Arlington, Va. (UPI) May 26, 2009 - When the U.S. Department of Defense "rebalanced" its military aircraft programs on April 6, they forgot about buying new fighters to protect the United States. Remember the scare in April when the backup Air Force One made low circles over New York City for White House photographers? It looked for a moment like an F-16 was chasing the jumbo jetliner, bringing back chilling memories of ... morecyberwar
+ Obama to release cyber security report on Friday
Washington (AFP) May 26, 2009 - President Barack Obama is to release the results of a 60-day review of US cyber security policy on Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. "The report is an important first step towards securing our nation's cyber infrastructure," Gibbs told reporters. "The administration recognizes the very serious threats public- and private-sector networks face from cyber crime ... morenuclear-doctrine
+ NKorea, Iran throw roadblock for Obama
Washington (AFP) May 26, 2009 - North Korea and Iran have thrown cold water on President Barack Obama's vision of dialogue with US foes - and experts warn there may be little he can do for now to change their minds. North Korea on Monday detonated an atomic bomb as powerful as the one that ravaged Hiroshima, brazenly defying Obama's calls both for dialogue and for a global ban on nuclear tests. On the same day, Presid ... moremissiles
+ After nuclear blast, NKorea fires missiles
Seoul (AFP) May 26, 2009 - North Korea reportedly fired two short-range missiles on Tuesday, in a move set to heighten tensions after its latest nuclear weapons test drew global condemnation. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to consider the options after Pyongyang's test of a nuclear device on Monday, which some estimates said was almost as powerful as the atom bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagas ... moreiran
+ Iran sends six warships to international waters: report
Tehran (AFP) May 26, 2009 - Iran has sent six warships into international waters including the Gulf of Aden, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, just days after it test-fired a new missile that can reach some parts of Europe. "We have dispatched six warships to international waters and the Gulf of Aden," naval commander Habibollah Sayari was quoted as saying in the Jomhuri Eslami. "This mission shows our increas ... more
Paris (AFP) May 26, 2009 - North Korea's claimed second nuclear test appears to have been a relatively small blast that is only a fraction of the size estimated by Russia, an expert said on Tuesday. "The yield is about four kilotonnes equivalent of TNT, with an uncertainty range from three to eight kilotonnes," Martin Kalinowski, a professor at the Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker Centre for Science and Peace Research ... 
Arlington, Va. (UPI) May 26, 2009 - U.S. President Barack President Obama faces a crisis in security as daunting as that in the economy. Simply stated, the costs of operations and support -- in essence, the day-to-day costs of running the U.S. Department of Defense -- are eating up the defense budget. Operations and support costs now account for two-thirds of all defense expenditures and show every indication of continuing to ri ... 
Washington (AFP) May 26, 2009 - US President Barack Obama's administration faces an uphill battle to win enough support from China and Russia to press an increasingly bellicose North Korea to change tack, analysts said Tuesday. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly on Tuesday welcomed "very strong statements" from China and Russia over Pyongyang's nuclear test as he looked "forward to working" with them on drafting a UN Sec ... 
Kabul (AFP) May 26, 2009 - Afghanistan's top rights body released Tuesday its findings into the disputed casualty toll from US air strikes this month, saying up to 97 civilians, most of them children, may have been killed. Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said insurgents involved in the May 4-5 fighting in the southwestern province of Farah had knowingly put civilians at risk but the military ... 
El Segundo CA (SPX) May 27, 2009 - Raytheon has been awarded a $54 million U.S. Navy contract to retrofit Super Hornet block II aircraft with APG-79 active electronically scanned array radars. The award by the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., calls for APG-79 AESA radars to be retrofitted into lots 26 to 29 of the F/A-18E/F aircraft. The units will replace the APG-73 radars currently installed in the ... 
