Anti-corruption protesters storm Iraqi paraliament in Baghdad (SPECIAL C...

These demonstrations have been going on for months in the capital city of Iraq by followers of  revered and respected Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to protest corruption in the nation's government that was installed by the U.S. after the invasion and ten-year occupation of this centuries-old country by a foreign power.
The Iraqi people have been peacefully making their objections to corruption for quite some time and can, with over 150,000 people easily take over the capital.

Breaking News April 29, 2016: Valley Metro Gets Served With A Notice of Claim

EXCLUSIVE: Banta files $1.6M claim against Valley Metro for wages and more
Eric J Toll Phoenix Business Journal
Apr 29, 2016 5:21 PM MST

[Read the whole story with link below]

                                                                                                                       

Former CEO Banta files $1.6M claim against Valley Metro for wages and more

Former Valley Metro CEO Steven Banta filed a $1.65 million claim Friday afternoon against Valley Metro for severance, annuity and damages
Seen here in the foreground in the image accompanying for Eric's exclusive report is the back of Mesa Mayor John Giles and a sideview of Jaime Glaser
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2016/04/29/banta-files-1-6m-claim-against-valley-metro.html?ana=e_phx_bn_breakingnews&u=QU7bVbydM2U4wrdSLqhnXw091bba69&t=1462026465&j=72806932

Maricopa Association of Governments > May 2016 Newsletter

The May 2016 MAGAZine newsletter has been released and available for download.
The MAGAZine is Maricopa Association of Government's quarterly newsletter. It highlights work being done by MAG and member agencies to improve the quality of life in the Maricopa region. If you would like to have MAGAZine sent to you, please call the MAG office for more information. Electronic versions are available here for viewing or downloading.
http://www.azmag.gov/Projects/Project.asp?CMSID=1111

Mesa City Council Stalls Action on Non-Discrimination > Spinning The Wheels Moving Forward

In a well-written article last week by Arizona Republic reporter Maria Polletta covering actions - or rather inactions - by Mayor John Giles and the six Mesa City Council members
there appeared to be a consensus [although the member's votes were there to pass the Non-Discrimination Ordinance NDO] not to move forward on the momentum for inclusion and equal rights with District 2 representative Alex Finter being quoted as saying it would not be "a positive endeavor" at this time and would not consider the motion until after city-wide elections take place in November . . . Are they making the wrong call not to move forward NOW?
Mayor John Giles has frequently made public statements that "It's the right thing to do", at the same time wanting to make City Council approval of the NDO unanimous. Apparently there are certain hold-outs in elected City Councilmembers standing in the way of that inclusive affirmation who would vote "No". 
Are the mayor and other councilmembers hedging on this for undisclosed reasons? 
For instance, taking a stand on this issue in their election campaigns might jeopardize getting elected or re-elected by their constituents some of whom no doubt would be against.
Well that's democracy, folks . . . non-discrimination is an emerging issue all over this country: in cities and towns and state governments.
Here's an article from Thursday, two days ago about how companies are handling this and flexing their power

LGBT Inc.: Corporations Stand Up to State Governments in Defense of Civil Rights

Companies are getting together to combat a wave of so-called religious freedom bills.

April 28, 2016 — 10:55 AM MST

by Jeff Green, Tim Higgins

Bloomberg Business Week

READ IT!
" . . . Almost 200 bills have been proposed this year in more than 30 states that would limit or prohibit protection against discrimination for LGBT individuals, according to the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Five have passed into law; three have been vetoed; and 144 have died or been withdrawn.

“We were like, ‘Whoa,’ and started to realize the scope of the issue,” Green says.
In response, large companies that have already contributed millions of dollars to HRC and other advocacy groups to combat anti-LGBT discrimination have been taking steps to coordinate their lobbying activities. “There’s going to be an increasing level of cooperation among companies,” says Kevin Kolevar, vice president for government affairs and public policy at Dow Chemical, who’s been involved in discussions with his counterparts at other corporations. “It’s a strengthening collaboration, but loose. You’re going to start to see the corporate community refining those efforts quite a bit, and it’s going to make more of a difference than it has.”

Corporate leaders say they’re primarily motivated not by politics but by business concerns.

