Schriever AFB (AFNS) Oct 02, 2006 - Airmen from the 1st Space Operations Squadron here assumed launch and early orbit responsibilities for Global Positioning System IIR-M 15 shortly after it lifted off Sept. 25 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Makarov, Russia (AFP) Oct 1, 2006 - Sirens scream, jeeps fly past, helicopters prepare for take-off. Russia's flamboyant environmental enforcer Oleg Mitvol is in town. Mitvol's mission this time may be his biggest yet: to halt a 20-billion-dollar (15.8-billion-euro) energy project led by British oil giant Shell on Russia's eastern edge.
Tokyo (AFP) Oct 1, 2006 - The US military has entered the final stage of installing an advanced surface-to-air missile defense system in southern Japan, amid mounting concern over North Korea's missile launches. The first batch of equipment for the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system was unloaded Saturday at a military port on Okinawa island, amid protests from a handful of anti-war activists, press reports said.
Seoul (AFP) Sep 30, 2006 - South Korea plans to buy second-hand Patriot missiles from Germany and some equipment from the United States to beef up its air defence capability, military authorities said Saturday. The Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) has asked Germany and the United States to suggest terms for supplying Patriot missiles and related equipment, DAPA said.
Washington (AFP) Sep 29, 2006 - The US is to put more funding into energy research, especially the development of ethanol, to end its reliance on oil, President George W. Bush said in an interview Friday. Energy is ... one of the top priorities because energy diversification, in other words diversifying away from foreign sources of oil, not only has got economic implications, it's got national security implications, he told The Wall Street Journal.
Brussels (AFP) Sep 29, 2006 - The European Commission voiced confidence on Friday that EU and US negotiators holding talks in Washington on the transfer of information on air passengers would reach agreement by the weekend deadline. Both parties are committed to respecting the timeframe set by the court as to reaching an agreement, said Friso Roscam Abbing, spokesman for EU Justice and Freedom Commissioner Franco Frattini.
Seoul (AFP) Sep 29, 2006 - South Korea and the United States have agreed on a programme to reshape their military alliance and give Seoul a bigger role in countering any North Korean attack, officials said Friday. The defense ministry said the two sides signed new terms for the decades-old alliance after talks in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday.
Mahmud Raqi, Afghanistan (UPI) Sep 29, 2006 - Behind the scenes of a forgotten war, international security forces are plying the rugged Afghan backcountry with aid and infrastructural projects in a broad campaign to win over deprived masses prone to the advances of Taliban insurgents. While NATO troops battle a Taliban comeback in the south of the country that saw more than 800 militants killed over the summer, U.S. Army Maj. Don Johnson handed out gold-tipped shovels.
Washington (UPI) Sep 29, 2006 - As has been much discussed in the news recently, a National Intelligence Estimate (which President George W. Bush has partly declassified) has concluded that the American presence in Iraq has served not to diminish or even contain Islamic radicalism, but to increase it instead.
A Russian trade representative said here on Wednesday that Russia and China will discuss energy cooperation issues in late October.
London (AFP) Sep 28, 2006 - Sales of human organs taken from executed prisoners are thriving in China, targeted at foreigners who need transplants, the BBC reported on Wednesday. The broadcaster, which also published an article on the issue on its website, said one hospital claimed to be able to provide a liver for 50,000 pounds (94,500 dollars, 74,400 euros), with the chief surgeon at the hospital confirming that the donor could be an executed prisoner.
Changsha, China (XNA) Sep 28, 2006 - Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi has called on the six provinces of central China to take the initiative in endeavoring to become a new rising social and economic force in the country.
Qufu, China (XNA) Sep 28, 2006 - The family tree of Confucius, the revered Chinese thinker and educator, will number 1.5 million when the current update is completed. More than 1 million descendants of Confucius will be added to the family tree in this update. Women members will be recorded for the first time, said Kong Dehong, a Confucius descendant directing the fifth update of the family tree, at a festival commemorating Confucius in his hometown -- Qufu in east China's Shandong province.
Washington (UPI) Sep 28, 2006 - Senior Democrats in the U.S. Congress Thursday about the dire state of U.S. military readiness and compared it to the post-Vietnam era. Their comments could herald an attempted Democratic counter-attack against the Republican strategy for the midterm congressional elections of presenting the GOP as the only sound party on defense issues.
Washington (UPI) Sep 28, 2006 - America's missile defense programs are currently surging ahead far better than their critics expected. But at the same time, even if the programs deliver all the promise that their most ardent champions have predicted for them, they will still be able to deliver only a fraction of what the American public is being told by many pundits that they can do.
London (UPI) Sep 28, 2006 - A British Ministry of Defense research paper has raised serious questions about Pakistan's role in the war on terror, alleging that its intelligence services are indirectly helping al-Qaida and that the country is on the verge of chaos. While President Pervez Musharraf has angrily dismissed the claims, the paper has fed into fears about growing extremism in Pakistan, where a number of alleged terrorists are believed to have been radicalized.
