This week Defence Minister Stephen Smith hosted Vietnam's Minister of National Defense, General Phung Quang Thanh, for the inaugural Australia-Vietnam Defence Ministers' meeting.

Asia Pacific Aerospace (APA) has been selected by Rolls-Royce to become an Authorised Maintenance Repair and Overhaul Centre (AMROC) for the support of the RR 300 engine for the Australasia region.

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According to the US Government Accountability Office, the F-35 program achieved 7 of 10 key management objectives for 2012 and made substantial progress on one other.

The US Department of Defense has awarded Austal USA in Mobile an additional $US19.987 million in a modification to a previously awarded Littoral Combat Ship contract, the shipbuilder said today in a press release.

Elbit Systems EW and SIGINT - Elisra Ltd has been awarded an approximately $115 million contract to supply an Asian customer with Electronic Warfare systems for multi-purpose land missions.

Raytheon Missile Systems has successfully completed a milestone test of a dual-band missile datalink designed to enable the integration of its Standard Missile-3 ballistic missile defence interceptor into non-Aegis ships.

It is reported that the British fleet's new radar can detect a supersonic tennis ball at 25 km. The new radar is designed to simultaneously detect 900 targets smaller than a bird, against background noise equivalent to 10,000 mobile phone signals at ranges from 200 m to 200 km

The Israel Defense Forces ground troops are planning to bring the Skylark Generation 2 unmanned aerial vehicle into operational service in the next few months.

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems has received a contract from the US Navy to produce and deliver Type-3 advanced mission computers in support of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft.

It is reported that Kokoda Foundation's Ross Babbage has urged the Defence Minister Stephen Smith to commit up to $1.8 billion to build a fourth Hobart class Air Warfare Destroyer to bolster this country's defences against 'the growing threat of a North Korean ICBM attack against this country'.

Australian industry has more insight into expected opportunities within major Defence capability contracts, following the release of the first Australian Industry Capability Plans. In late February a further three AIC plans were released publicly.

Vipac Engineers and Scientists has announced the MIL-S-901D medium weight test capability acquired as part of the former ADI test Laboratories is available again to the defence industry.

In late 2012 the Australian Business Defence Industry Unit sourced data on contracts placed by the DMO from the Austender website with the intention of analysing the data to discern any apparent trends.

Aviation Australia and Hawker Pacific have signed an agreement to formalise their previous Memorandum of Understanding for a specialised training program in Cairns.

Five Australian innovators have been presented with the inaugural Aerospace Australia Industry Innovation Awards at Avalon2013.