A lot of stranger-than-usual things have been going on in North Korea lately. Kim Jong-Un hasn't been seen in public for weeks, a period when the country sent a surprise delegation to South Korea — perhaps the most senior-level mission the Hermit Kingdom has ever dispatched to its estranged neighbor.

Speculation that something's up is bound to spike if Kim fails to appear at a celebration of North Korea's 69th anniversary on Oct. 10. Already, observers are wondering if a behind-the-scenes coup is in motion, or if one of the world's most opaque and oppressive governments is heading for its long-awaited, long-predicted collapse.

Here are some of the top reasons why that probably isn't what's happening.

There is no proof of a coup in North Korea right now. None. A lot of coup speculation has been based around a statement from prominent North Korean defector Jiang Jing-Sung that Kim is no longer in control of the country. But Jiang defected all the way back in 2004, and nobody else has corroborated his claims.

It doesn't make sense for North Korea to send a huge delegation south during a palace shakeup. One of the number-one rules of a coup is that those who are revolting have to remain in the capital in order to declare victory and consolidate power. (For example, here's Amadou Sanogo of Mali broadcasting his victory during the junior-officer's successful and hugely disastrous March 2012 coup.)

There's an inverse to that rule as well. The losers often have flee for their lives, or seek some kind of pragmatic accommodation with the country's new leaders, something that members of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood learned the hard way after Egypt's military coup in the summer of 2013.

Kim was last seen in public on Sept. 3. The delegation went south on Oct. 4. It doesn't make sense for that many high-ranking officials to leave the country in the midst of a leadership crisis, unless it were an incredibly brief and invisible one.

And if such a crisis were ongoing, they would have communicated this fact to their southern counterparts. Bringing us to ...

China and South Korea aren't behaving as if a coup is going on. A coup in North Korea would be a terrifying security crisis for Seoul. It would replace the relative predictability of the Kim dynasty (aside from the very occasional shelling or nuclear test) with a new and therefore unknowable status quo — this involving a country with 690,000 active frontline personnel and the world's largest artillery force.

If a shakeup were ongoing, there would at least be the visible residue of southern alarm: military redeployments or mobilizations, perhaps, or high-level meetings with American military commanders, or even an increase in the US's regional military presence. None of this has happened yet, that we know of.

A North Korean coup is also a nightmare scenario for China, since even the potential collapse of authority in North Korea would create a wave of migrants at the Chinese border.

Keeping North Koreans out of China is a top priority for Beijing in its relationship with Pyongyang. There would be a military buildup along the Chinese-North Korean border if Bejing believed that something were happening right now. But no such buildup has taken place.

North Korea doesn't exhibit any of the risk factors for coups. Political scientist Jay Ulfelder has developed a system for determining the coup risk for a given country in a given year. Using decades' worth of data, Ulfelder has isolated the factors that put a country at risk for a coup — and North Korea exhibits almost none of them.

Countries with armed insurgencies, a history of recent coup activity, civil resistance campaigns, and a relatively brief span of time since the last "abrupt change in polity" are at a heightened coup risk, as are countries that fall in the middle range of a 21-point "degree of democracy" scale. North Korea has no armed insurgency, no confirmed recent coup activity, no public and organized civil resistance, six decades of a single regime, and perhaps the world's greatest degree of internal oppression.

North Korea's government is incredibly cruel, but it is also more stable than outsiders have often led themselves to believe. 

None of this means that there isn't a coup going on. But there's a strong case for skepticism — and little more than suspicion and circumstantial evidence to counter it. As of right now, there's more support for an alternative and perhaps less-exciting hypothesis: that Kim is simply recovering from a leg injury.

SEE ALSO: Why the utterly bizarre situation in North Korea will remain a total mystery

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Over a dozen transport planes that the US donated to the Afghan military were sold for scrap metal in yet another sign of questionable American policy in the country.

A set of high-level US government letters recently disclosed as part of a Pentagon Inspector General's investigation reveal that sixteen G222 military cargo planes were scrapped after years of poor maintenance and failed integration into the Afghan Air Force. The planes were part of a failed military aid package that ran a nearly half-billion dollar price tag for US taxpayers.

The aircraft were hardly used before being ground down and sold to an Afghan construction company for 6 cents a pound, or a total of $32,000. 

The training of Afghan security forces is a huge challenge for the US, which is pulling most of its troops out of the troubled central Asian country at the end of 2014. Afghan soldiers are responsible for numerous "insider attacks" against coalition troops, including the assassination of a two-star US general in Afghanistan this past August.

In a memo about "lessons learned" from the debacle, the Pentagon Inspector General for Afghanistan reconstruction project wrote that the Department of Defense had found problems with the G222 program in January 2013. The project's managing office and NATO's Afghanistan training mission command "did not properly manage the effort to obtain the spare parts needed to keep the aircraft flightworthy."

The program ran a $486.1 million tag, but the aircraft logged only 234 of the 4,500 required hours from January through September 2012.

Even then, at that point the aircraft were at least still physically in existence, even if they weren't really being used.

The Afghan air force obviously wasn't as far along as this huge American investment in hardware anticipated it to be. But in November 2013, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko observed the G222 fleet "parked unused on a tarmac at Kabul International Airport" during a visit to Afghanistan.

By all accounts, the planes could still be made airworthy. In a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force last week, Sopko called for an inquiry into the scrapping, including whether alternatives like selling the planes had been considered, and what their condition at the time had been when the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency allowed them to be scrapped.

The incident is arguably representative of the US and NATO's failed efforts at setting up a proper Afghan military to keep the Taliban at bay when the US pulls its troops out at the end of this year.

And it shows how massive Pentagon expenditures can literally end up as scrap metal in just a couple short years.  

SEE ALSO: The Pentagon is agreeing to its first-ever independent audit — 24 years after being required to have one

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A 14-year-old girl became the youngest recipient of the CIA's second-highest award in the late 1960s, and she went on to become a successful intelligence officer in adulthood.

It's one of the many fascinating insights gleaned from newly declassified documents as a result of a FOIA lawsuit.

In May 1966, Maureen Devlin was living in the Congo with her parents — her father, Lawrence, was the CIA's station chief — amid civil war and general lawlessness in the capital of Kinshasa. One night, the family had a firsthand encounter with the turmoil.

Maureen was awakened by armed burglars in her bedroom as she pretended to sleep. As she kept up the ruse, the robbers stole a ring and bracelet from her hand, but it wasn't long before she woke.

From "The Youngest Intelligence Star"in the agency's "Studies in Intelligence" journal:

The girl heard the burglars discussing the possibility of harming her. She understood their local language, Lingala, but she did not understand the word rape, only that it was a physical threat. They turned on the lights, and one used a butcher knife to cut her nightgown. She managed to roll over and cover herself with the sheet, still feigning sleep. Her greatest fear at the time was that perhaps the men had already killed her mother and father.

She couldn't pretend to be sleeping any longer after the burglars pricked her neck with the knife. But she acted quickly, speaking their language to tell them they shouldn't harm anyone in the house — and in a genius move to capitalize on local superstition — told them the US embassy had "secret and magic" ways of identifying people who harmed Americans.

Later, after her parents were woken up and put into a corner of the bedroom, the girl's mother talked back to the robbers in French and told them to leave. Maureen, for her part, told the bandits the family had "a dawa," a black-magic spell that would result in the deaths of their wives, children, parents, and others if any harm came to them.

