The Postal Service, Microsoft and a technology company called Authentidate have developed a system called Electronic Postmark for verifying that a document’s content is the same as when a user saved it. The service, introduced in October, is in some ways more a notary public’s stamp than a postmark, intended particularly for those affixing their electronic signatures to documents relayed online.
Read MoreTPG NV have said Dutch minister for Economic Affairs Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst’s proposal for a price freeze until 2007 on mandatory postal services which were previously subject to price control is disappointing and unnecessary.
TPG CEO Peter Bakker said that a price freeze for the next three years is ‘unnecessary’. ‘There is no reason whatsoever to revise the price control system which worked well in the past and led to extremely low postal rates for the consumer… Over a period of twelve years, corrected for inflation, the price of a postage stamp has decreased by 30 pct.’
Read MoreThe Swedish postal services company Posten AB have announced it will reduce the number of administrative staff by 250 before the summer.
The job cuts are part of a comprehensive reorganisation of Posten’s operations initiated in 2003 and are to be effected within the central administration.
Read MoreThe BiH Federation Government set at a session held in Sarajevo a draft law on postal services and forwarded it to the FBiH Parliament, the Government’s Information Service said in a press release.
Considering that the postal services have been regulated by and carried out in accordance with provisions of the law on postal services, which has been taken over from the ex-Yugoslavia, it is necessary to regulate this sector by a new FBiH act.
Read MoreTrade union chiefs have vowed to oppose planned job losses at the Royal Mail sorting office in Belfast after it emerged that up to 150 jobs are at risk.
Staff were called in by managers yesterday and told that changes were planned in the way undeliverable mail was to be treated, and jobs must go. The job losses are planned following a recent Royal Mail review which found that the handling of undeliverable, return to sender and forwarded mail at the National Return Letter Centre in Tomb Street currently costs the company GBP10m each year.
A Royal Mail spokesman confirmed that staff numbers would be cut as part of a review of procedures at the centre.
The Dutch government has offered to fully liberalize its postal services by 2007, two years ahead of the EU timetable, provided that Britain and Germany do so too.
“The economy ministry wishes to completely open the postal service in the Netherlands to competition by 2007 on condition that Germany and Britain also open their markets by that date,” minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst said in a statement. The Dutch cabinet is to study the proposal before sending a report to parliament.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has set 2009 as the target for the 15 members of the European Union to open their mail services to competition.
Read MoreA national alliance of nearly 200 Mail Boxes Etc. stores, under the auspices of a nonprofit support and advocacy group called the Platinum Shield Association, are now locked in two California lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court with parent company United Parcel Service-Mail Boxes Etc. The plaintiffs in the current lawsuit are a group of storeowners who refused to convert to UPS stores and contend that UPS used high-pressure and questionable sales tactics on storeowners to sign the Gold Shield Program contract. Plaintiffs also claim that UPS pressured thousands of Mail Boxes Etc. franchisees to become UPS stores under contracts that are in violation of franchise laws, because they lacked appropriate and adequate disclosure information.
Read MoreThailand’s new international airport risks losing out on the opportunity to become a regional hub for air freight unless it establishes express cargo facilities, industry executives warn. The express warehouse and custom-free zone planned for Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi international airport will be about half a mile from the airside area with space of 1.5 million square feet, against 2.1 million at the current Dong Muang airport.
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