Washington (UPI) May 26, 2009 - The Lebanese will go to the polls next month to vote in a crucial parliamentary election, the outcome of which will decide not only the country's immediate political future, but how much economic and military aid Lebanon will receive -- if any -- from the United States and from the Europeans. At stake is whether this small but geopolitically important nation on the eastern end of the Me ... 
Washington (UPI) May 26, 2009 - Russia's behavior on the international scene can be correlated very closely to the price of oil and gas on world markets. A couple of months ago, when oil had sunk to $35 a barrel and the Russian economy was plummeting like a stone, the Kremlin was being cooperative. Now that the oil price is back above $60 and the Russian state budget is looking more promising, the Kremlin returned ov ... 
Beijing (AFP) May 26, 2009 - Chinese pharmaceutical exports are safe, a senior official said Tuesday, dismissing media reports that the country was a major exporter of fake or shoddy drugs as "sensational." "I cannot agree with some foreign media allegations that China has become a major exporter of fake drugs," Bian Zhenjia, deputy commissioner of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), told reporters. ... 
Paris (AFP) May 26, 2009 - Exiled Chinese dissidents who survived the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstration said on Tuesday that, after 20 years, China should be held to account for the bloodshed. Speaking at a Paris news conference organised by late designer Yves Saint Laurent's businessman partner Pierre Berge, former protester Zhou Qing said: "The government owes us the truth, and owes it to Chinese ... 
Beijing (AFP) May 26, 2009 - Hundreds of angry tea farmers attacked a police station in southern China after rumours spread that one man had been killed in custody for fighting for farmers' rights, state media said Tuesday. The attackers damaged the station in Guangdong province with stones and bricks and set police vehicles on fire in Saturday's incident, the China Daily said of the latest in a string of attacks on ... 
Seoul (AFP) May 27, 2009 - North Korea said Wednesday it was abandoning the truce that ended the Korean war and warned it could launch a military attack on the South, two days after testing an atomic bomb for the second time. The announcement came amid reports that the secretive North, which outraged the international community with its bomb test Monday, was restarting work to produce more weapons-grade plutonium. ... 
Geneva (AFP) May 27, 2009 - US and Russian negotiators will hold a new round of talks next week on replacing the START nuclear disarmament treaty in Geneva, a US spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. "US and Russian negotiatiors will continue talks on an agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty June 1 to 3 in Geneva," the spokesperson at the US mission in the western Swiss city told AFP. No further ... 
Washington (UPI) May 27, 2009 - There has been no war between the major industrial powers of the world that girdle the Northern Hemisphere for almost 64 years since the end of World War II. But other forms of warfare abound. So far the first decade of the 21st century has been an improvement on many before it, but it has still been a far from a peaceful one. An ongoing genocide continues in Darfur in western Sudan ... 
Moscow (RIA Novosti) May 28, 2009 - Russian arms exports are expected to increase by $700-$800 mln in 2009 despite the global credit crunch, state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said on Wednesday. "Rosoboronexport sells an additional $700-800 million [worth of weaponry] every year. Despite the crisis, 2009 will be no exception," company official Valery Varlamov said. The arms export monopoly sold $6.75 billion worth of ... 
Washington (AFP) May 27, 2009 - There are no signs suggesting North Korea has restarted work at its nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to make more weapons-grade plutonium, a US defense official said on Wednesday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP he was not aware of any resumed activity at the plant at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. The comment came despite South Korean media reports that steam ... 
Washington (AFP) May 27, 2009 - The United States is unlikely to begin boarding North Korean ships in search of weapons of mass destruction despite the Stalinist state's latest nuclear and missile tests, analysts say. But the tests are giving renewed importance to a six-year-old US-led effort that has enlisted 95 countries in an often secretive effort to prevent the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. ... 
Arlington, Va. (UPI) May 27, 2009 - The still young administration of U.S. President Barack Obama can have a significant, early positive impact on national security by directing the Department of Defense to move forward aggressively on Performance-Based Logistics. It should also take the necessary steps to educate Congress on the value of PBL and oppose misguided attempts by some members to create barriers to a more efficient ... 
