Amazon Refunds Shipping as UPS Misses Some Christmas Deliveries

Amazon.com Inc., the largest online retailer, offered $ 20 gift cards and refunds on shipping charges after United Parcel Service Inc. said overwhelming volume left it unable to deliver some packages by Christmas.

Amazon cited failures in UPS’s transportation network in messages to customers, saying its own fulfillment centers processed customers’ orders in time for holiday delivery.

“We are reviewing the performance of the delivery carriers,” Mary Osako, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in an e- mail.

UPS, the world’s largest package-delivery company, said in a service update on its website that the volume of air packages exceeded its capacity immediately preceding Christmas.

“UPS is not making pickups or deliveries on Christmas Day and will resume normally scheduled service on December 26,” it said in the update.

U.S. online holiday retail sales were projected to climb 15 percent to a record of more than $ 78 billion by Forrester Research Inc. in a report published last month.

UPS expected to ship more than 132 million parcels globally during the week before Christmas, according to the cover story for subscribers to Bloomberg Businessweek in its Dec. 23 issue.

Spokesman David Tovar of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Jen Johnson of Kohl’s Corp. didn’t immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment on the Christmas holiday. Johnna Hoff of EBay Inc., Kathleen Waugh of Toys “R” Us Inc. and Laura Jones of Zulily Inc. didn’t immediately respond to e-mails and calls seeking comment. An e-mail to UPS’s public-relations department and a call to Natalie Black, a spokeswoman, weren’t immediately returned.

UPS, FedEx

UPS has long dominated the holiday shipping business in the U.S. because of its fleet of 101,000 signature brown trucks, vans, tractor trailers and motorcycles, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Its rival, Memphis, Tennessee-based FedEx Corp., has more jets though its ground-delivery fleet is less than one- third the size, at about 32,000 vehicles.

In October, UPS and FedEx announced their holiday shipping forecasts. FedEx said it would carry more than 85 million shipments in the first week of December. UPS predicted it would deliver 129 million packages that week, and would see a second holiday rush during the week before Christmas.

UPS added 55,000 part-time holiday workers, leased 23 extra planes and effectively built a second trucking fleet to handle the seasonal package flow, according to the cover story.

© Copyright 2013 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.

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Amazon Refunds Shipping as UPS Misses Some Christmas Deliveries

Doubts Cast Over Reported S-300 Deliveries to Syria

RIA Novosti

16:05 30/05/2013 MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – Reports that Syria’s president had confirmed receiving a consignment of Russian-manufactured S-300 air defense systems emerged Thursday, but were quickly brought into question.

In comments widely reported across the world, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar quoted Syrian President Bashar Assad as saying Damascus had received initial deliveries of the S-300 system.

Assad’s remarks were allegedly made during a pre-recorded interview to be aired on Hezbollah-controlled Almanar television channel on Thursday evening at 10:00 p.m. Moscow time.

But a high-level source at Lebanon-based Almanar, who said he had been present throughout the interview, told RIA Novosti by telephone that at no point did Assad explicitly confirm any S-300 deliveries.

When Assad was asked about the delivery of the anti-missile systems, the source – who requested that his name not be printed – said, the Syrian president replied that “everything we have agreed with Russia will be implemented, and a part of it has been implemented already.”

By Thursday afternoon, the Al Akhbar newspaper, which reported Assad’s comments as an exclusive, appeared to backtrack on the veracity of its story, which also included a statement attributed to Assad that the rest of the S-300 equipment “will arrive soon.”

The Assad quotes were “professionally stolen” through sources at Almanar and any information provided by the television station is more reliable, an Al Akhbar employee told RIA Novosti in a telephone interview, also requesting anonymity.

Documents revealing the existence of an agreement between Russia and Syria to supply the sophisticated S-300 air defense system, which can target ballistic missiles as well as aircraft, were first reported in the Russian press in 2011, but official confirmations have been scant. However, earlier this week Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov mentioned the deal’s existence, according to Russian media, saying a contract for providing Syria with S-300s had been signed “several years ago.”

