Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Podcasts: COR Interviews Chris Taylor-SVP Global Strategy at MEP
Industry Talk” U.S. Honors Contractors Held Hostage by Colombian Rebels
I hope the company of these guys pays them a huge bonus as well. Good on these guys, and I am glad they are getting recognized. –Matt
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U.S. honors contractors held hostage by Colombian rebels
By JACK DOLAN
Mar. 13, 2009
Three U.S. defense contractors who were held hostage by Colombian terrorists for more than five years received the Medal of Freedom, the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart, on Thursday.
Speaking before a packed room at the U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, former hostage Tom Howes, 56, fought back tears as he said, “You never forgot us, thank you very much.”
The three men — Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell — suffered injuries and brutal treatment at the hands of their captors, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, known by the Spanish acronym FARC. The men still bear scars from the chains used to bind them on long, forced marches between jungle camps.
The Department of Defense created the Medal of Freedom after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon. The honor goes to civilian employees killed or injured while working for the DOD. Thirty-seven have been awarded so far.
The three contractors, all of whom worked for a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, were part of a five-man crew on a drug surveillance plane brought down by engine trouble in February 2003. FARC rebels captured them and executed two others, American pilot Thomas Janis and a Colombian Army Sgt. Luis Alcides Cruz.
`WE’RE NOT FORGOTTEN’
Howes told the mostly uniformed audience on Thursday that, at his lowest point, Stansell risked a beating to pass him a note that said: “We’re not forgotten. People are trying to get us out. We have families to go home to.”
The U.S. and Colombian governments flew 3,600 reconnaissance flights searching for the men, according to a statement released by the U.S. Southern Command before the ceremony. They logged 17,000 flight hours and spent $250 million searching for them, the report said.
Gonsalves, 36, said his greatest fear was being forgotten. ”We were isolated in the middle of the jungle,” he said, but every now and then, “we’d hear a buzz. We could never see it, because it was up so high, but we knew what it was.”
Gonsalves said his low point came after an unusually vivid dream about his 9-year-old daughter. ”I was holding her in my lap. I could smell the shampoo in her hair,” he said. “Then when I woke up I was locked in a box in the jungle.”
Unexpected salvation came for the trio on July 2, 2008, their 1,967th day in captivity.
Colombian soldiers posing as humanitarian workers arrived in a Russian built helicopter and persuaded the FARC guards to climb aboard with a group of 11 hostages, including the three Americans and Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.
”I saw a blur of bodies as soon as we broke ground,” Howes said, ‘in the middle of it all somebody shouted, `Colombian Army’ ”.
Within seconds, the FARC captors were disarmed and buried on the floor of the chopper beneath a pile of bodies. Stansell, a 44-year-old ex-Marine built like a linebacker, was one of those bodies, Howes added with a chuckle.
CONTROVERSY
A book the three wrote, Out of Captivity, sparked international controversy over critical comments made about Betancourt. Stansell reportedly accused her of stealing food, hoarding books, and endangering the three Americans’ lives by telling the guards that they were CIA agents.
But on Thursday, the three focused on their gratitude for the rescue, and urged the audience not to abandon 22 other hostages still held by the FARC in the Colombian jungle.
Story Here
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
South Africa: SA Contractor and Former Police Officer Killed in Uganda Crash
Rest in peace, and condolences to the friends and family of Duncan. The website below didn’t have a press release yet, and is pretty thin on info. –Matt
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SA ex-cop killed in Uganda crash
The Times
Published:Mar 11, 2009
A former special operations policeman from Pretoria was among 11 people killed in a plane crash in Uganda this week, Beeld newspaper reported today.
South Africa’s foreign affairs department has not been able to confirm reports that a South African was among the dead.
Beeld identified the man as Duncan Rykaart, a former special services policeman who had been working for a US-based landmine research company, Bancroft Global Development.
Beeld’s source was Bancroft programme director Rocky van Blerk.
Rykaart, who was married with two children aged 16 and 24, had returned from Iraq two months ago where he had worked for four-and-a-half years.