Washington (UPI) May 27, 2009 - Last Thursday's face-off between President Barack Obama speaking at the National Archives and former Vice President Dick Cheney shortly thereafter at the American Enterprise Institute brilliantly exposed what is arguably the greatest threat to the nation. Yet, understandably, no one took notice. After all, both Obama and Cheney were out to defend their records regarding the incendiary issues ... 
Seoul (AFP) May 27, 2009 - North Korea has test-fired five short-range missiles since conducting a nuclear test two days ago, South Korea's defence ministry said Wednesday. The ministry said the North fired two missiles on Monday -- one fewer than earlier reported -- and three on Tuesday. It had previously refused to confirm media reports of the launches. All were fired off the east coast of the communist state ... 
Astana (AFP) May 27, 2009 - Security officials in Kazakhstan said Wednesday that the recently imprisoned former chief of the country's nuclear power agency illegally sold uranium mining rights to overseas companies. Former Kazatomprom boss Mukhtar Dzhakishev took part in crooked deals that squandered the Central Asian state's uranium resources and netted him tens of thousands of dollars, the KNB security service said. ... 
San Francisco (AFP) May 27, 2009 - Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz said Wednesday that the pioneering Internet firm would be willing to sell its online search business to Microsoft but only for "boatloads of money." Bartz's comment came during an onstage interview at an annual All Things Digital technology conference run by The Wall Street Journal in southern California. "If there's boatloads of money and there's the ... 
Beijing (AFP) May 27, 2009 - China will send buying missions to Taiwan with orders worth billions of dollars to boost the island's struggling economy, the mainland government said Wednesday, in a fresh sign of warming bilateral ties. Seven to nine Chinese business delegations are expected to visit Taiwan in the period until September, according to Yang Yi, spokesman of the Cabinet-level Taiwan Affairs Office. ... 
Moscow (AFP) May 27, 2009 - Russia must focus on technology and innovation to modernize its economy or risk falling behind other world powers, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. "We need to move forward, to put the economy on an innovative track," Putin told an audience of business people in Moscow. "Otherwise, doing nothing, we will simply preserve the current not very effective model which depends ... 
Sydney (AFP) May 27, 2009 - Australian miner OZ Minerals said Wednesday it had received the official green light to sell its Martabe gold and silver project in Indonesia to a Hong Kong-listed investment company. Australia's foreign investments review board found the 211-million-US-dollar sale of Martabe to China Sci-Tech (CST) posed no foreign investment objections, OZ said. "This is an important step towards ... 
Shanghai (AFP) May 27, 2009 - New loans from Chinese banks are expected to reach about 600 billion yuan (88 billion dollars) in May, roughly the same as April, local media reported Wednesday. New loans have been extended at a moderately fast pace, and the accumulated sum for the first half of the year will likely total around six trillion yuan, the China Securities Journal said, citing sources at major banks. ... 
Washington (AFNS) May 27, 2009 - Air Force officials discussed the importance of space as a warfighting domain before members of the Senate May 20 on Capitol Hill. Senior Air Force leaders in the space realm answered questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Force Subcommittee, telling them that Air Force officials were postured to make the most of their assets as part of the joint fight. ... 
Wessling, Germany (SPX) May 27, 2009 - Dr Edith Maurer and Alessandro Codazzi are young, at ease and laugh a lot. They do a job which carries a great deal of responsibility: as a team, the two control the German TerraSAR-X radar satellite from the German Space Operations Centre (GSOC) located at the German Aerospace Centre (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen. No signal leaves the control room an ... 
Seoul (AFP) May 28, 2009 - South Korea and the United States put their troops on higher alert in the Korean peninsula Thursday after the North said it was ending a truce in force for half a century and warned of a possible attack. Seoul's defence ministry said air and ground forces were keeping a closer watch on the tense land and sea border with the communist North after Pyongyang said it was abandoning the armistice ... 
