UNITED NATIONS — A double-digit surge in Beijing’s military spending has raised serious but discreet concerns in the international community concerning the rise in China’s military might. And while the 18 percent jump in the 2008 military budget to an officially understated $60 billion has largely been focused on force modernizations, there’s little doubt that the People’s Republic of China has become a looming threat to democratic Taiwan’s sovereignty and as well as that of other regional states.
An incisive and thoughtful study by Washington’s respected American Enterprise Institute conceded, “Current trends are unfavorable to Taiwan. And consequently they pose challenges to U.S. interests.” The Report Strengthening Freedom in Asia, stated, “China’s growing power has provided Beijing with the resources to alter the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait, upsetting the dynamic equilibrium that has prevented the outbreak of major cross-Strait conflict for more than fifty years.” Thus the report adds, “Taiwan remains a potential international flash point for a great power war
Fresh fighting in reported in Sudan's oil region   
Indeed the PRC’s modernized and growing missile, naval, and air force arsenal arrayed offshore against Taiwan, has already likely tipped the balance of power towards Beijing. And ...   more »

Roughly 30,000 to be offered deals as part a strategy for fuel prices
ATLANTA - Delta Air Lines said Tuesday it will offer voluntary severance payouts to roughly 30,000 employees — more than half its work force — and cut domestic capacity by an extra 5 percent this year as part of an overhaul of its business plan to deal with soaring fuel prices.
Executives at Atlanta-based Delta said in a memo to employees that the airline’s goal is to cut 2,000 frontline, administrative and management jobs through the voluntary program, attrition and other initiatives.
A spokeswoman says that if more than that amount agree to take the voluntary severance, that will be allowed. The severance program primarily affects mainline Delta employees. It will not affect Delta pilots, who have a union contract with the company, and employees at Delta regional carrier Comair, which is based in Erlanger, Ky.
Delta had 55,044 total full-time employees as of the end of last year.
Oil prices recently cracked $111 a barrel, nearly twice what they were a year ago.
The memo from Chief Executive Richard Anderson and President Ed Bastian did not mention Delta’s talks with Northwest Airlines Corp. about a combination ...   more »

More than three in four Americans think the United States is in a recession according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released on Tuesday.
Not since September 1992, two months before President George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid, have so many Americans said the economy was in such bad shape, USA Today reported.
Seventy-six percent of to those polled said the economy is in recession, compared to 22 percent who said it is not, USA Today said.
Asked if the United States could slip into a depression lasting several years, 59 percent said it was likely and 79 percent said they were worried about it, the newspaper reported.
The poll was completed on Sunday, the same day the U.S. Federal Reserve offered to extend direct lending to security firms for the first since the Great Depression and backed the JP Morgan Chase buyoutof investment bank Bear Stearns.
The poll results reflect a slide in confidence that economists say could make the U.S. economy worse, the article said.
Brian Bethune of economic forecaster Global Insight said the pessimism "creates more problems."
"When people experience higher gasoline prices, higher heating costs, fewer employment opportunities, housing prices going down, the common sense conclusion ...   more »

Organized crime executions reach 3,008 in last 15 months
WASHINGTON – A murderous slaughter of almost unimaginable proportions is taking place below America's southern border – and it goes almost unnoticed by U.S. government officials here.
On Friday, a seventh victim gunned down in a private law office in central Mexico died at a hospital as police investigate links between the firm and the country's organized crime syndicates whose revenues are made from selling drugs, smuggling people into the U.S. and arms trafficking.
Five men and a woman died Thursday in the attack in the city of Guadalajara, according to the Jalisco state attorney general's office. Three were lawyers and the others were employees, and some of the victims were found with their hands tied. Authorities had not made any arrests.
Several leading Mexican newspapers reported, citing anonymous state judicial sources, that one of the lawyers may have been defending Archivaldo Ivan Guzman, the son of alleged Sinaloa drug cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The elder Guzman escaped from federal prison in 2001 in a laundry cart after bribing guards.
The son, also known as "El Chapito" or "Little Chapo" was sentenced in February to five years for money ...   more »

House Democrats recently adopted a budget with massive tax hikes, many of which are directed at those Americans who can least afford them.
By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, this budget will raise income taxes not only on those in the highest income brackets, but raises the lowest bracket from 10 percent to 15 percent as well. Estates would again be taxed at 55 percent. The child tax credit would drop from $1,000 to $500. Senior citizens relying on investment income would be hurt by increases in dividend and capital gains taxes. It's not just that the Democrats want to raises taxes on the rich; they want to raises taxes on everybody.
The problem is, policing the world is expensive, and if elected officials insist upon continuing to fund our current foreign policy, the money has to come from somewhere. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost us more than $1 trillion.
The Democrats' budget gives the president all the funding he needs for his foreign policy, so one wonders how serious they ever were about ending the war. While Democrats propose to tax and spend, many Republicans aim to borrow and spend, which ...   more »