Saturday, January 16, 2010

DTN News: Afghanistan ~ If You Can't Beat The Taliban, Try To Buy Militants Off

DTN News: Afghanistan ~ If You Can't Beat The Taliban, Try To Buy Militants Off *Source: EurasiaNet (NSI News Source Info) KABUL, Afghanistan - January 17, 2010: As American commanders wage their counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan, an increasingly important weapon in their arsenal is money. Military planners are now intent on setting aside discretionary funds to potentially buy off "reconcilables," or militants who are fighting against US and NATO troops more for financial than ideological reasons. Gen. David Petraeus, the chief of US Central Command, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on December 9, 2009, that the "reintegration of reconcilables [is] a core objective of any sound counter-insurgency effort." The money to lure militant insurgents over to the Afghan government side would come from the Commanders’ Emergency Response Fund, a spokesman for the Department of Defense said. "The Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act includes authority for the Department of Defense to use a portion of its Commanders’ Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds to support a new, Afghan-led reintegration program in Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Mark Wright told EurasiaNet on January 11. "These funds will be executed in coordination with the Government of Afghanistan, and with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, once such a program is developed in more detail," Wright added. According to Section 1222 of the National Defense Authorization Act, "The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Government of Afghanistan and with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, may utilize such funds as necessary from amounts available for the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program for fiscal year 2010 to support the reintegration into Afghan society of those individuals who have renounced violence against the Government of Afghanistan." CERP funds in the past have been used for a wide variety of purposes, including condolence payments to the families of civilian casualties, development grants to businesses and funding for militias fighting on behalf of the Afghan government. Under the tentative vision for the reintegration scheme, low to mid-level militants who lay down their arms would be offered either a lump sum payment or jobs with salaries of around $240 per month. The Taliban is believed to pay fighters about $300 per month. No specific dollar amount for the reintegration scheme has been specified. Bu the total CERP budget for 2010 is $1.3 billion. The reintegration program, in theory, would cover foreign militants operating in Afghanistan, including fighters belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). In recent months, the presence of foreign militants has grown in some areas of Afghanistan, especially in northern provinces such as Kunduz, which borders Tajikistan.
Central Asian political experts suggest that foreign militants would be less likely to be lured away by CERP funds. "The IMU has developed a reputation, as far as anybody knows, of being a very serious jihadist group. They are increasingly active and essentially an affiliate of al Qaeda," said Paul Quinn-Judge, Central Asia project director for the International Crisis Group. "They [IMU militants] are not country kids in Afghanistan who are earning some money on the side by occasionally attacking US or Allied troops." "They are not the sort of people you would expect to take hand-outs or buy-outs from the Department of Defense," Quinn-Judge added. Mars Sariev, a Bishkek-based political scientist, suggested a limited number of IMU militants might be tempted. "About 3,000 members of the IMU are ethnic Uzbeks," Sariev estimated. "Most people who join this kind of organization are poor and they join up because they want to make a social protest of sorts. If they get money for it, if they have an opportunity to do something else, the number of IMU members might fall." Sariev added that Afghanistan’s northern neighbors would be pleased to see the reintegration scheme bear fruit. "I think the Central Asian countries and Russia would be only happy and breathe a sigh of relief if the scheme was successful," he said. Quinn-Judge said any reintegration initiative that extended to IMU militants would not be blocked by Uzbekistan. However, officials in Tashkent likely have restrained expectations for the reintegration scheme, he suggested. "At the moment the Uzbeks and United States are getting on extremely well, [and] anything like this would be coordinated. But I would speculate the Uzbek security services are telling their American counterparts they don’t stand a chance," he said. Disclaimer statement Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

DTN News: Malaysian Defence ~ Who Will Buy Our Migs?

