2011-02-15 (China Military News cited from washingtontimes.com and written by Reuben F. Johnson) -- Ukrainian authorities have imposed a six-year prison term on a Russian man convicted of spying for China who was assigned to steal military secrets for Beijing’s program to build and operate aircraft carriers.
The Russian national, Aleksandr Yermakov, was blocked from attempting to transfer to China classified data that would have significantly accelerated the Chinese army‘s effort to field its own operational aircraft carrier, according to reports in the Ukrainian newspaper Segodnya and other news outlets.

Varyag's Newsest Status in China, Feb, 2011
China's military announced last year that it had begun construction of its first aircraft carrier, confirming Pentagon and U.S. intelligence reports that Beijing was seeking the power-projection platform that requires highly skilled pilots who can take off and land from the relatively short space of a carrier deck at sea.
U.S. and defense and intelligence officials said China‘s deployment of an aircraft carrier would pose significant problems for U.S. plans to defend democratic Taiwan if the communist mainland were to use force to retake the island, which broke away after China‘s civil war.
“It not only extends the range of Chinese strike aircraft that would take out [Taiwanese] military installations, but it also would complicate U.S. Navy assistance of the [Republic of China‘s] defense if the mainland should attack,” said a naval officer and Chinese carrier program specialist assigned to the Pentagon.
China‘s intelligence service directed Yermakov to steal classified information about Ukraine‘s Land-based Naval Aviation Testing and Training Complex, or NITKA, its Russian acronym, according to reports.
The facility is in the Crimea near the city of Saki and was built when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. It remains the only training complex of its kind in the world.
The NITKA base is vital for states that operate one of the Russian-designed carriers equipped with ski-ramp takeoff decks, instead of the flat decks used on U.S. and French aircraft carriers.
The only two ski-jump carriers are the Russian navy‘s Admiral Kuznetsov and its sister ship, the Varyag, acquired by China from Ukraine in 1998 and initially announced in China for use as a floating casino. Russia continues training its pilots in Ukraine while building a similar facility in the Krasnodarsky Krai region of Russia that is expected to be completed in 2012.
View the original article here

2011-02-14 (China Military News cited from sbwire.com) -- After a tumultuous 2008, the next 2 years were relatively steady for the global aerospace industry. Even with the overall slow recovery of the U.S. and various other economies, the global aerospace industry continued to experience modest growth. The global aerospace industry has been dominated mainly by the Americas. Majorly, the U.S and Canada have been dominating the global aerospace industry. Americas was estimated to account for over half of the market at the end of 2009, i.e. approx 57% of the global aerospace and defense industry, says our new research report “Aerospace Industry Forecast to 2013”.
Our team of experts has found out that one of the important factors that have driven the growth of the Americas aerospace industry is the increased defense expenditure of the US during the last few years on account of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the overall war on terror. The commercial aerospace market, which plummeted during the economic recession, is expected to revive in the coming years, fueled by the gradual recovery of the global economy.
Our report has segmented the global aerospace industry into developed and emerging markets. The countries covered in the developed markets include, the US, Canada, and the UK. Moreover, the countries included in the emerging markets are Middle East, China, India and various others. For each country included in the report, detail statistical analysis has been provided. Most importantly, considerable focus on the MRO industry has also been provided.
“Aerospace Industry Forecast to 2013” provides thorough research and rational analysis along with reliable statistics of the global aerospace industry. Besides, an insight of trends prevailing in the regional aerospace industry segments across the globe has been covered in the report. Analysis and statistics regarding market size, growth, share, segmentation, and geographic distribution have been thoroughly studied in the report to present a comprehensive view of the global aerospace industry. The report has thoroughly examined current market trends; industrial developments and competitive landscape to enable clients understand the market structure and its progress in coming years.
View the original article here