Uncle Sam is down on his knees, and some observers already are administering the last rites. But are they too quick to judge?
Eavesdrop on the two scenes for a moment.
“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” he said of the US economy, marshalling the inimitable eloquence of the President who has given [...]

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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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The phone call begins with the cries of an anguished child calling for a parent: “Mama! Papa!” The youngster’s sobs are quickly replaced by a husky male voice that means business.
“We’ve got your child,” he says in rapid-fire Spanish, usually adding an expletive for effect and then rattling off a list of demands that might [...]

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The United States and Iran appear on a collision course in the Middle East, firing off mixed messages that are raising world tension and roiling oil markets amid fears that an eventual confrontation may be military.
Both insist war is not imminent, but their sharp words and provocative actions are stoking uncertainty as Washington and Tehran [...]

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IRAN has issued a strident warning that it would “set on fire” Israel and target the US navy in the Persian Gulf as its first response to any American attack over its nuclear programme.
Rising tension in the area where Iran and the United States are both carrying out military exercises have contributed to driving oil [...]

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Argentina raised the prospect of posting military forces in the Antarctic region yesterday, with the announcement of plans to use troops to defend its interests.
President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner told defence chiefs that Argentina must be prepared to assert its sovereignty and protect its natural resources, as nations compete to claim areas of the region [...]

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Half of Russia’s emerging middle class do not believe in the stability delivered by former President Vladimir Putin, fear a crisis may loom and would like to emigrate, according to independent pollsters Levada.
“Those who should be grateful are not very grateful, but the situation is very fragile, very unstable and they fear it could end [...]

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Fears are mounting in the defense establishment that comments by senior officials regarding an imminent Israeli military strike against Iran will spur Russia to complete controversial sales of anti-aircraft missile systems to the Islamic Republic, The Jerusalem Post learned on Monday.
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The discovery of designs for a compact nuclear bomb has raised fears that Iran and North Korea might have obtained blueprints enabling them to mount long-range strikes with nuclear-armed missiles.
Designs for a nuclear device small enough to fit on a ballistic missile were found on computers linked to the international smuggling ring that supplied nuclear [...]

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The BBC’s Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, looks at increasing speculation that Iran may come under attack because of its nuclear programme.
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The talk has alarmed, among others, the former German Foreign Minister, Joshka Fischer.
Germany has, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, taken the lead in talks with Iran about its nuclear [...]

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“Within a year, the Israeli government will have to decide between two options: either not do anything and reconcile itself to the fact that Iran is now nuclear, or take unilateral military action,” Giora Eiland, Israel’s former national security adviser, told Scotland on Sunday.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel is also worried that Tehran is [...]

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The man who located the wreck of the Titanic has revealed that the discovery was a cover story to camouflage the real mission of inspecting the wrecks of two Cold war nuclear submarines.
When Bob Ballard led a team that pinpointed the wreckage of the liner in 1985 he had already completed his main task of [...]

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A leading global energy monitor fears there may not be enough oil to slake the world’s thirst — and is preparing a landmark forecast that could reverberate through the global economy even as major companies announce fuel-related cutbacks.
The International Energy Agency is studying depletion rates at about 400 oil fields in a first-of-its-kind study of [...]

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JUDGING from the news lately, Russia is well on its way to restoring that old Evil Empire image. Military parades have returned to Red Square. Key businesses are choked by corruption or are under state control. Journalists who probe too deeply turn up dead. And critics of the Kremlin are jailed, pushed out of elections [...]

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The battle for “ownership” of the polar oil reserves has accelerated with the disclosure that Russia has sent a fleet of nuclear-powered ice breakers into the Arctic.
It has reinforced fears that Moscow intends to annex “unlawfully” a vast portion of the ice-covered Arctic, beneath which scientists believe up to 10 billion tons of gas and [...]

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What Olmert fears is graphically illustrated by the numbers. According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, its population is 7,282,000, of whom 20.1 percent are Palestinian Arab citizens. On the West Bank and Gaza, an additional 4.2 million Palestinians live.
Hebrew University demographer Sergio DellaPergola projects that by 2020 Jews will compose only 44 percent to [...]

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Thursday’s gun battles broke out only minutes after the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, appeared on TV to accuse the Lebanese government of declaring war on his movement, whose raison d’etre is to resist Israel.
He said the only way out of the current crisis was for the government to rescind the decisions it took on Monday [...]

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France already controls 11 million square kilometers of the world’s oceans, second only to the US. Now they want more, demanding the equivalent of three Germanys all in one gulp. It’s part of a rush to divvy up the world’s oceans by this time next year. more…

Photo Gallery: The Race to Claim the Seas
Millennia of [...]

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The Sunday Times of London reports that Israel’s intelligence information on Iran’s nuclear capabilities appears to belie the official United States stance on the issue. The US National Intelligence Estimate of last December concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003. However, the Times reports, Israel has made a [...]

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As tensions rise with Syria, fears have mounted in the defense establishment that Hizbullah may fly an explosives-packed drone into Israel in retaliation for the February assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
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