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Canada to stay in Afghanistan until 2014
Canada confirmed Tuesday that 950 soldiers and support staff will remain in Afghanistan in a training role after Canada's combat mission ends in 2011. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said they will be stationed in the Kabul area and will stay until 2014. The pledge of support may help plug a critical shortage of trainers for NATO's year-old mission to bolster Afghan security forces. The training mission would be confined to military bases.
Tags: Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon , J.J. Green
Agencies are successfully chopping hiring times down
The Department of Housing and Urban Development went from being the poster child for the dysfunctional federal hiring process to being a model of what others are striving for.
Tags: In Depth , Francis Rose , pay and benefits , management , Shaun Donovan , Janie Payne , John Berry , Kathleen Ott , Daniel Poneman , HUD , OPM , Energy , VA , CHCO Council , hiring reform , Jason Miller
HUD shows how hiring reform can work
Many agencies have reduced the time it takes to hire a new employee. DoD, Energy and VA are among the departments that have made the most progress over the last year. OPM Director John Berry said a full government-wide look will not be available until early 2011.
Tags: pay and benefits , management , Shaun Donovan , Janie Payne , John Berry , Kathleen Ott , Daniel Poneman , HUD , OPM , Energy , VA , CHCO Council , hiring reform , Jason Miller
Children of deployed seek mental health care
Young children from military families are more likely to seek mental and behavioral health care when a parent is deployed than when a parent is at home, a military study has concluded.
Tags: Federal Drive , DoD Report , Defense , mental health , pay and benefits
DoD's changing acquisition tactics previewed
Ashton Carter, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, described the future state of military contracting. He said vendors should look at several current examples including the Littoral Combat Ship and the replacement for the Ohio Class Submarine.
Tags: contracting , industry , Ashton Carter , Center for American Progress , efficiency initiatives , Jason Miller
Zakheim: better acquisition workforce requires more money
To save money in contracting, DoD will have to spend money to build the acquisition workforce, former DoD Comptroller Dov Zakheim said.
Tags: Pentagon Solutions , In Depth , Francis Rose , Dov Zakheim , budget , contracting , training , Robert Gates
Drug traffickers buy long range planes
It's the latest innovation by international drug traffickers. U.S. prosecutors say South American gangs are buying old jets and other planes, filling them with cocaine and flying them more than 3,000 miles across the ocean to Africa. At least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to U.S. indictments. Most of the cocaine flown to Africa is bound for Europe, where demand has been rising over the last decade.
Tags: Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon , J.J. Green
Honor finally restored
Almost 100 years after his death, a black Union Civil War vet from South Carolina finally has a veterans marker on his grave. The Associated Press reports, the white gravestone for Henry Benjamin Noisette was dedicated Thursday during a Veterans Day ceremony at a small black cemetery near an interstate. Noisette's military past was not discovered until recently by a researcher with the African American Historical Alliance, a nonprofit working to increase awareness of the role of blacks in the war and Reconstruction in South Carolina. Noisette escaped slavery and joined the U.S. Navy in 1862.
Tags: Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon , J.J. Green
Telework may be team sport
A FedScoops panel says telework may be a team sport.
Tags: Bill Piatta , GSA , Christina Morrison , HP , Pamela Budda , FedScoops , telework , management , team , Dorobek Insider , panel
Video teleconferencing technology widely embraced at DISA
Video teleconferencing is more than an alternative to travel at the Defense Information Systems Agency. In fact, the demand for the agency's VTC facilities is exceeding expectations. It's no wonder then that the agency announced last week that it was re-awarding AT&T a contract to continue maintaining DISA's Video Services - Global (DVS-G) VTC system. "Telepresence is quite effective, in lieu of face-to-face meetings, in reducing the requirement for frequent travel," said Julia Brown, project manager for Defense Information Systems Network Video Services at DISA, said in an email to Federal News Radio. "Our challenge is keeping up with current level of demand." The agency has two telepresence options for employees to use. The Defense Connect Online (DCO) system allows employees to connect using equipment located at their desks. DCO is available to all authorized Defense Department employees DISA's other option is their VTC system that connects employees through rooms containing video teleconferencing equipment that function much like television studios, Brown said. The rooms are linked electronically allowing the participants in one room to see and hear the participants in the other rooms. Participants schedule a meeting through VTC coordinators and DISA maintains VTC facilities at military bases around the world. "It saves travel time and expenditures while allowing all participants to engage fully in meetings across the world," Brown said. "Our senior leaders use it for high-level meetings with other senior leaders in the DoD, but DISA also uses it for when we need all our agency employees around the world to meet for important issues, such as an all-hands meeting with our director." AT&T, which currently owns a majority of and maintains all of equipment and software under the DVS-G contract, has been DISA's vendor since 1997. The company currently is on its second contract with the agency. The current contract is worth up to $244.8 million. In early November, DISA announced that they would award AT&T a new sole-source contract, continuing the company's stewardship of VTC services for up to another five years. The new contract has a two-year base, with three one-year options. The new contract will be awarded effective Nov 30. "VTC has proven useful across the world, allowing our senior leaders to see the body language of meeting participants, assisting in a better understanding of objections, reservations, or approval," Brown said. Next week, the Video Teleconferencing Center takes an in-depth look at DISA's DCO system.
Tags: technology , Video Teleconferencing Center , telework , Cisco , TANDBERG , DISA , AT&T ,
