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Defence in the media

https://modmedia.blog.gov.uk/2016/04/01/defence-in-the-media-1-april-2016/

Defence in the media: 1 April 2016

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In today's news items of interest for Defence there are reports about Daesh, steel and the anniversary of Puma helicopters serving in Afghanistan.

Steel

The Tata steel story is widely covered again today. A comment piece in The Times claims that the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers are partly made using Swedish steel. 

Daesh

The Telegraph reports that the Foreign Secretary has said the UK would consider launching airstrikes against Daesh positions in Lebanon to prevent the extremist group from claiming another Mediterranean foothold.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said:

If such a request were made, we'd certainly look at it, but we don't do these things on our own. We work together with allies in a partnership that spans the theatres in Iraq, Syria and beyond, so this wouldn't be a unilateral UK decision, we'd look at any request with our allies and partners and decide how to respond to it.

Iraq hero

Several papers report that Iraq war veteran Sergeant Gordon Robertson has sold his gallantry medal to help his son onto the property ladder (The Telegraph, The Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, New Day, Daily Express). 

Puma 2 helicopters based at RAF Benson have completed their first full year on operations in Afghanistan. The aircraft and personnel deployed to Kabul in March 2015 and officially took over from their Chinook helicopter colleagues on 1 April 2015. With bases spread across Kabul, the role of the Puma Force is essentially to provide an efficient method of moving coalition personnel and freight between bases. Since deploying to Afghanistan, the Puma Force has flown over 2,300 hours where they have moved almost 28,000 passengers and over 42 tonnes of freight.

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