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BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - NATO countries voiced concern on Wednesday at Russian and Belarusian exercises held near the Polish border in September, saying they were at odds with improved relations with Moscow. Ambassadors from the 28 NATO states meeting in Brussels expressed concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that envisioned an attack from the West, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said. "There was the general sense that the political message of the exercise was incongruous with the general improvement in political relations and practical cooperation which is under way between NATO and Russia," Appathurai said....

Russian combat aircraft could return to Cuba 21/07/2008 11:13 MOSCOW, July 21, 2008 (RIA Novosti) - Russian combat aircraft could return to Cuba in a bid to counter U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in Central Europe, a Russian daily reported on Monday. Moscow has strongly opposed the possible deployment by the U.S. of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and an accompanying radar in the Czech Republic as a threat to its national security. Washington says the defenses are needed to deter a possible strike from Iran, or other "rogue" states. "While they are deploying the missile shield in...

July 20, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — A shipment of new Russian MIG-29 tactical fighters has recently arrived into Sudan from Belarus, a source familiar with the matter told Sudan Tribune today. The source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that a dozen MIG-29 combat fighters were shipped discreetly by planes through a Belarusian company two weeks ago. However he could not confirm whether the fighters were actually sold by Belarus or they simply came through the East European country. The planes are now in the Wadi Sayedna air base, the source added. Belarus is one of the Sudan armament providers....

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Myanmar military delegation visited Russia on Friday, a day after the Asian state's military junta was deplored by the United Nations for crushing pro-democracy protests. Two leading Russian newspapers said the delegation was discussing buying missile systems from Russia, which has in the past sold fighter planes to Myanmar and has said it believes sanctions against the junta are premature. A Russian Air Force spokesman said the delegation was headed by Lieutenant-General Myint Hlaing, commander of Myanmar's air defense forces. The spokesman declined to specify whether the visitors were buying arms. Russia's Defense Ministry said on...

Of all the islands of repression that survive in the world, Myanmar is one of the strangest. Unlike the nations of the Arab world, Myanmar's political culture is not crippled by the corrupting influence of easy oil and the anti-modern influence of fundamentalist Islam. Unlike the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, Burma is not riven by murderous tribalism and widespread destitution. And unlike Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela, the country does not justify dictatorship in the name of creating a communist workers' paradise. Instead, Myanmar stands alongside such oddball dictatorships as Belarus and Turkmenistan -- isolated bastions of misery where quixotic...

Pyongyang's man in Harare For 30 years, Robert Mugabe has idolized north Korea's Stalinist leadership. Predictably, the two nations now share the same disastrous fate;RW Johnson National Post Saturday, August 11, 2007Visitors to the offices of high-ranking officials in Robert Mugabe's beleaguered government in recent weeks have noticed the same book open for study: Juche! The Speeches and Writings of Kim Il Sung. "Some may actually believe this stuff, but it's more that they want to understand where the President is coming from," one insider told me. It appears that those who have become anxious about Mugabe's Canute-like attempt to...

The United Nations' Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal is now six months old, so it's a good time to assess progress, if that's the right word. The evidence of misdeeds at the U.N. Development Program in North Korea continues to mount, but there's still no "urgent" and "external" inquiry, as ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in January. Now the U.S. has uncovered evidence that in addition to transferring millions of dollars in cash that may have gone to help prop up Kim's grotesque regime, the UNDP also transferred dual-use technology. It did so without bothering to secure a U.S....

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Scott Carmichael, head of counter-intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) says the United States is likely filled with Cuban spies who are operating with little interference from American anti-spy agents. Furthermore, Carmichael is positive that Cuba "shares her information ... with countries like Iran, China, Russia, other countries who have interests maybe inimical to those of the United States." In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Carmichael says he wants to "heighten public awareness of the threat that continues to be posed to our national security by the Cuban intelligence operations." Carmichael has...

Confirming the worst fears of the international community that Burma is going the North Korea way, Russia and Burma have signed an intergovernmental agreement to build a nuclear reactor in the military ruled country. This was announced by the Russian atomic energy agency on Tuesday. The nuclear reactor will include a 10-megawatt light water reactor working on 20 percent enriched Uranium-235, according to a statement by Rosatom, the atomic energy agency. The agreement signed between the head of Rosatom, Sergey Kiriyenko and the Burmese Minister of Science and Technologies, U Thaung, is expected to "promote mutually beneficial economic and scientific...

India's Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehra has embarked on a nine-day tour of Burma and Singapore to give a leg up to bilateral ties and military cooperation with the neighbouring countries. His visit begins on Wednesday. Heading a high level naval delegation, the Navy Chief delegation will hold talks with top leaders of the ruling Burmese military junta during his stay in Rangoon. "The issue of arms transfer to Myanmar is likely to figure prominently during the Naval Chief's parleys with SDPC members," a former naval officer and currently director of India's leading think tank told Mizzima News on condition...

