Current Events in Asia-Pacific

From DefenseNews N. Korea Declares 'No Sail' Zone Off West Coast AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 25 Jun 2010 09:55 SEOUL - North Korea has announced a ban on shipping off part of its west coast and South Korea is watching for any signs of missile tests, the defense ministry in Seoul said June 25. "The move is seen as part of a routine exercise by North Korean troops, but we are closely monitoring their activities," a spokesman told AFP. The ministry declined to confirm a report by Yonhap news agency that the no-sail zone was declared from June 19-27 near the western port city of Nampo, north of the disputed inter-Korean sea border. It is unclear whet…

New Indian Express report

How China Got There First: Beijings Unique Path to ASBM Development and Deployment (China Brief, Jamestown Foundation)

China expands runway, harbour at Woody Island (Jane's)

From Defence Aerospace New Helicopters Selected for the NZ Defence Force (Source: New Zealand Ministry of Defence; dated March 31, web-posted April 4, 2005) Minister of Defence, Mark Burton, announced today that NH Industries’ NH90 helicopter has been selected to replace the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s ageing Iroquois. The new helicopters will represent another significant step in re-equipping all three services of the NZDF. “The NH90 is a modern, very capable helicopter with a growing international customer base and assured long-term support. It has been designed to meet current and future requirements and provides an excellent long-term investment. …

Here's an excellent premise for a scenario, IMO. U.S. Detection Plane Leaves Japan Amid North Korean Nuclear Concerns By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, TOKYO DefenseNews A U.S. military plane capable of detecting radioactive particles in the air has left southern Japan Oct. 5 amid concerns North Korea could soon test a nuclear bomb, reports said. The WC-135C plane flew from the U.S. Kadena airbase in Okinawa in the direction of the Korean peninsula shortly before noon, the Japanese public network NHK reported. The Kyodo news agency also reported the departure of the plane, although neither report confirmed its mission. NHK said a midair refueling plane a…

N. Korea missile could hit Guam, report says The Associated Press Posted : Monday Apr 30, 2007 13:27:31 EDT North Korea displayed a newly developed ballistic missile capable of reaching the US territory of Guam during a massive military parade last week, a news report said Sunday. The parade in Pyongyang on Wednesday featured three new models, including the medium-range missile that can travel 2,500km to 4,000km, the Chosun Ilbo reported. The report cited an unidentified South Korean government official familiar with an analysis of U.S. satellite images. “All three [new] models are ground-to-ground missiles,” the official was quoted as saying. “Of them, t…

India makes headway with ELF site construction (Jane's Information Group)

Guys Just wondering if anyone had thoughts and time to put down some quick notes on Australias Collins Class subs? How have you seen their performance or abilities, good/bad/ugly?

From American Enterprise Institute China's Defense White Paper What It Does (and Doesn't) Tell Us By Dan Blumenthal, Christopher Griffin Posted: Thursday, January 25, 2007 China Brief (vol. 7, no. 2) Publication Date: January 24, 2007 Credit should be given where it is due, and if one reads between the lines, the four Chinese defense white papers released every even year since 2000 have provided clearer insight into Beijing’s strategic aims and defense planning than ever intimated by Zhongnanhai through the 1990s. While the China’s National Defense in 2006 white paper should be primarily read as a piece of propaganda--part of China’s public campaign to assur…

BBC news report Apparently it won't sail to other countries' territorial waters... which no sensible carrier admiral would do anyway...

From Defense Aerospace Air Warfare Destroyers – The Foundation Laid (Source: Australian Minister for Defence; issued Oct. 4, 2007) I am pleased to announce the signing of the final contracts to build three Air Warfare Destroyers (AWDs) for the Royal Australian Navy. At a total cost of approximately A$8 billion, this is the largest naval shipbuilding project ever undertaken in Australia. The signing follows two years of hard work by the AWD team in the design selection phase of the project that resulted in the Australian Government choosing the Spanish Navantia F-100 warship as the platform for Australia’s next generation Hobart-class AWDs. The first o…

From DefenseNews S. Korea Fires Warning Shots at N. Korean Ships AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Published: 16 May 2010 15:16 SEOUL, - South Korea's navy fired warning shots to drive away North Korean patrol boats from the disputed inter-Korean sea border, amid tension over the sinking of a Seoul warship, officials said May 16. The warning shots were fired late May 15 when two North Korean patrol boats violated the Northern Limit Line (NLL) border and strayed into South Korean waters, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff office said. A spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff told AFP the North's patrol boats retreated without responding to the fire. No casualties occu…

How North Korea evades UN sanctions (South China Morning Post)

From DefenseNews China Seeks To Double Trade with Israel By BARBARA OPALL-ROME, TEL AVIV China hopes to double its trade with Israel over the next three years, from nearly $2.5 billion registered in 2004 to $5 billion or more by 2008, according to Beijing’s top diplomat here, who declined to discuss specifics of the two countries’ defense trade. In an April 7 lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ambassador Chen Yonglong noted that Sino-Israeli trade is growing at an annual rate of some 40 percent. When asked specifically about bilateral defense trade ties, however — and about U.S. claims that Israel is Beijing’s second largest supplier of arms a…

From Defence Talk North Korea Pushes Japan Further Down Nuclear Path AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE October 6th, 2006, 03:29 Tokyo: North Korea's brinkmanship will intensify a debate in Japan about developing atomic weapons, a long-standing taboo in the only nation to have suffered nuclear attack, analysts said. Both the United States and South Korea predicted in official statements or reports that North Korea's plans to test a nuclear bomb will build momentum in Japan to do likewise. North Korea said Tuesday it would carry out the test to win concessions from Washington, but ironically the move also emboldened Japanese hardliners who want to shed some of the pacifism…

From Flight International DATE: 03/10/08 SOURCE: Flight International China embarks on naval fighter training programme By Siva Govindasamy China is gearing up to form its first naval fighter fleet, with local newspapers reporting that around 50 cadet pilots have started training with a naval academy. "The first pilot programme of recruiting pilot cadets is an important decision of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] navy to realise a strategic transformation," says the PLA Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese military. "The first batch of pilot cadets will receive a four-year education in the shipborne aircraft flight field of study. They wil…

Singapore and the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (The Diplomat)

China's Carrier-Based J-15 Begins Mass Production, Delivery (The Diplomat, Flashpoints blog)

From Jane's China discloses new SD-10 combat capabilities By Robert Hewson 01 December 2010 China's SD-10 beyond visual range air-to-air missile (AAM) may be a considerably more capable weapon than has hitherto been believed. Officials from the SD-10's manufacturer, the Luoyang Electro-Optical Technology Development Centre (LOEC), say the SD-10 was designed from the beginning to function with a dual-mode seeker operating in distinct active and passive radar homing modes. If so, the SD-10 (and current production SD-10A) are the first AAMs to enter service with this acknowledged capability. In lengthy discussions with LOEC at the Airshow China 2010 in Zhuhai b…