MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Russia’s government-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) will have the full technological capability by the beginning of 2019 to start building helicopter carriers and aircraft carriers, the president of the corporation, Alexey Rakhmanov told Rossiya’24 news channel on Sunday.

"We’ll be ready to begin construction of helicopter carriers as well as aircraft carriers," he said.

ISIS fighters and an Afghan militia group have beheaded a total of eight men in a series of tit-for-tat revenge killings, according to an Afghan official.

Four men have been beheaded from each side, in a blood-thirsty decapitation war following a gunfight on Saturday.

The ISIS fighters were beheaded by the militia group, in pay-back after ISIS beheaded four of the militia members.

The killings have been going on in the eastern border province of Nangarhar, in Afghanistan.

The cabinet of Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved a record 5.05 trillion yen ($41.4 billion) defense budget for fiscal year 2016/2017

The rise in the defense budget is primarily driven by a weakened yen, higher personnel costs and an increase in expenses for the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corp’s Futenma air base in Okinawa Prefecture

By 2023, the Ministry of Defense plans to convert seven out of the current 15 Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) brigades and divisions into mobile divisions and brigades that can be more easily transferred to the East China Sea

The fiscal year 2016/2017 shopping list encompasses 11 units of AAV7 amphibious assault vehicles made by BAE System

17 Mitsubishi SH-60K anti-submarine warfare helicopters, four Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft (a hybrid between a conventional helicopter and turboprop plane), three Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk drones, six F-35A Lightning II fighter planes, one Kawasaki C-2 military transport aircraft, and 36 new lighter maneuver combat vehicles (MCVs).

Other purchases include tanker aircraft, Aegis destroyers, and mobile missile batteries.

the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) will receive 20 P-1 patrol planes – Japan’s first indigenously developed and built maritime patrol aircraft

Japan’s Ministry of Defense will also purchase land and expand a GSDF base to station a patrol unit on Miyakojima in Okinawa Prefecture, and build another base to house a GSDF patrol unit equipped with mobile surveillance radars

South Korean DAPA, KAI Sign Formal Agreement For KF-X Fighter Aircraft Program

Source : Our Bureau ~ Dated : Monday, December 28, 2015 @ 12:34 PM

South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) and Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) have formally signed an agreement to develop KF-X fighter aircraft.

According to the agreement signed today, DAPA will finance 60 per cent of the 8 trillion won (US$6.9 billion) costs required in the development phase, with KAI to pay 20 per cent, Yonhap news agency reported Monday.

A total of eight test planes will be initially produced, with six of them for flight testing and the two others for ground testing. Indonesia will bring one of them home, along with aviation technologies to be transfered to the country.

"With the signing of the contract with KAI on Monday, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration will officially set about the fighter jet development project," DAPA said in a statement.

The project will take 10 years and six months before completing the developmental phase by the first half of 2026 and producing the initial batch of aircraft by 2028, according to the state procurement agency.

"This development project seeks to acquire medium-class Korean-type fighter jets through the joint investment of the South Korean government, Indonesia and foreign and local companies so that we can meet our Air Force's post-2020 air power demand on our own and tap into the global combat jet market," DAPA said.

The defense procurement agency also said the project will have a spill-over effect to bring the country's aviation industry one step forward.

"DAPA will utilize the local aviation industry's technologies and manpower that have been accumulated over the past 30 years and will do its best efforts to procure the needed fighter jets on time," DAPA Minister Chang Myoung-jin said.

I'm still convinced its written somewhere on some convention that military weapons need to be marked as such and are prohibited to be disguised as civilian stuff.

No one follows unless someone complain

When it comes to Russia, US will sure complain about everything.

A UN insider close to Security Council members told me that they were concerned that the Yemeni government and the Saudis were making no progress on the ground, with fighting in Taiz going on for months and neither side making substantial progress

Most notably, the Houthis had insisted, during earlier negotiations in Muscat, Oman, that they would not attend any further peace talks unless the Yemeni government agreed to a ceasefire first.

