Congress told IEDs will remain ‘weapon of choice’ for decades

Improvised explosive devices and the networks that use these asymmetric weapons, will remain an enduring threat to U.S. forces and the nation for decades to come, the Defense Department’s top counter-IED official told lawmakers, Sept. 20.
“The IED (improvised explosive device) is the weapon of choice for threat networks because they are cheap, made from readily available off-the-shelf components, easy to construct, lethal and accurate,” said Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, Joint IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO, director, during testimony to the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on Defense Thursday


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Obama blocks Chinese wind farms purchase near Navy base

Paul Farley  /  U.S. Navy

EA-18G Growlers like this one are tested at the Navy base in Oregon near where a Chinese firm intended to buy wind turbine farms.

WASHINGTON — Citing national security risks, President Barack Obama on Friday blocked a Chinese company from owning four wind farm projects in northern Oregon near a Navy base where the U.S. military flies unmanned drones and electronic-warfare planes on training missions.

It was the first time in 22 years that a U.S. president has blocked such a foreign business deal.
Obama's decision was likely to be another irritant in the increasingly tense economic relationship between the U.S. and China. It also comes against an election-year backdrop of intense criticism from Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney, who accuses Obama of not being tough enough with China.
In his decision, Obama ordered Ralls Corp., a company owned by Chinese nationals, to divest its interest in the wind farms it purchased earlier this year near the Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility in Boardman, Ore.

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China Denies Second Aircraft Carrier Reports

China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning


China is not building a second aircraft carrier, Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said on Thursday.
Western media reports this week said China is building a second carrier in Shanghai and it will be launched late this year.

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AP IMPACT: Air Force insiders foresaw F-22 woes

KADENA AIR BASE, Japan (AP) — Years before F-22 pilots began getting dizzy in the cockpit, before one struggled to breathe as he tried to pull out of a fatal crash, before two more went on television to say the plane was so unsafe they refused to fly it, a small circle of U.S. Air Force experts knew something was wrong with the prized stealth fighter jet.

Coughing among pilots and fears that contaminants were leaking into their breathing apparatus led the experts to suspect flaws in the oxygen-supply system of the F-22 Raptor, especially in the extreme high-altitude conditions in which the $190 million aircraft is without equal. They formed a working group a decade ago to examine the problem, creating an informal but unique brain trust.


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China cyberspies suspected in new caper: what has experts worried

A China-based cyberespionage gang has been linked to the infiltration of networks belonging to Telvent Canada, a major industrial control system company, in a case that some experts warn could facilitate creation of a dangerous cyberweapon.
The cyberspies, thought to be from a gang that security researchers call the "Comment Group" or sometimes the "Shanghai group," slipped past a corporate firewall, installing malicious software on the network – then snatched project files related to one of Telvent's major software products, according to KrebsOnSecurity, a cybersecurity blog that first reported the breach Wednesday.

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An-70 Aircraft Conducts Test Flight After 2-year Delay

An-70 propfan tactical transport aircraft

An upgraded Antonov An-70 propfan tactical transport aircraft carried out a test flight on Thursday after a two-year delay, the company's president Dmytro Kyva announced.
He said the 32-minute flight at Ukraine's Aviasvit-XXI international airshow had been a success, and called this "the main event of the airshow."
Test flights were suspended for two years as the An-70 underwent vital modernization work following a number of technical malfunctions in previous flights.

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Australia Likely To Buy Subs From Japan

      Japan and Australia are likely to confirm a defense technology deal involving the technology transfer of Japan’s highly regarded diesel-electric AIP Soryu submarine, according to the Japan Security Watch. This deal is an outgrowth of the relaxing of the arms export restrictions that took place late last year.

      The two could collaborate on maritime domain, particularly in terms of Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW). When the two countries held their first bilateral defense exercises recently they engaged in ASW exercises, something they have also done so with the US in trilateral exercises.

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