Free Republic

I was discussing reports of a new Russian sea-launched cruise missile with my colleague, Nikolai Sokov. He has a number of thoughts about what is going on, so I was delighted when he offered to write them up. There are a lot of really interesting things in Nikolai’s piece. One comment — I remain undecided about the idea that the alleged Russian INF violation arises from a ground-based test of a sea-launched cruise missile. The new information, though, does seem to bolster that case, at least a bit, but my intuition is that it is a new ground-launched cruise missile....

China National Offshore Oil Corporation is considering a nearly $14bn (£7bn, €10.6bn) takeover of Unocal of the US. Sinopec, another Chinese state-controlled oil group, has struck a $70bn deal to buy Iranian crude oil and liquefied natural gas over three decades. China has sent $6bn to Rosneft, the Russian company that bought the main production unit of the embattled Yukos oil group, as advance payment for oil supplies. India has just reached a $40bn agreement to import LNG from Iran and develop Iranian oilfields, and is promoting pipeline projects to bring oil and gas across neighbouring countries to supply its...