Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Metro Health Department flip flops on Occupy Nashville citation

Metro Health Department flip flops on Occupy Nashville citation

by S-townMike, enclave-nashville.blogspot.com
November 23rd 2011

First, Metro Nashville cited Occupy Nashville for feeding the homeless and told them to close down their kitchen. Then, according to an ON supporter, Metro Nashville told the local media that their kitchen shouldn't have been cited:
According to [Metro Health] spokesperson Brian Todd, Occupy Nashville can feed anybody they want to, as long as they aren't selling food. He denied that the kitchen had been shut down and compared it all to tailgating for the Titans and said the only issue was whether or not the food was being sold. Since food has never been sold by Occupy Nashville, there should be no problem, right?

Except, Occupy Nashville still has the problem of the official citation, the one with the box checked that reads, "Your permit to operate a food establishment in Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County is suspended effective this date," so today Occupy Nashville representatives tried once again to determine what it all meant and what they could do and not do in order to avoid more citations or even arrests or eviction of the entire occupation. By the end of the day, a curious story would emerge from Metro's Director of Public Food Safety, Todd Crozier.

It seems there should never have been a citation issued in the first place. According to the explanation given to Occupy Nashville today, "somebody, possibly the state of Tennessee," filed a complaint and requested an inspection. The inspector sent was new on the job and wrote the citation based on standing regulations, unaware that Occupy Nashville has been granted an exception to the requirement that they only feed members of their own group.

The blogger goes on to say that she believes the Governor's office is behind the citation, but even if that is true, Metro Nashville officials are still responsible for assigning an inspector and citing the camp. And it looks fishy to me that Metro bureaucrats are responding to these concerns in the news media rather than corresponding with ON directly to fix these problems. Even if Bill Haslam himself filed a complaint, the Metro Department of Health is culpable for following up, including deciding on the front end that the complaint bears no merit and releasing ON instead of leaving them confused, hanging on and holding the citation.

The simplest explanation here is not that Governor Haslam is able to manipulate Metro machinery even to the fine point of sending a noob prone to cite Occupy Nashville. The simplest explanation is that Metro Nashville screwed this inspection up and then launched damage control and spin in the Tennessean. That fits the Dean Administration MO.

However, anyone bent on seeing a conspiracy here should consider the possibility that part of Mayor Karl Dean's aspiration for an-office-higher-than-Mayor may include pinning the rap for his own boner on a Republican administration. Occupy Nashville should avoid the appearance of partisanship by perpetually focusing too exclusively on Bill Haslam when Karl Dean's administration is in play.

Original Page: http://enclave-nashville.blogspot.com/2011/11/metro-health-department-flip-flops-on.html

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Bloodhound gang - The roof is on fire - YouTube

The Bombing of Osage Avenue, Philadelphia - May 13, 1985

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: NASHVILLE, TN - OCCUPY NASHVILLE NOW!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Anti-Police Brutality Speak-Out and Re-Occupation of Evicted Home

160 E Meehan Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19119
Description
Members of the People of Color, Radical Caucus, Legal, Media, Direct Action and other working groups of Occupy Philly (OP) will hold a press conference at 5pm at 160 E. Meehan Avenue on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 to raise awareness of the unlawful and brutal police eviction of the Mason family. The police evicted the Masons without a warrant, attacked and arrested two of Florence Mason’s children, and held them without charges or medical attention for 24 hrs. During this press conference we will continue to help Mrs. Mason in reoccupying her house and in taking the necessary steps to resist further eviction. We will also hold a long list of police officers from the 14th and 35th districts accountable to their actions and demand reparations. While the city government and police currently threatens to forcefully remove the Occupy Philly encampment from City Hall, OP is simultaneously backing up the Mason family in their fight for dignity and justice, both struggles unfolding parallel to each other.

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Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?

Which VPN Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously?

by enigmax, torrentfreak.com
October 7th 2011

Last month it became apparent that not all VPN providers live up to their marketing after an alleged member of Lulzsec was tracked down after using a supposedly anonymous service from HideMyAss. We wanted to know which VPN providers take privacy extremely seriously so we asked many of the leading providers two very straightforward questions. Their responses will be of interest to anyone concerned with anonymity issues.

As detailed in yesterday’s article, if a VPN provider carries logs of their users’ activities the chances of them not being able to live up to their claim of offering an anonymous service begins to decrease rapidly.

There are dozens of VPN providers, many of which carry marketing on their web pages which suggests that the anonymity of their subscribers is a top priority. But is it really? Do their privacy policies stand up to scrutiny? We decided to find out.

