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In an interview late Thursday, Dmitry Rogozin also highlighted the lack of cohesion within NATO, saying Moscow is worried about declining public support in Europe for the war.

Russia “is losing 30,000 lives a year to the Afghan drug trade, and a million people are addicts,” Rogozin said. “This is an undeclared war against our country.”

“We are obviously very dissatisfied with the lack of attention from NATO and the United States to our complaints about this problem.”

For years, the allies tried to eradicate poppy crops, but that resulted in a boost to the insurgency as impoverished poppy farmers joined the Taliban. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s new policy of trying to win the support of the population means that these farmers are now left alone, enabling them to tend crops that produce 90 percent of the world’s heroin.

Last month, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said Afghanistan’s cultivation of opium — the main ingredient in heroin — is unlikely to rise or fall dramatically in 2010, after a major drop over the last two years. But even during 2008 and 2009 Afghanistan was producing far more opium a year than the world consumes, the Vienna-based office said.

Russia claims that drug production in Afghanistan has increased tenfold since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime in 2001. Smugglers freely transport Afghan heroin and opium north into Central Asia and Russia, and also on to Western Europe.

Rogozin pointed to Washington’s inconsistency in its attitude to international drug trafficking saying that in contrast to Afghanistan, it was waging a drug war in Colombia because that was the primary source of cocaine that goes to America.

“But in the case of the heroin which goes to Russia, they are doing practically nothing,” he said. “This is not how you treat your friends and partners.”

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the alliance understands Russian concerns, and that the problem affects Europe as well. The most important part of solving the drug trade was helping to defeat the insurgency, and NATO has 120,000 troops trying to do just that, he said.

Appathurai noted that the U.N. cites the Marjah region, where NATO has just completed a large-scale offensive, as one of the world’s foremost opium-producing areas. “By helping re-establish government control there, we are making a substantial contribution to the counter-narcotics effort,” he said.

“We would welcome increased support from Russia for our overall effort and (NATO) has made very specific requests to Moscow which they are considering,” Appathurai said.

Russia contributes logistical support for NATO- and U.S.-led operations by providing a vital land and air transit corridor for the shipment of supplies to the international force. It also services Soviet helicopters and organizes training for the Afghan anti-drug police. But Moscow always has ruled out sending ground troops.

During the Cold War, the Soviets provided military support for the secular Afghan government, and deployed over 100,000 troops to defend it against religious fundamentalists being financed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and other Western nations. About 15,000 Soviet soldiers died in the 10-year war in the 1980s.

“Today we are helping them fight the same fanatics whom they supported against us 20 years ago,” Rogozin noted.

He expressed concern over weakening support for the nine-year war from America’s European allies, “who ended up in Afghanistan without really knowing what they were doing there.”

“The result is falling public commitment to the war,” he said.

Last month, the Dutch government collapsed because it tried to comply with a NATO request to keep its 2,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan. The Dutch crisis, and growing public opposition in other European countries to further involvement in Afghanistan, has sparked fears that other NATO nations might also pull out their troops.

“NATO is still dominated by the United States, and European allies still fall in line just to keep the alliance going, (by) participating in U.S.-initiated military adventures, even though their national interests in doing so are far from clear,” said Ian Buruma, a professor of democracy at Bard College in New York.

“It is hard to see how this can continue for much longer.”

In a related development, NATO’s top official said Russia’s military doctrine — which still identifies the Western military alliance as a top threat — is outdated and “does not reflect the real world.”

1. It’s all about the food.
2. The food issue will drive the zombies. Bubba may be all ammo’d and camo’d up for a rape and pillage fest, but he’s really only looking for a can of beans and a piece of pork fat when you get right down to it. People are scared of the dark forest and will stay as close to anything that constitutes civilization at all costs – even their lives. That goes double for the marauding types… Safeway and Ace Hardware are at First and Main, not some remote GPS coordinate. I see the deepest and most remote places as a redoubt, and need to cast my lot with the edible plants and grubs lurking in the wild.