From the start of the talks, however, the Houthis were adamant that they would not release any prisoners until the Saudi-led coalition announced a full cessation of hostilities

Yemeni government forces - trained by the Saudi-led coalition over the past three months - mounted a surprise offensive on the northern region, near Al Jawf, capturing swaths of territory.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Mareb published a Facebook post claiming the timing of the military offensive had been clearly deliberate and was intended to strengthen the government’s negotiating position.

This wasn’t the first breach of the ceasefire. The Houthis had been engaged in heavy fighting at the Saudi border within hours of the ceasefire starting

Clearly, the government had planned a diplomatic push to accompany its military offensive.

Al-Arabiya went as far as to break the “news” that a member of the Houthi delegation had physically assaulted the UN envoy.

Watching this unfold in real time was surreal. Both sides were playing a political game, pushing for an elusive victory while Yemeni civilians were caught in the middle

After six days in Biel, one key fact that has stuck with me is that very few delegates had phone numbers with a Yemeni country code. Indeed, it now seems clear that all the delegates from the government’s side and the majority from the Houthis side are not currently based in Yemen and very few had even been to the country since the war be

Where to get some MRE's anyway ?? I want to get some and try it out also need for camping. Store some in room for a quick meal also.

They don't sell military rations here. Best bet is to assemble some canned/processed foods from Tesco or Giant and vacuum pack them in plastic bags yourself.

It's perfectly doable and you get to choose want food you want to eat.

Senior members of the U.S. administration have praised Russia’s successful and cost-effective military campaign in Syria

it’s estimated that its annual costs will come in at about $1-2 billion, which it has managed to cover using its annual military budget of $54 billion rather than needing to borrow or take from other sources.

A separate analysis puts the cost closer to $3 billion, citing the downing of the Russian aircraft by a Turkish jet in November as the primary reason for the increase in cost.

"The Russians didn't go blindly into this," said one U.S. intelligence official, adding that Russia is "getting some benefit out of the cost" by using the war as a testing ground for some of its newest technology.

"All the available data shows us that the current level of military effort is completely insignificant for the Russian economy and Russian budget,"

that means can have non-halal variety

I know a survivalist friend that add those small bottle liquors to his home-made ration packs which he makes to go on hikes.

Though I wonder how those would help in a survival situation, though.

Better to have some sort of enjoyment in case lost

The story also includes descriptions of documents from the nearly 7 terabytes of data seized from the compound of Abu Sayyaf, the ISIS oil chief for Syria killed in a US Special Forces raid in May.

The report contains one piece of evidence that the Middle East may be well past the heyday of the ISIS oil economy — ISIS’s once formidable oil export economy, which used to produce $40 million in revenue a month for the group, has all but evaporated.

As the story recounts, ISIS oil exports were once a highly centralized operation, with middlemen like tanker truck drivers paying about $10 to $20 per barrel at the point of sale.

The Caliphate’s oil industry was staffed using 1,600 workers, most of which were recruited from around the world.

The group lost approximately 14% of its territory in Syria in 2015, and was reportedly dislodged from the center Ramadi

It’s highly unlikely that ISIS will ever reconstitute the $1 million-a-day-type revenue streams it was able to establish by mid-2014.

The US was slow to understand the strategic value of targeting ISIS’s oil infrastructure, viewing oil platforms, refineries, and vehicles “as a financial target with less battlefield urgency, rather than military targets,” according to Iraq Oil Report.

Neh.. us just complain for the sake of complaining 

Not thta they bother what russia is doing. You good ally arab are using cluster bomb why can't rusia use the same?

Where to get some MRE's anyway ?? I want to get some and try it out also need for camping. Store some in room for a quick meal also.

Vision has surfaced of an extreme military drill being performed by the Indonesian militaries Special Forces.

The footage shows a squad of six Kopassus troops in full camouflage crawling across a muddy field as two men with assault rifles open fire around them.

The bullets can be seen striking alarmingly close to the soldiers as they crawl across the mire in scarcely perceptible uniforms.