I wonder who is behind them. Alperovitch said that McAfee had notified all 72 victims of the attacks, which are under investigation by law enforcement agencies around the world. He declined to give more details. Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was very likely China was [...]
Russia
Defense Spending by GDP
The Economist has an interesting article on defense spending by GDP. ON JUNE 8th China’s top military brass confirmed that the country’s first aircraft carrier, a refurbishment of an old Russian carrier, will be ready shortly. Only a handful of nations operate carriers, which are costly to build and maintain. Indeed, Britain has recently decommissioned [...]
Nuclear powered drilling ships?
From the Independent The Rosneft drilling "blocks" are in the Kara Sea, where, according to a 2008 Bellona report, nuclear-powered underwater drilling ships are to be deployed sometime soon, as well as floating nuclear power plants. And why is so much of the Russian Arctic closed to foreigners? Who is hiding what? On the Domodedovo [...]
Skinhead Culture in Russia
From the Financial Times There are many gangs who hang out in the high-rise, low-income flats built in the 1960s and 1970s on the outskirts of most Russian cities. It is a world of drugs and warring subcultures of youths, and at the top of that grim heap are the skinheads, the kings of ultra-violence, [...]
Stimulus Packages From Around the World
Since all our countries (sans Germany) are offering stimulus packages these days, I thought I would see how they stack up against each other. The American one is by far the biggesest while Iceland’s economy took the hardest hit. Many economists believe a lot of the figures being announced involved a mixture of truly new [...]
The panic that is gripping Russia
Here is an interesting view of the economic crisis in Russia in the IHT Who spent us into this crisis? That’s the secret question among Russia’s rulers. They don’t believe in chance, or predictability, or conscience. They do believe in plots. Against Russia. The Orange Revolution was a plot, and the Rose Revolution. And behind [...]
Geopolitical Peak Oil
The New York Times on how the energy giants are being squeezed out of an already tight market. Part of the reason is political. From the Caspian Sea to South America, Western oil companies are being squeezed out of resource-rich provinces. They are being forced to renegotiate contracts on less-favorable terms and are fighting losing [...]
Not so “Trustworthy”
Maureen Dowd is taking George W. Bush’s foreign policy to task. President Bush and his Russian “expert” Condi have played it completely wrong with Russia from the start. W. saw a “trustworthy” soul in a razor-eyed K.G.B. agent who has never been a good guy for a single hour. Now the Bush crowd, which can [...]
Georgia
One of the things I can’t figure out over Georgia’s conflict with Russia (actually it more like Georgia getting whupped by Russia) is what were they thinking? How many countries out there let alone a Putin led Russia would allow a country to try to sieze by force a territory that they have claimed for [...]
