Source: U.S. DoD issued No. 1007-10 November 2, 2010
(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - November 3, 2010: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Contracts issued November 2,
2010 are undermentioned;
CONTRACTS
NAVY
ERAPSCO, Inc., Columbia City, Ind., is being awarded a $26,797,789 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (N00421-10-D-0010) to exercise an option for 4,999 AN/SSQ-101A sonobuoys in support of Navy antisubmarine forces for the mission of detection, classification and localization of adversary submarines during peacetime and combat operations. Work will be performed in DeLeon Springs, Fla. (61 percent), and Columbia City, Ind. (39 percent), and is expected to be completed in November 2012. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.
Progeny Systems Corp.*, Manassas, Va., is being awarded a $10,973,361 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-09-C-6207) for Phase III engineering and technical support services in support of the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) topic “Extensible After Action Review Acquisition, Retrieval and Storage System.” The concept for this SBIR is to identify technologies that can be used to address emerging non-propulsion electronics system network administration training and maintenance support requirements while concurrently supporting test data collection and analysis requirements. This procurement will use the prototype products, processes and methodologies developed by Progeny Systems under the SBIR Phase I and II efforts. The processes and prototype products developed will apply to air, surface and undersea warfare combatants. Progeny will also procure analogous technology products that result from the engineering studies and engineering development models as needed. Work will be performed in Manassas, Va., and is expected to be completed by October 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY
Schramm, Inc.*, West Chester, Pa., is being awarded a maximum $11,992,999 firm-fixed-price contract for water well drilling rigs and support vehicles. There are no other locations of performance. Using service is Navy. There were originally 11 proposals solicited with six responses. The date of performance completion is July 6, 2011. The Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pa., is the contracting activity (SPM8EC-10-R-0019).
*Small business
In Japan, the freshness and seasonality of ingredients used in cooking is of paramount importance. Even in this age of mass production and imported foods, people still care about the appearance of fresh bamboo shoots in spring, or the first matsutake mushrooms in fall. One of the most treasured "fresh" ingredients is shinmai (new-harvest rice). Incidentally, the word "shinmai" also means "newbie" or beginner. A shinmai mama is a new, first-time mother, and a shinmai shain is a brand new first-year company employee. Shinmai grain contains more moisture than older rice, and though some other rice-based cultures favor dry, even aged rice, in Japan, plump and moist rice indicates freshness and is more delicious. (Japan Times)
Readers of British newspaper The Guardian have selected Tokyo as their favorite overseas city for 2010, picking the metropolis as a top destination for the first time, the Japan National Tourism Organization said Tuesday. Japan also placed second only to the Maldives, a Pacific island nation often described as the Garden of Eden, in the favorite long-haul country category of the annual Guardian Travel Awards. Tokyo last year did not rate a mention in the first category, while Japan ranked fifth in the latter. (AP)
A 42-year-old man was sentenced to life Monday for murdering two women in Tokyo last year, avoiding what could have been the first death penalty handed down under the lay judge system that went into effect last year. Prosecutors had sought capital punishment for Koji Hayashi at the Tokyo District Court. Hayashi had admitted killing Miho Ejiri, 21, who worked at an ear-cleaning shop he frequented as a customer, and her grandmother, Yoshie Suzuki, 78, in August last year. The trial was the first to test the panel of lay and professional judges with a demand for the death penalty. (Japan Times)
Japanese lawmakers said Monday that video footage they have seen proves a Chinese trawler captain was responsible for collisions in early September between his vessel and Japanese patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands. "The images at the time of the collisions were very sharp," Hiroshi Nakai, chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, told reporters after seeing the footage in the morning. "The Chinese fishing boat rammed into (the Japanese vessels) and escaped...and this was clearly confirmed." About 30 lawmakers were shown the six-minute- and-50-second video in a room within the Diet, at a time when diplomatic ties between Asia's two largest economies remain soured over the Sept. 7 collisions off the Japan-controlled islets, which are claimed by China. (AP)
Japan lodged a protest Monday against Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Kunashiri Island, one of a group of Russian-held but Japanese-claimed islands off Hokkaido, with Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara summoning Russian Ambassador to Japan Mikhail Bely. Maehara said at a Diet committee meeting that the first-ever visit by a leader of Russia or the former Soviet Union to the island "hurts Japanese public sentiment." Prime Minister Naoto Kan also told the committee the trip is "extremely deplorable." Bely told reporters after meeting with Maehara that the president's visit was made "purely from the standpoint of domestic politics" and "has no significance internationally." (AP)
A sad trend is emerging with the all too common crime of shoplifting. Although the total number of crimes recognized by authorities declined to 1.7 million in 2009 from a peak of 2.85 million in 2002 - with shoplifting leveling off at 140,000 to 150,000 cases yearly - more and more elderly people are reported to be shoplifting. In 2009, 27,000 people aged 65 or older committed the crime - some 7.5 times more than 20 years before. It appears that loneliness of elderly people is behind the gradual increase in the number of shoplifters. (Japan Times)
With Haneda Airport having resumed regular international flights on Oct. 31 and Narita Airport deciding to expand the number of flights it serves, competition between the railroad companies that provide access to the two airports is heating up. On one side of the competition are the Keikyu and Keisei railway companies, and on the other are East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) and its subsidiary, the Tokyo Monorail Co. The Keikyu and Keisei lines offer transit between Haneda and Narita, using travel on the Tokyo subways in-between, while JR East runs the "Narita Express," which connects directly to major stations.