A Soviet-era transport plane crashed into Lake Victoria on Monday shortly after take-off, killing 11 people, international news agencies reported.
An underwater search for the remains of those killed was still under way.
Story Here
Bancroft Global Development Website
Jobs: Security Officer, Afghanistan
I am not the POC for this, so use the link I provided below to apply. This job ad is a little thin on info, and salary info, so I really cannot fully endorse it. But it is work and if anyone else has anything about this, let me know. One idea is to just contact KBR directly, and talk to a recruiter over the phone about the details. –Matt
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Job Title Security Officer
Req ID 24249
Category Security
Location Afghanistan
Other Locations
Posted 2/23/2009
Requirements
Stands guard, walks, and/or patrols premises to prevent theft, violence, or infraction of rules. Logs all visitors, vendors, and deliveries in and out of job site. Gives direction to visitors or employees and answers questions relative to services of establishment. Enforces security rules and regulations. Reports irregular activities. Performs other duties as assigned. Requires a high school diploma with 3-5 years related experience.
Some locations require candidate to have a U.S. Secret Security Clearance.
Additional requirements:
* Must be fluent in English
* Must have a valid passport
* Must have a valid driver’s license
It should be understood that employment may be located in potentially dangerous areas, including combat or war zones. This might involve the possibility of suffering harm by dangerous forces or friendly fire. These dangers are inherent to working conditions in a dangerous environment.
Apply Here
Monday, March 9, 2009
Industry Talk: UN’s Procurement Business is Managerial Disaster, Report Reveals
Uggh. It looks like the UN needs to do some serious house cleaning as well? This entire article is sickening to read. The one portion of this report that I wanted to point out, which ties in with what we have been talking about over on Jake’s and Eeben’s site lately, is this:
Another recommendation is that the U.N. organizations “establish a vendor performance database to be utilized in the procurement process”-in other words, keep a systematic record of how well the companies that sell goods and services to the U.N. are actually performing. The absence of such a database, the inspectors point out, “practically renders evaluations useless.”
So who came first, poor PMC’s and PSC’s, or a poor system of procurement at the UN? Either way, this is good. The UN must become a learning organization, and the same scrutiny that is being leveled at the US contracting crap, is finally being aimed at the UN. I also wonder how many lives have been lost, all because of the poor leadership and terrible architecture in this world sponsored organization? –Matt
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UN’s Procurement Business is Managerial Disaster, Report Reveals
Monday , March 09, 2009
By George Russell
EXCLUSIVE: The United Nations’ $10 billion procurement business-the buying of goods and services for its operations worldwide-is a managerial disaster, in which its own procedures are not followed, documentation is often missing and the total amount spent on consultants is unknown, according to a damning report now being quietly circulated at the world body.
Moreover, the U.N.’s top managers have apparently been failing to meet requests from the U.N. General Assembly to fix the situation since at least 2001.
The conclusions appear in a sharply-worded, 40-page note to the U.N.’s top managers that was delivered in early December. The note, obtained by FOX News, appears to confirm a dismal portrait of the U.N.’s major money-spending activities that the organization has often vehemently denied.
The inspectors who prepared the latest management report work for a specialized, Geneva-based watchdog of the world organization known as the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU). The JIU’s job is to assess and improve the efficiency and coordination of the U.N. worldwide through its inspection and recommendation process.
Its prescriptions for improving management, however, only have the force of recommendations –and in this case, the inspectors note, they made some of the same suggestions as far back as 1999, with little apparent effect.
The new document bears the numbing title of “Corporate Consultancies in United Nations System Organizations,” and for its first 13 pages is mainly a highly-critical examination of U.N. usage of consultants for such things as information management, management restructuring and internal analysis.
Click here to read the report.
When it comes to hiring consultants, the inspectors also find the U.N. as a whole badly wanting — starting with the fact that, as the report notes, “in the United Nations system, there is no definition of corporate consultancy,” and the organization apparently doesn’t even know how much money it is spending on the service.