It will be impossible to shield Russian territory unless Moscow policymakers promptly settle organizational issues as regards the aerospace-defense system’s creation and unless the Russian government starts mass-producing the required weapons.
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There is an odd quiet globally. The Middle East is seeing tension easing across the board. Tensions between Russia and the Czechs or Georgians have mounted, but nothing like they could have. The Chinese are tense but managing the run-up to the Olympics and the oil price rise as well as can be expected. Nothing [...]

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Nicolas Sarkozy is nothing if not ambitious. The French president wants to overhaul his country’s economic and military policies, redefine how Europe thinks about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and collective defense, and set things right in several former French colonies in North Africa and the Middle East. Sarkozy’s latest project melds some of [...]

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More strategic unhelpfulness from Russia and China.
From the article:
Russia and China vetoed proposed sanctions on Zimbabwe on Friday, rejecting U.S. efforts to step up punitive measures after the African nation’s disputed presidential election.
Western powers mustered nine votes, the minimum needed to gain approval in the 15-nation council, in a show of hands. But the failed [...]

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Nervous Arab states fear a war in the Gulf but a nuclear-armed Iran is an even greater concern.
Iranian retaliation against oilfields, refineries and desalination plants in the Gulf, especially in eastern Saudi Arabia, is an obvious worry. Tehran has gone on the record as threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point for [...]

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This is another off-topic article that I found fascinating.
From the article:
Billy Beane is an ex-ballplayer who, according to the scouts who recruited him out of high school in 1980, was destined for a successful big-league career. They were wrong. During his 10 years in the majors, Billy Beane’s vaunted athletic prowess and skill never played [...]

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A leading Israeli analyst said Hamas has been preparing its forces for an expected Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, Middle East Newsline reported. Jonathan Spyer, a senior researcher at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, said Hamas was adopting Hizbullah’s strategy of asymmetrical warfare meant to significantly improve its combat abilities.
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The U.S. believes the Iranian story that they tested a new Shihab-3 missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers. The Israeli version is that the Iranians tested an older version with a range 1,300 kilometers.
From the article:
A leading Israeli analyst, however, asserted that the Shihab-3 launched on Wednesday was an older model with a range [...]

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This is another fascinating article for my off-topic series.
From the article:
They are said to produce unparalleled sound quality. Until now, however, no one has been able to explain why 300-year-old Stradivarius violins have never been matched in terms of musical expressiveness and projection.
A study has found that the secret may be explained by the consistent [...]

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