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Few diplomatic overtures have generated loftier expectations in recent years than Washington’s rapprochement with New Delhi. Frequently at loggerheads during the Cold War, then kept apart by the U.S. commitment to counter-proliferation and India’s pursuit of a nuclear deterrent, the two sides have never had a warm relationship. That began to change during the George W. Bush administration, a transformation that was symbolized by a controversial agreement allowing the United States to sell civilian nuclear technology to India, despite its status as a nuclear-armed nation that is not recognized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Obama administration has since picked up...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1908.aspx Treasury Identifies Kassem Rmeiti & Co. for Exchange and Halawi Exchange Co. as Financial Institutions of “Primary Money Laundering Concern” 4/23/2013 In First Use of Section 311 Against a Non-Bank Financial Institution, Treasury Acts to Protect the U.S. Financial System from Foreign Exchange Houses Tied to Global Narcotics and Money Laundering Networks and Hizballah WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today named two Lebanese exchange houses, Kassem Rmeiti & Co. For Exchange (Rmeiti Exchange) and Halawi Exchange Co. (Halawi Exchange), as foreign financial institutions of primary money laundering concern under...

Mirroring what is happening in the world, there is an Islamic revival in the Caucasus and Central Asia, with all that it means for local Christians. The predominantly Muslim Central Asian Republics, after the collapse of the Soviet Union of which they were part, have seen an increase in the persecution of Christians. The fall of dictatorship, in a pattern similar to that of post-war Iraq and the “Arab Spring” in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, seems to have “liberated” the radical elements within Muslim communities. The now independent countries of Central Asia are the following five, in order of population...

Japanese elderly now outnumber children. TOKYO, April 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Japan is seeing the most rapid decline in population of any country on earth, according to the World Population Data Sheet produced by the U.S. Population Reference Bureau. A newly released report on demographic trends by the Japanese government reveals that Japan's population continues to plummet, and that 2012 saw the biggest population drop since record-keeping began in the 1950s. On October 1, 2012, the country’s population was estimated at 127,515,000, down 0.22 percent from the previous year, said the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in a April 16 report....

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday named Mark Lippert, a Navy veteran and Pentagon official, as his chief of staff. Lippert, 40, currently assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, takes over May 1 as Hagel’s right-hand man. Marcel Lettre, Hagel’s acting chief of staff for the moment, will become Lippert’s deputy, and later move to an still-undetermined senior position, officials said. A White House insider, Lippert has ties to both Hagel and President Barack Obama that stretch back years. He accompanied both men, when they were still senators, on a 2008 visit to Afghanistan,...

A sign posted outside a Collin County nail salon promoting it as "American Owned, American Staffed" is generating controversy. The merchant defends her sign by saying it's a "patriotic business decision." But others believe it's focused more on what her Fairview business isn’t: Asian owned and operated. Ed Thayer said he was offended when he saw the sign in the window of the St. Tropez Nail Spa. He's a regular customer at a Vietnamese restaurant next door. He and his wife adopted four girls who are Vietnamese-Americans. Thayer said he was so upset, he went into the salon to confront...

China does not want the Taliban to dominate after the withdrawal of the US-led forces from Afghanistan. But it is also unwilling at this stage to be a caretaker in the region. It is keeping its cards close to the chest China’s policy on Afghanistan consists of five Noes: No military role, no involvement in domestic economic and social order, no objection to Taliban in any legal power-sharing arrangement; no criticism of the US role; no participation in NDN (Northern Distribution Network). From a recent visit to Beijing, it was clear that China has risen; and a new China is...

...China’s navy also conducted live-firing naval drills by warships in the Yellow Sea that were set to end Monday near the Korean peninsula, in apparent support of North Korea, which was angered by ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that are set to continue throughout April.

