Taiwan-born officer in US Navy admits revealing defence secrets

Edward Lin tells court martial he mishandled classified information in an attempt to impress women, but more serious espionage charge is dropped

The US Navy abandoned efforts to convict a Taiwan-born officer of spying for China or Taiwan, striking a plea deal on Thursday on a lesser charge that portrays him as arrogant and willing to reveal military secrets to impress women.

The agreement was a marked retreat from last year’s accusations that Lieutenant Commander Edward Lin gave or attempted to give classified information to representatives of a foreign government.

Iran to Russia: Take $14bn and build us a modern army

 

 

Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan arrived in Moscow this week at the head of a large military delegation and laid before President Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu a $14 billion check. Now, make our Revolutionary Guards Corps and regular forces into an up-to-the-minute war machine, he said.

The plan to make over and upgrade Iran’s military was first approved by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is to be paid for with funds released by newly lifted sanctions against the Islamic Republic. The ayatollah aspires to rebuild the two branches – the IRGC with 150,000 troops and the regular army of 420,000 – as the most powerful armed force in the Middle East.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s an antimissile blimp!

 

If you visit the Washington, D.C. area in coming years and see a pair of large blimp hovering high overhead, there’s a good chance they won’t belong to Goodyear.

Instead, they could well belong to the Pentagon, which is in the late stages of testing a new program that was designed to deploy blimps over the nation’s capital as a form of anti-missile defense. Raytheon, the program’s lead contractor, said Wednesday it has completed one of last major milestones necessary for real-world deployment.