Turkey-Israel Row Could Signal Geopolitical Change In Region

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that his decision to bar Israel from taking part in NATO military exercises this week was based on "diplomatic sensitivities" and public opinion in his country.

"There is a necessity for every political administration to take into consideration the demands of its people," Erdogan said on October 15. "This is a necessity. I can not ignore the request of my own people on this issue."

The exercises were due to start on October 12 and run until October 23, but were postponed indefinitely after the United States and Italy reportedly refused to take part without the involvement of Israel's air force.

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Is America Hooked on War?

he question is: What kind of country do we actually live in when the so-called U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) lists 16 intelligence services ranging from Air Force Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency to the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency? What could "intelligence" mean once spread over 16 sizeable, bureaucratic, often competing outfits with a cumulative 2009 budget estimated at more than $55 billion (a startling percentage of which is controlled by the Pentagon)? What exactly is so intelligent about all that? And why does no one think it even mildly strange or in any way out of the ordinary?

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Medvedev jumps the gun on Iran

The Western perception that the famous Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-Medvedev "tandem" in Moscow would inevitably transform and the Russian president would incrementally create his own power center in the Kremlin received a boost.

During his visit to Moscow in July, United States President Barack Obama hinted at such a perception. As against eight hours that Obama clocked with Medvedev, he spared 90 minutes with Putin, whom he also made it a point to describe tendentiously as someone with one foot planted in the bygone


Cold War era. The implication was that Medvedev was open to engagement by the West.         

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The dollar is dead - long live the renminbi

 Sometimes it takes a crisis to restore reason and equilibrium to the world, and so it is with the trade and capital imbalances that were arguably the root cause of the financial collapse of the past two years.
To economic purists, the changes now under way in demand and trade are inevitable, necessary and even desirable. Even so, dollar supremacy and the geo-political dominance of the West are both likely long-term casualties.
....Current-account surpluses in China, Germany and Japan are narrowing, as are the deficits of the major consumer nations – primarily America, but also smaller profligates such as Britain and Spain.
The key question for G20 leaders as they meet in Pittsburgh is not bankers' bonuses, financial regulation and other issues of peripheral importance, but whether this correction in trade might be used as the basis for a permanently more balanced world economy.

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SAUDIS WILL LET ISRAEL BOMB IRAN NUCLEAR SITE

INTELLIGENCE chief Sir John Scarlett has been told that Saudi Arabia is ready to allow Israel to bomb Iran’s new nuclear site.

The head of MI6 discussed the issue in London with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and Saudi officials after British intelligence officers helped to uncover the plant, in the side of a mountain near the ancient city of Qom.

The site is seen as a major threat by Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Details of the talks emerged after John Bolton, America’s former UN ambassador, told a meeting of intelligence analysts that “Riyadh certainly approves” of Israel’s use of Saudi airspace.

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The perils of an Israeli airstrike on Iran

 American and Israeli military planners have been examining options for an attack on Iran for almost three decades. There is no shortage of possible targets: Iran has dozens of nuclear-related sites that are known to western officials.
Yet military experts in Washington and Tel Aviv acknowledge that a surprise airstrike would be likely to succeed only in delaying Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. It would also present daunting logistical and political challenges with no guarantee that even a sustained assault on known facilities would eradicate Tehran’s nuclear threat.

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A Better Missile Defense for a Safer Europe

First, to be clear, there is now no strategic missile defense in Europe. In December 2006, just days after becoming secretary of defense, I recommended to President George W. Bush that the United States place 10 ground-based interceptors in Poland and an advanced radar in the Czech Republic. This system was designed to identify and destroy up to about five long-range missiles potentially armed with nuclear warheads fired from the Middle East — the greatest and most likely danger being from Iran. At the time, it was the best plan based on the technology and threat assessment available.

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China Says Military Arsenal Comparable With West

China's military now possesses most of the sophisticated weapon systems found in the arsenals of developed Western nations, the country's defense minister said in comments published Monday.
Many of China's systems, including the J-10 fighter jet, latest-generation tanks, navy destroyers, and cruise and intercontinental ballistic missiles, match or are close to matching the capabilities of those in the West, Liang Guanglie said in a rare interview posted on the ministry's Web site.

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China Sends Fuel to Iran as U.S. Sanctions Loom - Report

State-run Chinese companies have started supplying Iran with gasoline in a move that could undermine U.S. pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear programme, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Iran is the world's fifth-largest crude exporter but imports up to 40 percent of its gasoline as it lacks the refining capacity to meet domestic demand.
The United States and its European allies may target Iran's fuel imports if it refuses to enter talks over its disputed nuclear programme by the end of this month.

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U.S. Debt Crisis May Cause ‘Fall of Rome’ Scenario, Duncan Says

U.S. budget deficits will continue to pile up in the next decade, eventually reaching an unsustainable level that may result in an economic collapse, according to Richard Duncan, author of “The Dollar Crisis.”
The U.S. has little chance of resolving its deteriorating financial position because the manufacturing industry continues to shrink, leaving the nation with few goods to export, said Duncan, now at Singapore-based Blackhorse Asset Management.
In “The Dollar Crisis,” first published in 2003, Duncan argued that persistent current account deficits by the U.S. were creating an unsustainable boom in global credit that was destined to break down, resulting in a worldwide recession.    

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HSBC bids farewell to dollar supremacy

 "The dollar looks awfully like sterling after the First World War," said David Bloom, the bank's currency chief.
"The whole picture of risk-reward for emerging market currencies has changed. It is not so much that they have risen to our standards, it is that we have fallen to theirs. It used to be that sovereign risk was mainly an emerging market issue but the events of the last year have shown that this is no longer the case. Look at the UK – debt is racing up to 100pc of GDP," he said

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Britain:We're sleep walking into unilateral disarmament

If so, it will not be very much. It is estimated that the replacement of our four existing Trident submarines, which constitute our entire nuclear strike force, will cost around £20billion.
Cutting that number by one might save only £2-3billion, on the basis that by the time you have designed, planned and built three submarines, the fourth costs proportionately less.
Our annual defence expenditure is currently £34billion. Total government annual spending is £630billion and rising, so giving up one submarine would make only a tiny impact.
It might also jeopardise our effectiveness. With three submarines, Britain's nuclear deterrent would be less convincing.

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China Hints At Unveiling Of New DF-41 ICBM

China will display five new missiles in its National Day Parade on Oct. 1, although the much-anticipated third generation Dongfeng 41 is not named directly.

Some Chinese media are quoting an unnamed military "leading missile expert" saying that the missiles will be second generation and already in use by the military. Other media are saying that the unveiling of the DF-41 is a possibility because it is not excluded by name.
"Military aficionados have been expecting to see the Dongfeng 41, known as the DF-41 or the CSS-X-10," but they will be disappointed, said the missile expert speaking to the Chinese-based news Web site Global Times. "The third generation is still under development and is unlikely to be displayed this time," said the source from the "Second Artillery Force."

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Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers

With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned.
After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.
First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km.


