W.H.O.’S PERKS?: Bureaucrats at the cash-strapped World Health Organization (WHO) fly business class and stay in five-star hotels.

Since 2013, WHO has paid out $803 million for travel. WHO’s approximately $2 billion annual budget is drawn from the taxpayer-funded contributions of its 194 member countries, with the United States the largest contributor.

After he was elected, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted: “The UN has such great potential,” but had become “just a club for people to get together, talk, and have a good time. So sad!”

More:

…Other international aid agencies, including Doctors Without Borders, explicitly forbid their staff from traveling in business class – even having the charity’s president fly in economy class, a spokeswoman said. With a staff of about 37,000 aid workers versus WHO’s 7,000 staffers, Doctors Without Borders spends about $43 million on travel a year.

F-35s TRAINING IN EUROPE: Nice photo of six F-35s in formation — snapped from above the clouds.

THE BATTLE AGAINST ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT INFECTIONS: Some plants and creatures tolerate infections better than others. Some human beings tolerate infections better than others. Biologists David Schneider and Janelle Ayres thought understanding “toleration” could lead to new ways of stopping infections.

…the idea immediately caught the eye of one of the nation’s most renowned and creative immunologists: Ruslan Medzhitov, who has scooped up nearly every recent major prize for biology and who many think was unfairly overlooked for the 2011 Nobel Prize for his co-discovery of Toll-like receptors, pattern recognition molecules key to the immune system.

Medzhitov had been frustrated for years by a finding he could not explain. In experiment after experiment, he noted that infected animals differed wildly in their survival rates — and it didn’t seem to matter how many pathogens or disease-causing microbes they carried. If killing microbes was all that mattered, he said, this differential survival of infected animals made no sense at all.

“All the standard thinking about how the immune system works,” he said, “was clearly inefficient.”

So when he first read papers by Ayres and Schneider — and work by Andrew Read and Lars Raberg at Penn State — he became convinced that tolerance was the key issue immunologists had long overlooked.

“I was immediately hooked on the idea,” he said. “It sounded so logical and biologically satisfying.”

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…a 19th-century paper on plants that remained healthy despite being infected with leaf rust that helped inform Ayre’s thinking on tolerance. “It had never been looked at in animals, never described in animals,” she said, speaking with her characteristic rapid-fire enthusiasm. “That’s why you should always read papers outside your bubble.”

(She’s also fascinated with Typhoid Mary, the chef who sickened dozens and killed three in the early 1900s in New York, but somehow tolerated her own infection.)

Someone tell Glenn that perhaps things are moving faster.

HARD PROOF THAT CHINESE COMPANIES ASSISTED NORTH KOREA’S BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM: In February 2016 North Korea conducted a missile test. The missile malfunctioned and South Korea recovered pieces of the missile. Then the detective work began.

A team of UN technical experts and sanctions investigators issued a report in early 2017 agreeing with South Korean allegations that North Korea was not only obtaining key components and manufacturing equipment via China but also prohibited raw materials and cooperation from Chinese banks and companies to pay suppliers and hide these activities from outside scrutiny. The Chinese government still denies knowledge of these activities but the latest evidence was so detailed and well documented that China did admit it must be acted on.

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The Chinese government was forced to admit that certain Chinese firms were defying Chinese sanctions and smuggling the technology and some of the needed software and raw materials to North Korea.

Read the whole thing.

LET THEM EAT NUKES?: Ten million people are starving in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea.

WAR AND EXTORTION IN THE GRAY ZONE: My latest Creators Syndicate column.

U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTOGRAPHERS STRIKE AGAIN: This time it’s The Bomber Show. The new photo was snapped on May 6 — the bombers were participating in a fly-by honoring the 8th Air Force. Indeed, it’s literally another angle on that great USAF publicity photo, Bomber Trifecta. As the caption says, in August 2016 Global Strike Command conducted “integrated operations in the U.S. Pacific Command area of operations.” The senior airman who took the photo was documenting “integrated operations” — for the benefit of Kim Jong Un.

BACKGROUND: Beefing up the 8th Air Force.

GREEKS DEMAND END TO AUSTERITY: Well, austerity can end when Greece pays its debts.

Thousands of Greeks walked off their jobs on Wednesday and marched through central Athens in an angry protest against continued austerity measures being demanded by international lenders in exchange for disbursing bailout funds.

There were isolated clashes with police, but the demonstration was generally peaceful.

The strike was called by the country’s main public and private sector unions a day before Greece’s parliament is due to vote on reforms that would help unlock the funds from the 86-billion-euro bailout, the country’s third in seven years.

New austerity attached to the funds release include the 13th cut in pensions since 2010 and a reduction in tax-free allowances on income. They come after years of cuts that for a time threw the country into deep recession.

Unemployment is running at close to one in four and there is a 48 percent jobless rates among the youth.

The phrase “public sector unions” keeps cropping up in these disasters.

RELATED: Old but relevant.

VIETNAM-ERA RECON DRONE: A Teledyne Ryan AQM-34L Firebee. Nice photo.

SERIOUS DIGITAL SABOTAGE: The head of Holland’s AIVD intelligence service issues yet another warning.

