A Conservative government would seek to boost Britain's military relations with France, Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said yesterday, stating that he wanted to see "a renewed and energised Anglo-French synergy" in future years.
A robotic hand that could defuse bombs remotely, a camera with the ability to detect minute changes in the landscape and a mysterious orange goo that absorbs the impact of bomb blasts are among new battlefield technologies unveiled by the Ministry of Defence.
Britain's investment in a multibillion-pound nuclear submarine programme has not been enough to save cuts of 5 per cent in the 4,500-strong workforce at BAE Systems' naval base in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. And the retirement of the old Nimrod surveillance aircraft took the number of redundancies in one day at the arms group to nearly 300.
Boeing expects to bid for $31 billion (around Rs1.4 trillion) worth of military contracts in India over 10 years as the South Asian nation upgrades its armed forces. The company plans to compete for contracts on fighter jets, maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters and military transport planes, Dinesh Keskar, president of Boeing's India unit, said in New Delhi on Thursday, reiterating an earlier forecast.
Despite a year of government exhortations, the French defence industry is likely to see average delivery times slip further in 2010, said Laurent Collet-Billon, the head of the Direction G�n�rale pour l'Armement (DGA) procurement office.
Anti-arms campaigners have asked the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to reconsider a landmark deal to settle bribery allegations against BAE Systems, the defence group.