The BioWeapons Monitor 2012 contains country reports on BWC-relevant activities in eight states: Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, Kenya, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In-country authors collected and analysed relevant information that is distributed through this publication. The authors used open sources and actively sought information from government departments, research institutions, industry, scientific societies and other entities.
The world is facing various challenges owing to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and it appears that this threat is not going to get over, at least in the near future. The world is slowly learning to adapt to this new reality. Some states are found doing well (in a relative sense) and are getting tuned to work under the shadow of the Covid-19 menace.
For years, Japan is known as technologically most advanced country in the world. However, even this country has not been free from cultural and religious fundamentalism and fanaticism.
Two Russian built warships with the same name i.e. Admiral Gorshkov have been making news in the last few weeks. The first vessel is an aircraft carrier which was sold to India in 2004 and is rechristened as INS Vikramaditya. It has been plagued in controversy due to costs and time overruns. The pre-delivery trials of the ship were unsuccessful and according to reports, the vessel will have to wait till the White Sea ice melts during the summer of 2013 to complete the trials.
The Indian Navy announced plans to dispatch a flotilla of four warships to the Asia Pacific region in March-April this year. These vessels will make goodwill visits to ports in the region and also engage in joint exercises with a number of regional navies: Singaporean Navy for the exercise Simbex in South China Sea; Malabar with the US Navy and the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) off the Okinawa coast; and Indra with Russian Navy off Vladivostok.