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LEVISON Wood is a serving British Army officer and explorer who has branched out into television.

He has already embarked on three epic treks on camera and now he is setting off on his latest on the Channel 4 documentary From Russia To Iran: Crossing The Wild Frontier. Here's his bio...

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Born on May 5, 1982, Levison Wood is an active member of the British Army and has fought in the war in Afghanistan.

He grew up in Stoke-on-Trent before going on to study History at the University of Nottingham.

In April 2006 he was commissioned as an officer in the Parachute Regiment of the British Army.

During his time in Afghanistan, he served in Helmand province, scene of some of the bloodiest and deadliest fighting during Britain's involvement in the country.

Wood is not married and has previously spoken about the difficulties for any woman to be with him given how long he spends overseas due to work currently.

In 2010 Wood decided to leave the Army and started pursuing a career in photography and journalism before going on to become a best-selling author.

However, he recently decided to rejoin the Army as a Major in the 77th Brigade which was only formed in January 2015.

The 77th Brigade's mission is to work across government organisations to achieve the goals of Defence Engagement and Building Stability Overseas Strategies.

The brigade is named in honour of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade which fought against the Japanese in Burma during the Second World War.

Speaking about the group's work he said: "We will go and meet other counterparts and capacity build and train up friendly foreign fighters.

"There is a lot of civil military liaison, the point of the 77 Brigade is to have non-kinetic effects.

"Social media is a very small part of the unit, it is mainly about having an effect, whether it is through media or other operations."

Beginning in southern Russia, Levison will walk the vast Caucasus Mountains crossing through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and into Iran - a country which has been closed off to much of the West.

Wood will travel with locals and live as they do as he heads towards his final destination - the shores of the Caspian Sea in Iran.

This will be Wood's fourth epic TV walk after his previous efforts - Walking the Nile, Walking the Himalayas and Walking the Americas all received widespread praise and acclaim from critics.

From Russia To Iran: Crossing The Wild starts on Sunday, August 20 at 8pm on Channel 4.

It is on at the same time as Far From The Madding Crowd on BBC One, Dragons' Den on BBC Two, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part Two on ITV and The Ant and Dec Story on Channel 5.

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Who is Levison Wood? From Russia To Iran presenter, British Army officer and explorer - The Sun

The photo shows a view of the match between the national Iranian volleyball team (players in red) and Algeria at the FIVB Volleyball Men's U23 World Championship in Cairo, Egypt, on August 20, 2017.

The national Iranian volleyball team has defeated Algeria for the second victory at the Fdration Internationale de Volleyball(FIVB) Volleyball Men's U23 World Championship in Egypt.

On Sunday, the Algerian sportsmenstarted the Pool B match at Cairo Stadium Indoor Halls Complexin the Egyptian capital city in amore determined manner and were better in service, reception and attacks.

They maintained the lead tosurge ahead, and grabbed an 18-16 win in the opening set.

The Persians pulled together and came from behind in the second set to rack up points. Theyclaimed the set by 15 points to 8.

The Iranian volleyball players sustained momentum, and continued to utilize middle attacks with much success to take the third set at 15-7.

In the fourth set, the Iranians did not capitulate and posted good defense as their opponents sought to narrow the gap. Iran finished the final set 15-12 at last.

Algeria was very good in the first set and we should learn a lot of lessons from this match. We lost the first set, but managed to recover in the next four sets and we were good in our attack and serving. This win kept our chances to advance in the tournament, Irans head coach, Juan Manuel Cichello, said after the match.

Irans captain Rahman Taghizadeh said,The encounter was very good for us. Algeria wanted to win the match but we managed to stop them and recover to win four sets. We must fight to win the two remaining matches to reach the top four.

Our performance in the first set was very good, but after that the players committed some mistakes especially in the block, while at the same time Iran played very fast. Our preparation for this tournament was just one month, but we will try to win the next matches. We prepare this team for the future of Algerian volleyball, Algerias head coach, Salim Bouhalla, commented.

Algerias captain, Abderaouf Hamimes, said,We entered the match with a strong performance and we managed to win the first set; but then we lost our concentration and that led Iran to win the other four sets.

The national Iranian volleyball team is scheduled to take on Turkey on Monday.

The2017FIVB Volleyball Men's U23 World Championship, which is the third edition of theinternationalvolleyballtournament, started in Cairo,Egypt, on August 18 and will finish on August 25.

Iran has been drawn in Pool B along with Algeria, Argentina, China, Russia and Turkey.

Pool A consists of Brazil, Cuba, Egypt, Japan, Mexico and Poland.

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Iran volleyball team overcomes Algeria in FIVB U23 World Championship - Press TV

ABU GHADDUR, Iraq U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Sunday launched a multi-pronged assault to retake the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, marking the next phase in the countrys war on the Islamic State group.

