A map is displayed on one of the screens at the Air Force Space Command Network Operations & Security Center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, in July. US national security planners are proposing that the 21st century's critical infrastructure – power grids, communications, water utilities, financial networks – be similarly shielded from cyber marauders and other foes. The... 

Fly in the sky: The Global Hawk, an unmanned spy plane, is unveiled at Edwards Air Force Base in California in January 2009. Spy planes sought amid regional rise in tensions. The Defense Ministry is looking to buy three Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft from the United States to deal with China’s militarization and North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Self-Defense Force... 

Agricultural workers at El Charcote, one of the Vestey estates that was taken over in 2005. Plans to nationalise the Vestey meat empire’s Venezuelan estates are a blow to one of the UK’s richest families. In 1903, two entrepreneurial Liverpudlian brothers arrived in Caracas determined to add to their burgeoning empire of foreign food producers by buying Venezuelan cattle ranches. Over the... 

This is a satellite image of construction at the Yongbyon Nuclear Site, North Korea-September 29, 2010. North Korea continues to keep the experts guessing. Last week, it promoted the third son of its current leader, Kim Jong Il, prompting speculation that he is on track to succeed his father. And now, apparently, it has commissioned construction activity at the site where it used to produce plutonium... 

Senator Joe Lieberman Senator Joe Lieberman, Congressman Howard Berman say US must put time limit on sanctions. US President Barack Obama is under pressure to consider a military strike on Iran, according to the Financial Times. Both Senator Joe Lieberman and Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have urged the president to consider setting a time limit of just a few months... 

Liam Fox is welcomed to the Penagon by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Britain has warned the United States that the military will not be able to fight another war like Afghanistan. Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, told his counterparts in the US that the Armed Forces would only be able to provide the manpower for medium-scale conflicts or for support in large conflicts where others took a greater... 

The P-800 Yakhont supersonic cruise missile. Remark by Russia defense minster comes amid reports that Israeli officials, including PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak, had reportedly warned arms could be used by Hezbollah. Russia plans to go ahead with its sale of advance anti-ship rockets, state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Russian Defense Minster Anatoly Serdyukov as saying on Friday, despite... 

Back in the public eye with the release of his memoirs, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair might lead one to believe it is 2003 all over again. Praising George W. Bush as a great leader and one of the most decisive men he had ever met, Blair also lauds the Iraq War. And if the Iraq War has somewhat faded in Americans’ memories with the myriad false declarations of victory in recent weeks,... 

An influential Israeli rabbi has said God should strike the Palestinians and their leader with a plague, calling for their death in a fiery sermon before Middle East peace talks set to begin next week. “Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this earth,” Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual head of the religious Shas party in Israel’s government, said in a sermon late Saturday,... 

Ahmadinejad dismisses US as “unable to beat a small army in Iraq”. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected fears of an attack on Iran, taunting Israel as “too weak to face up to Iran militarily,” and the US as unable to beat even a small army in Iraq, speaking in an interview with Al-Jazeera Sunday. “Israel doesn’t have the courage to do it,” Ahmadinejad... 

The Washington Post by-line was “How Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez tries to hide the truth about his government!” So I would like to rephrase the question: “Is the Washington Post attempting to hide the REAL truth about the Hugo Chavez government by innuendo instead of merely giving us the facts?” I am well aware of the record of the Washington Post as a disseminator of US... 

Top Iranian military official Brig. Gen. Ali Shademani A senior Iranian military official says Iran will take full control of the Strait of Hormuz should Washington opt to launch aggression against Iran. “The country’s armed forces which are under the (Islamic Revolution) Leader’s command are in the highest state of preparedness.” head of the Operations Department of the Joint... 

Romanian gendarmes guard a path leading to the crash site. An open source intelligence report says the Israeli military helicopter that crashed in Romania last week was simulating a military attack on Iran. On Monday, six Israeli soldiers and a Romanian flight captain aboard a CH-53 transport helicopter were killed when the chopper crashed in a mountainous region of central Romania. The Jerusalem-based... 

Officials quoted in Iran’s Fars News Agency say that the Iranian government has obtained four batteries of S-300 air defense missiles, the backbone of Russia’s air defense, despite Russia’s refusal to deliver them. Russia had signed a promise to sell the missiles to Iran in 2007, but delayed the delivery for years before declaring in June that the S-300 sale was banned under the most recent... 

The Netherlands became the first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan, drawing the curtain Sunday on a four-year operation that was deeply unpopular at home and even brought down a Dutch government. The departure of the small force of nearly 1,900 Dutch troops is not expected to affect conditions on the ground. But it is politically significant because it comes at a time of rising...