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Newly appointed Chief of Staff of the Russian Land Forces, Lieutenant-General Sergey Skokov, recently made a statement that caused a major sensation across the Russian Federation. Speaking about possible conflicts that Russia may face in the future, he outlined three distinct scenarios: fighting in the "western, southern" and eastern" directions...

SNIPPET: "Lula and Chavez have established a "strategic relationship," and recently agreed upon a joint Brazilian-Venezuelan oil venture worth billions of dollars. Lula and Chavez have joined with Daniel Ortega, the returned Nicaraguan Marxist dictator, to form an anti-U.S. Latin American military alliance - all with Russian assistance - funded by the region's abundant oil reserves. Brazil is engaged in its own arms build-up and Lula is determined that Brazil will become at least a first-rate regional power. Unfortunately, Lula is establishing Brazil as an anti-American military power by aligning with nations hostile or potentially hostile to the U.S. Lula...

Unix code claimant SCO Group has jettisoned its controversial captain, Darl McBride, as part of the company's latest scheme to emerge from bankruptcy. The serially litigious SCO's executive ousting was revealed in a filing today with US regulators, although corresponding paperwork gives McBride's actual dismissal date as October 14. The decision to remove McBride was done under the auspices of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee assigned to SCO by the US Justice Department. That leaves COO, Jeff Hunsaker, CFO, Ken Nielsen, and General Counsel, Ryan Tibbitts grappling for the helm. According to the filings with the US Securities and Exchange...

BEIJING, October 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to consider using the Russian and Chinese national currencies instead of the dollar in bilateral oil and gas dealings, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. The premier, currently on a visit to Beijing, said a final decision on the issue can only be made after a thorough expert analysis. "Yesterday, energy companies, in particular Gazprom, raised the question of using the national currency. We are ready to examine the possibility of selling energy resources for rubles, but our Chinese partners need rubles for that. We are also ready to sell...

China is becoming concerned by the increased presence of the United States in Afghanistan and is complaining about the U.S. lease renewal at the Manas Air Base in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, suggesting that these activities are part of an overall containment effort against China, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. The complaint comes at the same time Chinese officials have expressed alarm over what they view as a growing alliance between the U.S. and India, which they perceive as designed to alter the Asian strategic balance in what Beijing always has regarded as its sphere of influence.

Russia and China, two potential U.S. adversaries in a future war, are committed to big increases in defense spending and global military adventures in the coming years, just as President Obama is forcing the Pentagon to scale back. The imbalance has defense experts worried that re-emergent Russia and China will be able to defeat U.S. forces in an air, sea and ground conflict because they will field superior fighters, ships and tanks in the next decades. This week, China announced its most ambitious military exercise to date. The People's Liberation Army is sending 50,000 troops to far reaches of the...

A bankruptcy court judge has denied a request by the SCO Group to sell off part of its business, a move that could have helped it pursue court cases against Novell and IBM. SCO, which has been in bankruptcy court since 2007, had proposed to sell off most of its Unix business assets to a company called Unxis, the latest in a series of proposals aimed at allowing the company to exit bankruptcy and continue its high-profile Unix litigation. IBM and Novell, on the other hand, had requested that SCO's assets be liquidated, effectively putting an end to the cases...

Russian soldiers train before a joint military exercise between China and Russia in Taonan, in northeast China's Jilin province, July 21, 2009. Generals from both armies directed the drill. The exercise with live ammunition lasted for over one and a half hour. It trained the two armies in strategies and coordination to jointly encircle and suppress terrorists. The five-day "Peace Mission 2009" involve 26-hundred army and air force personnel and special forces, and more than 40 fighter aircraft and helicopters as well as other special reconnaissance equipment. It showcases the determination to fight terrorism and enhance partnership between China and...

SCO has filed its proposed plan. I have only quickly skimmed it, but what I see immediately is that it wishes to sue Linux users, and it lists a Java patent, and I'm guessing there may just be a connection someday. Who knows? SCO loves to sue, I've decided. It wants to sell some of the Mobility business, retaining part of it, along with selling the Unix business and "many of [SCO's] subsidiaries" to an entity called UnXis. I've never heard of it either. Think there might be trademark issues? Try going to Google and search for "unXis Delaware" and...

In yet another bizarre twist in the interminable legal dispute over source code allegedly illegally copied from UNIX System V into Linux, the SCO Group, which claims ownership of the disputed code, has secured a last-gasp reprieve from the threat of liquidation. Immediately before the crucial liquidation hearing in the bankruptcy court, SCO CEO Darl McBride signed an agreement with a company by the name of Gulf Capital Partners, backed by well-known investor Stephen Norris. Caught out by the surprise development, all parties have agreed to postpone the liquidation hearing until the 16th or the 27th of July. According to...

