Corruption is Everywhere > Will the blood-letting be sufficient for Boeing to recover?

 

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun to resign —

 setting up succession fight following

Alaska Air door blowout 

By 

Social Links forAriel Zilber

Published March 25, 2024

 Updated March 25, 2024, 4:16 p.m. ET

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun is resigning effective at the end of 2024.  AFP via Getty Images

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun pulled the ripcord on his turbulent tenure  – setting off a succession battle as the aerospace giant grapples with a string of problems including the Alaska Air door blowout.

Calhoun said Monday he will step down at the end of the year amid a wider shakeup that also includes the company’s chairman, Larry Kellner, who will exit the board of directors in May, and Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, who is resigning effective immediately.

Steve Mollenkopf, former CEO of tech giant Qualcomm, will be Boeing’s new board chairman, succeeding Kellner.

Others on the short-list floated by Wall Street analysts were Mollenkopf himself and Pat Shanahan, former deputy defense secretary under Donald Trump, who took over as CEO of  Spirit AeroSystems  last year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

However, Shanahan’s ascent could face difficulty, considering his company was the parts supplier behind the door disaster in January that resulted in an emergency landing – and has led to safety scrutiny by the feds.

“They need more than just a shakeup at the CEO and the chairman of the board level… they’re just paralyzed from making decisions,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth.

“The problems in Boeing’s executive suite are systemic. Nothing is going to change for the better without company leadership acknowledging their failures and thoroughly committing to fixing them,” added Ray Goforth, executive director of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, which represents more than 19,000 workers at Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems.

Nevertheless, news of the leadership overhaul was positively received by Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who said on Monday that he “welcomed these much-needed management changes.”

Ryanair was one of several carriers that had to cut flights as a result of safety inspections that were carried out in the wake of the near-disaster.

5

Boeing has faced scrutiny in the wake of near-disasters including an Alaska Airlines door blowout mid-flight earlier this year.via REUTERS

The company’s stock, which has fallen by some 25% since the start of the year, closed up 1.4% at $191.43 on Monday.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that a group of CEOs from major US-based airlines requested a meeting with Boeing’s board to express concerns over production problems.

On Jan. 5, the rear door plug of a Boeing 737 Max 9 passenger plane operated by Alaska Airlines came loose in mid-flight – resulting in the FAA ordering the grounding of the same model of aircraft for weeks.

Calhoun — who fought back tears while “acknowledging our mistake” that caused the blowout at 16,000 feet and led to an emergency landing — reportedly encouraged the meetings between the CEOs and the company’s board.

5

A United Airlines Boeing plane lost a tire during takeoff from San Francisco International Airport, Thursday, March 7, 2024.AP

The grounding of the jets resulted in thousands of canceled flights by Alaska and United Airlines.  

Preliminary investigations found that loose bolts that needed tightening may have been to blame for the incident.

In late January, the FAA gave the green light for the Max 9 jets to be put back into service.

Last month, the National Transportation Safety Board issued initial findings of their investigation which concluded that bolts were missing from the Alaska Airlines jet.

5

Boeing employees are seen in Renton, Wash, on Jan. 26.AP

Earlier this month, the FAA released the results of an audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, its main supplier.

While investigating Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems in response to the door plug blowout, the agency found that mechanics were using hotel key cards and liquid dish soap as makeshift tools to test compliance.

The agency said that it “found multiple instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.”

Days later, the head of the NTSB, Jennifer Homendy, told Congress that Boeing did not fully cooperate with its investigation.

5

Stan Deal, CEO of the company’s Commercial Airplanes division, is resigning effective immediately.AFP via Getty Images

On March 8, Ziad Ojakli, Boeing executive vice president of government operations, wrote in a letter to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.) that the company could not find any documents on the “opening and closing of the door plug.”

The next day, John Barnett, a former Boeing quality control manager who blew the whistle on the company’s practices at the Charleston, SC plant, where he worked, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to authorities.

Barnett filed a whistleblower complaint against Boeing in court in 2017.

The NTSB said it would hold an investigative hearing on Boeing in early August.

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European Gas Crisis Spreads to Kazakhstan - Government Quits, State of Emergency, 8 Killed

..