DTN News: Malaysian Defence ~ Who Will Buy Our Migs? *Source: Malaysian Defence (NSI News Source Info) KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - January 17, 2010: The story below is self-explainatory but the sale left us wondering how in the world are we going to sell our Migs? With a reported price tag of RM300 million for all 16 planes, lock, stock and barrel, it will be much cheaper for anyone else to buy new planes from Russia. The MIG-29N fighter jets of the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) will be replaced with other interceptor jets to strengthen the force.Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the matter had been discussed with RMAF chief General Tan Sri Azizan Ariffin and the aircraft would be replaced soon."I have decided that from next month, the aircraft be phased out and we should find a way to sell them to certain companies or countries approved by the United Nations," he told reporters after visiting the victims of a storm in Rungkup, here, Monday.On the Sukhoi fighter jets received recently, he said the preparedness of the squadron stationed at the RMAF base in Gong Kedak, Kelantan had been proven as the members had received sufficient simulator training and other forms of training continuously.* It also appears with the latest development we may have to accept the offer from Russia to trade the 29s for six MKMs but Mindef is still hoping that we will find another buyer soon There is one country of course that is willing to buy the planes for the price we are asking, but I am sure that we will not sell it to them. That country, is Iran of course. Iraq might be another candidate but I dont think the US will let us sell them the jets…. Myanmar Buys 20 Mig-29 Fulcrum D for US$570 mlnMoscow A 400 million-euro ($570 mln) contract has been signed for the delivery of Russian MiG-29 fighters for the Myanmar Air Force, a source close to Russia’s arms export monopoly told a business daily on Wednesday. Vedomosti quoted the source at Rosoboronexport as saying the Russian bid to supply MiG-29 Fulcrum-D carrier-based fighter jets beat China’s offer to sell its latest J-10 and FC-1 fighters. Myanmar was rearmed with Chinese military aircraft worth some $2 billion in the 1990s, the paper said. The country bought 12 MiG-29 fighters in 2001, but this contract is the largest since the 2007 unfulfilled contract to supply Algeria with 34 MiG-29 fighters. In 2008, a contract for the supply of six MiG fighters was signed with Sri Lanka. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced last year that Russia would give Lebanon 10 MiG-29 fighter jets for free, Vedomosti said.
Disclaimer statement
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

DTN News: India TODAY January 17, 2010 ~ Ageing IAF Fleet A Major Concern, Says EAC Chief

DTN News: India TODAY January 17, 2010 ~ Ageing IAF Fleet A Major Concern, Says EAC Chief *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) SHILLONG, India - January 17, 2010: The IAF today indicated that the ageing fleet of its fighter planes was a matter of concern and hoped that the massive deal for purchase of 126 multi-role combat aircraft would come through. "A number of older generation aircraft like MiG-21 are operating since early sixties. We have problems with the ageing fleets and their maintenance," Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Indian Air Force's (IAF) Eastern Air Command, Air Marshal Kishan Kumar Nohwar told a press conference here. The Soviet-era MiG 21 fighters have been in operation in the IAF since 1963 and have been involved in a spate of crashes in the recent years. Under the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) programme, IAF plans to induct 126 fighter jets at an estimated cost of 12 billion USD. Currently, trials are being conducted with aircraft of six manufacturers vying for the deal.

DTN News: Air Al Qaeda ~ Are Latin America's Drug Cartels Giving Al Qaeda A Lift?

