Neocons

Who are the new leaders influencing economic and political agendas around the world? What will life be like in America, Europe, Japan, or China in the year 2020?

"The terrorist catastrophes in New York and Washington swept away media comment on other global events taking place on September 11, 2001. Virtually obscured on that historic agreement reached in Lima, Peru by the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS) on the Inter-American Democratic Charter. –Lou Dobbs, CNN

Carlyle Capital, the investment fund linked to the private equity company Carlyle Group, said Friday that it was "considering all available options" after it received further margin calls, prompting some analysts to warn that more funds could struggle to meet increasingly tighter margin requirements.

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) today released a study that adopts a critical view of the proposal for a licensing system that would legalize opium cultivation in Afghanistan as a step towards ending the narcotics trade in that country.

The U.S. Army has drafted a new operations manual that elevates the mission of stabilizing war-torn nations, making it equal in importance to defeating adversaries on the battlefield.

The U.S. Energy Department is subsidizing two Russian nuclear institutes that are building key parts of a reactor in Iran that the United States spent years trying to stop, according to a House committee.

The top two U.S. intelligence officials traveled secretly to Pakistan this month to press President Pervez Musharraf to allow the CIA greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories where Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups are all active, according to several officials who have been briefed on the visit.

“In the last six years, Washington has stepped up its sales and transfers of high-technology weapons, military training, and other military assistance to governments regardless of their respect for human rights, democratic principles, or nonproliferation,” according to a report in the current(Jan.-Feb.) “Arms Control Today,” published online by the Arms Control Association (ACA). “All that matters is that they have pledged their assistance in the global war on terrorism.”

An MSNBC correspondent compares Ron Paul to a terrorist on live television, claiming he represents the al-Qaeda wing of his party.

What if the international currency of the future isn’t the dollar, but isn’t the euro either? James D. Grant, the editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer and an expert on financial markets, discusses the “historical anomaly” of currencies like the dollar and the euro as uncollateralized international reserve currencies—that is, ones that aren’t backed by a guarantee that they can be exchanged for something else, such as gold or silver.