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Iran's Nuclear Program: In Context - An Enlightenment

Iran's leaders have worked to pursue nuclear energy technology since the 1950s, spurred by the launch of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program. It made steady progress, with Western help, through the early 1970s. But concern over Iranian intentions followed by the upheaval of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 effectively ended outside assistance. Iran was known to be reviving its civilian nuclear programs during the 1990s, but revelations in 2002 and 2003 of clandestine research into fuel enrichment and conversion raised international concern that Iran's ambitions had metastasized beyond peaceful intent. Iran has consistently denied allegations it seeks to develop a bomb. Yet many in the international community remain skeptical.

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India's nuclear power a 'myth'

He said the device had only "fizzled". The claims by the test director K Santhanam have provoked an outcry in India which treasures its nuclear status as a symbol of its power in Asia where it has been locked in an arms race with both Pakistan and China.
The Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh recently unveiled India's first nuclear submarine as a statement of its naval ambitions.
But according to K. Santhanam, who directed the secret detonations of five Shakt' nuclear devices at their nuclear test site at Pokhran, in the Rajasthan desert, the true test results were covered up and falsely hailed as a success by the Hindu nationalist BJP government.

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Obama drops a missile bombshell

With his eight-month presidency seemingly weakening, United States President Barack Obama struck. A familiar pattern in his political career is repeating. His decision on Thursday to scrap the plans of his predecessor George W Bush to build a land-based anti-missile shield in the heart of Europe overlooking Russia's western borders may appear justifiable, but is nonetheless a stunning national security reversal.

It was to be a missile defense system of unproven technology, paid for with money that America could ill-afford to waste, and conceived against a threat that probably doesn't exist. Still, missile defense is a Republican obsession that goes back to Ronald Reagan and the "Star Wars" system.

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Kremlin says Israel promised not to strike Iran

Israel promised Russia it would not launch an attack on Iran, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview aired on Sunday in which he described such an assault as "the worst thing that can be imagined."
Israel has hinted it could forcibly deny Iran the means to make an atomic bomb if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment and has criticized Russia for agreeing to supply to Tehran S-300 anti-aircraft weapons that could complicate an attack.
In an interview with CNN recorded on Tuesday, Medvedev denied Moscow was backing Iran but said it had the right to supply defensive weapons and said sanctions against Tehran should only be used as a last resort.

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China working on a military plan against India?

A day after India downplayed the China threat, calling it a media creation, CNN-IBN has access to a confidential intelligence note that suggests that Beijing is acting on a definite military plan on the border.

“There is no mutually agreed or delineated line of actual control between the two countries,” Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said underscoring why intrusions take place.

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Netanyahu plays a Russian rope trick

The day-long public disappearance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 7 had his country's gossip-mongers salivating. Many went to work on speculative theories about just why he suddenly vanished from the media's eye and official records. The strange disappearance of a head of government is, after all, no small scoop.

The initial alibi from the prime minister's military secretary - that he was "visiting a security facility" within the country - attempted to avert prying eyes in a country where the press corps dutifully obey military censorship laws. Netanyahu's aides believed that spinning the story of his inspection of a top-secret Mossad installation inside Israel would be enough to satiate the curious.

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Taliban's bombs came from US, not Iran

ut the Taliban commander's claim is contradicted by evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban themselves that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

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Iran steps up to the nuclear table

After Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki submitted Tehran's new proposals to representatives of the "Iran Six" nations on Wednesday, he told the press, "We have provided a new opportunity for dialogue and bilateral cooperation and we hope we can arrange a new round of talks under the framework of this new package of proposals."

While the content of the package remains confidential, various Iranian officials, including Mottaki, have provided information that hints at a comprehensive approach that combines nuclear issues with other issues on Iran's foreign policy plate.

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Arctic Sea ghost ship 'was carrying weapons to Iran'

 Russian officials have said the alleged pirates demanded a $1.5 million ransom but speculation has grown that the freighter was carrying contraband cargo.
Israeli and Russian security sources have questioned The Kremlin's official explanation, instead arguing that the ship was carrying S-300 missiles, Russia's most advanced anti-aircraft weapon, while undergoing repairs in the Russian port of Kaliningrad, a notorious Baltic smuggling base.
According to reports, Mossad is said to have briefed the Russian government that the shipment had been sold by former military officers linked to the black market, and Russia then dispatched a naval rescue mission. Those who believe Mossad was involved point to a visit to Moscow by Shimon Peres, Israel's president, the day after the Arctic Sea was recovered.

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Netanyahu secretly visited Russia: reports

Israeli media reports said on Wednesday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secretly visited Moscow on Monday in a bid to dissuade Russia from selling weapons to Iran.
In Moscow, a spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin denied the reports.
A spokesman for Netanyahu said he had visited a security installation in Israel, reiterating a statement issued by his office on Monday amid media speculation about his whereabouts.

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Chavez visits Russia to discuss arms, energy deals

enezuelan President Hugo Chavez praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday for standing up to the United States, kicking off a visit to Moscow that the Kremlin said will focus on major energy and military agreements.
Cooperation between Russia, the world's No. 2 oil exporter, and OPEC member Venezuela has been dismissed by the United States as mostly talk but is watched with concern by Colombia, which has stormy ties with its Latin American neighbor.

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Coming Soon to a Democracy Near You ...

Never heard of it? Not surprising - very few people saw it in the first place. But "Hillary: The Movie" - a no-holds-barred attack on the life and career of Hillary Clinton intended for viewing during her presidential campaign - could prove to have an impact on the political scene greater than even its producers could have dreamed.
    In the world of money and politics, "Hillary: The Movie" may turn out to be the sleeper hit of the year, a boffo blockbuster. Depending on the outcome of a special Supreme Court hearing on September 9, this little piece of propaganda could unleash a new torrent of cash flooding into campaigns from big business, unions and other special interests. "Hillary: The Movie" may turn out to be "Frankenstein: The Monster."

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Holocaust Still a Political Football

Matthew Rothschild and I both thought of Edward Said when we read about two Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council insisting that Gaza's schools should not teach the history of the Nazi Holocaust. Cleric Yunis al-Astal said this would be "marketing a lie" and a "war crime." Jamila al-Shanti commented, "Talk about the Holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage, and religion."

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U.S. Says Iran Could Expedite Nuclear Bomb

American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.
In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb-grade material.

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Why are the Russians Digging Tunnels in Abkhazia?

ollowing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to the occupied Georgian province of Abkhazia in late August 2008, the Kremlin appears to be intensifying its military preparations in the South Caucasus.

On September 4, Georgian newspapers and TV channels reported that “the Russian occupation forces have been engaged for two months in constructing a one-kilometer-long tunnel deep in the Ochamchire district. Allegedly, the construction is highly secretive, only Russian military are employed and the local residents are not even allowed to approach the construction site. The Russians will use the tunnel to deploy military equipment and munitions.”

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U.S. Stance Toward Russia Again Divides Europe

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, new fissures are emerging between Western and Eastern Europe this time over President Obama’s policy toward Russia, according to an international survey published Wednesday.

A German police officer watched President Obama’s helicopter arrive in Baden-Baden in April.

