Iran is beginning to feel the effects of U.S.-led financial pressure aimed at blocking foreign banks from dealing with Iranian financial institutions and companies linked to terrorism or weapons proliferation. The effort coincides with a UN Security Council resolution that imposes limited sanctions, including asset freezes against Iranian firms and travel bans against individuals connected [...]

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Iran’s energy sector is slowly collapsing under the weight of subsidized gas prices and poor development of its aging oil fields, according to a number of Western economists. Despite boasting the world’s second-largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, Iran has resorted to rationing its gasoline. As global energy prices slide downward, some analysts predict Iran’s [...]

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The immediate issue that has stirred up the Kremlin is the revival of US plans for its ballistic missile defence system, to include radar installations in the Czech republic and interceptor missiles in Poland. Russia sees the move as offensive. But there is more. The Russian president feels much more self-confident, thanks to the healthy [...]

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STOCKHOLM/VILNIUS – Lithuania and Sweden said on Monday they wanted the planners of a Baltic Sea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany to look at alternative routes to address their concerns about the environment and security.
The five billion euro ($6.57 billion) pipeline, planned to run from Vyborg in Russia under the sea 1,200 km to [...]

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The economy could also be devastated by the electromagnetic pulse generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion. The resulting electromagnetic shock would fry transformers within regional electrical power grids.8 The interdependent telecommunications (including computers), transportation, and banking and financial infrastructures that people and businesses rely on would be significantly damaged. Such an event would leave us, [...]

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The Naval Network Warfare Command pointed to attacks coming from China as the most significant problem for the United States’ military network defenders, according to an article published last week in Federal Computer Weekly.
Chinese attackers “exploit anything and everything,” an unnamed Netwarcomm official told the publication.
Link to this article.

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U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney will travel to Japan, Australia and Guam on Feb. 20-27 for discussions on Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and regional security (as well as a little fishing). This is Cheney’s first official visit to the region since April 2004. While publicly the discussions will focus on current events, the vice president [...]

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Venezuela is spending $3 billion to build nine submarines, a fleet of undersea craft that would be the largest in the region — and ready to be used against the U.S. in event of a conflict between the two countries.
The submarines will be the “diesel-electric variety,” according to a communique issued by Vice Adm. Armband [...]

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MOSCOW — Poland and the Czech Republic risk being targeted by Russian missiles if they agree to host elements of the proposed U.S. missile defense system, a top Russian general warned Monday in the latest in a series of increasingly bellicose statements from Moscow.
President Vladimir Putin has said he does not trust U.S. claims [...]

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The specter of a new military rivalry between Moscow and Washington has been looming since Vladimir Putin delivered a speech highly critical of the United States at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. Is it the birth of a new arms race between the former arch-enemies?
Western guests who visited the Kremlin in Moscow in [...]

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