President Barack Obama is open to the idea of opening an embassy in Tehran within the final two years of his term. 

"I never say never, but I think these things have to go in steps," Obama said when asked about the prospect during an NPR interview published Monday.

Obama, who recently moved to normalize relations with Cuba, cautioned Iran's circumstances are far different. However, he nevertheless insisted the US can empathize with the Islamic Republic's demands regarding its nuclear program. 

"I think we do, because if you look at the negotiations as they've proceeded, what we've said to the Iranians is that we are willing to recognize your ability to develop a modest nuclear power program for your energy needs," Obama said, according to NPR's transcript. "But there's a way of doing that that nevertheless gives the world assurances that you don't have breakout capacity."

The US broke diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 but is now finalizing a deal with the country on its nuclear program. An agreement was supposed to be finalized last month but the two sides could not reach a deal. Negotiations were extended to July.

Obama acknowledged in the interview that Iran has "legitimate defense concerns," especially after its war with Iraq. However, he argued that these concerns have to be "separated out" from the country's "adventurism, ... support of organizations like Hezbollah," and "the threats they've directed towards Israel."

"On the one hand, you need to understand what their legitimate needs and concerns are," he said. "On the other end, you don't need to tolerate or make excuses for positions that they've taken that violate international law. ... They've got a chance to get right with the world. This is not just about us."

SEE ALSO: OBAMA: Putin's No Genius

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One hundred years ago, German, British, and French soldiers left their trenches along the western front of World War I to observe the Christmas holiday in peace.

Servicemen and women stationed in Kabul decided to commemorate the Christmas Truce by playing some soccer — something rival soldiers did during the halt in fighting a century ago.

British troops pose for a photo before the game, which took place on a dusty field at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters in Kabul on Dec. 24, 2014.

German troops pose for their own photo before the game, with their national flag on display.

Troops from both countries sang "Silent Night" before the game. The singing of Christmas carols was another joint activity during the 1914 truce.

The game was likely much more organized than the improvised and crowded bouts played between the trenches during the Great War.

German troops wearing shirts made for the centennial commemoration react to the on-field action.

British supporters also knew to voice their support, unfolding the Union Jack from the bleachers.

An American soldier watches the game from the sidelines. The US had yet to get involved in the Great War in the winter of 1914.

A helicopter in flight reminds German soldiers that this is not Europe in 1914.

The troops closed the match by posing together behind a banner with emblems, the Afghan flag, and a hashtag: #FootballRemembers.

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Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria is increasing pressure on draft dodgers in recent months, with arrests and regulations to prevent military-aged males from leaving the country, the Washington Post reported.

The regime called up thousands of reservists leading up to October and increased raids on public spaces and homes to apprehend those suspected of avoiding duty.

Checkpoints have also been set up to intercept anyone avoiding service in a 4-year-long war effort that may be losing popularity even among the traditional supporters of the Assad regime.

The efforts come at a low point in the Syrian military's overall manpower: Its ranks have fallen from more than 300,000 servicemen at the start of the uprising in 2011 to just half that figure, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War.

The Washington Post spoke with a few Syrians affected by the new crackdown. One of them, a Syrian Christian living in Damascus, was called up as a reservist even though he completed his mandatory military service in 2009 (all men over 18 years of age in Syria contribute a year and a half of service to the country's military).

Combat fatalities have surpassed the 44,000 mark according to human rights monitors cited by the Washington Post, though desertion and defection have also contributed to the drain on regime manpower. 

In contrast to this weakness, rebel groups around Aleppo, Syria's largest city, agreed last week to band together in their common goal of toppling Assad. The groups announced a "total merger under one flag and united leadership," according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Aleppo is one of the few remaining strongholds of Syria's secular anti-regime rebels. Maintaining a foothold within the divided and heavily-contested city is considered key to the rebel movement's survival, while the rebels' defeat in the city would greatly hasten a regime victory.

Neither the plunge in manpower or the new alliance in Aleppo is enough to suggest that Assad's regime is  in imminent danger of collapse. Assad has frustrated expectations of his impending fall and the war has displaced millions of Syrians and left roughly 200,000 dead without toppling him from power.

The Washington Post casts the Syrian regime's efforts as a drive for a stronger negotiating position before potential peace talks encouraged by Russia, one of Assad's strongest foreign supporters. The last round of peace talks in Geneva collapsed in February.

SEE ALSO: These 21 photos show what Syria was like 50 years ago

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Russia plans on deploying a series of drones to the Arctic before the end of the year as the country dedicates increasing resources towards militarization of the frozen north, Russian news agency Tass reports. 

Russia will begin with the deployment of Orlan-10 drones in the Eastern Military District. The first trial flights of the drones will take place in early 2015. These trials will have an emphasis on low temperature conditions. 

According to Tass, the drones will be used for surveillance and reconnaissance along Russian territorial waters. The Orlan-10s will also be used in combat training tasks along the shore of the Arctic Ocean. 

The deployment of drones to the Arctic comes as Russia plans to rapidly upgrade its navy and air force, partly in order to dominate the waterway emerging from the melting of polar ice. This attempted militarization of the Arctic includes the deployment of 40 warships alongside the purchase of 150 new aircraft for Russia's Arctic Forces. 

To support the rising number of military equipment and personnel that Russia is shifting to the Arctic, Moscow is also undertaking a construction blitz across the region. Russia plans to create 13 airfields and ten air-defense radar stations in the Arctic in addition to a string of 16 deepwater ports. 

Simultaneously, Russia is training a commando detachment specifically for Arctic warfare. A second Arctic-warfare brigade will be ready by 2017. 

Russia's militarization of the Arctic is aimed at putting Moscow in a prime position to exploit the vast amounts of untapped fossil fuels lying in the Arctic sea bed. The US estimates that upwards of 15% of the earth's remaining oil, 30% of its natural gas, and 20% of its liquefied natural gas are stored under the Arctic. 

SEE ALSO: Here are 2 ways Russia's provocative stunts could lead to war

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If 2014 proved anything, it's that guessing at the state of the world a year down the line is a vain or even slightly embarrassing endeavor.

