As Chinese commentators criticize U.S. defense officials for their “Cold war mentality,” one need merely read the headlines to feel trapped in a bad rerun of the 1960s. Washington’s attempts to meet asymmetric challenges at both ends of the conflict spectrum have kept its hands full. At the “low intensity” end, the U.S. military is [...]

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Today, DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hizballah is in better military shape than ever before. its sponsors, Iran and Syria, have not only replenished the rocket stocks depleted by daily barrages against Israeli towns and villages, but topped them up by 50%. Whereas Hizballah started the 2006 war with 12,000 rockets of different types, today [...]

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Britain, perhaps more than any other country, has been a victim of Russia’s rediscovered swagger on the world stage.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has been openly scornful, deriding Britain as “a haven for terrorists and criminals” and dismissing a request for Andrei Lugovoi’s extradition as “stupid”.
The Kremlin believes it has a genuine gripe against London [...]

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What would you say if I told you U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for at least $5 billion to help the totalitarian Communist Chinese government build 70 new nuclear plants in the next 13 years?
Would you believe it?
Would you say it is impossible?
Would you wonder why you’ve never heard any debate about this in [...]

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WASHINGTON: A senior U.S. intelligence analyst said parts of China’s financial system are unhealthy but assessed only a low risk of severe financial crisis over the next five years.
Thomas Fingar, the top intelligence analyst in the Office of the National Intelligence Director, told lawmakers that China’s state-owned banks have large balances of non-preforming loans.
But, he [...]

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(IsraelNN.com) According to the IDF, Iran will be able to produce nuclear weapons within six months. NATO says Israel must ‘go it alone’ according to Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
The IDF Military Intelligence (MI) assessment was reported Tuesday to the Knesset and included a concrete assessment determining that Iran could cross the technological threshold required [...]

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A new National Intelligence Estimate raises concerns that the terrorist group is growing stronger.
July 11, 2007 - A new National Intelligence Estimate presents a sobering analysis of terrorism threats to the United States, concluding that Al Qaeda has reconstituted its core structure along the Pakistani border and may now be a stronger and more resilient [...]

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The conflict, which claimed the lives of 1,200 Lebanese and 158 Israelis, inflicted billions of dollars worth of damage to Lebanon’s infrastructure and displaced nearly a million Lebanese, was over relatively swiftly. But it appeared only to signal the onset of a renewed period of prolonged instability for this historically unstable country.
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Year later, [...]

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(BEIRUT, Lebanon) — There’s a lot of waiting and worrying in Lebanon these days. One year after Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah militia went to war, large swaths of Lebanon still lie in ruins and as rival factions struggle for control over the country.
Politicians continue to be assassinated and the Lebanese army is battling Islamic [...]

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The new arms race is deadly because Russia is so fragile
A little over a week ago, Vladimir Putin tested a weapon deadlier than anything developed by the Soviet Union. A missile launched from a submarine in the White Sea entered the stratosphere and returned precisely on target 3,800 miles away in the Russian Far East [...]

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The “scale and scope of pollution far outpaces what occurred in the United States and Europe” during their industrial revolutions, she says. Moreover, China’s environmental woes have hurt its economy. The damage to the ecosystem costs China about 9 percent of its GDP, according to the United Nations Development Program. [...]

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Is it possible to go for a whole year without buying any products made in China? One woman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, wanted to find out. FP spoke with author Sara Bongiorni about her new book, the hidden role China plays in our everyday lives, and what it’s like to be a mother of two [...]

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