Tuesday, March 15, 2011

DTN News - LIBYA UPRISING: Libya No-Fly Zone Draft Resolution Circulated At U.N.

DTN News - LIBYA UPRISING: Libya No-Fly Zone Draft Resolution Circulated At U.N.
(NSI News Source Info) UNITED NATIONS - March 15, 2011:
Supporters of a no-fly zone to halt Libyan government air strikes on rebels circulated a draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that would authorize one, but other states said questions remained.

The draft was distributed at a closed-door meeting by Britain and Lebanon after the Arab League called on the council on Saturday to set up a no-fly zone amid advances by leader Muammar Gaddafi's troops against the rebels based in the east.

The draft, obtained by Reuters, says the council "decides to establish a ban on all flights in the airspace of (Libya) in order to help protect civilians."

It authorizes member states to "take all necessary measures to enforce compliance" and says countries implementing the ban would be doing so in cooperation with the Arab League and in cooperation with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

It could also open the door to military action beyond a no-fly zone. The draft explicitly "authorizes members of the League of Arab States and other states which have notified the Secretary-General ... to take all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian objects in (Libya)."

After receiving the draft, members of the 15-nation council adjourned without taking action and were due to reconvene on Wednesday to engage in what British U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said would be "paragraph-by-paragraph" discussion.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters in London the negotiations would not be easy.

"There are a very broad range of views in the council," he said. "We are going into this with our eyes open. We are under no illusions. This will be a difficult negotiation."

The draft also provides for the expanding of sanctions already slapped by the U.N. council on Libyan leaders on February 26 -- including asset freezes, travel bans and an arms embargo -- to cover all assets abroad of the Gaddafi government.

The White House said President Barack Obama discussed efforts at the United Nations and potential Security Council action during a meeting with his national security team on Libya earlier on Tuesday. White House officials were not immediately available to comment on the draft resolution.

Some key council members including the United States, Russia and Germany, have expressed doubts about whether a no-fly zone is advisable or would work.

Washington has said Arab nations should participate in enforcing the no-fly zone, which would mean the use of Arab aircraft that might have to shoot down Libyan planes violating the flight ban.

QUESTIONS RAISED

German Ambassador Peter Wittig told reporters after the meeting his country still had queries.

"We raised questions we felt are still not fully answered, as to the Arab participation in such a measure, as to whether the implementation of such a zone would run counter to the intention of the Arab League itself, the Arab League having pointed out that there should be no foreign intervention," Wittig said.

Lebanese Ambassador Nawaf Salam said there was no contradiction. "Foreign intervention is something else," he said. "We hope (a no-fly zone) would have a deterrent effect."

Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong, president of the Security Council this month, said, "Some members have questions, and they need clarifications before a decision is made.

"Just like other members, China also expects our Lebanese colleague to give us clarification and answers tomorrow," Li said.

Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri expressed surprise at the intention to ban "all flights" over Libya and not just military ones. "We're still at a preliminary stage," he said.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud, whose country supports a no-fly zone, said he would like to see a vote on the resolution as early as Wednesday but doubted it could be that soon.

Before the meeting, Araud voiced impatience with the slow council response. "We are deeply distressed by the fact that things are worsening on the ground, that the Gaddafi forces are moving forward and the council has not yet reacted," he said.

(Additional reporting by Keith Weir in London; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated March 15, 2011

DTN News: U.S. Department of Defense Contracts Dated March 15, 2011
(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - March 15, 2011: U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Contracts issued March 15, 2011 are undermentioned;

CONTRACTS

NAVY

Lockheed Martin Corp., Baltimore, Md., is being awarded a $34,111,626 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-11-C-2300) to exercise options for special studies, analyses, review and Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) class services. Lockheed Martin will assess engineering and production challenges and evaluate the cost and schedule risks from affordability efforts to reduce LCS acquisition and lifecycle costs. Work will be performed in Hampton, Va. (31 percent); Marinette, Wis. (25 percent); Washington, D.C. (24 percent); and Moorestown, N.J. (20 percent). Work is expected to be complete by March 2012. 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.

