Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources Ria Novosti & DTN Russia
SM-3 IIB is a key component of the Department of Defense's Phased Adaptive Approach for missile defense in Europe. It will provide capability against emerging longer-range ballistic missile threats.
MDA has awarded multiple contracts for this phase of the SM-3 IIB project. The agency will select a single company in 2013 to proceed with full development and flight testing. Deployment is scheduled for the 2020 time frame.
"The SM-3 IIB team at Boeing is looking forward to partnering with MDA and the U.S. Navy in the development of this advanced missile defense program," said Greg Hyslop, vice president of Strategic Missile & Defense Systems (SM&DS) for Boeing. "We are committed to drawing on the best of Boeing to provide this capability, which will be a critical component of this country's response to future potential threats."
Boeing's SM&DS and Phantom Works organizations are working jointly to apply SM&DS' proven missile defense development and production experience and Phantom Works' technological innovation to the SM-3 IIB project. This combination of Boeing capabilities and weapon production experience will deliver an affordable solution that meets the requirements of this important national defense program.
http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2011/04/dtn-news-boeing-defense-news-boeing_11.html
JERUSALEM, Israel
Israel's military is ordering four more Iron Dome missile defense systems, which successfully deployed during recent rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that it would order the batteries from the Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems at a cost of up to $80 million each. The units reportedly will be delivered in a year-and-a-half and be ready for immediate use.
Funding for the new defense batteries, which intercepted all of the rockets in its coverage area in recent Gaza terrorist activity, is slated to come from an extra security aid allocation from the United States. The military aid, $3 billion for 2011, plus an additional $205 million for Iron Dome, has been tied up for five months due to a budget impasse in Washington.
President Obama is scheduled to sign the 2011 budget bill, which includes the aid to Israel, later this week.
http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2011/04/dtn-news-israel-defense-news-israels.html
NAVY
The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., was awarded on April 8 a $12,355,455 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-08-C-0050) for additional Mid-Wave Infrared Unmanned Aerial Systems, intelligence reconnaissance surveillance services in for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force combat missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Work will be performed in Bingen, Wash. (65 percent), and St. Louis, Mo. (35 percent), and is expected to be completed in May 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, N.J., is the contracting activity.
NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is awarding a $11,092,685 firm-fixed-price contract to Harris Corp., Melbourne, Fla., for Adjusted Metric Support Data/Digital Point Positioning Data Base (AMSD/DPPDB) and Controlled Image Base (CIB[r]). AMSD/DPPDB is a database of imagery used for targeting purposes. CIB(r) is used for mission planning systems to assist mission profile development, perspective view generation, digital moving maps, and theater battle management. Work will be performed in Melbourne, Fla., and will be completed by April 2012. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is the contracting activity (NMA30203D0006).
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources including latest updates Defense News,Aerospace/Defense Headlines - News& YahooMonday April 11, 2011
"Such talk is utterly baseless and totally absurd," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters last week.
The episode was a small reminder of the big political differences that confront the leaders of five of the world's big emerging economies as they meet in China this week.
The leaders of the "BRICS" nations of China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa have voiced lofty goals, from rebalancing the global economy to giving the developing world more say in the G20 and IMF.
But while they together make up nearly a fifth of the global economy and they indeed share a lot of common gripes, they also have many mutual rifts, China's close relationship with Pakistan among them. Their broader aspirations will likely be frustrated by suspicion and diverging views on key issues.
Thursday's gathering in the southern Chinese beach resort of Sanya, attended by South Africa for the first time, will last just a few hours, according to diplomatic sources.
"They share their relative underdevelopment ... and their willingness to establish a new world economic order, which is where they have greater weight and where they are listened to," said Uri Dadush, head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's International Economics Programme.
http://asiandefensenews.blogspot.com/2011/04/asian-defense-news-brics-news-politics.html
After a two-hour stand-off on the third day of last Chinese New Year, the children's 51-year-old mother got her way and went back to the casino.
When she returned 24 hours later, she had lost S$7,000.
