November 30, 2004 -- Information Week has reported that "United Parcel Service Inc. is closely monitoring radio-frequency identification technology. The global logistics provider has several tests under way and says its package-tracking processes will leverage RFID as soon as customers want it."

November 30, 2004 -- According to Expatica, "The Belgian post office damaged almost half the parcels it transported as part of a European wide test, it emerged on Tuesday. The European Consumer Centre (ECC), which is subsidised by the European Commission, used national post offices across the EU to send 260 parcels to 13 destinations, La Derniere Heure reported. All of the parcels weighed 2.5 kilograms and were sent on 14 September. On average 13.6 percent of the packages arrived damaged at their destinations. But those handled by the Belgian Post office had a much worse time."

November 30, 2004 -- WHO-TV has reported that "Your cards and packages may not make it by Christmas this year. That's because some local postal drivers are talking about going on strike, right before the holiday. The driver's voted in favor of a strike a few weeks ago. It can happen at anytime. This dispute isn't between drivers and the post office. It's between drivers and an outside contractor. That company is called Mail Contractors of America or M.C.A. Its a national company and the largest private one serving the post office. About 500 drivers are poised to strike in the United States and 100 of them are based here in Des Moines. The problem is a new healthcare contract. Drivers say they can't afford the higher premiums. Both sides have been talking about it for more than a year. Now, union leaders say a strike is the last resort."

November 30, 2004 -- The Scotsman (U.K.) has reported that "Gerry Sutcliffe, Minister for Postal Services, today announced the reappointment of Peter Carr as National Chair of the Postwatch Council for a further twelve months."

November 30, 2004 -- A progress report on the Postal Service's Transformation Plan has been posted on the USPS web site.

November 30, 2004 -- The Independent (U.K.) has reported that "The Post Office was taken to the Office of Fair Trading yesterday in an attempt to have the contracts it imposes upon thousands of sub-postmasters ruled anti-competitive and illegal. The Association of Convenience Stores, which represents 10,000 sub-post offices - two-thirds of the network - claimed its members were losing millions of pounds because of the restrictions imposed on them."

November 30, 2004 -- Les Echos (France) has reported that "La Poste, the French postal service operator, is planning to create a new level within the hierarchy of its public network. At present, the group's network includes five levels: the head office, eight lower authorities, 102 departmental offices, 270 local groups and around 12,000 individual establishments. As of 1 January 2005, a regional level could be added between the eight authorities below the head office and the 102 departmental offices. This would lead to the creation of 24 or 25 regional offices."

November 30, 2004 -- The Irish Independent has reported that "AN POST staff who are operating taxis as a 'nixer' are being closely monitored by one of the main taxi lobbies, which has alerted management about employees exceeding the 48-hour EU working-time directive. Last night An Post confirmed that it had been contacted by the National Taxi Drivers' Association with details of taxi licence numbers and vehicle registration details. Personnel officers are currently investigating the accusation that postal workers may be working as taxi drivers for 40 hours a week in addition to their 'day job'."

November 30, 2004 -- Forbes has reported that "Austria Post AG, the nation's postal service, will close 357 post offices around the country next spring in a cost-cutting move. Small, independent grocery stores will sell stamps and provide other postal services for customers in areas where branches will be shuttered."

November 29, 2004 -- According to Federal Computer Week, "U. S. Patent and Trademark Office officials have expanded their use of a Web-based bulk mailing system offered by the U.S. Postal Service."

November 29, 2004 -- Strategiy has reported that "DHL Global Mail has consolidated its market leading position in the Asia market with an exclusive agreement with Yamato Transport Co, Ltd, Japan's top door-to-door mail and parcel delivery business. The partnership effectively opens up access for Japanese customers to a top class international mail delivery service. Users from outside the country share the benefit in reverse since they will be able to take advantage of the integrated international service to send post to Japan."

November 29, 2004 -- The Scotsman (U.K.) has reported that "The postal watchdog tonight urged people to send Christmas cards second class because of the "dramatic" decline in the delivery of first-class letters in recent years. Postwatch said more than three out of every 10 first-class letters posted over the past two years at Christmas time had failed to arrive the next day. The group said it was clear that a first-class stamp did not mean a first-class service at this time of year and recommended that people posted cards and letters second class."

November 29, 2004 -- Ireland Online has reported that "An Post has warned the Communication Workers' Union that it will sue for any losses arising from strike action threatened by postal workers."

November 29, 2004 -- From the Business Wire: "ABX Air has been awarded a contract by the US Postal Service to manage an air network to transport mail during the busy holiday season. The network will include ABX Air aircraft as well as those of other operators. ABX Air will also provide logistics services and hub operations in support of the network."

November 29, 2004 -- Federal Times has reported that "Postmasters and postal supervisors who have dealt with fires, floods or other problems outside of their control can have those factors considered when their performance is evaluated to determine their next pay raise."

November 29, 2004 -- Expatica has reported that "The German government is to sell to institutional investors a stake in mail carrier Deutsche Post that is worth up to EUR one billion, government-owned bank KfW has said."

November 29, 2004 -- The BBC (U.K.) has reported that "Postal workers in Northampton have voted to carry out two 24-hour strikes in the run-up to Christmas. The local dispute follows a row over management imposing extra workloads on delivery staff since the second post was abolished in August. Postal services will be affected as the 400 members of staff refuse to work. The first strike day is planned for this Friday with another 24-hour walk out on Monday 6 December. Talks on the strikes were held in London last week."

November 28, 2004 -- The Irish Independent has reported that:

• Christmas postal services face a new threat after workers voted by a large majority for industrial action if management attempts to impose new work practices. The Communications Workers' Union also indicated it intended to strike if the semi-state company implements its decision to shut down the loss-making SDS parcels subsidiary, with a loss of 270 jobs.
• The postal workers have voted by over 91pc to proceed with their industrial action in what they claim is a move "to protect all existing agreements with management of An Post". Both management and the CWU have been painfully slow in addressing the restructuring which is needed to salvage the loss-making postal service.
[See also the Irish Times.]

November 28, 2004 -- As Hoovers has reported, "Delivery services throughout the country are bulking up this holiday season as never before, offering competitive pay and, in some cases, benefits for temporary work. A recovering economy, a continuing surge in the popularity of online buying, and a longer holiday shopping season have UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service hiring larger numbers of seasonal workers."

November 28, 2004 -- As the International Herald Tribune has noted, "Mike Eskew can't get no satisfaction - and if all goes according to plan, he never will. "Even if you are doing your job well, if you are at the top of your game, you have to be willing to reinvent yourself," Eskew, chief executive of United Parcel Service, said during a recent stopover in Paris. "I like to say that I'm constructively dissatisfied," he explained, citing the mantra of the company's founder, James Casey."

November 28, 2004 -- The Canada NewsWire has reported that "On the eve of U.S. President George Bush's visit to Ottawa, a bill has been quietly introduced in the House of Commons by a Liberal M.P. that would require the federal Minister of Health to apply U.S. law when deciding whether to issue export permits....Canada Post will also lose very significant revenues given that the national postal agency currently delivers more than two and a half million pharmaceutical packages a year to the United States."

November 27, 2004 -- EVWorld has reported that "Azure Dynamics Corporation, a developer of hybrid electric powertrains for commercial vehicles, has announced that they delivered a Hybrid Electric Delivery Vehicle to Purolator, Canada's largest overnight courier company. This vehicle is the first product delivered as a result of the supply agreement, signed by the two companies in September 2003 that could see Purolator purchase up to 2,000 hybrid electric powered delivery vans. The five year supply agreement with Purolator valued at approximately $90 million is Azure Dynamic's largest customer contract to date."

November 27, 2004 -- According to the International Labor Communications Association, "Labor has got to think more clearly about media and communications and come up with better means and a better strategy for fighting in the arena of ideas and images. TV and radio are too expensive and labor intensive, all those public access shows are ugly, nobody listens to community radio, labor print media exists for the vanity of elected officers and nothing more, nobody reads labor newspapers, nobody reads period, postal rates are going up, none of the news-like sources mobilize people directly for the next rally or vote, labor needs to control its message through targeted communication, and so on.

November 27, 2004 -- American Shipper has reported that "The World Trade Organization Monday started multilateral talks on the facilitation and simplification of international trade, following a new policy adopted as part of an international agreement made in July. The Geneva-based body has formed a "Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation," chaired by ambassador Muhamad Noor Yacob, of Malaysia. The agenda of the new negotiating group includes identifying trade facilitation needs and priorities, concerns related to cost implications of proposed measures, and cooperation between customs or other authorities on trade facilitation and customs compliance issues."

November 27, 2004 -- Traffic World has reported that:

• For U.S. airlines, the cargo business has been a lone bright spot in an otherwise dark year. As the passenger business falls prey to cost-cutting competition and rising jet fuel prices, the airlines are posting healthy gains in belly business and the growth is coming from a seemingly unlikely area - the high-yield and high-speed express shipments that the airlines had supposedly lost to the integrated carriers. After several years of seeming stagnation, cargo traffic for the major combination airlines appears to be in full recovery in 2004, with overall traffic up 7.1 percent for the year and the core freight and express business up 8 percent.
• Shippers hoping to get more transport capacity next year for supply chains that have been frayed by space shortages are getting little comfort about 2005 from carriers. In rare unanimity across modes and services, carriers at the combined annual meeting here of shipper, intermodal and broker groups said their plans to add capacity next year will be based purely on the return on investment they can expect from new equipment. Shipper demand and even competition, the carriers said, will be secondary to the discipline truckers and railroads are applying to their operations.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's decision to encourage pharmaceutical companies to test radio frequency identification tags and readers should hasten the deployment of RFID.
• Yellow Transportation's announcement that it will roll out its long-anticipated premium next-day LTL service across much of the Midwest starting Feb. 13 signals a deeper and still developing shift in traditional roles in transportation.
• The pace of the talks between UPS and the Independent Pilots Association likely will quicken next month as the sides push to meet the mediator's first quarter 2005 deadline for an agreement.

November 27, 2004 -- According to the Journal of Commerce, "The air cargo industry business model has, so far, proved resistant to change at the traditional scheduled carrier level. Scheduled carriers often operate their cargo divisions as a by-product of their passenger-focused businesses. These businesses are run using many labor-intensive handling operations and manual commercial processes, since their automation systems and operations processes are poorly integrated. They also suffer from a lack of measurable process costs and process quality."

November 27, 2004 -- The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece on who wins and who loses with the falling value of the American dollar. Bottom line: Plan those international meetings in the U.S.

November 27, 2004 -- Check out PostInsight for the paper "Mail Demand Models," by Matthew C. Harding, Department of Economics, MIT. It was prepared as part of the Pitney Bowes research for the manuscript, "Electronic Substitution for Mail: Models and Results; Myth and Reality." It includes a review of literature on mail demand models and a critical evaluation of the extent to which the models succeed in explaining trends in mail demand and in addressing the impact of electronic substitution on mail volumes.

November 27, 2004 -- Interfax has reported that "Ceska posta, the state-run postal services provider, will keep its monopoly position in delivery of direct mail, according to the bill on postal services approved by the Chamber of Deputies. Currently, other companies also provide services in this lucrative segment of the market. The previous law did not specify whether direct mail is part of Ceska posta's monopoly. Firms providing direct-mail services in the country have threatened to take the issue to the European Commission."

November 27, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "The DMA (U.K.) is attempting to get the UK's top 50 mailers to sign its Environmental Charter, as part of its attempts to encourage the industry to reduce its environmental impact."

November 27, 2004 -- From the Canada NewsWire: "Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada working at Canada Post voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action and are prepared to walk the picket line as early as December 8 if they don't get a fair collective agreement soon. The president of the PSAC component Union of Postal Communications Employees (UPCE), Luc Guevremont, indicated that 73% said yes to strike action at Canada Post after the PSAC negotiating team reported that management was asking for a series of rollbacks without addressing any of the members' priority proposals."

November 27, 2004 -- MENA-FN.com has reported that "The Dubai Declaration was released on the concluding day of the symposium which includes the procedures and mechanisms for implementation of the Declaration in the Arab region. Significantly, the declaration has laid out a policy framework for eGovernment and IP implementation in the region with the main highlights including establishing a regional Arab team of officials to ensure coordination in information exchange and knowledge sharing, cooperation in area of training to prepare specialized personnel in eBusiness, identification of work to be done in unifying specifications and certificate categories in eSignatures, coordinating eSignature terms and electronic communication systems. The Dubai Declaration also calls for more cooperation between International Postal Union and ITU to support Arab countries in delivering electronic services to remote cities and towns to ensure right of every citizen to communicate electronically." See also Dubai Interact.

November 27, 2004 -- Bloomberg has reported that "Canada Post employees representing 4 percent of the state-owned letter carrier's workforce threatened to strike by Dec. 8 without improved health benefits and job security. The 2,600 members of the Union of Postal Communications Employees voted 73 percent to strike, Luc Guevremont, the union's president, said today in Ottawa. His union, the smallest of four at Canada Post, represents mostly clerical workers such as customer service agents."

November 27, 2004 -- SwissInfo has reported that "Swiss Post and the communications union have agreed to new talks next week, following a strike on Thursday by postal workers worried about lower pay. The union says it has suspended industrial action for the time being, after Swiss Post agreed to discuss a compromise proposal put forward by workers' representatives."

November 27, 2004 -- Business World (Ireland) has reported that "Communications Workers Union (CWU) members today voted overwhelmingly for industrial action at An Post and have give seven days notice to management. The CWU said they received a mandate to proceed with industrial action to protect all existing agreements with management of An Post."

November 27, 2004 -- Les Echos (France) has reported that "DHL France, the French subsidiary of DHL, the transport and logistics division of German postal service operator Deutsche Post, has completed the first phase of its restructuring programme. As of 1 January 2005, the company will consist of only four legal structures, compared with 13 previously. These will include a holding company with the name DHL and three subsidiaries, DHL Solutions, DHL Express France and DHL Danzas Air & Ocean. The changes are to be introduced with retroactive effect from 1 January 2004."

November 27, 2004 -- Union Network International has reported that "The First Seminar on Globalization and Outsourcing of Postal Services was held on November 23, 2004 in Lima, Peru. During the first part of the seminar, Gilles Chapadeau, Postal Sector Regional Director, gave a clear description of the situation of postal services at a global level and the negative effects of globalization on post offices around the world."

November 27, 2004 -- The agenda for the December 7 meeting of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors has been posted on this site.

November 27, 2004 -- Traffic World has reported that "With their 2005 rates increases, integrated carriers are seeking to boost their express products and fine-tune the pricing of their more demanding delivery services. FedEx and UPS recently announced in quick succession that they are hiking their rates an average of 2.6 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, beginning Jan. 3. The carriers will bolster their high-yield express operations, extract more earnings from the growing ground services and target pricing more precisely to individual shipments."

November 26, 2004 -- Transport Intelligence has reported that:

• The acquisition of Blue Dart, India's largest domestic express company, by DHL, Deutsche Post World Net's express parcels subsidiary, may be in jeopardy according to reports in the Indian media. It seems that government approval for the deal may not be forthcoming due to legislation concerning the ownership of Blue Dart's fleet of cargo aircraft. As in many countries, regulations prohibit the ownership of domestic airlines by foreign companies. At present Blue Dart's air cargo operation is the only one licensed by Indian civil aviation authorities, and it seems that, unless the law is changed, DHL will have to find a way round this potential deal-blocker if it is to acquire the rest of Blue Dart's ground network. DHL faced similar problems in its acquisition of Airborne in the US. It overcame opposition to this deal by spinning off the airline into the control of US nationals. However this did not stop its key rivals, UPS and FedEx, from claiming that DHL continued to exercise de facto control as most of the airline's contracts remained with the now German owned parcels operation.
• Despite interest from a number of parties, struggling German retailer KarstadtQuelle is looking for further bidders for its logistics divisions. At present the only company which has expressed an interest in its complete logistics business has been Deutsche Post World Net. The retailer believes that it will be able to get a better price by selling off its two logistics subsidiaries, Optimus and Service-Logiq, as a whole rather than by breaking them up. However this approach is being frustrated by a lack of competition for the business.
• TNT` has entered into a partnership with the Shanghai Jiaotong University's Antai School of Management with the purpose of providing training in the logistics, express, and mail industries.

November 26, 2004 -- The Wall Street Journal has reported that "Express delivery companies that gambled years ago on the potential demand for their services in China are finally cashing in on growth in a burgeoning industry. But DHL, FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. are already looking beyond expediting components and finished goods into Chinese factories and on to overseas buyers, to what they see as an even greater opportunity: Helping manufacturers in China save time and money by managing their increasingly complex supply chains."

November 26, 2004 -- The Irish Times has reported that "Senior Government officials have delivered a fresh warning that An Post is facing a range of long-term financial and competitive threats. In a briefing document prepared for the Minister for Communications, Mr Dempsey, senior officials warn that An Post's problems are not just confined to its current financial difficulties. While the company aims to return to profitability in 2005, the document warns that other pressures will soon start to exert themselves."

November 26, 2004 -- As CNN Money has noted, "The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the USPS is expected to ask for a rise in postage stamp prices early next year of at least 10 percent -- possibly increasing the price of a first-class stamp to at least 41 cents from 37 cents. The possible rate increase stems partly from the failure of proposed legislation that would have allowed the post office to take advantage of pension-fund savings, the paper said. [USPS spokesman Jerry] McKiernan said the company has not ruled out a possible price increase, but the process to request such an increase and have it approved can take as many as 18 months. The government-sponsored postal services company has not yet started the process, he added."

November 26, 2004 -- NBC30 (CT) has reported that "Robert and Gail O'Connor thought posting signs and cartoons about mail carriers and angry dogs were funny. But the U.S. Postal Service isn't laughing. For two weeks, the O'Connors -- who own a 4-year-old Rottweiler -- have driven into town to get their mail because their carrier refuses to deliver the mail. Officials from the Enfield post office said they will resume delivery after the family removes two signs from their front door and a cartoon tacked above the mailbox that poke fun of mail carriers' fear of dogs. One sign has a picture of a Rottweiler and reads, "I can make the gate in 4 seconds, can you?" The other reads, "Never mind the dog, beware of owner." The cartoon depicts an aspiring mail carrier facing two rows of Rottweilers.

November 26, 2004 -- Traffic World has reported that "Spurred on by DHL's plans to trim its airlift needs, ABX Air said it would reduce its fleet by 26 aircraft next year. However, ABX and industry observers expect the airline to make up for those losses with the addition of new, more modern aircraft and revenue gains from its new ground service offerings."

November 26, 2004 -- The Financial Times has reported that "In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Mr Takenaka compared the privatisation to no less an event than the arrival in Japan of Commodore Matthew Perry. 'Like Perry's Black Ships, they came in and brought enormous change,' says Mr Takenaka, referring to the well-worn tale of the 19th century US warships that convinced Japan it needed to embark on sweeping modernisation. 'I think the post office will be the same.' At issue is not the post office's mail delivery service, a slick - if generously staffed - operation that delivers letters four times a day almost unerringly. The real fight, which some claim is more of a political scrap over money than a genuine reform, is over the post office's Y350,000bn ($3,386bn, €2,589bn, £1,814bn) in savings and insurance premiums."

