Indian Military

BEIJING: China on Thursday accused Japan of deliberately exaggerating Beijing's military threat, underlining the suspicion with which Asia's two biggest economies view each other.
The accusation follows a defence white paper earlier this week in which Japan warned that China's naval forces were likely to increase activities around its waters. The two countries have long bickered over ownership of parts of the East China Sea, with the latest flare-up late last year.
China's foreign and defence ministries both rounded on the Japan's latest defence report, which laid out worries about China's military modernisation and expanding maritime reach.
China is close to launching its first aircraft carrier, a refitted former Soviet vessel, and sources told Reuters it was building two more.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu obliquely warned Tokyo not to stray from its longstanding defence posture and, in comments on the ministry website, criticised "irresponsible comments" in the white paper.

WASHINGTON: The aging U-2 spy plane of Cold War fame has avoided retirement and will stay in the air until 2025, the Air Force has said, because the costly drone due to replace it turned out to be less effective.
As part of cost-saving measures announced by the Pentagon, officials concluded the U-2 jet -- which dates back to the 1950s -- provided better value than a version of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, which had been scheduled to take the U-2's place by 2015.
Both aircraft fly at high altitude for surveillance flights over Afghanistan and elsewhere, retrieving pictures and eavesdropping. But the U-2's sensors produce much higher quality imagery than the Global Hawk's equipment, Air Force General Larry Spencer told reporters.
Spencer said "it would be cost-prohibitive to try to get the Global Hawk as capable as the U-2."
In its budget request for fiscal year 2013, the Pentagon said it would cancel the purchase of 18 of the "Block 30" models of the Global Hawk and proposed "to extend U-2 operations until FY 2025.

SEOUL: North Korea's new leader Kim Jong-Un has visited the naval unit that captured a US spy ship in 1968, the official news agency said Friday, amid tensions over its planned satellite launch.
Any attempt to intercept the satellite would be "an act of war", the North said late Thursday after South Korea and Japan prepared to shoot down the rocket should it fall towards their territory.
In the latest of a series of military visits, Kim inspected Navy Unit 155 in the southeastern province of Kangwon and highly praised its past feats, the agency said.
It "startled the world" by sinking the US heavy cruiser Baltimore with just four torpedo craft during the 1950-53 Korean War and also captured the US spy ship Pueblo, it said.
Kim "stressed the need for the seamen of the unit to firmly take over the baton of the revolutionary forerunners (and) send the enemies into the bottom of the sea if they dare intrude into the territorial waters".
The North captured the spy ship with 83 crew members after it allegedly intruded into its territorial waters, sparking a Cold War crisis.

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (AP): Cold War enemies the United States and Vietnam demonstrated their blossoming military relations Sunday as a US nuclear supercarrier floated in waters off the Southeast Asian nation's coast - sending a message that China is not the region's only big player.

The visit comes 35 years after the Vietnam War as the US and Vietnam are cozying up in a number of areas, from negotiating a controversial deal to share civilian nuclear fuel and technology to agreeing that China needs to work with its neighbors to resolve territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The USS George Washington's stop is officially billed as a commemoration of last month's 15th anniversary of normalized diplomatic relations between the former foes. But the timing also reflects Washington's heightened interest in maintaining security and stability in the Asia-Pacific amid tensions following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which killed 46 sailors.