From CHURCHILL’S PARROT blog
John McCain is Winston Churchill?  We think not. Nonetheless the comparison is rather in vogue, some less asinine than others. Everyone agrees he is no Ronald Reagan. But then, of course, neither was Ronald Reagan. Rush, Anne, Sean, and Laura are betraying the Party. The Party is betraying Conservativism. What’s a Republican […]

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September 9 Israeli Attack on Syria Unveiled Dazzling New Capabilities
Aviation Week & Space article Pack Informational Punch
Pravda Responds
An awesome display of electronic warfare capabilities by Israel in September sparked a sharp reaction in Russia today. It all may bode ill for Iran tomorrow.
Electronic warfare capabilities reached new heights during the September 9 Israeli attack […]

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Musharraf’s deputy a reluctant linchpin — chicagotribune.com
As Musharraf and secular moderates square off in Pakistan, President Musharraf’s emergency rule threatens to bring on the White House’s worst nightmare – a nuclear-armed, Islamist-controlled government on the border of both India and Afghanistan, threatening to spark a multi-way arms race in South East Asia.
The scenario for that […]

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North Korea  is starting to dismantle it’s nuclear reactor.
The breakthrough on making the Korean peninsula a nuclear free zone is being hailed cautiously by the six parties involved in the negotiations:
The move is one of the biggest steps the North has taken toward denuclearization, a stipulation reached during October’s six-party talks with the United States, […]

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Pirates attackis on ships off the coast of Somalia has been a problem in recent years, but like the many pirate attacks in the Indian Ocean, they rarely get mentioned in the US press. We hear about them in the Philippines when our sailors are involved, but the US press usually ignores the problem.
However, recent […]

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Some of us remember when Reagan proposed the expensive “Star Wars” program.
There was a lot of ridicule in the papers back the, since if the then USSR sent over a couple thousand missles, there was some doubt if shooting down a couple, or even most of them, would be adequate protection.
Later, the early “anti […]

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Given how Turkish newspapers “report” the news, “independent journalist” Alexis Debat would have no trouble landing a top spot at any one of them. For instance, during Pope Benedict’s visit to Turkey last November, local papers quoted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as claiming that the pontiff told him, “You know we don’t have a […]

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According to reports North Korea has agreed to fully disclose and dismantle it’s nuclear programs in return for U.S. aid and an end to economic sanctions. The “hermit kingdom” has agreed to have this completed by years end marking the first time the North Koreans have set a date.
Of course it remains to be seen […]

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At the bottom of your newspaper, you might have read a couple hundred people in North Korea died in floods.
But now there are stories coming out of the “Hermit Kingdom” suggesting the damage was worse than first admitted, and may have devestated much of the country’s infrastructure. One report says it was “ten times worse” […]

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UN Monitors have claimed that North Korea has shut five of it’s nuclear reactors, not just the single reactor reported several days ago.
US and South Korean diplomats are happy at this report, but aware that this is just the first step in dismantling the nuclear weapons system of that country.
North Korea claims to have […]

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North Korea, after 15 years of playing games in negotiations, has actually shut down their largest Nuclear Reactor.
The significance of this will be largely ignored, I suspect, for several reasons.
First of all, it was a victory for the Bush administration, and the press is loath to admit Bush can do anything right. Indeed, an article […]

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While I am not one to give the benefit of the doubt to tyrannical, evil regimes, and while I have often argued that hints by Iran and North Korea of willingness to work with the west in dealing with their nuclear ambitions have been smoke screens, a pair of stories today begin to sound like […]

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The story of Pastor Son, who became a Christian while working in China and returned to North Korea to spread his faith, gives us a glimpse into a rarely reported story: the large number of North Koreans who live and work in China, the porous border that allows the smuggling of Kareoke machines and South […]

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Americans are bread and butter Christians, with a thin slice of faith spread across the white bread culture.
They assume their way is the best, and seem to think their “missionaries” are taking the truth to the heathen.
What they don’t seem to realize is that Christianity has deep roots in Asia, and that the reason for […]

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Did you know that last month 400 North Korean refugees in a Thai detention camp held a hunger strike? or that three aid workers are being sought for arrest for smuggling them in? This has been going on for some time.
Are you aware that some Koreans are picketing the Chinese embassy to protest China’s deportation […]