November 26, 2004 -- Agenzia Giornalistica Italia has reported that "The figures of the "Canalgrande" operation carried out by the Postal Police of Veneto give an idea of the vast field of investigation explored by investigators. The inquiry, coordinated by the Venice Prosecutor's Office, involved 400 agents from 19 Polizia Postale italiana offices (one per region, except for Valle d'Aosta). 5 were arrested, over 100 investigated and as many searches carried out seizing 157 personal computers, 7420 floppy disks, 4450 cd roms, 740 dvds, 1670 videocassettes, 326 memory cards, over 5000 other kinds of devices for the vision of illicit material." See also the accompanying story from AGI.

November 26, 2004 -- According to Online.ie (Ireland), "Almost 300 jobs are to be axed with the closure of An Post's parcel delivery service, management confirmed today. The board said 270 workers would be laid off when the company's SDS operation shuts next February. The Communications Workers Union had called on management to reverse its decision but postal chiefs said losses were running at too high a rate to save the service."

November 26, 2004 -- Maine Today has reported that "The number of catalogs shipped to homes and businesses has held steady despite online competition, and the number of catalogs actually grew last year."

November 26, 2004 -- According to Vanuatu Online, "Vanuatu Post Limited is now achieving much improved service standards in the speed, reliability and access of postal services, which has lead to a solid financial performance for the 2003 year."

November 25, 2004 -- Die Welt (Germany) Deutsche Post, the German postal service operator, is reported to be planning to sell its stake of just under 25 per cent in Transoflex, the German delivery company. A dispute regarding the company's stake in Transoflex has continued for the last seven years, after the cartel office prohibited the acquisition of the stake after the transaction had been completed, due to fears that it would give Deutsche Post a dominant position on the market. The company is now thought to be planning to sell its stake in order to avoid a defeat at the federal supreme court in Karlsruhe on December 21, when the court is to reach a decision regarding the company's stake. If Deutsche Post loses the case, it will be forced to sell its stake in Transoflex and to transfer it to a trustee."

November 25, 2004 -- Reuters has reported that "FedEx Corp. Chief Economist Gene Huang on Tuesday said retail activity has "firmed up" since the U.S. presidential election and ahead of the holiday season."

November 25, 2004 -- NZZ Online has reported that "The Swiss Post Office has made an official complaint following a strike by workers that blocked four sorting offices on Thursday morning. It accused unions of breaking the terms of a collective labour agreement by their industrial action."

November 25, 2004 -- According to the Northwest Indiana Times, "New houses slow rural mail delivery. With tremendous residential growth comes pressure on governmental agencies to accommodate new residents."

November 25, 2004 -- Czech Happenings has reported that "The rivals of postal services operator Ceska posta should have easier access to the market in line with an amendment to the law on postal services passed by the Chamber of Deputies today. The amendment aligns Czech legislation with EU directives. To get a licence for the provision of postal services, one will no longer have to prove expert skills. The amendment will now have to be seen by the Senate. On the other hand, according to the amendment, Ceska posta should have a clearer monopoly on the delivery of direct-mail, a very lucrative segment of the market."

November 25, 2004 -- TPG, the largest private sector employer in the Netherlands, and the negotiators for the trade unions ABVAKABO FNV, BVPP, CNV Publieke Zaak and VPP have reached an agreement on a new collective labour agreement.

November 25, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "The United States Postal Service (USPS) will once again join revelers in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year, the Postal Service celebrates the spirit of the nation as USPS's "Spirit of America" float makes its way down the streets of New York City."

November 25, 2004 -- As the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has noted, "The FedEx workers at Alliance Airport load and sort cargo with the urgency of a crew working a pit stop during a NASCAR Nextel Cup race. But the cargo that prompts this frenetic pace on a Thursday night and Friday morning is nothing compared with the cargo that will start flowing through the hub this week with the start of the holiday shipping season. Each company that handles millions of packages knows the date when they will hit their peak. For FedEx, it's Dec. 13. For UPS, it's Dec. 21. For DHL, it's Dec. 20. The U.S. Postal Service expects peaks on Dec. 13 and Dec. 20."

November 25, 2004 -- SwissInfo has reported that "Union leaders are threatening further industrial action after around 200 postal workers blocked four of Switzerland's main sorting offices."

November 25, 2004 -- According to the Asahi Shimbun, "In striking contrast to the privatization of the Japanese National Railways in 1987, the ongoing project to turn postal services into private businesses is apparently not driven by any clear prospect of benefits that would offset foreseeable risks. There are two main benefits for privatizing a public entity: The revitalization of the entity due to competition in a free market and deregulation, and higher efficiency from newly gained independence of its management."

November 25, 2004 -- According to Dow Jones, "FedEx Corp. (FDX) said Wednesday that its Federal Express Corp. unit amended its transportation agreement with the U.S. Postal Service Monday. In a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Memphis transportation company said the amendment allows its unit to continue carrying incremental pounds of mail through May 31, 2006, at higher committed volumes than required under the original agreement. The filing didn't provide specific details on the mail volume change. FedEx, via its units, provides air delivery, freight, parcel and logistics services."

November 25, 2004 -- American Shipper has reported that "UPS said it has resumed full service in Canada after reaching tentative agreement with Teamster workers there on a new six-year contract, ending a one-day strike." See also Today's Trucking.

November 25, 2004 -- From the Canada NewsWire: "To thank customers for their understanding during its service interruption earlier this week, UPS Canada announced today that UPS daily pickup customer accounts will receive free ground shipping within Canada for shipments picked up on Thursday, November 25 and Friday, November 26.

November 25, 2004 -- As CNews has noted, "In today's hi-tech world, redundancy is not only good but the more of it you have, the better your systems are. And the most redundant corporate system of them all just might belong to UPS and its' World Technology Headquarters here in Ramapo Ridge in upstate New Jersey."

November 25, 2004 -- According to GovExec.com, "There was a point in the spring of 2004 when it looked like years of work by lawmakers and lobbyists might actually pay off in legislation to modernize the Postal Service by simplifying the rate-setting process, allowing the closure of unneeded post offices and granting management flexibilities that would help the organization compete with private-sector delivery companies."

November 25, 2004 -- The Kyodo news service has reported that:

• Japanese banking industry leader Yoshifumi Nishikawa urged the Financial Services Agency on Wednesday to regulate a post office network management company as well as a postal savings firm after the planned breakup and privatization of Japan Post.
• The state-backed Japan Post said Wednesday it has agreed with Chinese and South Korean postal authorities to seek tie-ups in operations such as international remittance and the use of automated teller machines. The accord calls for Japan Post, the State Postal Bureau of China and Korea Post to study ways of realizing emergency international remittance, acceptance of international credit cards for use in their ATMs and exchange of information on new postal products and services.

November 25, 2004 -- AGIPNews has reported that "The Department of Commerce's United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has recently added 10 new forms to TPostal, the agency's electronic bulk mailing system for trademark related notices. According to a press release by the USPTO, TPostal uses the US Postal Service's Web-based NetPost Mailing Online system to print, stamp, and mail post card notices to trademark filers within 24 hours. Using postcards rather than windowed letters not only saves time, but also reduces labor, materials and postage costs, resulting in considerable savings to the USPTO."

November 24, 2004 -- Here's an interesting item from PC World: "Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer, shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow dots printed there that could be used to trace the document back to you. According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters."

November 24, 2004 -- According to WIRED News, "Publishers of newspapers and magazines like to corral readers when they're young. If you can shape kids' info-seeking habits when they're in their teens or twenties, so the thinking goes, you'll nab them for life. From the perspective of publishers, the 18- to 34-year-old demographic is highly prized by advertisers -- the people who make writing, editing and working at a newspaper or magazine a vocation, not just an avocation (like it is for most bloggers.) But there is trouble afoot. Young people just aren't interested in reading newspapers and print magazines. The Online Publishers Association found that 18- to 34-year-olds are far more apt to log on to the internet (46 percent) than watch TV (35 percent), read a book (7 percent), turn on a radio (3 percent), read a newspaper (also 3 percent) or flip through a magazine (less than 1 percent)." And advertisers know it.

November 24, 2004 -- CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal) has reported that:

• According to Germany's regulatory authority RegTP, `integrated logistics services' represent a clear exemption from Deutsche Post's monopoly. This clarification came from Johannes Offermann, head of RegTP's department for Market Impenetration and Domination on Postal Markets. Mr Offermann said the wide scope of services represented by an integrated service made comparison to the universal service impossible. The individual processing stages included data collection, data processing, printing, enveloping, consignment delivery, tracking and tracing, following-up of data and entering the processed information into the senders' systems. The actual physical distribution represented only a part step within the entire service. Therefore, such mail services do not come under the post's exclusive licence, according to RegTP.
• The Austrian government is putting pressure on Osterreichische Post in the matter of post office closures.
• The Polish post is likely to be transformed into a plc next summer.
• Schweizerische Post intends to take over the Document Services division of the Telekurs Group before the end of the year. Both companies have signed a corresponding agreement. Document Services (approx. 100 employees) is in a leading position in Switzerland in the field of editing, printing and dispatch, scanning/document handling, electronic document management and archiving. Schweizerische Post already offers similar services under the name of HybridPost. The two firms will be joined together as a new affiliated company in the mail segment.
• The German consumer pressure group PostKundenForum demanded that the regulatory authority RegTP continue its ongoing independent monitoring of mail transmission times. For reasons of cost, RegTP is due to discontinue regular monitoring at the end of the year and will have to rely on the post's own checks. [My heavens. Then why have a regulator?]
• Deutsche Post has announced that postage rates for certain mail types will go down next year. However, rates for the main mail categories - standard letters and postcards - remain unchanged. The most marked reduction involves the postage for so-called compact letters dropping from 1 euro to 95 euro cent. According to Deutsche Post, the new rates will cause the post to lose up to 50m euros in proceeds.
• In Italy, a number of `high-ranking figures' as well as some FedEx employees are suspected of belonging to a ring of illegal art dealers.
• The December issue of Germany's consumer magazine `Test' scrutinises German parcel services and arrives at a very mixed conclusion: None of the service providers gets top marks. Hermes and Der Courier only just achieve a `good', while at the same time being the least expensive of the competitors. For 6.90 euros Der Courier will collect a parcel from the customer's door, while Hermes charges 11.90 euros for the same service. On average, DHL asks 49 euros for house collection and in three cases charged customers 58 euros. In a recent test carried out by the European consumer associations, the post's express service was at the bottom of the table. Half the express parcels dispatched from Germany did not arrive at their European destinations any sooner than standard parcels sent simultaneously.
• German parcel services could lose their leading role with follow-up orders for textiles to specialised carrier firms. A study carried out by Hamburg-based business consultants MRU GmbH - who specialise in the CEP market - points in this direction. The study, which is based on interviews with around 1,000 companies, was presented at last week's textile logistics congress in Frankfurt, Germany.

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November 24, 2004 -- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany) has reported that "Deutsche Post, the German postal service operator, has asked the German cartel office for an extension on the deadline by which it must respond to a warning it has received from the competition authorities. The company had asked for an extension until mid-December; as is usual in cases such as this, the extension has been granted. The dispute relates to restrictions on competition on the market for services for the preparation of mail. The cartel office has threatened the company with a prohibition decree in order to ensure free competition among companies that collect and carry out provisional sorting of mail for customers."

November 24, 2004 -- DM News has reported that "Royal Mail debuted an information center on its Web site giving practical information on how small businesses can save time and money on their postage needs. The Small Business Centre aims to help small companies quickly and easily access information on everything from how to manage mail costs better to finding new customers and building lasting business relationships, the United Kingdom postal company said. Small businesses also are encouraged to register to get a quarterly electronic newsletter that launches in December to provide product information and tips from Royal Mail and small businesses from around the UK. The Small Business Centre can be accessed at www.royalmail.com/smallbusiness."

November 24, 2004 -- According to ADTMag.com, "Warnings abound about spaghetti code, especially in legacy COBOL programs, but Michael Herr, senior director of IT at Germany's Deutsche Post, says watch out for "spaghetti infrastructure." Spaghetti infrastructure, as Herr describes it, consists of things like a proliferation of point-to-point interfaces developed for one-off projects that are the antithesis of service-oriented architecture (SOA). The problem with spaghetti infrastructure is while one application may speak to second, it takes a whole lot of coding and testing to extend the conversation to a third application. After completing a study of the IT systems supporting Deutsche Post, the German-based postal and banking company best known in the U.S. for its DHL unit, Herr decided the cure for spaghetti infrastructure was SOA."

November 24, 2004 -- The Boston Globe has reported that "Delivery services throughout the country are bulking up this holiday season as never before, offering competitive pay and, in some cases, benefits for temporary work. A recovering economy, a continuing surge in the popularity of online buying, and a longer holiday shopping season have UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service hiring larger numbers of seasonal workers."

November 24, 2004 -- The Amarillo Globe News has reported that "An ordinance to prohibit blocking access to curbside mailboxes is official. Specifically, the ordinance prohibits parking 'in any manner or location that prevents access to a mailbox, postal drop box or similar receptacle used by the United States Postal Service.'"

November 24, 2004 -- Investors Business Daily has reported that "The U.S. Postal Service will seek approval for a 10 percent increase in postage rates early next year, according to a report published Wednesday. First-class stamps, which have risen 12 percent since 2001, would increase to at least 41 cents, the Wall Street Journal reported in a story on its Web site. The last price increase was in 2002. According to the report, the unusually large size of the expected rate increase stems partly from the demise of proposed legislation that would have allowed the postal service to take advantage of about $3 billion a year in pension-fund savings resulting from a change in how it contributes to a federal retirement fund. The legislation also would have freed the service from future pension payments to employees who previously served in the military." In actuality, the size of the increase will prove to many to be considerably more than 10 percent.

November 24, 2004 -- As USA Today has noted, "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat… yeah, yeah, you know. But are you aware of how many perils have been faced and sacrifices made by America's postal carriers? The National Postal Museum has a great online exhibit detailing the dangers inherent in U.S. mail service over the years. You'll never take the contents of your snail-mailbox for granted again."

November 24, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "Sure Money(R), the Postal Service's international wire transfer service, also called Dinero Seguro(R), has expanded its reach to Latin America and the Caribbean. Available to Mexico since 1996, Sure Money now provides customers with the ability to transfer money to nine additional countries. They are the Caribbean country of the Dominican Republic; and the Latin American countries of Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru. Sure Money offers customers an affordable, quick, easy, convenient -- and safe -- method of transferring money internationally. Customers can send up to $2,000 per transaction by submitting and presenting the appropriate form, available at 2,800 participating Post Offices. Identification is required for transfers exceeding $1,000."

November 24, 2004 -- DefenseLink has reported that "With so many military families scrambling to ship holiday care packages to their loved ones deployed around the world, the U.S. Postal Service is stepping in to make things a bit easier. It's offering a package of free packing materials, including 10 boxes, 10 customs forms with envelopes, 10 "Mili-Pac" shipping envelopes, which are specially printed to reflect the complexities of military mailing addresses, and a roll of Priority Mail tape."

November 24, 2004 -- SwissInfo has reported that "A last-ditch effort to avert industrial action by Switzerland's postal workers has apparently failed. A meeting between the communications minister, Moritz Leuenberger, and the two conflict parties ended without agreement. The trade union, Communication, said it was planning a first series of protests later this week to press its demands following inconclusive talks with Leuenberger in Bern on Tuesday. It said the meeting ended without agreement after Post Office managers insisted on outsourcing and salary reductions." See also NZZ Online.

November 23, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "The German telecommunications and postal services regulator RegTP Tuesday said it approved a 0.7% overall cut in 2005 stamp prices proposed by German mail delivery company Deutsche Post World Net AG. The new prices for letter delivery will take effect Jan. 1, 2005, and will be valid until Dec. 31, 2005, RegTP said."

November 23, 2004 --The U.S. Postal Service has filed with the Postal Rate Commission (Docket No. MC2004-5) a request for approval of an "experiment [that] would establish a new classification and fee for the provision of Premium Forwarding Service (PFS), under which the Postal Service will reship all the mail of a customer who has temporarily relocated; such PFS shipments will be sent via Priority Mail® once a week to the customer's temporary address."

November 23, 2004 -- According to DM News postal commentator Cary Baer, "The recent Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting offered much to be impressed with but also much to be depressed about....The problem the USPS faces is painfully obvious: a First-Class cost structure and an increasingly Third-Class revenue stream."

November 23, 2004 -- ThisIsMoney (U.K.) has reported that "crime and incompetence at Royal Mail over the delivery of credit cards costs more than £200m a year. And guess who pays? Yes, the customer. Most of this shocking bill, about £12m a month, is spent by banks on safer contractors because they no longer trust the crumbling postal service to deliver credit cards. • Spending it message board: Tips on everything from budget flights to cheap Cds to auction websites Instead, banks rely increasingly on private courier services at up to £20 a time."

November 23, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier has announced an agreement between Royal Mail and the PPA on size-based pricing."

November 23, 2004 -- The Louisville Business Journal has reported that "About 3,800 Canadian workers with United Parcel Service Inc. went on strike Monday, refusing UPS' new collective agreement offers, according to the Web site of Teamsters Canada. While the strike in Canada does not directly affect workers or packages in the United States, the Independent Pilots Association -- the Louisville-based bargaining unit for about 2,500 pilots who fly for UPS -- issued a statement that the union's members "will honor Teamster Canada's primary picket lines" during the strike against UPS."

November 23, 2004 -- The Kyodo news service has reported that "Japan Post President Masaharu Ikuta submitted Monday a written opinion to the government saying its business forecast on the privatization of the state-backed body into four new entities is problematic."

November 22, 2004 -- According to Government Technology, "Congress wrapped up its work this weekend by making sure that states don't slap a new tax on the monthly charge that computer users pay to log on and surf the World Wide Web. Before adjourning, the 108th Congress passed a bill (S 150) that renews a ban against taxing Internet access through 2007. However, nine states that already impose an Internet access tax can continue to do so through 2007. Twenty-seven states that collect taxes on high-speed DSL lines can do so until November 2005. President Bush is expected to sign the bill." Great. So does this mean the President will sign a bill making sure states don't tax postage?

November 22, 2004 -- The National Association of Postmasters (NAPUS) has told its members that "The House and Senate approved an "Omnibus Appropriations" bill, which included funds to help the Postal Service defray the costs associated with biohazard detection technology and reimburse the agency for revenue forgone. NAPUS actively supported funding these postal priorities."

November 22, 2004 -- UPS has announced changes in its top management, including the upcoming retirement of the executive responsible for all package operations in the United States. Cal Darden, for the past seven years the senior vice president of U.S. operations and a member of the UPS Board of Directors since 2001, will retire in early 2005 after a 33-year career with UPS.

November 22, 2004 -- The U.S. Senate has confirmed James Miller III as a member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors and Dawn Tisdale as a member of the Postal Rate Commission. Word has it that this deal was a two-fer.