Tal Afar and the surrounding area is one of the last pockets of IS-held territory in Iraq after victory was declared in July in Mosul, the countrys second-largest city. The town, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the Syrian border, sits along a major road that was once a key IS supply route.

The city of Tal Afar will be liberated and will join all the liberated cities, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a televised speech early Sunday. He was dressed in a black uniform of the type worn by Iraqi special forces.

He called on the militants to surrender or die.

By early afternoon, Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah, who commands the operation, said the forces had recaptured a series of villages east, southwest and northwest of town.

The U.S.-led coalition providing air and other support to the troops praised what it said was a capable, formidable, and increasingly professional force.

They are well prepared to deliver another defeat to IS in Tal Afar, like in Mosul, the coalition said in a statement.

On the front lines, pillars of smoke could be seen rising in the distance as U.S. and Belgian special forces worked with Iraqi troops to establish a position on the roof of a house. They later fired mortar rounds and launched drones.

Lt. Gen. Riyad Jalal Tawfiq, of the Iraqi army, said IS had deployed small teams of attackers as well as suicide car bombs and roadside bombs.

The Coalition estimates that approximately 10,000-50,000 civilians remain in and around Tal Afar. In past battles, IS has prevented civilians from fleeing and used them as human shields, slowing Iraqi advances.

Hours after announcing the operation, the United Nations expressed concerns over the safety of the civilians, calling on warring parties to protect them.

Iraqi authorities have set up a toll-free number and a radio station to help guide fleeing civilians to safety.

A stepped up campaign of airstrikes and a troop buildup has already forced tens of thousands to flee Tal Afar, threatening to compound a humanitarian crisis sparked by the Mosul operation.

Some 49,000 people have fled the Tal Afar district since April, according to the United Nations. Nearly a million people remain displaced by the nine-month campaign to retake Mosul.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, described the situation inside Tal Afar as very tough, with food and water running out and many lacking basic necessities.

Families are trekking for 10 to 20 hours in extreme heat to reach mustering points, she said. They are arriving exhausted and dehydrated.

Iraqi forces have driven IS from most of the major towns and cities seized by the militants in the summer of 2014, including Mosul, which was retaken after a grueling nine-month campaign.

But along with Tal Afar, the militants are still fully in control of the northern town of Hawija as well as Qaim, Rawa and Ana, in western Iraq near the Syrian border.

Tal Afar has been a stronghold for extremists in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Many senior leaders of IS and its predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq, were from Tal Afar.

Iraqs state-sanctioned and mostly Shiite militias largely stayed out of the operation to retake Mosul, a mostly Sunni city about 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the east, but have vowed to play a bigger role in the battle for Tal Afar, which was home to both Sunnis and Shiites, as well as ethnic Turkmen, before it fell to IS, a Sunni extremist group. The militias captured Tal Afars airport, on the outskirts of the town, last year.

Their participation in the coming offensive could heighten sectarian and regional tensions. The towns ethnic Turkmen community maintained close ties to neighboring Turkey. Turkish officials have expressed concern that once territory is liberated from IS, Iraqi Kurdish or Shiite forces may push out Sunni Arabs or ethnic Turkmen.

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Iraq launches operation to take back IS-held town near Mosul - The Denver Post

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's Kurds may consider the possibility of postponing a planned Sept. 25 referendum on independence in return for financial and political concessions from the central government in Baghdad, a senior Kurdish official said.

A Kurdish delegation is visiting Baghdad to sound out proposals from Iraqi leaders that might convince the Kurds to postpone the vote, according to Mala Bakhtiar, executive secretary of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Politburo.

The United States and other Western nations fear the vote could ignite a fresh conflict with Baghdad and possibly neighboring countries, diverting attention from the ongoing war against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson formally asked Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), 10 days ago to postpone the referendum.

"What thing would Baghdad be prepared to offer to the (Kurdish) region" in return for postponing the referendum, Bakhtiar, speaking about the talks with the Shi'ite Muslim-led Baghdad ruling coalition, said in an interview.

On the economic side, Baghdad should be ready to help the Kurds overcome a financial crisis and settle debts owed by their government, he told Reuters in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.

He estimated the debt at $10 to $12 billion, about equal to the KRG's annual budget, owed to public works contractors and civil servants and Kurdish peshmerga fighters whose salaries have not been paid in full for several months.

At the political level, Baghdad should commit to agree to settle the issue of disputed regions, such as the oil-rich area of Kirkuk where Arab and Turkmen communities also live.

The Kurdish delegation would then convey the proposals to Kurdish political parties to make a decision on whether they are good enough to justify a postponment of the vote, he said, insisting on the Kurdish right to hold the vote at a later date.

"We don't accept to postpone the referendum with nothing in return and without fixing another time to hold it," he said.

Baghdad stopped payments from the Iraqi federal budget to the KRG in 2014 after the Kurds began exporting oil independently from Baghdad, via a pipeline to Turkey.

