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The US and Japan were forced to halt military exercises this week because of Russian jets flying nearby, Japanese officials have revealed. Russia admitted its jets were flying above the Sea of Japan, but said the pilots had not breached any rules. Moscow and Tokyo have argued recently over an island chain they both claim. The US-Japan war games are the biggest ever held between the two countries, involving more than 44,000 personnel and 60 warships. The drills - codenamed Keen Sword - are being held to mark the 50th anniversary of the US-Japan alliance.

The call by Democratic senators Chuck Schumer and Carl Levin for AIPAC to back passage of the stalled START treaty with Russia speaks volumes about the growing desperation of both the White House and its Senate allies. The administration is reportedly going all-out to push Jewish groups to lobby for the treaty, but it is unlikely that AIPAC will succumb to the pressure. The group has been scrupulous about sticking to its agenda of working only on behalf of Israel-related issues, a policy that keeps it strictly neutral on arms control measures like START.

In Russia, the motherland of conspiracy theories, almost no one believes that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are free agents acting on a desire to crack official secrecy and broaden the horizons of public awareness. Although the more than a quarter-million secret US diplomatic cables spilled into cyberspace by WikiLeaks on Sunday include just 3,337 reports prepared by the US Embassy in Moscow, many Russians are already viewing it as part of a plot by American hardliners to discredit President Obama and, perhaps, to undermine his fragile efforts to “reset” US-Russia relations. .... “I have no doubt that this was a...

I can recall October 2003. My last day as a free man. Several weeks after my arrest, I was informed that president Putin had decided: I was going to have to “slurp gruel” for 8 years. It was hard to believe that back then. Seven years have gone by already since that day. Seven years – quite a long stretch of time, and all the more so – when you’ve spent it in jail. All of us have had time to reassess and rethink many things. Judging by the prosecutors’ presentation: “give them 14 years” and “spit on previous court...

Daniel Radcliffe's favorite novel is 'The Master and Margarita' and he is obsessed with it since the time laid hands on it. In American Library Association's READ campaign, Daniel Radcliffe said, that he's "been obsessed with the novel ever since I read it about a year ago. I've always been a huge fan of Magical Realism. It’s an inspiring genre in which writers can just let their imaginations go wild and wonderful." When asked about his favorite Harry Porter book, Daniel Radcliffe said, "My personal favorite is… Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, because it's involved with Harry's...

Kremlin reportedly dispatches contract killer to US to pursue 'traitor' colonel, claims reputable Moscow newspaperA contract killer has been dispatched to assassinate the Russian double agent who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies in the United States this spring, according to reports in Moscow. "We know who he is and where he is," a high-ranking Kremlin source told the reputable Kommersant newspaper. "You can have no doubt – a Mercader has already been sent after him." Ramón Mercader was the KGB-hired Spanish communist who was sent to kill Leon Trotsky with an icepick in Mexico in 1940.

MOSCOW, Russia — Russians love few things better than a good anniversary — any excuse to celebrate the country’s rich cultural history gives rise to festivals and forums, concerts and commemorative films. As 2010 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov, President Dmitry Medvedev flew to the playwright’s small southern hometown and laid a bouquet of white roses. One hundred years after his death in 1837, poet Alexander Pushkin was celebrated across the country — a city was even named after him. Why, then, the silence in Russia around Leo Tolstoy, widely considered to be one of...

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev go to Church frequently, kiss precious icons of the Virgin Mary and seek political and moral counsel from the Russian Orthodox Clergy. Furthermore, to the surprise of many Americans, particularly Evangelical Christians, Vladimir Putin wears a Christian cross with him at all times. On ABC's Good Morning America Anchor George Stephanopoulos recently interviewed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me ask you, the American public doesn't know all that much about you personally. But I was fascinated to be-- in reading your biography to learn many of the details. You were brought up in Soviet...

If I weren't getting so used to the inequity of political correctness, I would be stunned at this: http://www.blackpeoplemeet.com/index.cfm The Fresh Prince happened to be on TV while I was surfing the Internet and of course, the commercials are aimed toward the largest audience for such programming, black people. For a moment my jaw dropped as I watched the commercial that caught my attention as soon as I heard "black people meet" in the background. To be sure, I checked http://www.whitepeoplemeet.com/ and was redirected to a dating site for Generation X'ers that never once mentioned race. I don't know why...

The leaders of Moscow's 1.5 million strong Muslim community say they desperately need more places of worship. But a plan to build a new mosque has run into local opposition which is being fuelled by nationalists calling for a "clean Moscow" without Muslims and foreigners. Small trees are supposed to be keeping the Muslims out of Tekstilshchiki, a district in south eastern Moscow. A young man sets to work with his shovel, pushing it into the earth with a determined kick. Then he places a seedling into the hole and sprinkles earth over it. Using her watering can, Maria Sotova...

