Huawei Technologies has an aggressive plan to become the No 1 provider of telecommunications services, Down Under and across the globe, in less than five years.
Unfortunately, in the recent past, this Asian giant has played a key role in helping the Iranian government, the world's most dangerous state sponsor of terror, to monitor, track, and kill those who oppose it.
Does Iran pose a direct threat to the U.S. homeland? For years, more than a few policymakers in Washington have taken quiet comfort in the notion that, no matter how vexing a challenge Iran and its nuclear ambitions might be, the Islamic republic remained a distant adversary — one not yet capable of putting America at risk.
These days, there is a growing sense—both within the Washington Beltway and beyond—that Israel could soon strike Iran to prevent it from going nuclear.
Is an Israeli attack on Iran in the offing? Recent weeks have been rife with renewed speculation about the possibility of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Most famously, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported recently that no less senior an official than Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta thinks Israel could bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities by this summer.
When the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was engulfed by the “Arab Spring” last March, many waxed optimistic that regime change in Syria wouldn’t be long in coming. But ten months into the ensuing civil war, Assad’s regime shows no signs of fading away quietly. To the contrary, it has doubled down on repression, waging an extended campaign of official brutality against its own people in its bid to remain in power. As of mid-January, the death toll from Syria’s uprising had topped 6,000, with no let-up in sight.