The deal became the largest contract to sell MiG-29 jets after Algeria terminated a similar contract with Russia in 2007. Russia has sold only six MiGs to Sri Lanka and gave away ten others to Lebanon since then.

As for Burma, China has been this nation’s major partner in commerce, including the defense industry, during the recent 20 years. The European Union and the United States have been practicing sanctions against Burma for decades. Burma is governed by a military junta, and nearly all opposition activists in the country are jailed.

It is China that eases the consequences of the political and economic blockade of Burma. It is worthy of note that the EU and the US are interested in Burma’s natural resources – its oil, natural gas and non-ferrous metals.

Why did Burma offend its long-term and close partner, China? How will the West react to Burma’s choice of Russian arms?

“In spite of the scandal, which occurred in 2007 during the shipment of MiG jets to Algeria, the MiG-29 jet is much more reliable and efficient than what China offered to Burma. It’s not Russia’s first deal with Burma – we delivered 12 MiG-29 fighters to this country in 2001,” Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis told Pravda.Ru.

“It goes without saying that China is not going to be happy with such a turn of events. China gradually ousts Russia from the countries with which Russia traditionally has relations in the field of defense cooperation. However, I do not think that Russia has a good reason to celebrate. The situation in the Russian defense industry becomes worse, which affects the export of arms.

“The deal with Burma will definitely trigger a harsh reaction from the West, which does not recognize the Burmese regime,” the expert added.

“We did not receive prior notification of the launch,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Major Maureen Schumann.

“We detected two geographically separated missile launch events with a exo-atmospheric collision also being observed by space-based sensors,” she said after China announced a successful test of its missile intercept system.

“The US is requesting information from China regarding the purpose for conducting this interception as well as China’s intentions and plans to pursue future types of intercepts,” she said.

Analysts described the test as a show of China’s advanced air defence capabilities amid tensions over US arms sales to Taiwan.

US officials have repeatedly urged China to be more open about its military spending and programs to avoid possible misunderstandings.

China raised international concerns in 2007 when it destroyed one of its own orbiting satellites with a missile.

This week’s test came soon after a US official in Taipei said the Pentagon had approved the sale of Patriot missile equipment to Taiwan as part of a package passed by Congress more than a year ago.

Beijing — which considers Taiwan part of its territory and has vowed to take the island back, by force if necessary — has repeatedly voiced its opposition to the sales and urged Washington to cancel the deal.

China had warned at the weekend that it reserved the right to take unspecified action if Washington followed through with the sale, which it called a “severe obstacle” to China-US military ties.

Police confiscated 200 kg (440 pounds) of C4 explosives, the same amount of TNT, 60 other explosives of different types and a quantity of ammonium nitrate, said Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Baghdad security forces.

Ammonium nitrate is a compound used as a fertilizer and an ingredient in bombs.

“They were planning to implement terrorist acts,” Moussawi said.

Although overall violence has declined in Iraq, Baghdad has been hit by a series of high-profile bombings in recent months, including a coordinated attack on December 8 in which four car bombs exploded near justice buildings, a finance ministry office and a police checkpoint, killing up to 112 people.

U.S. military officials have said they expect more attacks ahead of a parliamentary election on March 7, as Iraq tries to consolidate its security gains and the United States prepares to withdraw troops.

The curfew in parts of Baghdad followed a tip-off from a citizen. “The council of ministers call on citizens to understand the measures that were taken as part of pre-emptive operations,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

“The goal is to protect citizens and to surround and arrest the terrorists.”

“The air patrol mission took place on November 18-19, 2009. Two turboprop Tu-95 MS bombers took off from a Russian Air Force base in eastern Russia, and the route of their flight passed from the neutral waters of the Arctic Ocean to the Aleutian Islands in the [north] Pacific Ocean,” Lt. Col. Vladimir Drik said.

He said the bombers spent around 16 hours in the air, and were accompanied by two NATO F-22 fighters from an airbase in Alaska.

Russia resumed strategic bomber patrol flights over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic oceans in August 2007,  following an order from then-president Vladimir Putin.

All flights by Russian aircraft are performed in strict compliance with international law on the use of airspace over neutral waters, without intruding in the airspace of other states, Drik said.

Despite difficulties caused by the global financial crisis, “financing of the space industry has always been and will remain sufficient,” Putin said at a meeting on the development of defense-related industries.

“We expect space industry production growth in 2009 at about 18%,” he said, adding that overall production growth in the defense industry would increase by up to 3.8%.

The prime minister also noted that the quality of production needs improvement.

“Despite all our efforts, many Russian-made spacecraft are not as advanced as their foreign equivalents… and the R&D work takes longer than planned,” Putin said.

He urged improvements to production efficiency, and said priority projects must be tackled, including the Angara-family carrier rockets and the development of new communications, navigation and remote Earth sensing spacecraft.

Putin reiterated that in the past two years Russia’s space industry enterprises have received and spent over 21 billion rubles ($609 million), and that half of those funds were allocated for technical upgrading of production facilities.

~Intelligence Magazine Staff

Charles Willy Moore, the US Navy’s former 5th Fleet commander, who heads Lockheed’s business in the UAE, said he sees “lots of opportunities” in the country.

Abu Dhabi is pushing to become the first country after the US to deploy what Lockheed says is an even more advanced missile defense system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, the report said.

The system, which is still undergoing testing, is part of a planned missile defense shield for the United States. Moore said he was hopeful the deal to sell the US$7 billion system to the UAE would be completed, though he declined to say when that might be.

“We’re making good progress and everyone is satisfied with it … We’re confident it’s going to become operational and meet their needs,” Moore was quoted as saying by AP.

