The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released its new data about international arms transfers. SIPRI says that its numbers "reflect" a "brewing arms race" in certain regions around the globe. The two areas SIPRI calls attention to are South America and South East Asia.

According to SIPRI, the average volume of worldwide arms transfers for 2005–2009 was up 22% over the previous five years. And between 2005 and 2009 the U.S. remained the world's largest exporter of military equipment, accounting for 30% of global arms exports.

You can access the entire SIPRI Arms Transfers Database here. It contains information about all transfers from seven categories of major conventional weapons from 1950 to the present day.

The New York Times on Sunday broke a story (link below) about Michael D. Furlong, a civilian Defense Department official who allegedly established his own intelligence gathering network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants.

The Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) has claimed responsibility for at least two car bombs that exploded in the southern Nigerian oil city of Warri on Monday (3/15). The bombs went off outside the government building where a program of amnesty for militants was being discussed.

India's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Saturday arrested two men suspected of plotting to attack a petroleum storage facility in Mumbai. An ATS official said the duo, identified as Abdul Latif Rashid (29) and Riyaz Ali (23), had conducted surveillance on an ONGC location in Nhava-Sheva area of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT).

In Georgia Saturday (3/13) night there was what's being described as a "mass panic", after private Georgian television station Imedi TV aired a 30-minute program that simulated a new Russian invasion, including "news" that the airport had been bombed and President Mikheil Saakashvili had been assassinated.

Apparently the show did not make it clear that this was fictional, and many people thought Russia was indeed invading again.

Iranian authorities claimed two victories this weekend against what it says are U.S.-backed cyber threats to Iran's national security.

First on Saturday, Tehran's judiciary announced the arrests of 30 U.S.-funded suspects linked to outlawed opposition groups, who allegedly were using the Internet to collect information on Iranian nuclear scientists.

Then on Sunday, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported that the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Cyber Division had "hacked" 29 websites affiliated with a U.S. espionage network that were allegedly "acting against Iran's national security under the cover of human rights activities".

It is being reported that on Saturday (3/13), Irish police released Jamie Paulin-Ramirez from custody, without charging her.

Paulin-Ramirez is the American woman detained last Tuesday as part of an international probe into a plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who offended Muslims worldwide with his drawings of the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog.

The news that a Colorado woman was arrested in Ireland on Tuesday appears to prove a connection between an Irish anti-terror investigation and Pennsylvania resident Colleen R. LaRose, aka Jihad Jane, who is accused in the U.S. of plotting to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, whose infamous 2007 cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog angered Muslims worldwide.

The Leadville, Colorado woman detained along with six other foreign nationals in Ireland Tuesday (3/9) has been identified as Jamie Paulin-Ramirez. These suspects were accused of the same thing as JihadJane - plotting to kill Swedish cartoonist Vilks. Since then Irish police have freed three suspects without charging them.

The Denver Post reports, "[Paulin-Ramirez' father] said that last year, Paulin-Ramirez began spending considerable time on the Internet in Muslim chat rooms, befriending Jihad Jane and other Muslim extremists -- including Najibullah Zazi, the Aurora airport-shuttle driver who recently admitted his plot to bomb the New York City subway system."