To some, China’s muscular domination of the Olympic medal table is a powerful allegory of the shifting balance of global power. A far better and more literal testimony to the collapse of the West may be seen in the distinctly weak-kneed response to Russian aggression in Georgia by what is still amusingly called the transatlantic [...]

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In Madden’s historically linked world, the defeat of Carthage in 204 B.C. is the mirror image of the D-Day invasion of World war II. The contempt the Greeks had for Romans even after Rome saved them from civil war is a historical analog to the Europeans’ anti-Americanism and arrogance even after the American military bailed [...]

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Dutch author Leon de Winter talks with SPIEGEL about his new novel, which is set in 2024, the threats mounting against Israel and the assimilation of Muslims in Europe. more…

From the Archive: ‘We Are Making Fools of Ourselves in the Eyes of the World’
SPIEGEL 360: Our Full Middle East Coverage

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How would we like it if Russia placed interceptor missiles in Cuba or Venezuela? That question is disingenuous. Both Russia and China have been quietly helping Iran with its missile and nuclear programs. And now they’re mad that we actually want to protect ourself from a rogue state that they’ve been helping for years. That’s [...]

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This is brought to you by JohnMauldin@InvestorsInsight.com. John provides a free daily newsletter that you can sign up for. George Friedman is making this forecast available so that you might sign up for his service.
Read original source with maps included.
Here’s the article:
By George Friedman at Stratfor.Com.
Introduction
For the first half of 2008, Stratfor focused [...]

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Russia’s angry response to an accord between Washington and Prague on building part of a U.S. missile defence shield in the Czech Republic is reminiscent of the rhetoric of the Cold War. Although Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says Moscow still wants talks on the missile shield, his Foreign Ministry has threatened a “military-technical” response if [...]

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Americans would cringe at some of things going on in Europe today.
From the article.
A Cambridge-educated attorney seated next to me on a recent flight lamented seeing Pakistanis and Africans throughout Europe. Of course, “it’s not racism,” she insisted, “but as a European you just like to see European people in European cities.”
Italy’s highest appeals court [...]

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Without much oil under its sands, Dubai is no petro powerhouse. But you can’t beat it for being the most colorful sheikdom in the Middle East–or the most ambitious. What other desert land can claim one of the world’s largest indoor ski slopes, featuring fresh powder year round? While flying in on the stylish, state-owned [...]

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Is there a significant chance that Israel will attack by year end Iran’s nuclear facilities? The German magazine Spiegel argues so in a two-part article “Mission Doable“ and “‘We Will See a Middle East in Flames’“ (hat tip to Fabius Maximus):
While the Europeans continue to pin their hopes on diplomacy and are convinced that [...]

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With Iran unyielding, President Bush presses Europeans to punish Tehran for its nuclear program
The vow of further sanctions ordered up by individual governments—or perhaps across the 27-nation EU—may be the only realistic step left to escalate pressure on Iran. According to a senior European diplomat, the United Nations Security Council is unlikely to take further [...]

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Despite popular myth, anti-Americanism in Europe isn’t on the rise.
In Europe, as in nearly everywhere else in the world, the image of the United States has taken a severe battering during the Bush years. Survey after survey shows that negative feelings toward America and U.S. policies have soared. Only 36 percent of Europeans, for example, [...]

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First they came for the iPods. Then the Europeans snatched up condos in Manhattan. Now they’re coming for the companies.
Why is this happening now? The plummeting U.S. dollar has made the move across the Atlantic affordable for many European companies. And this may be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to relocate: American companies have rarely [...]

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‘It Is not Us but Europe that Needs to Face Reality’
The next Serbian government could include Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the ultra-nationalists. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he shows himself uncompromising on the question of Kosovo and even raises the spectre of a new war in the Balkans. more…

Serbian Election: A Setback for [...]

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The end of the unipolar moment, underlined by the American fiasco in Iraq and by the ascendancy of China, Brazil and India, raises again questions about the structure of the global system and how Europe fits within it.
After the end of the cold war and with the accelerating pace of globalisation, Europeans were inclined to [...]

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“THE ISRAEL-ARAB READER”

Seventh edition
Edited by Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin

Now available from Penguin publishers is this new edition of one of the most highly respected, widely used reference books on the Middle East, documenting the Arab-Israel conflict and peace process from its inception to the present day.
The book provides almost 300 primary texts covering more [...]

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