Bertholee highlighted how in 2012 the computers at Saudi Arabia’s largest oil company came under brief attack, or how three years later Ukrainian electricity companies were hacked causing a massive blackout lasting several hours.

The world’s infrastructure was heavily interconnected, which had huge benefits, but also “vulnerabilities”.

“Imagine what would happen if the entire banking system were sabotaged for a day, two days, for a week,” he asked.

“Or if there was a breakdown in our transportation network. Or if air traffic controllers faced cyberattacks while directing flights. The consequences could be catastrophic.”

Added Bertholee: “Sabotage on one of these sectors could have major public repercussions, causing unrest, chaos and disorder.”

In 1994 I heard a U.S. Navy captain who was a computer systems expert describe how someone might attack an electrical grid. So the threat isn’t new. But it has evolved.

UPGRADING STRYKERS: The Pentagon continues to upgrade the U.S. Army Stryker armored personnel carrier. Good to see its upgrading to 30 mm cannons.

Survivability is an immediate concern of the Army’s Stryker program office, with officials worried that Russian vehicles pose too much of a threat. The service has obtained funding for larger 30mm cannons for the 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s Stryker fleet, and it plans to spend $300 million for eight prototypes and upgrades to 83 production vehicles, plus spares.

RELATED: Strykers are already tough vehicles. This one survived the blast of a 500 pound bomb hidden in a car along a road in Iraq. look at the photo then read the caption. Here’s a photo of a Stryker on a training exercise in Europe.

HOSTILE HOSTEL IN BERLIN: North Korea’s embassy in Germany rents out space to a money-making hostel. The German government says it is a North Korean business subject to economic sanctions and is shutting it down.

The move is in line with UN sanctions aimed at curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons capability.

German media say City Hostel Berlin is run by a Turkish hotelier who pays more than €38,000 (£32,000; $41,000) a month in rent to North Korea.

The embassy also derives income from a conference hall at the site.

SOLVE THE PUZZLE, BECOME A SPY: Apparently this recruiting tool works.

WAS FORMER KGB COLONEL VLADIMIR PUTIN A VICTIM OF KGB PROPAGANDA?: No, that isn’t the title, but it could be. The BBC is reviewing a 1973 Soviet television series about a Russian “James Bond” operating in Nazi Germany during WW2.

Westerners were growing up on the films of James Bond, Soviet citizens had their own favourite spy, a wartime agent who went under the name of Max Otto von Stierlitz. And it could easily have been Stierlitz who prompted Vladimir Putin to join the KGB, writes Dina Newman.

The USSR’s answer to James Bond was a very different kind of spy. He had no time for women or gadgets. His life was devoted entirely to his work in Berlin in World War Two, where, under cover, he infiltrated the German high command.

Stierlitz was the hero of a 12-part series, Seventeen Moments of Spring, screened on Soviet TV every year around 9 May – the date the USSR marked as the end of World War Two.

More:

Apart from being a gripping drama, it has a perfect Cold War plotline, with Stierlitz disrupting secret peace negotiations between the Nazis and the Americans in 1945. But the film also had another hidden purpose.

“The film showed the importance of secret agents, who are highly respected people in our country. It instilled patriotism in the post-war generation,” says Shashkova.

In fact, it was commissioned by Yuri Andropov – then head of the KGB, later the country’s leader – as part of a PR campaign designed to attract young, educated recruits.

Vladimir Putin has never said whether or not it was Stierlitz who inspired him to become a spy. But he was 21 when the film was first screened, and he joined the KGB two years later.

As for me, I prefer The Americans, since that series portrays the KGB as the reprehensibly evil force it was. Does anyone out there know precisely how many people Elizabeth and Philip have killed since Season One, Episode One?

THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: According to Loren Thompson it’s about one percent of the U.S. GDP.

…most of the defense budget is not spent on weapons, it is spent on items like military pay and benefits, training, maintenance and the like. The amount of money set aside for developing and procuring military equipment in the budget agreement Congress reached last week is $197 billion — a third of the $593 billion defense budget, and barely 1% of GDP (which stands at $19 trillion).

THE PENTAGON’S AIR AND SEA LIFT DEFICIT: My latest Creators Syndicate column.

BELL XP-59A AIRACOMET: The WW2 U.S. jet prototype first flew in 1942. This is a color photo. The terrain certainly looks like southern California.(From StrategyPage’s WW2-era aircraft photo series.)

PORN FOR THOSE OBSESSED WITH GRUESOME VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF GOD: A look at the Islamic State’s publication, Rumiyah.

Each issue contains seemingly practical advice on how to obtain weapons (particularly firearms and explosives) in various Western countries. Some of this advice is fatally flawed and apparently not based on experience (other than some novel or video). The techniques for carrying out attacks, whether with vehicles, knives, bombs or firearms are all based on attacks that have already occurred are often featured. In short, it’s sort of porn for those obsessed with gruesome violence in the name of God (or Allah or whatever). Police often find copies of Rumiyah on computers or smart phones owned by actual or potential ISIL terrorists in the West. It is unclear if the information contained in Rumiyah played a major role in the number and conduct of recent lone wolf attacks in the West because a lot of the attack methods have been known for years but only recently popularized by ISIL.

