Newark CBP Returns Stolen Artifacts to Pakistan

Customs and immigration officials have returned several ancient artifacts to the government of Pakistan nearly a year and a half after they were discovered at Port Newark.

Experts determined that the artifacts, one of which dated to the second century BC, were stolen from a site in northern Pakistan.

They arrived in Newark in Sept 2005 in two shipments in which the shipper had misrepresented the country of origin, officials said on Tuesday.

The person to whom the shipments were addressed in the US did not pick them up and has not been detained, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Michael Gilhooly.

Customs officials are cooperating with Pakistani officials investigating the thefts. The artifacts were shipped from the United Arab Emirates and declared as decorative items. A routine search of the containers was conducted to make sure the items matched what was on the shipping manifest, Gilhooly said.

Among the items recovered was a rare cup from the second century BC and a statue of a starving Buddha that is one of two ever found, officials said.

N.Y. Port Authority to Buy Stewart Airport

The New York area`s airport operator will vote to buy the lease to operate Stewart International Airport north of the city, a report said Wednesday night.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey`s board will vote Thursday to buy the lease from Britain`s National Express Corp. for $78.5 million, the Mid-Hudson News Service reported.

The Port Authority -- which operates Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International airports -- expects to close on the lease purchase by October.

The purchase is intended to relieve air traffic and airport overcrowding in the New York metropolitan area.

New York state has legislation to permit the transaction. New Jersey would have to adopt similar legislation, which is not expected to be an issue, the news service said.

The Port Authority earlier set aside $150 million to develop a fourth passenger airport to serve the New York metropolitan region, and singled out Stewart -- 55 miles north of New York City in Newburgh, N.Y. -- as the fourth airport`s most likely site.

Area Ports Putting More Cargo on Trains

Anyone sandwiched between two trucks in bumper-to-bumper traffic on northern New Jersey highways might find this hard to believe.

But a growing number of cargo containers from Port Newark and Port Elizabeth are heading out from the docks on trains instead of on trucks, according to statistics released yesterday.

Under the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's ExpressRail program, freight trains handled 338,882 cargo containers from the ports last year, a 11.8 percent increase.

Read the full NJ Star-Ledger story here.

Canadians Acquire Global

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has bought Global Terminal & Container Systems, Inc., at Port Jersey Boulevard, of Jersey City and Bayonne, along with the New York Container Terminal (formerly known as Howland Hook) in Staten Island and two marine container terminals in Vancouver for $2.4 billion.

Read the full NJ Star-Ledger story here.

Battle of Red Hook Pivots On Cargo and Cruise Ships

Just a couple of years ago, the container port in Red Hook, Brooklyn, looked doomed.

It was doing less than 1 percent of the Port Authority’s business. Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff wanted to replace its orange cranes with cruise ships. And real-estate developers were gnawing at the edges, trying to convert onetime warehouses into market-rate condos with splendid views.

But fierce reactions from neighbors and politicians who want to hold tightly to the “working waterfront” of Red Hook’s storied past spurred the city’s Economic Development Corporation to temper this condos-and-cruise-ship formula.

Read the full NY Observer story here.

Port Authority: AirTrain Has Record Year

The Port Authority says four million people rode the AirTrain to the airport last year, an increase of 15 percent from 2005.

The AirTrain at Newark Liberty Airport also had the busiest year in its short history, taking on eight percent more passengers than in 2005

NTEU Closer to Representing Customs and Border Workers

One of the largest union elections ever conducted inside the government has moved a step closer to resolution.

The Washington regional director of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, in a decision issued late Wednesday, said the National Treasury Employees Union should be certified to represent about 30,000 workers in Customs and Border Protection, a major bureau in the Homeland Security Department.

NTEU defeated the American Federation of Government Employees last June -- 7,349 to 3,426 -- for the right to represent the employees. AFGE filed objections to the election, but a review conducted by Robert P. Hunter, the Washington FLRA regional director, found no merit to the claims.

Read the full story here.

H.R. 1 Passes House

Congressional approval last night of H.R. 1 putting Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees on the same footing as other federal employees was welcomed by NTEU.

H.R. 1 is a broad package of legislation implementing many recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and includes language requiring that TSA employees have the same employment rights, including collective bargaining, as other federal employees. The legislation terminates the current personnel system and gives the DHS Secretary the option of moving TSA employees to one of the personnel management systems currently in place for other federal employees.

The bill contains a number of other provisions, including language requiring screening of all cargo coming into the United States. This provision could prove beneficial in securing additional personnel for Customs and Border Protection

CBP employees have full collective bargaining rights in the first place thanks to NTEU’s successful efforts in federal court in defeating regulations advanced by DHS and the Office of Personnel Management that would have severely restricted not only collective bargaining rights, but their due process and appeal rights as well.

Silverjet to Begin Daily Flights from EWR to Luton, UK

Silverjet will begin daily flights later this month from Newark Liberty International Airport to Luton Airport outside of London. Silverjet's fleet of Boeing 767s will be configured with 100 seats.

Read the full story here.

Bush Recess Appointment to Labor Board Draws Fire

President Bush's decision last month to grant a recess appointment to a Republican lawyer to sit on the governing body for federal labor-management disputes is drawing criticism.

Bush's decision leaves a Democratic slot on the panel unfilled.

But with Bush's Dec. 20 appointment of Wayne Beyer, a former administrative appeals judge at the Labor Department with a law degree from Georgetown University, FLRA is set to rule with two Republicans and no Democrats. Carol Pope, the only Democrat on FLRA, completed her five-year term at the end of the 109th congressional session.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, one of the largest federal unions in FLRA's jurisdiction, said she wanted the president to reappoint Pope.

"While NTEU is not advancing substantive objections to the Beyer nomination," Kelley said, "the union will oppose his confirmation to a full term as an FLRA member so long as the president continues to ignore his statutory responsibility to nominate a Democrat to this body."

Beyer joins Dale Cabaniss, former chief counsel for the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on the Civil Service under Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. Cabaniss was confirmed by the Senate in October 2003.

Beyer's recess appointment will last one year, at which point he will need Senate confirmation.