ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

French farmers from the Farmers Confederation union demonstrate with a flock of sheep outside the Louvre on March 28 ahead of debates on the Common Agricultural Policy. MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images Summary The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy essentially consists of a combination of subsidies to agricultural producers, supported by import barriers for agricultural products and incentives for exports. It accounts for roughly 40 percent of EU budget expenditures. It is a source of contention among EU member states; some want greater subsidies and others want the policy reformed or annulled altogether. In the long run, the Common Agricultural Policy is likely to make up a smaller percentage of the bloc's budget than it does now. However, food security, specifically domestic production, will continue to concern European leaders, and agricultural producers will remain politically significant in most EU countries. Reform of the policy in the coming years will focus on mo...

  Mariel port in Artemisa province, Cuba, during its inauguration Jan. 27.(ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Cuba is making meaningful progress toward reforming its economy. Recent changes center on the port of Mariel and the nearby industrial zone Cuba is building. The Cuban government hopes that the area will become a major container port and a destination for high-tech investment. On April 16, the government released the details of a new investment law approved by the Cuban parliament March 29 . The law sets the stage for a much more favorable investment climate for foreign companies, at least in theory. Historically, Brazilian companies have had the most success in forming partnerships with Cuba. The island nation's ability to take that experience and apply it to a broader set of investors will depend on its political will. But the availability of Venezuelan oil supplies that Cuba depends on is in question , and economic improvements are increasingly urgent. Analysis F...

Iran has finished diluting half of its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium to five-percent purity and is to convert the rest to uranium oxide, an Iran nuclear official says. Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Sunday that the dilution of enriched uranium is in line with a landmark nuclear deal Iran signed with six world powers in Geneva late last year. “As per the Geneva agreement, we have to dilute half of the 209 kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium and oxidize the other half,” he said. Kamalvandi added that Iran has just finished the dilution process and has three months to convert the remaining half to uranium oxide. The uranium oxidization process “has not yet started and the reason for this delay is that its production line is not ready,” he said. On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran is complying with the terms of its nuclear agreement with six world powers. Iran and the six world powers...

The United States plans to deploy troops to Poland and Estonia to conduct drills with its allies, amid rising tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine, report says. The US is to send 150 troops to participate in nearly two weeks of military exercises, The New York Times reported. The planned exercises by the US are part of a broader NATO plan to expand its presence in East Europe. Over the past two months, the US has beefed up its presence in East Europe as Ukraine grapples with spiraling crisis. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday that the US will continue to boost its military presence in the Black Sea. General Philip Breedlove, head of US forces in Europe, said earlier this week that NATO would continue to augment its presence in East Europe. “We’ve had a paradigm shift, change, gone through a period where I think we thought we were past the time when military force would be used to change international borders in Europe,” he said. The US Air Force said recentl...

Email intercepts that included the original copies of anti-Semitic leaflets distributed in Eastern Ukraine have now been shown to be part of an elaborate false flag hoax to sabotage recent US-Russian talks. The hoax, a “game theory warfare” operation, was meant to “sucker punch” both Russia and the US. If those responsible, in this case the New York based ADL, were caught, and they have been, there would be no consequences. The ADL is “untouchable.” When Secretary of State Kerry expressed his revulsion at Nazi leaflets demanding that Jews in Ukraine “register” with a non-existent government agency, little did he know he was the victim of an elaborate and highly dangerous false flag hoax. Anonymous Ukraine, the group that intercepted emails outlining false flag terror attack plans made by the US Embassy in Kiev in March, has done it again. Emails intercepted between Washington DC offices tied to the Anti-Defamation League sent to neo-Nazi extremists in the Ukraine were the sources of t...

It conjures up visions of sci-fi movies and video games but advances in high-tech weaponry are raising fears of a space arms race. China is looking to boost its military power in space. Visiting air force headquarters on Monday, President Xi Jinping told officers to 'speed up air and space integration and sharpen their offensive and defensive capabilities'. Beijing maintains that its space programme is peaceful but that stance was questioned when China used a ground-based missile to destroy one of its own satellites in orbit in 2007; and a rocket launch last May, billed as a research mission, was suspected of being a test for a new anti-satellite weapon. The US has developed its own futuristic weaponry and is planning to deploy the world’s first-ever combat laser. The Laser Weapon System looks like a small telescope, but it's powerful enough to fire laser beams through steel. The laser is capable of shooting down things like enemy drones, but unlike in the movies, you will ...

Pro-Russian armed men reportedly take control of Ukrainian troop carriers in Slovyansk, as soldiers are "taken hostage". Pro-Russian armed men have taken control of Ukrainian troop carriers that were driven into the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk, the Reuters news agency reported. A soldier manning one of the carriers now under the control of pro-Russian separatists said on Wednesday, that he was a member of Ukraine's 25th paratrooper division from Dnipropetrovsk, and that they had switched support to Russia. "All the soldiers and the officers are here," he said. "We are all boys who won't shoot our own people." The news comes as Ukraine's defence ministry said a pro-Russian armed group had taken two of its soldiers "hostage" in the separatist eastern region of Lugansk. The ministry said an officer and a soldier were seized by "extremists" and taken to an unknown destination after they pulled over to repair their vehicl...

By ABC Obviously if there is bloodshed in the east, I think that president Putin will be forced to take some sort of measures. I think that what people don't understand in the West is that there are strong feelings running in Russia. Download Audio Transcript  " ABC " - CHRIS UHLMANN: Western governments say Russia is orchestrating the violence in Ukraine. As you would expect, the view on this crisis is very different in Russia. In a phone call, president Vladimir Putin told his US counterpart Barack Obama that the speculation was unfounded. So to get a Russian view of the crisis, I spoke with Alexander Nekrassov, who is a former adviser to the Kremlin. Alexander Nekrassov, the West is saying that Russian soldiers are behind the unrest in eastern Ukraine. Is that correct? ALEXANDER NEKRASSOV: The Russian government has already indicated several times - and very recently foreign minister Lavrov said - that Russia has no presence in eastern Ukraine at all - neither soldiers...