L-3 Communications Systems Field Support, Vertex Aerospace, LLC, Madison Miss., was awarded on March 14 a $25,607,255 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity requirements contract for aircraft maintenance and logistical life cycle support for 65 Navy C-12 aircraft at 21 global locations. Services to be provided include: scheduled/unscheduled organizational maintenance; aircraft servicing; depot level maintenance; support equipment maintenance; modifications; and engineering support. Work will be performed in Corpus Christi, Texas (12 percent), Lincoln, Neb. (34 percent), Winnipeg, Canada (34 percent), and various locations both inside and outside the continental United States (20 percent) including: Naval Air Facility (NAF) Andrews, Md.; Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort, S.C.; Joint Reserve Base (JRB) Belle Chase, La.; JRB Fort Worth, Texas; Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Fla.; MCAS Miramar, Calif.; MCAS New River, N.C.; NAS Norfolk, Va.; NAS North Island, Calif.; NAS Patuxent River, Md.; Marine Corp Air Facility (MCAF) Quantico, Va.; JRB Willow Grove, Pa.; MCAS Yuma, Ariz.; Andrews Air Force Base (AFB), Md.; Edwards AFB, Calif.; Elmendorf AFB, Alaska; and Holloman AFB, N.M. Work is expected to be completed in September 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals; two offers were received. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00019-11-D-0010).

Austal USA, Mobile, Ala., is being awarded a $19,665,646 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-11-C-2301) to exercise options for special studies, analyses, review and class- service efforts for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. Austal USA will assess engineering and production challenges and evaluate the cost and schedule risks from affordability efforts to reduce LCS acquisition and lifecycle costs. Work will be performed in Mobile, Ala. (83 percent), and Pittsfield, Mass. (17 percent). Work is expected to be completed by March 2012. 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.

BAE Systems Land & Armaments, Ground Systems Division, York, Pa., is being awarded a $10,820,479 firm-fixed-priced modification to delivery order #0011 under a previously awarded contract (M67854-07-D-5025) for Skydex flooring, U.S. Special Operations Command armored utility vehicle roof padding, and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle field service representatives and instructors. Work will be performed in York, Pa., and is expected to be completed by December 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.

Patton Harris Rust Associates, Chantilly, Va., is being awarded a maximum amount $7,500,000 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity architect-engineering contract for miscellaneous civil/structural design and engineering services with associated multi-disciplinal architectural/engineering support services. Work will be associated with repairs, renovations, alterations, new construction of facilities and site improvements. Task order #0001 is being awarded at $453,118 for demolition of Bachelor Enlisted Quarters Building 25 at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Arlington, Va. Work for this task order is expected to be completed by June 2011. All work on this contract will be performed at various locations in the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Washington region (Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.), and is expected to be completed by March 2016. Contract funds for task order #0001 will expire at the end of this current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 25 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N40080-11-D-0496).

Ocean Systems Engineering Corp., Oceanside, Calif., is being awarded $7,400,975 for task order #0083 under previously awarded contract (M67854-02-A-9020). The scope of this effort is to provide financial management, systems engineering, acquisition and programmatic, life cycle logistics analysis and technical support, and task management and administrative support to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) command and control (C2) systems (MC2S) program management office and the Digital Fires and Situational Awareness (DFSA) program management office of Product Group 11, Marine Corps Systems Command . This performance work statement (PWS) includes MAGTF C2 situational awareness; joint tactical common operational picture workstation; global command and control system-tactical combat operations system; command operations center; joint combat target identification-ground; and science and technology efforts under the MC2S program management office. This PWS also includes advanced field artillery tactical data system, target location, designation and hand-off system, joint battle command platform, and the Blue Force Tracker family of systems programs under the DFSA program management office. Programs require support through all phases of the acquisition cycle. Work will be performed in Quantico, Va., and is expected to be completed in March 2012. Contract funds in the amount of $4,149,319 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps System Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.

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DTN News - MIDDLE EAST UNREST: Latest Developments In Arab World's Unrest

DTN News - MIDDLE EAST UNREST: Latest Developments In Arab World's Unrest
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 15, 2011:

Latest developments in the unrest sweeping the Arab world from North Africa to the Persian Gulf:

LIBYA:

Moammar Gadhafi's forces hit the rebellion's heartland with airstrikes, missiles and artillery. Rebels rush to the front and send up two rickety airplanes to bomb government ships, as mosques broadcast pleas for help defending a key gateway city to the rebel-held east.

The dramatic turn in Gadhafi's fortunes outpaces French and British efforts to build support for a no-fly zone, which falls apart in the face of German opposition and U.S. reluctance.

BAHRAIN:

Clashes sweep the country a day after a Saudi-led military force arrives to defend its Sunni monarchy from a Shiite-led protest movement demanding political freedoms and equal rights. Hundreds of demonstrators are injured by shotgun blasts and clubs, a doctor says, and the king declares a three-month state of emergency.