November 22, 2004 -- The Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that "Postal businesses are labour intensive, with a high degree of operational gearing. That means profits or losses tend to be small numbers in relation to turnover. It follows that the last thing a postal business should do is to add to the gearing by taking on big risks in the pension fund. Yet this is precisely what Royal Mail Holdings, which runs the British Post Office, has done, with 80 per cent of the pension fund invested in equities. By turning itself into a hedge fund the Royal Mail has made itself technically insolvent if last year's off-balance sheet net pension deficit of £4.3bn on an FRS17 accounting standard basis is taken into account. This dwarfs shareholders' funds of £2.2bn. Future prospects are clouded by the threat that current annual pension contributions of £310m will have to rise to £800m to deal with the deficit."

November 22, 2004 -- As the New York Times has noted, "eBay has long been among the Web's most popular destinations. So why is it now making house calls? Last week, millions of people in the United States opened their mailboxes to find a catalog from eBay, a 32-page glossy publication that, fortunately for postal carriers, included just a handful of the 29 million items currently for sale on the site."

November 22, 2004 -- The Detroit News has noted, "First the good news: Some kids today actually are sending old-fashioned letters as opposed to e-mail. The bad news: Hundreds of those kids in Metro Detroit are getting duped by a chain letter scam, according to the U.S. Postal Service."

November 22, 2004 -- The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has reported that "United Parcel Service's Canadian employees were on strike Monday, threatening disruptions to the Christmas season."

November 22, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "Acxiom is embarking on a tour of the UK to explain the role of data in business and direct marketing, between November 23 and December 8."

November 22, 2004 -- According to Federal Computer Week, "Some people think the U.S. Postal Service is broken. The agency has been losing money with no replacement in sight for those lost dollars as more people send e-mail and pay their bills online. But just as new technology is hurting USPS, officials are also pinning their hopes on technology to revitalize the 225-year-old institution in the 21st century. Information technology has a critical role to play not only as a cost-cutting tool but also as the basis for a variety of new fee-based services that officials hope can offset the steep and continuing drop-off in the use of first-class mail, the agency's principal revenue source."

November 22, 2004 -- According to di-ve.com, "Following the recent installation of a Hermes point-of-sale system in all 31 Maltapost branches in Malta and Gozo, Maltapost plc and Ascent Software Ltd, a leading software supplier in Malta and joint developer of the Hermes retail system, have signed a joint marketing agreement. The agreement was signed at Maltapost head office in Marsa between Maltapost CEO Stephen Sultana and Ascent Software Managing Director Joseph Sultana. This new system will enable Maltapost to increase efficiency and diversify its services over the counters, besides helping to greatly reduce the amount of back office work which was part of the previous manual system."

November 22, 2004 -- The Manchester Evening News (U.K.) has reported that "THE postal watchdog is to be quizzed by government ministers over the way local post offices are being shut down in Manchester. Angry Labour Mps protested in the Commons about the lack of consultation over closures which have hit residents in the north and the south of the city. They claiming the whole process was a sham."

November 22, 2004 -- The Warsaw Business Journal has reported that "Polish Post is aiming to develop into a joint-stock company by the first half of next year."

November 22, 2004 -- SwissInfo has reported that "The Swiss communications minister, Mortiz Leuenberger, is to intervene in a labour dispute at Swiss Post that is threatening to develop into a strike. The move, revealed on Sunday, comes on the same day a newspaper reported that salaries of postal workers were up to 20 per cent higher than those of similar jobs in private industry."

November 21, 2004 -- From the AScribe Newswire: "More than two years after Consumer Action and the Office of the Consumer Advocate asked the U.S. Postal Rate Commission (PRC) to regulate the Postal Service's unauthorized commercial ventures, the Commission on Nov. 12 issued an emphatic condemnation of the Service's provision of "nonpostal" commercial products and services, but declined to subject nonpostal activities to PRC rate and classification authority. The Commission instead proposed a definition of "postal services" that it hopes will clarify activities in which the Postal Service may legitimately funnel revenues for research and development of new product lines."

November 21, 2004 -- As MSN Money has noted, "Some banks and brokerages still gouge customers for online bill-paying, but savvier competitors have finally dropped the fees. Bottom line: You don't need to pay. Free online bill payment may finally be taking off. It's about darned time."

November 21, 2004 -- As ABC News has noted, "Near San Francisco, the Blue Star Moms collect things like snack bars, Chap Stick, socks and underwear. In Santa Cruz, there's a similar effort to collect batteries, baby wipes, Christmas decorations and potato chips, then pack it all in boxes addressed "to any soldier serving in Iraq." But across the country, most of these goodwill packages will never get there because the military says they just can't handle it all."

November 21, 2004 -- The Scotsman (U.K.) has reported that "The threat of disruption to Christmas mail deliveries has been lifted following an agreement with postal workers on dealing with an expected bumper festive postbag. The Communication Workers Union had warned of possible industrial action in London but this has now been averted. The Royal Mail expects to deliver 2.1 billion cards, letters and packets in the four weeks to Christmas, similar to last year's total. The postal group will lay on an extra eight flights and 3,700 extra vehicles every day to deal with the huge volume of mail."

November 20, 2004 -- According to Business Week, DHL "needs to be a bigger player in the U.S. -- and can afford a long campaign."

November 20, 2004 -- The Washington Post has reported that "A federal judge ruled yesterday that U.S. Postal Service officials had no special responsibility to alert workers at the Brentwood postal facility to deadly anthrax contamination in the building and cannot be sued by the employees."

November 20, 2004 -- The Canadian NewsWire has reported that "Teamsters Canada announced that 3800 employees of UPS across Canada will be on strike Monday, November 22 at 12:00 a.m., Eastern Time. Subsequent to a postal vote ordered by the Teamsters Union, the 3800 employees of the parcel delivery company, United Parcel Service (UPS), have refused the offers made by the employer in the negotiation of a new collective agreement."

November 20, 2004 -- According to Outlook India, "If youth is signalled by energy, motivation and a drive to reinvent itself for new needs, you could say that India's Department of Posts is 150 years young in its sesquicentennial year. That's why Raghav Lal, chief general manager, Business Development Directorate, Department of Posts, challenges the popular perception that post offices and postmen have become irrelevant in this digital age. 'The opportunities are huge.'"

November 20, 2004 -- The Journal of Commerce has reported that "FedEx Corp. and other U.S. companies are pleading with President Bush to start discussions on a Pacific Rim free-trade bloc as he heads to this weekend's regional economic summit. Bush is scheduled to meet with leaders from China, Japan, the Philippines and 17 other nations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Santiago tomorrow and Sunday. The companies say the U.S. needs to counter China's growing commercial ties with countries in the region such as Thailand and Indonesia."

November 20, 2004 -- Japan Today has reported that "Two ministers in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's cabinet have admitted that they are members of an intraparty group of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party opposed to postal privatization."

November 20, 2004 -- Ireland Online has reported that "Postal chaos in the run-up to Christmas has been averted following agreement on staffing and overtime at the Labour Relations Commission."

November 20, 2004 -- According to the Greenville News, "Chemical scares, both real and imagined, due to suspicious postal packages have shut down numerous facilities since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks. The U.S. Postal Service handles more than 202 billion packages a year with hundreds of thousands in South Carolina alone, said Harry Spratlin, spokesman for the Greater South Carolina District."

November 20, 2004 -- Le Figaro has reported that "The French post office, La Poste, yesterday responded to accusations from the French consumer protection association UFC-Que Choisir that its banking charges are excessive by saying that it is the least expensive of all the major banks in France, particularly for those on modest incomes."

November 19, 2004 -- In his latest communication with the National Association of Postmasters of the U.S., NAPUS director of government affairs Bob Levi said that "It appears likely that the House and Senate Republican Leadership will begin to resurrect party discipline as the crucial criteria for earning plum committee assignments and garnering committee chairmanships. This phenomenon was evidenced by the furor of a vocal group of Senators who opposed Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) inheriting the leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition, this week the Senate Republican Conference changed its rules to grant Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) new powers to encourage Senators to tow the party line. Party discipline may have significant implications for Postmasters and allies of the Postal Service. Many of our strongest Republican advocates hail from the moderate wing of the party. For example. Chairmen Collins (R-ME) and Davis (R-VA), Senators Voinovich (R-OH) and Specter, and Representatives McHugh (R-NY) and Emerson (R-MO) are unrepentant moderates."

November 19, 2004 -- Traffic World has reported that "UPS, along with other integrators, is testing RFID, but doesn't see a compelling reason to adopt it."

November 19, 2004 -- From the USPS Executive's Conference: Retiring effective January 1, 2005 will be: John Rapp, Sr. VP Operations, John Wargo, Vice President, Service and Market Development; Francia Smith, Consumer Advocate; Donna Peake, V.P. Finance (Controller) and , Murry Weatherall, V.P. Diversity Development.

November 19, 2004 -- According to Sam Ryan at the Lexington Institute, "As the NASCAR season closes with this weekend's race, it's hard not to notice that the U.S. Postal Service has traded in its bicycle for a race car. For us poor stamp-buyers, that means the USPS is wasting our money at greater speeds than ever before."

November 19, 2004 -- Business Mailers Review has reported that:

• Two-and-a-half years since the Postal Service first floated its plan for phasing in future rate increases and industry is still guessing about whether phased rates will happen in the next case. While two years may seem like an instant in postal time, mailers are now saying itÆs time to get past the concept stage. In short, they want to know if phased rates are going to happen or not in the next rate case. Mailers say the mixed message they are getting from postal headquarters is frustrating. The pricing department is briefing mailers and association groups on the phasedrate approach for the next rate case. Yet, the finance departmentÆs reaction to phased rates has been lukewarm, saying phased rates are problematic if the escrow account is not eliminated.
• The new terminal dues system set to take effect in January 2006 should represent only a moderate rate increase for international mailers, postal officials said recently.
• Canada Post quietly released new non-denominated stamps earlier this fall, something the philatelic community noted but the larger commercial mailing industry is not as familiar with.
• The Postal Service recently demonstrated its redesigned Cost and Revenue Analysis/Cost Rollforward Model in a presentation at the Postal Rate Commission. In its request for new rates, the Postal Service establishes a ôbase yearö and uses the cost data from the base year. To determine costs in the ôtest yearö of the rate case, the Postal Service must ôroll forwardö the costing data in the base year to the test year. The new Windows-based rollfoward model is easy to use and can be used by any interested party. It is similar to the one developed by the PRC staff earlier this year but it includes more bells and whistles. The redesigned model is available for download at www.prc.gov, under ôcontents.ö

November 19, 2004 -- The Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that:

• Royal Mail was unlikely to meet postal delivery targets for the year, said Adam Crozier, chief executive, and could incur a hefty customer compensation bill as a result. Royal Mail said that 92.1 per cent of first class letters arrived the next day between July and September, missing regulator Postcomm's target of 92.5 per cent. This was an improvement on the previous quarter's figure of 88.3 per cent. Mr Crozier admitted, however, that the poor performance at the start of the 2004-05 financial year would drag down the annual figures even if quality of service continued to get better.
• Royal Mail faces the prospect of having to pay ú800m a year to fill the hole in its pension fund that was revealed last year, the group announced yesterday.

November 19, 2004 -- From eMediaWire: "The ePost service, a simple concept new to Australia, was launched to the internet community today. An airmail that normally takes weeks to arrive in Australia can arrive at the designated address overnight. ePost enables any individual or business from anywhere in the world to send an ePost to an address in Australia for AUD 80 cents. The service, which currently allows users to send a text message or a file, guarantees that an ePost will be processed for delivery through the Australia Post network the same day it is submitted. It incorporates the functionality of the old telegram with todayÆs technology to produce a sophisticated hard copy letter."

November 19, 2004 -- As The Herald (U.K.) has noted, "PROFITS running into millions and improvements in most services since the summer failed to deflect criticism of the Royal Mail from postal watchdogs yesterday."

November 19, 2004 - UTV (Ireland) has reported that "An Post and the Communications Workers Union have so far failed to agree on staffing and overtime over the festive season. Both sides are attending the Labour Relations Commission this morning in an attempt to broker a deal."

November 19, 2004 -- As The Scotsman (U.K.) has noted, "ANY normal commercial business going from losing ú1 million a day to making ú1m a day within three years could reasonably expect to find laurel leaves floating down on its head. But the Royal Mail is not any commercial business. Due to its place in the national social fabric and its intimate interface with its customers at letterbox and post office counter, its commercial success is not looked on as an unalloyed pleasure. Complaints about poor postal deliveries and post office closures continue to dog Royal Mail and so the strong profit figures yesterday - ú217m, nearly four times the amount it made last year - provoke howls in some quarters about big profits, poor delivery. Sustainable businesses serve the customer. And until Royal Mail can show that it is meeting all, not just some, of its performance targets on a regular basis, those howls will continue."

November 19, 2004 -- The Independent has reported that:

• ROYAL MAIL warned yesterday that its pension fund contributions will have to double to almost pounds 800m a year to plug the huge deficit in the scheme. This will wipe out most of the net profits the organisation hopes to start making once its three-year rationalisation programme is complete next March, meaning that it is unlikely to resume dividend payments to the Government for years to come.
• MOST COMPANIES with big final-salary pension schemes are being forced to dig deep into profits to keep their pension funds properly funded, but few face the catastrophic liability Royal Mail is having to come to terms with.

November 19, 2004 -- Information Week has reported that "UPS is testing RFID to learn how it can use the technology for its operations and offer RFID services for its business customers."

November 19, 2004 -- The BBC has reported that "Royal Mail workers will not be striking in London over Christmas after an agreement was reached with a union."

November 19, 2004 -- GovExec.com has reported that "The U.S. Postal Service will get an extra $507 million in an omnibus spending bill to combat bioterror attacks, which the administration did not request."

November 19, 2004 -- The Board of Directors of UPS has declared a regular quarterly dividend of 28-cents per share on all outstanding Class A and Class B shares.

November 18, 2004 -- PostCom Members: The minutes from today's Postal Policy Committee teleconference are available for your review.

November 18, 2004 -- Sooooo, if you want to know what the White House told the House and Senate postal leaders what it expected to see in a postal reform bill....check what's listed here.

November 18, 2004 -- More on the news from Royal Mail from The Scotsman..

November 18, 2004 -- The Kyodo news service has reported that "The government projected Wednesday that all four spin-offs of Japan Post will be in the black in fiscal 2008 but, without new business, profits at three units will decline by the time the postal privatization process is completed in fiscal 2016."

November 18, 2004 -- The Stamford Advocate has reported that "Mail and document management company Pitney Bowes Inc. said Thursday it has signed a $112 million mailing services contract with banking giant Bank of America Corp. Under the contract, Pitney Bowes will provide software and technology."

November 18, 2004 -- Heard it thru the grapevine....Word has it that the Senate Democrats and Republicans have agreed to a deal to move the nominations of several persons to the Senate floor for confirmation. Among them, Dawn Tisdale for the Postal Rate Commission.

November 18, 2004 -- Federal Times has reported that "Francia Smith, the U.S. Postal Service vice president and consumer advocate who is the subject of an inspector general investigation, will retire in February, the agency said Nov. 17."

November 18, 2004 -- The Hill has reported that "Tony Hammond will be nominated to another term as a commissioner on the Postal Rate Commission, President Bush has announced."

November 18, 2004 -- Reuters has reported that "FedEx Corp., the world's top air express shipper, is posting explosive growth in China and now plans to expand its Kinko's copy-chain across Asia, a senior executive said on Wednesday. FedEx, which vies with Deutsche Post's DHL Express and United Parcel Service Inc. in the global courier arena, is trying to muscle in on an insular sector that it says could one day be the world's top cargo market. Analysts estimate it could be worth $1.5 billion annually."

November 18, 2004 -- Knight-Ridder has reported that "UPS and FedEx, two companies on the front lines, say they see early signs of a more even balance of goods moving east and west."

November 18, 2004 -- The Associated Press has reported that "A federal judge on Monday stayed his own ruling that United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) must give hearing impaired workers the same employment opportunities as others to become truck drivers."

November 18, 2004 -- Nikkei has reported that "Japan Post's postal savings, postal insurance, mail delivery and post office network management arms would all be able to make profits quickly after privatization, according to estimates announced Wednesday by the government office tasked with postal privatization preparations. But Japan Post is opposed to spinning off these arms when the privatization process begins in 2007, so the details are still far from being solidified."

November 18, 2004 -- The Japan Times has reported that "The government projected Wednesday that the four entities taking over Japan Post's services will be in the black in fiscal 2008, but, without new business, profits at three of the units will have declined by the time the privatization process is completed in fiscal 2016."

November 18, 2004 -- DM News has reported that "The U.S. Postal Service targets every household in the United States this week with the delivery of The Shipping & Mailing Holiday Guide. The Holiday Guide describes products and services available from the USPS. Letter carriers began delivering the guide to 141 million addresses Nov. 15 and will continue through Nov. 23. It also is available at www.usps.com." According to AdWeek, the piece was developed by Draft Worldwide.

November 18, 2004 -- The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reported that "If only a lawyer had used the U.S. Postal Service instead of Federal Express, his client in Perryville, Mo., might have saved $17,310. That's because all mail is not created equal under Missouri law. Papers appealing a worker's compensation ruling could have been accepted even if they had arrived a year late, as long as the envelope bore the proper U.S. mail postmark. But papers arriving by FedEx - or for that matter, UPS or DHL or other carriers - have to be in hand by the official deadline or they're out of luck, the Missouri Court of Appeals at St. Louis ruled this week."

November 18, 2004 -- From the Federal Register: "This document [from the Postal Rate Commission] addresses a proposal to add a definition of the term ``postal service'' to the rules of practice. This proposal is prompted by the Postal Service's action with respect to nonpostal initiatives. There is often controversy and uncertainty regarding the postal character of the services provided under those initiatives. The proposed definition is intended to provide guidance to the Postal Service and the general public concerning services that are subject to sections 3622 and 3623 of the Postal Reorganization Act. DATES: 1. Deadline for filing initial comments: December 15, 2004. 2. Deadline for filing reply comments: January 12, 2004. ADDRESSES: File all documents referred to in this order electronically via the Commission's Filing Online system at http://www.prc.gov."

November 18, 2004 -- According to The Guardian (U.K.), "The Royal Mail today said it was on course for recovery, revealing it was making ú1m a day after having lost ú1m a day two years ago." See also The Telegraph and The Times.

November 18, 2004 -- The Independent (U.K.) has reported that "Chief executive Adam Crozier said the group was being "transformed" under a massive modernisation programme which had delivered profits of ú217 million in the first half of the current financial year. The company was now on course to make profits of ú400 million in the full year, which will trigger payments of at least ú800 to every postal worker in the UK. The number of first class letters delivered a day after posting was 92.1 per cent in the three months to September, almost 4 per cent better than the quarter to June and one of the best performances of the past decade, although still below the target of 92.5 per cent. Second class deliveries were 98.6 per cent, above the target of 98.5 per cent. The Royal Mail said it was on course to complete its turnaround from 2002, when it was losing ú1 million a day."

November 18, 2004 -- BBC News has reported that "More letters are arriving on time in Scotland than in many other parts of the country, according to a new report."

