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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 07:39am Oct 17, 2002 EST (# 4971 of 4975)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

FISK - Presidency Perfect - Saddam declares his

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=343254

Who cannot recall the imperishable Auden poem on a dictator. "Perfection of a kind was what he was after/And the poetry he invented was easy to understand." President Saddam only writes novels, but what could be more perfect than 100 per cent? His 99.96 per cent vote was in 1995, when a few doubting voters might have thought Saddam would not survive. This time, the 0.04 per cent was clearly shaken out of its lethargy.

No wonder the White House was so snotty. "Not a serious vote," Ari Fleischer, George Bush's press secretary, said yesterday. Of course. Mr Bush, whose election majority left a lot to be desired, would have loved that 100 per cent.

Not long ago, Hosni Mubarak claimed the presidency of Egypt with 99.98 per cent of the vote. No snotty comments from Mr Fleischer then, because Egypt is on "our" side – and over the decades, Arab voters have produced some extraordinary results

lchic - 07:46am Oct 17, 2002 EST (# 4972 of 4975)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

East Asian Economies - (Bali fall out)

"" The heady days when the talk was of when the Asian tigers would catch up with the industrial world have been replaced with speculation about whether those economies can ever return to the growth rates they enjoyed in the 1980s and 1990s. At best, the nightclub bomb in Bali on October 12th is bound to increase concern about the economic outlook in the region. At worst, if the bomb is followed by a sustained terrorist campaign, possibly extending beyond Indonesia, economic recovery could be delayed indefinitely.

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1389458

lchic - 07:50am Oct 17, 2002 EST (# 4973 of 4975)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

lchic - 07:57am Oct 17, 2002 EST (# 4974 of 4975)
~~~~ It got understood and exposed ~~~~

Canberra-Jakata

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,812903,00.html

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