The call for China to abandon modesty about its global goals and “sprint to become world number one” comes from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, who warns that his nation’s ascent will alarm Washington, risking war despite Beijing’s hopes for a “peaceful rise.”

“China’s big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power,” Liu writes in his newly published Chinese-language book, “The China Dream.”

“If China in the 21st century cannot become world number one, cannot become the top power, then inevitably it will become a straggler that is cast aside,” writes Liu, a professor at the elite National Defense University, which trains rising officers.

His 303-page book stands out for its boldness even in a recent chorus of strident Chinese voices demanding a hard shove back against Washington over trade, Tibet, human rights, and arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.

“As long as China seeks to rise to become world number one … then even if China is even more capitalist than the U.S., the U.S. will still be determined to contain it,” writes Liu.

Rivalry between the two powers is a “competition to be the leading country, a conflict over who rises and falls to dominate the world,” says Liu. “To save itself, to save the world, China must prepare to become the (world’s) helmsman.”

“The China Dream” does not represent government policy, which has been far less strident about the nation’s goals.

Liu’s book testifies to the homegrown pressures on China’s Communist Party leadership to show the country’s fast economic growth is translating into greater sway against the West, still mired in an economic slowdown.

The next marker of how China’s leaders are handling these swelling expectations may come later this week, when the government is likely to announce its defense budget for 2010, after a 14.9 percent rise last year on the one in 2008.

“This book represents my personal views, but I think it also reflects a tide of thought,” Liu told Reuters in an interview. “We need a military rise as well as an economic rise.”

Another PLA officer has said this year’s defense budget should send a defiant signal to Washington after the Obama administration went ahead in January with long-known plans to sell $6.4 billion worth of arms to Taiwan.

“I think one part of ‘public opinion’ that the leadership pays attention to is elite opinion, and that includes the PLA,” said Alan Romberg, an expert on China and Taiwan at the Henry L. Stimson Center, an institute in Washington D.C.

“I think the authorities are seeking to keep control of the reaction, even as they need to take (it) into account,” Romberg said in an emailed response to questions.

Liu argues that China should use its growing revenues to become the world’s biggest military power, so strong the United States “would not dare and would not be able to intervene in military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”

“If China’s goal for military strength is not to pass the United States and Russia, then China is locking itself into being a third-rate military power,” he writes. “Turn some money bags into bullet holders.”

China’s leaders do not want to jeopardize ties with the United States, a key trade partner and still by far the world’s biggest economy and military power.

Yet Chinese public ire, echoed on the Internet, means policy-makers have to tread more carefully when handling rival domestic and foreign demands, said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

“Chinese society is changing, and you see that in all the domestic views now on what China should do about the United States,” said Jin. “If society demands a stronger stance, ignoring that can bring a certain cost.”

Liu’s book was officially published in January, but is only now being sold in Beijing bookstores.

LIGHTING A FIRE IN AMERICA’S BACKYARD

In recent months, strains have widened between Beijing and Washington over trade, Internet controls, climate change, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and President Barack Obama’s meeting with Tibet’s exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, who China reviles.

China has so far responded with angry words and a threat to sanction U.S. companies involved in the Taiwan arms sales. But it has not acted on that threat and has allowed a U.S. aircraft carrier to visit Hong Kong.

Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said he wanted trade friction with the United States to ease. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg is due to visit Beijing this week.

Liu and other PLA officers, however, say they see little chance of avoiding deepening rivalry with the United States, whether peaceful or warlike.

“I’m very pessimistic about the future,” writes another PLA officer, Colonel Dai Xu, in another recently published book that claims China is largely surrounded by hostile or wary countries beholden to the United States.

“I believe that China cannot escape the calamity of war, and this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years,” writes Dai.

“If the United States can light a fire in China’s backyard, we can also light a fire in their backyard,” warns Dai.

Liu said he hoped China and the United States could manage their rivalry through peaceful competition.