Multinational retail giant Walmart has said that the company is expected to incur financial losses in view of ongoing investigation into alleged corruption cases pertaining to its foreign subsidiaries. “...We expect to continue to incur costs (in addition to the $157 million of costs incurred in fiscal 2013) in conducting our on-going review and investigations”, the company said in a filing to US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company claimed that Audit Committee comprising its independent directors (on board) is conducting an internal investigation into, among other things, alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practises Act (“FCPA”) and other alleged...

Oil prices could rise to anywhere between $150 and $270 a barrel by 2020 as demand growth in emerging markets like India and China out paces expected supply, the OECD said Wednesday. The report shows the central role that Asian oil demand will play in determining prices, even as the U.S. reduces its need for energy imports amid a surge in its unconventional hydrocarbons production. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy reported China overtook the U.S. as the world's largest net oil importer.

<p>The North Korean army on Thursday threatened a possible strike against US military bases in Japan, in response to the use of nuclear-armed US B-52 bombers in joint military drills with South Korea.</p> <p>The threat came a day after Pyongyang condemned the B-52 flights as an "unpardonable provocation" and threatened military action if they continue.</p>

Do you truly know me ? I breathed life into your well ?! So now it springs up that all lies I may dispell, I know you for even your name is in my hand , I have come into your life that through you I may take back my land , I call you Apostle , Priest and Friend , I will never forsake you for in you I Am The Beginning and the End , But your path and life are eternally bound and found in me , For I AM your beginning , your Creator and your...

New genetic and archaeological approaches have substantially improved our understanding of the transition to agriculture, a major turning point in human history that began 10,000-5,000 years ago with the independent domestication of plants and animals in eight world regions. In the Americas, however, understanding the initial domestication of New World species has long been complicated by the early presence of an African enigma, the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Indigenous to Africa, it reached East Asia by 9,000-8,000 before present (B.P.) and had a broad New World distribution by 8,000 B.P. Here we integrate genetic and archaeological approaches to address a...

Wahington - As the US Congress kicked off hearings on comprehensive immigration reforms, two well-known Indian-American experts made a compelling case for urgent steps to reverse its existing policies that “chase away” foreign talents graduating from American universities instead of capitalising on them. “We need the world’s best and brightest more than ever before. Yet, as the research of my team at Stanford, Duke and UC-Berkeley has shown, our visa policies are doing the opposite: chasing away this talent,” said Vivek Wadhwa, Director of Research at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. While Wadhwa and Puneet Arora, Vice-President of Immigration...

Washington - As Hillary Clinton made her final speech as America's top diplomat, she suggested US had encouraged India's "Look East" policy as an exercise in 'smart power' in its pivot to Asia Pacific. "There are limits to what soft power on its own can achieve," said Secretary of State Clinton Thursday emphasising American leadership, and the need to reshape diplomacy to meet the changing landscape of the world. "And there are limits to what hard power on its own can achieve. That's why, from day one, I've been talking about smart power," she said during a forum at the...

South Korea for the first time has successfully sent a satellite into space from its own soil, joining an exclusive club that only 12 other nations in history have entered. South Korea failed previously to achieve a flawless launch, allowing impoverished North Korea to beat its rival into space. During South Korean launches in 2009 and 2010, the protective barrier around the payload failed to separate properly from the rocket. This time all appeared to go according to plan after the KSLV-1, with a Russian first stage, lifted off from the Naro Space Center, 480 kilometers south of Seoul. Its...

Despite the global economic slowdown, Asia's cities are continuing to widen the perceived technological gap between its American counterparts. The juxtaposition is visible from the moment your feet leave the plane. Many of the airports in Asia's biggest cities are stunning, engineering marvels — and make those in the U.S. seem outdated. Has America's early leadership in technology and engineering evaporated? Or is it hidden at first glance? 1) The Shanghai Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) floats on magnets and is the world's fastest commercially operated train, traveling at speeds up to 268 mph. 2) Seoul's local government has launched a $44...

