Global military spending fell for the first time since 1998 despite spending increases in Russia and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) annual report,which was released on Monday. “Global military expenditure fell in 2012, to $1753 billion, equivalent to 2.5 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). Although the fall was only 0.5 percent […]
North Korea celebrated the 101st anniversary of its founder’s birth with flowers on Monday, although there was no sign of tension easing as South Korea warned that the North’s survival could be in question without change and development. Saying it with The North has threatened for weeks to attack the United States, South Korea and Japan after new U.N. […]
Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady“, was a towering figure in British 20th century politics, a grocer‘s daughter with a steely resolve who was loved and loathed in equal measure as she crushed the unions and privatized large swathes of industry. She died on Monday, aged 87, after suffering a stroke. During her life in politics […]
When President Pranab Mukherjee lands in Mauritius on Monday, he will be buttressing a relationship with an Indian Ocean nation that is so central to India’s security interests that it went to the extent of planning military intervention to ensure an Indian-origin Prime Minister remained in power there. The Top Secret ‘Operation Lal Dora’ — […]
The tenuous nature of Pakistan’s democratic transition was put on display this Monday when the country’s army chief and Supreme Court chief justice appeared to warn one another to not transgress their constitutionally-defined roles. Pakistan’s Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani decried what he claimed were attempts to create divisions between the Pakistani military and its […]
IS HURRICANE SANDY capable of altering the election result? The presidential candidates are hunkering down and trying to avoid looking partisan as this big, wet storm heads for the eastern seaboard. But any number of calculations are being made by the campaigns. Plausible arguments are flying, explaining why this storm is bad news, or is […]
China rejected on Tuesday as “groundless” U.S. accusations that two top Chinese telecoms equipment makers posed a security risk. The U.S. House of Representatives‘ Intelligence Committee urged American companies on Monday to stop doing business with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp., warning that China could use equipment made by the companies to spy on […]
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