Egypt accused of 'deceiving' Hamas

Egypt "collaborated" with Israel in its Gaza attack and lulled Hamas into thinking the Israel Defense Forces would not attack Gaza, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi reported Sunday.
The report, based on Arab diplomatic sources, claims that Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman told a number of Arab leaders that Israel was intending to attack the Gaza Strip in a limited manner in order to pressure the Palestinian organization into agreeing to a renewed ceasefire. 

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Israel launches air strikes on Gaza, 145 dead

Israeli warplanes destroyed dozens of security compounds across Hamas-ruled Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of air strikes, killing at least 145 people and wounding more than 310 in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory, Palestinian medical officials said.
The strikes came in response to renewed rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli border towns. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said "the operation will last as long as necessary" but it was not clear if it would include a ground offensive.
Asked if Hamas political leaders might be targeted next, military spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibovitch said "Any Hamas target is a target."

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Nobody threw shoes at Brown – but his guilt is still undeniable

At least this time there was no ballistic footwear. The last time Gordon Brown made a surprise visit to Iraq to announce troop withdrawals, he was whacked so hard on the head by the giant DM attached to his own left leg – and if nothing else, you had to admire his Nadia Comanecian elasticity of movement – that it took this unfolding economic catastrophe to rouse him from the ensuing psephological coma.

That was in October 2007 when he torpedoed a reputation for straightness, as skillfully nurtured as it was ill deserved, with an act of political opportunism so cretinously transparent that it beggared all belief. The chump flew to Basra and announced troop reduction figures that proved, after 0.37 seconds of the barely numerate's inspection, what is known to professors of political science as a whopper, but which I guess, in honour of the week's hilarious shoe theme, we should know as arrant cobblers.

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Banks hit worldwide by US 'fraud'

Some of the world's biggest banks have revealed they are victims of an alleged fraud which has lost $50bn (£33bn).

Bernard Madoff, who was arrested on Thursday, has been charged with fraud in what is being described as one of the biggest-ever such cases.

Among the banks that have been hit are Britain's HSBC and RBS, Spain's Santander and France's BNP Paribas.

Other victims include film director Stephen Spielberg's Wunderkinder Foundation charity.

One of the City's best-known fund managers has criticised US regulators for not detecting the alleged fraud.

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US accuses Britain over military failings in Afghanistan

 The performance of Britain’s overstretched military in Afghanistan is coming under sustained criticism from the Pentagon and US analysts even as Gordon Brown ponders whether to send in further reinforcements.
Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary who has been asked to remain in his job under Barack Obama, is understood to have expressed strong reservations about counterinsurgency operations in British-controlled Helmand province.
He has already announced plans for a surge of 20,000 US troops into Afghanistan but Mr Brown, who was given a bleak progress report when he visited Afghanistan at the weekend, is said to be reluctant about committing another 2,000 British troops on top of the 8,400 already there.

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Fed Cuts Benchmark Rate to Near Zero

The Federal Reserve entered a new era on Tuesday, lowering its benchmark interest rate virtually to zero and declaring that it would now fight the recession by pumping out vast amounts of money to businesses and consumers through an expanding array of new lending programs

Though important as a historic milestone, the move to an interest rate of zero from 1 percent is largely symbolic. The funds rate, which affects what banks charge for lending their reserves to each other, had already fallen to nearly zero in recent days because banks have been so reluctant to do business.
Of much greater practical importance, the Fed bluntly announced that it would print as much money as necessary to revive the frozen credit markets and fight what is shaping up as the nation’s worst economic downturn since World War II.

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Russia claims US plans new bases for Central Asia

Russia's top military officer warned that Moscow felt threatened by U.S. policy in ex-Soviet Central Asia and claimed that Washington was attempting to establish new military bases there, news agencies reported Tuesday.
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the Russian military's general staff, said Washington planned to establish a foothold in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Interfax and ITAR-Tass reported. U.S. officials denied there were plans.
Makarov also said U.S. support for bids by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO made Russia feel threatened. He cast doubt that relations between the countries would improve under Barack Obama.

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UN gives OK to land, air attacks on Somali pirates

On the same day Somali gunmen seized two more ships, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases on the coast of the Horn of Africa country.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on hand to push through the resolution, one of President George W. Bush's last major foreign policy initiatives.
Rice said the resolution will have a significant impact, especially since "pirates are adapting to the naval presence in the Gulf of Aden by traveling further" into sea lanes not guarded by warships sent by the U.S. and other countries.

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Cheap-oil era is over

Now, just as the world economy slows and oil drops below US$50 a barrel, the IEA has released the most important report in its three-decade history, World Energy Outlook 2008. This report does something both very important and most amazingly unprecedented. It takes an extensive inventory of global oil supplies.