November 18, 2004 -- While at the same time, Bloomberg has reported that "Royal Mail Group Plc, the U.K's state-owned postal operator, failed to achieve 14 of 15 performance targets in the fiscal first half of the year and service has deteriorated, the government regulator said."

November 18, 2004 -- And...according to the Evening Standard (U.K.), "Royal Mail came under fire today for making huge profits at a time when it is closing post offices and struggling to improve its delivery service."

November 18, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "Spending on direct mail in the UK could rise by as much as 54% over the next 10 years, according to research by the Advertising Association."

November 18, 2004 -- CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal) has reported that:

• Osterreichische Post indicated that 20 to 25% of today's 1,640 post offices were seriously deficient due to lack of customer demand. Therefore, up to 410 post offices could be facing closure.
• According to the German public sector workers' trade union ver.di, mail delivery operations at Deutsche Post are in a state of chaos. [It was reported that] employees at management level had carried out deliveries in order to avoid complete chaos. Apparently, yellow post vans were occasionally driven through residential areas in order to give residents the impression that mail was being delivered, although no delivery was scheduled in the area on that particular day. In an interview with the CEP News, a Deutsche Post representative contradicted the union's statement.
• Relations between the Swiss post and its trade unions have become seriously strained. An official statement issued by Schweizerische Post regretted that the unions were no longer prepared to look for an amicable solution in co-operation with the post.
• The parliamentary group of the German Liberal Party has brought a motion for `the quickest possible opening of the postal market'. Rainer Funke, postal services spokesman for the Liberals, declared that his party wanted to pressurise the government into coming clean over the issue of competition on the postal market and state whether it intended to maintain the monopoly at the customers' expense.
• Schweizerische Post intends to launch its digital stamp WebStamp in February. This week, the company announced that a readable and forge-proof data matrix code would be used to substitute stamps.
• DHL and CTT Expresso, the express subsidiary of the Portuguese post Correios de Portugal are entering into a co-operation. This week, the two companies signed an agreement in Lisbon, which makes them each other's subcontractors. CTT Expresso will collect and deliver consignments in areas of Portugal which are not sufficiently covered by DHL. In return, DHL will handle international consignments.
• Swiss Post International (SPI) has taken over company group Societe d'Affretement et de Transit (Sat) based in Huningue (Alsace). The small group (25 employees) specialises in EU clearance, clearance of imports and exports as well as international transport and goods storage.
• According to information gleaned by the CEP News, more DHL top managers will have to go in the wake of the recent replacement of the company's top management in the USA. Sources close to the integrator revealed that DHL was looking to replace a large number of managers in order to bring the loss-stricken DHL Americas back on course.
• The Irish Communication Workers' Union (CWU) accuses An Post of deliberately painting a negative picture of the future of its express subsidiary SDS in order to justify its wind-up.
  

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November 18, 2004 -- TheEdgeDaily says it's still bullish on POS Malaysia.

November 18, 2004 -- Transport Intelligence has reported that "Royal Mail has announced today that it has made a ú217 million profit on its operations and delivered a significant improvement in customer service in the first half of 2004-05 financial year. Royal MailÆs parcels division Parcelforce WorldwideÆs income is up, whilst its losses have been halved and, according to management, it continues to benefit from its focus on express services for businesses. Royal MailÆs European parcels business, GLS, has moved into profit with increased volumes, incomes and margins."

November 17, 2004 -- The Jakarta Post (Indonesia) has reported that "As part of the major restructuring of all state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the new government plans to sell or close those considered to be in bad shape and with no business prospects. SOEs with public-service obligations have also been a victim of mismanagement. Most of the companies have been forced to provide public services without sufficient facilities and subsidies from the government. The companies have been forced to make a profit, causing the public to bear expensive costs to use their services. Among these companies are electricity firm PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara, oil and gas company PT Pertamina, postal and courier firm PT Pos Indonesia, railway firm PT Kereta Api Indonesia, bus companies PT PPD and Perum Damri, and a number of hospital and seaport operators."

November 17, 2004 -- The Financial Times has reported that:

• Unions have called on the government to give financial support to the UK's high street post offices in a bid to avoid closures. The 555 flagship post offices directly owned and managed by Post Office Ltd are thought to be losing about ú70m a year, and parent Royal Mail is reviewing their future. 
• Postal groups are taking advantage of the liberalisation of the UK market, which has allowed competition in the business-toconsumer market for bulk mailings. TMT, the Dutch postal operator, has launched a UK mail service, and Deutsche Post of Germany has also reached a deal with Royal Mail.

November 17, 2004 -- The India Times has reported that "The Indian Post Office Act, 1898 would have to be replaced with a forward-looking legislation that could take care of competition, convergence and other developments in the business to make the worldÆs largest postal network more competitive and financially viable, the Planning Commission has said. It noted that in order to achieve the objectives of the 10th Plan and the CMP, the Department needs to initiate a host of measures and ensure their implementation in a time-bound manner. The Department of Post needs to work out modalities to become financially self-sustaining before Æ09 and undertake massive computerisation to provide quality services."

November 17, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "The government of Japan projects that the four entities that will take over mail delivery, postal savings, postal insurance and post office network management from Japan Post after its privatization starting in fiscal 2007 will all be in the black in fiscal 2008, Kyodo News reported, citing government sources. The government's preparatory office for postal privatization projects that only the postal insurance company will be in the red in fiscal 2007, when the 10-year privatization process begins, they said. See also the Dow Jones report carried by Morningstar.

November 17, 2004 -- Federal Times has reported that "The U.S. Postal Service will save billions of dollars over the next several years by streamlining mail operations, trimming redundant facilities and upgrading processing equipment, Postmaster General John Potter said Nov. 16. In an exclusive interview with Federal Times, Potter said he wants to correct a long-standing problem with the agencyÆs mail-moving process: Different types of mail are processed in different facilities. The Postal Service will plan the reforms, called Evolutionary Network Development, over the next three years and does not yet have estimates on savings, costs or closings. But Potter said areas that could be trimmed are the Postal ServiceÆs 25 warehouses that transfer priority and first-class mail between trucks. Some mail-processing equipment is out of date and must be replaced, Potter said. For example, he said, some sorters only organize packages and operate eight to 16 hours each day. Potter wants machines that will sort all classes of mail and run on a 24-hour cycle ù 20 hours for sorting and four hours for maintenance."

November 17, 2004 -- The Associated Press has reported that "Thousands of keys are missing from former employees at one postal site, and gates are unlocked at others, the government said Tuesday in a report detailing security gaps at major mail centers. A report by the Government Accountability Office said efforts have been made to make postal facilities more secure, but security still lags at many of the nation's 373 core mail centers. The U.S. Postal Service agreed with the report and promised to refocus its efforts." The GAO report has been posted on the agency's web site.

November 17, 2004 -- From Market Wire: "eFunds Corporation (NYSE: EFD), a leading provider of risk management, electronic payments and global outsourcing solutions, today announced that the United States Postal Service (USPS) has selected eFunds' open systems electronic payments software for use at more than 33,000 locations and 70,000 point-of-sale (POS) devices nationwide."

November 17, 2004 -- The American Postal Workers Union has informed its members that "Level 4 Clerks who work in Computerized Forwarding System positions were upgraded to PS-5 on Nov. 13."

November 17, 2004 -- The Journal of Commerce has reported that "FedEx Corp. plans to contest a U.S. Department of Transportation order that demands repayment of $29 million."

November 17, 2004 -- The Memphis Commercial-Appeal has reported that "FedEx Corp. is in for its biggest holiday ever as analysts predict it will overnight 4.5 million packages the night of Dec. 23, up 50 percent from last year. When Ground deliveries are added, the number jumps to 8.3 million packages -- sweaters, ties, toys and gadgets -- destined for every Zip Code in the nation."

November 17, 2004 -- According to Business World (Ireland), "An Post has denied that it manipulated turnover figures for its parcels operation SDS in order to justify its closure. The company said it stood by its decision to close the firm and integrate its operations into the general postal service. It said this course of action would put an end to SDS's losses and create sustainable employment for 180 staff."

November 17, 2004 -- Media Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "Vizeum and Mediaedge:cia have retained the Ç150m (ú105m) Deutsche Post World Net international media account following a five-way-pitch. The two won the business after a shootout against Initiative, Mediaplus and Starcom MediaVest. The Aegis-owned Vizeum, sister agency to Carat, will look after media planning and buying for the German postal operator in Europe, including the ú7m UK business. The WPP Group-owned Mediaedge:cia will handle the rest of the world, giving another filip to Sir Martin Sorrell, who today also saw his agencies win the $700m Samsung advertising and media account. Deutsche Post kicked off the review in August in an attempt to drive down costs. The business is currently coordinated through Carat's operation in Wiesbaden."

November 17, 2004 -- Transport Intelligence has reported that "According to reports in the French press, TNT Logistics has not ruled out leaving France due to the continuing poor performance of its business unit in the country. The previous country manager, Reynald Huck, has been replaced by Georges Ruiz from TNT Express in another attempt to turn around the struggling division. The decision to sack the manager had been made due to continuing problems at the unit. Management has stated that many of the problems for TNT in France have stemmed from difficulties in integrating the three acquisitions it had made in the country, one of the biggest being Transport Nicolas."

November 16, 2004 -- The Associated Press has reported that "A federal judge on Monday stayed his own ruling that United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) must give hearing impaired workers the same employment opportunities as others to become truck drivers. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson last month ruled UPS Inc. violates anti-discrimination laws by barring the deaf and hearing-impaired from driving parcel delivery trucks."

November 16, 2004 -- Hoovers has reported that "The world's largest package delivery company UPS said it has begun the first of 12 new flights to China with MD-11 service to Shanghai. The new flights, recently awarded to UPS by the US Department of Transportation, will triple UPS's current service from six to 18 flights a week and comes on the heels of UPS's impressive 129-per-cent growth in China export volume in the third quarter. These additional flights to Shanghai and Guangzhou will help UPS become a top-tier player in China, said Ken Torok, president of UPS Asia Pacific."

November 16, 2004 -- According to the Wall Street Journal, "Tech giant Hewlett-Packard Co. stunned investors in August by missing financial forecasts and firing three top executives. A few days later, Bob Otto jolted H-P. Mr. Otto, chief technology officer for the U.S. Postal Service, told an H-P saleswoman that he was considering replacing some of the agency's 3,000 H-P server computers. Mr. Otto, who estimates that he's spent more than $1 billion on H-P products over the past five years, complained that the computers didn't work properly, and said H-P's poor results made him concerned for the company's financial stability. "I laid down the gauntlet," he says. The company reacted swiftly. Within days, Chief Executive Carly Fiorina called Mr. Otto to reassure him that H-P was financially sound. Executive Vice President Michael Winkler flew to Washington D.C. to see Mr. Otto; Ms. Fiorina followed up with a visit of her own. H-P also dispatched specialists to fix the Postal Service's servers. In late October, Ms. Fiorina and Mr. Winkler called on Mr. Otto once again. The blitz worked. Mr. Otto kept the H-P servers and says his relationship with the company is now "very healthy." H-P's rush to satisfy the Postal Service illustrates how the Palo Alto, Calif., computer and printer maker has scrambled to solidify its business and retain customers since its latest financial disappointment."

November 16, 2004 -- The Guernsey Press and Star (U.K.) has reported that "AN INTERNET mailing company claims that it is losing thousands of pounds because of postal service inefficiencies."

November 16, 2004 -- The Scotsman (U.K.) has reported that "A rival business to Royal Mail was today on course to move into profit less than a year after leading the break-up of the UK postal monopoly. The service was set up by Slough-based parcels group Business Post after regulator Postcomm gave companies the right to enter the UK market in 2003."

Novmeber 16, 2004 -- According to postal commentator Gene Del Polito, "The Postal Service's future, however, now hinges less on its letter-mail automation capabilities. Indeed, trends seem to indicate more that the Postal Service will increasingly lose that nice letter-size, First-Class, "white" mail to one of many electronic communication alternatives, and that larger than letter-size (flat) mail will become a more predominant proportion of the mail stream. In other words, the Postal Service's bread-and-butter will depend increasingly on its ability to cost-efficiently process and deliver larger than letter-size periodicals, catalogs, and distributed retail advertising. Now, you might think that knowing this would mean the USPS is doing everything it can to replicate its previously successful customer-centered letter-mail automation experience. But you'd be wrong."

November 16, 2004 -- The Guardian (U.K.) has reported that "Further post office closures are inevitable unless the government protects the service, union leaders will warn today. Andy Furey, of the Communication Workers Union, will tell MPs that the payment of benefits and pensions into bank accounts rather than over post office counters is to blame for recent losses."

November 16, 2004 -- The Honolulu Advertiser has reported that "Frank Santos, the new Honolulu postmaster, has spent most of his working life as a civil service postal employee, but his heart beats with the rhythm of a businessman and entrepreneur....Santos, like postmasters all over, worries about the loss of business to competitors such as UPS and Federal Express, and to the Internet, fax machines and automatic banking withdrawals to pay bills. But he also always worries about the people who rely on good mail service in the Honolulu delivery area. "Our challenge is to make things more convenient and easier for our customers," Santos said. "These are the values we live by."

November 16, 2004 -- Kiplinger has reported that "The largest postal rate increases in decades are looming on the horizon. By late fall 2005 or early 2006, look for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to raise the price of first-class stamps from 37ó to about 41ó. Rates charged for the entire spectrum of business mailingsùbills, invoices, magazines, catalogs and overnight mailùare likely to go up by 18% to 22%, depending on the volume of pieces shipped and the amount of presorting handled by senders."

November 16, 2004 -- From the Business Wire: "DHL, the world's leading global express delivery and logistics company, and Newgistics, Inc., the leader in returns management solutions for direct retailers, today announced a partnership to offer Newgistics' retail merchandise return solution, SmartLabel(R), for DHL customers. Newgistics' SmartLabel, addresses the reverse logistics needs of multi-channel retailers, the fastest growing industry segment for logistics providers."

November 16, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire:

• Harte-Hanks, Inc., a worldwide, direct marketing and targeted media company, today announced that Harte-Hanks Advanced Data Quality (ADQ) has been certified and licensed by the United States Postal Service (USPS(R)) to be a full-service provider of NCOALink, a USPS product that enables accurate, up-to-date postal addressing in compliance with all mail deliverability and federal privacy requirements. With Harte-Hanks ADQ -- a solution for verifying, correcting and enhancing consumer and business contact information across multiple channels including direct mail, telephone and e-mail -- companies can improve data accuracy for targeted communications, cutting marketing costs and increasing brand loyalty through enabling accurately addressed mail and messaging.
• WALZ Postal Solutions, Inc., the nation's leading private provider of USPS Certified Mail forms and software technologies, today announced the release of WALZ Certified Mailer-Plus (WCM-Plus) v6.0, a revised utility designed to process the best-selling WALZ Certified Mailer forms."

November 16, 2004 -- Transport Intelligence has reported that "FedEx has announced that the United States Department of Transportation (D.O.T.) has issued a final order in its administrative review of the FedEx Express claim for compensation under the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act."

November 16, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "The postal regulator Postcomm has successfully prosecuted a company, and its managing director, for collecting and delivering mail without a licence, resulting in a ú17,000 fine, in the first action of its type. The company, Deltec International Courier, was also ordered to pay ú60,000 costs. Deltec was convicted at Bow Street Magistrates Court last week on all 11 counts on which it was charged, under section six of the Postal Services Act 2000, for conveying letters without a licence."

November 16, 2004 -- The Associated Press has reported that "The Internal Revenue Service said Monday that it hopes to return more than $741,000 to Oklahoma taxpayers. According to the IRS, federal income tax returns for more than 950 Oklahomans were returned to the agency as undeliverable by the U.S. Postal Service. Nationwide, more than 87,000 undeliverable refund checks totaling more than $73 million are waiting to be claimed. The refund checks are mostly from 2003 individual income tax returns."

November 16, 2004 -- The Armed Forces Press Service has reported that "The commander of U.S. Central command is asking Congress for help in eliminating unsolicited mail to servicemembers. Unsolicited mail is no longer accepted because of the stress it creates on the military mail system and because of the possible threat it can pose to servicemembers. Programs like "Operation Dear Abby" and the "Any Servicemember" mail program were suspended on Oct. 30, 2002. The U.S. Postal Service no longer delivers items not addressed to a specific servicemember. If packages are left at a collection site and the sender can be determined, they will be returned. If no return address is listed, any care- package items will go to a local charity, a customer-service agent said."

November 16, 2004 -- From the Business Wire: "TaxBrain(R) Online Tax Center, the largest independent online tax service in the United States, forecasts that for the first time more income tax returns will be prepared and filed electronically rather than sent in via the mail."

November 16, 2004 -- The Louisville Business Journal has reported that "A subsidiary of United Parcel Service Inc. has bought the first building of a developing industrial park at the old Louisville Motor Speedway site and plans to use the facility to receive, store and distribute pharmaceuticals and medical devices."

November 16, 2004 -- CNN Money has noted that "Teamster union-controlled pension funds are in worse shape today than in the era of union corruption when money from the funds were used by mobsters to buy casinos in Las Vegas, according to a published report Monday." Ooooo! That hurt.

November 16, 2004 -- According to Hoovers, "UPS likes to do things big way. Last year, the company garnered a place in the InfoWorld 100 with a wireless project that will ultimately replace 55,000 scanning devices. This year, the company takes the coveted top slot, thanks to a nine-year, $600 million package flow initiative that as of October 2004 has successfully transformed 250 of the companyÆs 1,500 package centers. Beginning in 2007, when the new system will be fully deployed, increases in operational efficiency are expected to save UPS that $600 million each year, says project leader Cathy Callagee, operations portfolio manager at UPS."

November 16, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "The chairman of France's state-owned postal service La Poste said Monday its 17,000 agency network will to be run as an individual division. Chairman Jean-Paul Bailly said the move is part of a far-reaching plan to reorganize the network and increase the number of products and services sold by La Poste to individuals. From January 2005 the branch network will stand alongside La Poste's three existing divisions: mail, parcels and financial services."

November 16, 2004 -- According to GovExec.com, "Negotiations on a $388.4 billion fiscal 2005 omnibus spending package picked up Monday in hopes of striking a deal that would avoid extending the lame duck session into next week. Aides were struggling against an ambitious timetable to put together a package of spending additions and offsets to remain within an overall fiscal 2005 discretionary spending cap of $821.9 billion....The remaining funds would be parceled out among several accounts, such as U.S. Postal Service biohazard defenses and the Bush administration's Millennium Challenge account foreign-aid initiative." The crumbs from the master's table.

November 16, 2004 -- As the Triad Business Journal has noted, "The U.S. Postal Service will bring 450 jobs to Greensboro as part of a restructuring that's trimming the organization's 1,240-employee personnel department across the country."

November 16, 2004 -- According to USA Today, "Online auctioneer eBay (EBAY), in a major push to capture holiday sales, is getting into the catalog business."

November 15, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "Pitney Bowes Inc. has announced that it will participate in the 2004 World Mail & Express Asia Conference in Hong Kong, November 16-17. Richard Kok, General Manager, Business Development and Asia Distributor Operations, Pitney Bowes Hong Kong will present, "Future Customer Requirements -- Strategies For Success in Asia" on Tuesday, November 16th."

