* Charles Edelstenne plans to retire from Dassault Aviation next month as he is reaching the statutory age limit. His successor as CEO should be known within days, though it is not clear whether that person will come from within or outside of the company. L’Usine Nouvelle [in French].
* During a hearing at the French Assemblée Nationale’s defense committee, Edelstenne mentioned a potential change in corporate governance at Thales, where CEO Luc Vigneron is in a protracted spat with unions. Dassault Aviation is the second largest shareholder in Thales, just behind the French state. Reuters | L’Usine Nouvelle [both in French].
* Since EADS confirmed on Monday that talks in the media of a new shareholder structure are founded, reports of what that would look like have kept coming. Bloomberg | Reuters.
* France and Italy would like to turn their joint Aster 30 / SAMP-T / MAMBA system into the basis of a future European component to NATO’s anti-missile defense. Joint statement [in French].
* NATO agreed to Turkey’s request for the deployment of Patriot anti-missile batteries for defense against airstrikes from Syria. NATO | DoD | WaPo.
* An alarming headline from the Telegraph: British Army’s fleet of Apache helicopters ‘could be scrapped’. Yet the direct quote closing the article states that “There are no plans to remove the Apache capability, on the contrary we plan to update and upgrade the fleet.” This looks like subeditor malpractice. (In larger media organizations subeditors, not journalists, write headlines and captions.)
* The UK’s Ministry of Defence held its first “Marketplace” event to showcase small businesses.
* Meanwhile in the US, its Fiscal-Cliffhanger 24×7, as the sequel to the Debt Ceiling Showdown and Super Committee: Kryptonite blockbusters of 2011. The plot is thin and dialog is cheesy: no prequels please. The always-hopeful Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is tracking the outlines of the offers made by the White House and the Republicans in the House of Representatives. At least the Senate has belatedly passed the FY 2013 defense bill.
