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Defense News: 19 Feb 2009
By JOHN T. BENNETT

The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government. …

The Pentagon and Office of Management and Budget have agreed on a fiscal 2010 defense budget top line figure of $537 billion. That level is nearly $50 billion lower than the $585 billion defense plan created during the final months of the Bush administration, and $24 billion higher than the already enacted $513 billion 2009 defense budget. …

www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3956514

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Reuters – USA
Wed Feb 11, 2009

The Philippines’ highest court has ruled an American soldier convicted of raping a Filipina in 2006 must be placed in government custody, scrapping a deal between the two countries that allowed detention inside the U.S. embassy.

The Supreme Court, in a majority vote taken on Tuesday but announced only on Wednesday, upheld a decade-old security treaty between Manila and Washington. It also said the treaty was clear on the detention “by Philippine authorities” of any U.S. personnel serving sentences. …

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE51A2AY20090211

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NOTE: In the UK the court has no jurisdiction to hear the case if the person charged was on duty, in uniform and a member of a Visiting Force (US) – under the Visiting Forces Act 1952 – refer to CAAB Report – a case of doing what they like.

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Reuters
Fri Feb 13, 2009
By Jim Wolf

The White House has asked the Pentagon to cut nearly $2 billion, or up to roughly 20 percent, from missile defense in its fiscal 2010 budget, a prominent advocate of the costliest U.S. weapons development effort said on Friday.

Boeing Co’s Airborne Laser, a modified 747 being designed to zap ballistic missiles moments after liftoff, was in “very serious jeopardy of being taken out,” said Riki Ellison, head of the industry-supported Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. …

Another possible missile-defense cut would slow the projected installation of 10 two-stage interceptor missiles in Poland and a related radar site in the Czech Republic. …

http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE51C74720090213

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