Author: Defenceline Webdesk

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. ― The Space Force has announced awards to five companies, as part of a project to demonstrate that its emerging Space Data Network (SDN) will be able to establish connectivity to multiple commercial satellite networks. The award packages, which include fixed-price contracts and Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements, are worth $12 million each and are being managed by Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Space-Based Sensing and Targeting Portfolio Acquisition Executive office, according to a Thursday release from SSC. The five winners are Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems. With the exception…

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Following the Japan-Philippines Summit Meeting on May 28, 2026, Japan and the Philippines are to hold negotiations to determine the boundaries of their overlapping Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and continental shelves in the waters east of Taiwan. The main goals include clarifying the scope of resource development, strengthening defense and maritime security cooperation, and preventing unforeseen clashes. Japan regards this as a model of peaceful resolution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and consistent with international law; China strongly protests the initiative. Since China considers Taiwan part of its own territory, it claims rights…

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The Cambodian artist Bou Meng, one of the few known survivors of the notorious S-21 security prison in Phnom Penh, has died at the age of 85, severing another living connection to the worst atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a U.N.-backed tribunal that has tried a handful of former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and other crimes against humanity, said in a statement that Bou Meng died at 11:00 p.m. on Friday “due to age-related illness.” “The passing of Mr. Bou Meng represents the loss of an important historical witness to…

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Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says that joint offshore oil and gas exploration with China remains a “distinct possibility” before the end of his term in 2028, despite the recent intensification of their disputes in the South China Sea. Speaking at a foreign media luncheon in Manila on Friday, Marcos said that Manila and Beijing were making progress in talks on the matter, and that the U.S.-Israel-Iran war had highlighted Manila’s need to shore up its energy security. “The Philippines needs additional supplies of oil and gas, and we need to explore the possibilities that we have in the Philippines,…

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A robot was on fire. Again.It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that…

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