November 15, 2004 -- The Financial Times has reported that "Royal Mail will this week announce that it is on course to reach its profit target of ú400m for the current financial year, having generated profits of about ú200m in the six months ending September 30. Last year, Royal Mail made an operating profit of ú220m, compared with a ú197m loss in the 2002-03 financial year. The turnround has been achieved through cost-cutting, including 30,000 redundancies, as well as a rise in the price of stamps. If the ú400m profit figure is reached for the 12 months ending March 31 2005, the state-owned company has promised to pay out ú200m in bonuses to its employees."

November 15, 2004 -- According to Dow Jones, "Departing Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy will "leave the ministry with the regret "of not having had enough time, for example, to pursue reform of (national postal company) La Poste."

November 15, 2004 -- As the Washington Post has noted, in addition to her new security responsibilities, "Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) also has been at the heart of a lower-profile but important debate over how to reorganize the financially troubled U.S. Postal Service, a $67 billion-a-year entity. Her bill would grant the Postal Service more flexibility in the services it offers and the prices it charges. The bill is all but dead for this Congress, although supporters hope to revive it early next year."

November 15, 2004 -- Federal Computer Week has reported that "By 2007, U.S. Postal Service officials plan to close 80 personnel offices nationwide, a decision they say is necessary to improve efficiency and reduce administrative expenses. USPS employs 1,240 people in personnel positions. USPS officials said they will open a consolidated office with about 450 employees in Greensboro, N.C., to function as a shared services center for personnel functions."

November 15, 2004 -- Ireland Online has reported that "The Irish PostmastersÆ Union is meeting the Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey today to discuss the future of post offices. The IPU is to inform the Minister about the likelihood of further post office closures if Government action is not forthcoming. John Kane, general secretary of the union, said many postal workers are likely to leave the service as they find it impossible to make a sustainable living."

November 15, 2004 -- According to DM News:

• When Congress returns for a lame-duck session tomorrow the size of a U.S. Postal Service rate increase in 2006 could grow if postal funding is not included in appropriations legislation that could be passed in this session. Congress likely will pass appropriations bills, including S. 2806, the Senate Transportation, Treasury, and General Government Appropriations Act, 2005, and HR 5025, the House Transportation, Treasury, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005. Postal funding, if appropriated, would be in these two bills. The session is scheduled to adjourn Nov. 20. The USPS has urged the House Appropriations Committee to include funding that does not currently appear in its appropriations bill or in the White House budget. The Senate appropriations bill includes funding. The USPS this year sought money in three areas as part of the federal government's fiscal year 2005 budget. The largest request totaled $779 million for emergency preparedness.
• Some members of the teleservices industry are complaining about an ad -- part of an anti-fraud campaign sponsored by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service -- that urges consumers to register for the national no-call list. The ad ran in newspapers and magazines including USA Today, Reader's Digest, the AARP member magazine and the premiere re-issue of Life magazine. The ad warns consumers that telemarketing fraud costs people millions of dollars yearly and that older people are most vulnerable. It presents advice on how consumers can protect themselves, including a toll-free number to call to register for the no-call list, as well as a free DVD."

November 15, 2004 -- The National Association of Major Mail Users (NAMMU) is telling its members that now is the time to speak up and make their views known to Canada Post.

November 14, 2004 -- As Traffic World has noted, "As the nation's largest shipper group was preparing for its annual meeting this week in San Antonio, logistics managers are facing rapidly escalating costs that appear to be growing even ahead of the long-awaited expansion of the U.S. economy. Higher fuel costs, rising rates and tight capacity have shippers wondering if the economic turnaround also means a turnaround in the improvements in logistics efficiency and costs they have won over the years."

November 14, 2004 -- Yahoo! has posted the latest UPS Edgar statement online.

November 14, 2004 -- According to Dow Jones, "The online retail sector has grown this year even as traditional retailers found their shoppers worried over gasoline prices and reluctant to spend. But shipping rate increases from FedEx Corp. (FDX) and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) will hit e-tailers where they are weakest, and they may need to tighten their belts to absorb higher per-customer shipping costs."

November 14, 2004 -- The Telegraph (U.K.) has reported that "Royal Mail will this week unveil profits of more than ú200m for the first half of the year - and will attempt to allay fears that the profits have been bought at the cost of a deteriorating service. The results, which put the Royal Mail on track to make profits of more than ú400m for the full year and pay a ú200m dividend to employees, are an extraordinary turnaround from 2002, when the company was losing ú1m a day. What is more, mail delivery performance figures for the second quarter will show that Royal Mail is meeting its target of delivering 98.5 per cent of second class letters within three working days and is delivering more than 92 per cent of first class letters the next day, against a target of 92.5 per cent."

November 14, 2004 -- The Times of Malta has reported that "Maltapost counter workers yesterday resorted to industrial action ordered by the General Workers' Union which said management failed to implement measures aimed at reducing the employees' workload. Counter workers have been ordered not to deliver letters and registered mail, not to deliver packages, not to open or close baggage containing registered mail, not to sort mail in boxes, not to process the public's complaints that should be managed by the customer care section and not to answer the phone."

November 14, 2004 -- eWeek has reported that "As competition grows hotter in package delivery, Federal Express Ground, a division of FedEx Corporation, is cooking up some new technologies. The delivery people who drop by your door are swapping out their old handheld scanners for new Bluetooth-capable PocketPC models. Meanwhile, the Ground division is adding more CCD scanning, while mulling a possible expansion on the RFID support already in place."

November 14, 2004 -- The Guardian (U.K.) has reported that "Junk food adverts during children's programmes will be banned and unhealthy foods issued with warning labels under a 'traffic light' scheme to help tackle Britain's obesity crisis. The moves will be the centrepiece of the government's long-awaited report on public health, to be published on Tuesday, which will cover the nation's slide into unhealthy habits, including eating, smoking and drinking to excess." A development to watch....

November 13, 2004 -- The Associated Press has reported that "The Republicans' election triumph behind them, members of Congress return Tuesday for a lame-duck session amid hope they can finish a huge pile of spending bills stalemated all year....[An] emerging agreement would provide roughly $4 billion extra, paid for mostly with the across-the-board cut, aides said. That would let lawmakers provide extra money for community colleges, the postal service, and a Bush initiative to increase foreign aid for countries that embrace democratic reforms."

November 13, 2004 -- Wireless Week has reported that "Cingular Wireless customers armed with their camera phones now have the ability to take the "Wish You Were Here" postcard concept wireless, thanks to a new partnership forged between the carrier and Fuji Photo Film USA. The Mobile Postcard service enables Cingular customers to snap a photo with their wireless handset and then select a postcard design, add a personal message and e-mail it off." Another nibble at the Postal Service's First-Class Mail apple....

November 13, 2004 -- According to the Irish Independent, "THE bitter dispute between unions and management at An Post could result in serious disruption to the country's postal service during the busy Chrismtas season. An Post management said the Communications Workers Union (CWU) has not agreed to proposals put forward in relation to dealing with the Christmas post, which is three times the normal volume. It said that proposals about Dublin were put to the union two weeks ago, and over a week ago in relation to the rest of the country. The current disagreement comes on top of a long-running dispute over cost-savings and job cuts and the union is currently balloting staff for industrial action in that row. The changes are part of a four-year attempt to implement changes"

November 13, 2004 -- According to di-ve.com, "Today, most postal administrations worldwide are feeling the brunt of increased competition, e-substitution and declining revenues as a result of rapidly dwindling volumes of traditional mail. Malta and Maltapost are not immune from this global phenomenon, and like most postal administrations abroad, Maltapost is adjusting to the harsh realities of this new competitive environment. The postal business today is a tough, cost-driven and highly competitive one, where the key to success lies in one's flexibility to adapt, downsize where necessary and cut costs, as well as diversifying into related and sometimes new businesses. Maltapost like many other postal administrations is striving to do just this."

November 12, 2004 -- The Irish Independent has reported that Irish "postal workers last night agreed to consider suggested Christmas overtime rosters proposed by An Post management, despite members balloting for industrial action. An Post bosses asked the Communications Workers Union if it would accept a repeat of working arrangements implemented in previous years to cope with the Christmas rush.

November 12, 2004 -- From the BusinessWire: "Mike Eskew, the chairman and CEO of UPS, will accept the Atlanta chapter of the American Jewish Committee's prestigious National Human Relations Award on behalf of UPS at a cocktail reception and dinner on Nov. 16 at the InterContinental Buckhead Hotel."

November 12, 2004 -- Bloomberg has reported that "FedEx Corp., the No. 2 U.S. package carrier, said it will have $48 million in costs in its fiscal second quarter linked to federal aid received after the 2001 terrorist attacks. FedEx said in a statement that the U.S. Transportation Department determined the company should receive $72 million, rather than the $101 million the U.S. provided in 2001. FedEx said it will repay the $29 million difference and write off an additional $19 million it had hoped to collect from the government."

November 12, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "An Argentine commercial appeals court has revoked the bankruptcy status of former postal service operator Correo Argentino, reversing a ruling that was first handed down in December. In a Tuesday filing to the local stock exchange, Correo Argentino's parent company, Sideco Americana, said the courts ruled in favor of appeals requested by Correo Argentino, the International Finance Corporation and the Inter-American Development Bank. The IFC is the private equity arm of the World Bank and a shareholder in Correo Argentino, as is Banco de Galicia y Buenos Aires SA, the country's oldest and largest private bank. Sideco Americana, whose other holdings in Argentina include public service and infrastructure concerns, said Tuesday it hadn't yet notified Correo Argentino of the court ruling."

November 12, 2004 -- PostCom would like to welcome its newest member: ALL ISLAND MEDIA, INC. d/b/a Pennysaver News/Carrier News Bohemia, NY 11716-1023 represented by Richard Megenedy, Sr., President. ALL ISLAND MEDIA, INC. publishes a weekly paper, graphics, inserts and specialty publications.

November 12, 2004 -- The Tacoma News Tribune is trying to convince its readers to urge the Postal Service's Seattle dead-letter facility to resume its "donation" of undeliverable goods to area nonprofit groups.

November 12, 2004 -- JustFoods.com has reported that "Austria has been censured by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for banning the remote sale and delivery by post of food supplements."

November 12, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire:

• New York shoppers will be doubly delighted when Lord & Taylor unveils "Deliver The Joy," its 2004 Christmas Windows depicting the U.S. Postal Service's celebrated history of delivering holiday joy.
• Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has received a grant of $100,000 from The UPS Foundation, the charitable arm of UPS, to create a leadership development plan for the more than 400 local Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies around the country.

November 12, 2004 -- According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "Canada Post employees in rural and suburban offices say they are unable to get time off because there is a shortage of replacement employees, and are planning job action to make their point."

November 12, 2004 -- Manchester Online (U.K.) has reported that "Angry at village closures and a rapid decline in Royal Mail services, councillors are demanding a meeting with postal officials."

November 12, 2004 -- According to Ireland Online, "ISME, the Independent Business Organisation has expressed it's grave concern at the lack of progress in talks between An Post management and the Communications Workers (CWU), which is threatening postal services in the lead up to the busy Christmas period." See also Online.ie and Business World.

November 12, 2004 -- According to the Chicago Tribune, "A telling gauge of the economy's strength will be the number of packages to zip along the 65 miles of rollers and conveyor belts at the UPS hub in southwest suburban Hodgkins this holiday season. Early indications are traffic will be busy. Package delivery used to be a leading indicator of holiday season prospects. Yet with companies having more-efficient ordering systems and consumers buying last-minute gifts online, the flow of packages is now more of a mirror than a forecaster of the economy. UPS handles about half of the more than 6 billion packages shipped annually by air and ground in the United States. FedEx Corp. has 21 percent of the market, followed by the U.S. Postal Service with 19 percent and DHL with 6.5 percent, according to the research firm Colography Group Inc."

November 12, 2004 -- The Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that:

• Napster is moving further into the legal download market with a distribution deal with the Post Office. The digital music service has started selling pre-paid download cards across the Post Office's network of 16,000 branches. Customers buying the vouchers are given a code number that provides access to downloads from Napster's website.
• Thousands of postal workers in London are preparing to ballot for industrial action in the run-up to Christmas over pay and holiday entitlement. The London branch of the CWU, which represents about 25,000 staff, is unhappy with the removal of pre-arranged overtime pay. The CWU warned that if the Royal Mail did not reinstate the Christmas overtime payments there would be "mail piling up all over London".

November 12, 2004 -- Reuters has reported that "United Parcel Service Inc. Chief Financial Officer Scott Davis said on Wednesday future acquisitions in the freight forwarding arena are possible in coming years."

November 12, 2004 -- GISUser has reported that "NAC Geographic Products Inc. has announced that Australia, Greece and Slovakia have been added to the countries digitized with Universal Addresses and Natural Area Codes, and made the number of the Universal Address digitized countries to 22: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland (Uusimaa, H me, and Pirkanmaa regions), France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. About one billion people from these countries can immediately get their Universal Addresses on Universal Address Lookup Service (http://www.travelgis.com/geocode/), and access the highly efficient and reliable Universal Address powered cross-country cross-language turn-by-turn driving directions services on TravelGIS Driving Directions Service (http://www.travelgis.com/directions/) from their desktop computers. They can also use any kind of wireless devices to get turn-by-turn driving directions, maps and location based business searches in North America, Europe, Brazil and Australia powered by Universal Addresses on Mobile Location Based Services Network (http://mlbs.net/)."

November 11, 2004 -- ShippersNewsWire has reported that "DHL, a provider of express delivery and logistics services, has begun operations at a new regional sorting center in Minneapolis, Minn. The new facility is part of a $1.2 billion investment program to increase the capacity of DHL's North American network."

November 11, 2004 -- According to EU Business, "The European Union on Thursday urged Japan to reform its huge postal service that the EU says has an unfair edge over private-sector companies, Jiji Press reported."

November 11, 2004 -- The Journal of Commerce has reported that "Federal mediators have asked United Parcel Service and its pilots union to agree to a contract by the end of March."

November 11, 2004 -- Startups.co.uk has reported that "Online retailers are set to benefit from 26 per cent of this years Christmas shopping being carried out over the internet, despite increasing fears about postal problems. A survey, commissioned by QuickQuid.com, the shopping portal, shows that 84 per cent of people with access to the internet have shopped online this year, a figure that is set to drastically increase in the run up to Christmas."

November 11, 2004 -- Handelsblatt has reported that "German postal service provider Deutsche Post has met with resistance from the union Ver.di over plans to introduce part-time only work in its letter delivery division. Deutsche Post, which currently employs more than 65,000 post men and women, says part-time contracts are the only way to reduce costs and make Deutsche Post more competitive before the group loses its current letter delivery monopoly in Germany in 2007."

November 11, 2004 -- Irish Times has reported that "Unions and management at An Post will meet this afternoon to discuss postal delivery arrangements in the run-up to Christmas. However, union sources indicated last night, that notwithstanding this, there is still a very strong possibility of industrial action before Christmas."

November 11, 2004 -- AuctionBytes has reported that "NuMarkets has teamed with United States Postal Service to offer nationwide pick-up for its eBay consignment service. NuMarkets is a franchisor of eBay drop-off stores and shipping centers with four locations. With the new service, consumers and businesses can call NuMarkets' toll-free number for pickup, and in a few days, receive USPS mailing labels and order confirmation in the mail. The consignor then packs the item and the following day the postal carrier picks up at the house or business at no cost."

November 11, 2004 -- The State.com (SC) has reported that "Rain, snow, sleet or hail might not stop the postal worker, but it sure is a hassle for the rest of us. So the U.S. Postal Service is letting customers go online this holiday season to design custom greeting cards with a gift card from a major retailer tucked inside. Gift cards valued from $25 to $200 can be bought from Bed, Bath & Beyond, Circuit City, Lowe's home improvement stores and restaurants owned by Brinker International Inc., including Chili's Grill & Bar and Romano's Macaroni Grill. Other choices should be available by the holidays."

November 11, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "Dutch postal and logistics company TPG NV (TP) said Thursday it has acquired the remaining 50% stake in Hofinger Haushaltswerbung GmbH. Hofinger provides services for unaddressed mail in the federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg in southern Germany. TPG had previously obtained a 50% stake in Hofinger at the end of 2001."

November 11, 2004 -- The News & Star (U.K.) has reported that "POSTAL workers in Egremont have walked out ini protest at the sacking of a worker in a row over bullying claims. The action comes just two weeks after 30 staff at the delivery office called off industrial action, which they had voted four-to-one in favour of, following last minute negotiations with Royal Mail."

November 10, 2004 -- Bloomberg has reported that "Royal Mail Group Plc workers in London may strike in the run-up to Christmas, the busiest time of year for the delivery business, over their employers' refusal to pay overtime. The Communication Workers Union, which represents about 25,000 of the capital's postal workers will issue ballot papers asking members whether they support a strike within a week."

November 10, 2004 -- The ShippersNewsWire has reported that:

• ABX Air, the one-year-old air cargo airline spun off from courier Airborne Express following the merger with DHL in 2003, said it expects to lose $86 million to $96 million in gross revenue in 2005 as a result of route restructuring by primary customer DHL. Airborne was forced to spin off its in-house airline to comply with U.S. corporate citizenship laws for owning domestic airlines. DHL retained ABX as its main air carrier, along with Astar Air Cargo, formerly DHL Airways. DHL notified ABX that it no longer would require airlift on 22 routes provided by 26 aircraft. Seven of the 26 aircraft (three DC9s and four DC8s) are to be removed from service in January, with the remaining 19 aircraft removed by the end of 2005. The projected revenue reductions include money the airline made from marking up expenses to operate its planes. ABX said annual net income would take a hit in the range of $800,000 to $1.5 million. When the reduction is fully implemented the cash flow impact, including reduced depreciation, should be in the range of $3.2 million to $4.2 million.
• FedEx Ground will open a second major sort facility in the Atlanta area by the summer of 2006 to keep up with customer demand for its delivery services.

November 10, 2004 -- According to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, "there are some troubling developments in mail delivery in Los Osos. The reasons are twofold: The high cost of living in this county has put a pinch on hiring new carriers, and the Postal Service is trying to find ways to cut costs."

November 10, 2004 -- CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal) has reported that:

• During the first nine months of the current financial year, Deutsche Post achieved an increase in both turnover and profit and thus lived up to analysts' expectations.
• Denmark's Post Danmark experienced growth in both turnover and profit during the first nine months of the current financial year. Last week the company announced that the net turnover had risen by 4.8% to 1.lbn euros, while the 66.3m euros result after tax was almost twice as high compared to the corresponding period last year.
• Despite a decline in standard letter volumes, Sweden's Posten AB achieved a definite profit performance improvement in the first nine months of 2004. On Monday the company announced that the turnover went up by 1% to almost 2bn euros. CEO Erik Olsson stated that cost cutting measures - lower staff costs above all - had caused a trend reversal.
• Norway's Posten AS will not increase the postage rate for so-called A and B mail next year. Only parcel rates will go up by 2.6% on average.
• Red Parcel Post AG, which was founded in mid-September this year, could become one of Deutsche Post's fiercest competitors on the German parcel market.
• UPS is planning to take over a major forwarding company in Europe. The news was broken by Bob Stoffel, head of the UPS Supply Chain segment, in an interview with the German weekly business magazine `Wirtschaftswoche'
• The French GeoPost is still finding out who might become the partner to operate in France on behalf of the European parcel network DPD.
• TNT Global Express services are offered in over 300 Norwegian post offices.
• At next week's annual general meeting of U.S. Postal Services managers, entertainment will be provided by the dance pop duo `The Postal Service'. What looks like a joke turns out to be the amicable settlement of a trademark title dispute.

