The world faces a growing risk of conflict over the next 20 to 30 years amid an unprecedented transfer of wealth and power from West to East, the US intelligence chief has said.
Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, predicted rising demand for scarce supplies of food and fuel, strategic competition over new technologies, and [...]

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A weekend 5.0 Richter earthquake in Iran was actually a nuclear bomb test, says an Iranian nuclear scientist claiming to be working on the project.
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Israel Insider adds that the test/quake was actually the second in a series. Nine days ago, a 4.8 Richter scale event occurred, with its epicenter only five kilometers away from the [...]

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Three issues will dominate the final quarter of 2008: the global financial crisis, U.S. self-absorption and the Russian resurgence.
The financial crisis has its roots in an American liquidity meltdown. But as the days flow by, it will become obvious that the crisis is evolving as it spreads to the rest of the world, and its [...]

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Freshly evaluated soil and air samples from a Syrian site bombed by Israel on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor provide enough evidence for a UN probe, Western diplomats said yesterday.
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Unless the United States modernizes its inventory of nuclear weapons and develops a replacement warhead, the arsenal’s long-term safety and reliability will deteriorate, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Tuesday.
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Successful states may generate trouble, but failures produce catastrophes: Nazi Germany erupted from the bankrupt Weimar Republic; Soviet Communism’s economic disasters swelled the Gulag; a feckless state with unpaid armies enabled Mao’s rise.
Putin might treat sick economy with war.
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Will South Africa follow its brother Zimbabwe?
South Africa is at a crossroads. There is a growing crisis of confidence in the country’s future. Crime is out of control; corruption in high places is endemic (accountability practically nonexistent); state utilities are collapsing; the impartiality of the judiciary is threatened by unruly elements bent on imposing their [...]

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Russia is in the midst of a genuine demographic disaster from which its rulers have no obvious exit strategy. Although the Russia’s fortunes (and the Kremlin’s ambitions) have waxed on a decade of windfall profits from oil and gas, the human foundations of the Russian nation — the ultimate sources of the country’s wealth and [...]

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‘The United States is not just a superpower. It is a super-dooper power,” I was told shortly after the end of the Cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union. There was considerable truth in this claim. Never since the Roman Empire, under the Emperor Augustus 2,000 years ago, had one state appeared so [...]

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China’s military preparedness and strategic deployment of weaponry take into consideration a whole range of potential enemies, an analysis of internal People’s Liberation Army documents has revealed.
In order of importance – that is, the likelihood of actual military engagement – those enemies are Taiwan, the United States and Japan (as potential defenders of Taiwan), India, [...]

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As the price of oil roared to ever higher levels in recent years, the leaders of Venezuela, Iran and Russia muscled their way onto the world stage, using checkbook diplomacy and, on occasion, intimidation.
Now, plummeting oil prices are raising questions about whether the countries can sustain their spending — and their bids to [...]

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Summary: Washington must lead the way to a world without nuclear weapons, say Obama advisors. The first step will be dramatically limiting the U.S. nuclear arsenal’s declared size and purpose.
IVO DAALDER is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. JAN LODAL is immediate past President of the Atlantic Council of the United States and [...]

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Consider the Russian question. What right do we have to make a show of disappointed innocence about the aggressiveness of Putin, who seduced George W. Bush with his blue eyes, Tony Blair with his good manners, Silvio Berlusconi with his frequenting of the Italian Riviera, Gerhard Schröder with a Gazprom chairmanship–and who received the Grand [...]

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US intelligence’s amended estimate, that Iran will be ready to build its first bomb just one month after the next US president is sworn in, is disclosed by DEBKAfile’s Washington sources as having been relayed as a guideline to the Middle East teams of both presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.
The information prompted [...]

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Russia, Iran and Qatar made the first serious moves Tuesday toward forming an OPEC-style cartel on natural gas, raising concerns that Moscow could boost its influence over energy markets spanning from Europe to South Asia.
Such an alliance would have little direct impact on the United States, which imports virtually no natural gas from Russia [...]

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Russia’s enormous size, its lack of cultural cohesion, its sparse and fast shrinking population, its deficient infrastructure and lack of communication lines, are some of the factors that feed the disintegration pressures within Russia. Medvedev’s speech in Kamchatka showed just how worried the Kremlin is about the possibility of the country breaking apart.
It is paradoxical [...]

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North Korea moved closer Thursday to relaunching its nuclear arms program, announcing that it wants to reactivate the facility that produced its atomic bomb and banning U.N. inspectors from the site.
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A new RAND study suggests U.S. air power in the Pacific would be inadequate to thwart a Chinese attack on Taiwan in 2020. The study, entitled “Air Combat Past, Present and Future,” by John Stillion and Scott Perdue, says China’s anti-access arms and strategy could deny the U.S. the “ability to operate efficiently from nearby [...]

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The increased Russian naval presence in the region means that the Kremlin is seeking to cultivate Syria as a close regional ally, and is looking to secure additional bases for the Black Sea Fleet besides its current base in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol.
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If Syria is an ally of Russia, then the video [...]

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Investors are fleeing fragile financial markets, oil prices are falling, and the global credit crisis threatens the economy
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But scratch the surface a bit, and things are less splendid than they appear. As the financial crisis spreads, Russians are suddenly discovering that their economy is shakier than many had cared to believe. Credit is increasingly tight, [...]

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Conclusions about Pakistan: “no money, no energy, no government.” However, they do have nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them thanks to help from China.
India, you had better start sweating bullets, because you are in serious trouble.
From the article:
A U.S. official who participated in drafting the top secret National Intelligence Estimate said it portrays [...]

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