The journal noted the bandits had killed other families under similar circumstances.

“My God, this is the end of us,” Lawrence Devlin thought at the time, according to an account in The Washington Times. He knew of the other families found murdered in their bathrooms, but he was able to slam and lock the door.

The robbers eventually gave up and left. They were later captured by police, tried, and executed.

Maureen Devlin received the CIA's second-highest award — the Intelligence Star — for "her quick appraisal of the situation, calm deportment, knowledge and use of the local language, exploitation of local lore, and resolute action," the article says, adding that it "served her well as a teenager, and they continue to do so now in her career as a case officer in the Directorate of Operations."

A 2008 New York Times article also recognized Maureen as having followed her father into the CIA. Her calm during this episode was similar to her father's reaction to a trigger-happy Congolese soldier, who "defused a potentially lethal confrontation by calmly offering the soldier a cigarette."

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Kim Jong Un, the 31-year-old "semi-divine" leader of the world’s most secretive state, has not made a public appearance in almost 35 days.

Rumors have been flying about what happened to the dictator — some say he's having health problems, some say someone else has taken control of the country, and others speculate the regime is about to topple.

Three months ago, North Korea's state media broadcasted footage of the hereditary leader quickly limping onstage at the anniversary memorial service of his grandfather and the nations' founding president, Kim Il Sung:

Here is a roundup of possible reasons why Kim Jong Un is MIA:

Swiss cheese addiction

Kim Jong Un's weight apparently ballooned after developing an addiction to Swiss cheese. The excess weight reportedly caused stress fractures in both of his ankles which later required surgery.

Apparently, obesity does greatly increase your risk of getting ankle fractures.

Kim reportedly grew fond of the cheese while he was at boarding school in Switzerland, according to The Telegraph.

Bum ankles from heeled shoes

Another theory is that the North Korean leader tripped while walking in his 'Cuban heels' (stylish heels designed for men), according to the Korean news outlet The Chosun Ilbo.

According to the report, Kim Jong Un wore the heels while touring an exhaustive number of Cuban military bases and factories.

Speculation about the Swiss cheese addiction and fractured ankles started after Kim failed to attend last month's meeting of the Supreme People's Assembly, one of the country's biggest events.

North Korean state TV reportedly admitted that Kim was ill.

Gout

And then there is a chance that the leader may have gout, a form of arthritis characterized by sudden attacks of pain and tenderness in joints.

The gout is said to have been brought on by excessive binge drinking, smoking, and again, an abnormal consumption of Swiss cheese, The Guardian reports.

Political coup

Despite the perception that Kim has absolute power in North Korea, officials have apparently been criticizing Kim and disagreeing with his policies recently, which has led to speculation about a possible coup.

This is rather unlikely since people have been predicting the demise of the North Korean regime for decades, but there are some signs that this is a possibility. The North Korean capital is in a lockdown, which could be a move to prevent people who are involved in the coup from fleeing the city.

A former North Korean official has said that Kim is no longer in control of the country and that members of North Korea's Organization and Guidance Department comprised of former Kim Jong Il officials have taken over, Vice News reports.

Kim Jong Un's sister is now in control

Some say that Kim Jong Un's 24-year-old sister, Kim Yo Jong, is now in control of North Korea, according to The Telegraph.

Kim's younger sister has reportedly "taken up some of the key leadership positions" in North Korea and is Kim's closest confidante. Some say she controls Kim's schedule already. She attended the same boarding school in Switzerland as her older brother.

Kim Jong Un's car reportedly hasn't left Pyongyang since he vanished from public view, so it is likely he remains within the capital. Health problems seem to be the most likely explanation for Kim's disappearance, but because of the North Korean regime's extreme secrecy, no one outside of his circle knows for sure what's going on.

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Good morning. Here's what you need to know for Friday.

1. The World Health Organization says Ebola is now "entrenched" in the capitals of the worst-hit countries: Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. 

2. Pro-democracy demonstrators have called for renewed rallies after the government canceled Friday's scheduled talks with student protest leaders on Thursday night. According to the South China Morning Post, "Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the talks would not be held because the government felt they would not lead to a constructive outcome."

3. Elon Musk reveled the new Tesla "D": An all-wheel-drive version of the Model S Sedan with additional auto-pilot features, like the car being able to read speed-limit signs and change how fast the vehicle is moving. 

4. While the US keeps pressing Turkey to take more action against Islamic State militants in the Syrian town of Kobani, the Obama administration is mulling over Turkey's demands for a buffer zone on the border with Syria."The idea is emerging as a possible way to end the standoff between the United States and Turkey," The New York Times writes. 

5. A blitz of bad data out of Germany, including a fall in German exports and a decline in industrial production, has fueled suggestions that the country could be slipping back into recession. 

6. Kim Jong-un failed to make an early appearance at North Korea's big anniversary event on Friday, adding to rumors that he was suffering from a leg injury or another illness. 

7. An American passenger was removed from a plane by a team wearing hazmat suits after reportedly joking that he had Ebola, adding "you're all screwed."

8. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced at 5 a.m. ET (11 a.m. local time in Sweden). Pope Francis, Edward Snowden, and Malala Yousafzai are just some of the names that have been tossed out to take the award. 

9. Billionaire investor Carl Ichan wrote an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking the company to boost its stock repurchase because he thought the stock was going to explode. Apple responded with this note. 

10. An anti-EU party, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), won its first seat in Parliament in a landslide victory, with candidate Douglas Carswell taking 60% of the vote. "The party’s victory will be seen as an embarrassment for Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party had held the seat with Carswell before his high-profile defection in August," Business Insider's Tomas Hirst said. 

And finally ...

Loukanikos, the stray dog who became famous for joining anti-austerity protestors in Greece a few years back, died on Thursday from health issues potentially related to exposure to tear gas.

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Oslo (AFP) - There was no clear frontrunner ahead of Friday's Nobel Peace Prize announcement, with a Russian opposition newspaper, Tunisia's democratic leadership, Pakistan schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and Pope Francis among a record number of candidates.

As in previous years, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, will reveal the laureate's name at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.

The Nobel committee considered a record 278 candidates, but only those made public by their sponsors have been named.

The Nobel committee's deliberations continued almost until the last minute and a decision wasn't reached until last week, public broadcaster NRK reported.

- Tunisian union - 

The broadcaster, which sometimes but not always has been able to predict the winner, wrote on its website that Tunisia's powerful UGTT workers union and President Moncef Marzouki were among this year's favourites.

"Union can beat out Malala tomorrow," it wrote on its website.

The UGTT was nominated for its role in Tunisia's democratic transition, brokering political negotiations that resulted in a post-revolution constitution being signed.

Marzouki, a secular ally of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, was chosen as president in Tunisia's first election since dictator Zine El Abidine was toppled in 2011. 

- Russian paper 'popular choice' -

Pundits have also suggested that individuals or groups from the Russian opposition could be a popular choice for the Nobel Committee.

"Russia's policy in Ukraine, annexing Crimea and questioning borders, but also the way the Kremlin treats dissenters cannot be ignored by the Nobel committee," said Antoine Jacob, author of a history of the Nobel prizes.

For the Nobel committee president Thorbjoern Jagland, "sanctioning Moscow would... be a way to prove that he acts independently, since (Jagland) is (also) the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, which counts Russia as a member," Jacob told AFP.

Co-founded by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993 with part of his peace prize money, the pro-democracy Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta has been tipped as a possible laureate.