Kazakhstan declares state of emergency in several cities

as ongoing fuel price protests erupt

Fuel price increase that kicked in on Jan. 1 sparked tensions,

but autocracy has long stifled dissent

Thomson Reuters · 

Posted: Jan 05, 2022 9:27 AM ET

A view shows a burning police car during a protest following the Kazakh authorities' decision to lift price caps on liquefied petroleum gas in Almaty early Wednesday. (Pavel Mikheyev/Reuters)

Kazakhstan declared emergencies in the capital, main city and provinces on Wednesday after demonstrators stormed and torched public buildings, the worst unrest for more than a decade in a tightly controlled country that promotes an image of stability.

The cabinet resigned but that failed to quell the anger of the demonstrators, who have taken to the streets in response to a fuel price increase from the start of the new year.

An Instagram live stream by a Kazakh blogger showed a fire blazing in the office of the Almaty mayor, with apparent gunshots audible nearby. Videos posted online also showed the nearby prosecutor's office burning.

Earlier on Wednesday, Reuters journalists saw thousands of protesters pressing toward Almaty city centre, some of them on a large truck. Security forces, in helmets and riot shields, fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades.

The city's police chief said Almaty was under attack by "extremists and radicals," who had beaten up 500 civilians and ransacked hundreds of businesses.

This image grab from video shows protesters near an administrative building during a rally over a hike in energy prices in Almaty. Protesters stormed the mayor's office in Kazakhstan's largest city. (AFP/Getty Images)

A presidential decree announced a two-week state of emergency and nighttime curfew in the capital Nur-Sultan, citing "a serious and direct security threat to citizens." States of emergency were also declared in Almaty and in western Mangistau province, where the protests first emerged in recent days.

Authorities appeared to have shut the country off the internet as the unrest spread. Netblocks, a site that monitors global internet connectivity, said the country was "in the midst of a nation-scale internet blackout."

Government resigns

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted the government's resignation on Wednesday following the protests, which have spread from the provinces to main cities since price caps on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) were lifted on New Year's Day.

Speaking to the acting cabinet, Tokayev ordered the price hikes reversed and new caps placed on the cost of other fuels.

The government said the regulated price was causing losses for producers and needed to be liberalized, but Tokayev acknowledged the move had been botched.

The unrest is the biggest test yet of Tokayev, 68, who took power in 2019 as hand-picked successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev, a former Communist Party boss who had become the longest-serving ruler in the former Soviet Union by the time he stepped down. Nazarbayev, 81, still retains substantial authority as head of the ruling party and chairman of the security council.

Kazakhstan's reputation for political stability under three decades of one-man rule by former leader Nazarbayev helped it attract hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign investment in its oil and metals industries, but the pandemic has led to economic pressures, as elsewhere.

Tokayev said on Wednesday he had taken over as head of the country's Security Council and promised to act with "maximum toughness."

Scores of injuries

Atameken, Kazakhstan's business lobby group, said its members were reporting attacks on banks, stores and restaurants.

The city health department said 190 people had sought medical help, including 137 police. City authorities urged residents to stay home.

The interior ministry said government buildings were also attacked in the southern cities of Shymkent and Taraz overnight, with 95 police wounded in clashes. Police have detained more than 200 people.

A video posted online showed police using a water cannon and stun grenades against protesters in front of the mayor's office in Aktobe, capital of another western province.

The size of the crowd in Almaty late Tuesday is shown. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades in a bid to break up an unprecedented thousands-strong march, with injuries to protesters and police reported. (Ruslan Pryanikov/AFP/Getty Images)

Kazakhstan has been grappling with rising price pressures. Inflation was closing in on nine per cent year-on-year late last year — its highest level in more than five years — forcing the central bank to raise interest rates to 9.75 per cent.

Some analysts said the protests pointed to more deep-rooted issues.

"I think there is an underlying undercurrent of frustrations in Kazakhstan over the lack of democracy," said Tim Ash, emerging market strategist at BlueBay Asset Management.

"Young, internet-savvy Kazakhs, especially in Almaty, likely want similar freedoms as Ukrainians, Georgians, Moldovans, Kyrgyz and Armenians, who have also vented their frustrations over the years with authoritarian regimes."