The survey, Transatlantic Trends, an annual poll of European and American public opinion conducted for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, found that Europeans, far from speaking with one voice on foreign policy issues, are divided over the role of the United States and how to respond to the growing assertiveness of Russia.

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Why did the second world war begin?

Why did a second world war begin in Europe on 1 September 1939, little more than 20 years after peace had been concluded at the end of the first world war? The question has been posed repeatedly for seven decades now and answered in myriad ways. But it is the wrong question – one that is not merely too Eurocentric but too Anglocentric to make sense of the events that led to the bloodiest war in human history. Far more than the first world war, which was a genuinely European war, fought mainly in Europe by Europeans, the second world war was a truly global affair. Only by taking a world-historical view of events can we hope to grasp its true character.

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This rewriting of history is spreading Europe's poison

That is until now. Fed by the revival of the nationalist right in eastern Europe and a creeping historical revisionism that tries to equate nazism and communism, some western historians and commentators have seized on the 70th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Poland this month to claim the Soviet Union was equally to blame for the outbreak of war. Stalin was "Hitler's accomplice", the Economist insisted, after Russian and Polish politicians traded accusations over the events of the late 1930s.

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Media war rages over Gaza conflict

Gone are the days when history was written solely by the victors. In today's democratised climate of instantly disseminated words and images, those on either side of a battlefield have the potential to feed facts and figures to media outlets around the world, or to pass on video footage and photographs that their opponents might prefer never saw the light of day.
Winning a media war is, often, as crucial to long-term success as victory in individual battles. A case in point is last winter's conflict between the IDF and Hamas; while the smoke has long cleared from the rubble of Gaza, supporters of either side continue to clash on a daily basis over the true extent of the devastation and loss of life, not to mention their opponents' motives and the overarching policies that led to the outbreak of hostilities.

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UK says could cut warheads if U.S., Russia go further

Britain could look at further reductions in the number of nuclear warheads -- but only if the United States and Russia make deeper cuts in their arsenals than those already announced, the government said on Thursday. This month, the United States and Russia pledged to finalize a treaty by year-end to cut deployed nuclear warheads on each side to 1,500-1,675 from levels above 2,200, spurring hopes for a new wave of nuclear weapons cuts across the globe.

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Putin's letter to the Poles

This is not the first time that a Russian politician has referred to controversial historic events of the second world war. Back in the 80s, former president Mikhail Gorbachev broke with the previous Soviet policy of refusing to make any reference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and made a commitment that the "blank spaces" in Soviet history would be investigated. Why is it though that the Poles feel that not enough had been done and why has Putin's letter been greeted with bewilderment rather than being seen as an act of reconciliation?

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Pact that set the scene for war

The 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact is controversial even today, with historians divided over its importance. In the first of a series of articles marking the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago, the BBC Russian Service's Artyom Krechetnikov and Steven Eke analyse the significance of a treaty that helped set the scene for war.

Signed on 23 August 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was accompanied by a secret protocol that detailed the reshaping of Europe's map.
Substantive talks on forming a political alliance between Nazi Germany and the USSR had begun that month.

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Wizards and wives drive Afghan election

Slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud wouldn't think of losing him as his media manager and interpreter. Anyone who shook Abdullah's soft hands will at once discover he never held a Kalashnikov, although he would speak with great elan about the life and times of the mujahideen. That places Abdullah in a unique position to claim mujahideen pedigree, yet avoid being branded a "warlord".

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End of Oil. Must Watch!

Russia and Poland trade insults on 70th anniversary of World War Two

In the days leading up to anniversary, Russian media has aired a string of accusations against Poland, claiming that Warsaw intended to collaborate with Hitler in an invasion of the Soviet Union, and that Jozef Beck, Poland's foreign minister in 1939, was a German agent. Moscow broadcasters have also claimed that there was a "German hand" in the 1940 Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish PoWs, an atrocity generally held to have been the exclusive work of Stalin's secret police.

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Lockerbie: U.S. accuses Britain of breaking promise

Gordon Brown today categorically denied 'double dealing' over the Lockerbie bomber even as the U.S. claimed it was assured by Britain that he would be forced to serve out his sentence in Scotland.
Amid growing fears for the special relationship, the Prime Minister again insisted the decision to free Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was entirely Scotland's own and that the Government had not tried to influence it.

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Poland and Russia row over second world war marks Gdansk day

European presidents and prime ministers gathered today on Poland's Baltic coast to mark 70 years since the first shots were fired in the second world war with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.
But as direct memory of the war recedes, the ceremonies in Gdansk were clouded by bitter recrimination over Russia and Stalinism in central and eastern Europe, feeding current tensions between Moscow and several of its former client states in the region.

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Powers line up to stir Afghanistan's pot

In his distinguished diplomatic career spanning four decades, there is not a trace of record to show that Richard Holbrooke, United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, dabbled in energy security issues. His current visit to Pakistan - en route to Afghanistan - has been officially projected as aimed at helping his host country find a way to overcome its electricity shortage.

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China's war games unnerve neighbors

War games launched last week by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have alarmed China's neighbors and raised further questions about Beijing's military intentions. The games, dubbed "Stride-2009", are scheduled to stretch over the next two months. They involve only 50,000 troops from China's 2.3 million-member standing army - the largest in the world - but the sophisticated nature of the far-flung deployments has captured the attention of military experts all over Asia and beyond.

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Iran and Russia nip at US global dominance

The "age of empires has ended" and the "international capitalist order is retreating," declared a beaming Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday, speaking in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg before an audience that included the top leaders of Russia, China, and India.
Experts are debating why Iran's controversial president chose to address the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional grouping led by Russia and China – of which Iran is only an observer – even as he still faces mass protests and sharp questions at home over his deeply disputed election victory last week.      

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Learning from Cuba and Dwight Eisenhower

I think that the Iranian elections should make everybody sit back, take a deep breath, and try to see whether they really understand the dynamics of Iranian politics. Some are covering the "developing Iranian story" from the luxury of faraway places like Washington, D.C., London, and Paris. From their air conditioned offices, they write story after story on Iran, typing away on their laptops, frantic either to meet publication deadlines, make an extra buck (if they are freelancers), or simply, add spice to an event that is seen by everybody as "a hot topic." Most of those who are writing on Iran have never been to Tehran, and never met a post-1979 Iranian politician in their lives. They fall in the trap of getting "taken away" by what Western audiences want to hear and see, basically, that the Iranian regime is about to collapse, because of fraud and corruption, any minute now.

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Ahmadinejad and the Press

Two days after the June 12 election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a press conference for the foreign media in Iran. As usual, Ahmadinejad opened by re-stating his desire for the hasty return of the Mahdi, the Shiite Messiah figure whose return is expected at the end of days, and then moved quickly into a condescending and passive aggressive tirade against the foreign media, who he said had been fighting a propaganda war against his holy administration since it took office four years prior. Some of those responsible for that war, he added, could be seen there in the audience that day.