It is one of the few independent media outlets left in Russia and has seen several of its journalists murdered, including Anna Politkovskaya who exposed huge human rights abuses in Chechnya.

Pope Francis has become a bookmakers' favourite for speaking out on poverty.

"Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless," the first Latin American pope argued in an exhortation last year. 

- Snowden controversial -

Experts have cited Edward Snowden, the former intelligence analyst who revealed the extent of US global eavesdropping, as an outside candidate.

However, most experts say he would be a controversial choice for the 878,000-euro ($1.11-million) award.

Pakistani girls' education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, a favourite last year, is once again being mentioned by observers although many say her young age makes her a somewhat less likely choice for the committee.

It could also increase the terror threat against the 17-year-old, who pushed Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan to meet with the parents of hundreds of girls who were kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram.

Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), a leading peace prize analyst and one of the few to publish a shortlist, put the peace group Japanese People Who Conserve Article 9 -- which wants to maintain the Asian country's anti-war constitution -- in first place.

"We may have come to think of wars between states as virtually extinct after the end of the Cold War, but events in Ukraine and simmering tensions in East Asia remind us they may reappear," he wrote.

Among the other main contenders  was  favourites were Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, also tipped last year, who has treated female victims of sexual violence for the last 25 years, and the human rights activist Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, who was released from prison by the Russian-backed dictatorship in June. 

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The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

Satyarthi, a human-rights activist from India, has been an active force in the movement against child labor for at least two decades. Satyarthi, 60, "has headed various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain,"the Nobel committee said in a statement. 

Yousafzai, a teenager from Pakistan, has been an advocate for women's right to education. She rose to prominence in October 2012 after the Taliban shot her in the head for criticizing its tactics. Yousafzai was favored to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, but it went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. 

"The Nobel Committee regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism," the group wrote in a statement. 

SEE ALSO: Japanese Physicists Win Nobel Prize For Revolutionary Light Bulbs

SEE ALSO: John O'Keefe And Husband-Wife Team Win Nobel Prize In Medicine

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North Korea has fired artillery at a South Korean propaganda balloon, the Associated Press reports, to which South Korea fired back. 

This is a developing story. 

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Malala Yousafzai, 17, won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday along with the Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, 60, for "their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

Yousafzai first caught the media's attention at age 14, after she was shot in the head by a Taliban fighter for criticizing the organization's tactics.

The young women's rights activist, who was favored to win the peace prize last year, memorably left Jon Stewart speechless during an interview on the Daily Show, a few days before the 2013 awards were announced. 

Stewart asked Yousafzai how she reacted after learning that the Taliban wanted her dead. "Her answer was absolutely remarkable," Business Insider reporter Brian Jones said at the time. 

Here's the response:

I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, 'If he comes, what would you do Malala?' then I would reply to myself, 'Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.'  But then I said, 'If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.' Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that 'I even want education for your children as well.' And I will tell him, 'That's what I want to tell you, now do what you want.'

Watch the full segment below, her answer starts around the 4:20 mark:

SEE ALSO: Nobel Committee Shocked By Guy Who Says Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai 'Hasn't Actually Done Anything'

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Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai just won the Nobel Peace Prize after stunning the world with her bravery. 

Despite threats from the Taliban, Malala, an advocate for women's right to education, kept going to school. One day, a man boarded her bus and fired a shot through her left eye-socket.

Miraculously, she survived — and continued to speak out for human rights. Notably, she left Jon Stewart speechless after dropping some knowledge on the importance of non-violence.

The video below, originally from the BBC, proves her efforts have made an impact. These schoolgirls from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, just found out Malala won the Nobel Peace Prize, and they obviously adore her. 

"I'm very proud of her. I love Malala. I want to be like her," one young woman said.

"She was shot down by the Taliban, but she still stood up for her goals," another added.

Malala's win today makes her the 16th woman (out of 95 total honors) to receive the award.

SEE ALSO: Here's The Moment When Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai Left Jon Stewart Speechless

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Turkey has been unwilling to intervene in the battle in the Syrian border town of Kobani, causing frustration and exposing a fundamental disagreement between allies over how to confront the extremist group calling itself the Islamic State. 

Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has maintained a passive role while the US has ramped up airstrikes in and around the town on targets held by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Turkey is reluctant to intervene for a couple of reasons — first, because it is in an ongoing strife with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which is linked to the militias under attack by ISIS in Kobani. The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the US. And though it is currently engaged in peace talks with the Turkish government, the sting of a 30-year conflict between the groups lingers.

When Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby bemoaned the lack of ground partners in Syria on Tuesday, he should have said, "We have no effective partner on the ground that is politically palatable to the Turks," suggested Garrett Khoury, the director of research at the Eastern Project.

"We're stuck in an awkward situation because the People's Protection Units (YPG), who are the main Kurdish force in Syria, are linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been designated a terrorist group by the US and Turkey due to its war with 30-year long ongoing conflict with Turkey," Khoury said.

"There are no flaws in the administration's strategy for the simple reason that you need to have a strategy in order for it to have flaws. Recent comments, including those of Rear Admiral Kirby, are particularly interesting because of their efforts to downplay the significance of Kobane. It sounds more like the administration trying to comfort itself than present a realistic view of what's going on in Syria."

The second reason Turkey is reluctant to engage deeper in the fight against ISIS — it wants the US-led coalition to commit to ousting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That's a step the US has been reluctant to commit to during Syria's three-plus-year civil war.

But Turkey's government believes the cycle will repeat itself even if ISIS is defeated — Assad will foster the rise of extremist groups, protecting his own stranglehold on power while the groups present a fundamental threat to the West and their allies.

Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, told Business Insider the context of the entire conflict shouldn't be forgotten.

"There's no question that isis advances on Kobani are a serious problem, most importantly in the social instability we're now seeing among the Kurdish population in Turkey," Bremmer said. "But it's equally clear that the Turkish government has the most to lose here, by a long shot, and their response thus far has been strong reluctance to get directly involved in the fight. Which tells you something about the level of threat the Turks actually feel here, as well as how concerned the Americans should be about not immediately jumping in and committing further military engagement."

"Having said all that, the world has stood by over three years of a war in Syria with far more calamitous results to the civilian population. It's important to keep this in context."

In an attempt to smooth out relations and find some common ground, President Barack Obama dispatched retired Gen. John Allen, the administration's special envoy for the coalition to counter ISIS, to meet with Turkish officials on Thursday. 

The State Department said Allen and Brett McGurk, the deputy special envoy, held "constructive and detailed talks." The State Department did not read out any specific new steps of involvement from Turkey, but said Allen and McGurk did discuss "several measures to advance the military line of effort against ISIL." The administration also made a point of noting it supports ousting Assad, though it reiterated the best way to do that would be through a political settlement.

"They further stressed that strengthening the moderate Syrian opposition, which is engaged in fighting both ISIL and the Assad regime, is crucial to any realistic and lasting political settlement of the Syrian crisis," the State Department statement read.

But for now, both the US and Turkey have begun publicly bracing for the fall of Kobani to ISIS. And there are some, even on the US side, who believe Obama should commit further to one of Turkey's conditions — ousting Assad.

Sens. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), two of Obama's most frequent foreign-policy critics, said the growing criticism of Turkey for failing to act on behalf of Kobani doesn't reflect the "reality on the ground"— that both ISIS and Assad must be defeated for the region to fundamentally change.