South Korea Elects First Female President: Park Geun-hye. Park Geun-hye is headed back to the Blue House. On Wednesday, South Koreans chose the daughter of South Korea’s Cold War strongman Park Chung-hee as the country’s next President. Park, the 60-year-old leader of the conservative Saenuri Party, defeated 59-year-old liberal challenger Moon Jae-in — once jailed for opposing her father’s rule — by a margin of about 3.5%. She will now move back to the presidential residence where she lived as a child and where she served as de facto First Lady after her mother’s death. Park has spent much of...

SINGAPORE -- While the U.S. unemployment rate "dropped" to 7.7 percent last month -- a figure even the Washington Post acknowledged was due "in large part because the labor force fell by 350,000" -- here in this modern and prosperous city-state of slightly more than 5 million people, unemployment is practically nonexistent at 1.9 percent. In part, this is due to a work ethic that seems to be in the genes here. But there is something else at work that should astound Washington politicians struggling with expensive "entitlement" programs and with those who receive them. The Economist wrote about it...

It is symptomatic of the national condition of the United States that the worst humiliation ever suffered by it as a nation, and by a US president personally, passed almost without comment last week. I refer to the November 20 announcement at a summit meeting in Phnom Penh that 15 Asian nations, comprising half the world's population, would form a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the United States. President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn't. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came. Instead, the Association of Southeast Asian...

The First Lady of Cambodia greeted Barack Obama like he was a towel boy. And, of course, our clueless president thought it was ‘cool.’ Investor’s Business Daily reported: So amid all the colorful and flirty photos from President Obama’s first tour of Southeast Asia, what did he actually accomplish? As usual, he served himself politically in what was largely a Potemkin mission abroad. It was obvious enough from the rubelike gaffes that the president hasn’t been particularly interested or attentive to the affairs of Thailand, Burma or Cambodia as he made his first trip since his re-election. It was pretty...

Barack Obama blunders again on the world stage By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: November 19th, 2012 Barack Obama: hardly off to a flying start It is only two weeks since his re-election, and his second term remains two months away, but Barack Obama is already blundering again on the world stage, with the kind of gaffes that would have been plastered on the front page of The New York Times if they had been committed by George W. Bush when he was in the White House. Obama's first term was littered with foreign policy gaffes, and there is every...

Faced with a more militarily assertive China, Japan and India are banding together. Two serious newspapers – the Times of India and the Asahi Shimbun, in separate reports, have emphasized the burgeoning ties between New Delhi and Tokyo prompted by mutual concern over an assertive China. Japan is feeling the brunt of the assertiveness as Chinese ships - for over two weeks - have made forays to challenge Japanese sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands. The Chinese ships claim that they are operating in Chinese territorial waters. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are slated to...

Warm weather this year has contributed to a resurgence in the mid-Atlantic region’s brown marmorated stink bug population, with researchers estimating at least a 60 percent increase this year in insects that soon will be making their way indoors to escape cooling temperatures. Record summer heat that lasted through September favored the resurgence of stink bugs, which breed twice a year — in spring and summer. Michael Raupp, entomology professor at the University of Maryland, said the favorable conditions enabled the bugs to complete their second breeding cycle in “spectacular fashion,” meaning they are poised to invade homes and businesses...

Recent Chinese diplomatic maneuvers in Central Asia, both bilateral and multilateral, show that Beijing’s strategy treats the region as a corridor for reaching resource bases in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. Central Asia is thus part of China’s broader blueprint of securing strategic resources and supplies to feed its developing economy (Z. Saipov, China Oil & Gas Monitor, Week 21, Issue 396, News Base, May 31, p. 3–4). Hu Jintao (L) and Islam Karimov Illustratively, Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu’s two-week official tour of Congo, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on September 1–13 (English.sina.com, September 6) supports the premise that...