European and international election observers continually condemned the legitimacy of presidential elections in Kazakhstan under Nazarbayev, who regularly won with over 95 per cent of the vote. Voting irregularities and detentions of government opponents were also noted in the 2019 vote, which Tokayev won with a more modest 71 per cent total.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Kazakhstan could solve its own problems and it was important that no one interfered from the outside, RIA news agency reported.

Russia's foreign ministry said it was closely monitoring the situation in its southern neighbour and counting on the "soonest possible normalization."

"We advocate the peaceful resolution of all problems within the constitutional and legal framework and dialogue, rather than through street riots and the violation of laws," it said.

The Latest > Eight police and military killed, over 300 injured in Wednesday’s violence so far, the Kazakh interior ministry says

European Politics > Stunning Tory Defeat in UK; UK's Brexit Minister Resigns; EU Not Included in EU Security Talks; Gas Prices Surge in Europe; Bojo's Popularity Tanks

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Tories suffer stunning election defeat

17 Dec, 2021 06:48

Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan wins the North Shropshire parliamentary seat, in Shrewsbury, UK,

December 17, 2021. © Reuters/Ed Sykes

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost a by-election on Thursday in an area it firmly held for almost 200 years. The Tory government has been marred by a lobbying scandal and an internal revolt.

Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan won 17,957 votes in North Shropshire, central England, beating her Tory opponent, Neil Shastri-Hurst, by nearly 6,000 votes.

The result is a stunning upset for the Conservatives, who had represented North Shropshire in Parliament for the past 189 years, with the exception of the short period between 1904 and 1906, according to UK media. The party comfortably won the constituency in 2019, leading with a nearly 23,000-vote majority.

“Tonight, the people of North Shropshire have spoken on behalf of the British people,” Morgan said after the vote. “They have said loudly and clearly: Boris Johnson, the party is over.”

“Our country is crying out for leadership. Mr Johnson, you are no leader,” Morgan added.

The by-election was held after veteran MP Owen Paterson gave up his seat due to a lobbying scandal.

The defeat in North Shropshire, previously considered to be a safe Tory bastion, could be a sign of future electoral losses for Johnson’s party. The PM currently faces a revolt in Parliament, where nearly 100 Tories broke ranks this week and voted against the government’s proposal to introduce Covid passes for certain venues and events in England.

Shropshire, UK

Brexit minister resigns over ‘disillusionment’ with BoJo’s govt

18 Dec, 2021 20:47

FILE PHOTO: Lord David Frost walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain, September 15, 2021

© Reuters / Hannah McKay

Cabinet Minister Lord Frost has reportedly walked out of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government. Frost is believed to have grown disillusioned with Johnson’s Covid measures, tax hikes, and environmental policies.

Frost’s departure was reported by the Mail on Sunday, citing sources within the government. The minister, who negotiated Britain’s departure from the European Union, reportedly handed in his resignation a week ago, but was persuaded to stay on until January.

Frost’s resignation was prompted by his growing “disillusionment” with Johnson’s government, the Mail reported. Specifically, he disagreed with the introduction of ‘Plan B’ coronavirus restrictions, income tax hikes announced in September, and the high cost of Johnson’s plan to lower carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

Of these gripes, the ‘Plan B’ restrictions have been the most contentious for Johnson. Introduced earlier this month, the suite of measures includes a mask mandate for indoor venues, vaccine passes for nightclubs and large events, and daily testing for the close contacts of infected people. 

The restrictions, which reports suggest that Johnson will soon be asked by ministers to expand into a full lockdown, have caused discontent even within Johnson’s own party, with 100 Conservative MPs refusing to vote on bringing in the vaccine pass system. Forty of these MPs voted against mandatory masking too.

The introduction of these measures was followed by a devastating loss for the Conservative Party at the ballot box. While the Tories had held the constituency of North Shropshire for nearly 200 years, Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan beat the Conservative's Neil Shastri-Hurst by nearly 6,000 votes in a by-election there on Thursday. 

Public anger against Johnson stems not just from the introduction of new restrictions, but also from the revelation that staff at Downing Street and a number of other locations held Christmas parties last year, while ordinary Britons were forbidden from gathering. The cabinet minister assigned to investigate these events, Simon Case, resigned on Friday after it emerged that he too held a party in his office.

