Austria: EADS Desperately Sought Eurofighter Deal

VIENNA - Austrian prosecutors suspect aircraft manufacturer EADS of having made up to 100 million euros available to lobbyists to sell its Eurofighter jets in Vienna, according to Sept. 2 media reports.

Format magazine quoted a legal document on its website, stoking the scandal surrounding a 2 billion euro Eurofighter deal concluded in 2003 that since has been plagued by corruption allegations.

The affair, which has already sparked several court proceedings and the setting up of a parliamentary inquiry committee, was reignited by the arrest of a financier in Italy.

Gianfranco Laude told investigators in April that EADS assigned 84 million euros to a screen company, Vector Aerospace, with a view to bribes in Austria tied to the Eurofighter contract.

According to the prosecutor's report, EADS made about 100 million euros available to lobbyists tasked with setting up a complex network of screen companies.

"The construction was aimed at bribing businesses and civil servants," a court document said, ordering a wiretap on three lobbyists between June and July.

Format said investigators gleaned the information during the operation

Italy, Spain Sign on To Bid To Boost EU Defense

SOPOT, Poland - Italy and Spain have joined a bid by France, Germany and Poland to bolster a common EU defense policy in spite of Britain's refusal, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said September 2.

"We have signed and sent to (EU foreign policy chief) Catherine Ashton a 'letter from the five' - France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland - on strengthening European defense," Sikorski told journalists

The signatories refused to divulge the content of the joint letter, but a diplomatic source said it called for the creation of common defense structures.

"We must develop these projects even without British support," added the source, who asked not to be identified.

In July, Britain rejected plans for a permanent EU military headquarters, putting it at odds with its ally France amid stalled efforts to launch a common EU defense policy.

"The United Kingdom will not agree to such a permanent OHQ (operational headquarters)," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said at the time.

"We will not agree to it now. We will not agree to it in the future. That is a red line for us," he said after London applied its veto power against the proposal under EU rules.

Voicing London's traditional attachment to the transatlantic alliance with the United States, Britain's chief diplomat said an EU military headquarters would be costly and create wasteful duplication with NATO.

The creation of a permanent HQ was part of a report presented to the ministers by Ashton in a bid to breathe new life into EU defense policy.

But Hague said he was "unable to welcome" the report because of the headquarters plan. The ministers failed to issue any statement on defense policy at the end of their talks.

In her report, Ashton said the current system posed organizational problems because it relies on five national headquarters spread across Europe: in Germany, France, Greece, Italy and Britain.

The report also called for sharing defense capacities, improving EU-NATO relations and operational engagements by EU tactical groups.

Japan Appoints New Defense Minister

TOKYO - Following the formation of Japan's latest Cabinet under new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Sept. 2, Yasuo Ichikawa, former chief of the House of Councillors Policy Board, took the post of defense minister, replacing Toshimi Kitazawa.

Ichikawa, 69, is a graduate of Mie University and was a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries from 1965 to 1990. A native of Komatsu, Ishikawa, he served in the assembly of Ishikawa Prefecture in rural western Japan for two terms in 1991, He was first elected to Japan's House of Representatives in 1996 as a member of the New Frontier Party. After losing his seat in 2005, he was elected to the House of Councillors for the first time in 2007.

Russia Lashes Out at NATO's Turkey Radar Plan

MOSCOW - Russia demanded new Western security pledges September 2 after Turkey said it envisioned hosting an early warning radar as part of NATO's missile defense system for Europe.

The Russian foreign ministry said Turkey's radar plan would mark another step in the deployment "of the European segment of a global U.S. missile defense system".

Washington has previously argued that such written pledges are not needed because they are inherent in the language of the two sides' existing nuclear disarmament agreement.

NATO's decision to push ahead with plans for a European missile defense shield despite Russia's objects has been one of the main irritants of the "reset" in relations agreed by Moscow and Washington in 2009.

Russia fears that the shield could make its nuclear forces redundant. But NATO argues that the system can only defend against small nuclear arsenals that may one day be developed by states such as Iran.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said after May talks with U.S. President Barack Obama that an ultimate solution to the long-running row over missile defense may not happen until after 2020

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