Free Republic

When Lee Kuan Yew died Monday at age 91, the founding father of Singapore did not leave just his legacy as the prime minister whose authoritarian policies shaped a backwater British colony into the world’s fourth-wealthiest nation. He also left Singaporeans with one of the most formidable armies in the world. The tiny island state of 5.4 million, with a land area far smaller than New York City’s, has more fighter jets than Spain, Poland or Sweden. Its army has as many tanks as Italy, which is more than 400 times the size. Its navy boasts the only stealthy ships...

The Indian Navy plans to deploy its medium-range Dornier surveillance aircraft at its furthest air station at Campbell Bay in the Andaman and Nicobar islands to keep a regular watch on the oil and cargo traffic passing through the strategic Malacca Strait and two other crucial sea lanes used to ferry these materials to China and South East Asia. Almost a year after a 3,500 ft runway was made operational at the “INS Baaz” – the Navy’s eastern most air station in the Campbell Bay – Defence Minister AK Antony told the navy commanders on Tuesday to go ahead with...

In Southeast Asia, home to one of the world's most strategic sea lanes—the Straits of Malacca, and the world's second largest port, Singapore—the vulnerability of the maritime sector is of great concern. As a result, over the last few years various scenarios of how terrorists might carry out an attack in the maritime domain have been put forward by the media and academics alike. Many of these potential scenarios are extremely unlikely due to their complicated nature and their sheer impracticability. Nevertheless, a great number of these scenarios have remained unchallenged due to a lack of knowledge of the geography...

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Navy will install radars at nine locations along the Malacca Strait to support security maintenance in the busy shipping lane, a spokesman said here Saturday. "The Indonesian Navy has decided to install radars at nine points along the Malacca Strait to strengthen security in the air over the region," the Indonesian Navy Headquarters` spokesman, Commodore Abdul Malik Yusuf, said. The decision to take the measure was a follow up to the agreement between the strait`s littoral states, namely Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, to conduct coordinated patrols in the channel. At a meeting of the...

China is building up military forces and setting up bases along sea lanes from the Middle East to project its power overseas and protect its oil shipments, according to a previously undisclosed internal report prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The crew of an oil tanker foiled a pirate attack on Saturday after robbers tried to board their vessel in the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, the International Maritime Bureau said in its weekly report. Pirates approached the tanker, used to carry refined oil products like gasoline, in two speedboats at 1.10 pm local time, the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre said on its website. The name and size of the ship were not reported. The crew activated fire hoses, fired signal flares and increased the vessel's speed, said the IMB, part of the International Chamber...

Not since the 17th and 18th centuries, when cutlass-wielding outlaws terrorized the Caribbean, has piracy been so rampant on the world's oceans. Acts of piracy soared worldwide in the first six months of this year, reaching an all-time high of 234 attacks and claiming the lives of 16 sailors, according to a report released yesterday by the London-based International Maritime Bureau. The new figures, which amount to a 37% increase over the same period last year, represent the worst six-month period for piracy since the bureau, a specialized division of the International Chamber of Commerce, started compiling statistics in 1991....

THIS IS A RE-POST OF AN ARTICLE FROM ASIA I PROVIDED TO FR A FEW WEEKS AGO:Radioactive Shipping Cargo `Stolen by Al-Qaeda' Dirty bomb bid spurs rise in regional piracy Anucha Charoenpo Al-Qaeda is among international terrorist organisations responsible for an increase in piracy against ships carrying radioactive materials through the Malacca Straits, an expert in regional affairs has warned. The terrorist groups' main aims were to obtain substances such as uranium and plutonium oxide for use in so-called dirty bombs, said Panithan Watthanayakorn, a political lecturer at Chulalongkorn University. He said the Malacca Straits, between Indonesia's Sumatra island and...