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An Iranian submarine

Iran has launched the production line of a new domestically-manufactured submarine in an attempt to boost its defensive capabilities.

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar inaugurated the production line of the new submarine Qaaem, on Monday.

Qaaem functions as a submarine capable of carrying and firing various torpedoes and subsurface missiles with a special operation crew onboard.

During the opening ceremony, the Iranian defense official said the Islamic Republic Read more »

A Georgian soldier walks away from the burning fuel train near Gori

A fuel train exploded today on Georgia’s main east-west rail line and police said it appeared to have hit a landmine.

Officials said that the train was on the main track of the line linking eastern and western Georgia, a vital trade route for oil exports from Azerbaijan to European markets.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear but a Reuters correspondent saw huge plumes of black smoke pouring from the wreckage of the train in the village of Skra, 5 km (3 miles) west Read more »

People watch a televised speech of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf to the nation in Lahore August 18, 2008.

Coincidence or not, as Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s influence waned this year, there was a spike in firing across the Indian border, a bomb attack on India’s Kabul embassy and diplomatic spats over Kashmir.

Now he has been forced to resign, India fears that relations between the two nuclear rivals could get even worse.

While many Pakistanis despised Musharraf as a dictator, India enjoyed some of its best diplomatic relations in decades during his rule.

New Delhi’s fear is that a weak civilian government in Islamabad will be unable to exert the same muscle that Musharraf did over Pakistan’s army and the powerful military spy agency, the ISI, which India suspects has a hand in most attacks Read more »

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev welcomed a six-point plan of principles proposed by visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy to try to end the latest confrontation between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia.
In a joint display of diplomatic goodwill, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Moscow’s acceptance of a ceasefire proposal in the confrontation over South Ossetia Tuesday. But, they reiterated, the agreement was not a final peace deal.

Speaking at a joint press conference in Moscow, Medvedev and Sarkozy detailed six principles of a ceasefire proposal, including a cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Russian and Georgian Read more »

Russia sent troops and dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles into the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia today, vowing to protect its citizens in a move described by Tbilisi’s pro-Western Government as an act of war.

A South Ossetian rebel minister said that more than 1,000 people had been killed in overnight shelling of the city of Tskhinvali, the separatist capital which Georgia claimed today to have captured.

In probably the most serious regional crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, at least 50 Russian tanks – and possibly many more – rumbled through the Roki tunnel, which cuts through the Caucasus mountains separating South Ossetia Read more »

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The European Union on Friday tightened trade sanctions against Iran to punish Tehran for not committing to a long-standing demand of the international community that it freeze its nuclear enrichment program.
The new EU restrictions go slightly beyond existing U.N. trade sanctions and are designed to deny public loans or export credits to companies trading with Iran.

France, the current holder of the EU presidency, said European governments would also carefully watch financial groups doing business with Iranian banks and step up checks on ships and airplanes traveling to Iran.

“This resolution expands the range of restrictive measures adopted by the U.N. Security Council,” Read more »

US Presidential candidates, Obama (L) and McCain

Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain reveals his new energy policy and attacks the economic policy of his Democratic rival Barack Obama.

McCain said the US needed an economic surge similar to what he described as a successful military surge in Iraq. He also called for lower business taxes, new markets for US goods abroad, lower healthcare costs, and less government spending.

Rival Obama, however, attacked the Republican’s energy policy and said that McCain’s proposals Read more »