Indeed, who could have expected a year ago that Russia would take over Crimea, ISIS would break out of Al Qaeda and declare a caliphate, the US would start bombing Syria and Iraq while approaching a nuclear deal with Iran,or that Ebola would ravaged three west African countries and scare the world?

Nevertheless, we're going to do our best to predict the big geopolitical stories of 2015:

Armin Rosen:

The Islamic State will lose control of Mosul. The US will continue to increase the number of "advisors" on the ground in Baghdad while upgrading "coordination" with Iran in preparation for a surprise push against the city in mid-2015. The US-Kurdish-Iraqi-Iranian assault will succeed in dislodging ISIS but not in totally defeating the group.

The Israeli elections end in chaos. A rejuvenated Labor party will win the most seats in the Knesset — but will fail to form a government, thanks to centrist and ultra-orthodox parties refusing to join one another in a coalition. Meanwhile, the insurgent Gideon Sa'ar will narrowly fail to dislodge Netanyahu as head of Likud, meaning that the Prime Minister will enter his third term in the weakest position of his political career. He will respond by entering into an unusual deal with Labor that makes the pro-peace process Tzipi Livni his foreign minister while committing the government to taking a superficially serious go at negotiating with the Palestinians. The Palestinians will quietly accede to a watered-down version of their pending UN resolution demanding an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and enter into proximity talks with the Israelis. To no one's shock, these negotiations will go nowhere.

Tensions explode between Greece and Turkey over disputed gas deposits in the Aegean Sea. By the end of the year, the waters off of the north of Cyprus will be thoroughly militarized with a South China Sea-like face-off between two prideful and desperate countries that are also NATO allies. The escalation will end any discussion of constructing liquid natural gas terminals in Cyprus or pipelines in the northeastern Mediterranean. This will in turn make countries reluctant to sanction Russia's energy industry and indirectly benefit Vladimir Putin.

The year will end with no nuclear agreement between the US and Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei won't go all the way on a deal, while the P5+1, which will drop its demands on the disclosure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps role in the country's nuclear program, won't be able to stomach Iran's requirement of a 10-year sunset clause and an insistence on plutonium reprocessing rights. The biggest foreign policy initiative of Obama's second term will basically end in failure, leading him to spend a lot more time focusing on lower-hanging fruit like rapprochement with Cuba — which he'll visit in September, at the beginning of the Caribbean tourism season.

Famine grips the conflict-affected parts of South Sudan. A stalled peace process, plummeting oil production, and the prospect of US and international sanctions will leave the government of the world's newest nation in its most dire position since the country gained independence in 2011. Meanwhile, two missed growing seasons, interrupted supply lines, and increasing food prices will lead to east Africa's worst food emergency since the Somali famine of 2011.

Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika dies. The longest-serving president in Algerian history has been in ill health and has barely been seen in public since his "re-election" in April of last year. It's likely he hasn't really been running things for awhile now. Despite widespread protests in Algeria during the Arab Spring period the putative president's death will have little actual impact on the country, whose socialist military government has successfully insulated Algeria against much of the chaos in neighboring Mali and Libya. 

Putin's Eurasian Union slinks into the background. A sinking ruble will convince Armenia to indefinitely delay its membership in the Russian president's Eurasian Customs Union. The US will dangls the possibility of sanctions relief in front of Belarus as well in the hopes that the country's authoritarian and traditionally pro-Russian government switches sides. The war in Ukraine will continue but Eurasianism as a project will die in 2015.

Afghanistan goes better than expected. The social and political dividend from this year's peaceful transfer of power to new president Ashraf Ghani, alongside a backstop of over 10,000 US troops and increased Pakistani operations against Taliban forces operating from their territory will prevent the kind of precipitous backsliding that many feared would accompany the end of NATO combat operations.

Jeremy Bender: 

ISIS will slowly evolve into a more al Qaeda-like organization: As it loses ground in the Middle East, it'll focus on terrorism abroad.  This past year saw the proliferation of "lone wolf" attacks that may or may not be related to ISIS but were at least inspired by the group — car attacks in France and Canada, a hostage situation in Australia, and a shooting in Ottawa.

This shift in tactics will continue as ISIS loses ground and calls on its supporters overseas to launch attacks, as it did this past September. 

Countries will be compelled to intervene in Libya, again. The spread of ISIS into Libya, the collapse of any central authority, the presence of two competing governments, numerous Islamic groups, a renegade general, and the proliferation of weapons from the country to terrorist hotspots around the world will lead to foreign troops again being deployed to the country. 

Egypt and the UAE have already carried out airstrikes against Islamist targets in Libya. As the political situation continues to deteriorate and the chaos from Libya threatens the stability of neighboring countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, and Niger, outside powers will be convinced that they have to act. 

Most likely, Egypt and the UAE will continue carrying out aerial operations. Europe could also become involved in military efforts in Libya as any ongoing chaos in Libya is not too far removed from the shores of southern Europe.

Pierre Bienaime:

Another airborne disaster ratchets up the tension between Russia and the rest of the world. The crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was uniquely horrific. But Russia and its proxies nearly brought down civilian aircraft at other points in 2014 and could easily do so next year.

Last March, a Russian military plane nearly collided with a Swedish commercial jet carrying 132 passengers. Disaster "was apparently avoided thanks only to good visibility and the alertness of the passenger plane pilots," according to a European Leadership Network report on the "dangerous brinkmanship" between Russia and the West.

Another close call came in early December, again involving a Swedish passenger plane and a Russian aircraft that had turned off its transponders — the devices by which planes announce their location in order to avoid exactly these sorts of disasters.

On the military side, NATO member states have scrambled planes to intercept Russian incursions three times more frequently in 2014 than in the year prior. Each confrontation had its own small window for a potential disaster with wide political and security implications.

The more confrontations like this in European skies, the greater a chance for a repeat of the MH17 disaster in the new year.

