UK MoD Defence BattleLab opens at Dorset Innovation Park. (Janes)

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has officially opened the Defence BattleLab, based in Dorset Innovation Park, which is designed to foster innovation between the UK armed forces, industry, and academia in a collaborative space.

UK Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin informed Janes that the lab has 100 rentable desks, conference rooms, an engineering workshop, and three 5G network testbeds that will enable secure testing in a closed network.

A Chinese PLAN intelligence collection vessel, Haiwangxing , pictured operating off the north-west shelf of Australia. (Commonwealth of Australia)

A Chinese intelligence collection ship has been tracked for a week off the West Australian coast and within 50 n miles (93 km) of a sensitive naval communications base, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton disclosed on 13 May.

Dutton said the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN's) Dongdiao-class (Type 815/815A) intelligence collection ship (AGI) Haiwangxing

Current forecasts by Janes Defence Budgets show that if Japan continues to allocate about 1% of GDP to defence, the national defence expenditure will grow to USD56 billion by the end of this decade. The increase in 2021 is because of the allocation of supplementary expenditure in that year. (Janes Defence Budgets)

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has proposed a major revision to the country's defence policies in response to its evolving security environment.