China defensive about role in African arms trade;
PLA welcomes easing of cross-Strait tensions

Another Latin American ally for Moscow;
Russian counterintelligence works overtime

First direct cross-Strait flights between China and Taiwan;
Moscow and Beijing in bid to reaffirm military partnership

Russia's building boom collapses;
A chilly reception for the new "Solidarity"

Transition in the Russian Orthodox Church;
Backward from privatization

Is Iran seeking nuclear weapons? For some, despite the mounting evidence, this is still very much an open question. Not, however, for Delpech, director of strategic affairs at the French Atomic Energy Commission and senior research fellow at the Center for International Studies in Paris. "[T]he quest for an atomic weapon is the only credible explanation" for the pattern of delay, secrecy, and obfuscation exhibited by Iran's ayatollahs over their nuclear effort, she writes.

China's space program and U.S. security; GMD gathers steam; Moscow plans new missiles...; ...while plans for the "third site" waver; Japan soldiers on