<p>CAIRO — An unprecedented wave of anti-American violence swept across Africa, Asia and the Middle East on Friday as protesters, angered by an amateurish video that mocks the founder of Islam, stormed and scorched U.S. embassies in Tunisia and Sudan, ransacked a German embassy in Sudan, and set a fast-food restaurant ablaze in Lebanon.</p>

It's Amazing How Much More Optimistic People Are In Asia Frank Holmes, U.S. Global InvestorsSeptember 10, 2012 After Mario Draghi announced the European Central Bank’s new bond buying program, I was the first guest on CNBC Asia’s Squawk Box to weigh in on this decision. I reiterated my stance that the endgame for Europe would be to print money, which will eventually lead to currency wars. These actions are positive for gold and also for increased economic activity. See another conversation on ECB and gold with Squawk Box here. China too has kept investors on the edge of their seats,...

New Delhi - With the prospect of regional rivalries intensifying over Afghanistan, China is thinking of proposing a trilateral dialogue among New Delhi, Beijing and Islamabad on Afghanistan, a tricky proposition given the rivalry between India and Pakistan in the Afghan theatre. "Many Chinese scholars have proposed the idea. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China is keen on this trilateral dialogue," Zhang Jiadong, assistant director of the Centre for American Studies in Fudan University and a well regarded Chinese expert on international affairs, told IANS here. With the 2014 drawdown of US-led international combat troops from Afghanistan in mind,...

VLADIVOSTOK, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- As U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to dodge the upcoming APEC summit, people from around the world, the Pacific rim in particular, are witnessing a mal-functioned reset of the relationship between such world powers as the U.S. and Russia. The push-button to initiate the reset was done in 2009 by Obama and then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the London G20 Summit. But the resetting process since then has not been faring well. To sit up alongside APEC leaders will only be U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has just skipped the regular...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Dinh Thi Hong Loan grasps her girlfriend's hand, and the two gaze into each other's love-struck eyes. Smiling, they talk about their upcoming wedding - how they'll exchange rings and toast the beginning of their lives together. The lesbians' marriage ceremony in the Vietnamese capital won't be officially recognized, but that could soon change.

The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people. The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery. We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Order's plans. It's not about Left or Right: it's about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves...

After decades of isolation under military rule, Myanmar is opening to foreign investment and forms of democracy for the first time in a generation. The reform process, however, is now being attended by unanticipated consequences and influences, both internally and from abroad, that could undermine the country's new trend towards openness. Recent sectarian fighting between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar's western Rakhine State has caught the attention of militant Islamists in South and Southeast Asia. Since May, the amount of jihadi propaganda directed towards Myanmar, a country previously unknown in the world of jihadi antagonists, has surged...

NEW DELHI: India has to be prepared militarily to deal with an "assertive" China even as it seeks to build bridges of cooperation with Beijing, the Naresh Chandra Task Force on national security has recommended. The committee's suggestions for the military — details of which have been accessed by TOI — also buries the proposal for a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), the single point military adviser to the government. Instead, it has recommended that a permanent Chairman Chiefs Of Staff Committee be appointed from among the three service chiefs, allowing India to have four four-star generals. The panel has...

Two snow leopards were captured, fitted with satellite collars, and released for the first time in Afghanistan by a team of Wildlife Conservation Society conservationists and Afghan veterinarians conducting research during a recent expedition. The team successfully captured and released the male snow leopards on May 27 and June 8 respectively. Each cat was weighed, measured, fitted with a Vectronix satellite collar, and DNA samples were taken. After DNA samples, the healthy snow leopards were released and headed up the Hindu Kush Mountains in good condition. The big cats will be tracked by WCS to better understand their behavior and...

An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of Afrasia djijidae, a new fossil primate from Myanmar that illuminates a critical step in the evolution of early anthropoids -- the group that includes humans, apes, and monkeys. The 37-million-year-old Afrasia closely resembles another early anthropoid, Afrotarsius libycus, recently discovered at a site of similar age in the Sahara Desert of Libya. The close similarity between Afrasia and Afrotarsius indicates that early anthropoids colonized Africa only shortly before the time when these animals lived. The colonization of Africa by early anthropoids was a pivotal step in primate and human evolution,...