Madrid, Spain (SPX) May 29, 2009 - A group of researchers from the LGC Chemical Metrology Laboratory in the United Kingdom and the University of Oviedo, Spain, have come up with a method to detect how the proportions of isotopes in a chemical element (atoms with an equal number of protons and electrons but different numbers of neutrons) vary throughout the length of a single hair. The mid-term objective is to be able to use ... 
Arlington, Va. (UPI) May 28, 2009 - Policymakers and pundits in the nations of the European Union have watched their language very carefully in their discussions of the Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic of Georgia last year. They say that the situation in Georgia is regrettable, but somehow unavoidable. Nobody in Europe really said to Russia: "Get out of Georgia, or else." The painful truth was that there was no ... 
Washington (AFP) May 28, 2009 - US President Barack Obama Thursday renewed pressure on Israel but rejected a timetable for his peace drive, noting domestic pressures heaped on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As Obama met Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas for the first time as president, he called for a halt to settlement building on the occupied West Bank, as his administration sparred with Israel over the ... 
Seoul (AFP) May 28, 2009 - The atomic bomb which North Korea tested Monday was probably less powerful than hoped because it was detonated incorrectly, according to one expert citing seismic data. The explosive, while larger than the first test in October 2006, was still far short of the expected yield of a crude Hiroshima-type bomb, according to Jeffrey Park, director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies. ... 
Anseong, South Korea (AFP) May 28, 2009 - North Korea hailed its latest nuclear test as an inspiration to its people, but refugees fleeing the impoverished state say the money should be used to feed the hungry instead. "When North Korea conducted the first nuclear test, I took great pride in it. I felt my country was so powerful then," said a 35-year-old defector at a South Korean resettlement centre southeast of Seoul. "I heard ... 
New Delhi, India (RIA Novosti) May 29, 2009 - India has dropped Russia from a $1-bln tender to supply six aerial tankers for the Indian Air Force due to poor after-sales maintenance services, the Hindustan Times cited the air force chief as saying. The Indian Air Force has been operating a fleet of Russian Il-78 aerial tankers for six years and announced a global tender for an additional six aircraft three years ago. The Russian Il-78 ... 
Lancaster PA (SPX) May 29, 2009 - Micro Systems has achieved a significant milestone on the Korea Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (KMSAM) program. Working as a key team member with Composite Engineering, the company has integrated its MONTAGE ground control station with the CEi developed BQM-167i high performance aerial target. In early May, 2009, the Korean missile successfully engaged the target system and the target ... 
Arlington, Va. (UPI) May 28, 2009 - For several decades the U.S. Department of Defense has pressed for a different way of maintaining military equipment and acquiring services, one that would both be less costly and provide greater benefit to the warfighter. Since 2001 the Department of Defense has settled on Performance-Based Logistics as the most desirable way of streamlining the system for maintaining weapons systems and ... 
Porong, Indonesia (AFP) May 28, 2009 - With no justice from her government, Indonesian villager Parti has her own plans for the company executives blamed for unleashing a mud volcano that buried her village three years ago. Throw them in the steaming, stinking sludge and let them burn, she says. "Let them burn to death so they can feel my suffering," said the 55-year-old mother of two, one of thousands of bitter victims who ... 
Beijing (AFP) May 28, 2009 - Relatives of people killed when China crushed the Tiananmen protests called Thursday for help in finding out what happened to victims unaccounted for, days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the crackdown. The "Tiananmen Mothers," a group of 128 relatives, also asked for an investigation into the military's actions on June 3-4, 1989, when tanks rolled towards Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds ... 
Hong Kong (AFP) May 28, 2009 - The publisher of a memoir by deposed Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang on Thursday defended the book following an attack by Beijing-backed media that made a rare mention of the 1989 democracy protests. Zhao was ousted over his sympathy with the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing which were crushed by army on June 4, 1989 with the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands. Bao Pu, the publisher ... 
