Indian arms imports almost triple China, Pakistan: study

India remains the biggest buyer of arms in the world, importing nearly three times as many weapons as its nearest competitors China and Pakistan over the last five years, a Swedish think tank said.

Indian Army tanks take part in the Republic Day parade in
 New Delhi on January 26, 2014 

The total volume of arms sales was up 14 percent in 2009-13 compared to the previous five years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Indian imports of major weapons rose by 111 percent in the last five years compared to 2004–08. Its share of total global arms imports increased from 7 to 14 percent, SIPRI said.
India replaced China as the world's biggest arms buyer in 2010. With its domestic defence industry struggling to manufacture high-tech arms, India is in the midst of a defence spending binge as it struggles to keep up with better-equipped Chinese forces and a range of military challenges in its volatile neighbourhood.
The main supplier of arms to India in 2009-13 was Russia, accounting for 75 percent of all imports -- reflecting India's need to upgrade and modernise weapons systems dating back to their close relationship during the Cold War.
India has lately sought to diversify its sources, looking particularly to the United States.
Figures from IHS Jane's released in February showed that India became the biggest buyer of US weapons last year -- with total imports worth $1.9 billion, and a string of large-scale purchases including Boeing's C-17A transport aircraft and P-8I Maritime Patrol Aircraft.
In 2009-13, however, the US still accounted for only 7 percent of India's purchases according to SIPRI.
India's traditional rival Pakistan increased its weapons acquisitions by 119 percent, growing from 2 percent of the global total to 5 percent during that period.
The five largest arms suppliers worldwide between 2009 and 2013 were the United States (29 percent of global exports), Russia (27 percent), Germany (7 percent), China (6 percent) and France (5 percent).
They collectively accounted for 74 percent of total arms exports, SIPRI said.
The world's top five arms importers were now India, China, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
"Chinese, Russian and US arms supplies to South Asia are driven by both economic and political considerations," said Siemon Wezeman, senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.
"In particular, China and the USA appear to be using arms deliveries to Asia to strengthen their influence in the region," Wezeman said.
Arms exports to Africa between 2004-08 and 2009-13 jumped 53 percent. The three largest importers in the region were Algeria, Morocco and Sudan.
Imports by European nations decreased by 25 percent between 2004–2008 and 2009–13.
Britain was the largest importer of major weapons in Europe (receiving 12 percent of deliveries), followed by Azerbaijan (12 percent) and Greece (11 percent).

Read more...

Malaysia doubles scale of plane search, pilots probed

Malaysia said on Sunday the number of countries involved in efforts to find a missing passenger jet had nearly doubled to 25 as it began a new push to find the plane across a vast arc of land and ocean.

Malaysia's Minister of Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein (2nd R) answers questions from journalists during a press conference at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang. (AFP/MOHD RASFAN)

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia said Sunday the number of countries searching for a missing airliner had nearly doubled to 25 as a full-scale criminal probe into its disappearance got under way, with particular scrutiny of the pilots.
Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said the number of participating countries had jumped from 14 to 25 as the search for the aircraft focused on two vast, and vastly contrasting, land and ocean transport corridors.
The dramatic "re-calibration" would inevitably bring "new challenges of coordination and diplomacy", the minister said.
Police said they had searched the homes of both pilots and examined the captain's home flight simulator after it became increasingly clear that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that vanished March 8 had been deliberately diverted by someone on board.
Hishammuddin cautioned people against "jumping to conclusions" about the thrust of the investigation, which national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar stressed was covering "all" the 239 passengers and crew.
Engineers who may have had contact with the aircraft before take-off were also being looked at, Khalid said.
The police action followed Saturday's startling revelations that the plane's communications systems had been manually switched off before the jet veered westward and flew on for hours.
Like Prime Minister Najib Razak the previous day, Hishammuddin refused to use the word hijack, saying only that the pattern of events was consistent with "deliberate action" by someone on the plane.
The new search parameters involve two possible flight corridors -- a northern one stretching from Thailand to Kazakhstan and a southern one from Indonesia towards the southern Indian Ocean.
The Malaysian foreign ministry briefed representatives from 22 countries on Sunday, including the central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, and requested support in the form of satellite and radar data.
For anguished relatives, the news the plane had been diverted was a double-edged sword -- holding out the slim hope that hijackers had landed the plane somewhere, while ushering in another agonising open-ended waiting period.
Relatives of Bob and Cathy Lawton, a missing Australian couple, said they were horrified by the notion of a drawn-out hijack ordeal.
"That's one of the worst things I could have hoped for," Bob's brother David Lawton told News Limited newspapers.
"Even if they are alive, what did they have to put up with?"
The scope for speculation is as broad as the new search area.
Experts said it would have taken specialist knowledge to disable the communications system, intensifying scrutiny of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and his First Officer, Fariq Abdul Hamid.
Friends and colleagues of both pilots have testified to their good character, but questions have been raised over the simulator Zaharie installed at home -- even though aviation commentators have said this is not uncommon.
Fariq's record was queried after a woman said he had allowed her and a friend to ride in the cockpit of an earlier flight.
Hishammuddin noted that the two pilots "did not ask to fly together" on the missing plane.
The alternative scenario -- that the cockpit was taken over or the pilots coerced -- opens a pandora's box of possibilities as to who might be involved and why.
Two passengers who boarded the plane with stolen EU passports have been identified as Iranians by Interpol, who said they were most likely illegal immigrants who did not fit terrorist profiles.
The fact that most of the passengers on board the Beijing-bound flight were Chinese has raised speculation of involvement by militants from China's Muslim ethnic Uighur minority.
Security experts warned against reading too much into partial data.
"We still really don't have a lot of evidence to go on," said Anthony Brickhouse, a member of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators.
"We don't have any wreckage, we don't have the plane itself, we don't have a lot of electronic data from the aircraft."
The last satellite communication from the plane on March 8 came nearly eight hours after it took off -- around the time the airline has said it would have run out of fuel.
Hishammuddin said both search corridors were being treated "with equal importance", but a number of analysts said the southern ocean route was more likely.
Flying along the northern corridor would have required the plane to travel undetected through numerous national airspaces in a strategically sensitive region.
"I just can't think of a scenario where this aircraft is sitting on a runway somewhere," said Brickhouse.
Scott Hamilton, managing director of US-based aerospace consultancy Leehman Co, said a crash in the ocean would present a daunting search and recovery challenge.
"Any floating debris will be widely dispersed and the main debris on the sea floor," he said.