Obama and Turkey collaborate to create a buffer zone in northern Syria. “My presidency is entering the fourth quarter," Obama told reporters at a year's end conference. "Interesting stuff happens in the fourth quarter, and I’m looking forward to it.”

Running with the president's sports analogy, his foreign policy toward the Middle East can be summarized as overtures in the first quarter ("a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world"), selective support for some of the Arab Spring's new movements in the second, and indecision in the face of civil wars in both Syria and Iraq in the third.

Part of the game-plan for the fourth started to emerge late this year: Iraqi special forces trained by the US would begin their push for ISIS territory in the spring, despite local forces eager to take the fight to the extremists sooner in Mosul.

Alongside this trained force in Iraq, a no-fly zone — which Turkish officials see as a means to turn the tide against Assad — offers the Obama administration another way of addressing the deep political problems of the region with the help of its allies.    

SEE ALSO: The 50 most unforgettable photos of 2014

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The US military has carried out an airstrike in Somalia today against a senior leader of the al-Shabaab group, the Pentagon has said in a statement.

The Pentagon is currently uncertain as to whether or not the airstrike was successful in eliminating the senior leader, although it noted that there was no sign of civilian casualties.

Popular geopolitical commentator @ZeddRebel pointed out on Twitter that the airstrikes seem to have been based upon intelligence gathered from a former intelligence chief with Shabaab:

Al-Shabaab is an al-Qaeda affiliate that operates primarily within Somalia and Kenya. The group ruled most of southern Somalia from 2006 to 2011, when it was pushed out of the region by Afridcan peacekeeping troops. 

Al-Shabaab was responsible for the September 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya. The group has also been responsible for a recent rash of attacks throughout northern Kenya in the past few months. 

The previous head of al-Shabaab was killed in a US airstrike in September. 

The full Pentagon statement is below:

The U.S. military conducted an airstrike in Somalia today against the al-Shabaab network. The target of the strike was a senior al-Shabaab leader. The strike took place in the vicinity of Saakow, Somalia. At this time, we do not assess there to be any civilian or bystander casualties. We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information, when appropriate, as details become available.

SEE ALSO: Al Shabaab's leader may be dead, but the long fight against the group provides a sobering reminder about ISIS

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A speaker at a yearly hacking conference in Germany has claimed the ability to recreate someone's fingerprints using just photographs of their fingers, as reported by the BBC.

This capability would highlight the compromised nature of replacing passwords with fingerprints, which is already seen by experts as far from fully secure.

In his talk at the Chaos Computer Club — Europe's largest hacker organization — Jan Krissler said he used a high-profile target for his attempt: German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen.

Krissler, also known by the pseudonym "Starbug," used several close-range photos from a "standard photo camera" of von der Leyen's hand from a few angles before creating an image of her thumbprint via VeriFinger, a software program used to read fingerprints.

Krissler has poked holes in biometric security before, with demonstrations of facial recognition technology fooled by a subject's photograph, and even by highlighting the possibility of reading PIN codes from the reflections in a phone user's eyes.

Brian Roemelle, a blogger who often writes about Apple's Touch ID, applauds any hacker's demonstrations of safety failures. "They bring attention to a lot of thing that move our society forward when it comes to security," he told Business Insider.

But he also thinks it's unreasonable to fear that fingerprint safety will be made obsolete (or that, as Krissler suggests, politicians might start covering up with gloves) simply because there are lots of photos of high-profile individuals floating around the Internet. "I think it's more practical for me to get a fingerprint off the glass of some celebrity or some famous person," he said.

More importantly, Roemelle thinks biometric technology will keep evolving as hacking opportunities arise.

"Technology will move forward as these hacks become more prevalent," whether in the form of further refinements to fingerprint ID technology or to biometric solutions keyed to other parts of the human body, like one's heartbeat.

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At this point, anyone who doubts that North Korea helped hack Sony is disagreeing with several top cybersecurity firms and the US intelligence community.

Nevertheless, many smart people are highly skeptical that a tinpot dictatorship with almost no internet connectivity could compromise an American-based subsidiary of a multinational corporation.

The prevailing alternative theories — detailed by oft-cited security researcher Bruce Schneier— include that independent North Korean nationals hacked Sony, that a Sony insider ("Sony's Snowden") did it on their own, or that hacktivist pranksters did it for the lulz (ie, for a good bit of sadistic fun).

While all are possibilities, there is no conclusive evidence corroborating any of these theories.

On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence suggesting North Korean involvement.

What We Know

On Nov. 24, computer screens of Sony employees flashed a warning indicating the company's computer systems had been compromised and data had been stolen.

Sony's systems were subsequently crippled. A unknown group calling itself GOP claimed credit for the hack.

Over the next few weeks, all hell broke loose in the entertainment world. Hackers dumped information online and news organizations scrambled to cover every possible angle. Threats of violence against movie theaters led to Sony canceling the Dec. 25 theatrical release of "The Interview," a film in which Seth Rogen and James Franco play talk show hosts enlisted by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

(Sony backpedaled by offering the film to independent theaters, and the movie will now be distributed via YouTube.)

American officials concluded that North Korea was “centrally involved,” and intelligence officials told The New York Times that the US intelligence community"concluded that the cyberattack was both state-sponsored and far more destructive than any seen before on American soil."

The FBI's public assessment, undertaken with assistance from other intelligence services such as the NSA, cited technical analysis of the code and overlap of techniques used in previous attacks of this kind.

Immediately after the attack, cybersecurity experts began looking at the code and techniques involved in the breach. Kaspersky Lab and other cyber security firms found that the malware involved in the Sony incident is capable of wiping disk drives and other data. Kaspersky dubbed the malware "Destover," noting that similar malware had been used in previous attacks.

Computer researcher Kurt Baumgartner, drawing on Kaspersky's initial investigation, detailed how the Destover malware used in the Sony hack looks a lot like two previous "wiper" attacks: One called "Shamoon," which targeted 30,000 Saudi Aramco workstations in 2012, and another called "Dark Seoul," which targeted South Korean banks and two of the country's top broadcasters the following year.

