Channel News Asia – Taiwan is arming more of its fleet with its new “carrier killer” anti-ship missiles as China conducts further sea trials of its first aircraft carrier, local media said Monday. Five of the Taiwanese navy’s eight Perry-class frigates have been armed with the supersonic Hsiung Feng (Brave Wind) III weapons, the Taipei-based China Times said. Some of its smaller patrol boats have also been equipped with the missiles, which are designed to cruise at a speed of Mach 2.0, or twice the speed of sound, with a range of up to 130 kilometres, the newspaper said. The defence ministry declined to comment on the report. The China Times said the navy plans to deploy 120 such missiles — dubbed “aircraft carrier killers” by their developer — in a project costing an estimated 12 billion Taiwan dollars (US$400 million). The missiles were first unveiled by Taiwan in August last year on the same day that China began sea trials for its first aircraft carrier, a reconditioned 1980s-era warship originally commissioned by the Soviet navy. Read Article
NY Times – Scientists who have studied a degenerative brain disease in athletes have found the same condition in combat veterans exposed to roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, concluding that such explosions injure the brain in ways strikingly similar to tackles and punches. The researchers also discovered what they believe is the mechanism by which explosions damage brain tissue and trigger the wasting disease, called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., by studying simulated explosions on mice. The animals developed evidence of the disease just two weeks after exposure to a single simulated blast, researchers found. Read article
Nature – The town of Ozersk, deep in Russia’s remote southern Urals, hides the relics of a massive secret experiment. From the early 1950s to the end of the cold war, nearly 250,000 animals were systematically irradiated. Some were blasted with ?-, ?- or ?-radiation. Others were fed radioactive particles. Some of the doses were high enough to kill the animals outright; others were so low that they seemed harmless. After the animals — mice, rats, dogs, pigs and a few monkeys — died, scientists dissected out their tissues to see what damage the radioactivity had wrought. They fixed thin slices of lung, heart, liver, brain and other organs in paraffin blocks, to be sliced and examined under the microscope. Some organs, they pickled in jars of formalin. Read article
Reuters – Two apparent U.S. drone attacks killed at least 10 suspected al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen on Saturday, while Yemeni government forces killed 15 others in a new offensive against insurgents, local and military officials said. U.S. officials said this week they had thwarted a plot by the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to arm a suicide bomber with a non-metallic device, an upgraded version of the “underwear bomb” carried onto an airliner on Christmas Day 2009. Read Article
BBC – The US State Department says the shipment will help Bahrain “maintain its external defence capabilities.” Arms sales were frozen last year after the Bahraini government suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations. Amnesty International says 60 people have been killed since the protests began in February 2011. Read article
Press TV – Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters say a US assassination drone attack has left at least 38 people dead and dozens of others wounded in the Horn of Africa state, Press TV reports. The airstrike is said to have taken place in Somalia’s southwestern district of Badade, a Press TV correspondent reported. The US military uses remote-controlled drones in Somalia for reconnaissance operations and targeted killings. Read Article
Reuters – A new missile interceptor designed to protect allies from a possible attack by Iran or North Korea, passes its latest test with flying colors, the U.S. military says. Deborah Gembara reports.
Dawn – Pakistan carried out a successful test firing of a short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Thursday, the military said. The launch of the Hatf III, which has a range of up to 290 kilometres and can also carry conventional warheads, came at the end of a field training exercise, a military statement said. Two weeks ago Pakistan test-fired an intermediate range ballistic missile, seen as a response to India’s launch of its new long-range Agni V, capable of hitting targets anywhere in China. Read Article
BBC – The Ministry of Defence has confirmed a sonic device will be deployed in London during the Olympics. The American-made Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) can be used to send verbal warnings over a long distance or emit a beam of pain-inducing tones. The equipment was spotted fixed to a landing craft on the Thames at Westminster this week. Read Article
The Verge – Just in case you didn’t feel bad enough about crushing or burning murderously friendly turrets in Portal, an enterprising engineer has built a real-life version of our favorite stationary weapons. Created for the excellently-named “Advanced Mechatronics” class at Pennsylvania State University, the turret is equipped with an IP webcam and two servo mounts with Nerf guns attached. The camera reads RGB colors and connects to a computer running MATLAB, which lets it identify simple triggers like the bright shirt shown in the video. When it sees the shirt, it locks on and tracks it, so it can shoot if the wearer stops moving or issue a familiar “Will you come over… here?” if they go out of range. Read Article
BBC – The United States is resuming sales of some weapons to Bahrain, but says it will not supply the Gulf state with any crowd control equipment. The US State Department says the shipment will help Bahrain “maintain its external defence capabilities.” Arms sales were frozen last year after the Bahraini government suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations. Read Article
Defence Web – Algeria has signed a contract with China Shipbuilding Trading Company for three light frigates, after ordering two Meko A-200N frigates from Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. The three light frigates will be built either at Guangzhou or the Shanghai Huangpu Shipyard. The vessels will displace around 2 800 tons fully loaded, and will be powered by MTU diesel engines. The Algerian Navy has been undergoing expansion in recent years as it faces problems such as smuggling, illegal migration and indigenous terrorism. These threats mainly affect Algeria’s harbours and maritime communication routes and ships passing through the Straits of Gibraltar. Consequently, the Algerian Navy maintains a well-trained and well-equipped fleet to provide security to more than 1000 km of coastline. Read Article
Reuters – The first of a new class of U.S. coastal warships will be sent to Singapore next spring for a roughly 10-month deployment, the Navy said on Wednesday, spotlighting a move that may stir China’s fears of U.S. involvement in South China Sea disputes. Deployment of the shallow-draft ship “Freedom” will help refine crew rotations, logistics and maintenance processes to maximize the class’s value to U.S. combat commanders, Rear Admiral Thomas Rowden, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, told reporters. Read Article