Moore said Lockheed’s footprint in the UAE is expanding and “becoming more complex”.

“We see lots of opportunities to deepen our partnership with the UAE,” he said.

Moore said there are no formal discussions under way about additional F-16 fighters purchases, but he noted that the company talks with UAE daily at various levels about the fighter.

“Of course we’re in the business of producing F-16s,” he said. “I think the UAE is very much aware that if they require more F-16s, Lockheed Martin is in a position to provide them.

A recent study by Frost & Sullivan on ‘The Middle East Defense Market’ reveals that the defense spending in the Middle East region is expected to surpass US$100 billion by 2014.

Analysis from this Frost & Sullivan study finds that the substantial chunk of spending in Middle East is going to come from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE and Israel. Saudi Arabia’s defence expenditure was around US$36 billion by the end of 2008.

Although the UAE’s spending might be affected by oil prices, it is still expected to invest in major procurements of platforms and ammunition over the next five years.

Source: BI-ME , Author: BI-ME staff

“Using unusual mannequins exposing body curves and with heads without a hijab [Muslim veils] are now prohibited to be used in the shops,” police said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Iranian police have also banned the display of bowties and neckties, and the sale of women’s underwear by men.

The move is part of a campaign against Western cultural influences in the Islamic Republic.

Cartels are organizations that control prices and production. They often divide territories, rig bids and engage in other collusive acts. On the international relations front, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is the most famous example.

Mexico’s drug cartels grab far more headlines than OPEC these days, with their bloody executions, their buying off of police officers and politicians, and their roles as global producers and suppliers of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana and as traffickers of cocaine.

Much of the carnage in Mexico, it turns out, is evidence that these so-called cartels are not really cartels, in an economic sense of the word. Whatever cooperation these cartels once had has now largely broken down. Inter- and intra-cartel violence is responsible for the vast majority of the drug-related murders in the country, law enforcement officials in Mexico and the United States maintain.

Pick a violent city in Mexico, whether it is Ciudad Juárez or Tijuana or Culiacán, and there is inevitably one cartel battling another for control of the “plaza,” which is the local term for turf or trafficking route. In many cases, cartels have split, with rivals battling for control. Each of them is made up differently, experts say, some with semi-independent cells and others with top-down leadership structures.

Some of those following Mexico’s cartels — which include the Tijuana Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and the Beltran Leyva Cartel, among others — have begun acknowledging that the cartels are something else entirely.

“The term drug cartel is inaccurate and improperly used by media, based exclusively on strict economic fundamental theory,’’ Rodolfo Sosa-Garcia, a Mexican economist at Galilei Consulting, wrote me recently. He urged reporters to pick a more accurate term, like “narco-producer,’’ which he said would prompt governments and international financial institutions to follow suit.

The Congressional Research Service, in a report on Mexico released last week in Washington, remarked: “The term drug cartel remains the term used colloquially and in the press, but some experts disagree with this because ‘cartel’ often refers to price-setting groups and it is not clear that Mexican drug cartels are setting illegal drug prices.’’

Most trace the use of the term to Colombia, where the two main drug cartels were named after the cities in which they operated, Cali and Medellin.

George W. Grayson, a professor at the College of William & Mary in Virginia who follows Mexico’s drug war, said the term made some sense in Mexico in the 1970s when Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, who was known as The Godfather, ruled the drug world in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, without considerable opposition. Mr. Félix Gallardo was jailed in 1989 and he began doling out his turf from behind bars, resulting in a fragmentation in what had been a cohesive cartel.

By Marc Lacey
NYT

The Somali-language Web site Dayniile.com said the bomber lived in Washington until 2007. The report could not independently be confirmed.

An FBI spokesman in Seattle, Fred Gutt, said investigators are aware of the report, but he declined to comment about it in detail. When asked if the FBI was looking into the report, Gutt said only that “we have continuing outreach efforts with the [Somali-American] community.”

Federal agents have been investigating possible recruiting efforts in the United States by Al-Shabaab, a Somali group with ties to al Qaeda that the U.S. classifies as a terrorist organization.

More than a dozen young men of Somali descent have disappeared recently from their homes in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota, which has a sizable Somali population, as does Seattle. At least three have ended up dead in Somalia, community leaders say.

One of the young men who disappeared from around Minneapolis, 27-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, blew up himself and 29 others last fall in Somalia. It is believed to be the first suicide bombing carried out by a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Another former Minneapolis man, Jamal Bana, 20, turned up in Somalia and was later shot to death. His parents learned of his death when a friend urged them to look at a Web site; there they saw a photo of their son’s body. They say they believe he was brainwashed and recruited to fight in the war between Somalia’s unstable transitional government and Al-Shabaab.

In an attack September 17, suicide bombers drove vehicles with United Nations markings into the headquarters of an African Union peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu. The vehicles blew up inside the compound, killing at least 21 people, the mission said.

On Tuesday, Dayniile.com reported that at least one of the bombers was a Somali-American who left the United States two years ago. The Web site is operated by members of the Murusude clan, who make up the majority of Al-Shabaab.
A Somali community leader in Minneapolis, meanwhile, has been looking into the possibility that one of the bombers may have been among the men who are missing from around Minneapolis. Omar Jamal, the community leader, said he heard from an Al-Shabaab spokesman last week that the bombers spoke fluent English.

“They were pretending to be U.N. staff … and when they reached the gate [of the peacekeepers' headquarters] they engaged in the English language, and that’s why they let them in,” Jamal said the spokesman told him.

That account also could not be verified independently

By Tricia Escobedo
CNN