It was then the children gave up trying to get their mother to quit gambling. She had already racked up debts of more than S$300,000.
Speaking to The New Paper from their four-room HDB flat in Simei, accountant Jayden Liu, 24, said, "Now, we can only pray that a miracle happens before we lose her or the roof over our heads."
He recounted that his mother cried, pleaded and lashed out at her children during that confrontation. She put a stool to the kitchen window and threatened to jump after Jayden's younger sister, Jessie, 16, angrily said that they were considering applying for a family exclusion order to the casinos.
Jayden said, "We weren't sure if she'd really do it, but we couldn't take the risk. We had lost our father (to cancer) six years ago, we didn't want to lose our mother."
Taking up a job at a convenience store last December, Jessie now works Saturdays in order to pay for her math tuition and ease her brother's burden.
http://asiandefensenews.blogspot.com/2011/04/asian-defense-news-singapore-news-no.html
New passenger car sales stood at 1.35m, according to the latest data by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).
That marks a 39% jump from the previous month. The numbers were being closely watched, after sales in February grew at the slowest pace in two years.
China overtook the US in 2009 to become the world's biggest auto market.
Car sales for the first three months of the year grew by 9.1%, compared with the first quarter last year.
The rebound in the sector was led by Toyota. The world's biggest car manufacturer saw sales surge by 37.4% in March, from the same time a year ago.
However, rival Japanese car makers Mazda and Honda reported a slide in their sales.
Chinese car manufacturer BYD, which is backed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, also reported a fall in its sales numbers, despite announcing a massive price cut earlier in the year.
http://asiandefensenews.blogspot.com/2011/04/asian-defense-news-china-news-chinas.html
An industry group, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, says sales rose 5.4 percent over a year ago to 1.8 million vehicles. That was up from February's 4.6 percent increase but below 2010's 30 percent expansion.
China passed the United States in 2009 to become the biggest auto market by number of vehicles sold.Industry analysts expect total Chinese sales to rise 10 to 15 percent this year though growth should be much slower than in 2010.
http://asiandefensenews.blogspot.com/2011/04/asian-defense-news-automobile-news.html
An African Union official said Monday the issue of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's stepping down had been discussed during peace talks in Tripoli.
"There was some discussion on this but I cannot report on this. It has to remain confidential," said Ramtane Lamamra, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security. "It's up to the Libyan people to chose their leaders democratically."
He added the peace road map included an immediate ceasefire, promotion of national dialogue, protection of foreign nationals in Libya and extension of humanitarian assistance.
http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2011/04/dtn-news-battle-for-libya-au-official.html
BEIJING, China
China has told Washington not to interfere in its affairs after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the release of dozens of activists rounded up in a growing crackdown on dissent.
Beijing rejected an annual human rights survey by the State Department saying China had stepped up efforts to rein in activists, the media and free Internet access and pursued "severe repression" in the Tibet and Xinjiang regions.
"The US should stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs with human rights reports," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement issued late Saturday.
Clinton said on Friday that Beijing's record on human rights was worsening.
"We remain deeply concerned about reports that since February, dozens of people including public-interest lawyers, writers, artists, intellectuals and activists have been arbitrarily detained and arrested."
She highlighted the case of Ai Weiwei, an outspoken artist who helped design the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Beijing Games. He was detained on April 3 for unspecified "economic crimes."
http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2011/04/dtn-news-china-news-china-tells-us-not.html
WASHINGTON
US prosecutors compiled lots of evidence against the five men accused of having organized the September 11 attacks on the United States, but not until this week have details been fully revealed.
The indictment charging self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others was unsealed when US Attorney General Eric Holder referred the case to the Defense Department for military trials instead of trials at a US federal court in New York.
Holder said Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been prosecuted in federal court and blamed Congress for imposing measures blocking civilian trials of Guantanamo Bay inmates.
They will be tried in military courts in the US naval base in southeastern Cuba.
The now-public details show that the United States, nearly 10 years after hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, reconstructed step by step the logistics of the five accused men.
http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2011/04/dtn-news-guantanamo-bay-news-evidence.html
