Counter-terrorism experts say that the two terror attacks in Volgograd, Russia on Sunday, 28 December and Monday, 29 December, are probes by terrorists in advance of larger attacks against the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Especially worrisome to Russian security services is the growing reliance by terrorist organizations on Russian Muslims, or Slavs who converted to Islam, to carry out suicide attacks, as they can move about in many parts of Russia without drawing attention.

A judge in Dublin has ordered Adam Busby, founder of the of the Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA) – members of the SNLA are also known as the “Tartan terrorists” – extradited to Scotland for threatening to poison former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot, and contaminate the water supplies of English cities. Busby, who has been living in Ireland since 1980, argues that forcing him to stand trial in Scotland would constitute “abuse” because he would likely face a much higher penalty if tried in a U.K. court than if he were prosecuted in Ireland. He has now appealed to Ireland’s Supreme Court against the extradition.

Preoccupation with hypothetical bioterrorism attacks is leaving America more vulnerable to the threat of natural spread of deadly viruses. Since the 9/11 attacks, the federal government has poured billions of dollars to prevent and monitor threats of bioterrorism, yet the United States was ill-prepared for the swine flu outbreak of 2009. Experts say it is time to rebalance public health priorities so that preparations for the real threat of the outbreak of infectious diseases will not take a back seat to preparations for the more remote threat of bioterrorism.

Since last year, when they had to flee the intensifying violence across the Central African Republic, farming communities had to abandon their fields along the main roads to replant deep in the bush. This disruption led them to produce much less than in previous years, with a major impact on their food reserves, which will last till February instead of July. The success of the next planting season crucially hinges on the return of farming families to the fields. Families who are unable to plant in March will have to wait one whole year before they can hope to harvest again. Failure to plant in March will have dire consequences for the food security of the Central African Republic’s population.

In yet another sign of Hezbollah’s weakening position in Lebanon, a powerful car bomb exploded yesterday near the organization’s political headquarters in the Haret Hreik district of the suburb of Dahiyeh, the well-guarded Shi’a section in southern Beirut. The attack, which killed five and injured dozens, is the fifth such attack since July. Analysts say that the May decision by Hezbollah to send thousands of its fighters to Syria to fight against the Syrian rebels in order to save the Assad regime fatally undermined Hezbollah in Lebanon, proving its critics’ claims that Hezbollah was not much more than an instrument of Iran’s foreign policy, and that it was more loyal to its Shi’a identity than Lebanese interests. Hezbollah’s decision emboldened its Lebanese opponents, and convinced Saudi Arabia to throw its considerable weight behind the Lebanese forces determined to take Hezbollah down.

Jamal al-Jamal, the Palestinian ambassador to the Czech Republic, was killed yesterday in a blast at his home in Suchdol, an upscale suburb north of Prague. The blast is believed to have been caused by explosives stored in a safe. When he opened the safe, the explosives went off. Riad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said that the safe had not been opened in at least thirty years. The ambassador moved to the new building in October, and workers moved the safe, unopened, from the old offices of the Prague Palestinian mission to the new one at that time.

Nigeria has a problem: in the face of growing military campaign by the federal government against Islamist insurgents n three states in north-east Nigeria, some of the insurgents have found it safer to relocate to neighboring Cameroon. They launch their attacks against targets in north-east Nigeria – then retreat to the safety of Cameroon, where they know the Nigerian military will not pursue them. Nigeria wants Cameroon to take a more active role in preventing Islamist insurgents from using Cameroon’s territory as a safe haven.

A team of Russian physicians and scientists investigating the 11 November 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has concluded that his death was not caused by radiation poisoning. The conclusions of the Russian team are a blow to the Palestinian leadership, which, since 2004, has accused Israel of being behind Arafat’s death. The Russian team’s findings follow the findings of two other scientific investigative teams: a Swiss medical team, funded by Arafat’s widow, concluded that the radiation poisoning of Arafat could not be ruled out. The French scientific team, appointed by a French judge, concluded that the levels of polonium-210 in Arafat’s personal effects, and the complete absence of the radioactive isotope in his body tissues, made it impossible for Arafat to have been poisoned by polonium. The Russian team, hired by the Palestinian authority, reached the same conclusion the French team did. “It was a natural death; there was no impact of radiation,” Vladimir Uiba, the head of the Russian Federal Medical and Biological Agency, said.

A student detained at Philadelphia International airport over his Arabic flashcards cannot sue the individual TSA and FBI agents who held him in custody, an appeals court has ruled. The student, double-majoring in physics and Middle Eastern studies, carried Arabic-English flashcards in his backpack. Most of the cards carried everyday words such as “nice”, “sad,” and “friendly.” Some of the cards, however, included words like “bomb,” “terrorist,” and “explosion.” Chief Judge Theodore McKee of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia noted that the student clearly had the right to have the materials, but “it is simply not reasonable to require TSA officials to turn a blind eye to someone trying to board an airplane carrying Arabic-English flashcards with words such as ‘bomb,’ ‘to kill,’ etc.” He added: “Rather, basic common sense would allow those officials to take reasonable and minimally intrusive steps to inquire into the potential passenger’s motivations.”