ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

New research shows Pakistan's growing purchases of Chinese military hardware have helped Beijing become the world's fifth biggest exporter of conventional arms, overtaking Britain. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says Pakistan bought 55 percent of China's weapons exports in the years 2008 to 2012. Pakistan and China are longtime allies. A Pakistani defense analyst says Islamabad's main purchases include Chinese tanks, fighter jets, patrol boats, guns, radars and other communications equipment. In an interview with VOA, retired Pakistani general Talat Masoud says Islamabad uses Chinese technology to develop home-made weapons with the goal of becoming more self-sufficient. He says it is harder for Pakistan to secure such technology transfers from American and European sources. "China is a more reliable partner at times of crisis because [Pakistan's] experience is that whenever there has been an escalation of tension with India, or there h...

The United Nations is expressing alarm at a spate of recent attacks in Tanzania against people with albinism. The body parts of albinos - people who are born without skin pigmentation - are used by witchdoctors in ritual potions meant to bring power and wealth. Four such attacks took place in a 16-day period this year - three of them against children. Police in Tanzania say they are investigating the attacks, and also are appealing to the public to come forward with any information. The U.N. human rights agency called the latest attacks on albinos "abhorrent." It urged the Tanzanian government to do more to end the violence and discrimination against the group. The string of attacks began on January 31 in Tanzania’s central Tabora region. A group of men chopped off the arm of a seven-year-old albino boy, killing him and the 95-year-old grandfather who tried to shield him. On February 5, in the northern Simiyu region, armed men attacked the home of a seven-month-ol...

The old proverb, “two heads are better than one,” was put to the test recently when researchers electronically linked the brains of two rats, prompting the animals to work together to accomplish a common goal. The researchers fitted each rat with a device that allowed one rat to send brain waves to the other, even when separated by long distances.  The rat that received the transmitted information used it to help perform a simple task, which earned both rats a reward. When the rats’ joint efforts were unsuccessful, the animals used the device as a two-way communicator, to mentally collaborate with each other until they performed the task properly. “These experiments demonstrated the ability to establish a sophisticated, direct communication linkage between rat brains, and that the decoder brain is working as a pattern-recognition device,” said Miguel Nicolelis from Duke University’s School of Medicine . “So basically, we are creating an organic computer that solves a puzzle.” ...

More than a week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered U.S. special forces to leave a strategically key area near the capital, officials from both sides are still struggling to resolve the issue. Karzai ordered the elite American units out of Wardak province after residents complained that they, and Afghans working with them, were torturing and killing civilians - an allegation strongly denied by the United States. At the same time, the Afghan leader also accused the U.S. and NATO of trying to forge an agreement between the Taliban and his political opponents. The escalating tensions reached Brussels Monday, when NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the charges that international forces are colluding with the Taliban "an absolutely ridiculous idea." Meanwhile, ISAF spokesman Günter Katz told reporters in Kabul that NATO will eventually hand over security responsibilities for Wardak province, but that the alliance's "Afghan partners" must ta...

Iraq's southern city of Basra has been hit by a rare double car bombing, with at least 10 people killed and 16 others wounded. The most serious attack happened Sunday at a bus terminal in a town on the outskirts of Basra. Provincial security committee chief Ali al-Maliki said 10 people were killed. Minutes earlier, another car bomb exploded in a parking lot in central Basra, wounding several people. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks in and around the normally-peaceful port city, which is predominantly Shi'ite. Minority Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida frequently attack Shi'ite targets to try to undermine the government of Shi'ite Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Many Iraqi Sunnis have been staging protests against Mr. Maliki in recent months, accusing him of discriminating against their community. Al-Qaida has been trying to exploit that discontent to trigger a sectarian civil war. Al-Qaida's Iraqi affiliate issued a statement Su...

Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to work together with the United States, even while acknowledging Beijing has what he called "unavoidable" differences with Washington. Mr. Xi made the comments Tuesday during a meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. It was his first meeting since taking over as China's president, last week. "In the China-U.S. relationship, we have enormous shared interests. But, of course, unavoidably, we have some differences. But, as long as we both approach and handle this relationship from a strategic and long-term perspective, I believe we will be able to always keep to the set direction of this relationship." Lew also emphasized the importance of the Sino-American relationship, telling Mr. Xi the world's two leading economies have a "special responsibility to maintain strong, stable and sustained growth in the world." "The president is firmly commit...

An unexplained partial power outage has shut down a crucial cooling system at Japan's tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), says equipment used to inject cooling water into spent fuel pools has been without electricity since Monday night, local time. TEPCO is investigating whether a broken switchboard is to blame for the outage. TEPCO spokesperson Masayuki Ono told reporters Tuesday pool temperatures had risen slightly. But he said even the worst-affected reactor would remain safe for at least four days at the current rates. "We believe there is still plenty of time before the temperature in the pools exceeds what we regard as the danger level of 65 degrees, so before that happens we will be doing our best to restore power." Ono says TEPCO has a backup plan to inject cooling water into the pools if power cannot be restored within that timeframe. There is a danger of radiation sp...

Iraqi officials say bombings and other attacks have killed at least 23 people in mainly Shi'ite areas of the capital, Baghdad. The violence Tuesday also wounded 80 others, a day before the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Sunni Muslim militants in Iraq frequently attack the country's majority Shi'ites to inflame sectarian tensions and undermine the Shi'ite-led government.