Furthermore, Kaspersky notes that the defacement placed on Sony employee computers is similar to the warning message in the "Dark Seoul" attack, even down to the skull icons.

An assessment by HP published on Dec. 19 detailed how "several factors support that North Korea played a role in the attacks."

HP noted that "it is difficult to discern whether the regime acted alone. It is plausible that the actors responsible for this attack relied on the assistance of an insider."

Jason Lancaster, senior threat intelligence analyst at HP, noted to Business Insider that "the system that was used by the author of the malware use in the Sony case was compiled on a windows system with a Korean language set, specifying its keyboard. ... So the keyboard for the system that was used to compile this malware ... was done in the same way as other malware associated to it."

Investigative journalists at Krebs on Security noted that like DarkSeoul, "the Destover wiper executables were compiled somewhere between 48 hours prior to the attack and the actual day of attack."

And CrowdStrike, a security firm that focuses heavily on identifying attribution and actors behind major cybercrime attacks, had independently concluded that North Korea orchestrated the hack before the FBI officially blamed Pyongyang.

“We have a high-confidence that this is a North Korean operator based on the profiles seen dating back to 2006, including prior espionage against the South Korean and US government and military institutions,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder at CrowdStrike.

“These events are all connected, through both the infrastructure overlap and the malware analysis, and they are connected to the Sony attack,” Alperovitch added. “We haven’t seen the skeptics produce any evidence that it wasn’t North Korea, because there is pretty good technical attribution here.”

Despite these assertions from experts and officials in the know, the frank skepticism persists:

One day media analysts are going to look at Obama's Friday press conference as one of the greatest presidential snookerings in US history.

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) December 24, 2014

"I worry that this case echoes the 'we have evidence — trust us' story that the Bush administration told in the run-up to the Iraq invasion," Schneier writes.

As skeptics come to terms with the evidence pointing to North Korea, which may have had help from other groups, statements like these will not age well.

Armin Rosen contributed to this report.

SEE ALSO: Here's North Korea's Over-The-Top Official Statement On The Sony Hack

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During Navy Special Ops training, candidates complete exhaustive missions under extreme stress, limited sleep, and in freezing water conditions. 

For the last 25 years, the US military has used an ingestible thermometer pill to monitor the core body temperature of service members during physically demanding missions. 

CorTemp pill (HQ, Inc.) was developed in the mid-1980’s by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Goddard Space Flight Center. The sensor technology was first used on astronauts to detect hypothermia and hyperthermic conditions during space flight.

Here is how the pill works:  Soldiers swallow a 3/4-inch silicone-coated capsule which contains a microbattery and a quartz crystal temperature sensor. Within two hours, the quartz crystal sensor vibrates at a frequency relative to the body’s temperature and transmits a harmless, low-frequency signal through the body.

Team personnel can wirelessly monitor the core body temperature of multiple subjects in real time. There are several options and configurations for tracking temperatures, including the most simple method of holding the data recorder near the small of the back. The pill safely passes through the digestive system after 18 to 30 hours.

The $50 pill is used at Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) training facility in Coronado, Calif. where candidates swim in open sea ranging from frigid 48 degrees Fahrenheit to 72 degrees Farenheit. 

"For SWCC personnel, the pill is used to monitor body core temperature and is used only in training. Its use ensures candidates can understand the impact of cold water and allows medical and training cadre staff to ensure safety parameters for training are observed," wrote Navy Lt. Ben Tisdale via email.

The ingestible capsules are also used by the NFL, various European militaries, and fire departments in the United States and in Australia, according to Director of Sales & Marketing, Lee Carbonelli.

NOW WATCH: This Super Strong Humanoid Called SCHAFT Just Won The DARPA Robotics Challenge  

SEE ALSO: What It Takes To Serve In The Navy's Elite Warfare Boat Crew

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Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir is riding the kind of hot streak that might make other autocrats think twice before dialing back their most oppressive and provocative policies.

First, the International Criminal Court (ICC) effectively froze its investigation of Sudanese government atrocities in war-torn Darfur. Khartoum then more or less declared the conflict over. Bashir's government expelled two top UN officials while pressuring the UN to draw down its peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The war in Darfur is far from over and is actually getting worse. As the New York Times reported this week, 457,000 people have been displaced in 2014 with violence roughly equal to what it was at the peak of the conflict about a decade ago. Government-armed militia groups bear much of the responsibility for the escalation. But the regime has waited out both the ICC and the UN. After a decade of conflict, Bashir has proven that the international community is both unwilling and unable to reign him in.

Now he's taking a victory lap, sitting down with the Washington Post's Kevin Sieff for his first interview with a western journalist in five years. The dictator took the opportunity to share his thoughts on the police killings of unarmed African Americans this past year.

When Sieff asked Bashir about his government's crackdown on anti-regime protests in 2012 and 2013 in which as many as 200 people were killed, Bashir responds by characterizing the protestors as violent hooligans before implying that his government acts even more virtuously than its American counterpart.

“If these events happened in the United States, would the government allow people to go?” Bashir asked. “Of course, we have examples in the United States. Even someone in his car who is asked to raise his hands and refuses, he will be shot. We’ve seen it. Especially if he is black.”

Considering the Khartoum government's longstanding hostility towards non-Arab ethnic groups in the country's south and west, this is an incredibly audacious statement. But it shows how the events of this past year have entered into the vocabulary of authoritarians the world over.

The killing on Michael Brown has been a frequent topic of the Ayatollah Khamenei's Twitter feed, and on RT, the Kremlin's state-sponsored English-language news channel. Even the North Koreans have perversely co-opted Ferguson as a cheap authoritarian talking point and a deflection from some of the most severe human rights abuses on earth. And a suddenly-confident Omar al-Bashir — hardly a household name in the US, compared to Khamenei and Kim Jong-Un — knows to deploy it.

Bashir also gloated about how things are going in his country, proclaiming the war in Darfur finished and along with it the UN's reason for keeping 20,000 peacekeepers in his country: "The area of peace has expanded in Sudan to the extent that there is no need for these forces to stay," Bashir tells Sieff.