Read more...

Pilots' homes searched, flight simulator examined: Malaysia

Malaysia's government said on Sunday that police had searched the homes of the two pilots of a missing airliner and were examining the captain's home flight simulator, but cautioned it was "normal" procedure.

Security guards in front of the main gate house of the area where missing Malaysia Airlines plane's pilot captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah lives, in Shah Alam on March 15. (AFP/MOHD RASFAN)

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia said on Sunday that police had searched the homes of a missing airliner's two pilots and were examining the captain's home flight simulator, but warned against "jumping to conclusions".
"Police searched the home of the pilot on Saturday, 15 March," a statement by the transport ministry said, referring to Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53.
"Officers spoke to family members of the pilot and experts are examining the pilot's flight simulator."
The statement added: "On 15 March, the police also searched the home of the co-pilot."
Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, was the co-pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which vanished eight days ago, sparking off a massive international search across a huge swathe of Asia.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Saturday the plane appeared to have been deliberately diverted from its flight path after it dropped off radar. He said satellites continued to detect it for hours afterwards, an announcement which raised fears of a hijack or rogue action by pilots or crew.
The revelation has prompted fresh scrutiny of the two pilots.
Zaharie is said to have assembled his own complex flight simulator at home but nothing has emerged to cast suspicion on him.
The government statement said engineers who may have had contact with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 before it took off on March 8 were also part of the probe into the missing jet, but called this "normal procedure" for such an event.
"We appeal to the public not to jump to conclusions regarding the police investigation," it said.
It reiterated that all crew and passengers on board the flight were being investigated for possible leads. Nothing that suggests a motive had yet surfaced, it said.
The plane disappeared from civilian radar less than an hour into its journey from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Najib also said investigators believe that systems relaying MH370's location to air traffic control were manually switched off before the jet veered westward.
An Australian television programme earlier broadcast an interview by a South African woman who alleged that she and a friend were invited into the cockpit of a 2011 flight co-piloted by Fariq, in breach of post-9/11 security rules.
The transport ministry in its statement also said that Malaysian officials are contacting countries along the northern and southern corridors about missing flight MH370.
The countries include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and France, and officials are requesting assistance from them.
Malaysian officials are currently discussing with all partners on how best to deploy assets along the two corridors.
They are also asking countries to provide further assistance in the search for the aircraft, including satellite data and analysis, ground-search capabilities, radar data and maritime and air assets.
Both the northern and southern corridors are being treated with equal importance, said the statement.

Read more...

Obama Calls for Overtime Pay Protection

U.S. President Barack Obama says he has ordered a review of the nation's overtime rules because too many Americans are working overtime and are not being paid for all the hours they work.

Obama said in his weekly address Saturday an overtime exception that was originally meant for highly paid employees now applies to workers who earn as little as $23,660 a year, making it possible for salaried workers to be paid less than the minimum wage.

The president said his administration was "going to update those overtime rules" to restore the basic principle "that if you have to work more, you should be able to earn more."

President Obama said the country must "build an economy that works for everybody, nut just a fortunate few."In the Republican address, Congressman Bill Johnson from Ohio called on the president to protect senior citizens who he says are losing their long-term doctors because of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Read more...