" border="0" alt="North Korea"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo/David Guttenfelder</span></p><p class="caption">In this June 20, 2014 photo, young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The Associated Press was granted permission to embark on a weeklong road trip across North Korea to the country's spiritual summit Mount Paektu. The trip was on North Korea's terms.  An AP reporter and photographer couldn't interview ordinary people or wander off course, and government "minders" accompanied them the entire way. </p></img></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There is a deeper lesson from the Chinese reform path. It is that real, sustained improvements to a decrepit economy are possible only with outside expertise and capital. Yet, fearful of political meddling, the North remains deeply suspicious of foreign investment. Commercial relations with China, supposedly an ally, are abysmal, with Chinese mining and trading companies complaining of broken contracts and outright theft by their North Korean state partners.</span></p><p>Even Rason, at the forefront of North Korea's economic experiments, has yet to receive promised Chinese electricity from neighbouring Jilin province. A third bridge being constructed over the Yalu river, which separates the southern end of the two countries' border, was set to open in October; yet roads linking it to transport networks on either side are unfinished, and work on it has stalled.</p><p>But it is North Korea's nuclear-weapons programmes that do most to darken its relations with the outside world, above all South Korea, America and Japan. (Only with Russia is North Korea on good terms, and since that amity is based on hopes of aid, it is not likely to last, given Russia's straitened finances.) The programmes have brought <keyword id="6356001" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">international</keyword> sanctions down on North Korea, but the North gives no impression of abandoning them.</p><p>Indeed, according to a report by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, North Korea's stockpile is poised for rapid expansion. From about a dozen weapons today, North Korea could build 100 within five years, even without a fourth nuclear test. Its plutonium-based weapons, the report claims, have already been miniaturised to carry on medium-range ballistic missiles.</p><p>It may be that the regime wants to develop the economy. But it is certainly not going to do so at the expense of developing nuclear weapons--or of lessening the repression and state violence by which it stays in power. It underscores the dead end into which its leaders have driven North Korea. Even if the current reforms are maintained, the improvement to the livelihoods of North Koreans is bound to be limited, no matter which Kim is in power.</p><p>Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist</p><p> </p><p>This article was from The Economist and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

