Recently a trial concluded in London with the convictions of four would-be suicide bombers whose failed attack on the London transport system took place almost exactly two years ago. It emerged in the course of the proceedings that the bombers’ ambition was to exceed the devastation caused by the July 7 terrorist strike which had [...]

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According to the memorandum of understanding, Iran, home to the second-largest petroleum reserves in the world (after Russia), will provide Turkey with the natural gas to transfer and sell to Europe via the proposed Nabucco pipeline. The proposed pipeline, expected to cost 4.5 billion euro and be 3,300 kilometers long, will be based in Iran, [...]

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The rush to process uranium is to generate electricity, officials tell Julian Borger in Isfahan. But there are no power stations.
Spinning the UF6 gas until it is up to 5% rich in U-235 produces nuclear fuel. Keep spinning until it is 90% enriched and you have the makings of a bomb.
That - combined with the [...]

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Israeli military analysts have concluded that Syria learned the lesson of the Lebanon war and would focus on such strikes in case of a new war.
Israel already has an operational system, called Arrow, against long-range ballistic missiles, including Iranian missiles with nuclear warheads.
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DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the latest intelligence update on Syria’s intentions reached Jerusalem via Washington in the last few days. It indicated that Syria’s political and military leaders had rescheduled the start of hostilities against Israel on the Golan for the second two weeks of November, 2007, postponing their original planning by more than [...]

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India is closely watching the Chinese moves in Afghanistan, where New Delhi has lot at stake. Any foothold in Afghanistan will bring Beijing nearer to oil-rich Gulf region. China is also suspicious of the warming ties between India and the United States, which are seen as an attempt by Washington to contain China’s political influence [...]

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) — China’s third-generation main battle tank is among the most advanced in the world, Yang Haifeng, an armored regiment commander in the Beijing Military Area Command, has claimed.
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BEIJING: China warned the United States Tuesday against exchanges with political leaders from rival Taiwan after the U.S. House of Representatives recommended allowing visits by senior Taiwanese officials.
China’s Foreign Ministry called the resolution, which was passed by the House of Representatives on Monday, an “interference in China’s internal affairs and extremely mistaken.”
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US House of [...]

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WASHINGTON, July 30 — The Bush administration said Monday that its plan to provide billions of dollars in advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel over the next 10 years was intended in part to serve as a bulwark against Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.
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Jerusalem, Tel Aviv lack bomb shelters, gas masks scarce
TEL AVIV – One year after the Lebanese Hezbollah militia fired more than 3,000 rockets into northern Israeli population centers, the Jewish state’s home front – especially Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – are largely unprepared for the event of war, say officials.
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Let’s review what we know of such situations from actual historical episodes rather than from the idealized fantasy world of defense intellectuals. A good place to begin is with Hiroshima itself. Those who have read John Hersey’s Hiroshima, or Robert Jay Lifton’s Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, will see the absurdity in the depiction [...]

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Israel has come out in support of a multi-billion dollar U.S. arms deal to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. I can’t remember the last time Israel supported a deal like this. Probably because it never has. So what exactly is going on this time?
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MOSCOW. (Nikita Petrov for RIA Novosti) - The Russian Navy will become the world’s second largest in 20 years’ time, said its commander-in-chief, Admiral Vladimir Masorin, speaking ahead of Navy Day.
He said the navy’s core would consist of the newest strategic nuclear-powered submarines and six squadrons of aircraft carriers.
For Russia’s navy, this will be its [...]

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Today, the United States and Russia are engaged in a tug of war that is coming close to matching the rhetoric between the two nations from decades ago.
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Today’s threats are even more dangerous with many nuclear nations and many other rogue entities with no geographic base, no leader to engage and no reasonable agenda to [...]

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As a Kremlin-backed Arctic expedition led by a Russian legislator closed in Monday on the North Pole - with plans to send a submersible craft and a flag to the ocean bottom to assert Russian sovereignty over an Ontario-sized swath of the polar seafloor - a leading Canadian expert on the Arctic urged Canada’s leaders [...]

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CHINA’S 2.3-million strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is celebrating its 80th anniversary with new uniforms, lavish exhibitions and a degree of transparency unusual for a force long swathed in secrecy.
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China’s not-so-secret army
Scotsman, United Kingdom - 14 hours ago
That is similar to Japan, Russia and Britain but less than one-tenth of what the US military [...]

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WASHINGTON, July 30 (UPI) — As disagreements over NATO’s eastward expansion, ballistic missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe, the status of Kosovo and others continue to strain NATO-Russian relations, Russia has shown an increasing willingness to re-examine its arms-control obligations with the alleged intent of guarding its national interests.
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Kanwa, a Hong Kong defense news agency, said Friday purchases by China of Russian aircraft carrier components suggested that Beijing was planning to build one or two aircraft carriers, possibly by 2015. The agency cited a senior source in the Russian Navy, saying that Russia and China have an agreement to purchase four deck landing [...]

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The sharp reality is that oil prices continue to rise and the conventional wisdom says the trend is unlikely to abate (Forbes) anytime soon. Some analysts forecast oil could reach one hundred dollars a barrel (Economic Times) within the year. A recent report from Britain’s Center for Global Energy Studies says that current prices are [...]

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The U.S. Air Force has unveiled a 25-year program for developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The document lays out a strategy for the project and lists the necessary technologies for this new field of aviation. Military experts say UAVs will mainly carry air-to-air and air-to-surface guided missiles, as well as smart aviation bombs and cluster [...]

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The United States is using rough-handed methods to force Germany to impose tougher sanctions against Iran. The government in Berlin is resisting, but German banks are already caving in.
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