Then he made an appalling statement about people displaced during the Darfur fighting, accusing them of fleeing to refugee camps out of sheer laziness: “They would rather stay in these camps than go back and work."

Taken with the rest of the interview, Bashir's Ferguson comment registers as a sign of his almost bottomless cynicism more than a worthwhile comment on human rights. And with the international community helpless to stop atrocities inside Sudan, that cynicism is clearly paying off.

SEE ALSO: This video gives a rare glimpse into both sides of Sudan's civil war

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Alexei Navalny, an activist who led mass protests against Russian government corruption three years ago, has battled a series of fraud charges that critics say are meant to silence him, and he has spent the past ten months under house arrest.

On Tuesday evening, he broke house arrest to lead major new projects against Vladimir Putin's regime.

Navalny was given a suspended sentence on Tuesday morning in an embezzlement case, while his brother Oleg was sentenced to three and half years in prison in the same case. Government critics have claimed that Navelny was kept out of prison for fear of setting off large protests, with his brother punished in his place.

But Putin's biggest critic isn't staying quiet. Upon leaving the court house, he called for Russians to take to the streets to protest the decision.

"The authorities are torturing and destroying relatives of their political opponents. This regime doesn't deserve to exist, it must be destroyed," he told reporters as he was escorted in a car for prisoners.

Not long after, Navalny broke his house arrest to join the opposition rally. Navalny posted a photo of himself on the Moscow metro on Twitter to show that he was joining the protest. The tweet reads, "Yes, there is this house arrest. But today I want to be with you. So I'm coming."

Домашний арест-это да, но сегодня мне очень хочется быть с вами. Поэтому я тоже еду. #Манежкаpic.twitter.com/xkWGX0Hp4F

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) December 30, 2014

Less than forty minutes later, Navalny was arrested by Moscow police, as he and other protesters marched to Manezhnaya Square.  

Навального задержали у Ритц Карлтон pic.twitter.com/7n1x0zWDQo

— Anton Belitskiy (@antonb_ru) December 30, 2014

Approximately 18,000 people registered for the rally on Facebook. It is not yet known how many are actually in attendance, but the crowd shown in photos around Twitter looks sizable. 

AT LEAST 10-15K PEOPLE HERE. CANNOT SEE END OF THE CROWD #moscow#navalnypic.twitter.com/oPUSZ6pBs1

— Ilya Mouzykantskii (@ilyamuz) December 30, 2014

Малая Садовая прямо сейчас pic.twitter.com/LlRJcjMj7s via @paperpaper_ru

— Партия Прогресса СПб (@navalny7) December 30, 2014

As of 7:45pm Moscow time, approximately 22 protesters had been arrested by Russian police, according to OVD.info, a Moscow-based independent human rights monitor.

Navalny was later brought to his home, where soldiers were stationed outside his front door, according to a recent tweet by Navalny. The tweet reads, "At first, they took [me] to the police station, but half-way through received new instructions. took [me] home, not letting [me] out of [my] apartment. Outside of the door are 5 soldiers of the 2nd police special units."

Сначала везли в овд, на полдороги поступили новые указания. Привезли домой, из квартиры не выпускают. Под дверью пять бойцов 2-го оперполка

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) December 30, 2014

The trouble for Navalny began in December 2012 when the Russian federal Investigative Committee accused Navally and his brother Oleg of defrauding the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher, by overcharging them $800,000 for shipping services from a company run by the brothers. Yves Rocher Vostok, the Russian subsidiary that dealt with the Navalny brothers, never reported any problems with the company during their business relationship and only submitted a legal complaint at the urging of the government, according to the New York Times. The complaint was later withdrawn. 

Many outside observers consider the case politically motivated. Germany’s commissioner for human rights, Christoph Straesser told Reuters that the case was “a further blow to critical civil society in Russia.” Others, like Sergei Aleksashenko, an economist-turned opposition figure, were more harsh.

"The authorities could have easily put Navalny in jail. But they understand that it would have led to a large wave of protests. So they will torture him through other means," said Aleksashenko, referring to the imprisonment of his brother Oleg.”

A similarly thin fraud case was levied against Navalny in July 2013, leading to his house arrest in February.

You can see a livestream of the protests here:

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The US military is set replace many of its aircraft with planes that cost substantially more to operate by the hour.

James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, noted in a recent cover story for the magazine that costly military projects of questionable worth are becoming increasingly spread throughout congressional districts across the country. This means that projects such as the astronomically expensive F-35 become too politically sensitive to ever cancel, even if the planes themselves aren't cost-effective once they make it to the air.

The following graphic, courtesy of The Atlantic, highlights the disparity in flight hour costs for various aircraft in the US fleet.

Aside from the Predator drone's Reaper model, the A-10 Thunderbolt II is the cheapest aircraft to operate in terms of both flight hours and individual procurement costs. The A-10's low costs are due to the plane's rugged but functional structural designs.

Built like a flying tank for maximum survivability, the A-10 can be serviced even at remote or less-equipped bases and facilities, since a majority of the aircraft's parts are interchangeable — including the engines. 

The A-10's low price tag and operating costs is antithetical to its proposed replacement, the F-35. Envisioned as a Jack-of-all-trades-type plane capable of a vast range of combat functions, the F-35 embodies the military's drive towards having a single aircraft that can complete the full variety of possible missions.

Ideally, this focus on multi-role aircraft was meant to drive down overall operating costs. The F-35 would eliminate the need for more specialized and harder-to-maintain aircraft. Meanwhile, ta large F-35 fleet size would mean the military would have the expertise and the materials needed to efficiently maintain the aircraft.

Things haven't gone so smoothly. The F-35's per hour flight costs are almost triple those of the A-10. This is partially due to the lack of an efficient supply-chain for the aircraft, something that should be sorted out over the coming years. However, the costs also reflect the generally more expensive maintenance that the F-35 requires due to the aircraft's perhaps overly complicated technology and lacking of interchangeable parts. 

