We tend to imagine suicide bombers as hardened, bloodthirsty killers. But most people aren’t nearly as ready to commit violence as you think. It’s actually the quiet, docile members of the middle class who make the best human explosive devices. And that’s what makes this weapon of mass murder so hard to stop.
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The puzzling site in Syria that Israeli jets bombed in September grew more curious on Friday with the release of a satellite photograph showing new construction there that resembles the site’s former main building.
Israel’s air attack was directed against what Israeli and American intelligence analysts had judged to be a partly constructed nuclear reactor. The [...]

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This piece concerns the near term prognosis for Russian oil production. For background on Russia at TOD, I would recommend the excellent summary by Dave Cohen last year, and also a recent comment by Gail Tverberg which summarized a variety of warnings on the potential for Russian production to go into decline (for the second [...]

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For Iranian consumers, Turkmenistan’s halting of natural gas deliveries to the Islamic republic on Dec. 31 has represented a bitter New Year’s present, as the country endures its hardest winter in a decade. The weather has caused 21 deaths, and Iran’s northern regions are covered with nearly 2 feet of snow.
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Turkmenistan’s “pipeline politics” had [...]

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The report says its unnamed Chinese sources see North Korea as stable for the moment, “but they worry that the potential for instability may grow.”
Meanwhile, U.S. and South Korean military planners were scheduled to complete by the end of 2007 a contingency plan for controlling the spread of weapons of mass destruction and dealing with [...]

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Apart from Pakistan, which is China’s military forward command confronting India, it has been increasingly encouraging anti-India political and business forces in Bangladesh, Nepal and even Sri Lanka. Providing C-802 cruise missiles to the Bangladesh navy is not exactly a friendly gesture to India. It is also seeking special port facilities in Bangladesh. China has [...]

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In both the original 1974 document and the 1975 State Department paper (in which it was retyped), the entire intelligence community determined, “Israel already has produced nuclear weapons.” This analysis was based on “Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium,” in part covertly; on Israel’s ambiguous efforts to enrich uranium; and on the huge investment [...]

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Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s first deputy prime minister and former defense minister, told a recent meeting of the Russian government’s Defense Industry Commission that the delays had been caused by the shortage of skilled workers, rapidly aging production facilities and deteriorating product quality.
In the last few months, Russian defense factories have expanded production by 14.1 percent, [...]

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