Russian President... Medvedev has invited his Iranian counterpart to participate in an upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit....Iran...has been seeking to join the 9-year-old international organization since 2008....the SCO aims to act as a counterweight to NATO's influence in Eurasia and to oppose US interference in Central Asia by developing regional security cooperation between its member states -

A top Chinese official says Sino-Russian relations have maintained growth and have reached "an unprecedented level." In extensive coverage of the Moscow visit of Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the top legislator as saying upon his arrival Wednesday, "China-Russia relations have maintained a strong momentum of growth and reached an unprecedented level." China and Russia this year will observe the 60th anniversary of setting up diplomatic ties. Wu's visit comes ahead of the scheduled trip of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Russia next month, the report said....

Westernism is giving way to Orientalism in Moscow's outlook, if the past week's happenings are any guide. As Russia's ties with the West deteriorate, an upswing in its strategic partnership with China becomes almost inevitable. The resumption of Russia-NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) dialogue has gone awry. And the nascent hopes regarding a "reset of the button" of the Russian-American relationship are belied. With Moscow under multiple pressures from the West, two top Chinese officials have arrived in the Russian capital to offer support - Defense Minister Liang Guanglie and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Moscow angrily reacted to NATO's expulsion...

MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) - The Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie is due to arrive in Moscow on Saturday, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement. During his visit, which is at the invitation of Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, Liang will attend a defense minister's meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization starting on April 28. "As part of the visit program the head of China's military is also due to meet the commander of the Northern Caucasus Military District, visit the 20th Motorized Rifle Brigade and the Stalingrad memorial museum in Volgograd," the defense ministry said. Serdyukov and...

Let's have a simple discussion here and less in news format, more of a chat. It's a long chat but it might intrigue you and I assure you quite real and very dangerous kind of chat. In 2001 immediately after 911, I spoke to RC Covozos, the White House Database administrator. I let him know that I had found security gaps in the White House where our politicians liason with our intelligence agencies. RC was very thankful and a nice guy to talk to. He seemed to take his job very seriously. Since I had some ideas that seemed interesting...

I can't believe there's yet more major news, all in one day. But there is, from the bankruptcy front. SCO's period of exclusivity is over, as you can see from the minutes of today's hearing [PDF]. Look at number 1 on the list under the heading "Proceedings" and you will see the word: "DENIED". This was regarding the SCO motion [PDF] to extend the period of exclusivity, it's 4th, the motion that Al Petrofsky objected to pro se, as you can see on the Notice of matters on the agenda for today. So now IBM and Novell and the US...

MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - Russian-Chinese military exercises dubbed Peace Mission 2009 will be held in the summer in northeastern China, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The first bilateral counterterrorist exercises Peace Mission were held in Russia and the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in August 2005, involving warships, aviation, and over 10,000 servicemen including marines and paratroopers. "The final decision on the date, venue, name and forces involved will be made at bilateral consultations to be held in the last 10 days of March," a ministry source said. The Chinese Defense Ministry said Tuesday that joint maneuvers...

MOSCOW — Russia has profited handsomely from natural gas exports to Europe. Now, after years of false starts and disputes, and mutual suspicions between Moscow and Beijing, Russia is turning its attention to Asia. The moves are prompted by both the promise of a marriage of Russian resources with Asian manufacturing, and Russia’s financial desperation as interest from Western banks and investors dries up. On Wednesday — just a day after agreeing to supply oil to China for the next 20 years, in exchange for $25 billion in loan guarantees — Russia opened its first liquefied natural gas plant to...

MOSCOW -- Russia is reasserting its role in Central Asia with a Kremlin push to eject the U.S. from a vital air base, along with a Moscow-led pact to form an international military force to rival NATO. The moves potentially complicate the new U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan. The moves mark Russia's most aggressive steps yet to counter a U.S. military presence in the region that it has long resented. They pose a challenge for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, which sees Afghanistan as its top foreign-policy priority and is preparing to double the size of the American...

From the very start, anyone who paid attention to SCO's attempts to throw a spanner in the Linux works, knew that they had no case. Over the years, I've covered their decline from the last major x86 Unix power to an industry joke. And, now SCO's story is almost over. It's garbage time now for SCO. Those of you who follow basketball know exactly what I mean. This is when the winning team, Linux, and its chief champions in the SCO lawsuits. Novell and IBM, can send in the reserves from the end of the bench. SCO's lawsuits are smashed...

