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MOSCOW, April 12 (RIA Novosti) - The 4th central research institute of the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow is to host a combined Russian-US theater-wide ballistic missile defense (BMD) command-post exercise (CPX) from April 12 to 23. "The exercise is focused on crafting coordination techniques for use by non-strategic air defense/BMD units in providing BMD coverage of a third country during a coalition operation under the aegis of international organizations," the press service of the Russian defense ministry reads. To simulate hostilities, computer simulation aids will be used during the exercise, according to MoD. "Computers are to be used to...

http://netwmd.com/articles/article890.html After a first term marked by schizophrenic Iran policy initiatives, the Bush White House will soon develop a coordinated policy to promote peaceful regime change in Iran. The Bush administration is heartened by the apparent success of the Iraqi election and believes that Iranians are ready to exert their democratic rights. Bush policy is motivated by the grave and growing threat from the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program, and the realization that neither Iran nor the European Union are sincere in preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear weaponry. The Islamic Republic's potential threat to American security emanates from Tehran's determination...

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in Iran: The Invisible Revolution. During the U.S. presidential campaign, debate over Iran policy received unprecedented attention. The reasons are multifold. With Iran on the verge of developing both nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile capability, Washington policymakers can no longer ignore the Iranian threat, especially when confidants of Supreme Leader Ali Khomenei lead televised chants of "American will be annihilated," as Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati did last June. American concern over a nuclear Iran is multifold. The danger is not necessarily that Iran would conduct a nuclear first strike, although former president Ali Akbar...

Former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday told blacks embittered by his narrow loss in the 2000 presidential election that "it doesn't have to be this way" and urged them to turn anger into energy at the polls. "Don't turn it into angry acts or angry words," Gore said at one stop during a tour of mostly black churches. He also urged worshippers to take advantage of a state law that permits voting before Election Day, Nov. 2. "Early voting is a good idea," he said. "You want to give them plenty of time to count all the votes." Polls...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States will have a limited defense against incoming ballistic missiles by the end of this year, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in prepared remarks, calling it a "triumph of hope and vision over pessimism and skepticism." AFP/Boeing/File Photo Rumsfeld hailed the developers of the missile defense system in a speech prepared for delivery to a conference in Huntsville, Alabama, a day after President George W. Bush (news - web sites) and Senator John Kerry (news - web sites), the Democratic presidential nominee, clashed over the controversial project on the campaign trail. "It has been...

Why Japan went ballisticBy Tomohiko Taniguchi TOKYO - It has gone largely unnoticed that Japan now occupies a premier seat within a unique American defense club, a club of two - Washington and Tokyo. The reason for this is not because Japan is the second largest economy still committed to having its armed forces deployed in Iraq, but rather because Japan has decided to do what few other allies of the United States could. That is to follow the US in its controversial missile defense program. At present, practically no other nation is in a position to follow suit. It...

Armor shell games & body bags Posted: February 4, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Tom Marzullo © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Corruption and /or incompetence in government contracting goes as far back as records are kept and if history tells us anything of these situations, it is that eternal vigilance is simply an integral part of the cost of purchasing goods and services. The subject is modern armor for our troops – something that has been in short supply for a while now and has become increasingly valuable in tactical, political and financial terms. For decades, there has been an increasing trend...

Dick Gephardt: Today, the question is one of how do we extricate ourselves from Iraq, and I believe the first step in that extrication is going to be to rebuild relations with our key allies. It's not just Iraq. It's the Kyoto treaty. It's the ABM agreement. It is agreement after agreement, which were critical to the maintenance of the victory of the Cold War and now to environmental sanity that this president has rejected. No wonder we have so much trouble getting support when we need it.

THE EVOLVING NORTH KOREAN THREAT Amid multilateral talks in Asia to determine its nuclear future, analysts are warning about North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile advances. CIA estimates from earlier this year gauge that the Kim Jong-Il regime already has one or two nuclear weapons, and analysts tell the Agence France Presse (August 24) that the DPRK is now working hard to marry its newfound nuclear capabilities with its advanced ballistic missile program. If successful, such efforts would have sinister results. According to Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, the Director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Pyongyang can already target parts...

Inside the Pentagon: Defense Dollars On July 31, 2003, Reuters led its business news coverage with the headline "Defense Spending Driving U.S. Economy." In January 1961 President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a warning about this symbiotic relationship between government defense spending and the economy in his farewell address to the nation. Indeed, Department of Defense and related defense spending accounts for the majority of federal spending in nearly every state. And the U.S. accounts for 43 percent of world military spending. What are the actual numbers? .       This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms...

Israel is expected to train four battalions of nearly 3,000 Indian soldiers for specialized anti-insurgency strikes, adding to their training in desert, mountain, jungle, and counter-hijacking and hostage crisis situations. New Delhi's turn to Jerusalem for combat soldier expertise is due, in part, to disappointing results in border clashes with Pakistani forces and to last year's suicide attack by Muslim terrorist infiltrators on Indian Parliament members. Among the many tasks expected of them, the newly trained Indian troops are expected to stop infiltration by Pakistani terrorists into India via the contested Kashmir region, according to the Jerusalem Post, Feb. 3,...

North Korea threatens to attack US By Shane GreenTokyo March 8 2003 North Korea would launch a ballistic missile attack on the United States if Washington made a pre-emptive strike against the communist state's nuclear plant, the man described as Pyongyang's "unofficial spokesman" said yesterday. Kim Myong-chol, who has links to the Stalinist regime, told foreign reporters in Tokyo that a US strike on the nuclear plant at Yongbyon "means nuclear war"."If American forces carry out a pre-emptive strike on the Yongbyon facility, North Korea will immediately target, carry the war to the US mainland," he said, claiming that New York,...

<p>A major worry among U.S. officials is that the upcoming test, which would be the third in recent weeks, will be a second flight test of its new long-range Taepo-Dong 2 ballistic missile, which was flight-tested for the first time in August 1998.</p>

Austrian Handgun Maker Glock's Top U.S. Official ResignsFriday February 21, 1:59 PM Austrian handgun maker Glock GmbH parted ways with its top U.S. official this week, at a critical moment for the gun industry, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported. Paul Jannuzzo, a senior executive with the gun maker's U.S. unit, confirmed he stepped down Monday as chief operating officer and general counsel at Glock Inc. He has stirred controversy within gun circles because of his support for greater use of computer systems that can match bullets and shell casings to the guns that fired them. Mr. Jannuzzo had been one...

Austrian handgun maker Glock GmbH parted ways with its top U.S. official this week, at a critical moment for the gun industry. Paul Jannuzzo, a senior executive with the gun maker's U.S. unit, confirmed he stepped down Monday as chief operating officer and general counsel at Glock Inc. He has stirred controversy within gun circles because of his support for greater use of computer systems that can match bullets and shell casings to the guns that fired them. Mr. Jannuzzo had been one of the industry's most senior in-house lawyers and helped to shape strategy in defending against dozens of...

I didn't watch 60 minutes tonight, but according to several folks who did watch, one of the Vice Presidents of Glock stated he supports ballistic fingerprinting on a national level. If true, this is a total sellout of gun owners in America.

Governing Magazine/January 2003 POTOMAC CHRONICLE FEAR OF FINGERPRINTING There's a form of gun regulation that could save thousands of lives ayear. If we weren't so paranoid, we'd adopt it. By Jonathan Walters What's always impressed me about the opponents of gun regulation is their amazing ability to change the subject and play off Americans'deep-seated fear of government itself. They can make tens of millions of us believe that federal, state or local officials are liable to go fascist, requiring vigilant citizens to bring out the six-shooter and hold off their mayor/governor/senator as he/she tries to consolidate his/her power base by...

The Heart, the Mind, and "Ballistic Fingerprints"Joe BrowerOctober 26, 2002 With the advent of the "Beltway Sniper" shootings, there has been the predictable hue and cry for more gun control, mostly in the form of a so-called "ballistic fingerprinting database" for all firearms. Simply put, the idea is that bullets recovered from shootings could be matched to images stored in a computer, the owner of the weapon could then be determined, and an arrest could be made. Sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately, in the real world, it doesn't work. The federal government has been working on such a system for...

Even before police had caught the two men who could turn out to be the snipers, the Bush administration and the National Rifle Association (NRA) were busy lobbying against any new gun-control proposals. Ari Fleischer, asked on October 14 about a bill in Congress establishing ballistic fingerprinting, responded, "Certainly, in the case of the sniper, the real issue is values." But for local police the real issue was never values (one of the snipers, after all, had already claimed an acquaintance with God), but apprehending the shooters. And in the beginning all they had to go on were some vague,...

Is a National Firearms Registry Unconstitutional?Joe Brower10/22/2002 Gun folks; My apoligies for the vanity post. I am currently engaged in a debate with one of the senior editors of the local "news"paper, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NY Times. I have been doing well overall. Today, however, I have been asked one question point-blank that I think is indeed a good one, and one that we all should have an answer to in light of the ever-louder screams from the gun-grabbers for a national firearms registry, er, I mean, "ballistic fingerprinting". Basically, the question boils down to "Is a national...