In a blunt warning issued in a key report, the Bank also said that it is too early to conclude that unemployment has peaked.

It said that although thus far many workers had been willing to accept pay reductions, or reluctantly to work part-time, employees may have failed to realise that the costs of goods and services are likely to rise faster than their wages in coming months.

The Bank report said that one risk was that employees would be “unwilling to accept a further squeeze in real wage growth”, adding: “That could lead them to push for higher pay settlements this year. But if companies cannot afford the increase, then they may shed labour in order to contain labour costs.”

It said: “There remains a risk of further falls in employment if, for example, the recovery in demand proves more sluggish than businesses have expected. Businesses may respond to any future squeeze in profits by shedding staff.”

The warning comes amid worries that Britain could fall victim to a double-dip recession, slumping backwards no sooner than the economy had escaped it.

Such worries were reinforced further on Monday as a Bank policymaker and Monetary Policy Committee member Kate Barker conceded that the economy could shrink for a period this year.

It added that although most of its regional experts anticipate no major change in unemployment in the coming months, there is a significant chance that, with some companies vulnerable to demands from their creditors, businesses may feel they have no option other than to cut jobs further.

The report said this “may imply further redundancies if the economy does not grow sufficiently quickly.”

The report provides a “dose of realism” about the prospects for households and employment, according to John Philpott, chief economist of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

First Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak cancelled talks in Cairo and flew to hospital for gallbladder surgery. Then came an Israeli gift of broken glass and an eerie power outage in the “Hall of Remembrance”.

By the time the lights flickered back on, Biden’s Middle East fortunes were sealed with an Israeli announcement that it would build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers, ignoring U.S. and Palestinian objections.

It was an embarrassing setback that put a spotlight on the challenge the U.S. administration faces getting Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Biden’s visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank was a largely scripted affair — a reflection of the sensitive issues involved as well as what many see as the Obama administration’s fixation with staying on message.

Biden is famous for blunt talk and sometimes embarrassing gaffes, and his office appeared to take precautions by allowing no questions at his public press appearances.

“He does have a history of mis-speaking,” said Stephen Hess, an expert on presidency at the Brookings Institution. “He’s aware of it, his people are aware of it. The president is aware of it. (And) given the sensitivities on this particular trip, it may be the better part of wisdom to keep quiet.”

The first sign of trouble in Israel came when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented Biden with a glass-framed gift honouring his mother.

The prime minister inadvertently shattered the glass when he put his elbows down on the podium, spokesman Mark Regev said.

In Judaism, broken glass is often thought to be a reminder of an imperfect world, and many say the Jewish wedding tradition of stomping on a glass is an expression of sadness at the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

At a later tour of Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum, Yad Vashem, the lights in the “Hall of Remembrance” unexpectedly went out as a prayer for those killed was chanted, catching Biden’s security detail by surprise.

One Biden aide described the moment as “off-putting” but others said it worked well given the mournful context. In the darkness, the only light in the cavernous room came eerily from the eternal flame reflecting off the ceiling.

“It’s the Middle East,” said an unfazed senior White House adviser, a veteran of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. “It could mean anything.”

An Israeli expert of Jewish mysticism, known as Kabballah, said Biden’s visit came at a time “when there is tremendous energy” before the Passover holiday that starts later this month, marking the biblical escape of the Jews from Egypt.

“It could be something negative, like what is referred to as the ‘evil eye’,” said the expert, who declined to be named. “But in Kabballah, we also believe that sometimes before a great light is revealed, there have to be a series of disturbances.”

David Wilder, a spokesman for Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron, said he did not necessarily believe “all of this happened because of divine intervention” but he saw the mishaps as “very symbolic”.

“When the United States doesn’t play its cards right, it gets a gift of broken glass,” he said, noting that “one of the plagues in Egypt was darkness.

This latest report on Chinese corporate espionage tactics is only the most recent installment in a long and sordid history of spies and sex. For millennia, spymasters of all sorts have trained their spies to use the amorous arts to obtain secret information.

