24 March 2012 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Cyber security: new threats, new opportunities
24.03.2012 | 00:00 | Andrey NOVATSKY
Speaking about the stronger cyber threats the US government mentions a new symbolic “Axis of Evil”: China – Russia – North Korea. The US claims that most of the cyber attacks on informational infrastructure of the US and other Western countries are carried out from those three countries. China is the most dangerous of the three and in official reports of the US agencies it looks more like the SPECTRE organization from James Bond movies than a real state. The US sees “attempts of Chinese hackers to weaken defense capabilities of the US” almost behind any failure in its information networks. However, partly, these concerns are grounded…
What Fate is Awaiting Egyptians Copts after the Demise of Shenuda III?
23.03.2012 | 00:00 | Vladislav GULEVICH
The Copts are the descendants of ancient Egyptians and direct heirs to the culture of Egyptian pharaohs. Today they account for about 9% of the country’s population. The exact number is unknown. Supposedly it’s about 6 million… The Copts have always distinguished themselves by remaining faithful to Christianity no matter under the tough pressure from the Muslim environment… What kind of relationship the Copts and new Egyptian government will have now after the Shenouda III’s demise? It’s not quite a peaceful life for the multimillion Coptic community of Egypt, I’m afraid…
Azerbaijan as gas exporter: ambitions vs. reality
22.03.2012 | 09:51 | Andrey ARESHEV
…Azerbaijan, which is advertising itself as almost the only supplier of gas to Europe in the future (now via the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline and its European extension in the form of a shorter version of Nabucco), may fail to meet the expectations of the European consumers. The reliability of gas supplies from Azerbaijan is now doubtful.
The US and Latin America Drift Apart Over Cuba
22.03.2012 | 00:00 | Nil NIKANDROV
The slogan of the VI Summit of the Americas which will convene in Cartagena de Indias (Columbia) on April 14-15 – «Connecting the Americas: Partners for Prosperity» – is intended to sound optimistic… As before, Washington made sure that no invitation on the occasion was sent to Havana… The US will be confronted at the summit with an array of pro-Cuban demands upheld by the ALBA, SELAC, and UNASUR countries and with calls to lift the blockade as required by U.N. resolutions… Latin American politicians regardless of their views are switching to Havana’s side in the US-Cuban conflict.
American Plans Unravelling in Afghanistan
21.03.2012 | 09:47 | Najmuddin A. SHAIKH
Over the past few weeks the news from Afghanistan has been grim. Videos showing American soldiers urinating on the corpses of Taliban insurgents; Afghan cleaners discovering at Bagram airbase that American soldiers were burning copies of the Holy Quran; subsequent demonstrations and even riots in Afghan cities in which 30 Afghans died and 200 were injured; a security cleared Afghan official killing two high ranking American military officials in the most secure part of the Afghan Interior Ministry… American soldier, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales entrusted with the task of training the Afghan Local Police in a Kandahar village, engages in that very village in a shooting rampage killing 16 people, 9 of them women and children. This series of events, each important in itself, but having catastrophic consequences in the totality of their impact have exacerbated almost to breaking point the tension between the Karzai and Obama administration…
Western-Supported Secessionism is Hypocritical
21.03.2012 | 00:00 | Wayne MADSEN
The United States and its Western allies have championed the secession of certain aspirant nations whose independence is in the national and economic security interests of globalization… Similarly, the West… led the charge for South Sudan’s secession from Sudan. South Sudan is now a virtual colony of Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are financed by the George Soros/U.S. Agency for International Development nexus, which are representing the interests of Western oil companies eager to exploit the new nation’s vast petroleum reserves. The NATO/Gulf Cooperation Council alliance that intervened to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has permitted, without military intervention, the eastern region of Libya, Cyrenaica, declared the “Emirate of Barqa” by Salafist Wahhabi Muslims on the payroll of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to declare its autonomy from the transitional government based in Tripoli… In Pakistan, the West has been covertly supporting Baluchi separatists who have carried out terrorist attacks on Iran…
Libya. Brigands-Revolutionaries and the UN
20.03.2012 | 09:07 | Alexander MEZYAEV
…The UN Security Council’s deliberations on the situation in Libya in March this year and the results of investigation conducted by the UN Commission’s of inquiry on Libya testify that a plan to convert Libya into a “twilight zone” of world political scene is underway. The attempts are undertaken to make it kind of a symbiosis of Iraq and Somalia, a place of uncontrolled “sprawling” of weapons, pumping free oil and training militants for new revolutions. But till the resistance of the Libyan Jamahiriya’s forces is not broken this plan may be frustrated.
Great Britain to Take Off the Cross
19.03.2012 | 00:00 | Oleg SLEPYNIN
The news that the British cabinet upholds the ban on wearing Christian symbols at work appears surreal at first glance, but, upon scrutiny, incidents in which Christian believers face discrimination from their employers over their religious practices mirror a profound global trend… One might ask why the pressure on Christianity in Great Britain started piling under David Cameron…
Panetta and Afghanistan
19.03.2012 | 00:00 | Dmitriy SEDOV
The Afghans have something to hate for those who intruded into their country and have been occupying it for the second dozen of years. The videos of US Marines urinating on a dead Afghan, mockery of Koran by a US pastor, Koran’s burning by US soldiers, regular night raids and living quarters searching, GIs shooting point blank at unarmed people, including children – all of it has led to external manifestation of strong hatred between the population and the occupants that dooms the West’s adventure in Afghanistan to miserable failure…
Circle the Wagons – The Indians Are Coming!
18.03.2012 | 13:37 | Rafe MAIR
To understand what I’m about to say, here is a map of the Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by Enbridge Pipelines, a large Canadian company… there are about 150 Indian bands, now called First Nations, involved… At present, 131 First Nations are vigorously opposed to the pipelines/tankers…
A Transit Point for Cargo or Drugs?
17.03.2012 | 16:08 | Dmitriy SEDOV
There are things that are indisputable. For instance, the existence of the most influential drug-trafficking networks in the USA that supply the world’s biggest (56%) army of addicts consuming about 86% of the world drug production. It’s a real big business… Afghanistan produced heroin’s share is fast growing bringing the highest profit… The biggest in the world heroin syndicate has been established in Afghanistan encompassing influential sectors of local and occupational powers. The country has been transformed into a drugs producing workshop. All air and ground routes out of it are illegal trafficking channels…
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The New Dark Age 