After a great deal of courtroom drama and mounting legal fees, the SCO Group is expected to file its Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan in court tomorrow. Jeff Hunsaker, SCO’s president, wouldn’t provide exact details of the plan, but he said the reorganization will hopefully help the company come out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which the company filed for in September 2007. Utah-based SCO has been up to its ears in legal battles over the years, a notable one being a suit against Novell over who was the true owner of Unix. In August 2007, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled...

The final judgment [PDF] from Utah is here at last. It recites what the August 10, 2007 and July 16, 2008 orders said, but it also resolves the recent dispute over SCO's desire to voluntarily waive some claims and then bring them back to the table after an appeal, should it prove successful. Here's SCO's motion to voluntarily dismiss, and Novell's response, so you can verify that this judgment indeed represents another loss for SCO. You'll see that it was Novell that suggested the wording regarding SCO's voluntarily dismissed claims that we see in the judgment, that they be dismissed...

The SCO Group 's US$5 billion threat against Linux is effectively finished. On Friday, Aug. 10, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled that SCO doesn't actually own the copyrights that it was using to threaten -- and in some cases, sue -- Linux users. Of course, you already got that news, thanks to everyone from The Wall Street Journal to IT news sources. And they all got it thanks to Groklaw. It was the Web site Groklaw.net that broke the news and posted the complete 102-page ruling; after that, it was picked up by mainstream media and trade press. In...

The decision is in, and SCO has gone down in defeat. The U.S. District Court in Utah has ruled in favor of Novell in SCO vs. Novell, the keystone case in SCO’s long, and ultimately unsuccessful war against Linux. The foundation of Judge Dale Kimball’s decision, that Novell, and not SCO owns the IP (intellectual property) rights to Unix, remains as solid as ever. Instead of showing that Linux violated SCO IP rights to Unix, SCO’s actions has lead to the revelation that it never owned the IP rights to Unix in the first place.This, within the narrow confines of...

When Iran sought to strengthen its relations with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization earlier this year, it found a willing friend in Imomali Rahmon. The president of Tajikistan assured his hosts on a visit to Tehran in February that Iran “had a real possibility” to become a full member of the organization. Now, Rahmon has taken that pledge one step further. Earlier this month, the Tajik president sent a letter addressed to SCO heads of state. In it, according to Iranian Ambassador to Tajikistan Ali Asghar Sherdust, the president supported Iran’s possible bid for membership at the August SCO summit in...

Reality, as good writers know, is sometimes stranger than fiction. SCO's recent performance in the U.S. District Court in Utah is a perfect example. With years to prepare, SCO executives made some remarkable statements in their attempt to show that SCO, not Novell, owns Unix's copyright. While this case is not about SCO's claims that IBM and other companies placed Unix IP (intellectual property) into Linux, Novell's attorneys decided that they would address this issue as well. One presumes that, since this may be their one and only chance to attack SCO's Linux claims in a courtroom -- what with...

Ideology matters again. The big development of recent years is the rise not only of great powers but also of the great-power autocracies of Russia and China. True realism about the international scene begins with understanding how this unanticipated shift will shape our world. Many believe that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, pursuing their own and their nation's interests. But Chinese and Russian rulers, like past rulers of autocracies, do have a set of beliefs that guide their domestic and foreign policies. They believe in the virtues...

A reinvigorated SCO Group Inc. goes to trial Tuesday to once again defend its claims to a widely used computer software code against Novell Inc. Although what's at stake in the scheduled four-day trial pales in comparison to the unresolved major claims in the case that have rattled parts of the software community for the past five years, millions of dollars are on the table in a legal battle that has been widely watched. In play in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball is as much as $37 million that Novell claims it is owed in the dispute...

Stepping up a campaign to join a Eurasian security and economic bloc dominated by Russia and China, Iran is looking for allies within the organization to back its bid, but political analysts doubt it will succeed. Late last month, Iran secured the support of one of the members of the six-country Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Tajikistan, which later this year will host the bloc's annual summit. Established in its current form in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comprises Russia, China, and four Central Asian states -- Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Together they control a large proportion of the non-Arab...

Lindon (UT) – The SCO Group plans to emerge from Chapter 11 soon and revealed that not only will it modify its business strategy towards mobile products, it will also replace chief executive officer Darl McBride and pick up the Linux and Unix license lawsuits against IBM and Novell.   Darl McBride  The new owner of The SCO Group, investment firm Stephen Norris Capital Partners (SNCP), is planning to open a new chapter in SCO’s Linux lawsuit history, which started back in March of 2003 when the company filed a $1 billion suit against IBM. As part of its plan...

