ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

In many ways, America has become the anti-empirical empire, a superpower where many political leaders divorce themselves from facts. Few examples are more glaring or dangerous than the continued denial of global warming despite the latest evidence of impending catastrophe, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains. By Paul R. Pillar The graphic that was on the front page of the New York Times on Saturday is striking. It accompanied a story about how 2014 was Earth’s hottest year on record. There is a bar chart showing how average global temperatures have been rising over the past century and markedly so since the 1970s, and how the ten warmest years have all occurred since 1997. But just as eye-catching is a world map that uses color to depict how temperatures in different areas of the globe in 2014 differed from the average for each area: red for hotter and blue for colder, with the intensity of the color indicating how much of a divergence there was from the average. As would be exp...

The last three decades have witnessed a remarkable rise in xenophobic, deeply conservative, and even extreme right-wing parties across much of Europe.[1] Whereas thirty years ago most xenophobic parties failed to even pass the 5% minimum voter threshold that is typically required to enter government, it can be argued that they now constitute as much as ~28% of the parliament in countries like Austria, and arguably have reached the ~70% level in Hungary.[2] By 1999, the Austrians—who traditionally tout themselves as the “first victims” of the Third Reich—had elected the prominent nationalist and accused Holocaust denier[3] Jörg Haider as the governor of Carinthia and given his Freedom Party more than 26% of the vote in the national elections. Haider proceeded to personally help dismantle multilingual street signs that were erected for the local Slovene minority.[4] The Golden Dawn party, which now has more than ~7% of the national vote in Greece, often marches in the streets of Athens w...

The head of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of Japan's Foreign Ministry and the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister are going to hold their first meeting on a wide range of issues, concerning North Korea. © AFP 2015/ JUNG YEON-JE Head of Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of Japan's Foreign Ministry Junichi Ihara is to discuss a whole range of problems, regarding North Korea with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, a source in Japan's Foreign Ministry told RIA Novosti Thursday. "The whole range of problems, regarding North Korea, will be discussed. It will really be a talk about everything, about all existing problems. As far as I know, it is the first meeting of Morgulov and Ihara, and they will exchange opinions on all matters," the source told RIA Novosti. © AP Photo/ Shizuo Kambayashi According to a statement issued by Japan's Foreign Ministry earlier Thursday, Ihara will visit Moscow on January 22-23 to discuss the "North Korea issue"...

An Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, January 5, 2014.(Reuters / Bill Ingalls) 51179 Russia’s design bureau NPO Energomash is to deliver 60 RD 181 engines for the Antares rocket first stage to American space technology manufacturer Orbital Sciences Corporation. The total cost of the deal is about $1 billion. “We are committed to deliver 60 engines. Three options have been signed, each for 20 engines,” Vladimir Solntsev, executive director of Energomash, told the Izvestia newspaper. “There is a firm contract for 20 engines, which we have started fulfilling, as we are due to supply the first two engines next June.” According to Solntsev, Russia’s government has already issued all the permits required for the deal. The contract envisages restrictions for the use of RD-181 engines in military programs as those rockets cannot be used for military goals. Following an engine failure and subsequent explosion during the Antares launch in October, ...

January 15, 2015 - So many things are happening around the world and time is running out for people to ready themselves for what’s ahead. Financial analysis’s are asking if 2015 will be the year the economy finally crashes or if it will hold out for another few years. We are on the brink of some pretty major events and we need to ready ourselves spiritually, mentally, and physically. In 2013 the US government revealed their plans of mass surveillance, in 2014 the US government revealed their plans of martial law, and in 2015 they very well may be revealing their plans for economic collapse or some other major let down to the American people. In the video below economic forecaster Harry Dent, met with Alex Jones on Infowars to elaborate on the oil crisis and how OPEC has purposefully kept production low in order to destroy Russia’s economy… In attempt to ‘save the sinking ship’ Russia has now pulled out of the Petrodollar which could have devastating effects on us here in the United St...

Prominent Ukrainian MP denounces Obama's weakness, calls him a 'shot-down pilot' By Mikhail Klikushin There were times in Ukraine’s recent history when even the country’s military brass were kneeling before the U.S. Literally. In June 2013, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft received the saber of the Ukrainian Cossack in the city of Kherson from a kneeling Ukrainian high-rank military official. Mr. Tefft nowadays is serving the country as an Ambassador to Russia where no such honors are even imaginable. But that was then—a previous regime. On the surface, today’s Ukraine is much more favorably disposed toward everything Western and everything American because of the exciting wind of transformations that swept through the Ukrainian political landscape last year. Its political culture looks modern, attractive, refined and European. For example, at the end of last year a new law was passed that allowed former citizens of other countries to participate in Ukrainian poli...

Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent scholar residing in İstanbul, with a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans and the Greater Middle East.  Firefighters carry an injured man on a stretcher in front of the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015, after armed gunmen stormed the offices leaving at least one dead according to a police source and "six seriously injured" police officers according to City Hall. (AFP Photo/Philippe Dupeyrat) 4238 The recent violent outrage in Paris that saw cartoonists and other innocents killed is but the latest example of the way in which Muslim extremists nowadays manage to occupy the airwaves and dominate the news broadcasts. But rather than proving that Islam is just a religion that cannot coexist with modern life and values, a closer look at the origins of Islamic extremism and terrorism betrays its indebtedness to geo-political machinations and the legacy of the Cold War...

All three suspects were killed and 16 hostages freed LIZZIE DEARDEN Two days of manhunts and sieges came to an abrupt and violent end in the space of just five minutes today with the deaths of the brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre and a man who seized a Kosher supermarket in an attempt to help them escape. Gunmen Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34, and their alleged associate Amedy Coulibaly all died during the operations. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said several people have been handed preliminary charges in the investigation following the three-day rampage, including unidentified family members of the three suspects. Coulibaly had burst into the Hyper Cacher shop earlier in the day "shooting in all directions", sparking panic and a police lock-down of the surrounding area. Four people were killed as he made his bloody entrance, with their bodies still there when police raided it hours later. After hours of eerie quiet in the Parisian suburb of V...