It takes 1000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain and agriculture consumes almost 70 percent of the world’s water - though only less than 30 percent in OECD countries. It takes more than the entire throughput of the Nile to grow the grain imported annually by Middle Eastern and North African countries [...]

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Ambassador Young brought a blunt message from the Bush Administration: Taiwan’s lawmakers “need” to pass a “robust defense budget” in the current legislative session. The United States is not concerned about specific systems but is concerned by the general malaise among Taiwan’s political parties concerning the island’s defenses. Taiwan’s defenses are collapsing while China’s are [...]

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While America’s attention is focused on the November elections and on North Korea and Iraq, tensions are mounting between Israel and Iran. Iran’s nuclear program, its patron-client relationship with Hezbollah, and its nihilistic rhetoric against Israel are combining with a politically and militarily shaken Israel into a potentially volatile mix.
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China helped North Korea develop nuclear weapons and in the past year increased its support to Pyongyang, rather than pressing the regime to halt nuclear arms and missile activities, according to a congressional report.
The final draft report of the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission also says that Chinese government-run companies are [...]

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Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. It also appears to run through Israel and into South Korea.
Let’s start with the latter. Despite the apparently successful nuclear test carried out by the minions of Kim Jong-Il, the government of South Korea seems to be intent on continuing its “Sunshine” policy of engaging the North.
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Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, makes it very plain why the U.N. has become the Trojan horse of nuclear proliferation. In an interview with Newsweek magazine on Oct. 20, Mr. ElBaradei laid bare his plan — guaranteed to lead the international community into nuclear war.
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New pipeline has the potential to increase the dependence of the European Union (EU) on Rus­sia, thereby making Russia even more powerful and, possibly, more assertive in the international arena.
Russia is building a strategic new pipeline to Europe that will affect European energy security for years to come. Called the North European Gas Pipe­line (NEGP), [...]

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(IsraelNN.com) Israel is the world’s seventh largest arms exporter and the world second biggest arms importer – after Saudi Arabia – according to the Congressional Research Service’s annual report.
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Despite its rising power and wealth, China may not be willing or ready to play a responsible role in an international system aimed at encouraging peace and stability, a commission set up by Congress said in a report released yesterday.
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DISPLAY OF STRENGTH IS SEEN AS MESSAGE AFTER N. KOREA TEST
ABOARD THE KURAMA - Nearly 50 warships crowded the bay just south of Tokyo, all flying the Rising Sun flag. Sea-to-sea missiles roared off the decks of several destroyers, and submarines emerged like a pod of whales from the surf.
More than an exercise, this was [...]

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What did Japan get on this 1% approach? Arguably the best Navy in East Asia. Japan has 40 destroyers, 18 of which have entered service since 1995, with at least two more modern vessels (of the Atago-class) on the way. Japan has acquired eight new submarines (the Oyashio-class), with at least two others on the [...]

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STOCKHOLM: The United States is a greater threat to world peace than North Korea, according to Swedes surveyed in a poll aired on Sunday.
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Sweden: Party Celebrating New Embassy in Washington Turns Into Anti-American protest
My Comments:
How anti-American is Sweden? Apparently, quite a bit.

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The world’s reaction to Iran’s behavior is depressingly instructive. Russia tells us that we are being paranoid and continues to build the Bushehr nuclear plant. The Europeans cluck disapprovingly and threaten to pass a weak, “reversible” sanctions resolution in the UN Security Council whose main target is American security hawks. For his part, US President [...]

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Nuclear power has staged a remarkable revival over the last few years amid growing concerns about energy insecurity and global warming.
India and China are planning to build more than 20 reactors each by 2020, and Russia also is hoping to build more nuclear power stations. In Western Europe, new reactors are being built in Finland [...]

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SEOUL, Oct. 30 (UPI) — North Korea fired five short-range missiles during military exercises last week, Seoul’s newspaper said Monday.
“North Korea launched five ground-to-air and air-to-ground missiles last week from its west training ground,” the Chosun Ilbo quoted an unidentified South Korean government official as saying.
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San Francisco - (October 18, 2006) According to a survey released today by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research (IJCR), 63% of university faculty say colleagues are reluctant to express their true opinions when those opinions contradict dominant views on campus.
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WASHINGTON (Yonhap) _ North Korea was selling its missiles to the Near East as recently as 2003-2004, according to inferences made in the latest report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS).
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On Sunday — just two days before the American election — Nicaraguans will also have an election to choose a new president. With an estimated 400,000 of them living in Florida alone, and the potential of a flood of new immigrants should the Nicaraguan election herald a return to policies which failed in the past, [...]

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In Miller’s Cafeteria, in downtown Denver, four young women met for the afternoon coffee break�and almost immediately began talking about what weighed heaviest on their minds. Said Louise Epperson, a bank clerk: “I’d just as soon be killed as come out of a shelter and see the country desolated.” Gail Pitts, an account executive with [...]

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Why the military option is not an option against Kim Jong Il and his nuclear program.
The Pentagon has been bracing for trouble on the peninsula ever since the 1953 armistice. The basic plan, in place for almost 50 years, is predicated on a North Korean invasion of the South. But in the early 1990s, that [...]

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It’s been a busier week than normal for Brian Camden’s bomb-shelter business.
“I can tell you it’s picked up since the test,” said Camden, president of Harden Structures/Harden Shelters Inc. in Virginia Beach, referring to North Korea’s claim of a nuclear test and saber-rattling with the U.S. last week.
“It’s not just across the country but around [...]

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