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Since I live in Asia, I usually scan the Asian news. Lately there have been articles about the US freezing a Macao bank account,
What’s the big deal? The bank is known for it’s connection with the casinos there, and is suspected as the middle man in laundering North Korea’s counterfeit dollars. And of course, […]

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As reports come out about the Ipodless British sailors and sailorette kidnapped by Iran continue to be used as both propaganda by Iran and as sob stories in the UK tabloids, one needs only to remember history to put things into perspective.
The USS Pueblo was monitoring intelligence information in international waters when kidnapped by the […]

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Last September, North Korea, a country that has been plagued with famine deaths for the last decade, announced they were going to encourage farmers to breed rabbits to supply meat.
Actually this makes sense. When I worked in Africa, one of the nutrition outreach programs was a club to teach people to raise rabbits as a […]

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All of the news sites make it appear that the 6 party talks with North korea are over.
Envoys: Nuke talks depend on North Korea - Houston Chronicle/Chron.com
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the talks had snagged on the amount of energy assistance Pyongyang would receive as an inducement for disarming. But he said […]

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There are big hopes for next week’s 6-party talks with North Korea. Christopher Hill, key negotiator for the US, has said that the US is hoping for progress.
It’s likely that this progress will happen, and that the Koreans will get what they’ve been seeking, which is aid. It is also very likely that the financial […]

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—
OffStumped For All Things Right of Center, Bringing a Right of Centre Reality Check to Indian Politics, News Media Reporting and Opinion now in Hindi अब आप के लिये हिंदी मे.
—   
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that nuclear weapons became a “strategic compulsion” for India, “born out of the failure to persuade the world […]

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On the eve of US-North Korea financial talks, which have been tentatively set to take place on the week starting January 22, the idea of a second nuclear test by the DPRK is being talked about yet again.
Kyodo news agency quoted Japanese lawmaker Taku Yamasaki quoting North Korean official Song Il-ho as saying that a […]

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Following this week’s flurry of activity around the DPRK, with suggestions of a second nuclear test, the US and North Korea have now agreed to hold financial talks later this month.
The question of financial sanctions imposed in 2005 played a big role in the failure of the six party nuclear negotiations held in December. It […]

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In the past few days there’s been reports of activity in North Korea, with concerns over the possibility of a second nuclear test by the DPRK. In response, the Koreans have said the US is carrying out training exercises on hitting “major” targets in the DPRK.
A likely scenario of what actually is going on is […]

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Judging by conflicting reports coming out of the Unites States Military and Intelligence offices, that really is the question. ABC news has reported that North Korea is preparing for another test of their nuclear capabilities. They base this upon seeing preparations being made which are similar to the ones made prior to the October 9th […]

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Afghanistan. Often forgotten because of the headlines from Iraq, Afghanistan is not a solved affair. Only Kabul is somewhat stable, with Kandahar and other cities remaining unsafe.
Global Warming. Scientists have been talking about it for years, and Al Gore has now popularized it with a documentary film . Yet there is still no clear policies […]

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When the US went to war with Iraq a few years ago, it cited the possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by Saddam Hussein’s regime as a reason for the war. Since the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, there has been no proof of WMD in the country. Luckily, the US (as […]

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It was reported yesterday that the US had offered to remove North Korea from its list of states sponsoring terrorism, if the DPRK agreed to dismantle its nuclear program. With the talks failing to lead to any result, it’s clear that North Korea declined. The regime is not interested in soft power assets, but wants […]

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Beijing, China — After four days, the Beijing talks on North Korea’s nuclear program have not generated much progress, with US negotiator Christopher Hill entering day five without much optimism.
Hill is blaming North Korea for its stubbornness in not budging on its demand that financial sanctions against it are lifted. The US claims that the […]

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Beijing, China — North Korea is refusing to renege on its demand that financial sanctions against it be lifted, before it dismantles its nuclear program.
While the negotiations are continuing, they risk coming to a standstill if either side does not change its position. Following North Korea’s October 9 nuclear test, the US wants the Koreans […]

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