Most military observers and very senior American army generals believe that the Russian army reached a culminating point. A significant aspect of that is the losses that they've sustained.

Michael Ryan

The difficulty we collectively face at the moment is just when we need that unlimited and unfettered access to communities we have lost that access in key areas, this is a very dangerous and alarming development.

Certainly I don't believe we are going to see an explosive transmission of Ebola just because of this incident, what I am highlighting is the fact that we are so close to finishing, that if we lose this opportunity we are going to be dealing with that reality for months to come.

That one case has generated over 360 contacts - which is a large number of contacts for any case. We know that person was highly infectious at the moment of death. That is why we are so concerned.

So we don't believe we are dealing with a catastrophic situation, the numbers are extremely low compared to before, but we don't fully understand the dynamics of transmission in the Biakoto mine area.

The challenge is this case has no apparent epidemiologic links to other cases or no recent travel outside or visitors from outside, we obviously need to ensure that we haven't had another spillover from the forest or from a zoonotic or animal source. That is currently under investigation and there is further testing going on and genetic sequencing.

Over the last couple of weeks we have seen worrying extensions of the disease...we have had a cluster of cases in Mwenga, to the south of Bukavu, we have a case in Pinga - which is very difficult and inaccessible area to the northeast of Goma.

We haven't seen secondary transmission in Goma - and it represents a huge credit to the teams on the ground in a city the size of Goma that we are approaching the end of the observation period for all of the contacts with no evidence of further transmission within the metropolitan area.

There are negative social media campaigns, people who have tried to convince populations that the vaccine is used to infect you and the therapeutics are used to finish you off.

Since January, we've experienced 119 separate attacks, 42 of which have been directly on health facilities, with 85 health personnel either injured or killed in those settings, we are anticipating a scenario of continued intense transmission.

That's despite having spent over $ 35 million of our contingency fund since the beginning of the year.

We currently have enough vaccine supplies for our current strateg... by Michael Ryan

We currently have enough vaccine supplies for our current strategy.

We would not plan to use that second vaccine in the epicenter. by Michael Ryan

We would not plan to use that second vaccine in the epicenter.

We have plans in place for extending that to all of the at-risk zones and we are still negotiating with health authorities in the north of the country, in Sanaa, in order to plan those campaigns, as of yet we don't have established dates for those campaigns, but we are ready to move... just as soon as we get those necessary approvals.

Cholera is still present and this is the classic situation where we've had a first big wave last year, and we fully expect another wave this year. That wave could be as large or potentially even larger.

At the end of the day, they do the same thing, they drive people from point A to point B, it’s just the method by which one acquires the ride that differentiates them.

I think it will be a busy year for everyone in the industry, i expect to see a lot of restructuring and cost cutting work, debt for equity transactions, restructuring balance sheet type transactions, sales of assets, divestiture of non-key assets to further shore up (distressed miners') balance sheets.

It’s a balancing act for Turkey, the Turks see themselves as the masters of the Black Sea region. They’ve never been very comfortable with the Russian build-up of military equipment in Crimea. It definitely threatens Turkish interests.

They were out in the field for a very long time. It seems most of them didn't know they were going to war. And they certainly didn't expect to be going into that type of battle that they've gone into. They weren't well prepared for it. They're not executing well, and they're not well supplied.

Ukrainians are being very, very savvy about how they attack the Russian army, the vehicles they've destroyed and the people that they've killed. You see the number of colonels killed, it has been significant. They're really creating chaos and confusion inside the Russian army, which means the numbers are even more important than they seem because of the specific targets the Ukrainians have been selecting.

In any event, [Russian losses are] significant from the standpoint of their ability to achieve their aims, it also has a significant impact on morale, and I think the Russian military started with very low morale at this operation.