Posted on Dec. 29th (Reuters) – North Korea likely is closer to mounting nuclear warheads on its ballistic missiles than generally reported, possibly only one or two years away, the U.S. Congress’s former top expert on the issue has concluded. Larry Niksch, who tracked North Korea for the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Research Service for 43 [...]

Posted on Dec 21st TOKYO, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Japan picked Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet as its next mainstay fighter on Tuesday, choosing the aircraft over combat-proven but less stealthy rivals, as concern simmers over North Korea and as China introduces its own stealth fighters. The decision came as Japan and the United States stressed that their [...]

Posted on Dec 21st WASHINGTON (Kyodo) — Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed Monday to keep in close contact with each other as well as with South Korea on how to deal with North Korea following the death of its leader Kim Jong Il over the weekend. Stressing [...]

Posted on Dec 14th Japan said it’s close to selecting a supplier for a fighter-jet order that may be worth more than $4 billion after the Yomuiri newspaper reported that Lockheed (LMT) Martin Corp. will win the contest. “We’ve entered the final stages,” Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa told reporters in Tokyo today. “I want to [...]

Posted on Dec 14th CANBERRA, Australia — The South Korea and Australian defense ministers signed an agreement Wednesday to deepen military cooperation between the two countries through increased joint exercises. The move comes after the United States announced last month that it will increase its military presence in Australia and conduct more joint exercises across [...]

Posted on Dec 8th BEIJING – Chinese and US defense officials opened military talks in Beijing on Dec. 7 after ties were strained by American arms sales to Taiwan and a planned U.S. troop deployment in Australia. The talks, led by Michele Flournoy, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, and her Chinese counterpart Ma Xiaotian, [...]

Posted on Dec 8th SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Yonhap) — South Korea and the United States resumed talks Tuesday on revising a bilateral pact that defines the boundaries of the Asian country’s use of nuclear energy, with Seoul aiming to gain concessions in the area, officials said. The discussions in Seoul were led by Park Ro-byug, [...]

Posted on Dec 8th China’s navy should speed up its development and prepare for warfare, President Hu Jintao has said. He told military personnel they should “make extended preparations for warfare”. China is locked in territorial disputes with several other nations in the South China Sea. Political tension is also growing with the US, which [...]

Posted on Dec 1st YANGON, Myanmar — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a historic visit to this long-isolated nation, met for the first time on Thursday with the acclaimed leader of its opposition movement and announced that the United States would loosen some restrictions on financial aid to reward Myanmar’s nascent political and economic [...]

Posted on Nov 30th Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin will visit China and Iran in mid-January to discuss a U.S.-backed global missile defense network. “We are planning to visit both Beijing and Tehran soon under the Russian president’s directive, to discuss the planned deployment of a global missile defense network,” Rogozin said during a [...]