The Japanese Defense Ministry Friday ended its Indian Ocean refueling mission for the U.S.-led anti-terrorism effort relating to Afghanistan.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa's order issued to Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force came after a law authorizing the refueling mission expired.
Kitazawa told reporters the demand for the refueling operations, in effect since December 2001, had been declining in recent years, Kyodo News reported.
Instead, the new Japanese government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged up to $5 billion in civilian aid to Afghanistan.
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The Italian government is using defense spending to prop up domestic industry. Hmmmmm....
Into 2010, the Italian government appears to begin to see defence procurement as a means to protect employment. This suggests that defence procurement spending will bottom out in 2009, before returning to marginal growth in 2010. In total, the report estimates that defence spending will reach EUR27.4bn in 2009. The global economic slowdown has yet to seriously impact defence expenditure in the country, a trend that the Stockholm International Peace Research Unit (SIPRI) believes is consistent around the globe. In 2008, global military spending reached US$1.5trn, an increase of 4%.
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Hackers are targeting defense industry secrets. Suspicions are inevitably pointed at the Chinese.
The cyber-attacks that have compromised computers at Google and other US technology companies doing business in China have also been aimed at extracting secrets from defence contractors, investigators said yesterday.
Malicious software on machines at companies attacked in the latest blitz sent proprietary data off to six web addresses in Taiwan that had received information from US defence groups before.
The defence companies had been attacked using methods similar to those deployed against nearly three dozen high-tech groups including Google, which went public with the spying matter this week, pointing a finger at the Chinese government.
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The pseudo-coup by the military in Honduras is likely to lead to a trial soon.
Top military chiefs in Honduras have been ordered not to leave the country as they face trial over the ousting of President Manuel Zelaya last June.
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The Iraqis seem to have gotten the hang of of handing out death sentences. Sorry, bad pun.
A Baghdad court on Thursday sentenced 11 Iraqis to death for their roles in the first of a series of audacious attacks last year to target government buildings in the heart of the city.
The August bombings of Iraq's foreign and finance ministries were a major blow to Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is seeking to reassure Iraqis his government has security under control ahead of crucial March elections.
Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said a criminal court in Baghdad's eastern Risafa district found the 11 defendants guilty of financing, planning and participating in the Aug. 19 bombings that devastated the foreign and finance ministries.
The blasts killed more than 100 people.
By: Brant
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