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Iran's Struggle, and Ours

The now-joined struggle for Iranian hearts and minds is where the universal battle of ideas -- democracy vs. tyranny -- meets the dictates of Middle Eastern geography. Whereas Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are puzzle pieces carved out of featureless desert, with no venerable traditions of statehood, the roots of a great Persian power occupying the Iranian plateau date to the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sassanid empires. With nearly 70 million people occupying the tableland between the oil-rich Caspian Sea and the oil-rich Persian Gulf, Iran is the Muslim world's universal joint.

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Beijing cautions US over Iran

China has broken silence on the developing situation in Iran. This comes against the backdrop of a discernible shift in Washington's posturing toward political developments in Iran.

The government-owned China Daily featured its main editorial comment on Thursday titled "For Peace in Iran". It comes amid reports in the Western media that the former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is rallying the Qom clergy to put pressure on the Guardians Council - and, in turn, on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - to annul last Friday's presidential election that gave Mahmud Ahmadinejad another four-year term.

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Tony Blair pushed Gordon Brown to hold Iraq war inquiry in private

Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal.
The revelation that the former prime minister - who led Britain to war in March 2003 - had intervened will fuel the anger of MPs, peers, military leaders and former civil servants, who were appalled by Brown's decision last week to order the investigation to be conducted behind closed doors.
Blair, who resisted pressure for a full public inquiry while he was prime minister, appears to have taken a deliberate decision not to express his view in person to Brown because he feared it might leak out.

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Ahmadinejad is who Iranians want

The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin – greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

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Ayatollah's offer of Iran vote recount falls short of opposition demands

The offer of a recount of Iran's ­presidential vote represents a climbdown by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, who initially endorsed of the election result when he declared Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory a "massive success" and a "divine blessing". But it falls far short of the opposition demands.
Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading opposition candidate, had called for a fresh election and he was reported to be reluctant to go along with a recount conducted by the guardian council, a deeply conservative group of Islamic jurists.
The council referred to the results declared by Khamenei as ­"provisional", an important symbolic concession. "It is possible that there may be some changes in the tally after the recount," said a spokesman, Abbasali Kadkhodai.

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Iran and Russia nip at US global dominance

The "age of empires has ended" and the "international capitalist order is retreating," declared a beaming Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday, speaking in the Siberian city of Yekaterinburg before an audience that included the top leaders of Russia, China, and India.
Experts are debating why Iran's controversial president chose to address the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional grouping led by Russia and China – of which Iran is only an observer – even as he still faces mass protests and sharp questions at home over his deeply disputed election victory last week.

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Khamenei rides a storm in a tea cup

Western capitals must make a difficult choice: how long to pin hopes on the eruption of a "color" revolution in Tehran? The burden falls almost entirely on Europe, since Washington has different priorities.

The United States cannot afford to be spotted in the barricades on the frontline of any attempt to prise open the Iranian regime at this delicate point in Middle Eastern politics. Tehran will not forgive for another quarter century at least any such American folly, and the Barack Obama administration has no intentions of committing hara-kiri, either.

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Sri Lanka: Beijing’s Growing Foothold in the Indian Ocean

The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government have received praise and accolades from several quarters after their triumph last month over the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam).  The total annihilation of this separatist group brought an end to a civil war that has lasted over two decades. The long civil war resulted in the deaths of 80,000 to 100,000 people and over 300,000 displaced (Indian Express, May 30; Internal-displacement.org, June 4).  The Sri Lankan victory over the LTTE was made possible by military support from a number of countries who supplied weapons and platforms, training, intelligence and guidance to the Sri Lankan armed forces. In addition to providing military support, contributing countries also urged Colombo to seek a political solution to the Tamil problem. Of particular interest is Chinese political and military support to Sri Lanka in its fight against the LTTE.

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North Korea Warns of Nuclear War as Tensions Continue to Rise

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is traveling to the United States for talks with President Obama, as tensions on the Korean Peninsula reached a new high today. North Korea has responded to US plans to stop its ships under a new UN resolution by threatening war in that event. The nation also appears to be raising the specter of a nuclear war.
Yesterday, North Korea’s state media published a commentary which claimed the US has been deploying massive numbers of nuclear weapons in that theater of operations, and noted that the peninsula has the highest chance of nuclear war of any place in the world.

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Nuclear war is Kim Jong-il's game plan

Nuclear war is Kim Jong-il's game plan
By Kim Myong Chol

"Our military first policy calls for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, retaliation for retaliation, ultra-hardline for hardline, war for war, total war for total war, nuclear war for nuclear war." - Kim Jong-il

TOKYO - A little-noted fact about the second nuclear test conducted on May 25 by the Kim Jong-il administration of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is that it was a highly successful fission trigger test for multi-megaton warheads.

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Oil rises to near $71 in Asia, hitting 2009 high

Oil prices closed in on $71 a barrel Wednesday in Asia, reaching a 2009 high, as investors poured money into the commodity as a hedge against a weakening U.S. dollar and inflation.

Benchmark crude for July delivery was up 70 cents at $70.71 a barrel by midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Tuesday, it jumped $1.92 to close at $70.01.
Oil has jumped more than 100 percent in three months as traders have cheered news showing the worst of a severe U.S. recession is likely over, and have brushed off data -- such as a 9.4 percent unemployment rate in May -- that suggest crude demand will remain weak.
"I wouldn't be surprised if we're testing $80 in a week or two," said Gerard Rigby, energy analyst with Fuel First Consulting in Sydney. "The momentum right now is too strong."

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The IAEA Report

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released June 5, 2009 its latest report on the implementation of NPT safeguards in Iran and the status of Iran’s compliance with Security Council Resolutions 1737, 1747 and 1803.

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Iran Has Centrifuge Capacity for Nuclear Arms, Report Says

A week before Iran’s presidential election, atomic inspectors reported Friday that the country has sped up its production of nuclear fuel and increased its number of installed centrifuges to 7,200 — more than enough, weapon experts said, to make fuel for up to two nuclear weapons a year, if the country decided to use its facilities for that purpose.

In its report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that it had found no evidence that any of the fuel in Iran’s possession had been enriched to the purity needed to make a bomb, a step that would take months.

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Turkey Bets on Regional Influence as EU Hopes Fade

Frustrated by European opposition to its EU membership bid, Turkey is looking instead to its eastern and southern neighbors in a bid to flex its regional muscles. But will courting the Arab street actually bring Ankara any benefits?

At the Sütlüce Cultural and Congress Center on the Golden Horn in Istanbul, experts and officials from around the world have come together to talk about water. The thousands attending the event include water experts, presidents and ministers, and they are here to talk about the Euphrates, the Nile and the Tigris, about major dams and about the privatization of entire rivers. One of mankind's future problems is being debated, and it is the Turks who are hosting the event. A coincidence?

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India can launch a short war in case of a Pak misadventure

"In case of a misadventure of Pakistan triggered by major terrorist attack or the attack like the one we had on Parliament, attack on our leader, a major city, public or hijacking an aircraft, any such action by them can obviously lead to a reaction from India which could be a short intense war," the Air Marshal said.

"India is a stable democracy surrounded by Pakistan, China, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka which are troubled states," Air Marshal Singh said while delivering a lecture on 'Military view of Indian National Security" at a function here. 