DTN News: Air Al Qaeda ~ Are Latin America's Drug Cartels Giving Al Qaeda A Lift? *There is growing concerns that Al Qaeda in Africa and Latin American drug cartels are working together. Latin American cocaine flights go to Africa, en route to Europe. Are Al Qaeda members on the empty planes back to Latin America?
*Source: The Christian Science Monitor By Scott Baldauf Staff writer (NSI News Source Info) JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - January 17, 2010: It's known as the Coca Cola plane. In early November, drug traffickers landed a Boeing 727 in the Malian desert in Gao state and offloaded between 10 and 12 million tons of cocaine. Then, rather than fly it back across the Atlantic to Latin America, they simply burnt it, treating it like a used Coke can.The terrain of northern Mali is stark desert, and a haven for Islamist insurgents with close ties to Al Qaeda. Initially, investigators thought the plane had crashed in the desert on take off. A policeman patrols a market in central Timbuktu, on December 28, 2009. The area around Mali's capital has become a stronghold for a franchise of Al Qaeda, and a hub for trafficking cocaine from South America by air, which is then smuggled onto Europe. TimGaynor/Reuters/File But now, based on the fact that the plane was largely intact, many experts suspect that the drug cartels – perhaps in coordination with their Al Qaeda partners – burnt the plane deliberately. “That shows you the strength of the drug cartels, and how much money they have,” says Rinaldo Depagne, a West Africa expert at the International Crisis Group in Dakar, Senegal. “It’s like a plastic [Coca Cola] bottle to them. When you are done with it, you just throw it away.” According to UN reports, nearly 60 percent of the cocaine sold in Europe transits through weak West African states such as Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Guinea Bissau – a flow of cash and contraband that undermines the credibility of each country’s ability to govern itself. As many of these same countries are now becoming a haven for a shadowy group calling itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), there are growing concerns that Islamist radicals and Latin American drug cartels may be working together, both to enrich themselves and to weaken the law enforcement capability of those West African states. “At this point Al Qaeda in the Maghreb seems to be nothing more than just facilitators, but more and more we see evidence of them working together,” says an official for the US military at the Africom command center in Stuttgart, speaking on background. But it is safe to assume, the official adds, that Al Qaeda “is profiting from the drug trafficking trade going through its areas” of the Sahara. A 2008 Department of Homeland Security report, obtained by Reuters, warned of a growing fleet of rogue aircraft – at least 10 aircraft including executive jets, twin-engine turboprops, and aging Boeing 727s, crisscrossing the Atlantic. The DEA also told Reuters that all aircraft seized in West Africa had departed Venezuela. When it comes to traffickers use of planes between West Africa and Latin America, US military experts say there is a clear potential threat to American security. “We know what those planes are carrying across the Atlantic to Africa. But what goes back [on those planes] to [Latin] American shores?” says one US military official. “You know what the condition of the [US] southern borders are. You see the beginning of a process of thought.” Al Qaeda funded by drug protection money? If Al Qaeda is getting into the drug trade, it would not be the first terrorist organization to do so. Through much of the 1990s and 2000s, the Colombian leftist rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has largely funded its 40-year insurgency through kidnapping and cocaine production. The Taliban were also thought to have turned to the opium trade in order to finance its own buildup of arms in the southern part of Afghanistan.
The motives of Al Qaeda would seem to be very different from those of the drug traffickers. Al Qaeda is an insurgent group fighting for a political goal, perhaps to defend its land or to impose its ideology. Drug traffickers are merely in it for money. But in the West African Sahara, there's growing evidence that the two have found common cause in using the vast unpatrolled desert areas for transporting drugs up north to Europe, and as bases for military operations and training. “Terrorists are looking at an ideology, they are fighting for their land,” says another US military official at Africom. “Traffickers don’t have an allegiance to an area, they change their routes, they change their methods, far faster than the law enforcement in a country can keep up with.” Latin American cartels have been smuggling drugs to Europe via Africa since the 1990s. But For West African nations, keeping up with the traffickers and now the insurgents may seem an impossible task. In 2006, a UN report found that the annual value of smuggled cocaine through West Africa is more than twice the gross domestic product of Guinea Bissau. US military trainers help out Yet, confronting the traffickers and the insurgents is precisely what the US military hopes these nations will do in the very near future. In the past two years, American military trainers have increased their visits to West Africa, and conducted joint training exercises under Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans-Sahel Initiative. On land, US Army trainers – many of them Special Forces commandos – train African soldiers in counterinsurgency methods, and the US government has begun to provide the army of Mali, Niger, and Mauritania with basic arms and equipment, something these nations can ill-afford to buy on their own.In addition, US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents have ramped up their efforts in West Africa, trying to help nations with weak law enforcement capabilities to rein in drug traffickers. Last month, three suspects from Mali were extradited from Ghana to the United States to face charges of offering Al Qaeda protection to move cocaine from West Africa, through the Sahara, and up to Spain. The three suspects, Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure, and Idriss Abelrahman, told DEA informants that they were members of Al Qaeda’s North African branch, and they could protect drug shipments at a fee of $4,200 per kilo. Given the scale of what drug traffickers are willing to pay – and what Al Qaeda apparently earns for its part of the business – the challenge of stopping the drug trade through West Africa will be immense, say analysts. It is one thing for the US military to train a man to fight an insurgent. It is quite another thing to put that man out in the field, earning little pay, where drug traffickers or radical Islamists can offer them bribes or other incentives to look the other way when it suits them.“These traffickers are shipping huge amounts of cocaine so they have lots of money,” says Depagne. “This is a huge threat for weak states of West Africa. When you compare the money of a drug cartel to the budget of Mauritania, or to the salary of a policeman in Niger – who receives less than $200 a month – it’s easy to see what will happen.” As for Al Qaeda, “if they manage to get that kind of money, it will put them on another level,” says Depagne. “I don’t know if you can find any evidence proving a link between Al Qaeda and the drug traffickers, unless you are CIA. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why they would want to work together. To do terrorism, you need money, and what are you going to do in the deserts of Mali to make money. You take money where it is. You work with the drug traffickers.”
Related Stories
Disclaimer statement Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