Don't be satisfied with a less than complete report on the courier, express, and postal market in Europe. Get your subscription to CEP News, today..

November 10, 2004 -- As the Washington Post has noted, "The U.S. Postal Service -- the one that delivers your mail -- inked an unusual deal last week with the critically acclaimed, if somewhat obscure, indie-rock act that both parties hope will give them an edge in their respective industries." The company, hoping to avoid an expensive legal fight, proposed working together. USPS had signed cross-promotional deals before. The agency was interested. Its representatives met with the band -- to get a sense of who the members were -- and screened their lyrics. The USPS, by all accounts, was not concerned with the band's politics. Gibbard, who also sings in the band Death Cab for Cutie, performed at anti-Bush concerts organized by the liberal group MoveOn.org. But USPS was more concerned with possibly offensive lyrics that could land its executives before Congress, trying to explain how they could share the agency's good name with such a group."

November 10, 2004 -- The Westerly (RI) Sun has reported that "The United States Postal Service is investigating an allegation that political advertisements were placed in Ashaway mailboxes last month without proper postage."

November 10, 2004 -- The Times (U.K.) has reported that "STAMP prices must rise to cover the cost of delivering letters, the chief executive of Royal Mail said yesterday. Adam Crozier told delegates at the CBI annual conference in Birmingham that the subsidising of personal letters by businesses would have to end over the next few years. Mr Crozier said: "Stamp prices will need to go up. The price people pay ought to bear some resemblance to the cost of providing the service." The postal group is expected to increase the price of a first-class stamp from 28p to 29p or 30p in April. Any price rise would have to be announced by the end of the year, although Royal Mail said that no such decision had been made. The price of posting a first-class letter has increased by only 2p since July 1996."

November 10, 2004 -- Transport Intelligence has reported that "DHL has decided to base its new European hub in Leipzig, Germany. The new development is likely to lead to the employment, directly and indirectly, of 10,000 new jobs with an investment of Ç300m. Brussels will be sidelined and the other contender, Vatry in France, will also lose out."

November 10, 2004 -- According to DM News:

• United Parcel Service Inc. completed its holiday operations plan and expects to deliver more than 340 million packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the company said yesterday. The biggest spike is to come Tuesday, Dec. 21, with 20 million air and ground packages being delivered. UPS said this is 6 million-plus packages beyond normal daily delivery volume. UPS said it would hire nearly 70,000 seasonal workers in the United States, including package sorters and driver helpers.
• A recent survey of daily circulation at U.S. newspapers showed declining numbers nationwide, and newspaper industry experts blame some of the loss on the national no- call list.

November 10, 2004 -- The Evening Star (U.K.) has reported that "POSTWATCH has branded first class mail delivery to IP postcodes as "wholly unacceptable" following crunch talks with Royal Mail. The mail watchdog has accused Royal Mail of offering excuses for its missed targets and poor performance in Ipswich rather than identifying solutions. Officials from Postwatch East and Royal Mail met to discuss the mail giant's failure to meet the government's target of 92.5 per cent of first class mail delivered on time."

November 10, 2004 -- Federal Computer Week has reported that "Solving the nation's spam problem will require a balancing act, legal and privacy experts said today in Washington, D.C., at a meeting sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission. Dubbed the E-mail Authentication Summit, the meeting drew several hundred software industry officials, users and others to discuss the policy and technical implications of adopting industrywide standards for dealing with unwanted commercial e-mail by accurately identifying ù or authenticating ù who is sending it." This "poses challenges similar to making the U.S. Postal Service's system anthrax-resistant."

November 10, 2004 -- Les Echos (France) has reported that "The president of French public postal operator La Poste, Jean-Paul Bailly, yesterday confirmed a press report that he had appointed Philippe Wahl, the former managing director of national savings bank Groupe Caisse D'Epargne, to consult on La Poste's future organisation, with particular attention to the relation between its post office network and future banking activities."

November 10, 2004 -- Asia Pulse has reported that "South Korea's postal service said Wednesday it will ally with SK Telecom Co. and two other mobile phone operators to offer banking services for its customers. Starting next Monday, Korea Post will allow its customers access to the wireless operators' mobile phone banking services, the postal service said in a statement." See also Telecoms Korea.

November 10, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "Belgian postal workers staged a 24-hour strike Wednesday, protesting understaffing and job security. Workers started their strike late Tuesday, shutting down sorting centers across the country, ensuring no mail delivery."

November 10, 2004 -- As Hoovers has noted, "THE PHILIPPINES runs the risk of losing big investors such as Federal Express, DHL and United Parcel Service if the Arroyo administration would limit foreign ownership of airfreight companies based on a recent justice department opinion."

November 9, 2004 -- According to the Shippers Newswire, "DHL Danzas Air & Ocean, part of DHL, a delivery and logistics services company, has begun in-state transportation operations within Alaska and Hawaii. The new service, called APS Instate, builds on DHL's APS (for Alaska-Pacific Service) operation started in the first quarter. APS Instate integrates DHL Danzas Air & Ocean domestic surface and ocean freight networks under a centralized management system supported by real-time, end-to-end shipment visibility. Alaska-bound goods move by truck from the lower 48 states for transshipment to vessels in Seattle. Hawaii-bound goods are trucked for transshipment to Long Beach." In addition, "DHL said it plans to spend 128 million euros ($166 million) to acquire a 68-percent stake in Blue Dart, a domestic courier and air express package delivery company in India. DHL said Blue Dart has an extensive network in India that will allow it to offer new levels of domestic and international service in the growing market. Blue Dart will be managed as a standalone company by existing management."

November 9, 2004 -- As the Washington Post has noted, "This was supposed to be the year that long-suffering supporters of revamping the troubled U.S. Postal Service finally got a bill through Congress. Barring a legislative miracle, however, that's not going to happen. When the lame-duck Congress convenes next week, lawmakers are expected to turn their attention to such matters as unfinished appropriations bills and reorganizing U.S. intelligence agencies. So postal officials, lawmakers and members of the mailing industry are assessing what went wrong, what went right and how to resurrect postal legislation next year in time to blunt a prospective double-digit increase in mailing rates in 2006. "In the simplest terms, the clock simply ran out," said Rep. John M. McHugh (R-N.Y.), chairman of a special House panel on postal reform and oversight."

November 9, 2004 -- From the Federal Register:

• The Postal Service will present a briefing and demonstration of its new PC-based rollforward model software on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 at 10 a.m. in the Commission's hearing room. The briefing will address the history of the Postal Service's rollforward model, reasons why the new version was developed, and components of the new model. A question-and-answer session will follow. The meeting is open to the public. DATES: Tuesday, November 16, 2004.
• The Postal Service proposes to provide mailers with more detailed information so that they may properly submit address lists to the Postal Service in order to obtain address sequencing services. CDS subscribers will continue to obtain the benefit of using seed addresses to assist them in protecting their address lists. The Postal Service also proposes to clarify that the requirements for obtaining Level 3 Service and CDS subscriptions for Post Office box address groups is the same as for other address groups. Written comments must be received on or before December 9, 2004.

November 9, 2004 -- From the Business Wire: "DHL today announced that John Fellows, CEO of DHL Americas, will be transitioning into a new role with Deutsche Post World Net effective January 1, 2005. Fellows will be succeeded by John Mullen who is presently CEO of DHL Asia-Pacific. John Mullen will also be a member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Post World Net responsible for Asia-Pacific and Emerging Markets as well as DHL Americas."

November 9, 2004 -- Fears that a privatised Japan Post could trample over commercial banks and insurance companies are a "good sign" that unleashing the world's biggest bank will benefit Japanese consumers, the policy director told the Financial Times yesterday.

November 9, 2004 -- icNetwork (U.K.) has reported that "The price of stamps will have to increase over the next few years as the Post Office makes itself more efficient in the face of increased competition, the head of the Royal Mail warned. Chief executive Adam Crozier told business leaders that the cost of posting letters in the UK was the cheapest in Europe at 28p for first class letters - compared with 61p in Germany. But profit margins were the lowest at 2.5% for the Royal Mail compared with more than 20% for postal firms in Holland and Germany. The Royal Mail is 20 years behind its main rivals in terms of investment in automation and even further behind some countries, such as Australia where 90% of mail goes straight from machinery into post bags." See also The Scotsman.

November 9, 2004 -- Politics.ie (Ireland) has reported that "Labour Party Spokesperson on Communications, Deputy Tommy Broughan has expressed concern at proposals to subcontract out the delivery of mail in rural areas to self-employed postmen. Deputy Broughan warned that such a plan should "not affect An Post's universal service obligation, guaranteeing the rights of all citizens to send and receive mail."

November 9, 2004 -- If you would like to learn about the new technologies, methods and data, and even a new class of mail that can help you reach more customers, you won't want to miss this iSummit Web seminar on Nov. 16 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern (2:00 p.m. Central). Register today at www.firstlogic.com/events to hear Chris Lien, Firstlogic's commercial mail market director, discuss how you can improve your direct marketing campaigns.

November 9, 2004 -- Ireland Online has reported that "The country's 10,000 postal workers are to consider whether to accept a pay rise offer of 5.5% over four years." See also RTE News.

November 9, 2004 -- Aftenposten has reported that "Three of four workers whose jobs in the Norwegian postal service are disappearing will get new work. Only around 15 percent will start drawing unemployment benefits, postal leaders vow."

November 9, 2004 -- As Reuters has noted, "Motorola Inc. will supply equipment to the United States Postal Service worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a deal expected to boost employment at the firm."

November 9, 2004 -- The Philippine Daily Inquirer has reported that "the Philippines runs the risk of losing big investors such as Federal Express, DHL and United Parcel Service if the Arroyo administration would limit foreign ownership of airfreight companies based on a recent justice department opinion."

November 9, 2004 -- Expansion has reported that "In Spain, the public works ministry has begun talks with private postal operators, state-owned postal operator Correos, trade unions and consumer groups to approve an amendment to the Postal Services Act of 1998. In practice, it would appear that the amendment would benefit Correos: in return for an extension of universal postal service obligations, according to which Correos would have to provide postal services to all parts of Spain, the government would pay the postal service provider subsidies and ensure Correos' monopoly in certain areas. The implementation of the latter measure in particular would effectively reduce the size of Spain's deregulated postal market."

November 9, 2004 -- Nikkei news (Japan) has reported that "With the government's conclusion Monday that there will be no systems-related problems in splitting Japan Post into four business units when the body's privatization process begins in April 2007, detailed discussions on other postal management topics are expected to get under way, including when the privatized firms will be allowed to offer new services. A panel of nongovernmental experts is set to resume meetings soon to draw up recommendations for Postal Reform Minister Heizo Takenaka and hammer out a framework for reform bills by year-end."

November 8, 2004 -- As Mailers Council executive director Robert McLean has noted:

• David Fineman's term of office and the one-year extension expire on December 8. Jim Miller, if unconfirmed before December 8, must leave the board on that date. Carolyn Gallagher and Louis Guilano, both nominated on October 8 received recess appointments on November 3, and may serve for the next year without Senate confirmation. Gallagher was named to complete the term of Ernesta Ballard, which expires on December 8, 2005. She could be reappointed for another term after that date. Giuliano was named to complete the term of Al Casey, which expires on December 8, 2009. The Senate will have the opportunity to act on these nominations during next week's lame duck session.
• There will be a number of Senate committee changes next year, mostly because rules adopted following the 1998 elections set six-year term limits for most chairmanships. Sen. Susan Collins (ME) will remain chair of the Committee on Governmental Affairs. Here are some of the likely changes. Appropriations--Sen. Ted Stevens (AK) must pass the gavel Sen. Thad Cochran (MS). Commerce--Sen. Stevens will become chairman, succeeding Sen. John McCain (AZ). Indian Affairs--Sen. McCain is expected to be the new chair. Budget Committee--With the retirement of Sen. Don Nickles (OK), Sen. Judd Gregg (NH) is expected to be chair. Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee--With Gregg's move to Budget, Sen. Mike Enzi (WY) is expected to become chair.

November 8, 2004 -- The Alternative Assets Network has reported that "Nazca has reached an agreement with Deutsche Post for the sale of its holding of 33% that it had in Unipost, the largest private operator in the Spanish postal sector. The acquisition of the private equity firm's holding will be effective from the end of October 2004 once Spain's equivalent of the Monopolies Commission has authorised it."

November 8, 2004 -- The National Association of Major Mail Users (Canada) has reported that it has "confirmed through the CCRA (Canada Customs and Revenue Agency) that Canada Customs is explicitly NOT CONCERNED about business or personal correspondence - CCRA is concerned about goods being shipped to Canada. Any announcement by the USPS to the contrary is misleading."

November 8, 2004 -- According to DMNews, "Postal reform and privacy legislation likely will be on Congress' agenda next year since voters kept the Republicans in control of both chambers after last week's election."

November 8, 2004 -- The Guardian (U.K.) has reported that "Royal Mail workers look on course to pick up payments of between ú800 and ú1,000 each under a profits-related bonus scheme which kicks in during the current financial year. The Share in Success scheme means the 200,000-strong workforce will receive the money if the organisation's profit from operations tops ú400m in the 12 months to the end of next March. The Royal Mail's performance has been widely criticised, especially for its failure to meet delivery targets."

November 8, 2004 -- According to the Sunday Mail (U.K.), "an incredible 72 million items are lost in the post every year in Scotland, a Sunday Mail investigation has revealed."

November 7, 2004 -- The BBC (U.K.) has reported that "Senior officials from Japan and the European Union are set to hold a series of talks in Tokyo this week focusing on the privatization of Japan's postal services."

November 7, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "The Postal Service's newest product, NetPost CardStore/Gift Card, joins a growing list of on-line postal products that make using the Postal Service easier. John M. Nolan, Deputy Postmaster General, cut a ribbon symbolizing the official launch of NetPost CardStore/Gift Card, the first online product in the industry that offers a customized combination gift card/greeting card service. The launch, held at the James A. Farley Post Office in Manhattan, featured live demonstrations of NetPost CardStore/Gift Card, along with another time-saving product, Click-N- Ship. Laptop computers temporarily set up outside the landmark Postal building and in the postal lobby allowed postal customers to learn first-hand how simple it is to send cards, gift cards and packages through the Postal Service without stepping outside their home or office."

November 7, 2004 -- According to The Telegraph (U.K.), "The interesting question about Allan Leighton's plans - in the aftermath of creating a space in his frenetic life by saying tatty-bye to a troika of non-executive jobs - is not whether he'll endeavour to buy J Sainsury. More interesting is whether he'll sign on for a further few years at Royal Mail where - unnoticed apparently by the ministers to whom he is answerable - his contract expires early next year.

November 7, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "Businesses using franking machines and pre-paid envelopes could be cushioned from the impact of a potential increase in the price of postage next April, Royal Mail has proposed. The company is suggesting that it could apply a 1p discount to postage paid using franking and PPI (Printed Postage Impression) against the full price for postage paid using stamps. The reason behind the move is that the former method costs the Royal Mail less. It does not incur stamp production and retailing costs and often is not collected from post boxes. The change would not come into effect until April 1 next year, when Royal Mail is allowed to increase its postage rates. Under its price control, the company has to publish by the end of December the prices it intends to charge from April 2005. It may put up to 2p on the price of a first-class stamp, raising the cost from 28p to 30p. Postcomm is seeking views on the proposal by December 13, because it is deciding how to address the issue of differentiated rates for business customers for the next Royal Mail price control, expected to be effective from April 2006. It says Royal Mail is able to make such a change in the April 2005 price control."

November 7, 2004 -- Nikkei news (Japan) has reported that "The [Japanese] government and ruling coalition have started considering pumping 1 trillion yen into a planned privatized postal corporation, to dissolve its expected negative net worth and shore up its capital base at the time of its establishment in April 2007."

November 7, 2004 -- The Kyodo news service (Japan) has reported that "Senior officials from Japan and the European Union are set to hold a series of talks this week focusing on the privatization of Japan's postal services."

November 7, 2004 -- Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that "Royal Mail plans to charge its business customers less for postage than domestic users, a move that has prompted an investigation by Postcomm, the regulator."

November 6, 2004 -- The APWU told its members that it "opposes worker participation in USPS employee opinion surveys, President William Burrus reminded union members on Nov. 5. "We are aware that the Postal Service continues to mail Voice of Employee surveys to employees on an annual basis," he said, "but we discourage union members from participating." Experience has taught union members a bitter lesson in that regard, said APWU Industrial Relations Director Greg Bell. "The Postal Service has misrepresented the results of previous employee opinion survey and claimed that employees supported the Postal Service's wage proposals during contract negotiations and interest arbitrations," he said."

November 6, 2004 -- In its most recent government relations newsletter, the National Association of Postmasters of the U.S. told its members that "On the day that President Bush declared victory, he made two "recess appointments" to the Postal Board of Governors. As anticipated, the President appointed Carolyn Gallagher and Louis Guilano. The two new Board members would serve for one year, pending Senate confirmation for a full term. Governor Jim Miller is approaching the one-year anniversary of his recess appointment, which means that he will be off the Board unless the President renominates him and the Senate confirms him. During the days leading up to the election, key White House staff members continued to deliberate over legislative strategy in support of postal reform. After the election, discussions continued. There is no reason to believe that President Bush's desire to enact reform is diminished. The question is whether he will use his "political capital" to pursue reform."

November 6, 2004 -- Bloomberg has reported that "Deutsche Post AG, Europe's biggest postal service, replaced the head of its DHL division after it had to cut its U.S. forecast. The company said Uwe Doerken, head of DHL, will be replaced by John Mullen on the company management board. Mullen, 49, will head DHL Express Americas, Asia Pacific and Emerging Markets, according to the statement sent by fax. His term runs until 2008. Deutsche Post also said it extended the term of Chief Executive Officer Klaus Zumwinkel by four years until November 2008."

November 6, 2004 -- FedEx Corp. has announced pricing adjustments for FedEx Express and FedEx Ground customers and a change in the fuel surcharge that will be effective Jan. 3, 2005. FedEx Express will increase package and freight published rates by an average of 4.6 percent for U.S. domestic and export services while lowering its fuel surcharge by 2.0 percentage points, resulting in a net average shipping cost increase of 2.6 percent. Standard list rates for FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery will increase an average of 2.9 percent. In addition, FedEx Ground will introduce an indexed fuel surcharge for both U.S. and international FedEx Ground shipments.

