The semester, and then i evaluate them. Sreenivasan and its friday. Mark shields and david brooks are here to analyze the weeks news. Those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Ive been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. The ones getting involved, staying engaged. They are not afraid to question the path theyre on. Because the one question they never want to ask is, how did i end up here . I started schwab with those people. People who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Sreenivasan rebels in ukraine consolidated a new conquest today. At the same time, russian president Vladimir Putin remained defiant amid charges and countercharges over russias role in the rebel offensive. The Border Crossing between novoazovsk, ukraine, and russia was quiet today. Its now under the control of prorussian separatists. In the past 72 hours, the port town has become a new front in the ongoing war for control of Eastern Ukraine. The rebels claim no russians are helping them, despite ukrainian claims that Russian Troops have invaded. translated it is the ukrainian authorities fighting against their own people. They are killing their own civilians. There are no russians here, there is no russian equipment coming through here. We are fighting with the machinery they themselves abandon. They just dump them and flee. Sreenivasan nato had said satellite images proved russia has 1,000 soldiers and heavy weaponry inside ukraine, but today russias foreign minister rejected the allegations. translated its not the first time that we hear all sorts of conjecture, and not once have any facts been presented to us. There have been reports that there are photographs from space showing movements of Russian Troops, but as it turned out it was Computer Games and the images were taken from there. Sreenivasan that drew a sharp response from natos secretary general, anders fogh rasmussen, in brussels. This is a blatant violation of ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. It defies all diplomatic efforts for a peaceful solution. Sreenivasan ukraine is not a member of nato, but many of the countries it borders are. Now, the ukrainian Prime Minister says his government wants to join them. translated the government of ukraine will bring before parliament a law to scrap the nonaligned status of the ukrainian state and establish a course towards membership of nato. Sreenivasan back in russia, at a youth camp, president Vladimir Putin warned, its best not to mess with us, and he ratcheted up his rhetoric against ukraine. translated both small villages and large cities are surrounded by the ukrainian army, which is directly hitting residential areas with the aim you know, it sadly reminds me of the events of the Second World War when german nazis, the german fascist army, surrounded our cities, like leningrad. Sreenivasan meanwhile, Foreign Ministers from the European Union met in milan, italy, amid calls for new sanctions against russia. And the human toll kept growing. The United Nations reported nearly 2,600 people have been killed in Eastern Ukraine through august 27. Leaders of the European Union nations meet tomorrow. Theyve invited the president of ukraine to address the summit. The white house today defended president obamas statement that theres no strategy yet on how to deal with Islamic State forces in syria. Press secretary josh earnest said mr. Obama wants an overall plan, including a military component. He said the president is waiting for the pentagon to show him options. There are some who probably would make the case that it is okay to not have a formulated comprehensive strategy, but just as one pundit i know recently suggested that we could just go drop some bombs and see what happens. That is not what the president believes is a smart approach. The president believes it is important for us to pursue a comprehensive strategy where military action is one component of that strategy. Sreenivasan on another matter, the white house said its not aware of any specific threat to the United States by Islamic State militants, but britain raised its threat level today to the second highest alert over concerns of possible attacks. Prime minister David Cameron said its largely a response to the growing number of britons and other westerners joining radical Islamist Groups in the middle east. California lawmakers are the first to pass a bill that redefines what it means to give Sexual Consent on college campuses. The socalled yes means yes bill, which passed unanimously in the states senate, requires schools to treat consent as an affirmative and voluntary choice. Silence or lack of resistance would not qualify as consent. Wall street closed out the month of august with modest additions today. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained nearly 19 points to close at 17,098; the nasdaq rose 22 points to close at 4,580; and the s p 500 added six points to finish at 2,003. For the month, the dow gained more than 3 , the s p gained nearly 4 and the nasdaq rose almost 5 . Still to come on the newshour a new report traces the origins of this latest Ebola Outbreak; we take a look at the proxy wars shaking up the middle east; tennessee looks to boost College Graduation rates by rethinking its funding model; syrian refugee numbers top three million, with no end in sight to the crisis; shields and brooks on the weeks news; and teens react to the Michael Brown shooting and its aftermath. Sreenivasan the Ebola Outbreak in west africa has now spread to a fifth country amid forecasts that it will get far worse. The latest case emerged despite efforts to stop the virus from crossing national borders. The announcement came in dakar, senegal, a major Tourist Destination and transit hub that now has its first case of ebola. translated it is a young guinean, a student who came for a consultation on tuesday, august 26, at the hospital in an infectious state without hemorrhaging, but hiding the information that he had contact in guinea with people close to the victims of the disease. Sreenivasan doctors confirmed the next day that the man had ebola. Hes now in satisfactory condition. Nearly 650 people in his home country of guinea have been infected, and twothirds have died. Thats the worst death rate of any country. A new report in Science Magazine traces the outbreak to a funeral on guineas border with sierra leone in may. At least 14 women were infected there. Five local researchers who worked on the paper and collected samples from infected patients have since died of ebola themselves. In all, the World Health Organization reports 500 new cases this week, the most yet. The director of the u. S. Centers for Disease Control says it could get much worse still. He spoke yesterday in sierra leone. If we dont stop it here, were going to be dealing with it for years around the world. But we can still stop it. Sreenivasan and a top official with Doctors Without Borders called today for a far greater international response. Otherwise, he said i dont see how were going to control the outbreak. For more on all this, i am joined by stephen gire. He is a Research Scientist with the Broad Institute and harvard university, and a lead author on the study published yesterday in science. So, stephen, tell me, how was it that you were able to go back and trace this spread of the most recent case of ebola virus to one specific event . We used both epidemiological data which is data thats collected about people and who theyre in contact with when a disease happens, and compared this with genetic data we collected from Patient Samples and we actually sequenced the full genome of the virus from 78 individual patients and, so, we used this data and the mutations that are there within that virus to actually build the sort of family tree that allows us to see, for one, how these viruses are related to each other but then to see how we can trace them back to their origin. Sreenivasan when you got to the root of this particular tree, what is it about a funeral or african burial customs that made this the perfect ground for ebola to spread . On may 25th in sierra leone on the border between guinea and sierra leone, theres a funeral that took place of a traditional healer who had been treating ebola patients in guinea and she had herself become sick and died of ebola. At this funeral a large number of over a dozen members at the funeral were actually infected. You notice from epidemiological data, but we also know an attendant from the funeral actually came into the hospital at the Government Hospital where we work and was diagnosed, so we were then able to go out and find other people at that funeral and then start to build this phylogenetic or family tree of what the virus actually looked like. Sreenivasan is it because people come in contact with the bod with thats infected . Thats correct. You know, the burial practices in a lot of african countries, the people or the friends or family that know th know the ded person usually take part in preparing the body and washing it. Just like funerals here in america and around the world, we often interact with the body once its died. There are opencasket viewings and many people touch the body. The same thing is true in africa as well and this can be part of spreading the disease. Sreenivasan one of the most serious costs of the paper is five of your colleagues on the ground became sick and died in the work that they were doing. Yeah, its really very tragic. I was on the ground in sierra leone and kenima in early july and as soon as i returned and began processing the samples we collected for the study, we got word a few of the members who had been part of this project had become sick. At that time, it was sort of numbing and you didnt quite accept the fact that they were sick and you had hope that theyd survive. So you kept pushing and doing your work and, you know, then word would come that somebody had died and it would just sink in deep. But, you know, just as hard as people have been working on the ground, we have also been trying to work very hard here to try to get this information out to the public, out to the Scientific Community so that it can be used in this outbreak and other outbreaks. So weve really tried to honor their memory by continuing to work really hard and push this information out so that it makes a difference. Sreenivasan all right, stephen gire, thanks so much for your time and your research. Thank you. Sreenivasan as the Obama Administration considers further action with partners in the middle east to contain an islamic extremist group, tonight we take a look at the shifting landscape of the region and the challenges it poses for the United States. Jeffrey brown reports. Any successful strategy, though, needs strong regional partners. Brown president obama called for alliances yesterday in confronting the Islamic State group in iraq and