Reached by telephone Thursday, Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport declined to comment on whether elements of the S-300 system had been successfully delivered to Syria.

The shipment of the S-300s is a source of contention between Moscow and Washington. Last week US Secretary of State John Kerry said the presence of the anti-missile systems in Syria would be “destabilizing” for the region.

Russian officials publicly refuse to confirm or deny the S-300 deliveries, but argue that they would be legal under international law and would help to contain the Syrian conflict.

Steps such as the delivery of S-300s are restraining some “hot heads” from turning the Syrian conflict into an international conflict with the participation of outside forces, Ryabkov said Tuesday.

S-300 missile systems, which are capable of simultaneously tracking up to 100 targets while engaging 12 at a range of up to 200 kilometers and a height of up to 27 kilometers, could dramatically raise the risks of a potential airstrike against Syrian targets.

Israeli jets have reportedly launched attacks on Syria, including the capital Damascus, several times this year. Tel Aviv said recent strikes in May were targeted at weapons being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to Western news agencies.

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Doubts Cast Over Reported S-300 Deliveries to Syria

Doubts Cast Over Reported S-300 Deliveries to Syria

RIA Novosti

16:05 30/05/2013 MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – Reports that Syria’s president had confirmed receiving a consignment of Russian-manufactured S-300 air defense systems emerged Thursday, but were quickly brought into question.

In comments widely reported across the world, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar quoted Syrian President Bashar Assad as saying Damascus had received initial deliveries of the S-300 system.

Assad’s remarks were allegedly made during a pre-recorded interview to be aired on Hezbollah-controlled Almanar television channel on Thursday evening at 10:00 p.m. Moscow time.

But a high-level source at Lebanon-based Almanar, who said he had been present throughout the interview, told RIA Novosti by telephone that at no point did Assad explicitly confirm any S-300 deliveries.

When Assad was asked about the delivery of the anti-missile systems, the source – who requested that his name not be printed – said, the Syrian president replied that “everything we have agreed with Russia will be implemented, and a part of it has been implemented already.”

By Thursday afternoon, the Al Akhbar newspaper, which reported Assad’s comments as an exclusive, appeared to backtrack on the veracity of its story, which also included a statement attributed to Assad that the rest of the S-300 equipment “will arrive soon.”

The Assad quotes were “professionally stolen” through sources at Almanar and any information provided by the television station is more reliable, an Al Akhbar employee told RIA Novosti in a telephone interview, also requesting anonymity.

Documents revealing the existence of an agreement between Russia and Syria to supply the sophisticated S-300 air defense system, which can target ballistic missiles as well as aircraft, were first reported in the Russian press in 2011, but official confirmations have been scant. However, earlier this week Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov mentioned the deal’s existence, according to Russian media, saying a contract for providing Syria with S-300s had been signed “several years ago.”

Reached by telephone Thursday, Russian state-owned arms exporter Rosoboronexport declined to comment on whether elements of the S-300 system had been successfully delivered to Syria.

The shipment of the S-300s is a source of contention between Moscow and Washington. Last week US Secretary of State John Kerry said the presence of the anti-missile systems in Syria would be “destabilizing” for the region.

Russian officials publicly refuse to confirm or deny the S-300 deliveries, but argue that they would be legal under international law and would help to contain the Syrian conflict.

Steps such as the delivery of S-300s are restraining some “hot heads” from turning the Syrian conflict into an international conflict with the participation of outside forces, Ryabkov said Tuesday.

S-300 missile systems, which are capable of simultaneously tracking up to 100 targets while engaging 12 at a range of up to 200 kilometers and a height of up to 27 kilometers, could dramatically raise the risks of a potential airstrike against Syrian targets.

Israeli jets have reportedly launched attacks on Syria, including the capital Damascus, several times this year. Tel Aviv said recent strikes in May were targeted at weapons being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to Western news agencies.

NEWSLETTER

Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list

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Doubts Cast Over Reported S-300 Deliveries to Syria