DTN News: South Korean Soldiers On Military Exercises Near Seoul

DTN News: South Korean Soldiers On Military Exercises Near Seoul *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) INCHEON, South Korea - January 16, 2010: South Korean Peace-Keeping Operations (PKO) soldiers conduct military exercises at their base on January 14, 2010 in Incheon, South Korea. About 350 South Korean PKO force will be deployed in Lebanon end of this month.South Korean army soldiers climb during their winter season military drill in Yanggu, about 175 km (108 miles) northeast of Seoul, January 14, 2010.
North Korea proposed on Thursday to hold talks with the South on resuming tours to enclaves inside its territory that was a lucrative source of hard cash before a deadly shooting incident put the business on hold.

DTN News: Global Hawk Collects Reconnaissance Data During Haiti Relief Efforts

DTN News: Global Hawk Collects Reconnaissance Data During Haiti Relief Efforts *Source: By Master Sgt. Russell P. Petcoff Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - January 16, 2010: A Q-4 Global Hawk is providing imagery to determine the extent of damage to earthquake-stricken Haiti and usability of its infrastructure, an Air Force official said during a Department of Defense Bloggers Roundtable Jan. 15. "A lot of images of destroyed buildings," said Col. Bradley G. Butz, the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing vice commander. They are looking at images of airports to find airfields to land aircraft, he added. The image quality and clarity is good enough whether or not an airfield can accept aircraft. "We've got pretty good coverage of the entire country of Haiti," Colonel Butz said. The Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft with an integrated sensor suite that provides worldwide ISR capability. The 480th ISR, based at Langley Air Force Base, Va., is providing its images to U.S. Southern Command officials for use by whomever needs the images, Colonel Butz said. The objective is mass distribution to people and organizations that need the images to support relief and recovery operations. These images can help determine the level of destruction since aerial images of Haiti exist from June 2009. Comparing the June 2009 and the January 2010 can give an indication of the extent of the disaster. Without context "we just don't know the impact," the colonel said. In addition, the Global Hawk provides assistance to Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division who are deploying to Haiti. The Global Hawk is providing images of where the Soldiers are deploying to help them prepare for their mission, Colonel Butz said. In role and design, the Global Hawk is similar to the Lockheed U-2, the venerable 1950s spy plane. It is a theater commander's asset to both provide a broad overview and systematically target surveillance shortfalls. The Global Hawk air vehicle is able to provide high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)—that can penetrate cloud-cover and sandstorms—and Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) imagery at long range with long loiter times over target areas. It can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) of terrain a day. Potential missions for the Global Hawk cover the spectrum of intelligence collection capability to support forces in worldwide peace, crisis, and wartime operations. According to the Air Force, the capabilities of the aircraft will allow more precise targeting of weapons and better protection of forces through superior surveillance capabilities. The "R" is the Department of Defense designation for reconnaissance; "Q" means unmanned aircraft system. The "4" refers to it being the fourth of a series of purpose-built unmanned aircraft systems. The Global Hawk costs about $35 million USD (actual per-aircraft costs; with development costs also included, the per-aircraft cost rises to $123.2 million USD each). The Global Hawk flew 14 hours Jan. 14, providing between 400 to 700 images, the colonel said. It is flying daily out of Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. The colonel said the Global Hawk will continue providing Haitian overflight support as long as the president requests. This is the first use of the Global Hawk in a disaster relief mission in the Caribbean, according to the colonel.

