Category: z-Exclude

The landing comes as the United States and Philippines strengthen military relations as China becomes more aggressive in the South China Sea.

South Africa’s Paramount Group is gearing up production of composite blades for Soviet-designed helicopters with the establishment of a production facility in the UAE, looking to collect orders from African operators of the aircraft in need of maintenance and configuration upgrades.

Last month, Paramount said it signed a strategic partnership agreement with UAE-based AAL Group to locally manufacture main and tail rotor composite blades for Mi-type helicopters. The Emirati entity has provided a full-range of maintenance and repair services for the Mi-family of rotary-wing aircraft for more than two decades

“Our activities with AAL Group in the UAE will include but not be limited to the management of an advanced manufacturing plant, an assembly line and maintenance repair and operations facilities, servicing and upgrading fleets of helicopters for our African partners,” Steve Griessel, Global CEO of Paramount told Defense News.

There are more than 23 operators of Mi-type helicopters across the African continent, with Togo being the most recent to receive new deliveries of two Mi-17 transport aircraft in December.

Florida companies Kingwood Orlando Reunion Resort LLC (Orlando Reunion) and Kingwood Crystal River Resort Corp. (Crystal River) have agreed to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (FCA) and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) by knowingly providing false information in support of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness application submitted by Crystal River.

ABF Freight System Inc. (ABF), a freight carrier that operates more than 200 transportation facilities in 47 states and Puerto Rico, has resolved allegations that it violated requirements of the Clean Water Act (CWA) relating to industrial stormwater at locations across the country. Under the proposed settlement, ABF will enhance and implement its comprehensive, corporate-wide stormwater compliance program at all its transportation facilities except those located in the state of Washington, and will pay a civil penalty of $535,000, a portion of which will be directed to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the State of Maryland, and the State of Nevada who all joined this settlement.

Today, the Department of Justice, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), filed a motion for preliminary injunction under the Clean Air Act (CAA) requesting that the court order Denka Performance Elastomer LLC (Denka) to require significant pollution controls to reduce chloroprene emissions, a pollutant that EPA has determined to be a likely carcinogen. The request for immediate relief by EPA and the Justice Department follows the United States’ complaint filed on Feb. 28, alleging an imminent and substantial endangerment to the communities surrounding the facility as a result of Denka’s manufacturing operations.

The Clean Air Act section 303 imminent and substantial endangerment lawsuit is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

German and US authorities, supported by Europol, have targeted ChipMixer, a cryptocurrency mixer used to keep crypto transactions private. The investigation was also supported by Belgium, Poland and Switzerland. On 15 March, national authorities took down the infrastructure of the platform, seizing 4 servers, and also seizing about 1909 Bitcoins in 55 transactions (approx. EUR 44.2 million) and 7 TB of data.

Three quarters of Australian borrowers are now at risk of becoming home loan hostages due to their lifestyle and financial decisions, new research from mozo.com.au has found. “Home loan customers might be unaware that when they go to refinance their home loan with a new lender, they are assessed as though they are a new borrower, taking into account their financial standing beyond their history of meeting repayments and their LVR,” said Kylie Moss (pictured above), Mozo director. The research…

Total spending was flat in February after rebounding in January, with total spending lifting 1.7% over the past three months and 10.3% year-on-year, according to NAB’s latest Monthly Data Insights. Retail spending was flat, with goods retail slipping 0.1% and hospitality rising marginally by 0.2%. Total retail spending increased 0.5% over the past three months and 5.8% year over year. When it comes to non-retail spending, essential services spending dipped 0.4% month over month, and vehicle and fuel spending fell…

The Property Council has called for the passage of the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) and the creation of a National Housing and Affordability Council to address the worsening housing crisis. Speaking before the Senate Committee on Housing Affordability in Australia, Property Council of Australia CEO Mike Zorbas (pictured above) urged the federal government to address the growing national deficit of properly zoned land for housing. “By the government’s own conservative numbers, we are more than 160,000 homes behind the…

A massive 20,000-gallon tank was found to be leaking ammonia at a facility in Auburndale, Florida early on Wednesday morning, a city spokesperson told a local Fox affiliate, noting that all employees were evacuated from the plant. Residents living in a two-block area near the plant were also asked to take shelter following the discovery, though the order was lifted several hours later, after fire crews successfully capped the leak. Clean-up operations were reportedly completed sometime around 3:30pm. There have…

Latitude Financial has revealed it has been hit by a sophisticated and malicious cyberattack that has compromised a total of 328,000 separate pieces of data that it had sourced from its customers. The loans, credit card and insurance provider said it had detected unusual activity on its systems over the last few days that was believed to have originated from a major vendor used by Latitude.

The company said the attacker appeared to have used employee login credentials to steal personal information that was being held by two other of Latitude’s service providers. In a statement to the ASX on Thursday morning, Latitude said approximately 103,000 identifications documents – 97% of which were drivers’ licences – were stolen from the first service provider, while 225,000 customer records were stolen from a second service provider.

Regulators, policymakers and bankers are looking at the role that digital messaging and social media may have played in the collapse, and whether banks are entering an age when the psychological behavior behind a bank run — mass fear from depositors of losing their savings — may be amplified and go viral quicker than bank officers and regulators can successfully respond.

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it expects to invest 300 trillion won ($230 billion) over the next 20 years as part of an ambitious South Korean national project to build the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing base near the capital, Seoul.

The chip-making “mega cluster,” which will be established in Gyeonggi Province by 2042, will be anchored by five new semiconductor plants built by Samsung. It will aim to attract 150 other companies producing materials and components or designing high-tech chips, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.