It would seem fairly logical that an organization responsible for tracking the global oil industry would as a matter of course, indeed of its very nature, take a close look at actual oil supplies every year, but this in fact has not been the case. For almost its entire existence, the IEA has quite unbelievably looked at demand and assumed supply would be there to meet it. 


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More than 160 US, NATO vehicles burned in Pakistan

Militants torched 160 vehicles, including dozens of Humvees destined for U.S. and allied forces fighting in Afghanistan, in the boldest attack so far on the critical military supply line through Pakistan.
The American military said Sunday's raid on two transport terminals near the beleaguered Pakistani city of Peshawar would have "minimal" impact on anti-Taliban operations set to expand with the arrival of thousands more troops next year.
However, the attack feeds concern that insurgents are trying to choke the route through the famed Khyber Pass, which carries up to 70 percent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan, and drive up the cost of the war.

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Indian Minister Says Pakistan Is Using Hoax As Distraction

ndia's foreign minister accused Pakistan on Sunday of trying to deflect attention from the role of its citizens in last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai by leaking word of a hoax phone call to the Pakistani president's office that reportedly forced its air force to go on high alert.
The episode underscored the high level of tension that remains between the two nuclear-armed nations nearly two weeks after the attacks, as India continues to charge that a terrorist group with past ties to the Pakistani government was responsible and Pakistan insists that it was not involved.

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Russia Allocates $2 Billion on New Arms, Countering U.S. Shield

Russia will spend an extra $2 billion next year on weapons, including modernizing short-range Iskander missiles that could counter a proposed U.S. anti-missile shield.
The government decided to allocate an extra 60 billion rubles ($2.1 billion) after Russia’s August war with U.S.-allied Georgia, state broadcaster Vesti-24 cited Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying on its Web Site.
“Irrespective of the economic situation, it will continue to rise,” Ivanov said of Russia’s defense spending. “There is an objective need to speed up further the rearmament of our army and navy.”

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India, Russia regain elan of friendship

The visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to New Delhi last week turned out to be an occasion for the Indian government to fundamentally reassess the strategic significance of the traditional India-Russia partnership. No doubt, the visit took place at a turning point in contemporary history and politics against the backdrop of massive shifts in the international system.

Medvedev arrived in India in the immediate aftermath of the horrific terrorist strikes on Mumbai. The regional security situation - especially Afghanistan - naturally figured prominently in the agenda of the visit. 


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NATO scuttles US plan to encircle Russia

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ministers in Brusselshave decided to ignore the wishes of the United States and delay the admission of Georgia and the Ukraine, in effect indefinitely, in what the George W Bush administration is sheepishly trying to claim is a positive "compromise".

The decision, follows the alarm which peaked among European Union member states last August over the prospect of having to go to war with Russia over an erratic leader in the Caucasus who had provoked Moscow into a reaction. 


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Pak on track to being named terrorist state

US intelligence circles are now re-evaluating Pakistan's contribution to the war on terror, and the ISI's dominant role in the country and its ties with jihadi outfits, at the behest of the Bush administration. The White House itself lost faith in the Pakistan Army's bonafides several months ago which led to Washington's decision to withdraw support to military ruler Pervez Musharraf and back a new civilian government, officials and congressional aides who spoke on background explained. The decision to dump Musharraf was taken at vice-president Dick Cheney recommendation, they added, because of evidence that Pakistan was continuing to help Taliban elements attacking Nato forces.

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Recession, Rate Cuts and Stocks: Why This Time It's Different

On a day when the National Bureau of Economic Research says the current recession is both official and a full year old and the Federal Reserve Chairman says he's willing to cut interest rates from an already rock-bottom 1 percent, the contrarian in me expected to see at least a few folks start shouting "Buy!"

That's because during most downturns, by the time a recession is officially announced, the damage has already been done in stocks. That, mixed with possible rate cuts that are "certainly feasible," according to Ben Bernanke, should theoretically be good news for battered shares. Not this time. Here's why:

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China’s six-to-one advantage over the US

America outspends China on defense by a margin of more than six to one, the Pentagon estimates. [1] In another strategic dimension, though, China already holds a six-to-one advantage over the United States. Thirty-six million Chinese children study piano today, compared to only 6 million in the United States.[2] The numbers understate the difference, for musical study in China is more demanding.

It must be a conspiracy. Chinese parents are selling plasma-screen TVs to America, and saving their wages to buy their kids pianos - making American kids stupider and Chinese kids smarter. Watch out, Americans - a generation from now, your kid is going to fetch coffee for a Chinese boss. 


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