There are tantalizing signs of liberal reforms in North Korea

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/551459daeab8ea1e3a7ed7fd-1200-800/rtr4v0ok.jpg" border="0" alt="saudi yemen"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah</span></p><p class="caption">Shi'ite Muslim rebels hold up their weapons during a rally against air strikes in Sanaa March 26, 2015.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Saudi Arabia <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yemen-war-and-saudi-arabia-and-iran-2015-3">began a military operation in Yemen</a> on March 25 to counter Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have dissolved the Yemeni state and forced president Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi to flee the country by boat.<p>The operation is a Saudi attempt to reclaim a strategic frontier from its primary regional adversary, or to at least limit Iran's potentially reach into the Arabian peninsula.&#xa0;</p><p>But it's also becoming rapidly apparent that the Yemen operation, called Operation Decisive Storm, is driven by something more than just Saudi-Iranian competition.</p><p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2015/03/saudi-ambassador-announces-military-operation-yemen-150325234138956.html">Every single Arab monarchy</a> (except for Oman) is involved in the effort, including distant Morocco - a sign that governments ruling a combined 90 million people across 8 countries believes that the prestige and core interests of traditional conservative powers are at stake in Yemen.&#xa0;</p><p>Furthermore, there's one extremely curious participant in the anti-Houthi coalition - and its presence is the clearest sign of just how seriously Saudi Arabia and the Arab monarchies are taking the Yemen crisis.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55143ba36bb3f798694008e2-937-740/screenshot%202015-03-26%2013.01.39.png" border="0" alt="Screenshot 2015 03 26 13.01.39"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>The fact that Sudan <a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/egypt-warships-head-to-gulf-of-aden-sudan-to-take-part-in-operation-storm-of-resolve-1.1479293#.VRQMuEeAJVM.twitter">is sending 3 warplanes to the operation</a> - and is even <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/26/us-yemen-security-sudan-forces-idUSKBN0MM19720150326">deploying ground troops</a> that would fight alongside the Egyptian military - is a revealing glimpse into how events in Yemen are being interpreted in the Middle East's Sunni centers of power.</p><p>Sudan's participation in the war against the Houthis, along with the government's <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/26/Sudan-closes-offices-of-all-Iranian-missions-and-groups.html">reported closure</a> of the offices of Iranian organizations and groups, indicates a possible re-alignment of Khartoum's loyalties, and a Gulf-state effort to pry Sudan and Iran away from one another.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5514593feab8eadd337ed7fc-1200-750/rtr3q2w4.jpg" border="0" alt="sudan saf"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah </span></p><p class="caption">A military personnel gestures next to a tank after the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) recaptured the Daldako area, outside the military headquarters in Kadogli May 20, 2014.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Sudan is the only Sunni Arab government allied with Iran. The country is ruled by an internationally sanctioned, nominally Islamist government whose human rights abuses in Darfur and southern Sudan and support for terrorist groups like Hamas have turned it into one of the region's pariah states.</p><p>I<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">t's facing civil wars in multiple theaters, while South Sudanese Independence in mid-2011 and ensuing instability in the newfound country has threatened Khartoum's oil revenues, which were plunging to begin with. Khartoum's oil revenue went from $11 billion in 2010 to less than $1.8 billion in 2012, while still accounting for a crucial 27% of government cash flow.</span></p><p>Fiscally threatened and internationally scorned, Sudan's National Congress Party regime has allowed the Iranians to operate weapons facilities in Khartoum, including an installation that was <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/what-are-the-odds-that-israel-just-attacked-sudan/264082/">the target of a 2012 Israeli bombing attack</a> and that a <a href="https://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/cable.php?id=06STATE203861&amp;q=sudan%20yarmouk">US diplomatic cable</a> published by WikiLeaks implicated in the production of chemical weapons for the Iranian and Syrian regimes. Iranian warships have been <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-warships-dock-at-port-sudan/">allowed to dock in Port Sudan</a> in May of 2014.</p><p>And Sudan is a staging area for the transiting of Iranian weapons to both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yTJeAQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA271&amp;lpg=PA271&amp;dq=sudan+hezbollah&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=E3f98we2pj&amp;sig=fNkqYcvdZIMLQ1jzlXXuiWAJIuQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=tz0UVfXYI4qQsQS57oHIAw&amp;ved=0CE4Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&amp;q=sudan%20hezbollah&amp;f=false">and to Hezbollah</a> in Lebanon.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55145b81eab8eaa73f7ed7fd-1200-800/rtr39t9v.jpg" border="0" alt="iran sudan"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/ Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah</span></p><p class="caption">An armed soldier stands onboard Iranian Navy destroyer Shahid Naqdi at Port Sudan at the Red Sea State, October 31, 2012.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/an-intimate-look-inside-the-sudanese-regime-2014-9">According to minutes</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> of a high-level August 2014 meeting </span><a href="http://sudanreeves.org/2014/09/29/arabic-original-and-hand-written-english-translation-of-31-august-2014-meeting-pages-3-6/">leaked to researcher Eric Reeves</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> in September, Sudanese Minister of <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">A</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">bdal-Rahim Mohammed Hisen believes the country's "relation with Iran ... is strategic and everlasting. We cannot compromise or lose it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">All the advancement in our military industry is from Iran."</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&#xa0;There have even been rumors of Khartoum rendering forms of support to the same Houthi rebels that they are now fighting in Yemen.</span></p><p>Sudan's relationship with Iran has come at a cost: The Gulf States had cut off the vast majority of their financial support for the Sudanese regime by 2012. Qatar, the last Gulf donor willing to work with Khartoum, has earmarked much of its aid to reconstruction projects in the war-torn Darfur region.</p><p>Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir figured that he needed the unconditional assistance and the ideological backing of a fellow revolutionary-Islamist rogue regime like Iran more than he needed the help of the more demanding Gulf monarchies. But Bashir's regime is in even worse shape now than it was in the aftermath of the country's 2011 split.</p><p>As a March 2015 Enough Project report detailed, with the oil industry suffering Sudan's government is now <a href="http://www.enoughproject.org/reports/sudan-gold-brief">almost entirely dependent</a> on the smuggling of artisanal gold as a source of foreign currency. It's hard enough to fight wars on multiple fronts without <keyword id="6356001" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">international</keyword> sanctions and a domestic economic crisis. But it's nearly impossible without any real government revenue streams or foreign cash to fall back on.</p><p>Bashir now realizes that his survival depends more on the Gulf countries than it does on Iran. Saudi Arabia can solve his regime's problems with a single stroke of the pen. Iran can't do that.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/52b86814eab8ea99273fafab-1200-750/rtx10gqw.jpg" border="0" alt="Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Stringer</span></p><p class="caption">Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addresses a crowd in North Khartoum</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>And at the same time, the Saudis realize that their own prestige depends on an ability to beat back Iranian advances in their strategic backyard, which only increases the urgency of shearing allies away from Tehran.</p><p>There's indication that the Gulf states were trying to recruit Sudan into their anti-Houthi push: Bashir, who is still under International Criminal Court indictment for crimes against humanity committed in Darfur, has traveled to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31658182">both the United Arab Emirates</a> <a href="http://www.kuna.net.kw/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2431770&amp;Language=en">and Saudi Arabia</a> in recent weeks.</p><p>The Sunni Gulf countries understand the value of lining up an Iranian ally behind a war effort targeting a second Iranian ally. And in Sudan's case, they had the leverage needed to affect such a dramatic and apparently rapid strategic shift.&#xa0;</p><p>Militarily, the current coalition doesn't need Sudan. Khartoum's regular military is a thoroughly corrupt and compartmentalized institution, and most of the heavy fighting (and the alleged war crimes) in Darfur and the South has been carried out by proxy groups and militias.</p><p>But the coalition was apparently eager for an immediate sign that Iran has lost the strategic initiative. With Sudan joining the fight in Yemen, they now have one - if only for the time being.</p><div><div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>All smiles, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Yemen?src=hash">#Yemen</a> president Hadi arrives in Saudi Arabia, which has resumed bombing the capital Sanaa tonight <a href="http://t.co/ZRbD4vufye">pic.twitter.com/ZRbD4vufye</a></p>- Noah Browning  (@Noah_Browning) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/581171587174428672">March 26, 2015</a></blockquote><script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div></div><p class="embed-spacer"></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'o2OGM3czpWcydnvhjbkDBd6feXPuExiD',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

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