China pursuing steady military build-up: Pentagon

China is exploiting Western commercial technology, conducting aggressive cyber espionage and buying more anti-ship missiles as part of a steady military build-up, the Pentagon said Friday.

Beijing aims to take advantage of "mostly US" defense-related technologies in the private 

sector in a concerted effort to modernize the country's armed forces and extend China's reach in the Asia-Pacific region, the Pentagon wrote in a report to Congress.

The annual assessment of China's military resembled previous reports but adopted more diplomatic language, possibly to avoid aggravating delicate relations with Beijing, analysts said.

"I am struck by the decidedly mellow tone," Christopher Johnson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told AFP.

Chinese officials are sure to privately welcome the report's wording, after having been irritated by a strategy document issued by President Barack Obama in January that portrayed China as a military rival.

"This is much friendlier" than the January strategy paper, Johnson noted.

The report said Beijing had a goal of leveraging "legally and illegally acquired dual-use and military-related technologies to its advantage."

"Interactions with Western aviation manufacturing firms may also inadvertently benefit China's defense aviation industry," the Pentagon warned.

Echoing recent warnings from intelligence officials, the Pentagon also blamed China for "many" of the world's cyber intrusions over the past year targeting US government and commercial networks, including companies "that directly support US defense programs."

The report warned that "Chinese actors are the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage," and predicted that those spying efforts would continue.

China's investments in cyber warfare were cause for "concern," said David Helvey, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and Asia Pacific security affairs.

Beijing was clearly "looking at ways to use cyber for offensive operations," Helvey told reporters.

The American military has long worried that China could potentially limit the reach of US naval ships in the western Pacific with new weapons, and the Pentagon report underlined those concerns.

China "is also acquiring and fielding greater numbers of conventional medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) to increase the range at which it can conduct precision strikes against land targets and naval ships, including aircraft carriers, operating far from China's shores beyond the first island chain," said the report.

Beijing is pouring money into advanced air defenses, submarines, anti-satellite weapons and anti-ship missiles that could all be used to deny an adversary access to strategic areas, such as the South China Sea, it said.

US strategists -- and some defense contractors -- often refer to the threat posed by China's so-called "carrier-killer" missiles, but Helvey said the anti-ship weapons currently have "limited operational capability."

China's military budget officially reached $106 billion in 2012, an 11.2 percent increase.

But the US report said China's defense budget does not include major expenditures such as improvements to nuclear forces or purchases of foreign-made weapons. Real defense spending amounts to $120 to $180 billion, the report said.

US military spending, however, still dwarfs Chinese investments, with the Pentagon's proposed budget for 2013 at more than $600 billion.

Despite a sustained increase in defense spending over the past decade, China has experienced setbacks with some satellite launches and ambitious projects to produce a fifth-generation fighter jet and modern aircraft carrier still face challenges, according to the report.

Although looking to expand its traditional missions to include counter-piracy and humanitarian efforts, the top priority of the People's Liberation Army remains a possible conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

The report said China is focused on preventing the United States from intervening successfully in support of Taiwan.

The document was released as the House of Representatives voted to force the US government to sell 66 new fighter-jets to Taiwan.

President Barack Obama's administration, anxious to keep ties with China on track, is only planning to upgrade existing planes. The measure still needs Senate approval.

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Molestation charges against Luke Pomersbach: Court to examine CCTV footage from hotel today

New Delhi:  A court in Delhi will examine the CCTV footage from a hotel in the city today to determine whether Luke Pomersbach, the 27-year-old Australian who plays for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, molested a woman and assaulted her fiancé there. Mr Pomersbach has said the charges against him are false. Here are 10 big facts on this case:

1) Mr Pomersbach was arrested on Friday morning by the Delhi Police on charges including "outraging the modesty of a woman". He has been granted interim bail till today.

2) Before leaving court, Mr Pomersbach told reporters that he is "disappointed with the false charges." The judge then asked for CCTV footage from the hotel.

3) The woman who has accused Mr Pomersbach of molesting her is a US citizen named Zohal Hameed. She broke down in court on Friday. Mr Pomersbach fainted for a few seconds in the court-room.

4) The complainant says her fiance, named Sahil Peerzada, lives in Mumbai and that they met Mr Pomersbach at a party on Thursday night at a five-star hotel in Delhi.

5) Mr Peerzada, according to his fiancee, tried to intervene and was attacked by the cricketer. Doctors attending to him at a Delhi hospital say the cartilage in his left ear has been crushed, and he has been operated upon. See photo of Mr Peerzada here.

6) Ms Hameed says the cricketer insisted on "tagging along" with her fiance and her when they decided to go to their room after the party. He then insisted they have a drink with him. When she refused and tried to exit the room, she says he grabbed her.

7) Hotel staff said they believe the couple invited Mr Pomersbach to their suite.

8) The party followed a match which was won by Mr Pomersbach's team against Delhi Daredevils.

9) Sidhartha Mallya, the Director of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, said to NDTV on Friday that he stands by his tweets on the case. Mr Mallya's tweets included references to meeting Ms Hameed at the party. "She was all over me last night and asked for me BBM pin, so if he was her fiance; she wasn't exactly behaving like a future wife." He also said on Twitter, "If Luke is in the wrong, then trust me he will face the necessary sanctions. But what this girl is doing is idiotic."

10) Sidhartha's father, liquor baron Vijay Mallya, speaking to NDTV said that his son is not a child and can defend himself. He also said that Mr Pomersbach will not play in the ongoing IPL tournament till the inquiry against the player is completed. 

Feds respond to Houston judge questioning Obama on health care

In responding to the request of a federal appeals judge in Houston, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday affirmed his department's belief in the time-honored concept of judicial review and said nothing in President Barack Obama's recent comments on a pending Supreme Court decision should be interpreted otherwise.

"Where a plaintiff properly invokes the jurisdiction of a court and presents a justiciable challenge, there is no dispute that courts properly review the constitutionality of Acts of Congress," Holder wrote in a letter to a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals that is reviewing a case from East Texas involving an obscure element of the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law being challenged as unconstitutional. "The (Justice) Department has not in this litigation, nor in any other litigation of which I am aware, ever asked this or any other court to reconsider or limit long-established precedent concerning judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation."

Justice Jerry Smith, a member of the panel, told a government lawyer earlier this week that he was concerned about the president's comments on the upcoming Supreme Court decision and demanded that the Justice Department submit a three-page letter clarifying its position on the role of courts in reviewing federal laws. Smith claimed the president "has troubled many people" with his comment Monday in support of the health care law. "I just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we've heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law," Obama said.