"We are confident that if President Obama adopted a strategy took the steps that Turkish leaders are advocating to deal with Assad as well as ISIS, he would have significant support from our regional partners, including Turkish military involvement, which can be so important to success," McCain and Graham said.

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Leading global risk analytics firm Maplecroft has released its latest quarterly Civil Unrest Index. The index tracked changes in social or political unrest that could disrupt business operations across 197 countries. 

Maplecroft found that globally, civil unrest has risen in 20% of countries worldwide from the third to fourth quarter of this year. This rising unrest has taken the form of mass demonstrations, ethnic or religious violence, and increasing labor protest.

Predictably, Maplecroft determined that Hong Kong has been especially hard hit. Due to its massive democracy protests this month, the Chinese-administered region fell 62 places on the firm's stability ranking. It is now the 70th most unstable country in the world and is placed at "high risk." 

The scale of the protests, according to Maplecroft, has cost retailers in the territory upwards of $283 million already. 

Civil unrest has also further increased in a number of Asian economic hubs, such as Thailand, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, and China. Companies operating in these countries have faced varied labor disruptions and strikes which have caused significant economic impact, according to Maplecroft. 

The five countries facing the most extreme unrest are, in order, Syria, the Central African Republic (CAR), Pakistan, Sudan, and South Sudan. 

Syria is the midst of a multi-year civil war that has effectively partitioned the country between ISIS, the Assad regime, Kurds, secular rebels, and al-Qaeda linked jihadists. 

The CAR, Sudan, and South Sudan are all in the midst of intense ethnic or sectarian fighting. The UN Security Council had unanimously voted to send peacekeepers to CAR amid fears that fighting there between Muslims and Christians could lead to genocide. 

To create the Civil Unrest Index, Maplecroft used a strict methodology that took into both qualitative and quantitative data into account. Factors that played a role in determining the likelihood of unrest in a country included food security, the frequency of instances of civil unrest, and the levels of corruption within a country. 

SEE ALSO: Here are the biggest terrorist risk spots in the world

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Choosing a country from the Axis of Evil might not sound like the best way to start a relaxing vacation, but surely it's one way to have an adventure you'll never forget. 

It was US President George W. Bush who designated Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as three evil nations in his State of the Union Speech in 2002. All three were accused of developing weapons of mass destruction for their "terrorist allies." (Turns out that wasn't entirely true.)

Since then, however, the Saddame Hussein regime in Iraq was overthrown, the government in Iran has softened somewhat, and North Korea has started granting visas to Americans. Since North Korea's visa back-flip in 2010, it has been possible to enjoy a vacation in all three of the countries.

So, if you've got the travel bug and are up for some adventure, here's our guide to vacations inside the former "Axis of Evil."

Iran

While Iran is seen by some in the West as a country full of crazy fundamentalists hell-bent on America's nuclear destruction, the reality you'll see inside the country couldn't be further from the truth. When Bush named the country as part of the axis, it actually came as a surprise to some observers.

The fact is, the majority of the Iranian public love Westerners — Americans in particular — making Iran one of the safest countries on our list even for female travelers. Opinion polls show the majority of Iranians hold a favorable opinion of Americans, making Iran second only to Israel as the most supportive population in the Middle East. 

To travel as a Westerner is to be routinely stopped on the street and welcomed by curious and generous Iranians. When I was there last summer I was constantly offered with cold drinks, invited to parties, and given free tours by locals. 

There is a ton to see there: the massive shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran, cheap ski resorts in the Alborz mountains north of the city, ancient clay-baked mosques in Kashan, the stunning central square of Isfahan, the Tatooine-like ruins of Na'in, and the ancient ruins of Persepolis near Shiraz.

While Western sanctions mean you can't use your Visa or MasterCard in the country, you won't have to take much cash. All expenses — including transport, food, and accommodation — amounted to less than $200 for my 11-day trip last year. 

Inexpensive, air conditioned buses run frequently between most cities, and a full falafel sandwich will often only set you back 25 cents. There's amazing rosewater ice cream almost everywhere in summer for about 10 cents a cone.

Return flights to Tehran from mainland Europe can be found for $200-to-400.

Check visa conditions before you book, as those who travel on British or American passports will have to apply in advance. 

Iran is safe for female travelers. Iranian women dress fashionably, and the level of respect on the streets could be considered high even by Western standards. However, it is mandatory to wear a headscarf in public at all times. Headscarves are skimpy, colorful, and barely attached in Tehran, but in regional areas more conservative coverings are the norm.

Gay travelers should be aware that homosexual sex is punishable by death for Iranian citizens. Deportation is probably the very best you can hope for if authorities somehow discover you. Discretion is highly advised, and as far as we can tell, no foreigners have run into trouble with this.

Despite claims to the contrary by the firebrand former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there are gay people in Iran. Some more privileged young men in Tehran apparently live somewhat openly.

Iranian-Americans should be aware that the country does not recognize dual citizenship and will likely treat you as an Iranian if you end up in trouble. The country's hardline judicial system currently has at least four Iranian Americans imprisoned — three journalists and a pastor.

While many countries have representation in Tehran, US consular services are conducted through the Swiss Embassy. The UK is still in the process of opening its embassy.  

North Korea 

While Iran is the perfect place for backpackers to explore independently on the cheap, North Korea is anything but. The country is intensely secretive, and the only real way in is an organized tour which will be strictly controlled by the North Korean government. 

While the threat of any violence is low, you should know the government has arrested at least three Americans for suspected subversive activity. Also, be aware that most of the money you pay for your tour will likely end up in the hands of one of the worst human rights abusers in the world today, the North Korean government.

The regime is accused of running Nazi-style labor camps rife with rape, murder, and starvation. Human Rights Watch recently released a video with first-hand accounts and drawings painting a horrific picture of brutal violence.

Yet despite this, thousands of tourists, mostly from China, travel to North Korea every year for a peek inside the clandestine country. One guide estimates that 4,000 non-Chinese tourists tourists visit North Korea annually. 

Touring North Korea must be one of the most uniquely bizarre travel experiences in the world. Any time you're out of your hotel, you'll be accompanied by at least two government minders who will serve as guides (two so they can keep an eye on you, and each other).

As Anna Fifield of The Washington Post writes, "It’s such a thrill to get an elusive visa and see this closed society with your own eyes, yet so maddening when you realize that you're moving through a kind of real-life 'Truman Show.'"

While in the country, you will see only what the North Korean government wants you to see, so the prison camps and more poverty stricken areas are likely to be off-limits. You will also be denied any chance to speak with any "normal" North Koreans not vetted by the government.

You can, however, say hello if you pass North Koreans on the street and maybe even share a few beers with your guides. But that's about as far as any cultural exchange will go.

What will perhaps strike you most in North Korea is the cult of personality surrounding its former leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. 

"Wherever possible, the magnificence of the Kims, especially KIS [Kim Il Sung], was emphasized. Busts, statues, murals, and slogans were everywhere," North Korean scholar and tourist Robert Kelly writes.

"At a bowling alley, the ball and pins which KIS bowled on the facility’s opening were kept under glass at the entrance, surrounded by flowers, with photos and a dedicatory statement from KIS inscribed on the wall,"he wrote. 

You will learn of Kim Il Sung's personal guidance of the construction of Pyongyang's metro, and you'll be told he wrote 18,300 books. You may even be advised against crumpling any newspaper that has his image.

