Rapid Fire May 11, 2012: Budget Spats

May 11, 2012 09:20 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
  • US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is complaining that House Republicans want to fund stuff the military doesn’t need. In Australia, Shadow Minister for Defence David Johnston and Defence Minister Stephen Smith have similar disagreements on what the appropriate level of spending should be.
  • Panetta and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey argue in favor of the US signing the Law of the Sea Convention. It never obtained the Senate’s approval in the 30 years since the UN formalized the treaty.
  • Workers at the Lockheed Martin plant in Forth Worth, TX, are heading into a 4th week of strike. AFL-CIO | Lockheed Martin.

  • China’s interest in the Arctic is growing. Their Premier Wen Jiabao was in Sweden last month and wants to join the Arctic Council as permanent observer. The Chinese plan to have 2 icebreakers by 2014.

  • China is proving to be less friendly in its dealings with the Philippines.

  • The US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) posted the finalized Next Generation Enterprise Network (NGEN) RFP. This huge intranet project (800,000 users across 2,500+ locations) faced delays but could be worth $4.5B. Proposals are due by July 18.

  • An engineer was killed and two other people injured by a Schiebel S-100 crash into a ground control station during a test flight yesterday in South Korea.

  • The Brazilian Navy successfully tested an MBDA Exocet MM40 missile equipped with a Brazilian motor, according to the company.

    • Categories: Australia & S. Pacific, Brazil, China, Daily Rapid Fire, IT - Networks & Bandwidth, Legal, Polar Regions, RFPs, UAVs, USA

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