TOKYO, June 4 (Reuters) - Asian shares tumbled on Monday, pushing the broader Tokyo market to a 28-year low, as investors extended a rout of global stocks and worried about a nightmare scenario of euro-zone breakup, U.S. economic relapse and a sharp slowdown in China. Tokyo's broader Topix index lost 2.1 percent to 693.35, a level not seen since late 1983, as Asian markets plumbed new lows for 2012. Japan's Nikkei average fell 2 percent after last week marking its ninth straight week of losses, the longest such losing streak run in 20 years.

Bangladesh has struck its first oil, in two gas fields in the northeastern Sylhet region, the chairman of the state-run Oil, Gas and Mineral Corporation (Petrobangla) has said. "This is first time that we have found economically viable oil resources, estimated at about 153 million barrels, in the two gas fields, 280km from the capital," Mohammad Hussain Monsur told reporters on Sunday, adding that production could begin within a year.

Explanation: What's happened to the setting Sun? An eclipse! In early 2009, the Moon eclipsed part of the Sun as visible from parts of Africa, Australia, and Asia. In particular the above image, taken from the Mall of Asia seawall, caught a partially eclipsed Sun setting over Manila Bay in the Philippines. Piers are visible in silhouette in the foreground. Eclipse chasers and well placed sky enthusiasts captured many other interesting and artistic images of the year's only annular solar eclipse, including movies, eclipse shadow arrays, and rings of fire. Today parts of the Sun again will become briefly blocked...

On Dec. 17, 2011, Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” and son of self-proclaimed god Kim Il Sung, passed on to eternity. That same day, a handful of North Korean defectors graduated from Underground University, a VOMsponsored school where North Korean Christians learn how to reach their countrymen with the gospel of Jesus Christ... Kim Il Sung established a new guiding philosophy called “juche,” meaning “self-reliance,” that reflected a warped imitation of Christianity. As the son of Christian parents and the grandson of a Christian pastor, he appointed himself Supreme Leader and godhead, with his son, Kim Jong Il,...

INDIA'S arms build-up, dramatically underlined by its achievement in launching an ICBM capable of carrying nuclear warheads between 5500km and 8000km, will understandably raise concern among those who believe that with hundreds of millions of its people living in abject poverty, the country has got its priorities wrong. Such criticism is easy to make, especially given the enormity of its defence spending, which last year amounted to $49 billion, and its new status as the world's largest weapons purchaser, with an inventory including an aircraft carrier and a nuclear-powered submarine. It should be seen, however, in the context of what...

Guang Eng labels Umno Penang 'racist' over mosque land allegations By Anisah Shukry April 04, 2012 [The Malaysian Insider] KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 - Lim Guan Eng accused Umno Penang today of racism for choosing only to highlight the alleged disposal of land earmarked for mosques in the Bayan Mutiara project. The Penang chief minister said that if Umno's claims were true and that the land been reclassified in the 102.6-acre sale of Bayan Mutiara to Ivory Property Group Bhd (IPGB), then issue affects both Muslim and non-Muslims. "Why then is Umno not highlighting that non-Muslim land for religious worship...

TOKYO (AP) — Analysts who have studied photos of a half-dozen ominous new North Korean missiles showcased recently at a lavish military parade say they were fakes, and not very convincing ones, casting further doubt on the country's claims of military prowess. Since its recent rocket launch failure, Pyongyang's top military leaders have made several boastful statements about its weapons capabilities. On Wednesday, Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho claimed his country is capable of defeating the United States "at a single blow." And on Monday, North Korea promised "special actions" that would reduce Seoul's government to ashes within minutes.

