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POPSIsrael 'has 150 nuclear weapons' Most experts estimate that Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the country's Dimona nuclear reactor. The US, a key ally of Israel, has in general followed the country's policy of "nuclear ambiguity", neither confirming or denying the existence of its assumed arsenal.
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POPSIraq warns Turkey over incursion "This would be a unilateral decision and that's why people are resisting that. "That's why the whole government of Iraq and the whole people of Iraq are united really not to see their sovereignty, their territorial integrity undermined by a friendly neighbouring country." The BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says there are fears of a collision between Turkish troops and the Iraqi Kurdish forces which control the area.
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POPSIs Bush Iraq-ing Iran? Pham Binh from MRZine writes in his latest article: The Bush administration's goal is to roll back and contain Iran's influence in the Middle East. Military encirclement, saber-rattling, veiled threats, diplomatic isolation, provocations, and economic pressure are all means to this end. So if regime change is not the aim, is war with Iran on the agenda? Yes. The very success of the Bush administration's aggressive rollback and contain policy is what might lead to war. This requires some explanation.
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POPSBush's Iraq Plan: Goading Iran Into War Still, the European Union understands that the tidal waves of a regional war in the Middle East will reach Europe much sooner than they reach U.S. shores. Whether Europe will stand up for its own values and security and against Bush's war plans, however, remains to be seen. Here, Tehran's offers are likely not inconsequential.
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POPSRemember: Saddam Was Our Man NY Times OpEd from March 14, 2003. The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the United States had backed against Kassem and then abandoned. Soon, Western corporations like Mobil, Bechtel and British Petroleum were doing business with Baghdad -- for American firms, their first major involvement in Iraq. This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it. Yet these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed with some cynicism abroad. George W. Bush is not the first American president to seek regime change in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his advisers are following a familiar pattern.
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POPSWho is the enemy? The best phrase came from a taxi driver in Cairo, right after the invasion of Iraq three years ago, who upon finding out that my brother was half Iraqi and half American said, "Ahhh ... is funny. Your country is attacking your country."
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POPSChina’s Wine's Past and Future Two years ago, archaeologists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences came up with a new theory, based on the discovery in northern China of evidence of fermented wine made from rice, honey and fruit. They pegged the find at 9,000 years old.
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POPSTurkey in vote on Lebanon troops According to the polls, 80 percent of the public is against sending troops to Lebanon. At the moment I post this, the parliament is discussing the subject and in less than a few hours, the vote will begin. A "yes" decision is expected tonight, with the support of AKP represantatives' votes.
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POPSWashington’s interests in Israel’s war Even those who continue to support Israel’s war against Hezbollah agree that it is failing to achieve one of its main goals—to rally the Lebanese against Hezbollah. “Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me.
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POPSThe Generals' War Who loses from this war? The people of Lebanon and northern Israel, of course, and maybe - one day - the rest of us. The civilians in the Israeli government, perhaps including Ehud Olmert. But not Hizbullah, who are now proclaimed as heroes in Muslim nations across the Middle East. Not Bush or Blair, for whom every attack by terrorists - even those motivated by opposition to their policies - is a further vindication of their war on terror. And not the Israeli Defence Forces. Faced with emboldened enemies, they can demand more resources and greater powers. The generals did not intend to lose, but even this disaster has done them no harm. It has made the Israeli people less secure, and therefore more inclined to vote for those who promise to defend them.