Katyn: a guilt of many, not just Stalin

The publication on Internet sites of the American National Archives of the documents on Katyn killings, with archive materials from the State Department, CIA and FBI carefully collected and put together, led to a long forgotten debate in Poland.

If the American and the British leaders knew the truth about the summary execution of the Polish officers by Stalin’s secret police in 1940, why didn’t they reveal the truth as soon as they could? Why did they have to wait until the cold war reaches its zenith in the early 1950s to make their accusations formal? It was only in 1953 that congressman Ray Madden’s Commission, charged with investigating the matter, came out with an official statement putting the blame on the Soviet side on the basis of the materials available in the US.

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The fall of the Assad's regime only a matter of time

Marwan Muasher 

Interviewed by Natalia Bubnov

The situation in Syria and around is rapidly intensifying. Events there are the topic of conversation with Marwan Muasher, vice-president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in charge of the study of the Middle East at the Washington headquarters of the Foundation and the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. He also was the first ambassador of his country to Israel, the head of the Ministry of Information, the spokesperson of the Government of Jordan, the director of Jordan Information Bureau in Washington.

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Bear in a China Shop

It's not the booming economy that's about to burst -- it's bigger than that. Social discontent and, yes, income inequality could rip China apart at the seams.

BY ARTHUR KROEBER

Time and again, China has defied the skeptics who claimed its unique mixed model -- an ever-more market-driven economy dominated by an authoritarian Communist Party and behemoth state-owned enterprises -- could not possibly endure. Today, those voices are louder than ever. Michael Pettis, a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management and one of the most persistent and well-regarded skeptics, predicted in March that China's economic growth rate "will average not much more than 3% annually over the rest of the decade." Barry Eichengreen, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, warned last year that China is nearing a wall hit by many high-speed economies when growth slows or stops altogether -- the so-called "middle-income trap."

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Syria, Russia & the China: A Game of Oil & Ammo

Syria marked the first anniversary of its uprising -- and almost immediate crackdown -- last week. As the army expands its use of tanks and artillery against towns loyal to the rebellion, as many as 8,000 have been killed, and nearly a quarter-million have fled their homes. The United Nations remains incapable of agreeing to place water-tight sanctions on the country, however, thanks to opposition from Russia (still supplying arms to the regime) and China (still taking its oil).

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Year 2011: Crises, Revolutions, Threats, Leaders and Outsiders

What are the events that occurred in the past year? Will those crucially affect the situation on the planet?

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US Never Learns From Past

Interview with Dmitry Babich, a political commentator with the Voice of Russia.

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Russian & China: partnership or donation? Part I

Military-technical cooperation of Russia and China, even 10 years ago, yielded major bulk of Russian arms exports, today this boosts to even larger supplies. Nevertheless, this partnership has given China a great technical breakthrough. What are the real results and future prospects of cooperation between Russia and China?

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Soviet T-34 medium tank vs American M4A2 Sherman

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Flanker vs Eagle-Story of Aleksandr Kharchevskiy

There has been talk of mock combat between Su-27's and F-15's when a Su-27 and a Su-27UB made a goodwill visit to Langley AFB in the USA.

Depending on whose story you believe - the Russian's wiped the floor with the Americans (according to the Rusians) - or there was no mock combat - the Russians cheated and turned what was some formation flying into air combat and caught the F-15's off guard (according to the Americans).

I make no conclusions - I am just reporting what has been claimed

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Reya El-Salahi: Mixed Up in the Middle East

Growing up between the UK and the Middle East, I thought nothing strange of celebrating Christmas, Eid and Hanukkah. It wasn't until I started school that I realised not everyone comes from a family like mine.

My British-Jewish mother met my Afro-Arab Muslim father at university in 1970s London. I am the product of this unconventional relationship.

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The Nazi War Machine of WWII X 6 [English]

This is the story of the creation of the Nazi war machine. We trace its origins from the Freikorps and street thugs battling in the German streets after the great war, to the secret German army that was trained in Soviet Union to hide from the prying eyes of the victorius Allies. We show the growth of the Panzer Corps, the mighty Luftwaffe and the feared SS. This is the most comprehensive look at the military force that took Europe by storm during WWII.

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The Afghanistan-Pakistan War at the End of 2011

Strategic Failure? Talk Without Hope? Tactical Success? Spend Not Build (And Then Stop Spending)?

The US faces hard decisions in the Afghanistan/Pakistan War that are growing steadily harder as the time before transition runs out, the US faces growing budget pressures, and the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan becomes more unstable. The Burke Chair has prepared a report that assesses the chances for strategic success based on new US government, UN, and NGO reporting.