The post also discusses other Islamic State information operations.

LESS RESPECT FOR THE FAT BOY IN PYONGYANG: If the UPI report is accurate, this is a most welcome trend!

Ordinary North Koreans are less careful about addressing Kim Jong Un in respectful terms, and in some cases, showing esteem for the leader invites public ridicule, sources in the country say.

A source in North Hamgyong Province told Radio Free Asia the trend dates back to the era of Kim Jong Il, who ruled the country between 1994 and 2011.

“Even when Kim Jong Il was alive, there was a gradual shift to no longer addressing the leader in honorifics,” the source said. “It was only until we entered the Kim Jong Un era the trend has come out in the open.”

Less respect, however, has strict limits:

But after the execution of Kim’s uncle-in-law Jang Song Thaek, illusions of a better future crumbled.

“There are always state agents among the closest of friends and neighbors,” the source said. “But no one has yet to be punished for not addressing Kim Jong Un in honorifics, so the system of idolization seems to be collapsing.”

AN F-35 REFUELS ENROUTE TO ESTONIA: Why the show of force? Well, Ukraine continues to simmer. In April Estonians said NATO’s buildup reassured them. Here are the latest ceasefire violations in Ukraine as reported by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM). As for DPR and LPR in the linked report, they are the Russian-backed rebel statelets in Ukraine, the Donetsk Peoples Republic and the Luhansk Peoples Republic.

PLANE CORRECTED: The caption says “F-35 Lightning II.” Everyone should read the caption.

DARK STARS: Ethan Siegel speculates on the appearance of “black dwarf” stars.

…by time the first black dwarf comes to be, our local group will have merged into a single galaxy (Milkdromeda), most of the stars that will ever live will have long since burned out, with the surviving ones being exclusively the lowest-mass, reddest and dimmest stars of all. And beyond that? Only darkness, as dark energy will have long since pushed away all the other galaxies, making them unreachable and practically unmeasureable by any physical means.

PLAYING CATCH UP: With StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft series (really a WW2-era series).

The Brits great workhorse bomber: The Avro Lancaster. As the caption notes, it tended to work at night.

Fighter conveyor: Post-WW2 actually, though the B-36 was developed during the war. I recall seeing this photo or a similar one when I was a kid in the late 1950s. I was amazed. A B-36 rigged to carry an F-84 jet in the bomb bay. Note the F-84 model in the photo is an RF-84F, meaning it’s the recon variant. (A Thunderflash, according to the wikipedia entry.) Ostensibly the strategic bomber would haul the jet close to the recon target area and release it. The jet would dash over the target, take photos, then have the fuel to make it back to base.

Th F-84 was an interim jet design and a poor one in comparison to other early jets. However, this late WW2 British jet design rates among the best of its era: The Canberra, typed in the U.S. as the B-57.

The B-52 exemplifies longevity, but so does the Canberra. I understand two or three RB-57s are still used for high altitude research. In fact, in 2014 StrategyPage reported one of NASA’s RB-57Fs was spotted at the France-U.S. airbase in Djibouti. As the post notes, Britain retired its last operational Canberra in 2006. FWIW, I saw an Afghanistan air force Canberra fly over Kabul in 2005 and do a couple of tricky turns before landing. A career USAF friend of mine flew the RB-57 version in the 1970s and early 1980s. (The recon variant has extended wings.) He told me he flew several 12-hour-plus missions in the western Pacific. His aircraft carried various recon packages; on some missions it carried a suite of radiation “sniffer” sensors. He confirmed most of the western Pacific missions took him up to 70,000 feet (another datum in the StrategyPage post). I’ve encountered military forums where folks debate the “Ten Greatest Bombers Of All Time” and the like. The Canberra has fans, for good reason.

CLARIFICATION: Meant to say the Canberra had roots in WW2 British jet bomber designs. As the wiki points out, the requirement was issued in 1944.

JAPANESE ISLAND WARGAMES: A report on on a war game examining Senkaku Island scenarios involving incidents which bring Japan and China into direct conflict.

James Kendall, a fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer, directed the event and said it provided some valuable insights.

“A U.S. team that was very experienced — very senior, and very used to dealing with Japan and Asia — they did not understand the depth of Japanese restrictions and concerns about using the Self Defense Force,” Kendall said. “The controllers were surprised at how determined the Japanese side was to keep the SDF out of the situation. For the China team side, this caused a great deal of mistrust … So, this was a very good lesson … But this is mirrored in reality.”

Well worth reading.

MY HUSBAND WOULD HAVE DIED WITH OBAMA CARE: A woman compares ObamaCare denials and deceits to what the private insurance market provided for her husband.

MUSTANG AND RAPTOR IN FORMATION: A photo snapped on April 22, 2017 shows a WW2 P-51 Mustang flying in formation with an F-22 Raptor. Note the P-51 bears the name “Tuskegee Airmen.” Per Wikipedia: “The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces.” The 332nd Fighter Group was ultimately equipped with P-51s. The Mustang in the photo sports a red tail and red nose associated with 332nd aircraft.

OUCH: Link fixed!