Another Mexican druglord nabbed. Apparently the US lent a hand in this arrest.
The capture of a brutal druglord accused of ordering massacres, beheadings and the dissolving of bodies in caustic soda marks the second time in less than a month Mexico has taken down one of its most powerful traffickers.
Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as "El Teo," was seized by federal troops Tuesday when they stormed a seaside vacation home near the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.
The arrest of the Tijuana-based trafficker is considered another victory for the enhanced surveillance techniques being cultivated with the assistance of Washington. U.S. anti-drug officials had been helping Mexican authorities track Garcia for more than five months.
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The Economist has an extended look at European defense budgets and their relative sizes.
Defence spending by Britain and France is around 2.5% of their GDP, which is about the world average. This is interesting in that neither Britain nor France, nor any other country in Western Europe, faces any conceivable territorial military threat. German defence spending is considerably lower, but (as Charlemagne noted in a 2008 column) it still fields the only other serious expeditionary force in Europe. In any case, Germany faces no military threat either, nor has there been any serious likelihood of military conflict anywhere in the region since the Yugoslavian wars wound down. The only European countries that face any risk of military conflict in the coming decades are those that border Russia, and indeed the Baltics are increasing their military spending; one could vaguely imagine Poland getting into a dicey situation someday (a blow-up involving Estonia's Russian-speaking minority leads to Russian intervention and Warsaw begins feeling the heat, or something), but it's a stretch, and Poland, too, is increasing its military spending to almost 2% of GDP.
America, for its own reasons, has decided to spend 4.7% of its GDP on its armed forces and on warfighting. But why should Europe match that? For the sake of comparison: India and Pakistan are actual nuclear-armed enemies with disputed territorial claims and huge armies facing each other across a hostile border. Each country is fighting active counterinsurgency campaigns inside its own territory. Yet Pakistan spends 3% of GDP on its military, while India spends just 2.5%, about as much as France. The world abounds in countries that enjoy no American security guarantees, yet spend no more than France does on defence: Brazil, Chile, Vietnam, South Africa, Nigeria, Ukraine, even, by some accounts, Iran. These countries are clearly not "free riding" on America; why should Europe be?
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Al Qaeda, South American rebels, and West African dead zones have all contributed to the rise of a new air smuggling network specializing in drugs, guns, and other illicit traffic.
In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a report to his superiors detailing what he called "the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11."
The document warned that a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other are some of West Africa's most unstable countries.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored, and the problem has since escalated into what security officials in several countries describe as a global security threat.
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Looks like some Iranians hacked a popular Chinese site registered in the US.
A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army redirected Baidu users to a site displaying a political message.
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There - did we manage to miss any corner of the globe? Pretty sure we got every continent except Australia, which is pretty boring right now, anyway.
Oh, wait, wait! This just in - Recruiting news from Australia as they fail to make their target numbers.
Defence recruiting plunged over the past year, despite a surge in spending on advertising, rising unemployment and a spike in inquiries and applications from people keen to sign up.
Revelations that the Australian Defence Force reached just 76 per cent of its recruitment target come after the private contractor charged with recruiting walked away from its $405 million five-year contract in September, only 13 months after winning the job.
The ADF has struggled to attract and retain highly qualified personnel, especially in the navy, which has been forced to cut back submarine operations because of acute crewing shortages.
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Ok, there - that should get everyone.
By: Brant
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