The economy grew 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, but the number is not as strong as it looks. Most of it is based on temporary factors, notably a spurt of inventory replenishment and the now-waning fiscal stimulus. An overhang of debt and low property values continues to weigh down banks’ and consumers’ [...]

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Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.
Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to [...]

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In 1972, a group of armed Palestinians raided the rooms of Israel’s Olympic team in Munich, killed two athletes and took another nine hostage. A botched rescue attempt by German police ended in the deaths of all of the Israelis in a wild shootout at a nearby military airfield.
Golda Meir, Israel’s prime minister at the [...]

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The document says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear force in response to a nuclear attack or one of equivalent magnitude.
Russia’s conventional military forces are in dilapidated shape, increasing Moscow’s dependence on its Cold War-era nuclear arsenals.
Medvedev signs Russia’s military doctrine – washingtonpost.com

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Signs indicative of an impending explosion are coming from every side: from Iran, Lebanon, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and also Israel, which is on its own against them all. Instead of trying to calm the situation, the region’s leader are sharpening their swords and trading verbal barbs. The evident weakness of the “world’s [...]

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Historian Niall Ferguson wrote in last year’s Foreign Policy magazine (Mar/Apr) that we have entered the age of upheaval with the start of the global economic crisis and the decline of America. Now we have China showing signs that it will increasingly fill the void.
Get ready for a few difficult months ahead when the U.S. [...]

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They have been attracted to the city-state by reports that property prices there have fallen further since the local debt crisis erupted in November, and signs that Dubai’s economy may have bottomed out and begun to recover.
Wenzhou already has strong links with Dubai. Of about 150,000 Chinese citizens living in Dubai, nearly 20,000 are merchants [...]

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The opposition movement is gaining strength, and signs are emerging that the government could collapse.
“The current regime has broken the social bonds that tie it to the public and thus is eventually due to fall,” Bill Beeman, a Persian-speaking professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota and former president of the Middle East section [...]

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If the collapse of Dubai’s credit-fueled bubble in November was a late ripple of the last financial crisis, events in Europe last week seemed like an omen of the next: out-of-control government deficits. Markets headed lower after rating agencies downgraded the public debt of Greece and warned about the outlook for several others. Greece could [...]

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Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery.
Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.
Americans Grow Gloomy About [...]

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