We reported in 2012 that China might have already surpassed the U.S. in terms of PPP as of 2010. The same year, China became the world’s largest trader. And in October, we noted that China had officially surpassed America in PPP … citing the same numbers that Marketwatch cited today. Continue reading
China’s mysterious “Dark Sword” combat drone could become the world’s first supersonic unmanned aviation vehicle, reports the website of the country’s national broadcaster CCTV.
The Dark Sword — known in Chinese as “Anjian” — made quite a stir in 2006 when a conceptual model of the unusually shaped triangular aircraft made its debut at the Zhuhai Airshow in southern China’s Guangdong province. Continue reading
This small group has attacked U.S. citizens, and even challenged U.S. federal agents within the U.S. A News 4 Tucson investigation into the dangerous world of rogue soldiers in Mexico’s military.
In January, soldiers from this lonely outpost of the Mexican Army drew their guns on U.S. Border Patrol agents just 50 yards into the United States. Then in March, they opened fire on Javier Jose Rodriguez, a young Tucson man visiting family in Sásabe when he was driving around the town early on a Saturday morning after drinking beers with friends. Rodriguez was shot in the arm and in the side, he spent three weeks at University of Arizona Medical Center.
The United States’ reaction has been tepid, angering people who live and patrol along the Arizona border. Continue reading
Syria also holds the key as a future energy cooridor to European energy independence from Russia. This is also why you will likely not see Greece nor Cyprus getting the boot from the Eurozone, as they will have a useful future in supplying natural gas from the Mediterannean Sea to the future United States of Europe. Additionally, Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2006 had very little to do with serious threats against Russia itself. Georgia, too, was working on an energ pipeline from the Caspian Sea towards Europe. It was pre-planned, and even was mentioned by Putin himself (Additional sources: Here and here) — although you won’t hear the main reasons why. They even have planned to re-invade Georgia should a war with Iran kick off.
As the situation in Syria deteriorates with a threatened U.S. airstrike over President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons, the Damascus regime still controls one of the largest conventional hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean.
Syria possessed 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil as of January 2013, which makes it the largest proved reserve of crude oil in the eastern Mediterranean according to the Oil & Gas Journal estimate, besides Iraq. Continue reading
“There was a plan; it’s no secret in my opinion. It’s within the framework of this plan that the Russian side acted. It was prepared by the General Staff at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007,” Putin told reporters.
“It was approved by me,” he added.
Full article: Putin bombshell: He planned invasion, war in Georgia 4 years ago (World Tribune)
BRUSSELS – Four years after a war which shocked Europe, Georgia’s EU ambassador has said that Russia is becoming “more dangerous.”
The Georgian envoy, Salome Samadashvili, spoke to EUobserver on Thursday (9 August), after Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed an inflammatory film about the conflict.
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Putin on Wednesday confirmed the phone call and told Russian media he drew up plans for the invasion two years in advance.
“It’s within the framework of this plan that the Russian side acted. It was prepared by the general staff at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. It was approved by me, agreed with me,” he said.
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For Georgia’s EU envoy, they show the Union should heed Georgia’s warnings that Russia is still a threat.
“The current Russian government is … becoming more and more disdainful of the EU’s opinion and openly shedding any pretence of respect for international law. They are [becoming] even more dangerous to neighbours like us,” Samadashvili told this website.
She noted that Russia is to hold a military exercise – Kavkaz 2012, to take place in North Ossetia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian region – during Georgian elections in October.
“The statement made by Putin taken in the current context – its ongoing occupation [of Abkhazia and South Ossetia], the military exercise, its continuous attempts to destabilise our country – is a thinly veiled threat, an encouragement for those who committed ethnic cleansing against Georgian citizens,” she said.
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“Clearly, after everything else failed to remove a pro-Western government from power, they [Russia] moved to a measure of last resort – full scale invasion,” Samadashvili said.
Full article: Georgia to EU: Putin is more ‘dangerous’ than you think (EUobserver)
Global Geopolitics 