They need to protect their own employees
create work environments attractive to younger workers, and eliminate the headache of dealing with a patchwork of differing rules for LGBT workers across the country. Companies that support gay employees do better in the stock market, according to research released on April 15 by Credit Suisse. The study found that a group of 270 companies that supported LGBT employees outperformed a global index by 3 percent annually over the past six years.
Apple and Facebook, which have data centers in North Carolina [ Blogger's Note: Apple is building a $2Billion Global Command Data center here in Mesa], teamed up with Bank of America and others to pressure Republican Governor Pat McCrory to undo the “bathroom bill” he signed in late March. PayPal executives convened to review the law and discuss its implications on the day it passed, fearing it could hurt the company’s ability to recruit talented workers. Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman decided to hold off on plans for a $3.6 million operations center, which would employ 400 people, until the law is repealed. On April 12, McCrory signed an executive order partially rolling it back. State Democratic lawmakers filed a measure on April 25 to repeal it entirely, but it’s unlikely to proceed in the Republican-controlled legislature.

HRC also coordinates letter-writing campaigns and local rallies on behalf of large corporations. The group raised almost $54 million in the fiscal year ended March 2015; it doesn’t disclose details on individual contributions, but Apple, Bank of America, Microsoft, and Starbucks are among more than 40 companies it lists as corporate sponsors. (Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg Businessweek, is also an HRC sponsor; company Chairman Peter Grauer has signed letters opposing religious freedom laws in North Carolina, Missouri, and Mississippi.) In an April 17 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, North Carolina’s McCrory acknowledged the influence of HRC’s corporate donors: “They are putting on a lot of pressure.”
Proponents of religious freedom measures say they’re representing the interests of small-business owners who don’t want to be forced to accommodate LGBT clients. Matt Sharp, legal counsel for the nonprofit legal advice group Alliance Defending Freedom, has visited Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina this year, consulting with small businesses that serve gay people but want the right to draw the line at participating in same-sex weddings.
“We don’t want to be forced by the government to produce speech, to produce expression, uniquely designed floral arrangements, cakes, and photographs that violate our faith,” Sharp says. The group raised $45 million in the fiscal year ended June 2014, according to its most recent publicly available tax filings; like HRC, it’s not required to disclose its donors.
Salesforce’s Green says one goal of the lobbying undertaken by his company and other large employers is to make it easier for small businesses to speak out against potentially discriminatory bills. Part of the strategy developed by McTighe, inspired in part by same-sex marriage initiatives, involves using funds donated by big corporations to get local employers involved. Hundreds of smaller companies in Tennessee and Mississippi signed recent letters opposed to anti-LGBT laws, as did local employers in Indiana last year. “Equality is a core value, and where we see negative legislation, we have to take a stand,” Green says. “We want to be a spark for others to get involved in areas and states that are considering these types of legislation.”
—With Craig Giammona and Spencer Soper

The bottom line: Some large U.S. corporations are banding together to combat state laws that would block civil LGBT protections.

 

 

 

 

A New Way // Journalism In The Public Interest > Keeping You Informed

A New Way to Keep an Eye on Who Represents You in Congress

by Derek Willis
ProPublica, April 28, 2016, 11:10 a.m.

Today ProPublica is launching a new interactive database that will help you keep track of the officials who represent you in Congress.
The project is the continuation of two projects I worked on at The New York Times — the first is the Inside Congress database, which we are taking over at ProPublica starting today.
But we also have big plans for it. While the original interactive database at The Times focused on bills and votes, our new project adds pages for each elected official, where you can find their latest votes, legislation they support and statistics about their voting. As we move forward we want to add much more data to help you understand how your elected officials represent you, the incentives that drive them and the issues they care about.

This isn’t the only congressional data site out there, and our goal is to send visitors to other sites that offer valuable features. That’s why we’re linking to individual lawmaker and bill pages on GovTrack and C-SPAN, for example. Like GovTrack, our news app will provide some calculated metrics that visitors can use to help learn more about their representatives. We also have vote cartograms that show not only how each lawmaker voted but the relative clout of delegations.
That’s where you come in - we’d like to know what kinds of congressional information would make it easier to hold Congress accountable for its actions (or inactions)? Would more comparisons between lawmakers’ votes and legislative proposals be helpful? We’re currently showing recent bills by subject, but are there other ways of organizing information about bills that would be useful? What do you want to know about the activities of Congress?
Please let us know — either in the comments below or by sending me an email at derek.willis@propublica.org.
Selected excerpts from this source: ProPublica

7.0 Quake/Solar Coronal Mass Ejection/CERN

Why all these earthquakes lately? .... changes in the magnetosphere creating hydroflares on the surface of The Sun.
Uploaded yesterday 28 April 2016.
Connects Our Planet Earth and the solar surface

New Series: Interactive Public Art #2

What do U see when you take a look at public art installations on the streets here DTMesa?
A monument to public education with mother and children or the spontaneous juxtaposition of a jarring image about the homeless?