New Scientist – Being hit with a Taser stun gun in the chest can lead to cardiac arrest and death, according to a new study. The research by Douglas Zipes, a heart specialist at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology in Indianapolis, Indiana, was based on records he acquired as a plaintiff’s expert witness in a number of lawsuits involving US police use of the controversial stun gun. Read Article
Reuters – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a unity government on Tuesday in a surprise move that could give him a freer hand to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and seek peace with the Palestinians. Read article
Business Insider – U.S. corporations are selling drones to undisclosed foreign governments for anti-narcotics and anti-terrorism operations, according to Teddy Wilson at The American Independent. The global market for unmanned aerial vehicles (i.e. drones) is growing rapidly as the use of drones expands from military to domestic law enforcement. The U.S. government sells drones to other countries through Foreign Military Sales, and U.S. corporations can sell drones and other defense technologies directly to foreign governments after going through a screening process run by the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Read Article
Reuters – A U.S. drone aircraft killed nine suspected militants on Saturday in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region near the Afghan border, Pakistani security officials said. The controversial drone program, a key element in U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, is highly unpopular in Pakistan where it is considered a violation of sovereignty which causes unacceptable civilian casualties. In Saturday’s strike, a drone fired missiles at a compound in the Shawal area of North Waziristan, killing the nine, said the officials who declined to be identified. Read Article
CNN – A U.S. drone hit an al Qaeda training site in southern Yemen, killing 13 suspected militants, three security officials said. The airstrike Wednesday is one of a series of attacks on al Qaeda hideouts expected in Abyan province in the next two weeks, the officials said. They will target Jaar, Lowder and Zinjibar districts. At least two U.S. drone strikes are conducted daily since mid-April in southern regions controlled by al Qaeda fighters, said a Yemeni presidential aide who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. Read Article
Haaretz – Israel received a fourth Dolphin submarine from Germany on Thursday. The new sub, called “Tanin,” will be put into operation in 2013. According to a senior Israel Navy officer, the “submarine has a range for everything,” adding that it needs to refuel and charge its batteries only once in a long while. Read Article
Channel News Asia – Taiwan’s defence ministry said Wednesday that it has formed a special airborne unit capable of scrambling to the contested Spratly islands in just hours, as tensions in the South China Sea mounted. The unit has been set up under a plan named “airborne fast response and maritime support” which was unveiled for the first time in a report by the ministry to parliament, officials said. No details of the unit, such as its size, were released to the public, but local media said that if needed, it can arrive on Taiping Island, the biggest in the disputed waters, onboard C-130 transport planes within four hours. Read Article
Morning Star – Anti-arms trade campaigners condemned the “hypocritical” British government today over its continued sale of weapons to repressive regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. Campaign Against Arms Trade (Caat) said that while the Foreign Office had praised the democratic uprisings of the Arab Spring it continued to sell armaments to regimes such as Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Foreign Secretary William Hague launched the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) annual Human Rights and Democracy report on Monday for 2011. Read Article
WIRED – Upstart Virginia aerospace firm Mav6 is offering to install guided missiles on the massive robotic spy blimp it’s building for the Air Force. The idea would only be slightly terrifying, if the massive airship were headed to Afghanistan, as originally planned. But Mav6 and its CEO, a respected retired Air Force general, are also promoting the giant airship for homeland security missions over U.S. soil. In that way, today’s war blimp could become tomorrow’s all-seeing, lethal Big Brother. Read Article
Guardian – The Syrian government imported $167m-worth of air defence systems and missiles and a further $1m of small arms and ammunition in the months before it began a crackdown on opposition activists, a report claims. The charity Oxfam says the sale and transfer of munitions to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2010 highlights the need for a new international arms trade treaty. The treaty would provide “clear, unambiguous, legal obligations on states” not to sell weapons if they might end up being used to provoke conflict or violate human rights. Read Article
New Scientist – Two research papers published this week throw further light on the health risks of the Taser stun gun. This striking image [see article] shows the central issue examined in one of the papers: what happens when one of the two barbed darts fired by a police Taser struck a 27-year-old man on the side of the head. Although Isabel Le Blanc-Louvry and colleagues at the department of forensic medicine at Rouen University Hospital in France do not reveal when or where this occured, they say the victim had been drunk and resisted police requests for his ID. The police fired the pneumatically powered Taser to incapacitate and subdue him – but somehow nobody noticed a dart remained stuck in his head, until he later went to hospital complaining of a persistent headache. Read article
Daily Yomiuri – The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party has unveiled the second draft of its revisions to the Constitution, stipulating, among other things, the maintenance of “national defense forces” for self-defense purposes. In the revisions released Friday, the LDP proposed the creation of an article related to emergency events that would increase the prime minister’s power and authority temporarily during large-scale disasters and armed or terrorist attacks, given Diet approval. In an attempt to further clarify the right to collective self-defense, the LDP has changed the Article 9 amendment from its first revision draft. The LDP revised the first draft, written in 2005, to mark the 60th anniversary on Saturday of the effectuation of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which restored the nation’s sovereignty. The latest draft consists of a preamble and 11 chapters. An emergency event-related article, which is not included in the current Constitution or the first draft, was newly added as Chapter 9. Read Article
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