Rapid Fire August 8, 2012: US Administration to Spell out Sequester

Aug 08, 2012 10:50 UTC by Defense Industry Daily staff
  • President Obama signed the Sequestration Transparency Act (H.R. 5872), a bill that compels his administration to submit to Congress a detailed report on sequestration within the next 30 days.
  • Pratt & Whitney Canada may have settled with the US Department of Justice after pleading guilty to violating the Arms Export Control Act, but the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to SecDef Panetta to urge him to consider barring the company from DoD contracts. On June 28 the Department of State already imposed a statutory debarment [PDF] on P&W Canada (not its parent UTC).
  • Academi, the company formerly known as Blackwater then XE, settled charges of arms export and other firearms regulatory violations by agreeing to pay a $7.5M fine on top of a $42M settlement with the Department of State.

  • Russia is ordering a $1.16 billion / RUB 36.959 billion LC-60YA nuclear-powered icebreaker under Project 22220, for delivery by 2018. It’s expected to become the greatest Russian icebreaker since Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova, but it’s just one part of a larger picture.

  • Indonesia’s first 4 Super Tucano light attack turboprops were officially handed over at a ceremony in Brazil.

  • The Washington Times continues to pursue DCGS-A developments, this time with a memo from the US Army Test and Evaluation Command that lists the shortcomings of DCGS-A DSB 1.0. They include frequent server reboots, poor usability, and limitations in the effectiveness of its feature integration because of what appears to be crippling network security architectural choices.

  • While India is developing the runway capabilities of its INS Baaz base on Great Nicobar Island, its Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma wants to stay out of hot waters if he can help it:

    • “the primary areas of interest to us is from the Malacca Strait to the (Persian/Arabian) Gulf in the west, and to the Cape of Good Hope in the south… the Pacific and the South China Sea are of concern to us, but activation in those areas is not on the cards.”

    Categories: Asia - Other, Brazil, Contracts - Awards, Daily Rapid Fire, Fighters & Attack, India, Legal, Russia, United Technologies

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