The Price for Peace

On 1st April 2016, a distress call was received from a Malaysian tugboat in the waters off Ligitan islands. Of the crew of 9 men, 4 men, all Malaysians from Sibu, Sarawak were taken hostage by the group believed likely to be Abu Sayyaf.

Emergency response were swift.  But the kidnappers had left Malaysian waters. The first responders were baffled.  Why choose an unguarded route when the Sandakan - Tawi-Tawi route is well protected?  (The area they were taken was near to the border meeting point between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

MRCA Rumours - Typhoon?

I didn't expect it to be this soon (after last night's article), but it seems I'm going to write about the MRCA replacement programme again.

Short Take on the MRCA Programme and Debunking a Political Post

I'm just catching up with all the posts I missed in the Groups that I am in. But I must say, this post is way off the mark. The SU-34 and SU-35 did not make the cut.

http://www.financetwitter.com/2016/04/najib-regime-interested-to-buy-russian-su-34-su-35-worth-billions.html

The competition for the contract is currently opened for British BAe Eurofighter Typhoon (latest configuration), French Rafale D, US Advanced Super Hornet, and Swedish Saab Gripen (in accordance of preference in terms of capabilities and technology).

Local Defence Industry

The recently concluded DSA or Defence Services Asia 2016 held several pleasant surprises to me.  I had originally planned not to attend.  But a window of opportunity opened and I decided to drop by.

Noted several noteworthy improvements made by the local defence industry which I must say have far surpassed what I thought it would be 3 years ago.  Back then, the only key players were Deftech, BNS and SMEO.  Today, we have a a few other noteworthy new players; Global Komited, Destini Berhad, Aegis Malinnov, just to name a few. And interestingly, some of these companies are self-funded.  Some even garnered interest from foreign countries and at least 1 locally developed system had been approached by a foreign conglomerate for joint-venture.

Sardine and GST

Naughty post

Once regarded as food for the poor, sardine these days command quite a high price. In fact, canned sardine of premium brand Ayam brand sardine (425g) can fetch the price of RM8.50 to RM10.50.