TOKYO Apr 14, 2007 (AP)— Upstart China challenges the United States by blasting a satellite out of orbit. North Korea lobs a missile over Japan, prompting Tokyo to initiate a multibillion dollar spy satellite program. India is readying a lunar mission, while rival Pakistan makes headlines with a new, improved warhead.
The most heated space race [...]

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1. AMERICA AND BRITAIN DIVIDED AS EUROPE UNITES
2. 50 YEARS AFTER THE EUROPEAN UNION BEGAN, GERMANY URGES A CONSTITUTION, PRESIDENT AND FOREIGN MINISTER FOR EUROPE
3. EUROPEAN/ RUSSIAN PARTNERSHIP AND CO-OPERATION
4. Russia RE-EQUIPPING ITS ARMY
5. RUSSIAN/INDIAN STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
6. GERMANY, Russia AND THE MIDDLE EAST
7. WILL EUROPE’S SOUL BE ONE OF TOLERANCE OR COULD THE FLAMES OF [...]

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Russian National Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov warned last week during a visit to Israel that the tense cease-fire between Jerusalem and Damascus might escalate into war if the two parties mutually miscalculate their strength.
Ivanov raised the issue during his visit to Israel as part of a delegation of Russian officials here to engage in [...]

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Two years ago, the leaders of Saudi Arabia told international atomic regulators that they could foresee no need for the kingdom to develop nuclear power. Today, they are scrambling to hire atomic contractors, buy nuclear hardware and build support for a regional system of reactors.
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The newly interested states [in nuclear power] include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, [...]

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Wars and weather have left few scars on Paris’ Arc de Triomphe. Commissioned by Napoleon to celebrate his victories, the 15-story tower of bone-white stone stands as an eternal monument to French glory, a time when Europe trembled before this nation’s might.
The national mood now, as France enters the final week before Sunday’s presidential election, [...]

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As energy-rich Russia grows ever more confident, accusing the US of flouting international law, and Washington moves to deploy an anti-missile system on Moscow’s doorstep, you could be forgiven for believing that we’re back to the bad old days of Soviet-US confrontation.
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ABU DHABI [MENL] — Kuwait has asked NATO for help to battle a nuclear weapons attack.
Officials said the sheikdom has requested that NATO provide expertise on ways to combat nuclear radiation fallout. They said the Western alliance was asked to send a team of specialists to Kuwait.
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Academics who study China, which includes the author, habitually please the Chinese Communist Party, sometimes consciously, and often unconsciously. Our incentives are to conform, and we do so in numerous ways: through the research questions we ask or don’t ask, through the facts we report or ignore, through our use of language, and through what [...]

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When the Soviet Union collapsed, GSC’s programmers turned from designing nuclear warheads to designing computer games [computer strategy games].
The company was set up in 1995 by Sergei Grigorievich, a “hardcore gamer” who attracted talented young programmers from the ruins of the military-industrial complex. The company’s first big hit was Cossacks: European Wars, which was released [...]

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“I have always been such a good German, but by the end of this German summer I decided to leave Germany. I will go where buses explode and Katyushas rain down [Israel]. And I will still be better off.” With these words Maxim Biller concluded his contribution to a jubilee, one-off revival edition of the [...]

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German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung on April 12 warned that US plans for a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic would protect northern Europe but leave the south of the continent exposed to threats from so-called “rogue states.”
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Russia has also voiced strong opposition to the US plan, saying the shield poses a [...]

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The Israeli military weekly “Bamahane” in early 2005 described TecSAR as a technological breakthrough that will expand the capabilities of Israel’s satellite program. It said TecSAR and an optical imaging spy satellite, Ofeq 7, would be launched in the near future. Israeli spy satellites such as Ofeq 5 regularly overfly neighboring states including Syria and [...]

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The Japanese, however, will point to the extremely rapid build-up of the Chinese Navy, which already deploys 71 destroyers and frigates, not to mention 58 submarines (compared with Japan’s 18 subs).
Yet the Chinese naval build-up is only in its early stages, like, say, the U.S. Navy was in the 1890s. Just last month the Congressional [...]

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An American Response to China’s Growing Military Might.
If the U.S. military does not continue to upgrade its technological capabilities, China could challenge the United States for military dominance in East Asia by 2020. As of today, China’s military and rapidly advancing defense industries are focused on finding ways to defeat the United States in the [...]

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