One demonstrator is shot in the head and killed, and a Saudi official says one of his country's soldiers is shot dead by a protester.

EGYPT:

Egypt's new interior minister dissolves the country's widely hated state security agency, which was accused of torture and other human rights abuses in the suppression of dissent against ousted President Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule. Dismantling the agency was a major demand of the protest movement that led the 18-day uprising.

Visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, presses Egypt's transitional leaders to follow through on pledges for democratic reform

YEMEN:

Anti-government tribesmen in the north storm a security building and shoot dead four soldiers in a revenge attack after government troops open fire on opposition protesters calling for the president's ouster, witnesses say. The attack is a significant escalation by the anti-government side in a month of daily street protests in which stone-throwing demonstrators have clashed with security.

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DTN News - FINANCIAL NEWS: Japan Disaster Another Worry For Global Economy

DTN News - FINANCIAL NEWS: Japan Disaster Another Worry For Global Economy
(NSI News Source Info) TOKYO, Japan - March 15, 2011:

Japan's earthquake and nuclear crises have put pressure on the already fragile global economy, squeezed supplies of goods from computer chips to auto parts and raised fears of higher interest rates.

The disaster frightened financial markets in Tokyo and on Wall Street on Tuesday. Japan's Nikkei average lost 10 percent, and the Dow Jones industrials fell so quickly after the opening bell that the stock exchange invoked a special rule to reduce volatility.

Yet the damage to the U.S. and world economies is expected to be relatively moderate and short-lived. Oil prices are falling, helping drivers around the world. And the reconstruction expected along Japan's northeastern coast could even provide a jolt of economic growth.

A weaker Japanese economy could help ease global commodity prices because Japan is a major importer of fuel, agricultural products and other raw materials, notes Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. Oil prices fell more than $4 to $97.18 a barrel Tuesday because of expectations that quake damage will slow Japan's economy and reduce its demand for energy.

Even "assuming a drastic scenario," Bank of America economist Ethan Harris estimates, the disaster would shave just 0.1 percentage point off global economic growth — to 4.2 percent this year.

"Japan has not been an engine of global or Asian growth for some time," says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. "This means that the impact of much lower Japanese growth on the world economy will be probably limited and small."

Japan is only half as important to the world's economy as it was during its last major disaster, the 1995 Kobe earthquake. And the area hit hardest by Friday's quake accounts for only about half as much economic output as the area damaged by the Kobe quake, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates.

Japan proved resilient after the Kobe quake. Manufacturers returned to normal production levels within 15 months, according to the CLSA. Four in every five shops were back open in a year and a half. All told, Japan's comeback defied dire warnings that it would take a decade to rebuild.

Autos and auto parts make up more than one-third of U.S. imports from Japan. As a result, shutdowns of Japanese auto factories could disrupt production at U.S. plants owned by Japanese automakers.

At the same time, some U.S. auto parts makers could benefit if Japanese plants in the United States substitute U.S. parts for those they usually get from Japan, Behravesh says.

A big wild card is the fate of Japan's damaged nuclear power plants. The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the center of the concern, let off a burst of radiation on Tuesday. Radiation levels in the surrounding area subsided by evening, but unease in Japan did not.

"If the nuclear crisis turns into a full-blown catastrophe, then the negative effect on growth this year will be much larger," IHS' Behravesh says.

Another unknown is the impact of the disruptions to Japan's power supplies. Behravesh estimates about 10 percent of Japan's electricity generation could be off line for several months. If so, that would disrupt steel, auto and other production.

Investors fear that Japan will struggle to finance reconstruction, which is expected to cost the government at least $200 billion. The Japanese government's debt is already an alarming 225 percent of the country's economic output.

Some worry that Japan will sell some of its vast holdings of U.S. government debt to raise money. Doing so would push the prices of U.S. Treasury bonds down and yields up, raising U.S. interest rates.

But Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday dismissed the fears of a Japanese fire sale of Treasury debt.

"Japan is a very rich country and has a high savings rate," he said. It "has the capacity to deal not just with the humanitarian challenge but also the reconstruction challenge they face ahead."

What's more, the Bank of Japan has been buying Treasurys and other assets as it pumps money into the financial system to restore calm.

For now, though, the latest quake, the resulting tsunami and the threat of contamination from a damaged nuclear plant have spooked financial markets. Investors are fretting about the effects on companies around the world. Japan, the world's third-largest economy, accounts for about 10 percent of U.S. exports.