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After Tezpur, Sukhoi war planes at Chabua near India-China border

After stationing the Sukhoi Su-30MIK war jets in Tezpur in Assam, the Indian Air Force will post another squadron of its frontline jets at the Chabua air base under its military policy to boost security along the border with China in the northeast.

On June 15, four Su-30MKIs will land in Tezpur for a symbolic induction, making the airbase the third in the country to house the combat jets.
It will be a symbolic induction as of now. Currently it’s not clear which of the Sukhoi bases - Pune or Bareilly - the aircraft belong to, a senior IAF official told IANS.

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TRADE: Russia Joining, Joining…

After years of negotiations on joining the WTO, Russia is still far from meeting the requirements set forth by the organisation.

Russia has been negotiating entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the global trade institution that regulates trade, for more than 15 years. Following another round of talks in Geneva May 25-29, WTO officials say they would like to see Russia join the organisation as soon as possible, but acknowledge that problems still exist.

"For Russia there are some problems in both the bilateral and multilateral negotiating arenas," WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told IPS on email. "Bilaterally there is some political opposition - Georgia has concerns about its relations with Russia - but there are also other countries with some commercial concerns related to energy services, textiles and some other products. Multilaterally there remain many problems." 

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Iran official blames U.S. in deadly mosque bombing

An Iranian official accused the United States on Friday of involvement in a mosque bombing that killed more than 20 people in volatile southeastern Iran, two weeks before a presidential election.
Washington denied the allegation, and strongly condemned the deadly attack.
Jalal Sayyah, of the governor's office in Sistan-Baluchestan province, said three people had been arrested in connection with the blast on Thursday in a crowded Shi'ite mosque in the city of Zahedan, in a region where many of Iran's minority Sunnis live.

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Israel 'loyalty law' rejected

An Israeli government committee has rejected a draft bill that would have required Israelis to take an oath of loyalty.
The legislation committee on Sunday scrapped the bill, which had been tabled by the Yisrael Beitenu party, led by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister.
The bill was rejected by a vote of eight to three, an official was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

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World War III has started

One needs to be deaf, blind, and an idiot at this time in order not to understand that the nuclear bomb tested in North Korea two days ago also exploded in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.


The North Koreans blatantly disregarded the Americans and publically presented them as a meaningless power, yet officials in Jerusalem are still reciting the “Road Map” and making note of the evacuation of some minor West Bank outpost. The world is changing before our eyes, yet here we see Knesset members earnestly explaining that the Americans will agree that we stay in Judea and Samaria if we only evacuate some tin shacks.

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Russia breaks "wall" into U.S. nuclear market

Russia signed a landmark deal to supply nuclear fuel directly to U.S. companies on Tuesday, setting itself up to control 20 percent of the U.S. uranium market and extending its global reach in the nuclear sector.
At a ceremony in the Russian capital, U.S. electricity firms PG&E, Ameren Corp and Luminant signed deals to get more than $1 billion in uranium supplies from Russia's state nuclear fuel exporter Tenex between 2014 and 2020.
"This is a revolutionary breakthrough," Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's state atomic energy firm, Rosatom, which controls Tenex, told reporters.

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North Korea Threatens Military Strikes on South

North Korea escalated its vitriol against South Korea and the United States on Wednesday with warnings of a “powerful military strike” if any North Korean ships were stopped or searched as part of an American-led operation to intercept vessels suspected of carrying unconventional weapons. South Korea agreed to join the operation after North Korea tested a nuclear device on Monday, its second nuclear test in three years. The North had earlier warned the South not to participate in the operation, known as the Proliferation Security Initiative.

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Netanyahu: If Israel doesn't take out Iranian threat, no one will

If Israel does not eliminate the Iranian threat, no one will, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

"Israel is not like other countries," Netanyahu told his Likud faction in a meeting which came one week after his meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House. "We are faced with security challenges that no other country faces, and our need to provide a response to these is critical, and we are answering the call." 

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10 things Americans should know about World War II

The first thing to know about World War II is that it was a big war, a war that lasted 2,174 days and claimed an average of 27,600 lives every day, or 1,150 an hour, or 19 a minute, or one death every three seconds. One, two, three, snap. One, two, three, snap.
In an effort to get our arms around this greatest calamity in human history, let's examine 10 things every American ought to know about the role of the U.S. Army in WWII.
1) The U.S. Army was a weakling when the European war began in earnest on Sept. 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. The U.S. Army ranked 17th among armies in size and combat power, just behind Romania. It numbered 190,000 soldiers. It would grow to nearly 8.5 million by 1945.

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Between Genghis and Caesar

You may not have known it, but in terms of his biological progeny, Genghis Khan was the most successful man of all time. It is estimated that one in every 200 people is a descendant of the prolific 13th-century khan of the Mongol Empire. That means that his military strategy of killing and raping brought countless biological dividends for future generations.

But if we look a bit deeper into the fate of Genghis Khan’s empire and its legacy, this is another matter entirely.

You can divide empires into two basic types: those whose legacies live on after being conquered, and those that disappear completely. The Roman Empire shredded the Gauls, Brits and Dacians like heads of cabbage. Nonetheless, the British take great pleasure in showing tourists Hadrian’s Wall, built in the second century by Roman invaders in what is today northern England. 

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Two Speeches

It’s tempting to see last week’s speech-making duel between Barack Obama and Dick Cheney as a mismatch, with the eloquence of the admired incumbent set against the snarl of the discredited predecessor. Certainly, there was no contest in terms of political stagecraft. Obama appeared in the hushed rotunda of the National Archives, in front of the documents that embody the highest aspirations of American government, while Cheney found a secure location at a right-wing think tank, one of a handful of places in the country where he could be assured a friendly audience.

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North Korea's nuclear test: Here we go again

THE news that North Korea has conducted a second nuclear test, three years after its first, caused international consternation on Monday May 25th. America’s president, Barack Obama, issued a statement of concern, although he also noted that it was not too surprising to hear that North Korea is trying to whip up a commotion. On the same day the North Koreans launched a short-range missile. The events on Monday followed previous efforts that seemed designed to get the attention of America’s new-ish president, such as the launch in April of a rocket carrying a satellite.

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Click to download Report on Strategic Posture of the United States

Click the Link below to get a PDF copy of the The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.

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Final Report on America's Strategic Posture

The Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States has released its final report to Congress. It offers some encouraging news and recommendations about the continued development and viability of missile defense in theater, but also leaves much to be desired in its discussion of missile defense deployments, the possibility of an EMP attack, and the desirability of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The "on the one hand, on the other hand" style of the report seems to reflect a division of opinion over the proper approaches to strategic policy.

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Bosnia does not need new peace deal, Biden says

Bosnia is the Balkan country most at risk of new violence, but does not need to redo the peace deal that created an ethnically divided state, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on a tour that ended on Friday.
Biden traveled to Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo this week to signal renewed U.S. engagement in a region engulfed by war in the 1990s when Yugoslavia collapsed. In a speech to Bosnia's parliament, he warned continued ethnic divide could keep the country among Europe's poorest and could lead anew to fighting.

