President Obama is still vastly more popular internationally than his predecessor, George W. Bush, but after three and a half years of his presidency world opinion of US policy has fallen sharply, according to the 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey released on Wednesday.  In particular, Obama's drone program in foreign nations -- including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia -- has fueled mistrust and a ...

By Juan Carlos Perez Microsoft urged enterprises on Tuesday to adopt Windows 8, its upcoming OS for desktops, laptops and tablets which some industry experts believe faces an uphill battle for acceptance by IT professionals. At a keynote speech at TechEd North America in Orlando, Microsoft officials outlined a series of reasons for enterprises to seriously consider upgrading to Windows 8, which is expected ...

By David Ignatius The Iran nuclear negotiations may not be headed toward a dead end in Moscow next week, as feared. Iran’s top negotiator has said he is ready to “engage on the proposal” from Western nations for Iran to export its supply of 20 percent-enriched uranium as a first step toward a broader nuclear deal. Saeed Jalili, the Iranian chief representative in the talks, made the comment in a phone conve ...

More than 70 people are feared to have been killed in Afghanistan after a landslide triggered by a double earthquake buried homes under earth and rock, officials said Tuesday. Two shallow quakes less than half an hour apart shook the mountainous Hindu Kush region on Monday, starting a slide of debris that smashed into a remote village, burying mudbrick houses to a depth of up to 100 metres (300 feet). In Bu ...

Last week, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that NATO had inked a deal to move its equipment and vehicles out of Afghanistan via the so-called “Northern Distribution Network,” or NDN. NATO thinks this northern evacuation route gives them a way to wind down the war without having to rely on Pakistan. NATO is overselling this new deal. While the NDN certainly lessens the need for Pakista ...

LinkedIn Hacked by Russian hackers - 6.5 mln passwords compromised A large set of LinkedIn passwords have reportedly been posted on a Russian hacker web forum, landing millions of accounts in danger of being cracked. ­Thus far, most passwords remain encrypted – the hackers who stole the data asked their “colleagues” to help decipher the files. However, the encryption is quite easy to break, so the users mus ...

By George Friedman The U.S. military for years has debated the utility of counterinsurgency operations. Drawing from a sentiment that harkens back to the Vietnam War, many within the military have long opposed counterinsurgency operations. Others see counterinsurgency as the unavoidable future of U.S. warfare. The debate is between those who believe the purpose of a conventional military force is to defeat ...

Simon Denyer It was supposed to be the motor for the next phase of India’s economic resurgence, but the country’s manufacturing sector has hit a brick wall, according to new data released Thursday. Dragged down by a sluggish manufacturing sector, India’s economic growth rate slowed to 6.5 percent in the 2011-12 fiscal year, its slowest rate in nine years and well below the 8.5 percent recorded a year earlie ...