Burma and North Korea, two of the world's most isolated nations, have agreed to restore diplomatic relations after a break of more than 20 years. The nations' deputy foreign ministers signed the deal in Rangoon. Burma broke ties in 1983, accusing Pyongyang of a bomb attack when South Korea's president visited Rangoon. Many Western nations accuse Burma's military junta of widespread rights abuses while North Korea has faced sanctions over its nuclear programme. Visiting North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Yong-Il, and his Burmese counterpart, Kyaw Thu, signed the agreement on Thursday. Neither side has made any further comment. Nuclear...

BULAWAYO, 23 January (IRIN) - Zimbabwe's last remaining white commercial farmers have been told that a "lucky" few might be able to keep some land, but the future of farming was for blacks only. Land minister Dydimus Mutasa's words were backed up with deeds as the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), representing mainly white farmers, disclosed that the ruling ZANU-PF government had recently increased the pace of dispossessing white-owned farmland, with eviction notices being served on 15 farmers in Chiredzi, a district in southeastern Zimbabwe, bringing to 90 the number of farmers ordered off their land in the past five months....

The military regime in Burma is intent on wiping out Christianity in the country, according to claims in a secret document believed to have been leaked from a government ministry. Entitled "Programme to destroy the Christian religion in Burma", the incendiary memo contains point by point instructions on how to drive Christians out of the state. The text, which opens with the line "There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practised", calls for anyone caught evangelising to be imprisoned. It advises: "The Christian religion is very gentle – identify and utilise its weakness." Its discovery follows widespread...

UNITED NATIONS – China and Russia blocked the Security Council from demanding an end to political repression and human rights violations in military-ruled Myanmar, rejecting a resolution proposed by the United States. The vote was 9-3 in favor of the resolution, with South Africa joining China and Russia in the opposition. Indonesia, Qatar and the Republic of Congo abstained. While they were in the minority, China and Russia were able to kill the resolution because they have veto power as permanent members of the council. The two argued that the U.N.'s most powerful body was not the proper forum for...

UNITED NATIONS – Negotiations on an Iran sanctions resolution were unexpectedly postponed Tuesday because of Russia's anger at the United States for raising the plight of an opposition leader in Belarus in the U.N. Security Council. Belarus, an authoritarian former communist state that has close ties to Russia, is not on the agenda of the U.N.'s most powerful body. Russia's Ambassador Vitaly Churkin strongly objected when senior U.S. diplomat William Brencick brought up the 54-day hunger strike of jailed former Belarusian opposition presidential candidate, Alexander Kozulin, council diplomats said. The five veto-wielding council members – the U.S., Russia, China, Britain...

MAE SOT, THAILAND -- Although we often read about Aung Sang Suu Kyi's fight for democracy in Rangoon, a far bloodier struggle is being carried out in the jungles east of the Dawna mountain range. The brutal Burmese junta, known as the State and Peace Development Council (SPDC), has launched its biggest military offensive in a decade. The human casualties of the conflict are pushed throughout the border region. Many victims of past military actions have ended up in sprawling refugee camps near Mae sot, a small, rural community just over the Thai border. The SPDC long has been warring...

While interacting with a select gathering of "Russia hands" from Western academia, media and think tanks recently, President Vladimir Putin ventured onto the topic of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in terms, as he put it, that would be a "revelation ... something probably I have never said to anyone before". Putin, known for his reticence and choice of words, revealed that the Kremlin did not "plan" for the SCO's present standing, but had only set its sights on the organization's potential to resolve the "utilitarian question of settling borders" between China and its post-Soviet neighbors. SCO includes China, Russia,...

MOSCOW, November 3 (RIA Novosti) - The first joint military exercise of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be held on Russian territory, the chief of Russia's General Staff said Friday. "The first ever joint exercise in the history of these two organizations will be held in the summer next year," Yury Baluyevsky said. The decision was supported by the majority of the CSTO and SCO chiefs of the General Staff during a meeting in Moscow on Thursday. The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a post-Soviet security grouping that comprises Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan...

TEHRAN -- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad told visiting Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov on Sunday that most countries, especially independent countries, have come under pressure in the current unipolar world system. The president said, “Cooperation among friendly countries to break this unjust system is a necessity.” The Islamic Republic of Iran is firmly committed to boosting relations with independent countries like Belarus, he added. Iran and Belarus are in consensus on many economic and political issues, he said, adding that mutual cooperation, especially in the energy and defense industries, should be strengthened. Belarusian President Alekasandr Lukashenko is to visit Iran in...

During 2001 alone, according to Jane's Defense International, Belarus secretly delivered weapons worth more than $500 million, including Katyusha rockets, 120mm mortars, antitank rockets and mines, to Palestinian militants and countries including Syria and Iran. Even after Sept. 11, 2001, Belarus not only continued to sell its impressive stockpile of weapons inherited from the breakup of the Soviet Union to almost all of the countries on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism - including North Korea, Sudan, Iran and Syria - but has defied Washington in doing so. Belarus's president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has not even attempted to conceal...