syria. Im encouraged so far that countries in the region, countries that dont always agree on many things, increasingly recognize the primacy of the threat. Ive asked secretary kerry to travel to the region to continue to build the coalition thats needed to meet this threat. Brown but when kerry touches down in the middle east, hell be stepping into a profoundly muddled situation thats rife with risk. Old regimes have fallen, starting with the u. S. Invasion of iraq in 2003 and spreading across north africa with the arab spring. In their wake, both sunni and shiite groups, from moderate rebels to the extreme Islamic State, now vie for power and look to likeminded states for help. Illustrating the tangled web of new ties, the liberal blog think progress has charted the flow of money, weapons and aid between various factions and supporting nations. In syria, for example, regional powers qatar, saudi arabia and turkey have backed the Free Syrian Army against Bashar Al Assads government. On the other side, assads fighters have been helped by hezbollah, the lebanese militia allied with iran. Elsewhere, egypt in recent days partnered with the United Arab Emirates for air strikes on islamist militias in libya. That countrys conflict has revealed a sunni split as turkey and qatar back the islamists. And iranian officials were in baghdad sunday for talks aimed at stabilizing iraq against the Islamic States gains, a rare intersection of interests with the United States. Joining us now to help us understand this new landscape of the middle east is steven simon, a former senior director for middle eastern and north African Affairs on the National SecurityCouncil Staff from 2011 to 2012 hes now a senior fellow at the middle east institute; and hisham melhem, Washington Bureau chief of al arabiya news channel. Welcome to both of you. Hisham, its a given, the world has changed, right . Help us first by laying out the camps, so to speak, that we face. As we know, the uprising that began three and a half years ago unfortunately have morphed into civil wars in yemen, libya and sir. I cant syria is a place where there is a conversion of powers. The camps so to speak, the regime in damascus which is islam supported by iran which is the major region of shiite power as well as by hezbollah hezbollahs working for certain iranian interests and also supported by militias from iraq. So you have the Shia Coalition fighting to save the regime in damascus and in that sense iran and syria are more important in supporting the regime than mos cows. Then you have sunnis from turkey, jordan, saudi arabia, qatar and others. Attracting volunteers, quote, unquote, from the sunni world from africa, the caucuses, from central asia as well as from europe and the United States. This is the 20th century prototype civil war with spain in which everybody in europe fought each other on spanish soil and attracted volunteers from all over the world. Syria is essentially our own version of the spanish civil war. Brown steven simon, thats complicated enough. You see it playing out all over the place, syria as a focal point but also where. Well, yeah, syria has become a hot pit for some of the rivalries hisham was just talking about, but the camps can be viewed, likewise, as co consisting of iran and saudi arabia, sort of at the highest level, i guess, and then, within the sunnis, you have qatar and turkey arrayed against saudi arabia and the United Arab Emirates and even egypt. Then you have a tacit alliance between israel and the conservative growth monarchies directed against iran, and boosting egypt. So you have all this overlaid on a sunni and shia sectarian conflict thats been largely mobilized by these bigger geopolitical tensions. Brown are these shifting, still, as we sit here or are these pretty well now set at this point . Thats a good question. I think theyve pretty much consolidated. Brown what do you think . I think so. I think the sunnishia conflict, which is really new the first time in my lifetime in modern arab, recent history where you have one front stretching from the gulf to the mediterranean. At the same time, there is a new sunni shift and divisions, and you have the iraqi which is breath taking, then a country flying its own jets to egypt to launch an airstrikes against islamists in libya. Brown without telling the u. S. So you have the camp of egypt, thats another sunni camp, egypt, saudi arabia against the islamists. On the other hand, qatar, turkey and sudan supporting the libyan islamists in libya and other places. So you have two sunni camps under this huge shiasunni rivalry. And because of sectarian rivalry between the saudis and the iranians and supporters are extremely combustible because sectarianism is a very effective tool and organization because you can frame the issue in existential terms. Brown so when we see the president speaking yesterday and the secretary going, how does this impact u. S. Policy . Thats a big question. How does it impact kerrys ability to form a kohls against the Islamic State . Complicates it hugely. The United States is trying to thread a needle between states that are fundamentally opposed to assad and states that think that hes actually a good stabilizing force. Now, in terms of European Partners to which hes appealed, theres very little that they can contribute as a practical matter, militarily, for example. They can make some contributions but not really for the use of force. Otherwise, y