SCO has filed its 10K Annual Report for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2007. What a year it has been. They are down to 115 employees as of that date. Probably less now. They "anticipate a reduction in force as a result of Chapter 11 bankruptcy and in order to return to profitability". Uh huh. Product revenue is down 27%. They expect that to continue. They can't guarantee they'll make it out of Chapter 11. Those they owe money to could be left with nothing or almost nothing. Common shareholders are in the same boat, even if they do...

Beijing/New Delhi: The India vs China syndrome is passe? From now, the global idiom for joint collaborative action will be India-China, says India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, alluding to the growing friendship between the Asian giants. On return from a visit to China accompanying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Nath said the engagement with Beijing was an important milestone bilaterally as the two rising economic powers set an ambitious trade target of $60 billion by 2010 - three times the goal set just five years ago. "The engagement was important in the global context as well," Nath told...

Item 3.01 Notice of Delisting or Failure to Satisfy a Continued Listing Rule or Standard; Transfer of Listing. On September 18, 2007, The SCO Group, Inc. (the “Company”) received a Nasdaq Staff Determination letter (the “Determination”) from the Listing Qualifications Department (the “Staff”) of The Nasdaq Stock Market indicating that, as a result of the Company’s having filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the Staff determined, using its discretionary authority under Nasdaq Marketplace Rules 4300 and IM-4300, that the Company’s securities would be delisted from The Nasdaq Stock Market and that trading in the Company’s...

A Chinese driver stands near his truck on the Kazakhstan-Chinese border in Khorgos, Kazakhstan, some 400 kilometers east from Almaty, Monday, Sept. 9, 2007. China's influence threatens to eclipse that of Russia in this former Soviet region. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)KHORGOS, Kazakhstan (AP) — The driver of the 18-wheel tractor-trailer from China idling at the Kazakhstan-China border said apples were the cargo he brought to Almaty, Kazakhstan's booming commercial center. For Kazakhs, there's a tart irony in the shipment. Almaty's region is where the first apple trees were found and the first apple orchards planted. The city was a center of...

York Capital Management's proposed Asset Purchase Agreement and its associated credit agreement for SCO make it clear that if the bankruptcy court lets York buy SCO, that York will be bankrolling SCO's continued lawsuits against Novell, IBM and other Linux-using companies.

Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner in the contest for the all-time best title for any document ever filed in the SCO v. the World litigations. I know that some of you have gotten attached to the Sur-Sur-Sur Replies of yore. But this tops everything. SCO has filed the following:Senior Secured Super-Priority Debtor-in-Possession Credit Agreement Teasing. It's what they call these things. It's about the "Litigation Credit Facility" mentioned in the APA, the $10 million York is willing to loan SCO to fund the "Specified Litigation". And guess which that is: "the IBM litigation and the Novell Litigation and...

The SCO Group, working to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, hopes to sell its Unix assets to York Capital Management for up to $36 million, the company said this week in regulatory and bankruptcy court filings. Through the deal, York would provide SCO with $10 million in cash; up to $10 million in credit to fund its Linux-related legal fight and to get 20 percent of revenue from that action; $10 million for a 20 percent stake in the company; and $6 million to license the Hipcheck products from SCO's Me mobile device software effort and to share revenue...

In an earlier Memorandum to the CIA this analyst explained the common Sino-Soviet long range strategy of convergence with the West and the intended exploitation for the purposes of this strategy of the new openings arising from the 'reformed' political structure of the former USSR and the emergence of the alleged 'democrats', 'non-Communists' and 'independents' who are running it.(1) The present assessment shows how, because of Western ignorance of and confusion about the strategy underlying 'Perestroika' and because of Western political and economic support for the so-called reform of the Soviet system, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has been ...

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Discontent over Russia's continued domination of former Soviet republics soured a summit of their leaders, with Kazakhstan announcing plans to form an economic grouping without Moscow and Tbilisi refusing to sign an amended CIS treaty. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed at the summit Friday the creation of a union of Central Asian countries that would "allow the region of 50 million people to create a self-sufficient market using both economic and political means." Nazarbayev, speaking with reporters in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, also made clear his unhappiness at Russia's domination of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a...

If the corporate Grim Reaper is truly knocking on the door of The SCO Group Inc., no one apparently told the company's CEO and president, Darl C. McBride. Despite SCO's a major court loss last month in its legal case against Novell Inc., its bankruptcy reorganization filing and an ominous-sounding quarterly U.S Securities and Exchange Commission filing last week in which SCO said there is "substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern," McBride insists that no one should be lining up yet for his company's funeral parade. On the heels of all of that news,...