Over the past two weeks TorrentFreak contacted some of the leading, most-advertised, and most talked about VPN providers in the file-sharing and anonymity space. Rather than trying to decipher what their often-confusing marketing lingo really means, we asked them two direct questions instead:

1. Do you keep ANY logs which would allow you or a 3rd party to match an IP address and a time stamp to a user of your service? If so, exactly what information do you hold?

2. Under what jurisdictions does your company operate and under what exact circumstances will you share the information you hold with a 3rd party?

This article does not attempt to consider the actual quality of service offered by any listed provider, nor does it consider whether any service is good value for money. All we are interested in is this: Do they live up to claims that they provide a 100% anonymous service? So here we go, VPN providers in the file-sharing space first.

VPN providers marketed strongly in the P2P space

BTguard

Response to Q1: “It’s technically unfeasible for us to maintain log files with the amount of connections we route,” BTguard explain. “We estimate the capacity needed to store log files would be 4TB per day.”

Response to Q2: “The jurisdiction is Canada. Since we do not have log files, we have no information to share. We do not communicate with any third parties. The only event we would even communicate with a third party is if we received a court order. We would then be forced to notify them we have no information. This has not happened yet.”

BTguard website

ItsHidden

Response to Q1: “No logs, they are not kept. Even system logs that do not directly link to users are rotated on an hourly basis.”

Response to Q2: “The company has recently been sold and falls under the Jurisdiction of the Seychelles. As such there is no requirement [to log] within that jurisdiction.”

ItsHidden website

TorrentPrivacy

Response to Q1: “We have connection logs, but we don’t store IP addresses there. These logs are kept for 7 days. Though it’s impossible to determine who exactly have used the service.”

Response to Q2: “We have servers in Netherlands, Sweden and USA while our company is based on Seychelles. We do not disclose any information to 3rd parties and this can be done only in case of a certain lawsuit filed against our company.”

TorrentPrivacy website

Ipredator

Response to Q1: “We don’t store the IP at all actually. It’s in temporary use for the session you have when you’re connected but that’s it. We’ve had very few issues with not having logs, but not keeping them makes it safer even for us since we can’t accidentally give out information about anyone.”

Response to Q2: “We fall – mostly – under Swedish jurisdiction when it comes to the service. When it comes to organisational stuff (who keeps the data, who owns the service, who owns the server, who owns the network etc etc) it’s very mixed, intentionally. This is to make it hard and/or impossible to legally bully us around if that would be the case.”

“We can’t be easily shut down, and we can’t be pressured by courts to implement stuff we would oppose. For end-users this is not affecting them in a negative way at all, only the opposite.”

Ipredator website

Faceless

Response to Q1: “We do not log any IP addresses and no information about what data is accessed by our users, so we have no information that could be interesting to third-parties.”

Response to Q2: “We have servers in The Netherlands and our company is based in Cyprus. If authorities would contact us we would have to tell them that we have no connection logs or IP-addresses saved on our systems.”

Faceless website

General VPN providers

AirVPN

Response to Q1: The company carries no identifying logs.

Response to Q2: “Jurisdiction is in the EU, under most circumstances Italy (country of the company and home of the person legally responsible for data protection), but applicable law may be one of the EU Member States where the servers of the network are physically located (no servers are in Italy),” AirVPN told us.

“We don’t share any information with anyone.”

AirVPN website

VPNReactor

Response to Q1: “Only for 5 days to stop abuse[..]. After 5 days we have absolutely no way to match any IP address or time stamp to any users. Privacy and Security is further enhanced for individual users because their VPN connections are basically lost in the crowd.”

“Our free VPN users share a block of IPs when they connect to the internet via VPNReactor. So at any given time hundreds/thousands of our VPN users that have active connections could all be sharing a single IP address. None of our VPN users are assigned individual public IPs.”

Response to Q2: “We strive to be upfront and transparent with our logging policies for the benefit of our VPN users.” Logs seen by TorrentFreak seemed to confirm no identifiable information being stored.

“We are a U.S. based company and are bound by U.S. based court orders,” VPNReactor continued. “However, if a U.S. based subpoena comes in requesting info for activity that occurred more then 5 days prior, we have absolutely nothing to provide as our logs would have expired off. Request for connection details outside a U.S. based court order will be fully ignored.”

VPNReactor website

BlackVPN

Response to Q1: “We do not keep any logs about our users internet activities including which sites they access or what data they transfer. We also run log cleaners on our systems which removes the IPs from logs before they are written to disk,” the company told TorrentFreak.

“For tax and legal reasons we do store some billing information (name, email, country), but it is stored with a third-party and separate from the rest of BlackVPN.”

