Only al-Qaeda and Iran pose bigger danger
The services are understood to fear that Russia’s three main intelligence agencies have flooded the country with agents, The Times understands.
There is reported to be deep irritation within the services that vital resources are having to be diverted to deal with industrial and military espionage by the Russians.
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The post-war global institutions have largely worked well. But rising countries and growing threats are challenging their pre-eminence.
That is how many outsiders, not just in the poor world, will see the summit that takes place from July 7th to 9th of the G8, the closest the world has to an informal (ie, self-appointed) steering group. [...]

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A third of all money spent by the Russian government on its armed forces is lost to corruption, a senior Russian official has warned.
Aleksander Kanshin told reporters 16 generals and 180 colonels were prosecuted last year alone.
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Russia and the West are losing each other yet again. The magnetic attraction and repulsion between the two has been going on for centuries. Indeed, historians have counted as many as 25 of these cycles since the reign of Tsar Ivan III.
In the past, however, the Kremlin’s sharp anti-Western turns were reversed — usually out [...]

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My impression is that a new phase of Russian politics is under way. The statement that the president designs foreign and security policy, and the prime minister implements parts of it, has become the mantra of Russian officials from Medvedev and Putin down. I encountered no Russian in or out of government who doubted that [...]

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The rapid increase in oil prices and the rise in metal and mineral demand worldwide have made the Russians overconfident. Their annual cash income in the last four years has grown fourfold. The economic crunch of the 1990s is behind them. Thus the Russians have become somewhat politically belligerent, visible in the opposition they have [...]

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A “new world order” cannot be based on “an Anglo-Saxon pattern that some have tried to establish for the rest of the world,” Lavrov said. It would involve doing away with “the Cold war architecture for the security of Europe.”
He proposed a European Security Conference to bring together the United States, Russia, the European Union [...]

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The number of rich individuals in Russia grew by 14% last year - more than twice the global average. Merrill Lynch says this was fuelled by increased market capitalisation, rising direct foreign investment, strong consumer demand and soaring energy prices.
Jean-Marie Deluermoz of Merrill Lynch said: “The conclusion of our findings this year is that in [...]

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Those are the 40-plus countries with the scientists, engineers and infrastructure for building bombs — and in at least one other case, that of South Africa, a history of having done so.
About a dozen are nuclear “rollback” states, ranging from Sweden and Switzerland, which seriously researched the weapon option in the 1950s and 1960s and [...]

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The word “petrostate” typically conjures up images of Middle Eastern sheiks with fantastically wealthy lifestyles ruling politically repressive, oil-rich desert regions. Few realize that Russia actually leads the world in the production and export of natural gas and trails only Saudi Arabia in the production and export of oil. Even fewer know that Russia has [...]

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KP: Is it really possible that nothing will be able to reach the U.S.?
Polezhaev: Let’s talk about the worst-case scenario — an unexpected nuclear attack by the U.S. Of course, this is theoretical. Let’s say the attack leads to the destruction of 90 percent of our silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). Our lightly sheltered Topol [...]

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“We propose to have an army of 1 million within four or five years, that is by 2013,” Russian media quoted Serdyukov as telling reporters after meeting President Dmitry Medvedev.
Russian officials had earlier put the number of Russian army servicemen at 1.13 million at the end of 2007. Serdyukov said the Defence Ministry had earlier [...]

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Gates expressed doubts that the United States will get into a shooting war with a “peer competitor” like Russia or China any time soon. After he was fired, the outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. “Buzz” Moseley, echoed those sentiments. Not Wynne.
“My response to Secretary Gates in that interchange was my brother was shot [...]

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If you want to understand the future, find out what is being taught in the schools.
From the article:
Moreover, 51 percent did not know that the war started with North Korea’s invasion of the South. About 14 percent picked Japan as the nation responsible for the war; 13.4 percent, the United States, and 11 percent Russia. [...]

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Russia’s record oil output is slipping, and major tax cuts are on the way. But massive investment is needed.
After climbing for years, Russia’s output has begun to drop: It was down by 0.7 percent in April. The problem is so serious that the new Prime Minister, former President Vladimir Putin, has said the issue is [...]

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The U.S.-proposed European missile shield will eventually spread along Russia’s borders and may neutralize Russia’s nuclear potential by 2012-2015, a Russian political analyst said on Wednesday.
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Military alliances are always sold as things that produce security. In practice they tend to do the opposite.
The Cold war may be over, but you would never know it from NATO’s April meeting in Bucharest. The alliance approved membership for Croatia and Albania, and only French and German opposition prevented the Bush administration from adding [...]

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Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems, commenting on Russia’s triad of strategic nuclear weapons, including ground-based missiles, submarines and bombers said, “We are really worried by what is happening. The mobile Topol-M missile systems are vulnerable to conventional strikes; their mobility is no longer a guarantee of concealment or [...]

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A new international relations orthodoxy is coalescing, to the effect that America is slouching towards mediocrity. In newspaper columns articles and on TV talk shows you will hear journalists charting the “relentless relative decline” of the United States. The military is overstretched; the economy is exposed; the political system is broken; the punters are suffering [...]

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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 BP chairman suggested that the tactics adopted by the AAR consortium were a return to the 1990s, a lawless period when many of Russia’s biggest fortunes were amassed by a small group of individuals, often referred to as oligarchs.
Mr Sutherland also pointed a finger at the Kremlin and asked why the Russian government had [...]

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