April 21:
Japan will review its defense policy to take into account the faster-than-expected pace of China's military expansion, the Yomiuri newspaper reports. The National Defense Program Outline, which analyzes the international military situation, spells out basic guidelines for Japan’s defense policies and capabilities. The government will create a panel to discuss policies for the next decade and aims to have the defense outline approved by cabinet by the end of next year. China has been proactively procuring state-of-the-art fighters and submarines and the pace of the Chinese buildup is far beyond Japan's initial forecast, the report said.
April 23:
The Philippine military’s Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said the army was on track to, in two years, crush the New People's Army, a 39-year-old communist insurgency, the International Herald Tribune reports. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the military to defeat the communist insurgency by the end of her term in 2010. The rebels have waged a rural-based insurrection, attacking police and military outposts and surviving on extortion through the collection of "revolutionary taxes" from companies active in areas they hold. Esperon said rebel strength has dropped from 5,781 armed guerrillas in December 2007 to 5,470 in the first quarter of this year due to battlefield losses, surrenders and desertions.
April 24:
Baitullah Mehsud, a top Taliban commander and the man the Pakistani authorities say ordered the killing of Benazir Bhutto, has ordered his followers to stop all attacks. "All members of Tehrik-e-Taleban (Movement of Taleban) are ordered by Baitullah Mehsud that a ban is imposed on provocative activities for the sake of peace," according to a leaflet distributed in the South Waziristan region. Anyone who defied the order would be punished publicly, the leaflet read. In return the authorities have released Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the founder of an outlawed Islamist group that has fought in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The BBC reports that the authorities are close to a deal with Mehsud's tribe. The deal calls for an end to militancy, an exchange of prisoners, an army withdrawal from the area, and requires the Mehsud tribes to expel foreign fighters from their territory.
April 27:
North Korean military engineers are completing an underground runway beneath a mountain that can protect fighter aircraft from attack until they take off at high speed through the mouth of a tunnel. The 6,000ft runway is a few minutes’ flying time from the tense front line where the Korean People’s Army sit opposite soldiers from the United States and South Korea. The project was identified by an air force defector from North Korea and captured on a satellite image by Google Earth, London’s Sunday Times reports.
China's aggressive policy of forming close military ties with India's neighbors will soon pose a greater security threat to India than Pakistan, a veteran Indian politician, Arun Shourie, has told the Calcutta Chamber of Commerce. Beijing has fully militarized Tibet, has established a military pact with Bangladesh and has completely colonized Burma. “China is redefining warfare," Shourie said in comments carried by the Express India.