The Air Force has tried repeatedly to eliminate the A-10 for budgetary reasons. However, Congress has consistently moved to intervene on the Warthog's behalf, saving it from the rust heap, at least for now.

NOW WATCH: Mark Cuban: Here's The Hardest Part Of Being A Billionaire

SEE ALSO: Why most troops totally love the A-10 'Warthog'

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If you're looking for a compelling story to start off the new year, why not opt for a true tale?

Amazon recently announced its list of the best history books of 2014, and it's filled with in-depth stories that shaped the United States, from the founding of the first west coast colony in 1810 to what really happened in Benghazi in 2012.

Go ahead — dive headfirst into the past.

1. "Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard: The latest addition to O'Reilly's series of books explaining famous murders explores the death of General George S. Patton, Jr, who died mysteriously shortly after World War II. O'Reilly examines the circumstances around his death, which many suspect wasn't an accident.

2. "The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution" by Walter Isaacson: What makes an entrepreneur disruptive? Where does creativity come from? Isaacson analyzes the personalities throughout history that led the digital revolution, all the way from mathematicians in the 1840s to modern standouts, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. 

3. "In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette" by Hampton Sides: In 1879, the USS Jeanette left San Francisco headed for the unexplored North Pole with captain George Washington de Long at the helm. However, the ship quickly became trapped in ice, forcing the crew to abandon it two years in and continue their treacherous arctic journey on foot. 

4. "Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson" by S. C. Gwynne: This book takes an in-depth look at the life and career of Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate Civil War general who is often considered one of the greatest American military figures of all time. More than just his military accomplishments, Gwynne also dives into Jackson's personal life, explaining his rise to power in the South.  

5. "Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David" by Lawrence Wright: Wright gives a play-by-play account of the 13-day conference at Camp David between President Jimmy Carter, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and Eygptian president Anwar Sadat in 1978. During the meeting, the three leaders created and signed the first peace treaty in the Middle East, which is still in use today.

6. "A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal" by Ben Macintyre and John Le Carre: During the Cold War, Kim Philby rose to prominence in Britain as the head of counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. However, Philby was secretly working for the Soviets, transmitting everything he learned back to Moscow, a secret unbeknownst to even his closest friends.

7. "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China" by Evan Osnos: As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Osnos has a firsthand look at everyday life in China, including political and economic upheaval as the Communist Party struggles to stay in control. In this account, Osnos chronicles the lives of China's everyday citizens through this period of growth and stress.  

8. "Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence" by Karen Armstrong: As worldwide violence mounts and religious self-identification slows in the US, Armstrong examines the links between the two, and the effects violence has had on different faiths over time. 

9. "13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi" by Mitchell Zuckoff and Annex Security Team: On September 11, 2012 a team of six American security operators fought to protect the US State Department Special Mission Compound and a nearby CIA station attacked by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. Though the attack made national headlines, details of the night were fuzzy — until now, as the team tells their story to set the record straight. 

10. "Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II" by Vicki Croke: When Billy Williams moved to colonial Burma in 1920, he almost immediately forged a bond with the elephant population, treating their injuries and teaching them to interact with humans. Eventually, he trained the creatures to operate as "war elephants," carrying supplies and sneaking refugees out of Burma. 

11. "Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War" by Karen Abbott: Abbott tells the true stories of four women who went undercover during the Civil War as spies for the Confederacy. The book also includes 39 photographs and three maps to further illustrate these women's wartime journeys. 

12. "Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival" by Peter Stark: In 1810 — six years after Lewis and Clark started their journey — John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson set out to settle America's first colony on the west coast. Throughout their three-year journey, the explorers faced both adventure and hardship, and eventually established the path that would become the Oregon Trail. 

SEE ALSO: The 20 Most Popular Books Of The Year

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From 1985 to 1987, the spy war between the US and the Soviet Union reached a bizarre fever pitch.

CIA assets inside the KGB were rounded up and executed, and no one could figure out why. A disgruntled ex-CIA agent evaded an FBI surveillance dragnet and fled to Moscow, partly by using a human-sized dummy to throw off his trackers. A US Marine guard fell for a KBG honeypot and allowed a Soviet operative into the American embassy in Moscow. To top it all off, a KBG colonel defected to the US and then re-defected to the Soviets after fleeing his CIA handler while they were eating at a French restaurant in Washington, DC's posh Georgetown neighborhood.

Events that could shift the balance of Cold War were coming hard and fast, and one man was in some way connected to all of them: Aldrich Ames, a CIA veteran currently serving a federal life sentence for espionage.

The hunt for Ames — who was perhaps the most damaging mole in the agency's history — and the events surrounding his betrayal of the United States was the subject of "The Assets," an 8-part miniseries that ran on ABC in early 2014. The show's pilot was the lowest-rated premier for a primetime drama in history. No matter: the whole thing's on Netflix Instant Watch. And if you have any interest in the Cold War, intelligence, or the darker regions of human nature the show belongs on your to-do list.

Plot-wise, "The Assets" is broadly similar to "Zero Dark Thirty." Both are about hard-charging female CIA agents fighting the agency's institutional inertia (and male-dominated hierarchy) while hunting a menacing, arrogant, and almost hopelessly concealed enemy. In "The Assets," that agent is Eastern Europe analyst Sandy Grimes, and the enemy is a suspected CIA mole responsible for exposing as many as 10 high-level assets that the KGB caught and executed in the mid-80s.

Grimes, played by Jodie Whittaker, is one of the few inside of the agency who's convinced of the mole's existence and continues hunting him even after the Soviet Union's fall. She's one of the few in the CIA bold enough to argue that the KGB was playing America's premiere intelligence agency for fools or to grasp the implications of such a breach. Her persistence pays off, but only after the mole hunt becomes a personally all-consuming side-note within the larger, mostly unseen history of the 1980s spy war.

