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Alleged Olympic Terrorists Arrested In Brazil

O Globo, July 22 Two weeks before the Summer Olympics begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil is on high alert for risk of terrorist attacks aimed at the games. Friday’s edition of Brazilian daily O Globo is dominated by the articles and photographs of the dismantling of a group allegedly linked to the terror group […]

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Geopolitics

German Responsibility For Those 43 Missing Mexican Students

Former employees from German gun company Heckler and Koch face charges in German court for illegal deals with Mexico. But were government officials complicit?

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Geopolitics Ideas Terror in Europe

Europe Pays For Betting On Erdogan And Gulf Petrodollars

The Brussels attacks are a reap-what-you-sow moment for Europe, after biding its time and coddling its dangerous allies for too long.

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Future Ideas

Should We Preemptively Ban Killer Robots Of The Future?

PARIS — We’ve hardly made peace with the idea of driverless cars, and now we’re being told that artificial intelligence could also control rifles, missiles and bombs of the future. The warning was issued last summer by leading figures such as Tesla chief Elon Musk, physicist Stephen Hawking and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky. During July’s […]

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Ideas Terror in Europe

Arms Trafficking And Jihad, How France Could Turn Into Lebanon

PARIS — France’s intelligence services no longer rule out what not so long ago seemed unthinkable: the emergence on its territory of a “Lebanon-like” terrorism which would see suicide bombs replaced one day by the deadliest of operational modes — truck or car bombings, possibly activated remotely. “We have to accept the reality,” a well-informed […]

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Future Geopolitics

Miniature Drones And The New Terror Frontier

GENEVA — Drones are increasingly hovering over our heads. In the past six months, dozens of them were seen flying in France over sensitive Parisian sites, military installations and nuclear power plants. And with the threat of terrorist attacks, these machines are a real source of concern for the military and the police, and not […]

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Geopolitics

Kurds Who Fled Kobani Recount The Terror, Plead For Arms

On the Turkish border, at a refugee camp where Kurds from the Syrian town of Kobani are taking refuge, the displaced wonder why Turkey and the West aren’t arming them against ISIS.

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Geopolitics

The Italian State Secret That Could Aid The Kurds

Thanks to a hidden supply of weapons seized from a Russian arms trafficker 20 years ago, Italy may be able to quickly help Kurdish fighters as they battle against the ISIS jihadist terrorists.

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Geopolitics

Laos, A Risky Cleaning Job In The World’s Most Bombed Country

A brave group of women are taking on the enormous task of finding and destroying millions of unexploded bombs in Laos, the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world.

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Future

Rotterdam’s Newest Police Enforcers Are … Rats

A port city just like Marseille, but less riddled with crime, Rotterdam is nonetheless equipping itself with an unlikely new unit to fight illegal activity. Forensic police plan to use five big brown rats to shed light on criminal plots. After two years of training that will soon end, Derrick, Magnum, Poirot, Dupond and Dupont […]

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Geopolitics Syria Crisis

Not Just Russia: Italy, Other Europeans Sold Plenty Of Weapons To Syria

ROME — Way back in 1998, Bill Clinton bet on the young Assad. He was to be his father’s successor, and the United States believed that the young Bashar al-Assad, once he reached power, would be the person to bring Syria back into the fold among the civilized nations of the world. And so Clinton’s […]

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Geopolitics

Assad Warns France Not To Attack Syria

LE FIGARO (France) Worldcrunch DAMASCUS — Bashar al-Assad warned France not to launch a military strike, which the Syrian president said would support terrorism against the interests of the Syrian people. In an exclusive interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Assad said that should Paris take part in a military intervention, “there will be repercussions, […]

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Geopolitics

The Rising Global Weapons Trade, By The Numbers

Over the past five years, the global weapons trade has grown at a rate of 30%, with total sales of arms and military hardware rising from $56.6 billion to $73.4 billion. A study released last month by IHS Jane’s details the evolution since 2008 in the arms trade across the world. Take a global tour […]

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Geopolitics

Robots At War, What If The Weapons Start Thinking For Themselves?

The invention of “killer robots” could radically change the way wars are fought — and raises a whole array of legal and ethical questions. The UN calls for a moratorium.

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Geopolitics

EU Lifts Arms Embargo On Syria, Russia On The Defensive

FRANCE 24 (France), ITAR-TASS (Russia), BBC NEWS (UK), RT (Russia), LE MONDE (France) Worldcrunch BRUSSELS – European Union members decided not to renew the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition early Tuesday, in one of the strongest actions taken to date by the West against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “Tonight EU nations agreed to […]

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Geopolitics

Will Russia’s Cozy Relationship With Venezuela Die With Chavez?

MOSCOW – When word first came out in 2011 that Hugo Chavez was suffering from a serious illness, a Russian military source predicted the consequences of the end of the Chavez era: not only could Moscow lose contracts already signed, but it might also never get paid for weapons it has already delivered to Caracas. […]

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Ideas

Along Turkey’s Border, Smugglers Supply Syrian Refugees And Rebels

Up close with Syrian smugglers and Western NGOs. Turkish troops turn blind eye to arms trafficking, but worries grow about who is getting their hands on the weapons.

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Geopolitics

Putin Lauds Record Year For Russian Weapons Exports – But Is He Overstating It?

MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin recently announced that this year was a record year for Russian weapons exports, with $15 billion in contracts for next year and $14 billion worth of weapons that have already been sold in 2012. This past year the main customers for Russian weapons were once again India, Algeria and Vietnam. […]

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Eyes on the U.S.

Monsieur Obama, Tears Are Not Enough. A European Plea For U.S. Gun Control

-OpEd- PARIS – America is crying for its children. The country is in mourning, after the Connecticut elementary school shooting that left 28 dead, including 20 children between the ages of six and seven. President Barack Obama shed real tears as he was listing the number of recent shootings: “These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and […]

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Geopolitics

Is The US Scheming To Kill Giant Iraqi-Russian Weapons Deal?

MOSCOW – It has only recently emerged that Russia and Iraq have been secretly working on major arms deals. During Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s visit to Moscow in October, it was revealed that Iraq had already signed a contract to purchase 30 Russian-built military helicopters and 42 rocket launchers for $4.2 billion, with plans […]

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Geopolitics

Armed Men Storm Libyan Parliament, Halt Formation Of New Government

LE MONDE (France), ANSA, MISNA (Italy) Worldcrunch TRIPOLI – Some 100 armed men stormed Libya’s parliament late Tuesday, preventing the confirmation of 30 cabinet members for the new government of prime minister Ali Zeidan, Italian news agency ANSA reported. Fighters have invaded parliament several times before, each time bringing proceedings to a halt. “This has […]

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