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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After 10 years of steady effort, both India and China have made significant qualitative changes in their navies. In terms of submarine capabilities – the construction of SSNs and SSBNs – China is now far ahead of India, however.
China has built two 094 SSBNs and two 093 SSNs, along with JL2 and JL1M submarine-launched ballistic [...]

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At the height of the Cold War, the West feared the Soviet military. Now, it fears Russian energy companies, and the 800-pound gorilla of them all is Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas monopoly, currently the world’s third-largest company by capitalization.
Having absorbed capitalism with a rapacity that would make Lenin blush, Gazprom does not intend to rest [...]

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“U.S. officials are downplaying reports in the New York Times and Washington Post that Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan may have given Iran–and other nations–blueprints for a miniature nuclear warhead first developed for his country’s program.”
Oh really! The same network that provided Iran and North Korea with the technology to enrich uranium has plans for a miniturized [...]

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Grain production in Saudi Arabia is now down 42 percent from the peak of 4.9 million tons reached in 1994 and is now on track to decline rapidly in the coming years. Thanks to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute for compiling these figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
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Peak water in Saudi [...]

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World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditures, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Monday.
Military spending grew six percent last year alone, according to SIPRI’s annual report.
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As the death toll soars from the powerful earthquake that ravaged central China’s Sichuan province, the scale of the devastation is raising questions about the quality of China’s recent construction boom.
“This building is just a piece of junk,” one newly homeless resident of Dujiangyan yelled today, her body quivering with rage. Her family salvaged clothing [...]

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My forecast is based on the assumption that current trends in the world and in the Middle East will continue in the next decade and may even intensify. We should also recall that 10 years are, more or less, the time required to develop new weapon systems. The Israeli experience also proves that every 10 [...]

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A majority of Canadians (67 percent) believe the influence of China and India in the world will rival that of the United States within the next decade, said a survey Thursday.
As well, more than 60 percent of Canadians believe the growing importance of China and India as economic powers are more of an opportunity [...]

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