Evidence suggests that weaponry, supplied by Qatar to insurgents in Syria, have ended up in the hands of ISIL Takfiri militants. ● Image grabs from video footage have surfaced, showing a militant with a Chinese FN-6 man-portable air-defense system and what appears to be an Mi-17 Iraqi helicopter. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense has confirmed that an Mi-35m was shot down near Baiji in the Salah-al-Din province on October 3. The Qatar government supplied two shipments of Chinese-made FN-6 to militants in Syria. The Persian Gulf monarchy has also been accused of sponsoring the ISIL terrorist group. A 2013 New York Times article wrote, “At least several dozens (and perhaps many more) portable anti-aircraft missiles are known to have found their way to rebel possession….” It added, “This includes batches provided through Qatar’s shadowy arms-trafficking network….” The ISIL militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer, after capturing large swathes of territory in neighboring Syria.

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Human rights activists from Pakistan and India, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, have named as the joint winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. ● They earned the award by “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the award’s committee said in a statement. "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," said Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. ● Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head two years ago by the Taliban when she was on her way to school. She was targeted for being an active campaigner for girls’ rights to education, which the Taliban opposes. Malala survived the attack, and underwent treatment in the UK. She has continued her fight for human rights from there, as she is unable to return to Pakistan, facing death threats from the Taliban. ● Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, reacted to the award by describing Malala as the “pride of Pakistan.” Yousafzai becomes the youngest Nobel Prize winner, bypassing Australian-born British scientist Lawrence Bragg, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics at the age of 25. ● 60-year-old Kailash Satyarthi, the other joint winner of the Peace Prize, is an Indian children's rights advocate. He has actively campaigned against the use of child labor and in 1998 initiated an annual global march against the practice. The Nobel Committee has praised Satyarthi for “maintaining Gandhi’s tradition” in his human rights campaigning. "It's an honor to all those children still suffering in slavery, bonded labor and trafficking," Satyarthi told CNN-IBN TV after he learned of the award, Reuters reported. ● Malala and Satyarthi will receive the prize, worth about $1.1 million, at a December 10 ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

PressTV: Pakistan's Malala, India's Satyarthi jointly win Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Institute: Announcement: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2014

India and Pakistan have exchanged bellicose warnings over what are being described as the most serious border skirmishes in more than a decade. ● Adopting rhetoric similar to that Israel routinely employs before launching some new aggression, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley declared Thursday that India is “a responsible state,” and “never an aggressor.” Then, invoking the “paramount duty of defending” the Indian people and its territory, Jaitley vowed that, “if Pakistan persists with this adventurism, our forces will continue to fight” and “make the cost of this adventurism unaffordable.” New Delhi is refusing to have any talks with Pakistan until it is satisfied that all cross-border firing has ended. This includes, at least for the moment, ruling out “flag talks” between frontline military officers. Such talks have been commonly employed to reduce border tensions between the two nuclear-armed states.

Worldcrunch reports a historic change in Palitana, an Indian city, which has become the first all-vegetarian city in the world. ● Behind this revolutionary change are the Jain monks who went on a hunger strike to pressure the state of Gujarat to outlaw animal slaughter in their city. The hunger strike was successful and the Gujarat government imposed a ban on animal slaughter and outlawed the sale of meat and eggs. About 5 million people in India practice Jainism and agree with the ban. Virat Sagar Maharaj, a Jain monk, says, "Everyone in this world - whether animal or human being or a very small creature - has all been given the right to live by God."

Sea ice surrounding Antarctica has reached a new record high. Nasa says it now covers more of the southern oceans than it has since scientists began a long-term satellite record to map sea ice extent in the late 1970s. They say that even though Antarctic sea ice has been increasing, 'the planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming.' The upward trend in the Antarctic, however, is only about a third of the magnitude of the rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. The new Antarctic sea ice record reflects the diversity and complexity of Earth's environments, said NASA researchers.