In retrospect, Fang may seem naive in his call for democracy. Over three decades Mao Zedong had crushed independent thought through political campaigns that claimed millions of lives. Fang himself only avoided prison because of the force of his personality, his scientific accomplishments and the political ferment in 1980s China. Yet he was right to see an opening for self-government. During that remarkable time, the Communist Party was so desperate to modernize that Fang was given a platform to undertake educational reform at the University of Science and Technology, where he became vice president. The dream of socialism was dead,...

Submitted by Simon Black from Sovereign ManFour Obvious Signs Of Asia’s Rise Over The WestSix centuries ago, when London and Paris were irrelevant, plague-infested backwaters, and New York City wasn’t even on the map, the greatest city in the world was Nanjing– the capital of the Great Ming.At the time, Nanjing was not only the most populous city on the planet, it was also the pinnacle of civilization. Art, science, technology, and commerce flourished in the Ming Dynasty’s liberalized economy, which constituted a full 31% of global GDP at the time.(By comparison, the US economy is roughly 25% of global GDP today…)Taxes were low, the...

Air power stands as a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s recent decision to prioritize defense efforts in the Asia-Pacific region. To make this strategy successful, the administration and Congress must ensure the nation has the necessary capabilities and capacity to secure national interests in an area defined by vast distances, limited basing options, and a pronounced threat to assured access. This means real investments—not budgeting sleights of hand that dilute America’s presence in other vital areas around the globe—and the ability to maintain strength across the national security portfolio. Though the United States currently dominates the skies, this will not...

The United States is seeking to build regional shields against ballistic missiles in both Asia and the Middle East akin to an emerging bulwark in Europe, a senior Pentagon official disclosed Monday. The effort may complicate US ties with Russia and China, both of which fear such defenses could harm their security even though the United States says they are designed only to protect against states like Iran and North Korea. The US push for new regional bulwarks includes two sets of trilateral dialogues - one with Japan and Australia and the other with Japan and South Korea, said Madelyn...

&nbsp; &nbsp; Summer 2000 (8.2) Scandinavian Ancestry Tracing Roots to Azerbaijan by Thor Heyerdahl Above: Thor Heyerdahl with Peruvian children who still construct traditional boats made of reeds, the principle material that enabled early migrations on trans-oceanic voyages. Courtesy: Thor Heyerdahl. Archeologist and historian Thor Heyerdahl, 85, has visited Azerbaijan on several occasions during the past two decades. Each time, he garners more evidence to prove his tantalizing theory - that Scandinavian ancestry can be traced to the region now known as Azerbaijan. Heyerdahl first began forming this hypothesis after visiting Gobustan, an ancient cave dwelling found 30 miles ...

"A Lebanese suspect from the Hezbollah group has been taken into custody by Thai officials and police are investigating further," Chalerm Yoobamrung told Reuters. "Following concern raised by the Israeli embassy about a possible attack by a group of Lebanese terrorists in Bangkok, Thai police officials had been coordinating with Israeli officials since before the New Year."

Battle for control of Asia's seas goes underwater YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) — It's getting a bit more crowded under the sea in Asia, where Andrew Peterson commands one of the world's mightiest weapons: a $2 billion nuclear submarine with unrivaled stealth and missiles that can devastate targets hundreds of miles (kilometers) away. Super high-tech submarines like Cmdr. Peterson's USS Oklahoma City have long been the envy of navies all over the globe — and a key component of U.S. military strategy. "We really have no peer," Peterson told The Associated Press during a recent port call in Japan. But America's...

IAI signs largest ever deal Israel Aerospace Industries' $1.6 billion contract with an Asian country includes the Green Pine radar - part of the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system. 12 January 12 21:31, Yuval Azoulai Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) has signed the second stage of a huge deal with an Asian country, which makes the deal the largest in the company's history - $1.6 billion. IAI notified the TASE on Sunday about the first stage of the deal for the supply of a range of arms system for $1.1 billion to an Asian country. It did not disclose...