Frost has not publicly commented on his apparent resignation yet. As of late, Frost had been locked into negotiations with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on post-Brexit arrangements between the UK and EU.

EU demands inclusion in Russia & US/NATO security talks

20 Dec, 2021 10:21 

© Getty Images / inakiantonana

The EU should play a major role in discussions between Russia and NATO on the future of security in Europe, the bloc’s foreign policy chief insisted on Monday, suggesting Moscow and Washington also invite his organization.

Josep Borrell, who has served as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy since 2019, was reacting to a set of proposals published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday, which asked the US and NATO for a set of security guarantees. Instead of dismissing the documents immediately, as some have suggested, Borrell is seeking to ensure the bloc is part of negotiations.

According to the ex-Spanish cabinet minister, “the EU must, of course, be at the table of any discussion on the European security architecture.”

It's insanely absurd that they are not. But then, Deep State would have a little less control.

“Russia’s Foreign Ministry this Friday released a draft proposal on security guarantees between Russia and the US as well as to European members of NATO. It is clear that the EU must be an integral part of such discussions,” his blog said.

Borrell noted that the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter, as well as the OSCE, are “key principles” on which European security has been built for the last 50 years.

He also commented on the tensions between Russia and Ukraine and suggested that Moscow seeks to “threaten and weaken” Kiev, suggesting that the EU “hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

“We cannot exclude Russia’s desire to use this crisis as leverage for its declared purpose to reshape the security framework in Europe, also excluding the Europeans [sic] from the discussions,” he said. “But we know that our American allies will not fall into this trap.”

On the other hand, it may be our American allies who are setting the trap.

On Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a draft version of two proposed treaties, one with the US and one with NATO. The documents are made up of a list of security guarantees, including a proposal that NATO won’t expand eastwards into states that were formerly a part of the USSR. If signed, it would also see troop movements near the Russian border be limited and would stop missiles from being placed near the frontier.

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Russia shows German diplomats the door

20 Dec, 2021 15:00 

Russia has declared two German diplomats persona non grata. Monday’s move is intended as a response to a similar decision taken by Germany last week, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow explained.

It comes just days after Berlin showed two Russian envoys the door after a German court sentenced a Russian national to life in prison over the murder of a Chechen separatist, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, in 2019. Khangoshvili had been wanted in Russia on multiple charges. Three years prior, he had moved to Germany and applied for asylum there.

Germany’s foreign minister reacted to the expulsion with a statement describing the step as “not surprising, and yet completely unfounded from the perspective of the German government.” However, Berlin insisted its own decision to boot out two Russian representatives was an “appropriate reaction” to a “major violation of Germany’s sovereignty.” The statement concluded by saying that Moscow’s decision would further “strain relations.”

After Khangoshvili was fatally shot in Berlin’s Tiergarten park, German authorities were quick to point the finger at Moscow. Russia has denied any involvement in the murder. Russian Ambassador Sergey Nechaev denounced the German court’s verdict as “politically motivated” and “biased.”

A statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on Monday dismissed the court’s claims of Moscow’s involvement in the crime as “baseless and divorced from reality.”

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European gas prices surge

20 Dec, 2021 12:00

Gas prices in Europe spiked more than 7% on Monday, with the price of January futures on the TTF hub in the Netherlands hitting $1,732 per 1,000 cubic meters, or €148.87 per megawatt hour in household terms.

In early October gas prices in Europe reached a record $2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters, which constituted an almost 400% rise since the start of the year.

Energy prices in Europe continue to spike as Germany keeps postponing the launch of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was laid to deliver additional supplies of Russian natural gas to the continent.

The delay in approving the pipeline is not political, new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week. Its construction faced strong opposition from the US, Poland, and Ukraine.

Funny, it sure sounds political! And what does the USA have to do with it at all? 

The amount of gas in Germany’s emergency reserves has been decreasing, dropping to a “historically low level” of below 60% last week for the first time in years, according to the German association of underground gas storage operators INES.