Please take a closer look [image taken at sunrise just the other day]

New Series: Interactive Public Art in The New Urban DT Mesa: How Do U Do It?

Just can't pass up some "Tongue-in-Cheek" comments about different people's takes on the ongoing size-able inve$tment$ to promote an Arts-and-District district here . . . People are all over the place via social media.
Take this image for example .... dudes just wanna have fun!

The AZ GOP Sideshow Comes To Town Today: 58 State Delegates Up For Grabs

The Republican Party State Convention, taking place today and tomorrow, April 30, 2016 at the Mesa Convention Center is where the state delegates elected by the PCs* assemble to elect 55 delegates to be sent to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, where the Republican Nominee for President is selected.
Is this selection process going to get complicated? There is so much at stake - Arizona's 58 RNC Convention delegates could be 'the tipping-point" in the first round ballot to win a minimum of 1,237 votes for the GOP President nomination. Is it going to be ugly? 
On March 22nd, 286,743 Arizona voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump to be the Republican Party presidential nominee.  Ted Cruz got 172,294 votes - fewer votes than Bernie Sanders - in a state that is supposed to be conservative.According to the rules Trump needs 1,237 delegates to win the nomination at the Republican Party National Convention in Cleveland.  
According to the rules, his overwhelming Arizona victory means that all 58 Arizona GOP delegates are required to vote for Mr. Trump on the first round of voting but not any possible subsequent rounds.
* Republican Precinct Committeemen (PCs) are elected by Republican voters in each of Arizona’s nearly 1,500 voting precincts statewide.
PCs have gathered each month to conduct party business, and state law permits them to vote by proxy if  unable to attend a particular meeting. PCs can provide a signed, witnessed (or notarized) proxy form to a trusted Republican from their precinct who is attending the meeting, and who may cast their vote for them. The practice assures each and every PC can vote on party business, even if unable to physically attend the meeting.
[ In typical party meetings about half the votes are cast by proxy. For example at  a meeting in February of Maricopa County Republican PC’s chaired by Tyler Boyer there were 1,006 present at the meeting and an additional 989 who voted by a proxy given to another member. ]

 

Media Summit In Phoenix Today: Prevalent + Emerging Issues in The Four Corners

PHOENIX – UNITY: Journalists for Diversity in partnership with the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) is presenting today 29 April an exciting media summit in Phoenix at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication on April 29.
Join UNITY for an exciting two days in one of the country’s most diverse cities!
ABOUT UNITY > UNITY Journalists for Diversity is a strategic alliance that:
Advocates fair and accurate coverage about diversity — especially race, nationality, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Aggressively challenges that industry to staff its organizations at all levels to reflect the country’s diversity.
The UNITY board is made up of representatives from the Asian American Journalists Association, the Native American Journalists Association, and NLGJA: The Association of LGBT Journalists.
The regional event titled “Stories from the Four Corners: Empowering the Southwestern Perspective” on April 29, 2016, will bring journalists from around the country to Arizona State University for an event centered on prevalent and emerging issues within the Southwest.
Workshops will include education, immigration, law enforcement, public records, community outreach and entrepreneurial journalism.
Scheduled speakers include
Fernanda Santos, Phoenix correspondent from The New York Times
Felicia Fonseca, Flagstaff correspondent from The Associated Press
Nigel Duara, Tucson correspondent from The Los Angeles Time;
Astrid Galvan, Tucson correspondent from The Associated Press
Cynthia Zwick, AZ Community Action Association
Alia Beard Rau, Arizona Republic
Hector Rodriguez from Rio Bravo Comics.