Most Western tourists to the country appear to end up in one particular hotel in the country's capital, Pyongyang. The quirky hotel, the Yanggakdo International, is situated on slither of land in the Taedong river. It is known as the "Alcatraz of Fun" by government guides and has 4 out of 5 stars on Trip Advisor.

Tourists are free to explore the small island on foot; however, Lonely Planet is careful to point out that you shouldn't attempt to cross the bridge under any circumstances.

The hotel has a karaoke lounge, a bowling alley, a casino with a foreigners-only disco, and a secret fifth floor which does not appear on the elevator buttons (But if you're brave, you can go to the fourth floor and take the stairs.)

Despite being 47 stories high with a revolving restaurant at the top floor, The Washington Post reports that, "like the thousand or so rooms, the restaurant is mostly empty, all of it an elaborate show of prosperity that doesn't exist." 

Americans have been able to visit the country since 2010, and rumors of restrictions on Israeli or Jewish travelers are false. Almost all travelers will require a visa, which will be issued after a trip has been booked, approved, and paid for.

Be aware that while visas are often given late they are rarely denied, and if you arrange it beforehand, you can even pick one up in 20 minutes through the North Korean embassy in London. 

Tours in North Korea cost $200-$400 a day including accommodation, meals, and transport from China. Americans will probably have to pay towards the higher end of that scale because the North Koreans have banned Americans from some forms of travel. A return flight from the US to China can be snatched for as low as $800. 

In case of any emergency, the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang has taken charge of consular services for Canadian, American, Australian, and Nordic travelers. Also take note that certain items are banned; leaving a copy of the Bible with his contact details in a bathroom got one American tourist 15 years in a North Korean prison camp.

Iraq

Rounding out our "Axis of Evil" trifecta is Iraq, probably one of the most dangerous countries in the world to visit. The emergence of the militant group known as the Islamic State, or ISIS, has shattered the stability that parts of the country had previously been enjoying. 

For travelers this means most of the country — birthplace of many of the planet's oldest civilizations and most recent conflicts — is entirely off limits.

Iraq is home to the remains of Babylon, the ruins of Hatra, the Tal Afar fortress, the The Great Mosque of Samarra, and the Al-Shaheed Monument and Swords of Qādisīyah in Baghdad. But to visit any of these sites now is to risk kidnapping, murder, gunfire, and terrorist attacks.

The safer region of Kurdistan, however, still has many sites to offer. The region is semi-autonomous, and with minimal violence in recent years it has experienced massive economic development with high levels of foreign investment, infrastructure development, and tourism. Some areas are highly Westernized.

In Kurdistan there's the towering ancient citadel of Erbil, the mountaintop settlement of Amadiya, and the plunging gorges, waterfalls, and snow capped peaks of the Zagros Mountains. 

There's also the memorial to Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds in Halabja, the Amna Suraka museum which documents Hussein's brutality, and the Sulaimani Museum, the second largest history museum in the country. 

While tourist visas to other areas of Iraq are currently suspended, the Kurds will grant a free 15-day visa on arrival to citizens of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, and many EU member states. 

Return flights from Turkey to Erbil range from $300-$500. You can fly into Istanbul in Turkey from most major centers in Europe for $150-$200 return. 

While it always pays to know where you are, you're at little risk of accidentally venturing outside of the Kurdish safe region — the region's borders are tightly controlled. Still, it's advisable to stay away from the Turkish border and the city of Kirkuk. 

Take extreme care if you're hiking in the mountains near the Iranian border. In 2009 three American hikers wandered too close to the border and were detained and accused of spying by Iran.

The woman in the group was released after 14 months, but the two men weren't freed for more than two years.

SEE ALSO: The Truth About Iran: 5 Things That May Surprise Westerners

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In July 1944, 19-year-old Tom Scardino was wounded twice in one day fighting the Germans in Normandy. Seventy years later, he still finds it too painful to talk about some of the things he saw during his month in combat, which is why even his immediate family members know almost nothing about his experience during one of the pivotal events of the deadliest conflict in history.

At 89 years old, Scardino has agreed to share his story for the first time in an emotional interview with Business Insider.  

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a 16-year-old Scardino was too young to enlist with the older boys in his neighborhood in Hoboken, New Jersey.

“A couple of guys joined the Marines right away,” Scardino recalled. “We were happy for them. This was ’42, and in the latter part, at the end of the year, we got word that both got killed in Guadalcanal.”

Their deaths made him more eager to join up, but his father refused to sign papers that would have allowed him to volunteer at 17 years old. A tailor by trade, he was desperate to keep his son home to help with his business. When Scardino was drafted at 18, his father convinced an optometrist to write a note to draft officials falsely claiming that Scardino, who wore glasses, was going blind.

He gave Scardino the note in an envelope to deliver, but Scardino had other plans.

“When I passed [the draft review] I came home to my sister and father. I said, ‘I’m 1A, I gotta go,’” Scardino recalled, referring to a classification term meaning that a draftee is available immediately for military service. “[My father said,] ‘What do you mean you’re 1A? Didn’t you show them the envelope? I said, ‘Yeah, but the officer said don’t worry about it, if he’s blind we’ll put him in the front.’ I made that up. I was gung ho. I wanted to go.”

Assigned to the U.S. Army’s 90th Infantry Division, 359th Infantry Regiment, Scardino arrived in Britain on March 23, 1944, after a 22-day voyage across the Atlantic. For two months, his unit continued training with frequent marches and maneuvers — while wondering where and when they'd land in France to wrest the continent out of German hands.

D-Day

On June 1, 1944, the unit transferred to a ship that was oppressively hot and cramped.

“We were in a goddamn sardine can,” he recalled. They were supposed to embark on their mission June 5, but bad weather prolonged the invasion until the following morning.

By then, Scardino and his comrades were willing to do anything to get out of the close confines of the crowded ship they’d been stationed on for six days, even if it meant being thrown into battle.

“We were really hopped up and glad to go,” he said. “There was no second thoughts.”

The ship stopped a short distance from the shore of Normandy, where the soldiers, seasick from the rough current in the channel, climbed down ropes to small landing craft that would deliver them to the beaches for the assault.

It was a five to seven-minute ride in the landing craft to Utah Beach, where the first waves of troops with the 4th Infantry Division had already landed.

Scardino expected that  some of the 42 soldiers in his landing craft would become casualties that morning.

“No one talked, not a word, but you used your eyes,” Scardino explained of that short trip to the beach. “A couple times I stared at a guy and this is my thought as I’m looking: ‘Is it you or is it me?’”

Scardino's first sergeant ordered the soldiers in his landing craft to run as fast as they could toward the top of a hill at the end of the beach. He urged them not to stop for any reason, not even to assist a fallen comrade. Their rifles were no match for the German machine gun emplacements firing down at the beach.

“My first thought was, ‘Tommy, you’re not coming back, but you’re going to go down fighting,’” Scardino said. “I just didn’t want to show I was scared, but I was.”

When the craft landed, Scardino ran through ankle-deep water onto the sand as fast as he could, dashing the 50-75 yards across the beach. He was scrawny and only 140 pounds, yet lugged an eight-pound rifle and 90 pounds of equipment on his back.

The German guns were firing from a rise above the beach. They were shrouded in thick smoke, and Scardino saw some Americans fall, including one man he trained with who got struck in the head. But Scardino made it safely to a ditch along a road that provided him temporary cover.

“I still have the smell in my nose," Scardino said. "Of death – the flesh, the blood.”

