There is no perfect translation of the word chutzpah into Chinese, but Beijing does provide the perfect example: They have duped the West into giving them billions in development aid, so that they can instead spend their own money on building a military that could beat America’s.
Every month brings new details of increased Chinese military [...]

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Ukraine said in 2005 that several Soviet-era X-55 cruise missiles had been “smuggled” out of its territory to Iran. Also known as Kh-55s or AS-15s, the missiles have a range of 3,000 km (1,800 miles) — more than enough to reach Israel from Iran.
According to Maariv, Israeli experts believe Iran may have used the X-55s [...]

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Chinese sales of assault rifles and other small arms to its ally Sudan have grown rapidly during the Darfur conflict despite a U.N. arms embargo, a human rights group said on Thursday.
Human Rights First, a U.S.-based nonprofit group, said a detailed study of Sudanese and U.N. trade data showed that China was virtually the [...]

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The U.S. has finally slid into recession, according to the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal economic-forecasting survey, a view that was reinforced by new data showing a sharp drop in retail sales last month.
“The evidence is now beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Scott Anderson of Wells Fargo & Co., who was [...]

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Given the military realities at the moment, Froomkin’s suggestion that “full-scale” war against Iran is possible seems a little off to me. When Foreign Policy recently surveyed more than 3,400 retired and active duty officers at the highest levels of command, 80 percent told us that it was “unreasonable” to believe that, given current deployments, the U.S. could [...]

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Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service says Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are training hundreds of Hamas fighters to prepare for an all-out war this summer against Israel, according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The Gaza-based organization’s elite Izzedine al-Qassam Brigade will form the southern front of an attack against the Jewish state while Hezbollah will launch its simultaneous [...]

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Despite a short, tantalising lull in Gaza, a wider war may be on the way
Can a respite be turned into something more durable? Much more hangs on the answer to this question than you may think. From afar—indeed, even from Tel Aviv—the makeshift rockets that land on Israeli border towns such as Sderot can look [...]

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China’s premier Wen Jiabao has said that he is the world’s most worried man. Across his desk pass reports on the many issues that could endanger the country’s stability and halt its steady growth: environmental damage, energy-supply problems, social unrest among them. At night, in the peaceful seclusion of the central Zhongnanhai compound next to [...]

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China’s growing cyberwarfare capabilities are an emerging threat already being felt by the U.S., a senior Pentagon official said.
David Sedney, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said “there continue to be around the world, not just in the United States but around the world, many, many computer intrusions that are sourced back to [...]

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