DTN News: FBI Released New "Aged Progressed" Photograph Of Osama Bin Laden

DTN News: FBI Released New "Aged Progressed" Photograph Of Osama Bin Laden *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - January 16, 2010:The U.S. Department of State and FBI have released this "age progressed" photograph of Osama Bin Laden (Usama bin Ladin) as a part of newly enhanced photos of terrorist suspects on their most wanted lists in Washington, January 15, 2010. The digitally enhanced pictures of Osama bin Laden shows how the al Qaeda leader might look now.

DTN News: Financial News TODAY January 16, 2010 ~ JAL Gets $1.6 Billion Loan

DTN News: Financial News TODAY January 16, 2010 ~ JAL Gets $1.6 Billion Loan *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media By Yoshio Takahashi (NSI News Source Info) TOKYO, Japan - January 16, 2010: Japan Airlines Corp. said Friday that it has procured a loan of 145 billion yen ($1.6 billion) from the state-backed Development Bank of Japan, as the struggling airline continues to draft its restructuring plan. The loan is part of the DBJ's credit line to JAL—doubled to 200 billion yen earlier this month—in an effort to help the carrier maintain its daily operations while it restructures. JAL had already used 55 billion yen of the initial credit line provided in November. Meanwhile, Japan's transport minister said Friday that a state-backed corporate-turnaround body will start its rehabilitation process for JAL on Tuesday, and the carrier is expected to file for court-led rehabilitation on the same day. Transport Minister Seiji Maehara made the announcement to reporters following a meeting with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Quasi-governmental investment fund Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. has proposed that JAL undergo a modified version of a court-led rehabilitation process, according to a person familiar with the situation.—Kazuhiro Shimamura contributed to this article. Write to Yoshio Takahashi at yoshio.takahashi@dowjones.com

DTN News: EADS Says Ready To Negotiate Acceptable A400M Deal

DTN News: EADS Says Ready To Negotiate Acceptable A400M Deal *Source: DTN News / Int'l Media (NSI News Source Info) PARIS, France - January 16, 2010: Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA) said on Friday it was ready to negotiate an "acceptable" funding deal for the troubled A400M military plane at a meeting likely to be scheduled next week. A spokesman said unior defence ministers were expected to meet again next week following talks held in London on Thursday. "We understand we will be invited. EADS will go there with the will to negotiate an acceptable solution," a company spokesman said. EADS has appealed to a group of European NATO nations for extra funds to build the delayed troop and heavy equipment transporter, but said earlier this week that negotiations on the price of the plane had ground to a halt. Germany, which has so far stood firm against financial relief, said on Friday buyers had agree don Thursday that they wanted the plane but "not at any price".

DTN News: Russian Fighter Jets Worse Than Those Of USA And Europe?

