Wednesday-Night

(BBC) The US warned India about a possible threat at least a month before last week’s Mumbai attacks, US media have quoted unnamed officials as saying.
ABC News quoted Indian officials as saying that after receiving the US warning, they also intercepted a satellite phone message on 18 November warning of a seaborne attack on Mumbai.
The […]

Pakistan Secures $7.6 Billion Loan From IMF to Prevent Default
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — President Asif Ali Zardari, facing pressure from the U.S. to step up the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents along the border with Afghanistan, needs IMF financing to prop up Pakistan’s ailing economy. The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves have shrunk 75 percent in […]

More on Water and on Wednesday-Night.com     
Thirst a powerful slide show on water
Water: A finite resource (with pictures and graphs)
Although water covers 75 percent of the world’s surface, 97.5 percent of the earth’s water is salt water; of the remaining 2.5 percent, most is locked away as groundwater or in glaciers.
Water for Food, […]

 
Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
1 November
Georgia’s Battered Face in a Separatist Republic
For 18 months, […]

Rivals’ Visions Differ on Unleashing Innovation
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and CORNELIA DEAN
(NYT) For decades, the United States dominated the technological revolution sweeping the globe. The nation’s science and engineering skills produced vast gains in productivity and wealth, powered its military and made it the de facto world leader.
Today, the dominance is eroding. In 2002, the […]

The Food issue
Farmer in Chief
(NYT Magazine) … with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to […]

See also China, Beijing Olympics and Olympic Protest Primer
Armed Chinese police still occupy Lhasa six months after riots
The continued paramilitary presence in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, suggests that Chinese officials still fear an uprising similar to the deadly protests six months ago. The Guardian, the first Western news outlet to visit the […]

Article published in The MetropolitaIn of Sep. 4
Earlier in the campaign season, once Democrats and Republicans identified their presidential candidates, respectively Senators Obama and McCain, the next question for the chatterers was “Who will be the Veep (Vice President).” This exercise qualified as fun for everyone with prognosticators pondering over the […]

The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy
(Stratfor) The fifth point is the critical one: “As is the case of other countries, there are regions in which Russia has privileged interests.” In other words, the Russians have special interests in the former Soviet Union and in friendly relations with these states. Intrusions by others into these regions […]

Swiss files on rogue nuclear ambitions, CIA dealings destroyed
Switzerland destroyed computer records documenting the business dealings of a family of Swiss engineers with suspected ties to Libya and Iran. Both Swiss prosecutors and international atomic inspectors hoping to discover the full activities of Pakistani nuclear scientist and black-market engineer Abdul […]