Unfortunately for the Lebanese, their leaders are almost certainly coming back soon, and probably without a workable agreement. That’s because 18 months into the stalemate between the U.S. and Saudi-backed government on the one hand and the Syrian- and Iranian-supported opposition on the other, the differences between the two camps appear to be irreconcilable for [...]

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The U.S. military painted China on Tuesday as posing a growing threat to the United States and others in space and cyberspace.
China is “aggressively” honing its ability to shoot down satellites along with other space and counter-space capabilities, said Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Horne of the U.S. Strategic Command.
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By George Friedman
In geopolitics, we are frequently confronted with what appears to be a great deal of movement. Sometimes it is the current geopolitical reality breaking apart and a new one emerging. Sometimes it is simply meaningless motion in a fixed geopolitical reality — nothing more than the illusion of movement generated for political reasons [...]

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Russia is one of the least peaceful places in the world, according to a new study, which ranks it among countries mired in drug trafficking, guerilla wars and political instability.
Russia took 131st place out of 140 countries on the Global Peace Index, just below Colombia and above Lebanon, says the study, released late Monday. Iceland [...]

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The Phalanx, which is currently in service on Israeli ships and was originally developed as a shipborne system, includes anywhere from one to four 20mm guns capable of firing an astonishing 6,000 rounds per minute. When coupled with a specially built radar system, it creates a steel curtain of bullets flying at a speed of [...]

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WMD: The Mideast has long been “explosive,” but more than a dozen countries there have now been emboldened to go nuclear. Further delays in stopping Iran’s nuke program could turn it into an atomic Wild West.
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So the belief that there will indeed be a nuclear-armed Iran in the not-so-distant future is setting its neighbors on [...]

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Why are we going to experience a geometric explosion (price doubling and redoubling) in oil prices?
1. Peak oil and declining production around the world. Plus you need to factor in oil producing countries’ local consumption. Rising local consumption in oil producing countries means they will stop exporting oil long before they run out.
a. You see [...]

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There is a reason why it took almost three days to agree to accept foreign aid from Japan and why the Chinese authorities accepted Korea and Russia’s aid, but not high-tech aid from the United States and other Western nations. Reporters have learned that within the Chinese leadership, a group of senior officials supporting [...]

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Fighting transnational terrorism often involves making unsavory choices between protecting civil rights and providing security. The following regimes have opted for the latter and are definitely not the kind of places you want to get caught if you’re plotting some terrorist mayhem.
France
Key tactics: Though many Americans view them as softies when it comes to the [...]

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Look at how our friends the British view Americans.
From the article:
Ugh – just had the worst experience on the tube – some dumb liberal heard me speaking with a friend and deliberately started talking in a loud voice about the American Gov’t staging 9/11. I asked her to take her offensive views out of my [...]

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Iran’s disputed nuclear program has sent a wave of interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, a think tank said Tuesday, warning that it risked setting the scene for a regional nuclear arms race.
At least 13 Middle Eastern countries either announced new plans to explore atomic energy or revived pre-existing nuclear programs between February [...]

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But in today’s Russia, journalists don’t press top officials. In fact, apart from the interviews with Gevorkyan and Kolesnikov, Putin, as president, never publicly faced a single unfriendly question from a Russian reporter.
During Putin’s tenure, television broadcasting was honed to perfection — as a tool to shape public opinion. Coverage of political and public affairs [...]

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Whether Lebanon veered close to “civil war” this month—a question broached by many newspapers—seems purely academic at this point, and perhaps irrelevant. Beirut settled into a tenuous calm after Lebanon’s cabinet conceded (CNN) the immediate demands of Hezbollah, but the upheaval resolved none of the many issues destabilizing the country. Lebanon’s paralyzed government, Beirut’s inability [...]

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