* Following an executive order from the White House last month, the US Department of State’s amendment of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to revise 4 US Munitions List (USML) categories has been published in the Federal Register [PDF] and will be effective on October 15, 2013.
* US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Greenert in his testimony yesterday to the House Armed Services Committee:
“[S]equestration leaves us with a $4N operations and maintenance shortfall and a $6B investment shortfall in 2013. […] Now, further, we’ll have to defer about $1.2B in facility maintenance as well as depot-level maintenance […] When you consolidate operations and maintenance and investment shortfalls together, that leaves us with about a $9B carryover that’ll go into 2014 and that’s what we’ll have to deal with right away. Now, continuation of sequestration in 2014 is going to compound this carryover challenge and it’ll go from $9B to $23B.”
* The White House threatens to veto [PDF] HR 624, the latest iteration of a cyber-security bill currently discussed in the House. Powers granted to the government which prevented earlier versions of the bill from passing have now been watered down. The Administration contends that private corporations should also be held to privacy standards.
* A 2nd Industry Day [PDF] to discuss the AMPV draft RFP with the US Army will take place on April 23 in Sterling Heights, MI. It will be followed by one-on-one meetings with interested contractors.
* Italy is considering cuts of 5 billion euros (about $6.6B) to its defense budget, according to Bloomberg who spoke with Finance Undersecretary Gianfranco Polillo. They have started to size up the impact on personnel, while it’s less clear which program acquisitions will be shrunk, delayed or canceled. On background: Defence Spending in Europe in Light of the Economic Crisis [PDF], a paper from the Istituto Affari Internazionali.
* Australia’s defence budget is converging towards 1.5% of GDP, from about 1.8% in the 2000s.
* India’s IDSA: China consolidates claim in South China Sea.
* France has brought back home [in French] 3 Mirage 2000 D, 2 Rafale and 1 Boeing C-135 aircraft that were engaged in Mali. They still have 3 Mirages, 6 Rafales, and 3 C-135 tankers involved in operation Serval. The French Senate will vote [in French] on April 22 on whether to authorize the lengthening of France’s military operation in Mali beyond May 11. The Senate’s president recently said [in French] there may still be about 3,000 French troops involved in July, down from 4,000 currently.
* Once NATO has finished withdrawing, what will happen to the Afghan staff, including many translators, who are being threatened by the Taliban? Alliance members, from the US to the UK to Germany or France [in French], all seem to struggle with the same issue.