WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The United States and Israel have agreed to work together on a multi-layered missile defense system to counter tactical rockets as well as longer range ballistic missiles, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

The agreements were reached Tuesday at the Pentagon by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.

'We've agreed to enter into a discussion, a collaborative working relationship to see what we can develop,' he said.

WASHINGTON, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - The Pentagon will incorporate counter-measures in its next major missile defense test for the first time in years after a successful intercept last week, the general who heads the program said Tuesday.

Critics of the system have long contended the interceptor's so-called 'kill vehicle' could easily be spoofed with simple counter-measures such as decoy baloons, because of the difficulty of distinguishing a warhead from other objects in space.

WASHINGTON, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Interceptor missiles deployed in Poland as part of a US missile defense shield would be fast enough to target Russian intercontinental missiles, contrary to US assurances, a US researcher said Thursday.

Ted Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a long time critic of the US missile defense system, said the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is understating the speed of the interceptor and overstating the speed of Russian long range missiles.

LONDON, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - Britain has stockpiled enough plutonium to replicate the nuclear bomb attacks on Japan in 1945 thousands of times over, the country's top science academy said Friday.

The Royal Society said the amount of separated plutonium, most of which is the by-product of reprocessed spent fuel from nuclear power stations, has almost doubled in the last 10 years to more than 100 tonnes.

LONDON, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - Iranian engineers were among those killed in a blast at a secret Syrian military installation two months ago, defence group Jane's said, claiming the base was being used to develop chemical weapons.

The July 26 explosion in Aleppo, northern Syria, was reported at the time. The official Sana news agency said 15 Syrian military personnel were killed and 50 people were injured, most of them slightly from flying glass.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - A Russian radar site in Azerbaijan is too close to Iran to serve as a replacement for a planned US missile defense site in eastern Europe, the chief of the US missile defense agency said Thursday.

Lieutenant General Henry Obering said the Russian proposal was worth pursuing but only as a complement to the radar and interceptor missiles the United States wants to put in the Czech Republic and Poland.

WARSAW, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - Polish and US officials are poised for new talks this month on Washington's plan to base part of an anti-missile system in Poland, Defence Minister Aleksander Szczyglo said Thursday.

Szczyglo told reporters that the next round of negotiations was due to take place in the United States 'at the end of August'.

Warsaw and Washington last held talks on the project in Poland in June, and President Lech Kaczynski and his US counterpart George W. Bush pledged to spur negotiations when Kaczynski visited the United States last month.

PRAGUE, Aug 13, 2007 (AFP) - Some 30 American experts set out on Monday to inspect a site in the Czech Republic where there are plans to install a radar as part of a proposed US missile shield, an official said.

'The main goal of the four-day mission is to inspect geological conditions as well as the infrastructure and transport network,' in Brdy, 65 kilometres (104 miles) southwest of Prague, Czech defence ministry spokesman Jan Pejsek said.

The team is led by Julian Savage from the US Missile Defence Agency (MDA).

WASHINGTON, Aug 8, 2007 (AFP) - The Pentagon said Wednesday it has notified the US Congress of the possible sale of 60 Harpoon Block II anti-ship cruise missiles to Taiwan.

The proposed deal was valued at an estimated 125 million dollars, the Defense Security and Cooperation Agency said.

'The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance and economic security in the region,' the agency said.

MOSCOW, Aug 5, 2007 (AFP) - The Russian Navy announced Sunday it will produce a series of intercontinental missiles for its next generation of nuclear submarines.

'The last test trial of the Bulava-M at the end of June was very important ... After examining the results we decided to start work on these missiles for our new armament system,' navy chief Admiral Vladimir Marossin told Russian news agencies.

The Bulava-M missile, with a range of more than 8,000 kilometres (4,970 miles) can hold up to 10 nuclear warheads.