Article

2005-11-24 Afghanistan-Pak-India

Pakistan to buy 26 F-16s from Holland, Belgium

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Posted by john 2005-11-24 18:44|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Meanwhile, a 5 star hotel amid the quake survivors and the rubble

5-star hotel to be built in Muzaffarabad

LAHORE: A five-star hotel is due to open in Muzaffarabad on March 31. âThe 200-room state of the art facility will be inaugurated on March 31 and it will be the first ever five-star hotel in Kashmir,â Jamil Khawar, the media advisor to the group building the hotel, told Daily Times on Wednesday. âWe want to put the smiles back on the faces of people of the area who are hard hit by the calamity and we hope that this effort would lead the way in reconstruction and rehabilitation of the quake-hit area,â said Khawar. Work on the project began about a year and a half ago. âWe are not looking at what we can earn from the project. Itâs our way of starting the reconstruction,â said Khawar. He did not say how much the project would cost. The hotel chain has four other hotels in Pakistan and another planned in Gwadar. mohammed rizwan

Posted by john 2005-11-24 18:52|| 2005-11-24 18:52|| Front Page Top

#2 I am reminded of a Greg Brown song:

It's a boom town
Got another boom town
It'll boom
Just as long as the boom has room

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2005-11-24 19:23|| 2005-11-24 19:23|| Front Page Top

#3 According to the author:

there is no let off in Indian belligerence towards Pakistan

This "belligerence" being

Indian Air Chief Air Marshal SP Tyagi said "the security dimension remains the same, terrorist infrastructure still exists in Pakistan and there is no reduction in cross-border terrorism"

What is it about Pakistanis that they refuse to connect the dots?
Do they have some God given right to be terrorists?
Perhaps they would not need the F-16s if they simply dismantled the terror camps.

Their purchases of F-16s have loosened the purse strings of the Indian Finance Minister.
It seems that instead of 125 fighters, the tender will be for 200 fighters, perhaps from two vendors- 100 F-18 Super Hornets and 100 Mig-35s (Mig 29 airframe with thrust vectoring engines, and Israeli/Indian/French avionics).

Posted by john 2005-11-24 19:35|| 2005-11-24 19:35|| Front Page Top

#4 Or 100 super hornets and 100 Mirage 2000-5s.

Even EADS is in the mix now, trying to get their Eurofighter Typhoon added to the Indian RFP.

Posted by john 2005-11-24 19:37|| 2005-11-24 19:37|| Front Page Top

#5 Not exactly a homogenous mix of aircraft/doctrine.

Posted by Shipman 2005-11-24 19:53|| 2005-11-24 19:53|| Front Page Top

#6 No.
Indian Ministry of Defence Babus have always distributed the contracts whenever possible. This pleases friendly governments and avoids over-reliance on any one country or vendor.

So the IAF has Anglo-French Jaguars (coated with Russian radar absorbing paint, French Mirages, Russain Migs - (Mig 21, Mig 23, Mig 27 (soon to be upgraded with new avionics and Al-31 thrust vectoring engines used by the Flankers), Mig-29, Sukhoi 30 MKIs.
The Russian aircraft have been modified with Indian radars and Israeli weapon targeting pods. The western aircraft to fire Russian missiles.
A very bizarre mix.

The IAF chief has resigned himself to further confusion. While the IAF originally asked for 200 Mirage 2000s, the MOD cut it down to 125 and demanded international tenders. Now they have the original 200 but the PM office wants to buy American aircraft - preferably the F-18 SH if the US allows export of the AESA radar and all the standoff ground attack weapons.

Russia and India will reconstitute the Russian GLONASS nav sat system so a number of weapons may be modified to use GLONASS as well as GPS.

Posted by john 2005-11-24 20:12|| 2005-11-24 20:12|| Front Page Top

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