



By Peter Vincent Pry
Hardening infrastructure will be key to minimizing the threat
Independent voices from the TWT Communities

A majority of Americans support a military strike to stop or slow Iran's nuclear weapons program. But that assumes Iran doesn't already have some.

More than 600 people have died during a record-breaking cold snap in Eastern Europe, authorities said Wednesday, as officials in the Czech Republic blamed two massive car crashes on blinding snow.

he Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, the Associated Press has learned.

The State Department said Monday that U.S. officials will engage in direct talks with North Korea later this month, signaling the first major development in the tense relations between the West and Pyongyang since the death of longtime North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

China's vice president left Monday for a crucial get-acquainted visit to the United States before he takes over as leader of the world's most populous nation later this year, amid tensions over trade, currency and a sharpening competition for global influence.

Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a key central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad's regime as the country's 11-month-old uprising looked increasingly like a nascent civil war.
U.S. and Turkish officials condemned the mounting bloodshed in Syria on Monday but declined to endorse calls by the Arab League for the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping force to quell the violence.

The Arab League called Sunday for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria, the latest effort by the regional group to end the 11-month-old crisis that has killed more than 5,000 people.
Minxin Pei, the most original of current Sinologists, makes the point that authoritarian/totalitarian regimes inherently give priority to protecting regime leaders over the nation's long-term interests.

The Arab League will call Sunday for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria, the latest effort by the regional group to end the 11-month old crisis that has killed more than 5,000 people.
It's not the face of North Korea the world is used to: five young musicians adding a playful twist to one of the most popular Western pop songs of the 1980s.

Given a supremely tough draw in the 2012 Davis Cup, the United States is off to an exhilarating start.

Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus Saturday in the first killing of a high ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, the country's state-run news agency said.
The Obama administration's Iran policy is similar to that of the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, hoping that the problem will go away ("On Obama's watch," Commentary, Tuesday).

Anyone who has paid heed to Russia in the two decades since the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union has come to realize that things have not worked out all that well. Those desiring better lives, seeking the freedoms enjoyed by other peoples of the world, threw off the shackles of an authoritarian state that routinely persecuted, imprisoned and murdered its citizens by the millions.

By Meredith Somers - The Washington Times
updated 28 minutes ago
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