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The Spies Who Got Away

After five years of legal maneuvering and orchestrated protests from the Lobby’s amen corner, Israel’s point men in Washington have finally succeeded in their efforts to quash the prosecution of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who had been charged with committing espionage on behalf of Israel. It is a victory that not only signals the continuation of the Lobby’s dominance in Washington, in spite of growing popular revulsion against lobbyists in general, but also gives the Israelis a blank check to spy on their American patrons to their hearts’ content.

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Biden Does the Balkans

Even before he became Emperor, Barack Obama signaled the direction of his foreign policy by choosing Joseph Biden as his running mate. What Dick Cheney was for Bush the Lesser, Biden became to Barack the Exalted: a belligerent voice of the old establishment, their only distinction a different party tag. And just as Cheney brought to the regime of Bush II an obsession with Iraq from the days of Bush I, Biden has carried his copious Balkans baggage from the Clinton era into the Obama White House.

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North Korea warns ships near missile base: Japan

North Korea is warning ships to stay away from waters off an east coast missile base, a Japan Coast Guard spokesman said on Friday, suggesting it could be preparing for a short-range missile test.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a government source as saying that vehicles with mobile launch pads have been seen in that area, which could indicate preparations for a short-range missile launch.

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The Risk of Letting Ukraine into NATO

 During Soviet times, the Ukraine was the breadbasket of the nation and also housed important industries within its borders. In addition, the Ukraine has strong cultural ties to Russia.

Right on Russia’s border, Ukraine’s admission to a hostile alliance could permanently cripple U.S. relations with Russia.
Although the Bush administration aggressively pushed its reluctant NATO allies to induct the Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance, France, Germany, and others — worried about an extremely hostile Russian reaction — put their entry on hold.

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The End of the Information Age

One of the repeated lessons I’ve learned over the three years since The Archdruid Report began appearing is the extent to which many people nowadays have trouble grasping some of the most fundamental facts about the crisis of our times. I had yet another reminder of that a few days back, when the comments on last week’s post started coming in.

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Arms Sent by U.S. May Be Falling Into Taliban Hands

Insurgents in Afghanistan, fighting from some of the poorest and most remote regions on earth, have managed for years to maintain an intensive guerrilla war against materially superior American and Afghan forces.

Arms and ordnance collected from dead insurgents hint at one possible reason: Of 30 rifle magazines recently taken from insurgents’ corpses, at least 17 contained cartridges, or rounds, identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces, according to an examination of ammunition markings by The New York Times and interviews with American officers and arms dealers.

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Car production down 55% in April

UK car production fell 55.3% in April, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

A total of 68,258 cars were made in April, with the total for the year to date about 251,268 cars.
In April, 56,267 cars were exported, a drop of 53.4%.
Overall vehicle production - including commercial vehicles - fell 56.5% to 75, 913 in April. Carmakers are cutting production as the recession takes hold.

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Nigeria’s Oil Production Drops to Half Total Capacity

Nigeria said its oil output has fallen to 1.6 million barrels a day, half the country’s total capacity, because of militant attacks in the main producing region over the past three years.

The West African nation has the capacity to pump 3.2 million barrels a day, Levi Ajuonuma, a spokesman for state oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., said today, citing a statement from Petroleum Minister of State Odein Ajumogobia. Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s onshore fields are worst affected by the insecurity, he said.

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China's accidental empire is a growing danger

 A Victorian historian said that Britain “conquered... half the world in a fit of absence of mind”.
Chinese Communist Party leaders are not normally associated with absentmindedness, but rather with cool, calculated, long-term strategic thinking. Yet China might well now be building a mixture of influence and obligation - the modern version of an empire- in quite a British way, and one that promises to cause increasing tension with its giant neighbour and regional rival, India.

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Iraq, Not Georgia, Is What Doomed U.S.-Russia Relations

Ok, so the Bush administration has botched its relations with Russia and its former satellites. No big news flash there. But let's not forget why: the war in Iraq.
Let me explain. I'm not buying the Obama line that Iraq has distracted us from our other foreign policy commitments. Nobody would say that South Ossetia is a strategic priority -- I don't care how much oil gurgles beneath its mountains.
Nor did Iraq anger Moscow that much (although it showed the hypocrisy of our lecturing them about invading sovereign states).

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The Caucasian Energy Circle

Turkey and Armenia are getting closer, and that's great news. Washington has long wanted the two countries to get over their differences, open their closed border, and establish diplomatic ties. If all that happened, it would be wonderful news. But euphoria over Turkish-Armenian rapprochement should not, however, obfuscate the big, strategic picture in the Caucasian energy circle. The thaw in Turkish-Armenian relations should not come at the expense of the East-West energy corridor, i.e. cooperation over pipelines running from Azerbaijan to Turkey, a crucial strategic tool for Washington to decrease the West's dependence on Middle East oil and gas.

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Westernism is giving way to Orientalism in Moscow's outlook, if the past week's happenings are any guide. As Russia's ties with the West deteriorate, an upswing in its strategic partnership with China becomes almost inevitable.

The resumption of Russia-NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) dialogue has gone awry. And the nascent hopes regarding a "reset of the button" of the Russian-American relationship are belied. With Moscow under multiple pressures from the West, two top Chinese officials have arrived in the Russian capital to offer support - Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.

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The global politics of swine flu

We may be at the incipient stage of swine flu's deadly spread across the globe, but already signs of new trans-Atlantic fissures over the European Union's (EU) travel advisory to the United States and Mexico as well as airport screening of US travelers can be found aplenty. This puts a premium on what United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon has called for in response to this virus, namely, international solidarity.

Mexican health officials suspect that the swine flu outbreak has caused more than 159 deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses in the country where the it first emerged.

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China unveils its new naval clout

China will show off its nuclear-powered submarines for the first time in history on Thursday during a fleet parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the naval arm of the People's Liberation Army (PLAN).

The display of the country's most advanced submarines, as well as the parade itself which will feature 21 ships from 14 foreign countries including the United States and Russia, shows China's growing confidence in the rapid modernization of its navy. 


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The financial crisis changes the China-U.S. relationship

Back in the early stages of the financial crisis, wags joked that our trade with China had turned out to be fair and balanced after all: They sold us poison toys and tainted seafood; we sold them fraudulent securities.
But these days, both sides of that deal are breaking down. On one side, the world's appetite for Chinese goods has fallen off sharply. China's exports have plunged in recent months and are now down 26 percent from a year ago. On the other side, the Chinese are evidently getting anxious about those securities.
But China still seems to have unrealistic expectations. And that's a problem for all of us.
The big news last week was a speech by Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of China's central bank, calling for a new "super-sovereign reserve currency."

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Yes, We Can . . . Disarm?

It is no fun to be the one who rains on the parade, and, if nothing else, President Obama's trip to Europe has been quite a parade. Or maybe "sold-out concert tour" is the better metaphor. There was a jolly town hall meeting in Strasbourg, France; a wonderful encounter between Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni, spectacular street scenes in Prague. The world's statesmen fell over themselves to be photographed with the American president. During one photo session, the Italian prime minister, Sylvio Berlusconi, howled so loudly for Obama's attention, that the queen of England was visibly unamused. ("Why does he have to shout?" she declared.)