November 6, 2004 -- The Independent (U.K.) has reported that:

• The Post Office entered the home and contents insurance market this week, pledging to give prices 40 per cent lower then existing premiums. The group will offer the best deal from a panel of 14 insurers, and promises to cover 98 per cent of applicants.
• Royal Mail withdrew its threat of legal action against Channel 4 last night after the broadcaster admitted that it had been wrong to claim that credit cards were being stolen from the post by temporary staff. The damaging assertion was one of the main allegations levelled at Royal Mail in a Dispatches programme last April. The programme secretly filmed a Royal Mail agency worker admitting he had stolen a credit card from the post. He then supplied it to an undercover reporter. Channel 4 admitted yesterday that evidence subsequently supplied by Barclaycard proved the card in question had never been sent through the post and was, in fact, being fenced by the worker away from Royal Mail premises. "Channel Four regrets this inadvertent inaccuracy," it said in a statement issued with Royal Mail.

November 6, 2004 -- According to Ars Technica, "The US Postal Service has been hit hard by the rise of the internet. Email has cut into their letter carrying business, but interestingly, a collaboration born on the internet is helping to help promote their services and strengthen their brand name." Now let's hope this band does nothing to embarrass the real Postal Service.

November 6, 2004 -- Online.ie (Ireland) has reported that "Members of the Communications Workers Union are due to meet on Monday to discuss the latest cost-saving proposals from An Post. It comes amid growing fears of a possible Christmas postal strike. Workers are resisting management demands for 1,400 redundancies and a commitment to cutting the overtime bill."

November 5, 2004 -- Business Mailers Review has reported that:

• The Postal Service released its much-anticipated final rule on Standard Mail eligibility with one significant change to its proposal û a change welcomed by the nonprofit community. The final rule, published in the Oct. 27 Federal Register, establishes new eligibility requirements for Standard Mail that carries personal information about the addressee. The requirements take effect on June 1, 2005. The final rule retains the "exclusive purpose" test, but clarifies it to say that the "exclusive reason for inclusion of all of the personal information is to support the advertising or solicitation in the mail piece."
• The USPS also announced a reorganization of its rates and classification service centers (RCSC), moving all RCSC activities to a single center in New York City. Postal officials expect this move to improve consistency in mailing standards as well.
• The Postal Service will update Customer Support Rulings over the next few months to reflect the revisions to the rules on Standard Mail eligibility.
• International mailers are expecting their postage rates to increase in 2006, at the same time as the domestic rate increase. International mailers can get a general feel for how much their bulk letter rates will increase by reviewing the new terminal dues agreement set to take effect Jan. 1, 2006. Terminal dues are the fees that postal administrations charge each other for moving cross-border mail. It will be one of the topics at a State Dept. briefing on Nov. 19 at 1:30 PM at the main State Dept. building in Washington, DC. State and postal officials will update attendees on the issues that came out of the 23rd Universal Postal Union Congress in Romania, which includes terminal dues, extraterritorial offices of exchange and the quality of service fund.
• Phase-one research and development on the flats sequencing system (FSS) is completed and the Postal Service has awarded a phase-two contract to Northrop Grumman, John Rapp, senior vice president of operations, told MTAC. In phase two, Northrop will build and test an FSS prototype. Rapp noted that FSS uses an existing machine, but it's not the Postal Service's existing AFSM 100 machine. It is one used in Europe.
• The USPS also has four companies under contract in phase one of its R&D on the delivery point packager (DPP), which would sort both letter mail and flat mail into a single package. Rapp said the Postal Service was close to making awards on phase-two funding for DPP. Phase two of DPP will require the supplier(s) to develop a DPP test bed model by January 2006, which the Postal Service would evaluate.
• The Postal Service continues to pursue the idea of submitting a request for phased increases in postage rates in the next rate case, said Steve Kearney, vice president of pricing and classification. The Postal Service would seek a two-year phase in of new rates in roughly equal increments, with the dates of implementation set out in the rate case, Kearney told the recent Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The USPS would change the stamp price only once in the course of the two years, Kearney said. It's not clear if the stamp price would increase in the first or second year.
• The Postal Service expects to launch a new service in early 2005 that would allow a mailer to submit "bad addresses" to the USPS for letter carriers to resolve using their "street delivery" knowledge.
• You might be surprised to learn that an $86 billion-company also relies on the Postal Service's Transformation Plan in setting its goals for 2005 and beyond when it works with the Postal Service. A goal of IBM Business Consulting Services is to help the Postal Service achieve its Transformation Plan goals, says Bill Takis, a partner in IBM's Business Consulting Services Group, a major supplier of services and technology to the Postal Service.
• While Congress will return Nov. 15 for a lame-duck session, it's not likely to take up postal reform issues then. So the process will have to start all over again in January, when the new Congress convenes.

Business Mailers Review is published biweekly by Sedgwick Publishing Co. This is one of the best postal newsletters you'll find published in this country. There's much more to each issue than the teaser you see here. For subscription information, be sure to check out the publisher's special offer.

November 5, 2004 -- The Washington Post has reported:

• Productivity grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the smallest gain since late 2002, the Labor Department reported. The increase in productivity -- the amount an employee produces for every hour of work -- followed a 3.9 percent pace registered in the second quarter but was better than the 1.7 percent growth rate some economists were forecasting.
• The dollar continued its decline in global currency markets yesterday, intensifying worries among some economists that mounting U.S. budget and trade deficits could send the U.S. currency into a tailspin.
It's time to look into doing more business overseas where the dollar provides a better value to international buyers.

November 5, 2004 -- In a statement issued to his members of the re-election of George Bush as President, American Postal Workers Union President William Burrus said: "The majority of Americans appear to have chosen a president based not on their economic interests or concern over the war in Iraq, but on their belief that George W. Bush can best protect them from terrorism." Voters also based their decision on the social and cultural issues that have tended to divide our nation in recent years, he said. "Labor will remain united," Burrus said, "and continue to work to protect the interests of America's working families."

November 5, 2004 -- AFX Europe has reported that "The German government will raise 5.5 bln eur by selling some pension fund receivables of Deutsche Post's successor companies, to help plug an extra 10 bln eur in its 2005 budget deficit, the finance ministry said. A finance ministry spokesman said the pension fund sales involve transfers by Deutsche Post World Net AG and Deutsche Telekom AG, which are the successor companies to the former post office monopoly, Deutsche Post. A huge number of Deutsche Post World Net and Deutsche Telekom employees retained their status as civil servants even after the entities were transformed into a private limited companies prior to their listings. Deutsche Post still has 65,000 of its 211,000 employees in Germany classified as civil servants. Deutsche Post sets asides some 33 pct of the gross pay of civil servants as the state's contribution to their pension."

November 5, 2004 -- The Louisville Courier-Journal has reported that "Federal mediators have asked UPS and its pilots union to agree to a contract by the end of March. But a new wrinkle ù pilot concerns about what it considers outsourcing of flights to a Chinese carrier ù has entered the talks."

November 5, 2004 -- According to Hoovers:

• UPS can open up new EU markets.
• FedEx Express is adding 20 percent more capacity over the Atlantic, betting on continued strength in European exports and its ability to steal business from DHL in Brussels.

November 5, 2004 -- The Washington Post has noted that "Robert A. Bisselle, 77, a banker who worked for 34 years at several area banks, died of cancer Nov. 1 in his Bethesda home. He was one of the founders of the National Postal Forum in 1968 and later served as president and chairman of the trade group."

November 5, 2004 -- DMNews has reported that "Mailers are taking a wait-and-see approach to news that the U.S. Postal Service may file a phased rate increase next year. The USPS is expected to file a rate case in the spring, and rates could rise in early 2006 -- possibly a double-digit increase. However, Steve Kearney, vice president of pricing and classification at the USPS, said officials are considering a phased rate increase. "In the next rate case, we are planning for the possible introduction of annual price changes with a phasing mechanism, where we would file with the Postal Rate Commission a rate case designed to cover two years, but we would implement the rates in two phases," Kearney said. This could mean an equal percentage rate increase in each of two years on predetermined dates, though single-piece, First-Class rates would be set at whatever the total rate increase is for the two years. Such an approach would require approval from the USPS Board of Governors and the Postal Rate Commission. The postal service has never implemented phased rate increases."

November 5, 2004 -- Speaking to the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, Postmaster General Jack Potter said that 94 percent of customers û an all-time high û rated their postal service good to excellent during the last quarter of 2004. During that time, the Postal Service also delivered 95 percent of local First-Class Mail overnight, while two- and three-day scores were the highest ever.

November 5, 2004 -- Azertac has reported that "Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies and the World Bank are to start implementing the project on reorganization of the Azerbaijan postal service. According to Minister Ali Abbasov, the project aims to create new infrastructure in postal system including banking and financial services. Main changes will include computerization of post offices and re-establishment of mail services in villages, he said."

November 4, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "The U.S. Postal Service and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA) have extended their collective bargaining agreement by two years. Postmaster General Jack Potter and NRLCA President Dale Holton signed the agreement earlier this week. The existing collective bargaining agreement was originally set to expire on Nov. 20, 2004. It has now been extended to Nov. 20, 2006. The agreement provides for a 1.3% wage increase effective Nov. 27, 2004, and a 1.3% increase effective Nov. 26, 2005. Terms of the agreement include continuing the cost-of-living allowance, establishing a standard time allowance for reloading and unloading vehicles, increasing the reimbursement rate for rural carriers who furnish their own vehicles and creating a joint task force to discuss issues related to future developments in mail delivery. All other provisions of the contract remain in effect."

November 4, 2004 -- From the Business Wire: "The ServiceMaster Company has announced that the Board of Directors have elected Louis J. Giuliano to join the Board. Louis J. Giuliano, who will begin serving on the board in December, has been appointed to serve as a member of the Compensation and Leadership Development Committee of the Board of Directors of ServiceMaster. Mr. Giuliano currently serves as Chairman of ITT Industries, a supplier of advanced technology products and services. In this role since 2001, he is responsible for managing all aspects of the Board activities and helping to set the strategic and operating direction for this Fortune 500 global multi-industry company. Mr. Giuliano is a graduate of Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry, and Master of Business Administration in marketing. He is a member of the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management Advisory Council and a member designate of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors.

November 4, 2004 -- From theFederal Register, "The Department of State will host a briefing on Friday, November 19, 2004, to provide an update on current Universal postal Union issues, including the results of the 23rd UPU Congress held in Bucharest, Romania from September 15 to October 5, 2004. The briefing will be held from 1:30 p.m. until approximately 4:30 p.m., on November 19, in Room 1408 of the Department of State 2201 C St, NW., Washington, DC."

November 4, 2004 -- The Journal of Commercehas reported that "the United Parcel Service said it is increasing its aircraft capacity and Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica." Next year, the North Korean post

November 4, 2004 -- Direct has reported that "despite the likely return of key members of Congress, Mailer groups were unsure how much this would translate into postal reform in the next session."

November 4, 2004 -- The Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that:

• Trade unions at La Poste have ended 18 months of negotiations with the French post office by agreeing to the state-owned group's planned Ç3.4 billion($4.3 billion) modernization of struggling mail operations. The agreement, signed by three unions representing 59.5% of staff, is a big step in La Poste's drive to cut costs and improve the quality of its service ahead of the liberalization of Europe's mail market in 2009. A fourth union is expected to sign sign today. While La Poste is losing its monopoly, it also faces a shrinking market, eroded by growth of e-mail and electronic payment systems. Its financial and technological performance is lagging behind leading European competitors, Deutsche Post and Netherlands' TPG. The agreement was unions aims to boost postal workers' morale and reduce job uncertainty.
• Postage stamp prices must go up to ease Royal Mail's financial problems, Adam Crozier, chief executive of the state-owned group, said yesterday. Postcomm, the postal regulator, will start talks with Royal Mail on price controls next year. Mr. Crozier said the regulator should give royal mail more freedom to set prices in return for accepting competition.

November 4, 2004 -- According to Bloomberg, "Deutsche Post AG, Europe's biggest postal service, said nine-month profit rose 2.4%, leading the company to plan a 14% increase in the dividend. Net income rose by Ç890 million ($1.14 billion), or 80 euro cents a share, from Ç869 million, or 78 center, a year earlier. Profit was less than the Ç894 million median estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg news."

November 4, 2004 -- Xinhua has reported that "the Thai parliament has approved an agreement with the Asia Pacific Postal Union (APPU) on the setting up of the APPU's headquarters in the kingdom."

November 4, 2004 -- CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal) has reported that:

• The EU commission could hardly have chosen a more inconvenient time for its request: in the middle of sales negotiations for 25% of post-Denmark's shares, the Brussels competition authorities sent for Danish government of the so-called 'information request', asking for clarification of the issue of advertising matter distribution.
• According to the German market and meeting a trade journal 'Horizont', negotiations between EP-Europost and leading German publishers concerning the creation of an alternative mail network appear to have broken down.
• Next year, the South Korean Post will launch a so-called ubiquitous robotic companion in 200 post offices. Approximately 5-feet tall, this intelligent mail robot will act as a 24-hour post office security guard and, equipped with netting, catch possible intruders. It's a female counterpart will act as a hostess, looking after an entertaining customers.
• Competitors of Czech Post could encounter serious difficulties in the future should the Czech parliament to vote in favor of an amendment to the postal act. The motion suggests that competitor should pay a minimum postage of around 60 euro cents for addressed mail weighing less than 100 grams; the check post charges approximately 21 euro cents for this mail category.
• GeoPost, subsidiary of the French La Poste, announced the acquisition of 25% of DPD Austria at the end of this year.
• GeoPost carried out a further acquisition and Portugal in June this year, when GeoPost subsidiary Chronopost International Portugal bought DPP Transporte de Pacotes (Portugal) Lda.
• Germany's Hermes Logistik Gruppe intends to get considerable market shares off Deutsche Post.
• Last week the mediating committee acting between the German parliament and Federal Council agreed that mail-order firms operating in Germany should be entitled to charge customers for costs in connection with return goods. The mediating committee's compromise regulation is aimed at curbing misused by individual customers. The Association of German mail-order traders stated that the rate of returned goods had now reached almost 34%, with 40% of the goods being returned by 10% of the customers.
• DHL Iberia has become one of the leading operators on the peninsula.

Don't be satisfied with a less than complete report on the courier, express, and postal market in Europe. Get your subscription to CEP News, today..

November 4, 2004 -- The New Nation (Bangladesh) has reported that "The Post is no longer the same service dispenser that it had been for well over a hundred years. Its exclusive monopoly over letters is gone, written messages and printed materials pass through sophisticated electronic devices rather than snail mail, money transfer and savings are more a job of countless banks than sparse post offices. Aggressive competitors have chiseled off substantial portions of its traditional art and activity. The World Post Day each October 9 spells out the same uncanny message - wake up and take up the gauntlet to survive, or perish. 'This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but whimper'- wrote -T.S. Eliot. Is the great institution really heading for a whimpering death?"

November 4, 2004 -- From the Business Wire: "AuthentiDate International, AG, a subsidiary of AuthentiDate Holding Corp., has signed an agreement with MIAG C.V., the central payment-processing subsidiary of the METRO Group. Under this agreement, MIAG is using the AuthentiDate eBilling signature solution in an initial project under a world-wide master agreement for digital signature solutions, such as electronic distribution of digital invoices for collection. Up to now, paper invoices had to be sent through postal organizations to allow input-tax deduction by their recipients. Electronic invoices can now be signed in compliance with existing laws using the AuthentiDate signature solution, and satisfy the requirements of the VAT law. Accordingly, additional paper invoices are no longer necessary. The implemented solution provides high potential savings for the METRO Group, as well as simplifies and saves resources for the invoice recipients."

November 4, 2004 -- Information Week has reported that "Despite the growing acceptance of open-source software, not all companies are willing to entrust their operations to a community of strangers. Open-source software's collaborative model resonates with United Parcel Service Inc. as the company looks to build a services-oriented architecture where applications can be developed in one part of the company and deployed in multiple locations. But Nick Gray, UPS's applications manager for architectural services, sees the open-source developer community as a less-stable incarnation of the collaborative programming that IT departments have been doing for years."

November 4, 2004 -- Nikkei Interactive has reported that "The [Japanese] government has decided to finalize its postal services privatization policy outline on Dec. 22. The government says that the outline needs to be released within this year to meet its timetable of submitting postal privatization bills to the Diet in March."

November 3, 2004 -- From the Business Wire, "HP and Lockheed Martin has announced a strategic global alliance to drive new business opportunities for both companies around the world. HP and Lockheed Martin share a long history of cooperation on major U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), intelligence and civilian agency programs. In the past three years alone, the companies have partnered on more than $500 million worth of business, including programs in the United States such as the FBI's national Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the DoD's Defense Civilian Personnel Data System, and the Postal Service's Integrated Data System. The formal alliance will enable HP and Lockheed Martin to further build upon each other's strengths by optimizing technologies, solutions, key personnel and product plans to create world-class solutions for customers and growth opportunities for both companies on a sustained basis."

November 3, 2004 -- According to postal commentator Gene Del Polito, "The suspense of the past months is over. The election's done, and we all know that George W. Bush will be in the White House for the next four years, and he'll have a Republican Congress right there along with him. So, it's time we within the mailing industry sent the White House and Congress a clear, definitive message: "It's time to get real about avoiding an unnecessarily high postal rate increase that can and will do substantive harm to a key sector of the American economy."

November 3, 2004 -- According to one DMNews columnist, "Fast, cost-effective and easy to test, e-mail has long since proven an essential part of the marketing package. In the 10 years since commercially produced e-mail marketing software became widely available, marketers have embraced e-mail as a powerful tool not only to promote products and services, but also to build brand equity and one-to-one customer relationships. Despite its advantages, however, e-mail's merits still are often held up to those of direct mail as if the two methods were in competition. Studies and reports compare the campaign metrics of each medium. Experts weigh in on one side of the fence or the other based on the latest batch of quarterly data and complex industry trends. Yet most real-world marketers have never viewed e-mail and direct mail as an either-or proposition. After more than 10 years of using both methods to drive sales, some have uncovered a series of powerful affinities between the two."

November 3, 2004 -- Bloomberg has reported that "Deutsche Post AG, Europe's biggest postal service, tomorrow may report its lowest quarterly profit in more than a year, buffeted by the costs of acquiring DHL and Airborne Express delivery services in the U.S. Net income at Bonn-based Deutsche Post probably fell 21 percent to 173 million euros ($220 million) in the third quarter, from 219 million euros a year earlier, according to the median estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales rose 10 percent to 10.7 billion euros, according to the survey."

November 3, 2004 -- From the Federal Register: The U.S. Postal Service has published a "final rule that deletes International Mail Manual (IMM) 292.212, 292.213, and 293.75, which authorized mailers who spent $2 million or more combined on International Priority Airmail (IPA) and International Surface Air Lift (ISAL) in the preceding Postal Service fiscal year to receive discounted postage rates. Effective Date: November 3, 2004"

November 3, 2004 -- The Telegraph (U.K.) has reported that "Nigel Stapleton, the chairman of Postcomm, yesterday accused Royal Mail of returning to profit at the expense of customer service. "Royal Mail has missed all its service targets for last year and the first quarter of this year," he said. "That is effectively a covert price increase and suggests competition should be speeded up." Mr Stapleton, who became chief executive of Postcomm earlier this year, is attempting to bring forward full competition in postal services by 15 months to January 1 2006. Royal Mail has a monopoly on letters costing under ú1 to post, although the bulk mail sector has already been partly opened up. Postcomm is hoping that more companies will enter the market."