The trade name for this type of spying is the “honey trap.” And it turns out that both men and women are equally adept at setting one — and equally vulnerable to tumbling in. Spies use sex, intelligence, and the thrill of a secret life as bait. Cleverness, training, character, and patriotism are often no defense against a well-set honey trap. And as in normal life, no planning can take into account that a romance begun in deceit might actually turn into a genuine, passionate affair. In fact, when an East German honey trap was exposed in 1997, one of the women involved refused to believe she had been deceived, even when presented with the evidence. “No, that’s not true,” she insisted. “He really loved me.”

Maybe they should have, because 2012 also is the beginning of a three-year period in which more than $700 billion in risky, high-yield corporate debt begins to come due, an extraordinary surge that some analysts fear could overload the debt markets.

Indeed, worries about the growth of national, or sovereign, debt prompted Moody’s Investors Service to warn on Monday that the United States and other Western nations were moving “substantially” closer to losing their top-notch Aaa credit ratings.

Sovereign debt aside, the approaching scramble for corporate financing could strain the broader economy as jobs are cut, consumer spending is scaled back and credit is tightened for both consumers and businesses.

The apocalyptic talk is not limited to perpetual bears and the rest of the doom-and-gloom crowd.

Even Moody’s, which is known for its sober public statements, is sounding the alarm.

“An avalanche is brewing in 2012 and beyond if companies don’t get out in front of this,” said Kevin Cassidy, a senior credit officer at Moody’s.

Private equity firms and many nonfinancial companies were able to borrow on easy terms until the credit crisis hit in 2007, but not until 2012 does the long-delayed reckoning begin for a series of leveraged buyouts and other deals that preceded the crisis.

That is because the record number of bonds and loans that were issued to finance those transactions typically come due in five to seven years, said Diane Vazza, head of global fixed-income research at Standard & Poor’s.

In addition, she said, many companies whose debt matured in 2009 and 2010 have been able to extend their loans, but the extra breathing room is only adding to the bill for 2012 and after.

Despite a report in the China Daily that Google China was still filtering content on its search engine and the firm’s own insistence that its policies had not changed, people in Beijing found that it wasn’t necessarily the case.

NBC News, using the publicly accessible Internet, tried searching for three sensitive topics normally blocked in China.
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The first phrase typed into Google.cn was “Xinjiang independence,” and the top result was a Wikipedia entry about the East Turkestan independence movement.

The second search attempted was the “Tibet Information Network,” a former non-profit group that was critical of China’s policies in the region.

Tank man image now available
For the final search, “Tiananmen Square massacre” was typed in, deliberately choosing the more controversial phrase instead of “Tiananmen Square incident.”

Once again, a long list of results appeared, detailing the military crackdown on protesters on 4 June 1989. The famous picture of a lone man blocking a line of tanks was among them.

Each time, simply clicking on the links to the results enabled the sites to be accessed without any difficulty.

“It does seem that the filters are not fully working,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of danwei.org, a Beijing-based Web site that tracks media and the internet in China.

“But no one knows exactly what’s going [on],” he said.

The searches proved erratic and on some occasions access to controversial Web sites was denied. But there was a significant change compared to six months ago.

Messages from NBC News Beijing at Google China’s offices have been left unreturned.

Chinese news reports say Google is on the verge of shutting its China site, Google.cn, and some say it has stopped censoring results.

Google denies censorship lifted
However, a Google spokesman in the U.S., Scott Rubin, told the U.S. that censorship had not stopped and would not confirm whether Google.cn might close.

“We have not changed our operations in China,” Rubin said by phone from Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.

CEO Eric Schmidt said last week something would happen soon, and Rubin said he had no further details.

Another Google spokesman told msnbc.com that the company suggested the change may have resulted from alterations made by the Chinese government.

Google says it is in talks with Beijing following its Jan. 12 announcement that it no longer wants to comply with Beijing’s extensive Web controls.