SEOUL: South Korea plans to finalise the purchase of 40 next-generation F-35 jet fighters from US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin later this year, Seoul’s military procurement agency said.
“We will... push to sign the contract in the third quarter... after testing and further negotiations,” Jung Kwang-Sun, the Defence Acquisition Program Administration’s aircraft department director, told reporters in a briefing late Monday.
The South’s air force has been looking to upgrade its ageing fleet of Boeing F-4 and F-5 fighters in the light of North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.
Jung did not specifically name the F-35s, but they are the only jet fighters on offer that meet the requirement -- laid down by the South Korean joint chiefs of staff last month -- for a stealth-capable fighter.
Indonesia jails asylum voyager
JAKARTA: An Indonesian court yesterday jailed a people-smuggler for seven years after he arranged an asylum boat voyage to Australia that ended when the vessel sank with the loss of some 90 lives.
Javaid Mahmood, a 54-year-old Pakistani, was found guilty of people-smuggling.
The boat left Indonesia’s main island of Java carrying some 200 Afghan and Pakistani asylum-seekers but almost half drowned when it went down.
The judge said an Afghan man, Dawood Amiri, who was jailed in 2013 for six years for people-smuggling, helped organise the fatal voyage.
NYT reporter to leave China
BEIJING: A New York Times reporter in China is poised to leave the country after authorities did not issue him a new visa, in a case highlighting Beijing’s controls on foreign journalists.
The move comes amid protests from Washington and elsewhere that Beijing is seeking to retaliate against news organisations such as the Times and financial agency Bloomberg that have published investigations into the family wealth and connections of its top leaders.
The visa of Austin Ramzy, 39, a reporter who has been based in China for more than six years, expires Thursday.
He joined the New York Times from Time magazine in mid-2013 and the newspaper applied for a journalist visa for him in June. Agencies