Unlike in "Zero Dark Thirty," we actually meet the target of the hunt. "The Assets" doesn't try to soften Ames, played by Paul Rhys. He's an image of pure venality, in it for money and material advancement, though possibly driven by other, deeper motives that he's too afraid to fully confront. Maybe the most remarkable thing about "The Assets" is that it's able to make an objectively villainous figure complicated and human without using glorification as a crutch. 

It's easy to see why "The Assets" was a ratings bust. There aren't any shootouts and few chase scenes. The tension builds through the endless drudgery of spy work: the meetings and bureaucracy, the boxes of fading documents, the slow-burning suspicions and constantly frayed nerves. In FX's "The Americans," the KGB station in Washington has a frat house vibe to it, while the Russian spies are relatable and even sort of hip. In "The Assets," the KGB offices are austere and menacing places. The men working in them them are hard and unrepentant, but oddly pathetic as well. 

"The Assets" also has none of "The Americans'" appetite for relativism either. Much of the latter show's drama comes through the way in which the value system and internal lives of the FBI agents and the KGB operatives they're hunting begin to closely resemble and even blur into each other.

In "The Assets," the CIA is imperfect and even negligent. But there's no attempt at drawing cheap equivalencies with the KGB. There's no comparing the way Ames is eventually treated with the Soviet agency's brutal and extra-legal methods for weeding out its own traitors. And there's no comparing their essential purposes, either. In "The Assets," the CIA is out to protect the American way of life against a determined enemy — even if it can fall captive to fatal stretches of dysfunction in the process.

That might explain another reason "The Assets" didn't catch on. The show is capable of exposing the sometimes appalling shortcomings of the US intelligence community while also affirming the essential virtue of its mission. After the Snowden disclosures and the CIA torture report, the public discourse has had difficulty holding both of these thoughts simultaneously.

Something as grounded as "The Assets" might have introduced more realism and cognitive dissonance than a popular audience can handle around intelligence-related matters at the moment. At the opposite end of the spectrum from "The Americans" is "Zero Dark Thirty" itself, a film whose narrative was shaped through authorized leaks and consultations with the CIA.

That's why a show like "The Assets" is so important. It uses the intrigue of the late Cold War to strike a middle ground that's vital in the present day.

SEE ALSO: 12 big geopolitical events we think will happen in 2015

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"I reacted automatically the moment I took the hit and saw my wing was gone. I radioed, 'I'm hit,' reached up, and pulled the ejection seat handle. I struck part of the airplane, breaking my left arm, my right arm in three places, and my right knee, and I was briefly knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection."

Writing in 2000 memoir "Faith Of My Fathers," this is how US Senator John McCain describes the moment his Navy A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over Vietnam leading to his capture and nearly 6-year imprisonment. He continues:

"I landed in the middle of the lake (Truc Bach Lake), in the middle of the city, in the middle of the day. An escape attempt would have been challenging."

Wearing approximately 50 pounds of gear and not being able to use either of his broken arms to deploy his life vest, McCain sank to the bottom of the shallow lake. He managed to inflate his life vest by pulling the plastic toggle with his teeth and shot to the surface. Floating in the lake, McCain fell in and out of consciousness until a group of Vietnamese villagers pulled him out of the water.

"Several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me, shouting wildly, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me, kicking and striking me repeatedly. When they had finished removing my gear and clothes, I felt a sharp pain in my right knee. I looked down and saw that my right foot was resting next to my left knee, at a 90-degree angle ... Someone smashed a rifle butt into my shoulder, breaking it. Someone else stuck a bayonet in my ankle and groin."

Before the angry mob could do more harm, Vietnamese soldiers arrived and transported McCain to Hoa Lo, a French-built prison.

"As the massive steel doors loudly clanked shut behind me, I felt a deeper dread than I have ever felt since ... for the next few days I drifted in and out of consciousness. When awake, I was periodically taken to another room for interrogation. "

McCain was accused of being a war criminal and tortured until he shared classified military information in exchange for medical attention. As he refused to reveal more than his name, rank, and date of birth, his condition steadily worsened.

"For four days I was taken back and forth to different rooms. Unable to use my arms, I was fed twice a day by a guard. I vomited after the meals, unable to hold down anything but a little tea. I remember being desperately thirsty all the time, but I could drink only when the guard was present for my twice-daily feedings."

McCain, who was forced to lay in a puddle of his own vomit and other bodily wastes, became feverish and lost consciousness frequently and for longer periods of time. 

One day the camp officer, who the POWs called Bug and who McCain referred to as "a mean son of b----," entered his filthy cell to examine his injuries.

"Are you going to take me to the hospital? I asked.

"No," he replied. "It's too late."

"Take me to the hospital and I'll get well."

"It's too late," he repeated.

Hopeless, McCain assumed we would die and began mentally prepping himself of his approaching death; but a few hours later, Bug rushed into his cell and shouted: "Your father is a big admiral. Now we take you to the hospital."

"A couple of days later I found myself lying in a filthy room about twenty by twenty feet, lousy with mosquitoes and rats. Every time it rained, an inch of mud and water would pool on the floor ... I recieved no treatment for my injuries. No one even bothered to wash the grime off me."

Meanwhile, McCain's interrogators continued to pressure him for more information and threatened to terminate his medical treatment if he did not cooperate.

"I gave them the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed."

Since McCain could not feed himself, a young boy was assigned to feeding him. The boy forced three spoonfuls of food down McCain's throat twice a day. There were usually leftovers, which the boy helped himself to in front of McCain.

Two months into his captivity, McCain underwent an operation on his leg.

"The Vietnamese filmed the operation, I haven't a clue why. Regrettably, the operation wasn't much of a success. The doctors severed all the ligaments on one side of my knee, which has never fully recovered."

Shortly after his surgery, McCain was moved into a cell with two other American Air Force POWs. They took care of each other and McCain notes that his condition improved.

The darkest moments of his capture occur when guards place him in solitary.

"It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment."

A year later, several guards brought a resistant McCain to the camp commander in order to formally charge him of his war crimes.

"Knowing that I was in serious trouble and that nothing I did or said would make matters any worse, I replied: 'F--- you.'"

