From the myway.com article:

Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia’s president on Wednesday, pledging to bolster the country’s economic development and civil rights, in what may signal a departure from his predecessor’s heavy-handed tactics.

Medvedev took the oath of office in the Kremlin’s golden-hued Andreyevsky Hall, bringing to an end Vladimir Putin’s eight years as president. But Putin is sure to continue to wield huge influence in the country.

Little more than two hours after becoming president, Medvedev nominated Putin to be prime minister.

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From the breitbart.com article:
Russia’s use of heavy weapons at this week’s World War II commemoration parades is not intended as a threat to any nation, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

“For the first time in many years heavy military equipment will be used. This is not sabre-rattling. We are not threatening anyone and don’t plan to,” Putin said ahead of the traditional Victory Day parade on Friday.

“This is a demonstration of our growing defence capability…. We are capable of defending our people, citizens, our state, our wealth, which is not small,” he said.

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From the telegraph.co.uk article:
China has secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region, it can be disclosed.

Satellite imagery, passed to The Daily Telegraph, shows that a substantial harbour has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers.

In what will be a significant challenge to US Navy dominance and to countries ringing the South China Sea, one photograph shows China’s latest 094 nuclear submarine at the base just a few hundred miles from its neighbours.

Other images show numerous warships moored to long jettys and a network of underground tunnels at the Sanya base on the southern tip of Hainan island.

Of even greater concern to the Pentagon are massive tunnel entrances, estimated to be 60ft high, built into hillsides around the base. Sources fear they could lead to caverns capable of hiding up to 20 nuclear submarines from spy satellites.

The US Department of Defence has estimated that China will have five 094 nuclear submarines operational by 2010 with each capable of carrying 12 JL-2 nuclear missiles.

The images were obtained by Janes Intelligence Review after the periodical was given access to imagery from the commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe.

Analysts for the respected military magazine suggest that the base could be used for “expeditionary as well as defensive operations” and would allow the submarines to “break out to launch locations closer to the US”.

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Satalitte imagery here.

From the bbc.co.uk article:
Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth.

Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers.

The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice.

One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.

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From loudobbs.tv:
Protesters are gathered New Orleans where President Bush is meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The three leaders are meeting behind closed doors under the auspices of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership”—also known as the North American Union. The SPP/NAU has been a boon for corporate interests and a massive blow to U.S. sovereignty, conducted entirely in secret. Now the protesters are saying enough is enough.

See the video here.

From cosmosmagazine.com:
China has already surpassed the United States as the world’s largest carbon polluter, the authors of a U.S. study said yesterday.

“Our best forecast has China’s CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions correctly surpassing the United States in 2006 rather than 2020 as previously anticipated,” said the study by researchers at the University of California.

The report, written by economic professors Maximilian Aufhammer and Richard Carson of the Berkeley and San Diego campuses respectively, will be published next month in the U.S. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.

Researchers compiled information about the use of fossil fuels in various Chinese provinces and forecast an 11 per cent annual growth of carbon emissions from 2004 to 2010. Previous estimates had set the growth rate at 2.5 to 5 per cent.

According to the paper’s authors, the spike in air pollution by China has largely cancelled out efforts by other countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the .

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From the timesonline.co.uk article:
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is to raise plans for a tunnel to link his country with America when he meets his US counterpart, George W Bush, next Sunday.

The 64-mile tunnel would run under the Bering Strait between Chukotka, in the Russian far east, and Alaska; the cost is estimated at £33 billion.

Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club and governor of Chukotka, has invested £80m in the world’s largest drill but has denied that it is linked with the development.

Proposals for such a tunnel were approved by Tsar Nicholas II in the early 20th century but were abandoned during the Soviet era. If finally built, the tunnel would allow rail connections between London and New York.

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Vladimir Putin is to fulfil an unrealised dream of Joseph Stalin’s by creating a grandiose state cemetery.

In a corner of northern Moscow bulldozers began churning the earth his week in a section of wasteland where Mr Putin and Stalin, the dictator he is said to revere, could one day be laid side by side.

The Federal Military Memorial Cemetery, its designers boast, will be Russia’s answer to America’s Arlington. Arguably the most ambitious architectural project undertaken since the fall of the Soviet Union, it remains to be seen whether the cemetery, due to be completed by 2010, will become the landmark the Kremlin hopes.

There is no doubt that the project encapsulates the Putin era, which officially ends on May 7, though the president is likely to remain Russia’s most powerful man in his new job as prime minister.

The cemetery will be a testament to extravagance, a piece of architectural monumentalism intended to reflect the glory of a resurgent Russia. For the critics, it is also a worrying sign of the Kremlin’s flirtation with its Communist past. The design marks a return to the style many assumed had gone with the end of the Soviet Union.

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Is Europe completely contaminated with defeatist sissies? When The U.S. is as bad as Europe seems to be you will know the world is finished.

Europe, once so glorious now so weak, you are your ancestors shame.

Here is the story.

From the washingtonpost.com article:
China announced Tuesday that it will again sharply increase its military spending this year, budgeting a 17.6 percent rise that is roughly equal to last year’s increase.

Disclosure of plans for a $59 billion outlay in 2008 followed a Pentagon report Monday that raised questions about China’s rapidly increasing military budget, and came less than three weeks before a presidential election in Taiwan, the self-governed island over which China claims sovereignty.

A Chinese government spokesman said the country’s decade-long military buildup does “not pose a threat to any country,” but he warned that relations with Taiwan were at a “crucial stage” and that the island would “surely pay a dear price” if it were to take steps that China viewed as a declaration of independence.

At the same time Taiwanese choose a president, they also will vote on a referendum issue asking whether the island should apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan.

China’s reported $59 billion budget is still a fraction of what the United States spends each year on its armed forces. President Bush last month requested $515 billion to fund the Pentagon in fiscal 2009, a 7.5 percent increase, plus $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The United States has pressed China to be more open about its intentions as the scope of its military capabilities and pace of spending increase. At a Pentagon briefing Monday, David Sedney, deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia, reiterated the U.S. view that China’s defense establishment still severely underreports total spending and has not been clear about its intentions.

“China’s military buildup has been characterized by opacity,” Sedney told reporters, and “by the inability of people in the region and around the world to really know what ties together the capabilities that China’s acquiring with the intentions it has.”

The Pentagon report said China’s near-term focus remains on preparations for potential problems in the Taiwan Strait. But China’s nuclear force modernization, its growing arsenal of advanced missiles and its development of space and cyberspace technologies are changing military balances in Asia and beyond, the report concluded.

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