DTN News: Russian Fighter Jets Worse Than Those Of USA And Europe? *Source: Pravda.Ru (NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW, Russia - January 16, 2010: The failure of the deal to sell Russian IL-78 fuel tankers to India once again raised the issue of the competitive ability decrease of Russian arms and military technique on the world market. Russia’s "Оboronka" (the defense industry) is facing yet harder problems in handling export contracts and servicing clients of earlier transactions. “It is impossible to improve the situation”, our expert concludes. According to Russian and foreign media sources, India refused to buy Russian Il-78 fuel tanker aircraft. Indian officials motivated this decision with the non-conformity of planes to the customer’s requisitions. The spare parts supply and the after-sales service were also mentioned. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia alternated its approach to the handling of the defense business. Nowadays we are facing problems with spare parts, the support of manufacturers and the delays conditioned by the centralized structure of their defense corporations”, Fali Homi Major, the Commander-in-Chief of Indian Air Force told RIA Novosti. Instead of Russian planes India is likely to buy Airbus A330 MRTT manufactured by the European company EADS. This is not the first juicy scandal connected with Russia’s defense exports. “The most well-known case is the scandal with Algeria when they refused to take the already procured MiG aircraft and sent them back to us. There are plenty of scandals with India in relation to various types of arms. It concerns naval weapons in the first place”, said Mr. Alexander Khramchihin of the Institute of Political and Defense Analysis in an interview to Bigness.ru. Recollecting the year 2007 with the outbreak of scandal with 15 MiG-29CMT fighters shipped to Algeria . It appeared that the jet fighters, which were sold as brand new, contained “second-hand” parts. According to some information, the units from the planes with several hundreds of flight hours were used when assembling those aircraft. One can recollect habitual claims from India which is one of our key partners in the field of defense cooperation. We remind the endless complaints with The Gorshkov aircraft carrier which was designed for India. The budget for its refurbishment was mounting endlessly which enormously irritated our client. Perplexity was also connected with the problems in the modernization of the ship. Technical problems haunted Russia in the transfer of frigates, which India ordered from Russia . Air defense missile systems stubbornly failed to hit air targets. In many scandal situations (e.g. in the case of airplanes returned by Algeria) some observers incriminate the international backroom deal.
However, politically motivated relations with India could only take place in times of the Cold War, but definitely not today. “Earlier India oriented itself to Russia during the Cold War, and there were truly political factors there”, says A.Khramchihin. “Today India can buy weapons from whoever it wants to. The market also became more abundant than before. In his words everything in this sphere is explained by the quality including India’s denial. This is the signal to us that we produce low-quality weapons”, he affirms. Formerly, competitive advantage of the Soviet military technique was in its low price (sometimes even dumping), its simplicity and reliability. However, the Russian military hardware, still being simple, started losing its former reliability. Nevertheless, the prices on it were growing against all odds. The answer is in the high inflation rise of the defense sphere surpassing the average price growth in the industry as well as the degradation of the military-industrial complex. Whereas the amount of the state defense contracts and foreign contracts is growing, the national defense industry still fails to regain its capability to tackle the large-scale production of military equipment. “Old factories which produced hardware in sufficient quantities and quality in the course of many years are not coping with the assignment of today”, said Mr. Ruslan Pukhov, of the Center of Strategy and Technology Analysis told Bigness.ru. The staff deficit still persists – “money is there but people are not”. ”The situation is impossible to amend”, grumbles A.Kramchihin. If the situation does not change (according to military experts it will be next to impossible to reverse it) Russia will be losing its share in the market of arms and military equipment. These tendencies have already started to take shape. Thus. according to studies of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Bonn International Converse Center (BICC) Russia is reducing its share on the world arms market. The turnover on the world arms market in 2004-2008 has increased by 21 percent as compared to previous five-year period (1999-2003). At that time the increase in sales of Russian arms was only 14 percent. The figures testify that our share in the arms market started to curtail.
Disclaimer statement
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein, DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions expressed herein are those of the author of the page and do not necessarily represent the corporate views of DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News.

DTN News: Russian Navy To Receive New Carrier-Based Fighters

DTN News: Russian Navy To Receive New Carrier-Based Fighters *Source: DTN News / RIA Novosti (NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW, Russia - January 16, 2010: Russia's Navy will take delivery of the first MiG-29K (Fulcrum-D) fighters later this year, a Navy official said on Friday. "This year we are planning to buy the first batch of several machines," he said. He did not give an exact figure for the fighters, which are due to be deployed on the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier. The Navy earlier said it would buy a total of 24 MiG-29Ks in the next three to four years. The military official said the Navy was currently using MiG-29K carrier-based multirole fighters and the more advanced Su-33 (Flanker-D) fighters, which will subsequently replace the MiGs.Here is some pretty cool footage of two Russian MiG-29K fighters operating from the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov that gets your adrenalin pumping. "The Su-33s' service life is to expire in 2015, but we intend to extend it through 2025," he said. Military analyst Konstantin Makiyenko has suggested that production of new Su-33 aircraft is possible but not cost-effective, given the small production volumes, whereas considering that India has already contracted 16 MiG-29Ks and could place an order for another 28, the latter option is more financially viable. The 24 aircraft will cost an estimated $1 billion.