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"To get an idea of the state of mind of the men here in Yemen who run al-Qaeda in the Arabia peninsula, just take a look at what they said about the failed attack on the US airliner on Christmas Day. Framed photos of Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh in Sanaa President Saleh's government has been accused of corruption In a swaggering and ambitious statement, they claimed that they sent the Nigerian student onto the plane, and that he only failed because of a technical fault with the bomb. For them, getting that close counts as the next best thing to a successful mission. And take just one look at the terrain of this country to understand why al-Qaeda is feeling so comfortable here, relaxed enough for one of its leaders reportedly to have moved his wife and family down from Saudi Arabia. Yemen's mountains are rugged, hard to reach, and best of all from a jihadi point of view, they are not controlled by the central government. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula established itself in Yemen after it was forced out of Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of the fact that large swathes of Yemeni territory are controlled by powerful, well-armed tribes, not by a government that is getting closer to the US and its counter-terrorism advisers than ever. "

"If you asked most people on the street which nation produces the most oil most of them would say that the answer is Saudi Arabia of course. But they would be dead wrong. The truth is that Russia is the number one oil producer in the world. Not only that, but Russia is also the number one natural gas exporter in the world. So what does that mean? It means that Russia is the top energy superpower on the globe. Russia pumped more than 10 million barrels of oil per day during November, and now they have done something which will give them even more power over energy. Russia has just finished a new oil pipeline and port complex that enables them to export more oil than Saudi Arabia. On December 28th, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was on hand to celebrate the opening of Russia's first modern Pacific-based oil export facilities. The Pacific port of Kozmino is a project that Putin is extremely proud of, and it promises to literally change the world. So what makes this port so significant? The new Kozmino complex promises to be a gate through which Russia's vast East Siberian oilfields will supply oil for Asia's energy-hungry economies. Notice that the Middle East and the West are not part of that equation. According to Reuters, the first oil transport will load at Kozmino on January 15th. Hong Kong is scheduled to receive that first shipment. But this is just the latest sign that Russia has more than recovered from their past economic woes. In fact, the Russian Bear is back."

"In a luxury hotel at Suweima, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea, the Russians held a "Track II" conference this week designed to send a clear message to the Arab world: "We are back." Medvedev talks alongside... Medvedev talks alongside Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, not pictured, after they signed bilateral accords at the Presidential Palace in Cairo on Tuesday. Photo: AP The conference, covered widely in the Arab world but hardly at all in Israel, took place just weeks after the re-launch - after an absence of some 18 years - of an Arabic version of the Moscow News. It also comes at a time of diplomatic stagnation in the Middle East that has led to increased calls from many quarters - particularly the Palestinians and the EU - for various actors in the international community to step in and impose a solution on the parties. Russia, obviously, wants to be one of these actors. Hence the two-day conference, part of the Valdai Discussion Club, put on jointly by the Ria Novosti, the Russian News and Information Agency funded by the government, and the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the equivalent to the Council on Foreign relations in the US. The organizers invited a slew of Mideast experts from Russia and the region - including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the "State of Palestine," Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey, with a couple of people from the UK, US and France thrown in for good measure - to discuss whether a comprehensive settlement is possible in the Middle East by 2020. The hope of the conference, said Sergei Karaganov of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy at its outset, was to "generate fresh ideas." Forget about it. The real agenda, it seems, was to implant in the Arab public a sense that Russia has returned to the region and is a player. Some 50 Arab media outlets covered the conference, according to its organizers, and Ria Novosti quoted Al Jazeera as saying, "This is perhaps the first large-scale

"The State Department is planning to welcome thousands of immigrants from terror-watch list countries into the United States this year through a "diversity visa" lottery -- a giant legal loophole some lawmakers say is a "serious national security threat" that has gone unchecked for years. Ostensibly designed to increase ethnic diversity among immigrants, the program invites in thousands of poorly educated laborers with few job skills -- and that's only the beginning of its problems, according to lawmakers and government investigations. "There are a lot of holes in this program in terms of security and in terms of fraud," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who has written legislation aimed at killing the lottery. Now, in the wake of the botched Christmas Day terror attack that emerged from Nigeria and Yemen, members of Congress are worried the system could be vulnerable to radicals looking to "play" the visa lottery as a means of reaching the U.S. Here's how it works: to avoid getting stuck with 3.5 million others on a visa waiting list, hundreds of thousands of people put their names into the separate diversity lottery, which rewards countries that typically see low levels of immigration to the U.S. Immediate family are allowed to join lottery winners. Countries like China, where lots of immigrants originate, are excluded. Then a computer in Kentucky picks names at random from the qualified applicants, who need only a high school degree or two years at a job that requires two years of experience. The program accounts for about 10 percent of all immigrant visas each year. Included in the lottery are all four countries the U.S considers state sponsors of terror -- Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Syria -- and 13 of the 14 nations that are coming under special monitoring from the Transportation Security Administration as founts of terrorism. Pakistan is excluded because, like China, it sends over tens of thousands of immigrants each year and doesn't need to be in the lottery