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Protector of Chinese Kingdom: Missile Technology

Over the past few years, Russian statesmen, politicians and pundits have plagued many tons of paper,uttered hundreds of thousands of words  about the deployment of U.S. missile defense system. Meanwhile, developments in BMD were active (and perhaps also under way), not only in the United States but in China, moreover it is not quite unproductive.

45years ago - February 23, 1966 the Government Commission on Defence Science, Technology and Industry of the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) adopted a step by step detailed program of a national missile defense, which was given the code name Project 640. Prone to conspiracy Chinese proceeded in this case of the so-called Directive 640 - governing the wishes expressed in a couple of years earlier by Mao Zedong in his conversation with Qian Syuesenem - the founder of the missile and space programs of China.

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Cold War 2000: Saudi Counter-Revolution

Late at night on Sunday, August 7, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia delivered an unusual televised rebuke to Syria’s Bashar al-Asad calling on him to “stop the killing machine” and immediately begin reforms.  The Saudi move against Damascus was only the latest twist in Riyadh’s newly energetic foreign policy. Since March, Saudi Arabia has been in the forefront of a regional counter-offensive designed to blunt the momentum of the Arab uprisings and shape the new regional order to its liking. After a decade of a regional order defined by an alliance of “moderate” autocracies aligned with the United States and Israel against a “Resistance” axis, the Saudis have responded to an age of revolution by leading what many now call a regional counter-revolution. This has placed them at odds with the Obama administration in key theaters, disrupted long-standing alliances, and brought Riyadh to the forefront of regional diplomacy.

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Engineering Britain SuperWeapons

So when it comes down to prove that Britain can & would compete with the Americans & Russians on any possible technical grounds British scientists & engineers came up with gigantic machines termed as British SuperWeapons. But little do they know that the limped British economy after WWII does no good in developing weapons of their own, rather they will ‘rent’ American made weapons to safeguard their territory, though gone are the days when this British territory was ‘completely’ independent!

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Russian Aviation School

In the academic buildings of the former Air Force Engineering Academy named after Professor NE Zhukovsky (Moscow), located in the Petrovsky Park, began dismantling the equipment and to send them to Voronezh, where a single military training Air Force Research Center.

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Lock 'N Load with R. Lee Ermey–13 Episodes

Viewers this is a season every weapon lover must see. The best part is that it contains 3D animations to let the viewers understand the basic working of each weapon, something that usually is missing in contemporary programs. Bit a little biased, in all of the programs Le Jeremy pays no equal homage to Russian or even European based weapons & in the episodes of Guns, Rocket & artillery this biased is much prominent; but what can you expect from a retired US army Colonel!!

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Fall of the Soviet Union—The Inside Story

The fall of the Soviet Union and end of communism in Russia caught the world by surprise twenty years ago. In a  Q&A, Ambassador James F. Collins, the most senior American diplomat in Russia at the time, describes how the United States responded as history unfolded and reflects on the personal diplomacy between the Cold War foes as an August  1991 coup ultimately led to the breakup of the Soviet Union in December.

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Rocket and Space Corporation Energia The Legacy of S.P.Korolev

Viewers just want to share this amazing book that I  just had finished reading.

When the world's first artificial satellite sped across the night skies the impact was far-reaching and profound. Not only was this clearly one of the great scientific achievements of the modern age but it was also a catalyst which would propel the United States out of its post-War lethargy. The Political significance of the lift-capability of the R-7 rocket aroused the attentions of the West while irrevocably altering the face of human history. The Space Age had begun. The story of the R-7 rocket and its many offspring is one which still remains a mystery in the West. Now in the post-Cold war era the remarkable accomplishments of the engineers of Rocket & Space Corporation Energia are finally reaching eager readers in the West.

The pages within contain a pictorial record encompassing the entire history of the Russian space programme, from its inception at the end of World War II to the present day.

The sheer wealth of original and durable technology is a testament to the ingenuity of a remarkable people and gives a unique glimpse a the future of the historic partnership between East and West.

Published for the first time completely in English, Rocket & Space Corporation Energia features rare pictures and diagrams including:

Sputnik - Yuri Gagarin's Vostok capsule - the world's first Space Stations - the enormous lunar rocket N1 - Russia's interplanetary probes and the Buran shuttle.

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Moon Machines

The right tools for the job... The U.S. Moon missions would never have gotten 10 feet off the ground without the pioneering engineers and manufacturers and the amazing machines they created to turn science fiction into history-making headlines. From nuts and bolts to rockets and life support systems, every piece of gear was custom made from scratch to perform cutting-edge scientific tasks while withstanding the violent rigors of space travel. Now here's your chance to climb aboard the capsule, put on a spacesuit and learn the real stories behind the right stuff.

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