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Nato summit: the truth behind the troops heading to Afghanistan

 The great jumble sale of troop offers made by Nato countries at the summit in Strasbourg to provide security during the election period in Afghanistan was beginning to unravel over the weekend as military chiefs tried to add up the numbers pledged.
President Barack Obama said he was satisfied that a total of 5,000 troops and trainers had been offered, although he made a point of saying he saw the offers as only a “down payment”, indicating he still wanted pledges of long-term troop deployments, not just temporary units for the election force. But there were no offers of extra permanent troops.

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China says Pentagon report will hurt military ties

The United States' latest report on China's growing military power throws new obstacles in the way of restoring defense ties between the two powers, a Chinese spokesman said in the latest broadside at Washington.
Beijing has already voiced its unhappiness with the U.S. Defense Department's annual report on Chinese military capabilities, released this week.
But now Hu Changming, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, has said his government's anger over the report could have real implications for plans to improve military contacts, which took a dive last year over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

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Pentagon Says China's Military Power Grows as Intentions Still Unclear

The annual Pentagon report on China's military power says China continues to increase the "pace and scope" of its military modernization, and expresses concern about a lack of clarity on how Chinese leaders intend to use their growing capability. But the report also says China is years from being able to seriously challenge U.S. military power, even in areas fairly close to China's borders.

The annual report, required by the Congress, says China continues to spend large amounts of money to upgrade its forces and give them high-technology capabilities. But the report says it will be well into the 2020 decade before China will have the ability to sustain substantial forces far from home. It says the Chinese army compensates for its limited abilities by investing in what the Pentagon calls "disruptive" technologies, designed to deny an adversary access to a specific area or to attack an enemy's computer networks or space-based assets.

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E.U. President Calls U.S. Stimulus the ‘Way to Hell’

Transatlantic tension over the handling of the global economic crisis intensified Wednesday when the prime minister of the Czech Republic, which holds the European Union presidency, described the President Obama’s stimulus measures as the “way to hell.”

Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek argued that the Obama administration’s fiscal package and financial bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.”
Mr. Topolanek’s comments, only a day after he offered his government’s resignation following a no confidence vote, took European officials by surprise.

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US to Attend Shanghai Group Meeting on Afghanistan

he State Department confirmed Thursday it is sending a senior diplomat to a Moscow conference on Afghanistan next week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Iran will also attend the meeting and U.S. officials do not rule out interaction with Iranian officials.

The Shanghai group, made up of Russia, China and four Central Asian states, was founded in 2001 and has been widely viewed as a vehicle aimed at countering U.S. influence in the region.

Thus the invitation for the United States to attend the Moscow gathering next week, among several other non-member countries, is being seen as a conciliatory gesture toward the new U.S. administration.

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U.S. nuclear submarine collides in strait near Iran

A nuclear-powered U.S. submarine and another U.S. vessel collided Friday in the Strait of Hormuz bordering Iran, but there was no damage to the atomic propulsion unit, the U.S. Navy said.
Fifteen sailors were slightly injured in the collision between the submarine USS Hartford and an amphibious vessel, USS New Orleans, the Navy said in a statement.
It was the second collision involving a U.S. nuclear submarine in the Strait of Hormuz in just over two years.
"There is no damage to the nuclear propulsion plant of the Hartford," U.S. Fifth Fleet spokesman Lieutenant Nathan Christensen told Reuters.
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow stretch of water separating Oman and Iran, connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

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U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar

A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar.
Currency specialist Avinash Persaud, a member of the panel of experts, told a Reuters Funds Summit in Luxembourg that the proposal was to create something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit, that was a hard-traded, weighted basket.

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China may boost patrols in South China Sea

China may convert more decommissioned navy ships into fishery patrol vessels, state media said on Thursday, as it seeks to extend its reach over disputed South China Sea islands that straddle key Asian shipping lanes.
The report comes less than two weeks after Chinese boats jostled with a U.S. naval ocean surveillance vessel that Beijing said was conducting an illegal survey in its waters.
China's use of fishery patrol ships, rather than military vessels, helps mark its stance while avoiding direct confrontation with the U.S. or with rival claimants to the resource-rich and strategically important South China Sea.

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Obama offers Iran 'new beginning'

"My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us," Mr Obama said.
An advisor to Iran's president welcomed Mr Obama's message but said Washington had to fundamentally change policy.
Relations between Iran and the US have been strained over Tehran's controversial nuclear activities.
The US fears Iran's uranium enrichment programme is a cover to build atomic weapons, a charge Iranian officials deny.

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Soldiers’ Accounts of Gaza Killings Raise Furor in Israel

Now testimony is emerging from within the ranks of soldiers and officers alleging a permissive attitude toward the killing of civilians and reckless destruction of property that is sure to inflame the domestic and international debate about the army’s conduct in Gaza. On Thursday, the military’s chief advocate general ordered an investigation into a soldier’s account of a sniper killing a woman and her two children who walked too close to a designated no-go area by mistake, and another account of a sharpshooter who killed an elderly woman who came within 100 yards of a commandeered house.

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What Is "the Most Dangerous Country in the World Today?"

Recent protests in Pakistan reveal the country's potential explosiveness. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and a government disconnected from the crippling poverty, rampant malnutrition, and lack of healthcare afflicting its people. Though Pakistan remains an ally of the United States, tensions continue to rise as the U.S. considers broadening military strikes within Pakistan's borders. Part two of our Rethink Afghanistan documentary focuses on how the Afghanistan crisis affects Pakistan and all of us.

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US Army Confirms Israeli Nukes

Officially, the United States has a policy of "ambiguity" regarding Israel's nuclear capability. Essentially, it has played a game by which it neither acknowledges nor denies that Israel is a nuclear power.
But a Defense Department study completed last year offers what may be the first time in a unclassified report that Israel is a nuclear power. On page 37 of the U.S. Joint Forces Command report, the Army includes Israel within "a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east."

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Yes, We Can

If you believe the headlines, Afghanistan is "the graveyard of empires," a "quagmire" and a "fiasco," the place where President Barack Obama will meet his "Vietnam." In the media's imagination, the Taliban are on the march, and Kabul is on the verge of falling to a resurgent insurgency that already controls much of the countryside. Increasing numbers of voices, on both the left and the right, counsel that the war is unwinnable and that we need to radically "downsize" our objectives in order to salvage something from a failing war effort lest we go the way of the Russians or British, previous conquerors who foundered in this merciless land of violence and fanaticism.

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Trade Barriers Could Threaten Global Economy

 At least 17 of the 20 major nations that vowed at a November summit to avoid protectionist steps that could spark a global trade war have violated that promise, with countries from Russia to the United States to China enacting measures aimed at limiting the flow of imported goods, according to a World Bank report unveiled yesterday.

The report underscores a "worrying" trend toward protectionism as countries rush to shield their ailing domestic industries during the global economic crisis. It comes one day after Mexico vowed to slap new restrictions on 90 U.S. products. That action is being taken in retaliation against Washington for canceling a program that allowed Mexican truck drivers the right to transport goods across the United States, illustrating the tit-for-tat responses that experts fear could grow in coming months.