The Kurds say they need the extra revenue to cope with increased costs incurred by the war against Islamic State and a large influx into KRG territory of displaced people.

The self-proclaimed IS "caliphate" effectively collapsed in July when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces completed the recapture of Mosul from the militants in a nine-month campaign in which Kurdish peshmerga fighters took part.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists remain, however, in control of territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria. The United States has pledged to maintain its support of allied forces in both countries until the militants' total defeat.

The Kurds have been seeking an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East and left Kurdish-populated territory split between modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Turkey, Iran and Syria, which together with Iraq have sizeable Kurdish communities, all oppose an independent Kurdistan. Prime Minister Abadi's government has rejected the planned referendum as "unilateral" and unconstitutional.

Barzani, whose father led struggles against Baghdad in the 1960s and 1970s, told Reuters in July the Kurds would take responsibility for the expected "yes" outcome of the referendum, and implement the outcome through dialogue with Baghdad and regional powers to avoid conflict.

"We have to rectify the history of mistreatment of our people and those who are saying that independence is not good," Barzani said in an interview in the KRG capital Erbil.

"Our question to them is, 'If it's not good for us, why is it good for you?'".

Iraq's majority Shi'ite population mainly lives in the south while the Kurds, largely secular Sunnis, and Sunni Arabs inhabit two swathes of the north. Central Iraq around Baghdad is mixed.

Kurdish officials have said disputed areas, including the Kirkuk region, will be covered by the referendum, to determine whether they would want to remain in Kurdistan or not.

The Kurdish peshmerga in 2014 prevented Islamic State from capturing Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, after the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants. The peshmerga now effectively run the Kirkuk region, also claimed by Turkmen and Arabs.

Hardline Iran-backed Iraqi Shi'ite militias have threatened to expel the Kurds from this region and three other disputed areas - Sinjar, Makhmour and Khanaqin.

Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Mark Heinrich

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Iraq's Kurds might put off independence vote in return for concessions from Baghdad: official - Reuters

SINGAPORE/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iraq has informed its customers that it plans to change its price benchmark for Basra crude in Asia to DME Oman futures from January, the country's latest move to reform its oil sales.

The proposed change by state-oil marketer SOMO would mark a major shift by OPEC's second-largest producer away from fellow members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran, which have been using price assessments from global agency S&P Global Platts as their benchmark for decades.

It throws down the gauntlet on setting prices for more than 12 million barrels per day of Middle East crude in Asia, challenging the role of the world's top exporter Saudi Arabia.

"In an effort to realize the intrinsic value of our crude exports to Asia as to be in alignment with the recent market perception, we are contemplating a change of the current pricing formula for the Asian market," SOMO said in a letter dated Aug. 20 and sent to its customers, according to a copy seen by Reuters on Monday.

It asked customers for opinions on the plan by Aug. 31.

SOMO and the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Iraq has been reforming its oil sector - including launching crude sales through auctions on DME to achieve higher prices and setting up trading and shipping joint ventures - in what is seen as a drive to gain influence and bring in more revenue as the country seeks to rebuild its economy.

"DME has shown good practice and better transparency than Platts, they also have an auction system," one source familiar with the matter said.

The move also appears to reflect SOMO's aim to lead a change in crude pricing rather than following Saudi Arabia, OPEC's biggest producer whose crude official selling prices (OSPs) set the trend for other major Middle East producers.

Iraqi crude grades are not used in any of the Middle East price benchmarks. Platts assesses its Dubai price based on deliveries of Dubai, Oman, Abu Dhabi's Upper Zakum and Qatari Al-Shaheen crude.

"The Iraqis probably want to get in on the game of being a benchmark grade," a Singapore-based oil trader said.

SOMO has proposed pricing crude loading in the current month using DME Oman prices from two months previously, according to SOMO's letter to its customers.

"Such a mechanism is intended to reflect the real value of Iraqi crude oil based on the trading month in the Asia market," SOMO said in the letter.

The change in the benchmark will affect the pricing of about 2 million barrels per day of crude that are shipped to Asia, or close to two-thirds of Iraqi crude exports from the southern port of Basra, the outlet for most of the country's crude.

"Lately they (the Iraqis) have managed to achieve good premiums via the DME action, so there is some added value," said an industry source at a Middle East producer.

Since April, Iraq has sold 1-2 cargoes of Basra crude per month through an auction platform on the DME as a test for future Iraqi oil sales.

The Oman crude futures, launched in 2007 by the DME, is the only liquid futures contract for Middle East crude in Asia.

SOMO is not expected to change the way it prices its oil for Europe and the United States, said one of the sources. It prices its European exports against dated Brent, and uses Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI) as the benchmark for its U.S. oil sales.

Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore and Rania El Gamal in Dubai; Editing by Richard Pullin and Susan Fenton

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Iraq plans to shift Basra crude price benchmark for Asia from January - Reuters