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Even as visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping got the red-carpet treatment from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the White House on Tuesday accused China and Russia of effectively giving Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a "license to kill" the critics of his regime by vetoing a United Nations Security Council resolution aimed at ending bloodshed in Syria. Obama press secretary Jay Carney did not use the incendiary phrase, which Norah O'Donnell of CBS News put in the mouth of an anonymous administration official, in a TV report Monday and in a question to Carney at his daily...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia came close to nuclear disaster in late December when a blaze engulfed a nuclear-powered submarine carrying atomic weapons, a leading Russian magazine reported, contradicting official assurances that it was not armed. Russian officials said at the time that all nuclear weapons aboard the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine had been unloaded well before a fire engulfed the 167-metre (550 feet) vessel and there had been no risk of a radiation leak. But the respected Vlast weekly magazine quoted several sources in the Russian navy as saying that throughout the fire on December 29 the submarine was carrying 16...

Russia Grounds Su-24 Bomber Fleet after Urals Crash Russia has postponed indefinitely all flights of Su-24 Fencer tactical bombers after one of them crashed in Russia’s Urals, a source in the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. The Su-24 combat aircraft crashed in the woods of the Kurgan region during a routine flight on Monday. Both pilots ejected safely. “The Air Force commander has cancelled all flights of this type of aircraft until the cause of the crash is established,” the source said but did not specify how long it could take. Monday’s crash was the third of a Su-24 in...

The Troika went to bail out Europe's banks (for the nth time) and all we got was this postcard of night time Athens...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Historic cinemas, cafes and shops went up in flames in central Athens on Sunday as black-masked protesters fought Greek police outside parliament, while inside lawmakers looked set to defy the public rage by endorsing a new EU/IMF austerity deal. As parliament prepared to vote on a new 130 billion euro bailout to save Greece from a messy bankruptcy, a Reuters photographer saw the buildings engulfed in flames and huge plumes of smoke rose in the night sky. The air over Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with tear gas as riot police fought running battles with youths...

Legislation will allow country to cut debt; protesters set fire to 34 buildings; deputies expelled for opposing vote The Greek parliament approved on Monday a deeply unpopular austerity bill to secure a second bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund and avoid a messy default. The vote occurred after 100,000 demonstrators marched to the parliament and buildings were burned down in central Athens. Following the vote, black-masked protesters created a wall of fire with petrol bombs and set fire to cinemas, cafes, shops and banks. Fifty police officers and at least 55 protesters were hospitalized. Forty-five suspected rioters...

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Police turned tear gas and stun grenades on protesters outside Greece's parliament Sunday as lawmakers inside debated another round of austerity measures. Riot police dispersed many of the demonstrators, who were protesting plans for new cuts in government spending, wages and pensions in return for a new eurozone bailout of the debt-stricken country. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has urged approval of the deal, warning in a speech to the Cabinet Saturday evening of "social explosion, chaos" if it fails. "The state will not be able to pay salaries and pensions or import basic goods" such as...

Any good armchair general with a good search engine and time on their hands can figure out in a hurry that the song and dance about Iran being unable to close the Strait if Hormuz for long is just a plain crock. Worse than a crock. Yet, this big Orwellian lie persists, so once again I have to set the record straight. Iran has the capability of not only closing the Strait for some time, but creating a world of hurt for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Iran possesses a build up of anti-ship weapons called Sunburn missiles, which it...

Let’s say you’re Israel. An enemy dedicated to your destruction is developing the means to wipe you off the face of the earth, with the covert and overt help of world powers like Russia and China. It’s only a matter of months before that enemy achieves its goals – and when it does you will not be able to stop the mushroom cloud rising over your cities. So you come up with a sophisticated military plan to strike your foe in an extraordinarily targeted fashion. And you ask for the help of your longtime ally – virtually your only ally...

On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a "reset" policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration's inability to finesse "soft power" had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy. After all, the widely quoted but highly politicized 2007 National Intelligence Estimate claimed that Iran had ceased work on a bomb in 2003 and would not have a weapon for the foreseeable future. That flawed analysis fueled another popular talking point: that the Bush-Cheney warmongers were looking for more phantom weapons of mass destruction in Iran of the sort that...

To be or not to be the science of theology at Russian institutes and universities? At a meeting with a group of spiritual leaders, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed to introduce this subject to their curriculums. However, the possibility of the doctrine of God appearing in the curriculums of higher educational establishments has already stirred controversy in Russian society. The introduction of theology in curriculums in secular institutes and universities is necessary, says the rector of Orthodox University, Hegumenos Pyotr Eremeev in an interview with the Voice of Russia. “This will help students to get acquainted with the treasures of...

Russia said on Friday that the West was stoking the conflict in Syria by sending weapons to the opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. In an attempt to deflect criticism of Russia for blocking a U.N. Security Council resolution urging Assad to give up power, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Western states were stirring up trouble in Syria, where Assad has pursued a violent crackdown since March on protests against his 11-year rule. "Western states inciting Syrian opposition to uncompromising actions, as well as those sending arms to them, giving them advice and direction, are participating in the process of...

By FOUAD AJAMI The bloodshed and the brutality of the dictatorship in Syria are at long last beginning to challenge the passivity of the Obama administration. The word is out that the Pentagon has launched a "scoping exercise" to determine what could be done should the president want to respond to the Syrian catastrophe. For months, the administration pursued the mirage of a United Nations Security Council condemnation of Damascus, when there was no chance that Russia and China would go for it. The administration persisted even though a similar effort last October ended in failure. There was no need...

Russia's young people are growing up with more freedom than ever. Twenty years after the end of communism, the first post-Soviet generation is transforming the country -- whether the once and future president likes it or not.It's just before dawn at the Kremlin, and Marat Dupri is about to climb a monument to Czar Peter the Great. The 20-year-old with brown, curly hair is wearing a green, plaid jacket and blue gloves to fight the icy wind. He is standing on the bank of the Moskva River, facing the 98-meter (321-foot) colossus of dark, gray steel. Marat and his three...

There is a great World War Two documentary, that was made in 2005, that shows the diplomatic disputes between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, as they planned their military campaigns against Hitler. The 4 part documentary is titled: Warlords. The DVD version was released in 2007, and it shows Winston Churchill as the true defender of freedom, democracy, Christianity, and Western Civilization - against three socialist dictators - Stalin, Hitler, and Roosevelt. Here is a an Amazon link to the documentary: http://www.amazon.com/Warlords-Churchill/dp/B000NVKZUG Churchill noticed the obvious - that Stalinist Russia was more oppressive than Nazism. While Nazism was brutal in its...

Russian Navy to Drop Lada Class Subs – CinC Vysotsky The Russian Navy has decided against construction of Lada class submarines (Project 677) and will instead modernize its existing boats, Navy Commander-in-Chief Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky said in an interview with RIA Novosti. The design of the diesel-electric Lada class was completed at the end of the 1990s, but none of the planned boats have entered service, although the lead ship in the class, the Saint Petersburg, is undergoing trials with the Baltic Fleet, Vysotsky said. “The Russian Navy does not need the Lada in its current form,” he said. Vysotsky...

A BEAST lurches through icy waters in a sighting a paranormal investigator thinks could prove woolly mammoths are not extinct after all. The animal – thought to have mostly died out roughly 4,000 years ago – was apparently filmed wading through a river in the freezing wilds of Siberia. The jaw-dropping footage was caught by a government-employed engineer last summer in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug region of Siberia, it is claimed. He filmed the elephant-sized creature as it struggled against the racing water. Its hair matches samples recovered from mammoth remains regularly dug up from the permafrost in frozen Russia....

THE stealth qualities of the futuristic F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on order for the Royal Australian Air Force are overrated and the plane's combat performance greatly exaggerated, a defence lobby group has claimed. The complaints by Air Power Australia, longtime critics of the $16 billion JSF acquisition, were made last night before a public hearing of parliament's defence sub-committee. Latest-generation Russian fighters such as the Sukhoi T-50 would easily defeat the F-35 in air-to-air combat, Air Power's Peter Goon said, referring to recent modelling tests by his organisation. "The aircraft we are planning to buy is carrying over 2000 pounds...

DAMASCUS, Syria -- As the announcement was made Saturday evening that Russia and China had vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the actions of the Syrian regime, some Christians inside the country celebrated. One man from the western Syrian town of Qatana called his relatives to say "mabrook," or congratulations, on the result of the vote. A lounge bar in Damascus offered two alcoholic drinks for one in a happy hour offer. But in Christian homes around the country the prevailing sentiment is one of relief rather than delight -- they link the survival of the Assad regime...

On the sidelines of the UN talks on the Syria resolution, Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin has threatened the Qatari foreign minister with the demolition of the Arab country, reports the Algeria ISP news agency. So he has, hasn’t he? Talking to Churkin on Saturday, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani said: “I warn Russia, if Moscow uses the veto and does not support the UN’s resolution, it will lose all the Arab countries.” “If you talk to me like that, there will be no Qatar today,” Churkin replied in a low voice. That’s Algeria ISP story. Egypt’s Al-Ahram adds...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAzrlLaLv8 http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/02/04/putin-surprised-by-large-show-of-support?videoId=229640517&videoChannel=1

The half-century habits of Franco-German condominium die hard. It is a painful process for French elites to admit that monetary union is asphyxiating their economy and must inevitably trap France in mercantilist subordination to Germany. The Carolingian union is all that anybody in French public life can really remember. It worked marvellously for two generations, levering French power on the global stage, and the euro was of course their own creation, intended to tie down a reunited Germany with “silken cords”. How can they now face the awful truth that this elegant strategy has blown up in their faces, enthroning...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Colonel-General [ret.] Leonid Ivashov, former member of the Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff, which aired on Russia Today TV on February 1, 2012: Interviewer: Dr. Leonid, do you think that these preparations and very large maneuvers, which will soon be conducted by Russia, are meant as preparation for war, or rather, a military strike against Iran? […] Leonid Ivashov: These maneuvers and training will demonstrate Russia's readiness to use military power to defend its national interests and to bolster its political position. The maneuvers will show that Russia does not want any military...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Colonel-General [ret.] Leonid Ivashov, former member of the Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff, which aired on Russia Today TV on February 1, 2012: Interviewer: Dr. Leonid, do you think that these preparations and very large maneuvers, which will soon be conducted by Russia, are meant as preparation for war, or rather, a military strike against Iran? […] Leonid Ivashov: These maneuvers and training will demonstrate Russia's readiness to use military power to defend its national interests and to bolster its political position. The maneuvers will show that Russia does not want any military...

The protests come in advance of Russia’s March 4 presidential elections. Putin served two terms as president before term limits forced him from office in 2008. Putin announced in September he would run for a third non-consecutive presidential term as allowed by the Russian constitution. Dmitry Medvedev, whom Putin picked to succeed him as president in 2008, is stepping aside to allow Putin to return to power. Reports have estimated the Moscow turnout at 50,000 to 120,000 people. Similar Anti-Putin protests erupted in December with demonstrators alleging election fraud by Putin’s United Russia party, which managed to hold onto a...

In a move that was decried by the U.S., France, and Arab countries, Russia and China on Saturday vetoed a U.S.-backed proposal at the UN Security Council to condemn Syrian leader Bashar al-Assed for violence against Syrian citizens. The resolution that had demanded that Assad resign was backed by the Arab League, and the League on Saturday night called on Arab countries to shut down their embassies and consulates in Syria, and remove Syrian ambassadors from their countries. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said that Washington was "disgusted" by the vetoes. The vetoes followed a particularly bloody night...

Imperial regimes can crack when they are driven out of their major foreign outposts. The fall of the Berlin Wall did not only signal the liberation of Eastern Europe from Moscow. It prefigured the collapse of the Soviet Union itself just two years later. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria could be similarly ominous for Iran. The alliance with Syria is the centerpiece of Iran’s expanding sphere of influence, a mini-Comintern that includes such clients as Iranian-armed and -directed Hezbollah, now the dominant power in Lebanon; and Hamas, which controls Gaza and threatens to take the rest of Palestine (the...

Updated at 12 p.m. ET: Amid fresh bloodshed in the Syrian city of Homs, the U.N. Security Council on Saturday failed to pass a resolution calling on the Syrian president to step down. Russia and China vetoed the draft resolution endorsing an Arab League call for Bashar Assad to leave power. The unusual weekend U.N. session came as Syrian forces pummeled the city of Homs with mortars and artillery. Activists said more than 200 people were killed in what they called one of the bloodiest episodes of the uprising. The U.N. says more than 5,400 people have been killed over...

The Russian Navy Grows from Bottom up While the nation’s leaders work at overhauling the Navy organization, the Navy itself continues to order new ships. Last year’s persistent scandals over nuclear submarine contracts proved a hard nut to crack when assigning government contracts in 2011. For a time, the submarine scandals confused the process for ordering surface ships. Meanwhile the focus there is being shifted to the production of time tested projects built around today’s armaments. “Due to the lack of funding, the Navy has come close to a numerical minimum required to fulfill its mission,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry...

Russia will start producing six submarines and one aircraft carrier annually starting in 2013, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday. “By 2013, production capacity [at Russian shipyards] will allow us to build six submarines and an aircraft carrier every year,” Rogozin told reporters, adding that the number includes both nuclear and diesel-powered submarines. As a result, the production output will surpass that of the Soviet era when Russia built an average of five submarines annually, he said. Rogozin earlier said the production had been bogged down in the past by a lack of financing, outdated equipment and a...

Russia to Modernize 30 Tu-22M3 Bombers by 2020 Sergey Piatakov About 30 Tu-22M3 strategic bombers from Russia's Long Range Aviation fleet will be modernized by 2020, Russian Air Force spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik said on Tuesday. "We plan to upgrade about 30 strategic bombers to the M3M standard,” Drik said. Tu-22M3 (NATO reporting name Backfire-C) is a supersonic, swing-wing, long-range strategic bomber that Russia uses mainly to patrol the skies over its southern borders, Central Asia and the Black Sea region. The Tu-22M3 has a flight range of 6,800 km (4,300 miles) and can carry a 24,000 kg (52,910 lb)...

MOSCOW, January 31 (RIA Novosti) Tags: Saiga-12, AK-47, Izhmash, USA, Russia, Moscow Izhmash, the manufacturer of the legendary Kalashnikov AK-47, will supply Saiga-12 semi-automatic smoothbore shotguns to a number of police forces in the U.S., Izhmash reported on its web site on Tuesday. The contracts were signed at the Shot Show exhibition in Las Vegas on January 17-20. “The first Saiga-12 deliveries to U.S. law enforcement were already made in January 2012,” Izhmash General Director Maxim Kuzyuk said. At the exhibition, Izhmash also signed an agreement on exclusive imports to the U.S. market with Russian Weapon Company and an agreement...

Ruslan M. Medzhitov loves scientific puzzles. And this penchant has led him to tackle some of the big questions of modern biology. At Yale University, where he is a professor of immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, Dr. Medzhitov, 45, helped make key discoveries in the workings of vertebrates’ immune systems. We spoke about them at his home in Guilford, Conn.; again in New York City; and finally by telephone. An edited and condensed version of the sessions follows. Let’s talk about the paper by the immunologist Charles A. Janeway Jr. that changed your life. When did you...

MOSCOW – The history of successive authoritarian regimes in Russia reveals a recurring pattern: they do not die from external blows or domestic insurgencies. Instead, they tend to collapse from a strange internal malady – a combination of the elites’ encroaching disgust with themselves and a realization that the regime is exhausted. The illness resembles a political version of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential nausea, and led to both the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Soviet Union’s demise with Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Today, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s regime is afflicted with the same terminal disease, despite – or because of –...

While U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Pakistani counterpart, Hina Rabbani Khar, attempt to normalize relations between the countries after the recent American drone strikes in Pakistan, the question has arisen as to how India can become an integral member of the multi-party Afghan equation, where U.S. and NATO stakes are still very high. What does the question entail? he Pakistani transit routes for NATO convoys that supply military cargo to Afghanistan have been closed for two months (after an “erroneous” attack by a NATO aircraft on a Pakistani army checkpoint in the Pakistani-Afghan border region in November...

Russia pulls out of Korea fighter project Sweden mulls taking part in FX-III race with Gripen By Lee Tae-hoon Russia will not enter Korea’s advanced jet acquisition project as none of its aircraft manufacturers including Sukhoi expressed their intent to join the heated competition, officials here said. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) listed Sukhoi’s T-50 PAK-FA in July last year as one of the four contenders to have expressed an interest in joining the open bidding worth 8.29 trillion won ($7.3 billion) along with Boeing, Lockheed Martin and the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS). ``No Russian firm...

In Athens, the war of nerves over the debt haircut is nearing a finale. The negotiations between private creditors and the government, however, are taking some dangerous stumbles. Before Greece gets €130 billion in aid, it must show some success with its reforms. And that, with all the good will in the world, cannot be achieved. Every day we see the same images. Men and women in suits and with serious expressions step briskly up to a revolving door, wind their way into an unfamiliar building and disappear into the darkness. The scenes are playing out in Athens, and they...

Thousands of cars flying white ribbons or white balloons circled central Moscow on Sunday in a show of protest against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The cars jammed the inner lanes all along the 16-kilometre Garden Ring, which has as many as 16 lanes of traffic at its widest points. More protesters stood along the side of the road waving white ribbons and flags as the cars passed, their horns blaring.

The Syrian government has condemned a decision by the Arab League to pull its monitors from the raging civil war zone. The Arab League said Saturday it had decided to "immediately" suspend its mission to monitor the situation in Syria due to the growing violence, the BBC reported. The decision came less than a week after a vote to extend the mission another month. Fierce fighting near Damascus centered on several eastern suburbs that had been seized by opposition forces, and which government troops fought to recapture. At least 12 people were killed and 30 others were wounded in the...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has signalled that Greece will have to give up autonomy over its budget if it is to receive the full backing of the international community for its second €130bn (£109bn) bail-out. With the country on the brink of a default, Christine Lagarde, the director general of the IMF, said that a new "fiscal compact" was set to be signed by European Union members at the vital leaders' summit on Monday that would centralise budgetary powers. Greece is under increasing pressure to give up control of its budget. A document released over the weekend revealed German...

Russia's largest firearms manufacturer, Izhmash, has unveiled a prototype of its new Kalasnikov assault rifle with improved ergonomics and tactical flexibility. The new assault rifle, dubbed AK-12, is being designed as a basic platform for the development of nearly 20 different modifications of the weapon. It could be adapted for cartridges varying from 5.45x39 mm to 7.62x51 NATO. The state tests of the rifle may begin at the end of 2012 despite the fact that the Russian Defense Ministry has not shown interest so far in the new weapon citing the financial difficulties of the Izhmash company and a huge...

...........During the darkest days of the Cold War, the Soviet Union decided to build a gigantic missile ship and troop transport to spearhead any future invasion of America or Western Europe. This Soviet sky monster was called an ekranoplan. The one you see in photos here is the Lun-class Ekranoplan. The most unique aspect of the “part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft” ekranoplan was its propulsion method, which is why it was also called a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV) or “Sea Skimmer.” As Business Insider puts the GEV’s aerodynamic feat: “A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that...

In the thick of the Cold War, the Soviet Union built an immense vessel to carry their troops across the seas and into Western Europe. Equipped with nuclear warheads and able to blast across the sea at 340 mph, the Lun-class Ekranoplane; part plane, part boat, and part hovercraft — is a Ground Effect Vehicle (GEV). A GEV takes advantage of an aeronautical effect that allows it to lift off with an immense amount of weight, but limits its flight to 16 feet above the waves. Its altitude can never be greater than the length of the wings. Think of...

Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said on Friday a prominent rebel leader responsible for a series of high-profile acts of "sabotage and terrorism" had been killed in a raid by security forces in the volatile North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia earlier in the day. Dzhamaleim Mutaliyev, 35, known as Adam, was a leader of Caucasus Emirate, a loose umbrella organization of militant groups operating in the North Caucasus, and a close associate of notorious North Caucasus warlord Shamil Basayev who was killed in July 2006, the committee said in a statement. Mutaliyev is believed to be a mastermind of a several...

Moscow police have detained a Canadian national named Michael Jackson on charges of attempting to steal a wallet from a woman in the capital’s underground, the police reported on its website. The 50-year-old was caught red-handed at an underground station in southeastern Moscow on Monday as he pulled the wallet from the woman’s pocket, the report said. An investigation is under way. If found guilty, Jackson faces a fine of up to 200,000 rubles ($6,500) and a prison term of up to five years.

Duqu, Stuxnet malware developed by same groupPosted on 20 Jan 2012 at 2:29pm The infamous Trojan software Duqu and Stuxnet were developed by only one group of malware developers, according to Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab. In fact, Kaspersky said the malware development team could already have developed other malwares using the same platform that was flexibly adaptable to specific targets. Kaspersky released a report stating that Duqu and Stuxnet, as well as a number of malware discovered in 2011 were using a development platform called “Tilded,” citing the use of the tilde symbol (“~”) in many of these malware....

Rich Russians stuffed wads of cash into the pockets of Costa Concordia crew members to bribe them for coveted places on the lifeboats, it has been claimed. Italian investigators are looking into eyewitness accounts that 'expensively dressed Eastern Europeans' paid off staff as 'the disabled were left to fend for themselves'. Giglio resident Franca Anichini also said the first residents to reach dry land on lifeboats were not 'wounded women and children' - instead, she saw 'healthy men and elegant women in evening gowns who were speaking Russian' being the first to be saved, RadarOnline.com reported.

People can go to the radio website to vote. Number one so far is Valentina Matvienko, former governor of Saint Petersburg. Number 9 is a former gymnast, AKA Putin's mistress, Alina Kabaeva.

Russian Air Force Tests New Air-to-Air Missile The Russian Air Force is testing and will soon deploy an advanced tactical air-to-air missile that will greatly enhance its operational effectiveness, the service's commander Col Gen Alexander Zelin said on Tuesday. The missile will be carried by MiG-31BM Foxhound supersonic interceptors/fighters and will subsequently be used by other warplanes, he said. The weapon is “currently in trial at an Air Force test site,” Zelin said. Zelin did not identify the missile but experts believe it could be the K-37M, also known as RVV-BD, or AA-X-13 Arrow as it is known to NATO....

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned ethnic tensions could tear Russia apart, saying he would toughen migration rules on reassuming the presidency and keep a tight rein on Russia's regions to prevent it following the Soviet Union into oblivion. Putin, in power since 2000 and favored to win a six-year presidential term in March, described a Soviet-style vision of a country in which the rights of ethnic minorities would be respected but Russian language and culture would dominate. "With the collapse of the country (the Soviet Union), we were on the edge -- and in some regions...