New Book Out By Leader of DiEM2025: Europe's Crisis + America's Economic Future

Ya know, and let's get serious here dear readers, what we like about Bernie Sanders is his loud echo for what's going on all over world.
We are being distracted by mainstream media who are sideshows of the P.T. Barnum of American Politics who brings the circus every where in the extreme he goes - Donald Trump.
The "reality show" in the 2016 Presidential Election campaign every day is hyped-up, ratings-driven entertainment filled with 20-second sound bytes, "see all you need to know in three minutes", and then the warm-and-fuzzy and Aw! Stuff with cute animals, then "good news" and - whoops!! ....threatening extreme weather, millions in the line of storms and more on the way while we ignore, or get even know about - global and international finances

For those with short attention spans you can watch an interview on Democracy Now  

The crisis in Europe is not over - it's getting worse.
In this dramatic narrative of Europe's economic rise and spectacular fall, Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece and 'the emerging rock-star of Europe's anti-austerity uprising' (Telegraph), shows that the origins of the recent collapse go far deeper than our leaders are prepared to admit - and that we have done nothing so far to fix them.
In 2008, the universe of Western finance outgrew planet Earth.
When Wall Street imploded, a death embrace between insolvent banks and bankrupt states consumed Europe. Half a dozen national economies imploded and several more came close. But the storm is far from over...

From the aftermath of the Second World War to the present, Varoufakis recounts how the Eurozone emerged not as route to shared prosperity but as a pyramid scheme of debt with countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain at its bottom.
Its woeful design ensured that collapse would be inevitable and catastrophic. But since the hurricane landed Europe's leaders have chosen a cocktail of more debt and harsh austerity rather than reform, ensuring that the weakest citizens of the weakest nations pay the price for the bankers' mistakes, while doing nothing to prevent the next collapse.
Instead, the principle of the greatest austerity for those suffering the greatest recessions has led to a resurgence of racist extremism.
Once more, Europe is a potent threat to global stability.
Drawing on the personal experience of his own negotiations with the Eurozone's financiers and offering concrete policies and alternatives, Varoufakis shows how we concocted this mess and how we can get out of it.
And "The Weak Suffer What They Must? reminds us of our history in order to save European capitalism from itself.

Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781847924032

Source  >> Waterstones

Yanis Varoufakis: The Future of Capitalism | The New School

Published on Apr 27, 2016

Sponsored by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org) at The New School for Social Research (http://www.newschool.edu/nssr), Yanis Varoufakis will deliver SCEPA's annual Robert Heilbroner Memorial Lecture, "The Future of Capitalism."

We all know Varoufakis as the former Greek Finance Minister and media sensation who stood up to Europe in the fight against austerity. His lecture will discuss themes from his new book, "And The Weak Suffer What They Must?," including the origins of a crisis that has affected not only Greece, but all of Europe.

The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion featuring New School Professor of Economics Mark Setterfield and economics student Ebba Boye.

Department of Economics | http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/economics

Varoufakis’ career has spanned academia, public service, and the private sector. After three decades in academia, he was elected to the Hellenic Parliament in 2015 as a member of the Syriza Party and became Minister of Finance in Alexis Tsipras’ government. He currently serves as professor of economics at the University of Athens and as a consultant for the Valve Corporation.

The Robert Heilbroner Memorial Lecture on the Future of Capitalism: The Heilbroner lecture honors the work of Robert Heilbroner, who was both a student and a professor in the economics department of The New School for Social Research. This event is dedicated to understanding questions of economic justice and how the profit-seeking activities of private firms might also serve broader social goals. To use Heilbroner’s words, “capitalism’s uniqueness in history lies in its continuously self-generated change, but it is this very dynamism that is the system’s chief enemy.”

THE NEW SCHOOL | http://www.newschool.edu

Location: John L. Tishman Auditorium, University Center
Monday, April 25, 2016 at 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

The Right To Privacy > If You Don't Stand Up For It, Who Will??

Published on Apr 28, 2016

Music video by Jean-Michel Jarre, Edward Snowden performing Exit. (C) 2016 Music Affair Entertainment Limited under exclusive license to Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH

Edward Snowden releases techno song with Jean-Michel Jarre

Swapping the NSA for BPM, the whistlebower’s song with the electronic music legend has hit the web, including a Bourne-style video
In 2013 Edward Snowden rocked the world of government surveillance when he dropped bombshell revelations about the National Surveillance Agency.
Yoday it was the music world Snowden rocked, when he dropped a red-hot techno track co-recorded with French music icon Jean-Michel Jarre.
The song, called Exit, mixes clips of Snowden warning of the dangers of privacy interference with what a colleague here at the Guardian described as “haunting, discordant synths”.
Exit was posted to Jarre’s YouTube channel on Thursday afternoon. The collaboration came about after Jarre gave an interview to the Guardian last year, and asked our music critic Alexis Petridis to put him in touch with Snowden. Jarre described his music, over which Snowden performs, as a “hectic, obsessive techno track, trying to illustrate the idea of this crazy quest for big data on one side and the manhunt for this one young guy by the CIA, NSA and FBI on the other”.