Hong Kong (AFP) May 28, 2009 - How would you react if one million of your customers were suddenly stopped from coming into your shop? Matt Mullenweg just shrugged. The 25-year-old American is the founder of Wordpress, software that allows computer users worldwide to easily create their own websites, or blogs. The simplicity of Wordpress has made it one of the world's top blogging platforms six years after it was set ... 
Washington (UPI) May 29, 2009 - Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld in "The Transformation of War" popularized the view that large-scale conventional military operations have become outmoded and inconceivable. Versions of this idea are held across the political spectrum in the United States, from liberal Democrats who believe, along with Europeans, that economic aid and diplomacy are far more important than ... 
Seoul (AFP) May 30, 2009 - Unfazed by international anger at its second nuclear bomb test, a defiant North Korea was said Saturday to be preparing to launch a long-range missile. The United States stressed it would never accept the North as a nuclear-armed state and warned that more atomic tests could spark an arms race in East Asia. "A train carrying a long-range missile has been spotted at the weapons research ... 
Singapore (AFP) May 30, 2009 - The United States warned Saturday it would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea while China called for calm amid signs that Pyongyang was preparing to stage a new long-range missile exercise. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told a high-level security forum in Singapore that North Korea's defiant acts, including an atomic bomb test earlier this week, could spark an arms race with serious ... 
San Diego CA (SPX) Jun 01, 2009 - The Northrop Grumman-developed MQ-8B Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (VTUAV) successfully completed the latest set of fully autonomous flight operations onboard the USS McInerney (FFG-8) in support of dynamic interface testing. This was a critical step for the U.S. Navy MQ-8B Fire Scout toward Operational Evaluation (OpEval), scheduled for later ... 
Washington (AFP) May 29, 2009 - The US military is moving ahead with plans to create its first "cyber command" designed to bolster America's potential to wage digital warfare as well as defend against mounting cyber threats, officials said on Friday. After President Barack Obama announced Friday his plans to overhaul cyber security policy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to soon formally propose the new cyber ... 
Islamabad (AFP) May 29, 2009 - Pakistan's military said Friday soldiers had cleared another militant stronghold and killed 28 militants over the last 24 hours of its offensive against the Taliban in the northwest district of Swat. "Security forces continued with cordon and search operation and successfully cleared the stronghold of miscreants at Peochar village," the military said in a statement providing no further detai ... 
Tehran (AFP) May 29, 2009 - Former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi said on Friday that he is prepared to hold talks with the international P5-plus-1 group over Iran's nuclear drive if he wins next month's presidential election. "I agree to talks with 5-plus-1," Mousavi told journalists from international news networks. But Mousavi said Tehran would continue its nuclear programme. "We will not give (up) anything for ... 
Kabul (AFP) May 29, 2009 - The US military said Friday that troops killed 35 militants in clashes and air strikes in Afghanistan, the latest in a recent upsurge of heavy battles in insurgent strongholds across the war-torn country. The fighting erupted Thursday when Afghan and US-led troops came under heavy fire while on patrol in southern Zabul province, the military said. "The combined forces returned fire and ... 
Beijing (AFP) May 31, 2009 - Authorities in China are bracing for the 20th anniversary of the deadly June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, a pivotal moment that still haunts the nation. The way the government will likely mark the sensitive date on Thursday -- with deafening silence -- shows it is keenly aware of the emotional scars that remain after the army ended six weeks of peaceful rallies ... 
Beijing (AFP) May 31, 2009 - Former top Chinese Communist official Bao Tong was purged for supporting the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, but he says his frustrations with the system started decades before. "China's people have wasted 60 years," Bao, now one of the country's top political dissidents, told AFP recently -- before authorities moved him out of Beijing to wait out Thursday's 20th ... 
Seoul (AFP) June 1, 2009 - North Korea is stepping up naval landing exercises amid growing tensions with South Korea, which is not ruling out an attack on one of its islands, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Monday. The North has conducted shooting drills or used high-speed boats for landing exercises and has banned ships from some areas of the Yellow Sea until the end of July, Yonhap reported. "North ... 