One of the first soldiers to join Scardino was a paratrooper from the 101st Airborne Division, who jumped in the ditch from the inland direction after parachuting behind enemy lines hours earlier. Scardino's first sergeant also joined him there, in addition to his best friend since basic training, a street-smart 18-year-old from Chicago named Donald.

They reorganized and then crossed a marshy area, where they saw more carnage. “The guys that went before us, there were Germans all over that goddamn creek, on the roads. They [the Americans] all were killed.”

Hedgerows

After that, a “mixed bag” of infantry soldiers, paratroopers, and even armed farmers advanced across flooded fields and an endless succession of six-foot high hedgerows, lines of dense shrubs and trees dividing various farmers’ properties. 

Out of the 42 men in his outfit who had come ashore with him, 14 were killed or wounded by the afternoon of June 6th, according to Scardino.

Because the hedgerows were sharp with thorns, the soldiers had to move single-file through small openings. 

"Now, if the Germans were on the other side, they would gun you down, but we used to send guys out to see if it was clear," Scardino recalled. "The scouts used to go out and say, 'That row is clear.' Okay, we moved up another hedgerow.”

For roughly 15 days, the unit spent the majority of its time in hedgerows, guarding the perimeters in shifts at night while the others slept. Scardino stuck close to his friend Donald, who grew so frustrated from German shelling that he threw away his shovel rather than use it to dig foxholes.

“He said, ‘I don’t need this. I’m not going to dig my grave,’” Scardino recalled.

The only respite from the hedgerows came when the soldiers reached occasional villages, where they would spend a day or two clearing buildings of German snipers before moving onward.

“This is what was hurting: You didn’t stop for a minute," Scardino said. "You didn’t take a deep breath and say, 'OK.' You figured any minute you're going to get killed. That was our thought. Donny used to say, 'Keep going Scar, keep going.'”

But Donald was killed 10 days after D-Day. “When I heard he got it I cried,” Scardino said. “Now I’m pissed off and then the only one that calmed me down was the first sergeant. He said, 'Yankee, you have to wipe it off. It was not your turn, it was his turn.' But I didn't believe that. I was mad.”

Around June 22 the unit reached a village that was more stubbornly defended by the Germans than all the rest. "It was like a headquarters to them or something," Scardino said. The Americans became pinned down for so long that they were holding up the supply lines behind them and running low on ammunition. They finally cleared the town by fighting house-to-house.

This part of his story Scardino will always keep to himself; he choked up immediately upon mentioning the battle and couldn't continue.

“That hurts so bad when I think about it,” he said. “How do you kill a man you never knew?"

Scardino declined to say anything more about this. “This is why I never told anybody or my kids," he added. "I keep seeing that guy, his whole face all the time.

“I’ve never confessed that as long as I’ve lived, and I lived with it,” he finally said after a long pause, before agreeing to skip to later parts of his story.

St. Lo

Scardino's unit had two men assigned to a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) light machine gun, one to operate it and another soldier to carry the ammunition. After the BAR gunner was killed in a firefight, the ammunition man, who had been separated from his own division since D-Day, didn’t pick up the BAR.

Seeing the need for someone to give covering fire from a pile of stones where the BAR gunner had fallen, Scardino abandoned his rifle and took up the light machine gun himself. From then on, he served as the unit’s BAR gunner.

On July 3, the unit advanced on the Normandy town of St. Lo, a key objective for the Allies on their way to central France.

The Germans at St. Lo relied on a notoriously effective 88-millimeter artillery gun, a class of weapon called "eighty-eights" by the Americans who had gotten used to its distinct sounds since D-Day. "When that came, man you hit that ground fast,” Scardino said. 

“It was worse than D-Day,” he said of St. Lo. “I mean, on D-Day we were worrying about the big bunkers and all that stuff. Now you’re fighting tanks, you’re fighting artillery, the eighty-eights were coming in and they were deadly."

Scardino remembers it as a rainy day, filled with the sound of the eighty-eights. “It's always raining in France,” Scardino recalled.

He was running through the grass to get into position with his BAR when a German bullet struck his hand.

A medic bandaged him up in a farmhouse alongside other wounded Americans. But after an enemy counterattack left the farmhouse behind enemy lines, a French civilian evacuated the walking wounded to another building, where Scardino and six other Americans crowded into a hiding space in a basement filled with cognac.

From the hiding spot, Scardino could hear the distinctive sound of the German eighty-eights impacting nearby. The last thing he remembers is the house caving in from a direct hit and someone cutting away at his pants, which were then on fire.

“I thought I was gone. That’s the day I always visualize in my mind – that burning feeling on my legs and all,” he said.

Scardino doesn’t remember being conscious again until the following morning, when he woke up naked on a stretcher atop a jeep, with a blanket shielding him from the rain. Another wounded man lay on a stretcher next to him.

The next thing he remembers is waking in a hospital with his right arm and right leg covered in a cast. Shrapnel from the German eighty-eight round had embedded in both limbs and shattered bone. “I said, ‘Okay, I know I’m going home,’” Scardino recalled of his first thoughts. “But the other part, the infuriating part, was the fact that I’m a cripple.”

Home

But Scardino was wrong; he made a full recovery. Although his hopes of playing major league baseball were gone, doctors installed metal in his arm that allowed him to bend his elbow enough to become a professional bowler later in life. 

While stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland late in the war, Scardino befriended a sergeant named Fred who had a very different reason for leaving France after D-Day.

When military officials learned that two of Fred's brothers had been killed in action and a third was a prisoner of war, they ordered him to return to England for a period of rest. After his arrival, they broke the news and told him he’d never go back to the front.

Fred also had a sister named Flora, who he introduced to Scardino. The trio went to dances together, sparking a relationship that culminated in Scardino's marriage to Flora.

After he was discharged from the army in January 1946, he went back to work as a tailor with his father. But he later regretted that he didn’t stay in the army.

The Scardinos had six children and settled in Mineola, Long Island. He still doesn’t know the fate of the six Americans he hid with in St. Lo when the eighty-eight round struck.

“Everything was so fast. It was 1, 2, 3,” he recalled of that moment 70 years ago. He never kept in touch with any of his comrades.

In 2009, Scardino was walking in an airport in Italy on vacation when he saw a face he instantly recognized.

He stopped. I stopped. And I just walked over to him," Scardino said of that encounter. "I said, 'Is your name Murdott? He said, 'Yeah, are you the kid from New York? I said, 'Yeah.' I grabbed him. I thought he was dead. I thought they blew his head off at the beach. That morning when I was running up I turned my head, he was to my left. I saw the helmet fly off.

Murdott explained that a bullet had indeed struck him at Utah Beach, but his helmet somehow saved his life.

Nowadays, Scardino feels proud that he participated in D-Day. “I truthfully feel very honored to know that I was part of history,” he said.

But when a local school principal recently introduced him as a war hero to a gathering of students, Scardino felt embarrassed.

"This is their generation, that's it. This is their life. I don't know if they care or not."

SEE ALSO: A young army officer copes with the brutal opening days of Iraq's insurgency

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President Obama's decision to bomb ISIS is attracting criticism on multiple fronts, with some arguing that the efforts are too limited, or represent yet another ineffectual military operation in a region where US hard power has a fairly low success rate.

But in Syria at least, there's a specific flaw behind what some are seeing as the slow pace of US missions against jihadist targets. The US Air Force seems to be unable to accelerate its campaign because the lack of a ground component for the mission means US planners are having a hard time just scouting and selecting targets.