Jean-Michel Jarre records with Edward Snowden – after the Guardian brings them together

When we interviewed him last year, the French electronic pioneer asked for our help in putting together a track with the NSA whistleblower
             

Read more

Continuing this theme, the music video has been contrived as a Matrix/Bourne Identity/Wikileaks drone footage mash-up. There’s video of green numbers scrolling down a black screen, interspersed with quick-zoom aerial reconnaissance images. There’s a disorientating car chase, cutting to a fairly shoddy special effect of a satellite circling the Earth. This is a interspersed with shots of Jarre hopping around a studio playing the keyboard.
The rave-style track represents a different type of whistleblowing for Snowden, who appears in the middle of the video, discussing privacy in front of a grey curtain. His contribution sits firmly in the spoken-word category, having been taken from an old interview about the dangers of a government spying on its citizens.
“Technology can actually increase privacy,” Snowden says. “The question is: ‘Why are our private details that are transmitted online... why are private details that are stored on our personal devices, any different than the details and private records of our lives that are stored in our private journals?’”
And now it’s an inquiry you can dance to.

Mesa Channel 11 > WE DEVELOP HUGE CONTENT // 28-Page Strategic Priority Place Making

With only a salaried staff of three, Mesa Channel 11 with operation facilities inside City Hall provides and develops content for  Mesa residents, visitors, employers, educators and more, from Public Service Announcements to News Magazine shows, Mesa 11 produces and broadcasts news and events in and around the City of Mesa.
Link >> Mesa Channel 11 
In the interest of keeping citizens, residents [and voters] informed about what our elected representatives to the Mesa City Council actually do on-the-job and how meetings are conducted it's a good thing to see in-person and first-hand the Mayor, City Manager, and the six councilmembers.

Oftentimes very few members of the public show up at City Council meetings and study sessions [or make comments] for one reason or another.
Having taken the time to attend some meetings, it's rare to see other members of the media being there physically. Nonetheless, reports and articles about what your government does do get written and published.
[ all images in this post from mesaaz.gov ]
There's an important City Council Study Session this morning starting at 07:30 a.m. with one of the items on the agenda
Hear a presentation, discuss and provide direction on the City Council Strategic Priority "Placemaking" and the related departmental proposed budgets.
Readers can access and download the 28-page presentation by hooking up with this link
http://mesa.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2703119&GUID=9FA99E81-1663-44E3-AB14-37D8E58DAAA4

We stream and archive all of our City Council, Study Sessions and Planning and Zoning Meetings. Plus you can find all of our original programming On Demand through YouTube.

Our program guide lists all the rebroadcasts of the Mesa City Council Meetings, news magazine shows, Mesa Morning Live and more. Check out what’s playing locally on your cable box.

Watch our station Live now through streaming.

The AZ GOP Circus Is Coming Here > 2 days @ The Mesa Convention Center

58 Delegates to get  selected on Friday and Saturday to attend RNC National Convention.
. . . stay tuned

What is The Living Wage In Arizona?

MIT Proves That No Minimum Wage Earner Can Support a Family

A new tool crunches data that yield startling results.

Living Wage Calculation for Arizona

Hourly Wages	1 Adult	1 Adult 1 Child
Living Wage	$10.47	$22.37
Poverty Wage	$5.00	$7.00
Minimum Wage	$7.90	$7.90.

The minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.54 per hour, after adjusting for inflation. The current $7.25 is far too low for the 3 million hourly workers who earn at or below that threshold, and certainly not at par with the wage hikes instituted by other countries with similar economic trajectories.
Here’s The Economist on the United States' embarrassingly low minimum wage:
Given the pattern across the rest of the OECD, a group of mostly rich countries, one would expect the U.S., where GDP per person is $53,000, to pay a minimum wage around $12 an hour. That would mean a raise of about 65 percent for Americans earning the minimum pay rate.

