The admiral in charge of the U.S. Pacific Fleet pressed Chinese military leaders to explain why an armed submarine challenged a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific by sailing within five miles of the warship, U.S. defense officials said.
The Chinese responded by claiming the Song-class submarine that surfaced near the [...]

read more....

It should surprise no one that quiet discussions have already begun in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and elsewhere in the Middle East about the desirability of developing national nuclear capabilities to blunt Iran’s anticipated advantage and to offset the perceived decline in America’s protective power. This is just the beginning. We should anticipate that proliferation [...]

read more....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The keepers of the “Doomsday Clock” will likely move its hands forward next Wednesday to reflect what they call “worsening nuclear (and) climate threats,” to the world.
The symbolic clock, maintained by a magazine called the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is currently set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe.
The [...]

read more....

In recent weeks Israel’s leaders have been bombarded with increasingly doom-laden scenarios about Iran’s progress towards producing a nuclear bomb, a threat that might push them towards unilateral military action if diplomacy fails.
Former generals, politicians, and academics whose expertise ranges from ballistics to theology have joined a debate that focuses on 2007 as the decisive [...]

read more....

Six member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held their second round of consultation in Shanghai on Wednesday through Friday to prepare for a joint anti-terror military exercise in 2007 in Russia, according to the Ministry of National Defense.
Representatives of the six countries’ defense ministries participated in the meeting and conferred on a series [...]

read more....

The single most important thing you need to know about China does not concern its economy — impressive though that is.
…
The most important thing about China isn’t its military expansion — in many ways, comparable to the re-arming of Germany in the 1930s.
…
But neither China’s booming economy nor its alarming military growth is the root [...]

read more....

The railroad station in the Angolan town of Dondo hasn’t seen a train in years. Its windows are boarded up, its pale pink façade crumbling away; the local coffee trade that Portuguese colonialists founded long ago is a distant memory, victim of a civil war that lasted for 27 years. Dondo’s fortunes, however, may be [...]

read more....

BEIJING - China will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the country’s tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced, state media reported Friday. Traditional preferences for sons has led to the widespread - but illegal - practice of women [...]

read more....