Losing in court, vilified on blogs and in bankruptcy proceedings, SCO Group CEO Darl McBride still says pronouncements of the death of the Utah software company are premature, if not greatly exaggerated. Within weeks, McBride said, the Lindon company that filed lawsuits against IBM and then Novell in celebrated battles over ownership and use of software code will have announcements about reorganization plans. He refused to provide details. "I can tell you that other parties are very interested in our business," McBride said in an interview this week. "We are in discussions. Again, I think our enemies who have pronounced...

A few days late, SCO finally released its financial report, Form 10-Q, on Sept. 18 for the quarter ending on July 31. The news was bad. How bad? SCO admits that "there is substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern." According to SCO's 10-Q report to the SEC (Security and Exchange Commission), SCO's losing its claims to Unix's IP (intellectual property) to Novell in the U.S. District Court on Aug. 10 and its recent court filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, make it questionable that the company will survive. Others, who have been following the case...

Boston - In the print edition of Forbes there's a great (albeit sometimes painful) tradition of doing "follow-through" articles where a reporter either takes a victory lap for making a good call or falls on his sword for making a bad one. Online publications don't typically ask for follow-throughs. But I need to write one. For four years, I've been covering a lawsuit for Forbes.com, and my early predictions on this case have turned out to be so profoundly wrong that I am writing this mea culpa. What can I say? I grew up Roman Catholic. The habit stays with...

Three and a half years after launching a high-profile legal attack on Linux, The SCO Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Lindon, Utah-based company long has maintained that it had enough money to fight its costly lawsuits against IBM, Novell, Red Hat (which sued SCO proactively), AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler. But on Friday, a month after losing on a crucial legal ruling, the company admitted a grimmer picture. "The Board of Directors of The SCO Group have unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its...

The Honorable Dale Kimball has now ruled: there will be no jury at the trial of SCO v. Novell. He granted Novell's motion on that. He will hear it himself. Here's the ruling [PDF], which comes in response to 8 motions, and here's how the judge ruled on them: * The SCO Group, Inc.'s ("SCO") Motion for Entry of Final Judgment Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) -- No, so there will be no immediate partial appeal. * Novell's Motion to Strike Jury Demand -- Yes. No jury trial. Novell is seeking only equitable relief.

In lawsuits, as in baseball, there is no mercy rule. One side can be down by a dozen runs, but the game continues until the bitter end. So it is that SCO filed on Aug. 29 an appeal to the U.S. District Court decision that declared that Novell had never sold Unix's intellectual property to SCO. Spread the word:digg this story On Aug. 12, U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Novell, not SCO, owns Unix's IP rights. Without Unix's IP, SCO's other cases against IBM, Red Hat and other Linux-using companies cannot be sustained. In Novell's financial earnings...

Russia and China have been holding joint military manoeuvres in the presence of both Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Hu Jintao. But a new strategic alliance between the two countries is not likely, as it is China that poses the greatest strategic threat to Russia, although many in the Kremlin seem blind to this as they rattle sabres at America and the west. China…has territorial claims on parts of Russia's far east which are often noted in Chinese school geography textbooks. This is consistent with the Chinese strategic concept of "vital space"...

The company has no interest in becoming the next SCO Group, according to a spokesman. "We're not interested in suing people over Unix," Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said. "We're not even in the Unix business any more." A US judge on Friday upheld Novell's claims to Unix copyrights that SCO has claimed to own. Those copyrights were the basis for SCO's highly controversial and ongoing Linux lawsuit against IBM. Lowry said the ruling means "the cloud has lifted over Linux." Users and distributors of the open-source OS finally can breathe a sigh of relief that they are not in violation...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- A federal judge's ruling Friday may help proponents of Linux open-source software sidestep a significant legal threat. SCO Group Inc. does not own the copyright to Unix operating-system software, as it had claimed, and Novell Inc. is the proper owner, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said in a filing in federal court in Utah. SCO Group had sued Novell in 2004 for falsely claiming ownership of Unix. In 2003, SCO Group filed a high-profile lawsuit against International Business Machines Corp. for contributing code to Linux open-source software that it said included some of SCO's Unix-related intellectual...

TEHRAN (AFP) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday embarks on a three-nation tour of Central Asia to attend a major regional summit meeting and bolster Iran's links with neighbouring states. The president will hold talks with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Tuesday before leaving for Turkmenistan and then attending a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kyrgyzstan. A source in the president's office said Ahmadinejad would be seeking to raise Iran's status at the SCO group -- which brings together Russia and China with other Central Asian states -- from observer to full member. "On...