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MOSCOW, June 16 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday Russia's nuclear arsenal would be would increase by 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2015. Speaking at Army-2015 Expo, an international military trade show near Moscow, Putin said the new missiles could "overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems," adding a new long-range early-warning radar "to monitor in the western direction" was also being prepared. It was a reference to plans by NATO to permanently place troops and heavy armaments in Poland, a Russian neighbor and former Warsaw Pact country. In reference to apparent plans to reinforce NATO's...

A giant gorilla with brooding good looks and rippling muscles is causing a stir at a Japanese zoo, with women flocking to check out the hunky pin-up. Shabani, an 18-year-old silverback who tips the scales at around 180 kilograms (400 pounds), has become the star attraction at Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Nagoya, striking smouldering poses the movie model in "Zoolander" would be proud of. "He often rests his chin on his hands and looks intently at you," zoo spokesman Takayuki Ishikawa told AFP on Friday. "He is more buff than most gorillas and he's at his peak physically....

At FiveThirtyEight, we like to celebrate outliers. LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers may end up losing in the NBA Finals, but James’s performance has been outlandishly good. In the same vein, I want to congratulate Donald Trump, who reportedly will declare today that he is running for president. Trump is the anti-LeBron — popularity is performance in politics, and Trump is the first candidate in modern presidential primary history to begin the campaign with a majority of his own party disliking him. A whopping 57 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Trump, according to an average of the three...

Adolf Hitler started World War II by attacking Poland on September 1, 1939. Nazi Germany moved only after it had already remilitarized the Rhineland, absorbed Austria and dismantled Czechoslovakia. Before the outbreak of the war, Hitler's new Third Reich had created the largest German-speaking nation in European history. Well before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese government had redrawn the map of Asia and the Pacific. Japan had occupied or annexed Indochina, Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan, in addition to swaths of coastal China. Attacking Hawaii, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia was merely the logical 1941 follow-up...

Julie Hamp (pictured above), Toyota Motor Corporation's recently promoted global chief communications officer and top female executive, has found herself behind bars after allegedly running afoul of Japan's strict prescription drug laws. Tokyo police claim that Oxycodone was sent to her from the US and discovered by Japanese customs. Hamp was arrested at her hotel on June 18.

'The numbers are staggering: up to three million Bengalis were killed by famine, more than half a million South Asian refugees fled Myanmar (formerly Burma), 2.3 million soldiers manned the Indian army and 89,000 of them died in military service. South Asia was transformed dramatically during the war years as India became a vast garrison and supply-ground for the war against the Japanese in South-East Asia. Yet, this part of the British Empire's history is only just emerging. By looking beyond the statistics to the stories of individual lives the Indian role in the war becomes truly meaningful. Has the...

Here is a live map of different war zones. You can zoom in or out just like on Google Maps. Hover over different icons and more. Check out how close ISIS is to Baghdad. Yikes!

A court in Japan has ruled that a husband who sleeps with another woman is not committing adultery if the sex is a business transaction. The ruling was made after a man's wife sought ¥4m (£20,830) in compensation from a club hostess who had a long-term sexual relationship with her husband, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported. . . . . As long as the intercourse is for business, it "does not harm the marital relationship at all" the judge said. "Even if the wife is disgusted by the act, it does not constitute a legal offense," the judge added.

In its latest "Defense and space domain briefing" Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) unveiled a new surface combatant concept. Not much information is available but this new concept may be MHI's vision for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) next generation 3000 tons class Frigate known as "30FF" or FFX. MHI surface combatant vessel concept revealed in its latest "Defense and space domain briefing" could be the JMSDF future 3000 tons class frigate known as "30FF". Source: MHI The MHI briefing document explains that this concept vessel is being designed to answer the new needs from the JMSDF for "compact"...

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society agreed to pay $2.55 million to Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research on Monday as part of a settlement to resolve a long-standing legal battle over the anti-whaling group’s tactics against Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic. The settlement came the same day the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Sea Shepherd’s appeal of a federal court’s finding that the group was in contempt of a court order to stay clear of Japanese whaling ships. The activist group’s tactics at sea include throwing smoke bombs at Japanese whaling ships and using metal-reinforced ropes to damage propellers and...