November 3, 2004 -- The DM Bulletin (U.K.) has reported that "The [British] Post Office is to launch its own flower delivery service and has struck a separate distribution deal with Argos for Christmas. Post Office Flowers, which launches today, will enter a market worth ú1.55bn in the UK. The Post Office claims the service, which will be available through its 16,000 branches, will have the "widest geographical spread for a delivery business", as rival Interflora's delivery network covers only 1,400 independent florists. The flowers can be ordered in-store, online or by phone and will be sent by post or Parcelforce."

November 3, 2004 -- The New York Post has reported that "Federal bureaucrats are sitting on more than $10 million raised over the past 21/2 years through the sale of "Heroes" postal stamps for families of rescuers killed or permanently disabled on 9/11, The Post has learned. The U.S. Postal Service has raked in $10.2 million for the cause by selling the 45-cent stamps ù including an 11-cent surcharge ù since June 2002. Americans have snapped up more than 128 million of the stamps ù which feature the famous photo of three firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero ù to help the families of the fallen heroes. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was put in charge of the money, hasn't doled out a dime ù and still has no plan to distribute the funds, officials said."

November 3, 2004 -- Ad Age has reported that "When the behemoth U.S. Postal Service found out that a young rock band had named itself "Postal Service," executives weren't happy. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to the band's label, Seattle-based independent Sub Pop Records. But what began as an argument over name rights turned into the mail-delivering institution's first cross-promotional music deal."

November 3, 2004 -- Federal Computer Week has reported that "International Association of Privacy Professionals officials have selected the U.S. Postal Service to receive the group's 2004 privacy innovation award. The award, announced today, recognizes government and nonprofit agencies that have developed innovative technologies and policies for protecting personal data. Zoe Strickland, USPS' chief privacy officer, was cited for her role in developing the Postal Service's privacy impact assessment tool. The tool consists of a 21-page questionnaire that postal officials must complete for every information system from which USPS officials can retrieve employee or customer information by name or other unique identifier. USPS officials have completed privacy impact assessments on 270 systems." See also GovExec.com and PR Newswire.

November 3, 2004 -- As the Washington Post has noted, "There is a lot of that going on at the nation's busiest port these days, as a glut of imports from Asia, a shortage of dockworkers and breakdowns in the harbor's infrastructure have created a tangled backlog in the midst of the peak holiday season."

November 3, 2004 -- According to the Wall Street Journal, "Someday you may be able to get the latest Harry Potter novel the day it comes out, without leaving your house. You will just plug a blank book into your computer, make an online payment and watch as the pages magically fill up with Harry Potter's latest adventures. The whole transaction will take minutes and the book will look like any other on your shelf."

November 3, 2004 -- The Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that "The postal regulator has threatened disciplinary action against Royal Mail, including the forced break-up of the group, if it uses anti-competitive practices to resist liberalisation in the market. Royal Mail's 300-year-old monopoly on delivering letters ended this year when private sector rivals including UK Mail, TNT Mail and Deutsche Post launched services for business customers. The postal market is due to be fully liberalised by 2006."

November 3, 2004 -- According to The Guardian (U.K.), "Take a nationwide network of outlets in prime locations, selling an internationally renowned brand, as well as a collection of essential products and a near monopoly in some services. Add in name recognition beyond an advertising agency's wildest fancy and a captive customer base - it adds up to a retailer's dream, the sort of thing that would make hardened entrepreneurs such as Philip Green drool with excitement. Yet the Post Office has consistently failed in recent years to capitalise on those natural advantages. That is why many people may have been concerned, but few surprised, at yesterday's reports that the Post Office is considering closing or selling off up to half of its directly managed outlets."

November 3, 2004 -- The Evening Herald (U.K.) has reported that "Workers at a Plymouth parcel depot are said to be considering industrial action during the Christmas rush over plans to relocate operations to Bodmin and Exeter. But bosses and unions at the Roborough-based Parcelforce say that there are no plans as yet for the action to go-ahead."

November 3, 2004 -- The Journal of Commerce has reported that "World Airways and Menlo Worldwide Forwarding [a unit of UPS] announced plans to operate a weekly charter air cargo flight to and from Menlo's air-cargo hub in Dayton, Ohio and Shanghai Pudong Airport. The flight, recently approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Civil Aviation Administration of China, makes Menlo -- acquired by United Parcel Service in October from parent CNF -- one of the first air freight forwarders to fly dedicated lift to and from the Shanghai market. The approval comes under the U.S.-China aviation agreement signed earlier this year."

November 3, 2004 -- Traffic World has reported that "FedEx is moving into UPS's European back yard. FedEx says it will fly five MD-11 freighter flights from Memphis to Cologne, the German airport where UPS bases its European hub operations. The flights, slated to start in March, will bypass existing sorting operations in the United Kingdom and at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. The Cologne/Bonn Airport is in the heart of Germany's industrial region but it also has relatively strict noise restrictions, which helped push TNT to nearby Liege, Belgium, for its European hub operations a few years ago."

November 3, 2004 -- According to Air Cargo World, "UPS may be a dominant express carrier in the United States, but the company is depending on international business for its growth."

November 3, 2004 -- In an interview with Business Week, "Andrew M. Langer, the NFIB's regulatory-policy manager, contends that President Bush's continued focus on tax cuts and health-care plans will result in more hiring over the next four years."

November 2, 2004 -- The Scotsman (U.K.) has reported that "The failure of the Royal Mail to meet its delivery targets suggests that competition should be speeded up to give customers more choice, the head of the industry's regulator said today. Nigel Stapleton, chairman of Postcomm, said the Royal Mail's recent return to profit had been at the expense of customer service."

November 2, 2004 -- MTAC has formed a new workgroup # 91 titled, Alternative Packaging Materials for Parcels, to work on the packaging issues brought up by the federal register proposing changes to Packaging Standards and General Mailibility, CFR Vol 69 No. 38, 8899-8905 dated February 26, 2004. The issues include requiring that all printed matter parcels such as "Firm" BPM machinable parcels be enclosed in boxes if over 3 pounds and an increase from the minimum weight of plastic wrap used on parcels from 1.75 to 2 mil. The workgroup issue statement is as follows: "The purpose of the workgroup is to evaluate the feasibility of allowing the preparation of various banded and/or shrinkwrapped parcels consisting of printed materials to be mailed as machinable parcels. The primary categories of mail that this has been requested for is Bound Printed Matter parcles and firm bundles of Periodicals publications. In the former case, some mailers are proposing to substitue plastic or shrink wrap packaging for fiberboard boxes. The standards currently allow for shrink wrap bundles (whether firm bundles or other presort levels). The current standards pertaining to packaging parcels are different from those regarding securing bundles." PostCom members who are interested in joining this MTAC workgroup should contact marjann.caldwell@quebecorworl d.com or Beuclide@perryjudds.com.

November 2, 2004 -- PostCom member BearingPoint, a McLean systems integration company, was one of four companies awarded a contract by the Government Printing Office to develop and test an electronic passport. The passport will contain an embedded contactless integrated circuit with an antenna, which is expected to enhance the security of the passport and facilitate the movement of travelers at ports of entry. The passports will electronically store all of the data currently found on the data page of the U.S. passport, including a digital facial image and biographical data. BearingPoint will submit a number of prototype ePassports over the next few months for testing. The initial contract is worth $83,000.

November 2, 2004 -- News without comment. The Wash ington Post has reported that "Federal lobbyists have a clear preference who they want to win election to the Senate: the people who are already there."

November 2, 2004 -- According to KCRG-TV, "Candidates are having no trouble when it comes to filling your mailbox but the letter carriers sure are. In some cases you may have noticed your mail arriving late for the last two weeks. The postal service now handles up to three times the amount of daily mail all because of politics."

November 2, 2004 -- The Financial Times (U.K.) has reported that:

• The U.K. Post Office played down speculation that half of the 560 directly owned, high street post offices could close and said relocation and franchising would help to stem the network's losses.
• Priv atisation of Japan's postal service could be delayed two years by the technical difficulties of developing a new computer system needed to split the business into four units.

November 2, 2004 -- Time has reported that UPS "is rapidly expanding into something called supply-chain management, helping hundreds of clients like Royal Canin not only move products from place to place but also store, assemble and repair goods, even interact with customers, all without the client company's having to get involved. Such insourcing of clients' operations ù work that traditionally was done in-house or was farmed out to dozens of different suppliers, shippers, customs clearers and technology experts ù is one of UPS's fastest-growing businesses."

November 2, 2004 -- Dow Jones has reported that "Yamato Transport Co. will begin a new international mail delivery service in collaboration with Deutsche Post AG starting November in Japan. According to the agreement between the two companies, Yamato will deliver in Japan magazines, catalogues and other items which Deutsche Post collects overseas. See also the Kyodo news service.

November 2, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "Governor Edward G. Rendell today established an account with DHL, the international express shipping company, to facilitate the speedy return of completed absentee ballots for military personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait. These voters can utilize DHL's services, which will be charged to the Commonwealth, to return their completed absentee ballots to their county boards of election by the extended deadline, November 10, 2004."

November 2, 2004 -- The Canadian National Association of Major Mail Users(NAMMU) has reported that:

• Canada Post will recommend no change to the rates and conditions proposed for International Lettermail in the June 26th Canada Gazette.
• The dramatic drop to 30 per cent “opt out” in August due to the clear wording and one checkbox format on the new application form, from the 70 per cent highs of the previous two years, was followed by an additional, smaller decline in September. Until the old application form inventory is depleted, there will probably be a steady, small decline each month.
• Over 40 invited guests had an important “lunch and learn” session courtesy of npg Envelope on October 28th. The topic was MERLIN – and while (thankfully) this wizard will not be coming to Canada in the foreseeable future, the USPS new automated mail verification system is important for many of the attendees who mail in the United States.
• The recent appointment of Gordon Feeney as Chairman of The Board, has fuelled questions concerning the likely final appointment for role of President, Canada Post Corporation. Anne Joynt was appointed as President after the suspension with pay, followed by the resignation, of the Honourable Andre Ouellet. Sources confirm a search committee is evaluating candidates, but no date is given for a decision.

November 2, 2004 -- From the Federal Register: The U.S. Postal Service has published a "final rule that sets forth the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) standards adopted by the Postal Service to implement the Priority Mail flat-rate box experiment pursuant to the October 27, 2004, Decision of the Governors of the Postal Service approving the Recommend Decision of the Postal Rate Commission in its Docket No. MC2004-2. The recommended decision is based on the Stipulation and Agreement that represented a negotiated settlement of the issues in that docket."

November 2, 2004 -- According to The Independent (U.K.), "The Royal Mail can scarcely do with the kind of headlines it got yesterday morning, warning that it planned to shut down half the country's main post offices and turn them into posh hotels. In the last three years, the organisation has suffered a calamitous loss of public confidence, starting with the ill-fated but short-lived name change to Consignia and culminating in a truly shocking Channel 4 Dispatches programme showing mail being dumped and allegedly stolen from the system. Anecdotal evidence suggests that its reputation and standing have never been at a lower ebb."

November 2, 2004 -- According to The Guardian:

• Take a nationwide network of outlets in prime locations, selling an internationally renowned brand, as well as a collection of essential products and a near monopoly in some services. Add in name recognition beyond an advertising agency's wildest fancy and a captive customer base -it adds up to a retailer's dream, the sort of thing that would make hardened entrepreneurs such as Philip Green drool with excitement. Yet the Post Office has consistently failed in recent years to capitalise on those natural advantages. That is why many people may have been concerned, but few surprised, at yesterday's reports that the Post Office is considering closing or selling off up to half of its directly managed outlets.
• The British government was urged yesterday to bail out the Royal Mail's 560-strong network of directly managed high street post offices amid reports that it was preparing to sell or close up to half.

November 2, 2004 -- GovExec.com has reported that:

• George Gould, political director for the National Association of Letter Carriers, said President Bush stood in the way of long-sought legislation that would allow the U.S. Postal Service to raise prices more easily and compete on an even footing with private sector delivery companies. Gould expects voter turnout will be as much as 15 percent higher than it was in 2000 and that new voters could play a decisive role. As a result, the letter carriers have put extra effort into identifying new voters, registering them and contacting them repeatedly to urge them to go to the polls. More than 100 Letter Carriers' activists have taken time off from work to help identify Kerry supporters and convince them to vote. The union also employs seven staffers that it has deployed to presidential battleground states and those with close Senate or House campaigns.
• Postmasters' incentive pay - the amount they earn above their base salary for exceptional performance - will soon be subject to slightly different standards. The new rules, which will be released by the end of the year, will likely put less emphasis on factors that are outside of postmasters' control.

November 1, 2004 -- According to postal commentator Todd Butler, "The Pony Express rode into oblivion in late October 1861. It was replaced by high-speed communicationsà the telegraph. The Pony Express was too slow and costly, compared to its on-line competitor, to deliver value to its customers. Eric Hadley, director of marketing at MSN, has stated that "of all the media options available to marketers today, online offers the richest palette for reaching consumers with sight, sound, motion and interactivity, combined with high-end demographics..." Obviously our on-line competitors see little relevance in ink on paper advertising or any value in hardcopy delivery. They see the United States Postal Service as too slow and costly, unable to deliver the media options relevant to today's markets."

November 1, 2004 -- The Journal of Commerce has reported that "FedEx Corp. will boost its trans-Atlantic shipping capacity by 20 percent, signaling its optimism in European economic growth and the flow of trade between North America and the European Union, FedEx executives told Monday's Wall Street Journal. The expansion, scheduled for March, comes on top of a significant growth of FedEx's European operations. FedEx Express, the world's largest express-package carrier, has added 21 distribution points and numerous new flights within Europe over the past year. FedEx's expansion of capacity offers another sign of strength in the express-delivery market that also is benefiting its competitors."

November 1, 2004 -- Me diaWeek (U.K.) has reported that "The Royal Mail is to offer advice to magazine publishers on to best methods to reduce postage costs, improve delivery times and maintain mailing lists of publications."

November 1, 2004 -- MSNBC has reported that "John Botti, the founder of AuthentiDate Holding Corp. has resigned as CEO effective Nov. 15. He will remain chairman of the company, which develops authentication technology for electronic documents. advertisement Suren Pai, 41, will be the company's new CEO and also become its president. Last year, Botti secured deals with Microsoft and the U.S. Postal Service to use AuthntiDate's e-postmark, but the company has struggled."

November 1, 2004 -- PostCom would like to welcome its newest members: BCC Software, Inc. Rochester, NY 14623-3438 represented by Mr. Ted Seward Vice President of Marketing.

November 1, 2004 -- As the BBC has noted, "News that the Royal Mail may get rid of some of its biggest post offices has thrown the spotlight once again on the company's efforts to prepare for the full deregulation of the postal services market. Royal Mail is weighing up plans to dispose of half of the 560 post offices that it runs directly, most of them based in large High Street premises. If the strategy goes ahead, a number of post offices will either be moved to less costly sites or franchised to independent operators. Closures are also on the cards, the Royal Mail said."

November 1, 2004 -- According to icNetwork, "Calls have been made to stop half of all high street post offices being closed or sold off under plans being considered by the Royal Mail."

November 1, 2004 -- Traffic World has reported that "The 20-percent boost in profits UPS reported in the quarter was almost large enough to hide deep changes the parcel giant is seeing in its core business. Surging international volumes, especially in Asia, spurred much of the gain while domestic business sputtered, with deferred and next-day air service volumes down for the quarter. The company insists the decline is temporary and that a rebound in domestic volume is just a quarter away. But coupled with similar reports from rival FedEx, the sagging expedited shipping in the midst of a national economic recovery has some analysts saying that rising costs and competing trucking services are bringing more business down to the ground."

November 1, 2004 -- The Journal of Commerce has reported that "DHL workers took to the streets of Brussels Friday to protest planned job cuts at the firm's Belgian hub. They were joined by postal workers and staff of auto maker Volkswagen, bringing the number of demonstrators to several thousand. DHL unions are demanding that Belgian jobs be guaranteed after 2008. DHL said the company will expand its existing U.S. headquarters in Florida over the next three years, retaining 650 jobs and creating 600 new, high-wage jobs. The new jobs at Plantation include corporate officers, senior managers, and marketing, finance, human resource and administrative positions."

November 1, 2004 -- According to Die Welt, "German mail order group Otto is rumoured to be planning to sell a 75 per cent stake in its banking subsidiary Hanseatic Bank to Societe Generale, the French financial services group. Hanseatic Bank is Germany's fourth largest consumer loan specialist. Otto recently revealed that it would launch a third general catalogue for the summer in Germany next year. Until now, the group has always distributed two general mail order catalogues per year. The group is still defying the negative trend on Germany's mail order market and the country's consumer slump in general, while its domestic competitors Quelle and Neckermann are struggling. The group's logistics subsidiary Hermes is also performing well, competing ever more fiercely with Deutsche Post, Germany's leading postal service operator."

November 1, 2004 -- The Louisville Courier-Journal has reported that "UPS plans to spend about $31million to establish a 500,000-square-foot center in Louisville to store and distribute health-care products. The project was one of four health-care-related economic development projects awarded tax incentives yesterday by the state."

November 1, 2004 -- The N orway Post has reported that "The Norwegian Postal Service (Posten) will cut its workforce by 1600 man-years next year. Around 50 per cent of all the letter and parcel terminals will be closed down. Many of those who will become redundant have more than 25 years of service with the postal service, and will have small chances for finding new jobs."

November 1, 2004 -- As DM News has noted:

• The U.S. Postal Service published a final rule in the Federal Register last week that clarifies the circumstances in which mail containing personal information may be eligible for Standard rather than First-Class rates. Mailers offered mixed reaction to the ruling.
• Experian relaunched its National Business Database of 16 million U.S. businesses last month with added features to help minimize risk associated with marketing to small businesses.

November 1, 2004 --The latest update on the Mail and Jobs Coalition's activities has been posted on this site.

November 1, 2004 -- From the PR Newswire: "With elections only two days away, the United States Postal Service is geared up for last minute delivery of millions of pieces of campaign literature to voters throughout the nation on Monday. Deliveries tomorrow will also include absentee ballots for thousands of voters unable to vote in person. In some locations -- including Florida's Broward and Palm Beach Counties --election officials mailed some 8,000 absentee ballots as late as Saturday evening. In those areas, local postal officials are encouraging voters to complete and return their ballots as early as possible on Monday so that they are in the mailstream in time for delivery to county election boards on Tuesday. While most of these ballots were for local delivery, some were sent to voters in distant states."

November 1, 2004 -- The Times (U.K.) has reported that "Royal Mail is preparing to close or sell up to half its high street post offices as part of a sweeping restructuring, The Times has learnt. The company operates 560 Crown offices but is planning to shut between 240 to 270 in a move that would leave hundreds of thousands of people without easy access to basic services."