The Dow Jones industrials rebounded after starting the day down almost 300 points. They closed down 137 points, or 1.1 percent. The futures markets, which can indicate whether stocks will rise and fall, looked so pessimistic before the opening bell on Wall Street that the stock exchange invoked a special rule designed to ease volatility.

Stocks plunged 5 percent in Germany and 4 percent in France. And in Japan, the benchmark Nikkei average lost more than 10 percent of its value in a matter of hours.

The quake damaged roads, ports, airports and factories in Japan, disrupting the shipment of goods in and out. The disaster blindsided multinational companies that were bracing for trouble in their transportation lines on the other side of the world — at the Suez Canal or elsewhere in the Middle East where protests are destabilizing countries from Bahrain to Libya, says Patrick Burnson, executive editor of Supply Chain Management.

It's shut down auto and auto parts factories. Analysts at Tong Yang Securities in South Korea "do not expect production to normalize anytime soon" in Japan. Even plants that stay open may have to wait for parts to arrive, a problem made worse because so many factories follow just-in-time supply management and keep few parts on hand.

Car plants in Thailand could have a harder time getting steel, much of which is imported from Japan.

Japan is a major supplier of NAND flash memory chips, commonly used in portable electronics. Japan-based Toshiba Corp., a big maker of the chips, was among the technology companies that temporarily closed facilities.

Prices for the chips jumped 10 percent from before the earthquake to Monday and another 3 percent Tuesday, according to Jim Handy, a director at Objective Analysis and an expert on the electronics and semiconductor industries.

The "wafers" that are key building blocks of computer chips are also commonly made in Japan. A shortage could pinch big buyers such as Intel Corp., the world's biggest semiconductor company, and Texas Instruments Inc. — though one firm, Barclays Capital, believes Texas Instruments has enough in stock to get by. Supplies are lean of capacitors and other electronics used in cellphones, which are also often made in Japan. Nokia Corp. relies heavily on Japan for those electronics.

Chinese companies are bracing themselves for losses and delays from disruptions in shipments of high-end electronics and auto components from Japan and some are looking for import replacements from South Korea or Taiwan, according to the International Business Daily, the official paper of China's Commerce Ministry.

Some analysts note that companies and consumers that now buy Japanese products can often find alternatives made elsewhere.

"What is made in Japan now has lots of competitive alternatives that didn't exist 25 years ago," says Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland and a former director at the U.S. International Trade Commission. "If there aren't as many Camrys in the country this year as there might have been, you might have a couple hundred thousand additional Ford customers. If those people have good experiences with those cars, it could change buying patterns for life."

David Rea, an economist with Capital Economics in London, said, "You'll have Japan's competitors — largely South Korea and Taiwan, who are in high end manufacturing, and China as well — come in and undercut Japanese businesses experiencing disruption from the earthquake."

If Japan's infrastructure doesn't get rebuilt quickly enough, Japanese companies may transfer production overseas to pick up the slack, Rea added.

The reconstruction of Japan's northeastern coast might also provide business opportunities for foreign countries. Malaysian timber, for instance, will likely be needed to rebuild homes and other buildings. IHS predicts that the quake will "ultimately boost" U.S. exports to Japan.

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DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Israeli Navy Intercepts Egypt-Bound Ship With Arms

DTN News - DEFENSE NEWS: Israeli Navy Intercepts Egypt-Bound Ship With Arms
(NSI News Source Info)

JERUSALEM, Israel

- March 15, 2011:

The Israeli navy intercepted an Egyptian-bound ship carrying a large delivery of weapons off the country's Mediterranean coast on Tuesday, the military said.

The military said the cargo vessel "Victoria" originated in a Turkish port but insisted that Turkey had no involvement in the shipment. The ship is German-owned, operated by a French shipping company and flying under a Liberian flag, the military said.

The interception occurred about 200 miles off Israel's Mediterranean coast and Israeli troops met no resistance. The vessel is now being hauled back to the Israeli port of Ashdod, according to the military.

The military gave no details on what types of arms were on board, but said it was intended for the use of terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip. In the past, Israel has accused Hamas militants of shipping arms through Egypt.

German, French and Liberian authorities have been notified of the seizure.

The operation is reminiscent of the November 2009 Israeli takeover of the Iranian Francop vessel off the coast of Cyprus. Israel captured hundreds of tons of rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades and anti-tank weapons on board headed to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

In January 2002, Israeli forces stormed the Karine A freighter on the Red Sea, and confiscated what the military said was 50 tons of missiles, mortars, rifles and ammunition headed for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

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