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Beijing raises stakes with tit-for-tat deployment in South China Sea

 Beijing has increased tension in a disputed part of the South China Sea by sending a patrol ship to protect fishing boats after the United States deployed a destroyer in the area. The American move was in response to alleged Chinese harassment of one of its surveillance vessels.
The Yuzheng 311, a converted naval rescue vessel, is the largest and most modern patrol ship in the Chinese Navy, the Beijing News said. It was due to arrive in the Paracel Islands yesterday to patrol China’s exclusive economic zone and to "strengthen fishery administration" in the South China Sea. It will patrol the waters around the Paracels and the Spratly Islands, protecting Chinese fishing boats and transport vessels.

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Unlikely bedfellows in Afghanistan

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is scheduled to hold a conference on Afghanistan in Moscow on March 27, a few days ahead of a similar United Nations meeting in The Hague in the Netherlands. Russia, which holds the current SCO presidency, has sent out invitations to India, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, the Group of Eight nations, the UN, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to what is increasingly shaping up as a landmark event.

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Wen puts US honor on the debt line

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, faced with growing concern that United States efforts to stem the financial crisis will hit the value of China's vast holdings of US debt, used the world's press on Friday to demand that the US honor its promises.

Wen told a press conference after the conclusion of a two-week meeting of the country's legislators that he was "a little bit worried" about the safety of Chinese assets in the US, and called on the US "to maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China's assets." He also reiterated that other countries had no right to push China into appreciating its currency, the yuan.

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China: The Next Big Enemy?

Those Chinese sailors who "harassed" a U.S. military vessel lingering perilously close to a Chinese base on Hainan Island, in the South China Sea, reportedly stripped down to their underwear when our sailors turned water hoses on them. Maybe the shower facilities on Chinese fishing vessels – it was fishing trawlers, not military gunboats, that met the Americans on China's doorstep – are insufficient, or maybe the Chinese were mooning us. I'm inclined to think the latter. In any case, Sunday's incident ratchets up tensions with China – which have been roiled in recent weeks, not only by a series of similar incidents, but also on account of issues broader than China's claims to virtually the whole of the South China Sea.

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Bank to begin 'printing money' to boost economy

 The Bank of England will start pumping newly created money into the economy today by buying £2 billion in gilts as it embarks on "quantitative easing" in an effort to boost the economy.
The central bank, which has already slashed interest rates by 4.5 percentage points to a record low of 0.5 per cent over the past six months, said last week that it would initially pump £75 billion into the economy via twice-weekly gilt auctions, but has permission from Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to create another £75 billion if it needs to.
Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank, indicated last week that the Bank would continue this course of action until the lending markets became unglued.

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Rising navy, assertiveness behind US-China flap

China's weekend scrap with a U.S. Navy surveillance ship is drawing attention to a new submarine base that Beijing is using to strengthen its presence on the strategically vital South China Sea, which it claims as a whole.

For the second day running, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing fired back Wednesday at U.S. complaints over what the Pentagon called harassment of the U.S. Navy mapping ship by Chinese boats in international waters about 75 miles (120 kilometers) off its southern island province of Hainan.
U.S. claims that the USNS Impeccable was operating legally within China's exclusive economic zone when it was harassed by Chinese boats are "gravely in contravention of the facts and unacceptable to China," spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.

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The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

Historians have been writing about the great conflicts of the twentieth century for some time now, but often with little imagination. Developments of the past one hundred plus years are usually defined by the reigns of certain monarchs, the administrations of specific politicians, and by the rule of a handful of dictators. Additionally, this historical period can also be seen through the lens of a number of major but time-limited wars: World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam.

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World Economic Crisis Erases $50 Trillion in Wealth

The Asian Development Bank says the global economic crisis has erased $50 trillion in wealth around the world.

Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda said Monday the current crisis is the most serious the world has seen since the Great Depression. Kuroda said he believes Asia will be one among the first regions to emerge from the crisis and will be stronger than before.

Another note of alarm was sounded by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who said the U.S. economy has "fallen off a cliff." Buffett called on the U.S. Congress to unite behind President Barack Obama, comparing the crisis to a military conflict that needs a commander in chief.

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Mass migrations and war: Dire climate scenario

If we don't deal with climate change decisively, "what we're talking about then is extended world war," the eminent economist said.
His audience Saturday, small and elite, had been stranded here by bad weather and were talking climate. They couldn't do much about the one, but the other was squarely in their hands. And so, Lord Nicholas Stern was telling them, was the potential for mass migrations setting off mass conflict.
"Somehow we have to explain to people just how worrying that is," the British economic thinker said.

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India grapples with the Obama era

Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.

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Russia and Belarus in defence pact

Russia and Belarus have signed an air defence treaty, boosting military co-operation between the two countries.
The agreement was announced following talks between Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, and Alexander Lukashenko, his Belarussian counterpart, at the Kremlin in Moscow.
The pact, which has been in negotiation for years, will create a joint force consisting of Russian and Belarussian air force squadrons, missile batteries and radar facilities.

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Post-Soviet nations to form military force

A Russian-led bloc of post-Soviet nations has agreed to establish a rapid-reaction military force to combat terrorists and respond to regional emergencies, Russian media reported Wednesday.

The decision came a day after reports that Kyrgyzstan is planning to close a strategically important U.S. military base that Washington uses to transport troops and supplies into Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organization -- made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- decided on the rapid-reaction force at a Kremlin summit, the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
The group's security council "spent a long time discussing the central issue of forming collective reaction forces and, generally, of rapid reaction to possible threats," said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

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Turkish snub changes Middle East game

There are different ways of looking at the Justice and Democratic Party, or AKP, which rules Turkey. Militant secularists and Kemalists allege it is a Trojan horse of Salafists whose members masquerade as democrats. Others say the AKP is so extremely moderate that it might get ostracized as infidel if it were transplanted to Iran or Afghanistan.

But it appears there could be a third way - looking at the AKP as a progeny of the 30-year-old Iranian revolution. At least, that is how Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri thinks. He is one of Iran's senior clerics, used to be a speaker of the Majlis (parliament) and now holds the exalted position of advisor to Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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Russia, Allies Offer to Assist U.S. in Afghanistan

 Russia and four former Soviet republics offered to help the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan even as one, Kyrgyzstan, moved forward on a decision to cut off American access to an air base used for war supplies.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the five countries, including the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, are ready for “full-fledged and comprehensive cooperation” with NATO forces in the region. He spoke on state broadcaster Vesti-24 today.

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Army phone links China and Russia

A new military hotline between Beijing and Moscow has been used for the first time, according to reports in the Chinese state media.

A senior Chinese officer discussed a range of topics with his Russian counterpart, Xinhua news agency said.
The phone link is designed for "timely communication on significant issues".
Efforts to set up a similar hotline, mainly for use during crises, between Beijing and Washington appear to have stalled, correspondents say.
In a world where emails and mobile devices mean you can always be in touch with the office, it seems strange that two of the world's most important military powers have only now started using a direct telephone link designed to make it easier for their senior officers to contact each other.

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