China’s submarine fleet is now one of the world’s largest with nearly 85 vessels. More than that, old and unreliable boats mostly acquired from the old Soviet Union are being rapidly replaced by modern submarines armed with highly sophisticated anti-ship missiles and radar-dodging cruise missiles able to attack land targets.
Beijing is even building at least [...]

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In a sharp escalation of military rhetoric, Mr Medvedev ordered a wholesale renovation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and told military chiefs to draw up plans to reorganise the armed forces by December.
He said that Russia must modernise its nuclear defences within eight years, including the creation of a “system of air and space defence”.
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Russia [...]

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Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert.
“They have been told to be ready to cut off [...]

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Today a new kind of Warsaw Pact emerges, this time with a strong anti-Russian and pro-US profile. Poland and the three Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - harmonise their policy with regard to their status as super-ally to the US, their suspicion of Russia and their hidden frustration at “soft” European foreign policy.
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Iran’s insatiable demand for water, which is being drawn out of aquifers far faster than it can be replenished, is causing large chunks of farmland to sink and buildings to crack, according to a new study.
Estimates suggest the water levels in Iranian aquifers have declined by an average of nearly 1.5 feet (half a [...]

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A US diplomat has denounced the controversial Baltic natural gas pipeline as “a special arrangement between Germany and Russia.” His remarks have ruffled feathers in Berlin and highlighted growing US-German tensions over relations with Russia. By Ralf Beste and Cordula Meyer more…

Fears over Stability of Georgian Pipeline: ‘Russia Should not Have a Stranglehold on Resources’

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OVER THE next ten to twenty years, the erosion of American nuclear superiority will have major ramifications for the global balance of power. It will place new constraints on our freedom of action and lead our friends and foes alike to doubt the credibility of all instruments of U.S. power. As a result, decades-old alliance [...]

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — In his old life in Cairo, Rami Galal knew his place and his fate: to become a maintenance man in a hotel, just like his father. But here, in glittering, manic Dubai, he is confronting the unsettling freedom to make his own choices.
Here Mr. Galal, 24, drinks beer almost every [...]

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Russian lawmakers gave preliminary approval Friday to a 25 percent hike in defense spending — a sharp increase for Russia’s military that comes only a month after it crushed Georgia on the battlefield.
The boost in defense spending for 2009 fits in with Russia’s recent defiant posture toward the West, a stance that has seen relations [...]

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Last Friday the Daily Telegraph reported Teheran has surreptitiously removed a sufficient amount of uranium from its nuclear production facility in Isfahan to produce six nuclear bombs. Given Iran’s already acknowledged uranium enrichment capabilities, the Telegraph’s report indicates that the Islamic Republic is now in the late stages of assembling nuclear bombs.
It would be a [...]

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Ten Russian warships are docked in the Syrian port city of Tartus to the apparent surprise of the Israeli military, military sources say.
The unidentified sources said Israeli military leaders were unaware that Russian had already moved so many vessels into Syrian territory following a Sept. 12 agreement between the two countries, DEBKAfile, a Israeli news [...]

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The US Defence Secretary has told Sky News that another Russian attack on Georgia once it has joined Nato would result in an American armed response.
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The market’s collapse, down 57% since May, is linked to the dysfunctional nature of the Russian state and economy. Nearly every aspect of commerce in Russia is deeply entangled with state power, if not with Mr. Putin personally. This, for obvious reasons, does not comfort most investors.
One famous investor in particular was worried about the [...]

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Europe, the charming continent of windmills and gondolas. But lately, Europe has become the continent of endless strikes and demonstrations, bombs on the trains and subways, radical Islamic cells in every city, and ghettos so hopeless and violent even the police won’t enter them. In Spain, a terrorist attack prompts instant capitulation to the terrorists’ [...]

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By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Over the past several months we have written quite a bit about the Russian resurgence. This discussion predates Russia’s military action in Georgia. Indeed, we have discussed the revival of Russian power since at least 2005, the implications of the FSB’s return since April and the potential return of the [...]

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People normally do not think of doom scenarios until they happen. This was true of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Repeated warnings and mounting evidence were ignored in the highest places. In this same way, nobody thinks of the possibility of World war III until perhaps it suddenly blows up in our faces, if it will.
This [...]

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THEY trade in everything from stolen art to nuclear technology and leave rivals riddled with bullets in the streets of Moscow.
Now the worst thugs in the Russian Mafia have blasted their way to the top of the global organised crime league.
Moscow’s Solntsevskaya Bratva, known as the Brotherhood, have just been named the worst criminal gang [...]

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He’s an ethnic nationalist with a mystical sense of Russian destiny. Cold and pragmatic, he won’t play by the world’s rules.
Does this ruthless, focused leader have a weakness? Yes: his temper. Despite his icy demeanor, Putin’s combustible. He takes rebuffs personally and can act impulsively — and destructively. Instead of lulling Europeans into an ever-greater [...]

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Russia is fast running out of young men.
Between 2010 and 2025, Russia’s pool of potential military recruits, aged 20-29, will decline by 44 percent, according to the United Nations. This forecast is not subject to meaningful revision; it has been “written in stone” by births that have already occurred. A collapsing supply of new workers [...]

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Georgia has released intercepted telephone calls purporting to show that part of a Russian armored regiment crossed into the separatist enclave of South Ossetia nearly a full day before Georgia’s attack on the capital, Tskhinvali, late on Aug. 7.
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The IAEA wants Iran to clarify intelligence material pointing to links between Iranian projects to process uranium, test high explosives and modify the cone of its long-distance Shahab-3 missile in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead.
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Western concern was heightened by a revelation in the IAEA report that Iran may have had “foreign expertise” helping [...]

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