Seoul (AFP) June 1, 2009 - An unrepentant North Korea appears to be pushing ahead with preparations to launch another long-range missile, defying global condemnation of its nuclear test, South Korean officials said Monday. The secretive communist state was also said to be stepping up military drills near the border with the South, which is on heightened alert for a possible repeat of the deadly naval clashes seen in ... 
Jerusalem (AFP) May 31, 2009 - Israel began its largest-ever exercise on Sunday to test the response of emergency services to a "doomsday" mix of missile attacks, suicide bombings and natural disasters. The five-day exercise will simulate simultaneous rocket strikes from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and missile attacks from arch-foes Syria and Iran. "The mere fact that Israel is preparing with such an exercise improves ... 
Hancom AFB MA (SPX) Jun 02, 2009 - Equipping warfighters with the technology to detect moving targets in combat gained momentum when Electronic Systems Center officials here, in concert with prime contractors and other organizations, recently completed a key flight milestone for the Multiplatform Radar Technology Insertion Program. "At this point, we're delivering on the promise of advanced radar capability for the Global ... 
Miami FL (SPX) Jun 02, 2009 - Ronald F. DeMeo, M.D., MBA, president of Radiation Shield Technologies (RST), has announced RST's introduction of the new Demron-W High Energy Nuclear/Ballistic IED RDD RED Shield, the world's first and only blanket that provides total protection against ballistics, improvised explosive devices, dirty bombs and all types of radiological and nuclear incidents. "RST's new Demron-W Nuclear ... 
Nasiriyah, Iraq (AFP) June 1, 2009 - A plague of snakes has caused panic in Iraq's southern province of Nasiriyah, biting cattle and worrying residents as poisonous reptiles flee their dens in the country's water-deprived marshes. "We have been surprised in recent days by the unprecedented number of snakes that have fled their habitat because of the dryness and heat," said Wissam al-Assadi, a veterinary officer in Chabaysh town ... 
Tbilisi (AFP) June 1, 2009 - Controversial NATO military exercises in ex-Soviet republic Georgia ended Monday with Tbilisi hailing the drills as a success despite internal unrest and fury on the part of Russia. "Despite the tense internal political situation, Georgia has managed to very successfully fulfil its obligations within the framework of partnership with NATO," Deputy Prime Minister Giorgi Baramidze said in tele ... 
Washington (AFP) June 1, 2009 - US lawmakers face a slew of key debates before the August recess, with President Barack Obama urging them to back his ambitious agenda with bills on healthcare reform and global warming, and the confirmation of a new Supreme Court judge. The US Congress was back in session Monday after a week's recess with a packed program in the coming weeks before the month-long summer vacation starts on ... 
Washington (UPI) Jun 1, 2009 - The current democratic government in Iraq supported by U.S. forces, whatever its many weaknesses, is still there, with no viable alternative produced by the insurrectionists in sight. Nor can we say that Iraq, daily carnage notwithstanding, is in total chaos. Conditions in that country under the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are not remotely comparable to ... 
Macau (AFP) June 1, 2009 - The latest giant Macau casino complex, City of Dreams, opened its doors Monday, a high-stakes test of whether a reclaimed swamp in the gaming haven can avoid sinking into obscurity. Backed by scions of two gaming dynasties, the 2.4 billion US dollar complex will eventually offer more than 500 casino tables and 1,500 gaming machines, as well as top-end restaurants, shops, hotels and a lavish ... 
Beijing (AFP) June 1, 2009 - China ramped up security at Tiananmen Square days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on demonstrations there, questioning visitors and blocking journalists trying to report on Monday. The dramatically tightened controls appeared to reflect official fears of any attempts to commemorate the bloody crackdown that ended seven weeks of pro-democracy protests, leaving hundreds, perhaps ... 
