Free Republic

WASHINGTON – The United States now is facing two serious national security challenges, but they aren’t expected to be addressed effectively because of the serious budgetary headaches Congress has created, and a virtually deadlocked legislature on just about every issue pending, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin. And the White House apparently isn’t paying attention. The first is the growing concern of the impact that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, event – either natural or manmade – could have on the national grid system, on which the Department of Defense has a 99 percent dependency. The other concern...

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...

The giant Russian energy company, Gazprom, which controls the world's largest reserves of natural gas, has issued a stark warning to the European Union saying it must decide if it wants to continue receiving supplies of Russian gas.Speaking in an interview for the BBC's Newsnight programme, Gazprom deputy chairman Alexander Medvedev warned that Europe was now at a crossroads. "Only three countries can be suppliers of pipeline gas in the long-term - Russia, Iran and Qatar. So there is no other choice than to deal with these suppliers," he said. "Europe should decide how to handle this situation… and if...

<p>1940 -2006 Turkmenistan dictator: Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan who died on Thursday at the age of 66, was an idiosyncratic dictator who ruled the central Asian republic as a cruel and often capricious medieval khan for 20 years. Known as Turkmenbashi, the Father of the Turkmens, Mr. Niyazov fashioned an image as a munificent leader guiding the country to a golden age. But the Turkmenistan he leaves behind is even more culturally and economically impoverished than during the Soviet era in which he honed his ruthless authoritarian skills.</p>

Azerbaijan Can Sell 1.5 BCM Gas A Year To Greece By 2007 Tue Apr 23,10:21 AM ET BAKU , Azerbaijan -(Dow Jones)- Azerbaijan has the potential to sell up to 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Greece a year by 2007 from the Shah-Deniz field, Natig Aliyev, president of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic, Socar, said Tuesday. A delegation of Greek officials, headed by Greek Development Minister Akis Tzohadzopoulos, met its Azerbaijani counterparts Tuesday in Baku to discuss possible supplies of Azerbaijani gas to Greece and then on to other European countries. Azerbaijan 's Shah-Deniz...