The majority of Jerusalem’s children will be Arab by 2020 if current trends continue, according to a survey released on Wednesday by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies.
Overall, Arabs will constitute 40 percent of the city’s population by then. The 245,000 Arabs living in the city in 2005, the last data available, make up 34% [...]

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The RS-20 can carry up to 10 independently-targeted multiple re-entry vehicle warheads, each one capable of destroying a city with a thermonuclear weapon.
The Strategic Missile Forces “conducted Dec. 21 a successful test launch of a RS-20V Voyevoda … intercontinental ballistic missile. The launch was conducted to test the RS-20V’s flight and technical characteristics to [...]

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Indications are that Iran has responded to UN Security Council sanctions by expanding uranium enrichment efforts, rather than freezing them. The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed ElBaradei, told the Financial Times ahead of his report to the Council this week that Iran appeared to be stepping up its nuclear enrichment program, [...]

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The risk of a Third World war sparked by China invading Taiwan is growing, the author of an influential new book on China warned last night.
Will Hutton said that as well as provoking US retaliation, such a war could draw in Japan, the Middle East and ultimately the UK.
“People say the risk of a Third [...]

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Documents found in London’s National Archives reportedly show China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union may have planned an invasion of Japan.
Kyodo News said it discovered documents showing that U.S. intelligence officials had information that during the Korean War, the three international superpowers planned to attack Japan from the air and the ocean, while [...]

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The war on Terror has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted.
Seven per cent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”. In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US.
Gallup’s Centre for [...]

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SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Yonhap) — North Korea may have produced up to 12 nuclear warheads that can be mounted on medium-range ballistic missiles, and the communist nation is unlikely to commit to an agreement that would prevent it from using its nuclear capabilities during wartime, a U.S. think tank said in a report released Tuesday [...]

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Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — Why is Russia so nasty, and India so nice?
This week, Russia is busy warning that Poland or the Czech Republic will be targeted by its missiles if they cooperate with the U.S. in missile defense. This action follows a threatening speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Munich.
India, by contrast, [...]

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Russian President Vladimir Putin began his February 10 speech at the Munich Security Conference by commenting that the meeting’s informality “allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to speak in roundabout, pleasant but empty diplomatic terms. This conference’s format will allow me to say what I really think about international security problems. And [...]

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Chinese president and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao’s recent African sojourn reveals both China’s newfound global clout and the persisting limits to the PRC’s stature as an aspiring great power, especially outside its region.
By Jacques deLisle for FPRI (20/02/07)
Hu’s February 2007 swing through eight African nations - following the lavish China-Africa summit (the Forum on [...]

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If you believe the speeches, the Cold war has broken out again
By Pekka Hakala
Finland, adhering strictly to its policy of neutrality and non-alignment, naturally managed to stay outside of the superpower spats and conflicts of the 1980s, but what else do you remember of the Cold war rhetoric of those days?
For me, the only [...]

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The US is using a mix of diplomacy and military might to deal with North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.
North Korea: a deal, but no seal
Iraq: a few rays of hope
Iran: sanctions and military might
Link to this article.

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WARSAW (Reuters) - The Czech Republic said on Tuesday it would not be intimidated by Russia over plans to site parts of a U.S. missile defense system on its territory and said attempts at “blackmail” by Moscow would backfire.
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said threats by Russian officials over the plans, which would involve placing [...]

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There are grave concerns among the defense establishment about the possibility that Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip is now in possession of Sagger anti-tank missiles.
Recently, Hamas and other Palestinian paramilitary groups have stepped up their efforts to acquire more advanced anti-tank weaponry. This stems, in part, from the relative success of Hezbollah guerrillas [...]

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South Korea’s intelligence chief was quoted as saying Tuesday that he believes North Korea has a secret uranium enrichment programme, in addition to its plutonium-based nuclear weapons project. “We believe (the programme) exists,” Kim Man-Bok, the head of the National Intelligence Service, told a closed-door parliamentary committee, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting.
Link to [...]

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With most counterterrorism energies focused overseas, decaying infrastructure leaves the United States prone to devastating terrorist attack and natural disasters.
His new book, The Edge of Disaster, suggests aging roads, levees, waterways, and electrical grids leave the United States unduly vulnerable to catastrophic terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Flynn will discuss the problem in a Wednesday [...]

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