But while several states have higher local minimums (and some cities plan to raise them further), the U.S. as a whole is not where it needs to be.
http://www.theatlantic.com/author/tanvi-misra-city-lab/ 
Sept 18, 2015
The entire map is fiery red; there isn’t a single county in which a minimum wage can match the local cost of living.
To visualize the problem, MIT has released the Living Wage Calculator, which maps the difference between minimum wage and basic costs of living in cities and counties across America. The map shows that for most minimum-wage earners, supporting their families is an enormous struggle.
Read more >> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/mit-proves-that-no-minimum-wage-earner-can-support-a-family/432852/ 

Take a look at a different version of this map for Phoenix and Maricopa County

		

 

 

The Seven Deadly Sins Using Geographic Information Science GIS

MesaZona blog viewers might be curious about why post this now?
Just happened to engage with someone scouting locations downtown for a movie about "The Seven Deadly Sins" by a certain faith-based group. Admittedly, yours truly could not even remember what those so-called sins were and wondered why they selected downtown, with filming scheduled to start in June . . . something about promoting a pledge with role-playing?
Like that Unity Pledge promoted here in Mesa,mebbe?
As oftentimes happens, as shown in the accompanying GIS map-image, those with a tradition of faith have the largest amount of sin per capita while calling themselves "saints", Latter Day or not

Pieter Breugel The Elder

[Notice the counties in Arizona with high density]
A set of United States maps showing the counties that have the highest concentrations of sin, based on the "Seven Deadly Sins," has caused a stir . . . In each of the maps the southeast, an area often referred to as the "Bible Belt" for its tradition of faith, has the largest amount of sin per capita . . .
"We compiled those maps from the standpoint of geographic information science," Mitch Stimers, who worked on the study as a graduate student at Kansas State University in 2009, told The Christian Post in an interview on Friday.
Now a director of institutional research and instructor of geography and geosciences at Cloud County Community College, Stimers insisted - with your MesaZona blogger in total agreement -  "we weren't attempting to interject any moral interpretation into them."
Source: Christian Post

What Are The Seven Deadly Sins?

[ according to http://www.deadlysins.com/ ]

People have always been immoral, shiftless, and self-gratifying.
For ages, humankind struggled to find a conceptual system to operationalize their spiritual shortcomings.


Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God.
It has been called the sin from which all others arise.
Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury.
It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual.
It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Able Aerospace & MD Helicopters Gain Contracts for Repair/Alteration, Malaysian Army Training



From an announcement yesterday
Able Aerospace receives certification from Japan Civil Aviation Bureau

By Mark Banham April 26, 2016 11:22

The Textron subsidiary Able Aerospace Services has achieved certification from the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) as an approved maintenance organisation (AMO). The JCAB-AMO certification, which is issued by Japan’s minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, allows the service centre to perform repair or alteration of aircraft components including rotors, transmissions, mechanical/ electric accessories and major parts for JCAB-licensed operators.

From its headquarters and maintenance facilities on the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Arizona, Able offers FAA approved component repair, overhaul and approved replacement parts solutions to commercial and military aviation fleets in more than 60 countries worldwide.

Since its inception, Able has grown to more than 500 employees providing thousands of approved repairs and some of the world’s largest exchange inventories.

ABLE EARNS CERTIFICATION AS JCAB APPROVED MAINTENANCE ORGANIZATION

April 25, 2016 by Able Engineering

Recognition from Japan Civil Aviation Bureau extends company’s broad global certification

http://www.ableengineering.com/blog.

Military Capabilities  

DSA 2016: MD Helicopters, Brunner Aerospace in discussions with Malaysian Army for MD-530G training

Dzirhan Mahadzir, Kuala Lumpur - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly   

20 April 2016

MD Helicopters Inc (MDHI) and its pilot training provider, Brunner Aerospace, are in discussions with the Malaysian Army on the scope of the training programme for the MD-530G helicopters. Malaysia has purchased six MD-530G helicopters that will be used by the Malaysian Army Air Corps for security operations in the state of Sabah in east Malaysia.
Andrew Pillado, MDHI's vice-president of business development, told IHS Jane's that the exact number of pilots and technical personnel to be trained to instructor level had yet to be finalised.
Christopher Myers, senior vice-president of Brunner Aerospace, said initial training, which will be conducted at MDHI's facilities in Mesa, Arizona, will consist of basic aircraft qualification and weapon system familiarisation to safely release ordnance.
Source: IHS Jane's Defense

EU combats dirty money with new directive

The EU's 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive came into effect in 2015. Andrew Bowen studies its provisions and the challenges member states will face in implementing