President Obama's stunning declaration that the global image of the United States has greatly improved under his administration is another example of his ideology and narcissism's blinding him to his many policy failures. During a White House event with the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, he managed to turn the subject to himself, saying, "People don't remember -- when I came into office, the United States in world opinion ranked below China and just barely above Russia. And today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on earth." As evidence, the White House cited a Gallup poll,...

Type 055 Cruiser Mockup A.man via Sinodefense Forum By April 2015, about a year after its public debut, the Type 055 cruiser mockup in Wuhan has a new coat of PLAN gray, as well as installation of the ESM mast. Scaffolding on the farside of the bridge module suggests that progress is being made on installing the Type 346 radar. The Type 055 cruiser test rig in Wuhan is well on its way to opening for business. Built to test the Type 055's sophisticated electronics and integrated stealth mast, the mockup now has major electronic sensors and systems installed, along...

Two members of House GOP leadership—Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)and Rules Committee chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)-refused to admit through spokespersons to Breitbart News whether they have read the text of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Pacific Rim trade deal, but they still support granting President Barack Obama the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to fast track it. What’s more, Scalise and Sessions—and others GOP conference-wide, including even perhaps Boehner—could be vulnerable to serious primary challenges if they continue forward with Obamatrade.

Some thing to remember(73 years ago today)

'True, football, or soccer as it is known here, is not as central to American as it is to European, African or South and Central American life. Nowhere near. Up until recently, the game has been unloved by the major US television networks, which have long bemoaned the lack of breaks in play, the paucity of goals and the glut of draws. Absent from the US game are big-name male stars and big-name clubs. The New York Red Bulls will never rival the New York Yankees. Real Salt Lake pales, rather risibly, alongside Real Madrid. However, football is no longer...

The national pension system has been hacked, leading to 1.25 million cases of personal data being leaked, the Japan Pension Service announced Monday. In a scandal reminiscent of the nation’s botched handling of pension records about a decade ago, people’s pension IDs, names, addresses and birth dates have been stolen through illicit accesses to fund workers’ personal computers, fund officials said. The data were leaked when agency employees opened an attached file in their email containing a virus.

SINGAPORE—Surging military spending across Asia has made it the world’s second-biggest region for such spending over the past decade, but U.S. companies, the biggest sellers of military equipment, are struggling to take full advantage of that growth, even as revenues back home stagnate. Demand in Asia for defense equipment—and calls for greater U.S. military involvement—have grown as China’s display of military might in the South China Sea intensifies regional tensions. Total global spending on defense in 2014 was $1.719 trillion, of which Asia and Oceania contributed $423 billion, or 25%, behind only North America’s $596 billion, according to the Stockholm...

Last April, Chinese airplane manufacturer Shenyang Aircraft Corporation surprised military observers by test flying its new J-11D fighter jet, an upgraded version of the J-11, China’s indigenous copy of the Russian Su-27. The D-model J-11 is believed to include such advanced features as an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, a relocated infrared search and track (IRST) system, and the expanded use of composite materials to reduce the plane’s weight and radar signature. This first flight indicates that the J-11D is further along in its development cycle than many experts predicted and is poised to provide a new and deadly...

U.S. Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless dive bombers from the USS Hornet about to attack the burning Japanese cruiser Mikuma for the third time on 6 June 1942 REMEMBER: June 4–7, 1942: the Battle of Midway, a turning point in World War II in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been undefeated until that time and out-numbered the American naval forces by four to one. Timeline of the Battle of Midway (acc. to William Koenig) 4 June 04:30 First Japanese takeoff against Midway Islands 04:30 10 planes (Yorktown) begin to search for the Japanese ships 05:34 Japanese ships detected by Yorktown...

HONOLULU, Aug. 28 — Researchers said Wednesday they found a Japanese midget submarine sunk more than an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Discovery of the 78-foot vessel could provide the first physical evidence to back U.S. military assertions that it fired first against Japan in World War II and inflicted the first casualties.>p> THE SUB was sunk by a Navy destroyer on Dec. 7, 1941. Two Japanese crewmen are believed still inside the submarine. “It’s the shot that started World War II between the Americans and the Japanese,” said John Wiltshire, associate director of the Hawaii Undersea Research...