RUSSIAN President Dmitry Medvedev has handed top state honours to the Russian spies deported from the US in July in the biggest spy scandal since the Cold War, the Kremlin says. "A ceremony took place in the Kremlin today to hand top state honours to a number of Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) employees, including the spies who were working in the United States and returned to Russia in July," Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said in a statement on Russian news agencies. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who served as a KGB agent in East Germany, has said that he has met...

Every May, Russia proudly marches its biggest, fiercest-looking military hardware across Red Square in a show of force one might expect from one of the biggest militaries in the world. Tanks, missile launchers and rockets worth billions of dollars thunder across the cobblestones. But in a small field outside Moscow, two men wheel out a small package that could save the Russian military millions and prevent it from needing to deploy that fearsome arsenal. The men fire up an air pump and within minutes there stands a towering S-300 anti-aircraft missile launcher. Russia's Defense Ministry is in talks with a...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Travel Alert U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs Europe October 3, 2010 The State Department alerts U.S. citizens to the potential for terrorist attacks in Europe. Current information suggests that al-Qa’ida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks. European governments have taken action to guard against a terrorist attack and some have spoken publicly about the heightened threat conditions. Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests. U.S. citizens are reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation...

"People are frustrated, their anxious, they're scared about the future. And they have a right to be impatient about the pace of change. I'm impatient, ... It took time to free the slaves," our Post Racial President Lectures The American People.His disciples from The New Black Panther Party carry the message even further. [VIDEO AT SITE] This is the man, King Samir Shabazz, who has been given a "Do Not Prosecute" pass by the Holder Justice Department and the Obama Administration. This is one of Obama's diplomats for racial harmony: White America, after listening to Shabazz will realize the error...

The No. 3 reactor block of the embattled Kola Nuclear Power Plant was shut down today by its automatic switch off in what is a seeming series of more and more incidents at the Kola, and well as other Russian NPPs. In a release on Kola NPP’s website, operators said that, “at 1:38 am on September 28, the automatic protection switch of the No. 3 reactor block shut the unit down as a result of a malfunction in one of the elements in the system responsible for pressure control in the first compartment. The reason for the malfunction is being...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted on Sunday that despite intensive diplomacy, Israel had failed to dissuade Russia from selling advanced missiles to Syria. Speaking at Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu told ministers that Russian plans to go ahead with the delivery of P-800 anti-ship missiles to Syria was "problematic" for Israel. "We have been aware of this deal for some time and there were discussions with the Russians at every level," Netanyahu said.

WASHINGTON — A scientist and his wife were arrested and indicted on charges of trying to help make a nuclear bomb for Venezuela, the Justice Department announced Friday. Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, 75, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina, and Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 67, a U.S. citizen, were indicted on Thursday by a federal grand jury. Both had worked as contractors at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Justice Department said in a statement. If convicted of all 22 charges in the indictment, the defendants face a potential sentence of life in prison, the department said. The U.S....

SPRINGFIELD — Effingham County sheriff deputies have reported the early Sunday morning arrest of three men to the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force. The men, two from Russia and one from Kazakhstan, were found near Georgia Power’s Plant McIntosh on Old Augusta Road about 1 a.m. Sunday after a ranger with the Department of Natural Resources reported a suspicious vehicle, Effingham County sheriff’s spokesman David Ehsanipoor said. Deputies reported the men, who were inside a 1995 Nissan Pathfinder, had a machete, shovel, wire cutters and ski masks. One man also had black silk stockings in his front left pocket. Arrested...

[London/Rome] A few days from the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in Scotland and England, the "Number two" in the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Direcoter of the "Foreign Office" of the Moscow Patriarchate, will make his visit to Great Britain. On the 9th of September he will meet [has already met] in Lambeth Palace with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the Primate of the Anglican Communion. In a certain way "he makes straight the way of the Pope", as the Pope's meeting on the 17th of September is described by Vaticanist Sandro Magister in the Weekly...

A specially upgraded Russian Akula class submarine has been caught trying to record the acoustic signature made by the Vanguard submarines that carry Trident nuclear missiles, according to senior Navy officers. British submariners have also reported that they are experiencing the highest number of "contacts" with Russian submarines since 1987. If the Russians are able to obtain a recording of the unique noise of the boat's propellers it would have serious implications for Britain's nuclear deterrent. Using its sophisticated sonar, the Akula would be able to track Vanguards and potentially sink them before they could launch their Trident D4 missiles....