McCain was beat up, tied up for a night, and then dragged to an empty room for 4 days.

"At two-to-three intervals, the guards returned to administer beatings ... still I felt they were being careful not to kill or permanently injure me."

The worst beating came on the third night.

"I lay in my own blood and waste, so tired and hurt that I could not move...he slammed his fist into my face and knocked me across the room towards the waste bucket. I fell on the bucket, hitting it with my left arm, and breaking it again. They left me lying on the floor, moaning from the stabbing pain in my refractured arm."

It was after this night, that McCain tried to commit suicide twice. He was stopped by the guards and recieved more beatings. Shortly after, he confessed to whatever war crimes he was accused of and was left alone in his cell for 2 weeks.

"They were the worst two weeks of my life ... I was ashamed ... I shook, as if my disgrace were a fever."

This was 2 years into McCain's almost 6 year imprisonment. He was released as a POW in March of 1973.

These book excerpts are from John McCain's memoir "Faith Of My Fathers." 

SEE ALSO: John McCain: The Brutal CIA Interrogations 'Stained Our National Honor'

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Operation Enduring Freedom, the US's over-13-year-old campaign in Afghanistan, ended this week.

The next chapter in Afghanistan's modern history — one that's left all but the most remote corners of the country impacted by decades of conflict — is about to begin.

The country remains deeply troubled, with a resurgent Taliban, a highly suspect military, and an economy where the opium industry remains the largest single employer. But before the US invasion, before the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and before the country's Marxist experiment, Afghanistan used to be a far different place.

An astonishing collection of photos from the country's pre-conflict period in the 1960s came to light in early 2013.

In the 60s, amateur photographer and college professor Dr. William Podlich took a leave of absence from his job at Arizona State University to work with UNESCO in the Afghan capital of Kabul, bringing his wife and daughters with him.

Later, his son-in-law Clayton Esterson found the late doctor's photos and put them on the web. The response was amazing.

Esterson told the Denver Post: “Many Afghans have written comments [on our website] showing their appreciation for the photographs that show what their country was like before 33 years of war. This makes the effort to digitize and restore these photographs worthwhile.”

An earlier version of this article was produced by Geoffrey Ingersoll.

On the left is a picture showing the photographer's daughter in a pleasant park. On the right is that same park 40 years later.

In the 60s, this blonde attracted looks in a still very conservative Afghanistan.

But many people also wore nice western clothes in the 60s, too.

This was a tumultuous year. From revolution and war in Ukraine, Syria, and Israel to social unrest across the US and the Ebola outbreak in Africa, 2014 was anything but quiet. 

And, as the old adage goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

We compiled the most unforgettable images from the past 12 months, captured by photographers from around the world.

Beginning in November 2013, Ukrainians protested the government's decision to distance itself economically from Europe in a movement that became known as EuroMaidan. The protests exploded into violence and burning tires in January after anti-protest laws went into effect. Here, protesters took cover from water sprayed by a fire engine on Jan. 23.

The anti-protest laws banned "face concealments." Protesters, like this one, deliberately disobeyed the law by wearing gas masks.

The Tower of David in Caracas, Venezuela, is the tallest slum in the world. In February, Reuters photographer Jorge Silva went there to capture what life was actually like for those living there. Here, men rested after salvaging metal on the 30th floor.

When I hauled myself aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Barry, one of the first things I was shown was the ship's 5-inch, 127mm gun.

"This is how the Barry pays its bills," the ensign showing me around said.

What she meant was that even though the Barry carries an array of missiles including Tomahawks, SM-2s, and SM-3s, among others, the 5-inch is the weapon of choice when engaging any surface, air, or shore targets.

Loaded with an assortment of devastating rounds the gun can pound out its 20-projectile magazine in about a minute while maintaining pinpoint accuracy through computerized targeting.

The crew of the USS Barry allowed me to poke around into all aspects of the 5-inch weapon, allowing me to explore deep in the ship's magazine, as well as the firing room.

What goes into making this gun so devastating may surprise you.

This post was originally reported, written, and produced by Robert Johnson

The 5-Inch Light Weight Gun Mount is the Navy's main anti-surface gun.

The 5-inch is more economical than a guided missile and extremely accurate up to about 15 miles away.

In a time of conflict the order to fire the gun comes from here: the bridge of the USS Barry. But getting the weapon to fire and making sure it hits the target requires coordination among people all over the ship.

The US military released two new videos of airstrikes against the jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) on Monday.

The strikes targeted four ISIS warehouses near the city of Fallujah in central Iraq, US Military Central Command announced Wednesday in a press release.

"The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the terrorist group ISIL and the threat they pose to Iraq, the region and the wider international community," CENTCOM said.

The US military said the strikes further limit "the terrorist group's ability to project power and conduct operations."

View the two videos below.

"Airstrike against three ISIL warehouses, Dec. 29, near Fallujah, Iraq."

"Airstrike against an ISIL warehouse, Dec. 29, near Fallujah, Iraq."

SEE ALSO: The US military just released videos of airstrikes blowing up ISIS warehouses in Iraq

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In San Pedro Sula, Honduras last year, 187 were murdered for every 100,000 people. That tragic statistic makes the city the most violent in the world.

The statistic is even more startling when you compare it to Detroit, Michigan, the most dangerous city in the US, which had roughly 48 homicides per 100,000 people last year. 

Gangs, drugs, and poverty plague every day in the South American city of San Pedro Sula. These images show how brutal life there can be.

Drugs have wreaked havoc on Honduras, especially San Pedro Sula. Below, members of Honduras' military police arrange almost 900 pounds of cocaine seized in a container carrying soft drinks coming from Costa Rica in July 2014.

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Roughly 15% of US-bound cocaine lands in Honduras at some point.

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

More than half of all cocaine seizures in Central America occur in El Salvador and Honduras, and Honduras' numbers more than tripled between 2010 and 2011. In 2011, San Pedro Sula police discovered the first Mexican-run cocaine lab, shown below, ever found in Central America.

Source: PolicyMic, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime