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Islamists claim killing of Russian priest (AFP) – 7 hours ago MOSCOW — An Islamist militant group based in Russia's North Caucases has claimed the killing last month of an Orthodox priest who was an outspoken critic of Islam. "One of our brothers who has never been to the Caucases took up the oath of (former independent Chechen president Doku Umarov) and expressed his desire to execute the damned Sysoyev," said a statement on the Kavkazcenter.com website. Daniil Sysoyev, 35, was killed on November 20 when masked gunman walked into Saint Thomas's church in southern Moscow and shot him four...

German fighters patrolling the territory of Estonia are prosecuted by the Russian Su-27. Assistance to NATO by Finns. This is not a scenario of military maneuvers or war movie, but the real incident, which took place September 15. Informed about the military industry magazine "Loyal". According to him, two German machine Eurofighter approached the Baltic Sea west of Tallinn to czterosilnikowego jet aircraft Beriew A-50, trying unsuccessfully to establish radio communication with him. One of the German pilots photographed intruder. Then suddenly toward the German planes flew at a speed of two supersonic Su-27 fighters, but no one opened fire....

Myanmar is buying twenty MiG-29s from Russia. Myanmar bought its first twelve MiG-29s in 2001. This new sale will earn Russia some criticism, because Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a military dictatorship with a very bad international reputation. But Russia is desperate to keep the MiG-29 from fading away. To that end, Russia also ordered 24 MiG-29Ks for its sole aircraft carrier, to replace the Su-33s that currently serve on the ship. However, most of the current news about the Mig-29 has been bad. Malaysia, for example, admitted that it is getting rid of its MiG-29 fighters because the aircraft are...

Russia announced that arms exports for 2009 would be $8.5 billion. That's less than two percent more than last year's $8.35 billion. This is not good. Increasing these sales is very important for the government. The defense industry employs nearly three million people and accounts for about 20 percent of industrial jobs in Russia. At the end of the Cold War in 1991, defense work was more than three times as large as it is now. It was the large size of the defense industry that played a major role in bankrupting the Soviet Union. The Russians were never quite...

Three years after deciding to start production, the Russian Air Force received the first two production models of the Su-34 fighter-bomber. The original plan was to put 24 aircraft into service by 2010. It was hoped that they would eventually be able to buy a hundred. Apparently one goal of undertaking serial production was to encourage foreign purchases. No luck there yet. The 45 ton Su-34 is a replacement for the 43 ton Su-24 bomber, which is beginning to show its age (over twenty years). There are 300 Su-24s on the books, but most of these are not fit for...

BY 9 in the morning, the bazaar on a rocky island in the Panj River was a frenetic scene of haggling and theatrics. Afghan traders in long tunics and vests hawked teas, toiletries and rubber slippers. Turbaned fortune tellers bent over ornate Persian texts, predicting futures for the price of a dollar. Tajik women bargained over resplendent bolts of fabric. All were mingling this bright Saturday at a weekly market held throughout the year and, in one form or another, for thousands of years here in the Wakhan Valley, which divides Tajikistan and Afghanistan. “Mousetraps, mousetraps, mousetraps, oooowww!” crooned a...

Three years after deciding to start production, the Russian Air Force received the first two production models of the Su-34 fighter-bomber. The original plan was to put 24 aircraft into service by 2010. It was hoped that they would eventually be able to buy a hundred. Apparently one goal of undertaking serial production was to encourage foreign purchases. No luck there yet. The 45 ton Su-34 is a replacement for the 43 ton Su-24 bomber, which is beginning to show its age (over twenty years). There are 300 Su-24s on the books, but most of these are not fit for...

Russia will work on a new generation of nuclear missiles to ensure its nuclear deterrent remains effective, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday. Medvedev said the new missiles would be developed in full accordance with arms agreements made with the United States. "Of course, we will develop new systems, including delivery systems, that is, missiles," Medvedev said in an end-of-year interview with state-controlled television channels. "This process will be continued, and our nuclear shield will always be efficient and sufficient to protect our national interests," Medvedev said. The Kremlin chief said Russia and the United States were close to a...

History speaks of a Pax Romana, a Pax Britannica, and a Pax Americana - but no other namable eras of sustained peace, for the simple reason cited by Henry Kissinger: nothing maintains peace except hegemony and the balance of power. The balancing act always fails, though, as it did in Europe in 1914, and as it will in Central and South Asia precisely a century later. The result will be suppurating instability in the region during the next two years and a slow but deadly drift toward great-power animosity. Those who wanted an end to US hegemony will get what...

Russia will press ahead with its Bulava missile programme, the country's defence minister was quoted as saying on Wednesday, despite another failed test launch earlier this month. "We are certainly not going to cancel Bulava," Anatoly Serdyukov told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta in an interview to be published Thursday, parts of which were obtained by Interfax news agency. "There's a whole series of problems and unfortunately we can not resolve them as quickly as we would like," he added. "Nevertheless, I believe that the missile will fly." The latest test over Russia's White Sea on December 10 ended in failure, owing...

Russia has signed a contract to deliver 20 MiG-29 fighter planes to military-run Myanmar, the daily Kommersant reported Wednesday. The contract was signed a few weeks ago and came to nearly 400 million euros (570 million dollars), according to a source close to Russian arms sales company Rosoboronexport quoted by the paper. The Southeast Asian country is under Western sanctions but human-rights campaigners complain that its ruling junta has received a steady supply of arms from neighbours China and India, as well as from Russia. A source close to Rosoboronexport said the Russian offer beat one by China which offered...

China wary of Russian naval repairs By Andrei Chang Column: Military Might Hong Kong, China — China has procured from Russia 12 Kilo class submarines and four 956E/EM DDGs, or guided missile destroyers, since 1993. The first two Vasayanka-class Kilo submarines were exported to China in 1993, and the second two Kilo 636 submarines were delivered in 1996. The first two 956E DDGs were delivered in 1996 and 1999 respectively. These battleships are now all due for overhaul or technical upgrading. But there are differences between China and Russia as to how this is to be done. Simply, China does...

Russia has delayed, for at least a few months, starting construction of their fourth Borei class SSBN (ballistic missile nuclear subs, or "boomers"). Russia wants to have the new Borei class boats replace the current Delta IV class SSBNs. The first Borei is already in the service, but not yet commissioned, and two others are under construction. The problem, and unofficial reason for the delay, is the inability to make the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) work. The latest Bulava test was a spectacular failure (which lit up the pre-dawn sky of northern Norway, for all to see)....

Russia has delayed, for at least a few months, starting construction of their fourth Borei class SSBN (ballistic missile nuclear subs, or "boomers"). Russia wants to have the new Borei class boats replace the current Delta IV class SSBNs. The first Borei is already in the service, but not yet commissioned, and two others are under construction. The problem, and unofficial reason for the delay, is the inability to make the new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) work. The latest Bulava test was a spectacular failure (which lit up the pre-dawn sky of northern Norway, for all to see)....

Pentagon officials are keeping an eye on a delivery by the Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association in Russia of three new Su-34 “Fullback”, two-seat, fighter bombers last week. It is part of an effort to create an operational force of 24 aircraft by the end of 2010. Future goals are a complete air regiment of 44 aircraft by 2010 and a total force of 200 Su-34s by 2020. Borts 04 and 05 went to Lipetsk AB combat training center – Russia’s “Top Gun” school – which is 270 mi. southeast of Moscow. Their arrival was the subject of a Russian television...

The close relationship that once existed between Moscow and Pyongyang is a relic of the Cold War. In fact, there is reason to believe that the two neighbors now share little in common. Yet decades ago, the Soviets exercised tremendous influence over the North Korean regime, anecdotally evidenced by Kim Il-sung's fateful request to Josef Stalin asking to invade the South in 1950. Stalin, after much consternation, finally gave his approval.1 By deferring to Stalin, Kim Il-sung sought continued Soviet support, which he received for roughly 40 years until the breakup of the Soviet Union. In the early 1990s, however,...

The recent Bulava launch failure has implications for US-Russian arms control talks (EDM, December 17) and will determine whether the Russian defense industry is capable of delivering advanced weapons systems at qualitative levels competing with analogous systems produced abroad. The issue involves the quality of such systems, their relative costs, and the time for their research, development and deployment. This year the Russian defense ministry has selectively answered that question negatively and has bought advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) from Israel and entered into discussions with France over the purchase of a Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, which so far has...

Growing up in the United States, I was incessantly bombarded by propaganda about the Reds, namely, Russia and China. They were the enemies of freedom, prosperity, progress, and capitalism. We, on the other hand, were the champions of liberty and free markets. Of course, there was more than a little bit of truth behind the propaganda. With mass-murdering leaders such as Stalin and Mao, Russia and China caused the deaths of tens of millions of innocent victims with 5-year plans and Great Leaps Forward, and those numbers are probably way too generous. There is no way to tell how many...

BEIJING - With 30,000 more United States troops on their way to Afghanistan, it is growing clearer that they will not suffice and that larger challenges loom. Afghanistan is also increasingly developing into a political proxy war between India and Pakistan. Pakistan, which backed the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1980s and offered a safe haven and breeding ground to the Taliban in the 1990s, is now looking askance at the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, which it sees as pro-India. Conversely, India has fond memories of the time when Kabul was firmly under Moscow's hands and...

Global Warming: Russian analysts accuse Britain's Meteorological Office of cherry-picking Russian temperature data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures. Is Copenhagen rooted in a single tree in Siberia? Michael Mann, a Penn State meteorologist, wrote in Friday's Washington Post that "stolen" e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit still don't alter the evidence for climate change. Mann, a creator of the discredited hockey-stick graph used in reports from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show man-made warming, attacks climate skeptics, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying they "confuse the public." Chutzpah has been...

A giant triangular UFO was spotted hovering over the Kremlin in Moscow – in a film that has sent shockwaves throughout Russia. The flying object, which witnesses said could be up to a mile wide, was filmed by two amazed spectators – one at night from a car and another during the day. The hovering pyramid has been likened to Darth Vader’s Imperial Cruiser in Star Wars and has been showed repeatedly on Russian news channels. A clip of the UFO, which reportedly hovered over Moscow’s Red Square for hours, has become a Russian YouTube sensation. Nick Pope, who worked...

US-Russian nuclear arms reduction negotiators seem close to concluding a follow up strategic arms reduction treaty (START). The Russian press reports that Washington has agreed to serious concessions and that the new START treaty will be signed soon. The new verification measures will be less intrusive and “based on trust.” The US military control mission will be permanently removed from the Votkinsk missile factory in Udmurtia in the Urals. The US is reported to have agreed to allow Russia in the future to cipher telemetric data of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launches. Both sides will be allowed 700 to...

Throughout the totalitarian West, the Marxist internationalist elites, while busily flooding their countries with tens of millions of third worlders, have introduced specific measures to keep the native populations down and in check. These measures have come in the form of hate crimes laws. The laws state that a crime is not just a crime if we can find a deeper motive, such as hate of a specific race, sex, religion or sexual orientation. Thus the Lords of Humanity have given themselves the power of God to know what is inside the hearts of men. In practical terms, what this...

WASHINGTON — Negotiations with Russia to replace an expired Cold War-era arms control treaty have bogged down and now appear unlikely to be concluded by the end of the year as the White House had hoped. As the two sides seek a breakthrough, President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, plan to discuss the nuclear negotiations in a meeting Friday on the sidelines of United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. The two leaders are not expected to seal a deal. U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, say negotiations with...

A son in Putin's Yule stocking Last Updated: 1:33 PM, December 16, 2009 Posted: 11:50 PM, December 15, 2009 Vladimir Putin has a lot to celebrate this Christmas. Not only has the Russian strongman consolidated his control over the proletariat -- and all their oil and gas -- he's also been given his first son, sources say. Alina Kabaeva, the gorgeous, 26-year-old rhythmic gymnastics champion, recently gave birth to a boy in Moscow and named the baby Dimitry, a moniker he'll share with Putin's handpicked president, Dimitry Medvedev.

US officials said Thursday that US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev plan to meet Friday

In Copenhagen the gathering of the International Church of Global Warming Moonbats is ignoring the Climategate scandal as they do their best to pass their agenda of transferring of income from the developed to the undeveloped world. While the Moonbats were playing a denial Climategate got much, much bigger. The Russians just dropped this huge bombshell just as the world’s big-shots are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing the developed world back into the stone-age. What the Russians found out is that Dr, Jones and the folks at CPU weren't using all the data from Siberia. In fact...

What is going on with Russia?

Vietnam aims to counter China with sub deal: analysts By Ian Timberlake (AFP) – 2 hours ago HANOI — Vietnam's major arms deal with Russia, reported to involve the purchase of six submarines, aims to bolster claims against China over potentially resource-rich islands in the South China Sea, analysts say. While much of Vietnam's military hardware is antiquated, it has decided to devote substantial resources to developing an underwater fleet as concerns mount over tensions with its giant neighbour over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, they say. "I think their primary rationale is to counteract the military build-up that the...

Russian Military Aircrew Numbers Tumble Alexey Komarov/Moscow Douglas Barrie/London Aircrew numbers in the Russian air force are to be cut by 40% as part of a program that will see the service adopt a revised operational-command structure by year-end. Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin, the air force chief, unveiled the far-reaching plan last summer with the aim of transforming his service into an agile force capable of dealing with more diverse types of threats. Zelin says the new structure will consist of operational commands, air force bases and aerospace defense brigades (to counter aircraft and missile threats). Existing air force and...

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen asked Russia on Wednesday to give the Western military alliance more help in Afghanistan but failed to get an immediate pledge of assistance from the Kremlin.

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages. Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North) A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997...

Moscow, Russia (CNN) -- The remains of Adolf Hitler were burned in 1970 by Soviet KGB agents and thrown into a river in Germany on direct orders from the spy agency's chief, a top Russian security official said this week. The head archivist of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) -- the successor to the former Soviet Union's KGB -- confirmed for the first time the chain of events that led to the disposal of Hitler's body, and who ordered the operation, in an exclusive interview with Russia's Interfax news agency. Gen. Vasily Khristoforov told Interfax in an interview published Monday...

The newly re-elected president of Abkhazia, an unrecognized breakaway region of Georgia, Sergei Bagapsh will pay a visit to Turkey soon, citing the need to reach out to members of the Abkhaz diaspora currently living in the country. At a press conference following his landslide victory in the Abkhaz presidential elections, which Georgia labeled an “immoral comedy,” Bagapsh said he plans to make an informal trip to Turkey very soon. “I will have informal meetings with Turkish officials,” Bagapsh said. Abkhazia has been a battleground for Russia since the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over the disputed region...

Bears have been spotted in Denmark. And these aren’t the friendly kind who are just looking for picnic baskets. As IBD predicted last week, Russia’s claim to mountains of carbon credits has proved to be a major stumbling block at the international climate talks in Copenhagen. As the AP notes, it has given Russia the rare chance to seize the moral high ground. ... Under the Kyoto treaty, that gives it claim to massive amounts of tradable carbon credits. Russia wants those credits rolled forward before it signs on to any new international carbon treaty. Other countries aren’t keen on...

Russian commercial aircraft manufacturer Irkut has selected an American engine (the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G) for its new twin engine MC-21 airliner. While Russia is competitive in building airframes, it still cannot yet match Western jet engine quality. This is critical, because Western engines use less fuel and are cheaper to maintain. These are decisive factors in the airline business. Russia continues to work at catching up in the high-end jet engine business. For military engines, you can sacrifice some fuel efficiency and reliability, to achieve equal performance. But this still makes your air force inferior (aircraft are unavailable more...

“A 538-yr tree-ring chronology and reconstruction of June temperatures were developed from living and dead Larix dahurica trees. The samples were obtained near the lower Lena River in northern Siberia. Dendrochronological techniques were used to estimate the ages of establishment and mortality of Larix dahurica on the presently treeless uplands and to determine the establishment dates of living trees in the lowlands. ………………………………… It was during the 19th century that the uplands lost much of their tree and soil cover. Recruitment of trees occurred in the lowlands during the 20th century, but trees have not been able to recolonize the...

<p>CHISINAU, Moldova — Dozens of people led by an Orthodox priest smashed a menorah in Moldova's capital, using hammers and iron bars to remove the candelabra during Hanukkah, officials said.</p> <p>The 1.5 meter(5-foot)-tall ceremonial candelabrum was retrieved, reinstalled and is now under police guard.</p>

The claim was both simple and terrifying: that temperatures on planet Earth are now ‘likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years’. As its authors from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) must have expected, it made headlines around the world. Yet some of the scientists who helped to draft it, The Mail on Sunday can reveal, harboured uncomfortable doubts. In the words of one, David Rind from the US space agency Nasa, it ‘looks like there were years around 1000AD that could have been just as warm’. Keith Briffa from the University of East...

By ELLEN BARRY Published: December 13, 2009 MOSCOW — Voters in Abkhazia, the separatist enclave in Georgia, have re-elected President Sergei V. Bagapsh by a decisive margin, amid protests from the Georgian government that the vote was invalid. In final results of the Saturday vote announced on Sunday, Mr. Bagapsh won 59.4 percent of the vote, more than he needed to avoid a second round of voting. His closest rival among four other candidates, Raul Khajimba, a former agent in the Russian F.S.B. security service, trailed with 15.4 percent. Turnout was 73 percent, election officials said. Mr. Khajimba alleged widespread...

The latest test of Russia new Bulava SLBM (Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) was a spectacular failure. The test took place off the northern coast of Russia early on December 10th. The failure resulted in a brilliant light show, in the pre-dawn sky, that was visible to many in Norway. At first the Russians denied that the spectacular lights had anything to do with them. But within a day, they admitted it was Bulava failing its 13th flight test. Last August Russian political and military leaders became upset (make that VERY upset) at the inept development of the new Bulava missile....

Average Russian Is 8 Times Poorer Than Average European Economics / Russia Dec 13, 2009 - 10:54 AM By: Pravda The latest research indicated that the size of the average European’s savings account is seven times greater than that of the average Russian. It would seem that the reasons are obvious – Russians are seven times poorer than residents of the European Union. However, it’s only a part of the picture. Sociologists say that 70% of Russians do not have bank deposits and 50% of them have no savings at all. Therefore, the average Russian is 8 times poorer than...

...Yes, emails came from here - but we didn't do it, say Russians ...when the ‘warmest for 1,300 years’ claim was published in 2007 in the IPCC’s fourth report, the doubters kept silent. ... the full context of that ‘trick’ email, as shown by a new and until now unreported analysis by the Canadian climate statistician Steve McIntyre, is extremely troubling. ...Briffa changed the way he computed his data and submitted a revised version. This brought his work into line for earlier centuries, and ‘cooled’ them significantly ...‘Any scientist ought to know that you just can’t mix and match proxy...

So much for America getting all the oil it spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives to "liberate." ----- By SINAN SALAHEDDIN (AP) – 10 hours ago BAGHDAD — A consortium led by Russia's private oil giant won the biggest prize of Iraq's second oil auction this year, nabbing a field initially promised them a decade ago by Saddam Hussein while other companies Saturday showed little interest in offerings outside the secure southern part of the country. Lukoil and Norway's Statoil ASA won rights to develop the 12.88 billion barrel West Qurna Phase 2 field in the Basra region,...

Russia's state repository will sell 30 tonnes of gold worth $1 billion to the central bank next week, a source at the body said on Friday, keeping the metal inside Russia after rethinking a plan to sell it on the market. Central banks worldwide are building up their gold reserves as the metal trades near record highs. Gokhran, the Russian repository, cancelled plans to sell the gold on the open market after information about the sale leaked. "The primary aim is to make sure this gold doesn't hit the market and influence prices," said Olga Okuneva, metals and mining analyst...

Just a day after a Russian rocket launch set off a spate of UFO sightings in Norway, yet another missile test created a similar sky show over the heart of Russia. Like Wednesday's launch of the submarine-based Bulava missile from the White Sea, Thursday's launch of the land-based Topol ballistic missile from the Kapustin Yar missile range on the lower Volga River sparked plenty of sightings. Reports came in from Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa and other cities, said NBC News space analyst James Oberg. The rocket plume created a spiral pattern in the sky, though the pattern wasn't as striking as...

Russia plans to replace most of its older (Cold War era) ICBMs in the next five years. But all of these older missiles will not be retired until 2020. Currently, Russia has 538 ICBMs in service, 71 percent of them the most modern Topols (SS-25 and SS-27). Only 56 are the most modern, Topol-M design. About a dozen of these are the road-mobile versions, that avoid destruction in a first strike, by constantly moving around on the roads 200-300 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The 54 foot long transporter for these 46 ton missiles is a 16 wheel vehicle, using a...

Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans. The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven...

I look at the people who support the transformation of America in disbelief: They are destroying the very land that gave them so much opportunity. Groomed, well-fed and educated, comfortably living in a prosperous society, they need a mission to give meaning to their lives. These "fighters for the less-fortunate among us" glaze over the fact that hundreds of millions of people from around the world desperately try to come to this country for all it offers, regardless of their economic status, race, class, or gender. Immigrants rightly see this country as the best place to obtain a decent life...

USSR red army tanks graveyard— few km east of Kabul, Afghanistan When Russia left Afghanistan after the war, a lot of their equipment was left behind.