BoJo’s popularity sinks to record low

20 Dec, 2021 17:13

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London, England. © Reuters / Peter Nicholls

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s woes grew on Monday, as new figures show his approval rating has declined to its lowest level since he took office, with most Britons expecting him to resign or be forced out in the near future.

An opinion poll released by Ipsos Mori found that six out of 10 respondents believe Johnson would not be prime minister by the end of 2022. The poll comes in the wake of a wave of allegations that a number of Conservative Party ministers and their staff – including Johnson and his office – had breached lockdown restrictions last year.

Meanwhile, a separate YouGov tracker poll has shown that the prime minister’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level, 29%, since he entered Downing Street in 2019. Some 64% of respondents said they felt he was doing “badly” as PM.

The latest figures mark a steep decline in support for the Conservative leader, who, in April 2020, secured a record-high approval rating of 66% as he worked to combat the Covid pandemic.

The findings also come a day after The Guardian published a photo purportedly showing Johnson, his wife, and 17 Downing Street staff members violating the government’s own rules during the first lockdown in May 2020. Downing Street has defended the image, claiming it shows a “work meeting.” despite bottles of wine and a cheese board being visible.

Maybe that's the problem, the work meetings are all drunken parties!

This is the latest alleged infringement of the rules to rock the government, with an investigation already underway into reports a number of parties were held in violation of Covid restrictions during November and December 2020.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who was leading the probe into the alleged parties, was forced to step aside last week after it was claimed he was aware of or attended two gatherings at his own office in December last year. Senior civil servant Sue Gray has taken over the investigation.

Bolsonaro Still in Control in Brazil, for Now

Brazil's justice minister resigns in clash with President Bolsonaro

By Danielle Haynes

Brazil's, justice minister, Sergio Moro announces his resignation from government during a news conference

in Brasilia, Brazil, on Friday. Photo by Joedson Alves/EPA-EFE

(UPI) -- Brazilian Justice Minister Sergio Moro resigned Friday after disagreeing with President Jair Bolsonaro over his firing of the head of the country's federal police.

The clash between Moro and Jair, both popular far-right figures, could cause political turmoil in the South American country as it attempts to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic has sickened more than 52,000 people and killed at least 3,600 people in Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In his resignation speech, Moro said he attempted to persuade Jair not to force the resignation of federal police chief Mauricio Valeixo.

"I have to protect my biography and above all the commitment I took on ... that we would stand firm against corruption, organized crime and violent crime," Moro said.

Shortly after the former justice minister's announcement, critics pounded pots and pans and shouted from their windows and balconies: "Bolsonaro out! Bolsonaro out!"

Brazilian Attorney General Augusto Aras asked the Supreme Court to investigate Valeixo's firing.

The clash comes one week after Bolsonaro fired Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta after the two disagreed on how best to combat the spread of COVID-19. Bolsonaro has faced criticism for downplaying the pandemic despite overwhelmed healthcare facilities.

So, there was no military coup in Brazil three weeks ago as reports suggested. Bolsonaro appears to still be in control; for how long is another question.

Wikileaks Reveals New OPCW Douma Leaks - Cover-up - No Chlorine Gas

Kids being treated for chlorine exposure in Douma (apparently) - notice there is no blotching of the

skin, not even any redness in her eyes. I wonder what they did to her to make her look so miserable?

By News Desk, AMN, Beirut

BEIRUT, LEBANON – Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW’s Douma investigation, revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the fact-finding mission.

“One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation:

‘Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive]… And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'”

According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than dropped.

“The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident,” the Wikileaks report said.

Another document released today is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff members of the OPCW had discussions with “three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist” (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the minutes).

The purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was “to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018”. According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was “To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims.”

ALSO READ  Newsweek reporter resigns after accusing outlet of suppressing story about OPCW leak

No correlation

More specifically, “…whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas.”

According to the minutes leaked today: “With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure”.

The OPCW team members wrote that the key “take-away message” from the meeting was “that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified”.

For full details, please follow the link: https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/

You can also search 'Douma' on this blog for numerous other stories suggesting a false-flag operation and a cover-up, which can no longer be in any doubt. The hierarchy of the OPCW is being controlled by NATO, Deep State, or one of the governments involved. Their resignations are the very least that can be expected.