Old enemies' wargames send a powerful message to the US

MOSCOW, Oct. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday repeated the country's support for the nuclear rights of Iran, whose nuclear program has sparked Western concerns of nuclear proliferation and prompted a US-driven push for referral to the UN Security Council for sanctions.

Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy like any other country and Russia would continue nuclear energy cooperation with Iran, Lavrov said in a television interview.

"No one, including the United States, calls into question our right to continue the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr," he said.

Russian support for the Iranian claim to nuclear energy underlined the split it has over Iran with the United States, which accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of acivilian nuclear program.

Iran says its nuclear program is dedicated exclusively to power generation.

Talks between the European Union (EU) and Iran over its controversial nuclear program collapsed after Iran ended a freeze on uranium conversion in August.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Moscow briefly over the weekend to persuade Russia into backing a referral to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions on Iran. The rift between the two sides remained everything but small after Rice headed off to London to continue her European tour.

"The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should continue considering the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has agreed to cooperate with the IAEA, and it is important that the agency is ready to carry on the work," Lavrov said.

"This is the best way to clear all questions and suspicions. Itis necessary to agree on transparent development of the Iranian nuclear energy industry in line with international law and in a manner that will not arouse international suspicions," he said. Enditem

PR Newswire
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08.04.05, 10:16 AM ET

FRONT ROYAL, Va., Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/—“If we don’t yet feel threatened by the emerging China-Russia Axis,” says Steven W. Mosher, “these unprecedented military exercises by the People’s Liberation Army and the Russian armed forces should make us sit up and take notice. These exercises are clearly aimed at us.”

Mosher, the President of the Population Research Institute, pointed out that China’s military budget is now second only to that of the United States. “China is buying, building, and deploying new, hi-tech weapons systems at a furious pace. No nation threatens China. But it is now beginning to threaten its neighbors, beginning with Taiwan.”

Since 1990, the Beijing regime has referred to the U.S. as its “chief enemy”; stolen the designs of nearly all U.S. nuclear warheads and many other military secrets; targeted U.S. forces in the Pacific with an increasingly lethal array of weapons; announced that it intended to assert control out to the “first island chain” in the Pacific (Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines); and threatened to nuke Los Angeles if the U.S. defends democratic Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. “China’s ultimate goal,” says Mosher, “is to become the hegemon, dethroning the United States as the world’s dominant power.”

“This is why China is trying to win control of key maritime choke points (think Panama Canal), become a major player in the world’s energy supplies (think about the offer of China’s state-controlled energy company to buy Unocal), and to use international organizations for its own purposes (think about the Chinese-led effort to successfully remove the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Commission.),” says Mosher. “And this is why it is trying to draw Russia into a new anti-American alliance.”

Mosher, who has taught Chinese studies at the University of California at Berkeley, was the first American social scientist allowed to do field research in China in 1979-80. He is the author of numerous books on China including “Hegemon: China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World” (Encounter Books, 2000)
SOURCE Population Research Institute