Russia plans to trim its armed forces by more than 10 percent by 2012 with radical cuts among the officer ranks, the defense minister said Wednesday.
The Kremlin plans to streamline and modernize the military which has suffered from inefficiency and low morale despite steady increases in defense budgets in recent years.
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said [...]

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The global financial crisis is sparking a new wave of anti-Americanism in Europe, where the intensity of America-bashing in some countries is reaching levels not seen since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
The turmoil on Wall Street has been greeted with a smug chorus of ridicule emanating from nearly every European country, whether big [...]

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Venezuela will have Latin America’s largest armed forces in terms of firepower by 2013, if the country’s oil revenues remain high in coming years.
President Hugo Chavez has purchased and placed firm orders for close to $6 billion in Russian weapons since 2005, but he is also shopping for weapons in China, Belarus, Spain, France and [...]

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Iran’s looming financial crisis
In 2006, Iran was the fifth largest oil exporter in the world. How is it possible that by the middle of the next decade its exports could fall to zero?
In a paper published in January 2007, Roger Stern, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, predicted that Iranian oil exports would drop to [...]

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Foreign investors are fleeing, bank lending is down, and growth is slowing in Russia. By Jason Bush more…

Crimean Power Struggle: Russia and Ukraine Jockey in the Black Sea
Rise of the Rest: The Challenges of the New World Order
‘Russia’s Energy Weapon’: German-US Tensions Grow Over Baltic Pipeline
Oil, Interrupted: Europe Grapples with Russia-Georgia Woes

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A South Korean official says that the North is believed to be seeking to develop a small-sized, lightweight nuclear warhead that can be carried by its missiles.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Kim Tae-young told a parliamentary committee Wednesday that he believes the North “has been pushing to develop a small warhead to be [...]

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