Already, Iraq has been the site of significantly more American airstrikes than its western neighbor. One day, October 4th, saw no airstrikes at all, while a recent spurt was due to US efforts to prevent ISIS from taking the strategically vital border city of Kobane — meaning the the US has targeted few other areas from that single flashpoint in recent days.

Look at the number of airstrikes that the US has done in Iraq and Syria since August pic.twitter.com/nSZPjjOHwo

— #FreeOurUmmah (@ItsJustMe7o7) October 9, 2014

The Daily Beast points to one of the reasons why the number of airstrikes in Syria has remained steady and fairly low over recent weeks: It's because of "the lack of US ground forces to direct American air power against ISIS positions," Dave Majumdar writes.

"From the sky, it can be hard to tell friend from foe," Majumdar notes. "And by themselves, the GPS coordinates used to guide bombs aren’t nearly precise enough." 

Majumdar's reporting and analysis actually suggests that more precise targeting doesn't necessarily require American boots on the ground. Rather, it needs a so-called "kill chain," whereby military forces try (and as in the case against Khorasan, sometimes fail) to make sure they're hitting the right target. In Syria, this is hampered by the absence of US combat boots on the ground or close allies who can fulfill targeting and intelligence responsibilities.

There's no way to solve that problem without taking the conflict — and indeed the Obama Administration's entire approach to Syria — into another league entirely. Increasing the pace of attack in Syria would mean either a direct military commitment or a the creation of relationships with players like Syrian Kurdish militias or even anti-ISIS Islamist groups that the US just doesn't have yet.

Turkey, a NATO member state, could provide that kind of targeting support. But Ankara seems committed not to send its own army into Syria, even with the fast-moving crisis in Kobane, a crucial border city that ISIS is threatening to take.

Until the US gets better eyes on the ground, the Americans might be flying relatively blind over Syria. And even if that problem is solved and the "kill chain" can be accelerated, the current fight over Kobane presents a critical case study of how bombing alone can be ineffectual in achieving larger strategic goals.

SEE ALSO: ISIS may soon overrun Iraq's Anbar Province

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Here's a reminder of how young 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai is: She found out about the award when a teacher pulled her out of her chemistry class.

The 17-year-old Malala, the youngest winner of the award, said during a news conference Friday that she was "honored." She shared it with the Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, 60, for "their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education," according to the Nobel committee.

Malala said she considered Friday a relatively normal day. She was in chemistry class in Birmingham, England, and by 10:15 a.m. she was sure she hadn't won. Then, a teacher took her out of class, telling her she had "something important to tell her."

"Congratulations. You have won the Nobel Peace Prize!" Malala said her teacher told her. 

Malala continued her normal routine, attending physics and English classes. She held a news conference only after her school day was over.

"I considered it a normal day," she said.

Malala's name first rose to attention when she was shot in the head by the Taliban just more than two years ago while advocating for young girls' educational rights in Pakistan. She survived and has brought her message to the world, most notably during a powerful speech to the United Nations last year.

She said her Nobel Peace Prize was not the end of her efforts to advocate for girls' education.

"I think this is really the beginning," she said.

NOW WATCH: Richard Branson Hates Public Speaking — Here's How He Gets Over It

SEE ALSO: Here's The Moment When Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai Left Jon Stewart Speechless

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Early Friday morning, a mysterious statue of Edward Snowden appeared in Union Square Park in New York City, opposite the Abraham Lincoln statue.

Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill were on hand when the statue was unloaded, although they apparently had no connection with the statue's appearance.

So, @ggreenwald& I were having breakfast & a truck pulls up with a statue of Edward Snowden: pic.twitter.com/AkRW0Gs2Do

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) October 10, 2014

The mystery of the statue has been solved. It is an art piece by Delaware-based artist Jim Dessicino.

The piece is being shown as part of the festival Art In Odd Places, which celebrates art by (as the name suggests) placing it all over the city in odd places. The festival itself, which is running from Thursday through Sunday, is on 14th Street from the Hudson River to Avenue C. The theme of the festival is "Free."

Dessicino made the Snowden sculpture last year while studying at the University of Delaware as a graduate student. Dessicino started constructing the sculpture in September 2013, just months after Snowden famously leaked secrets from the NSA to journalist Glenn Greenwald. Dessicino says as soon as the Snowden leaks came out, he knew he wanted to make an art piece about it. 

"What he did is possibly the most significant act of anyone from my generation," Dessicino told Business Insider. "He put truth over the rule of law and committed a huge self-sacrifice." 

When asked whether he sees Snowden as a patriot or a traitor, he dismissed the question as "irrelevant" because the act "was bigger than him."

Here's a closer look: 

Unfortunately for Dessicino, despite the prominent location of the statue, no one seemed to know who he was. Of the 12 passersby we asked — many of whom stopped to look at the sculpture — not one could identify him.

When told who it was and asked their opinion of him, the responses ranged from indifference to resolutely positive.

"He's our generation's Daniel Ellsberg," one man told us, referring to the leaker of the Pentagon Papers. "What he did needed to be done."

The statue is made primarily out of gypsum cement. The head was made out of clay and then cast in a mold, while the body is made out of steel piping and insulation foam.

"It's pretty sturdy," Dessicino said.

The statue will be in Union Square all weekend, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dessicino will sit next to the statue during that time, making sure it doesn't fall over or get defaced. 

NOW WATCH: 7 Crazy Facts That Sound Fake But Are Actually True

SEE ALSO: The Infamous NSA Smiley Face Diagram Is Hanging In A New York Art Gallery

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Erik Prince, founder of the controversial security contractor Blackwater, recently claimed that for-hire ground troops were the missing element of the US-led campaign against jihadists in Iraq and Syria.  

"If the old Blackwater team were still together, I have high confidence that a multi-brigade-size unit of veteran American contractors or a multi-national force could be rapidly assembled and deployed to be that necessary ground combat team," Prince wrote on the website of Frontier Services Group, a security and logistics contractor where he is now the executive officer and chairman.  

"A competent professional force of volunteers would serve as the pointy end of the spear and would serve to strengthen friendly but skittish indigenous forces," he continued.

Prince's private expeditionary force may seem a bit far-fetched. Then again, one of Barack Obama's favored analogues for the situation in Syraq is Somalia, a place where the US pursued a "strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines," as the president explained in his speech announcing US military action against ISIS. And in Somalia, security contractors are playing a fairly significant and hands-on role in stabilizing the country.

In terms of his larger point, Prince may be hinting at something that's inevitable. After all, in Somalia, private security contractors are one of those "partners on the front lines" that Obama referred to.

Here's a photo tweeted by George Mason University Horn of Africa scholar Tres Thomas of two employees from the US-based private security and investment company Bancroft Global Development operating with the Somali military:

Bancroft contractors pictured w/#Somalia troops in operations against Shabaab in Middle Shabelle via @evolvingprimatepic.twitter.com/BD6KfOnaZz

— Tres (@tres_hoa) October 9, 2014

An African Union (AU) peacekeeping force and the national military have quietly made progress against Al Shabaab, an Al Qaeda affiliate, in Somali in recent weeks — earlier this month, Shabaab was expelled from Barawe, a coastal city and one of the last major population centers the group controlled.

But it's not as if Bancroft just showed up to provide the finishing touches on an already successful mission. 

This paragraph from a US Joint Special Operations University study demonstrates that the company played a significant role in shaping the AU force's strategy against Shabaab in the months after the group's blitz through the country in 2007 and 2008:

Bancroft was first approached by Ugandan leadership and invited to work with the [Ugandan military] contingent in Mogadishu in November 2007 ... The Ugandans were well aware that the Somalia campaign would take them into unknown military territory, especially with regards to the challenges of urban warfare. This is where they sought Bancroft’s expertise. After a few reconnaissance trips, Bancroft deployed an initial team of four advisers into Mogadishu in early 2008. Within four months, their team had expanded to 12. After being impressed with their work in the field, Burundi approached Bancroft in August 2008 to provide them with similar assistance.

"Bancroft Global Development's urban warfare training" proved vital to the peacekeepers' success in eventually kicking Shabaab out of the Somali capital of Mogadishu and most other major cities, the study states.

And while it adds that Bancroft scrupulously adhered to a UN embargo on small arms importation to Somalia, much of that ban was actually lifted in 2012, meaning that contractors could take on more traditional combat-advisory type activities — note that both of the purported Bancroft employees in the photo that Thomas tweeted are armed.

Bancroft has diversified within Somalia as well, anticipating a time when they could use their years of involvement in the country to pivot towards more peacetime-orientated activites.

As the Wall Street Journal reported in April of 2013, the company is developing a secured hotel and conference complex along a relatively quiet stretch of Mogadishu beachfront. The Journal described the property as "a fortified compound sprawled across 11 acres of rocky white beach [offering] 212 rooms including $500-a-night villas, several dining rooms, coffee and snack shops, and a curving slate-colored pool where sun-seekers can loll away Somali afternoons."

Private security contractors are controversial. Opponents claim that these companies are effectively above the law in the countries where they're hired. They're sent to some of the most unstable places in the world, weak states where a private contractor's power and organizational capacity can outstrip that of the local government (G4S's operations in South Sudan are a case in point). Private contractors have a mercenary character to them — they seem like hired guns, sent to foreign countries with little apparent oversight or consent. They can also covertly implement US policy in a way that strikes many as unaccountable.

At the same time, Bancroft's story demonstrates that a private-sector component to the anti-ISIS campaign could be inevitable, as these companies provide a level of expertise, funding, capability, and willingness that other potential on-the-ground actors simply don't have. They can take risks that a foreign government cannot, while also serving as a cats' paw for US policy — as the SOCOM study noted, the Burundian and Ugandan militaries paid Bancroft using money from a US bilateral assistance package, and the company was given an official US State Department contract in 2010.

Maybe companies like Bancroft won't be sending combat forces of the type that Prince envisions. But if history is any guide, they'll be involved in the fight in some form or another — assuming they aren't already. 

SEE ALSO: Al Shabaab provides a sobering reminder about the fight against ISIS

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As we pointed out on Thursday, no one outside of North Korea really knows for sure what happened to notorious dictator Kim Jong Un.

But there is one theory that seems to be more credible than the rest — that Kim is suffering from health problems and is recuperating (or deteriorating) away from public view.

Kim has not made a public appearance in more than a month, leading people to speculate that the dictator's regime is about to fall, that he is no longer in control of the country, or that he fell ill and is now hiding away.

Considering the fact that people have been predicting the downfall of North Korea for decades, this scenario doesn't seem as likely. Political observers have said there's little risk of a coup in the Hermit Kingdom, and reports that Kim has lost control of the country are so far unconfirmed.

This leaves the more likely scenario of Kim undergoing a surgery or recovering from some sort of illness.

Some of the more outlandish health theories include a Swiss cheese addiction and ankle fractures due to excessive weight, but it's also possible that he's suffering from a less sensational affliction.

South Korean public broadcasting network KBS reported that Kim might have gout and diabetes brought on by weight gain and an unhealthy diet.

The speculation that he's suffering from ankle fractures started after he was seen limping across a stage at the anniversary memorial service of his grandfather and the nation's founding president, Kim Il Sung:

If the ankle theory proves correct and Kim had to undergo surgery, it's possible that Kim is recovering privately in a hospital.

The Kim family has a history of gout, diabetes, and heart problems, according to CBS News.

North Korean state TV has alluded to an illness, saying "Kim is suffering from uncomfortable physical condition," but has not elaborated on what is ailing him.

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Multiple close allies of President Barack Obama believe his former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta might be taking shots at him as part of an effort to help Hillary Clinton's potential 2016 presidential bid.

Panetta has spent much of the past week promoting his new book, "Worthy Fights," by criticizing the White House's handling of Syria and the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL).

The critique the president should have done more to fight the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before ISIS gained power in that country echoes one of the only attacks Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state, has leveled against her former boss in recent months. In the mid 1990s, Panetta served as White House chief of staff to Clinton's husband.

Because of his ties to the Clintons, some of Obama's allies suspect his attacks on the administration may be designed to help Hillary in 2016.

"It's not like his ultimate loyalties ever lied with the president," a longtime Obama aide and former White House official told Business Insider when asked about Panetta. "He had a long history in the party predating the president, and that's not where his ultimate loyalties lie."

Panetta's pre-existing relationship with the Clintons isn't the only reason some of those close to Obama think his criticism of the president may be designed to help a hypothetical Hillary bid. Clinton and Panetta's unflattering appraisals of the president's Syria policy are remarkably similar. By making the argument Obama's mishandling of the Assad regime contributed to the rise of ISIS, Clinton and her allies could be distancing her from those who might attempt to say she botched the situation in Syria while at the State Department.

"There's been chatter among Obama people about it," a former Obama campaign operative told Business Insider. "There's the sense that this is incredibly unhelpful to the president's agenda, there's a sense that it's incredibly self-serving, and there is this sense that he might be looking to offer backdoor help to Hillary."

The longtime Obama aide and former White House official said the thing about these attacks on the president that most upsets Obama's allies is that Panetta is making policy arguments he didn't articulate while he was in the president's Cabinet.

"A lot of people are taking issue because they don't feel like he was particularly public with that argument at the time," the aide said. "He didn't really drive these points at the time and so trying to score points now to get his book out there is a little bit gratuitous, particularly a month before an important election."

The former Obama campaign operative said they think Panetta's attempts to help Hillary Clinton might backfire.

"There is a suspicion he's trying to provide some cover for her, but there's also the feeling that this cover won't ultimately be helpful in a Democratic primary. Democratic primary voters are not in line with Panetta and Hillary Clinton on foreign policy and, in the long run, I think that smart observers believe that this could do her more harm than good," the operative explained. "A year from now, or six months from now when the campaign is more underway, I'm not sure that Hillary Clinton will want to be tagged as a hawk and as someone who was advocating for more intervention in Syria and the Middle East."

The operative went on to say similar arguments hurt Clinton when she last ran for president in 2008 and lost the primary to Obama.

"That was one of the many things that doomed her 2008 campaign and it has the potential to doom her 2016 campaign and remind voters of why they turned against her in 2008," said the operative. 

However, the aide suggested helping Clinton might not be the only reasons Panetta is attacking Obama. They said he might have "two priorities" as he takes potshots at the president. Along with helping Clinton, the aide speculated Panetta's first goal might be making money and compared him to President George W. Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan, who wrote a scathing account of his time at the White House in 2008.

"Number one is selling books right?" the aide said. "The Scott McClellan strategy that towards the end of an administration, approval ratings are going down, the only way to sell books is be contentious." 

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