BlackVPN say they hold a username and email address of their subscribers and the times of connection and disconnection to their services along with bandwidth consumption. Logging is carried out as follows:

“On our Privacy Servers, NL & LT we don’t log anything that can identify the user, but on our US & UK server where we don’t allow sharing copyrighted materials we do log the internal RFC1918 IP that is assigned to the user at a specific time,” BlackVPN explain.

“So to clarify, we don’t log the real external IP of the user, just our RFC1918 internal one, this we have to do to comply with local laws and to be able to handle DMCAs.”

Response to Q2: “We operate under the jurisdiction of the Netherlands and we will fiercely protect the privacy and rights of our users and we will not disclose any information on our users to anyone, unless forced to by law enforcement personnel that have produced the proper legal compliance documents or a court order. (In which case we don’t really have a choice).”

BlackVPN website

PrivatVPN

Response to Q1: “We don’t keep ANY logs that allow us or a 3rd party to match an IP address and a time stamp to a user our service. The only thing we log are e-mails and usernames but it’s not possible to bind a activity on the Internet to a user.”

Please note: PrivatVPN also offer use of a US server for watching services like Hulu. IP logs are kept when users use this service.

Response to Q2: “Since we do not log any IP addresses [we have] nothing to disclose. Circumstances doesn’t matter in this case, we have no information regarding our customers’ IP addresses.”

PrivatVPN website

Privacy.io

Response to Q1: “No logs whatsoever are kept. We therefore simply are not able to hand data out. We believe that if you are not required to have logs, then you shouldn’t. It can only cause issues as seen with the many data leaks in recent years. Should legislation change in the juristictions we operate in, then we’ll move. And if that’s not possible, then we’ll shut the service down. No compromises.”

Response to Q2: “We span several jurisdictions to make our service less prone for legal attacks. Servers are currently located in Sweden. We do not share data because we don’t have it. We built this system because we believe only when communicating anonymously, you can really freely express yourself. As soon as you make a compromise, you are going down a slippery slope to surveilance. People will ask for more and more data retention as seen around the world in many countries recently. We do it because we believe in this, and not for the money.”

Privacy.io website

Mullvad

Response to Q1: “No. And we don’t see why anyone would. It would be dishonest towards our customers and mean *more* potential legal trouble.”

Response to Q2: “Swedish jurisdiction. We don’t know of any way in which the Swedish state in practice could make us behave badly towards our clients and that has never happened. Another sign we take privacy seriously is that we accept payments in Bitcoin and cash in the mail.”

Mullvad website

Cryptocloud

Response to Q1: “We log nothing at all.”

Response to Q2: “We don’t log anything on the customer usage side so there are no dots to connect period, we completely separate the payment information,” they told us.

“Realistically unless you operate out of one of the ‘Axis of Evil Countries” Law Enforcement will find a way to put the screws to you,” Cryptocloud add.

“I have read the nonsense that being in Europe will protect you from US Law Enforcement, worked well for HMA didn’t it? Furthermore I am pretty sure the Swiss Banking veil was penetrated and historically that is more defend-able than individual privacy. The way to solve this is just not to log, period.”

Cryptocloud website

VPN providers who log, sometimes a lot

VyprVPN

VyprVPN is the VPN service connected to and offered by the Giganews Usenet service, although it can be used completely standalone. In common with many other providers we contacted, VyprVPN acknowledged receipt of our questions but then failed to respond. We’ve included them here since they have such a high-profile.

The company policy says that logging data “is maintained for use with billing, troubleshooting, service offering evaluation, [Terms of Service] issues, [Acceptable Use Policy] issues, and for handling crimes performed over the service. We maintain this level of information on a per-session basis for at least 90 days.”

On Usenet forum NZBMatrix several users have reported having their VyprVPN service terminated after the company processed “a backlog” of DMCA notices which pushed them over the “two-strikes-and-out” acceptable use policy.

So, does VyprVPN log? You bet.

SwissVPN

We included SwissVPN in our survey because they are well known, relatively cheap and have been used by those on a tight budget. To their credit, they were also the fastest company to respond. They are one of the few companies that do not make anonymity claims.

Response to Q1: “SwissVPN is being operated based on Swiss Telecommunications and Personal Data Protection Law. Session IP’s (not visited content, websites, mail, etc.) are being logged for 6 months,” the company told us.

Response to Q2: The company responds to requests from 3rd parties under Swiss criminal law (pdf).

SwissVPN website

StrongVPN

This company did not directly answer our questions but pointed us to their logkeeping policy instead.

StrongVPN do log and are able to match an external IP address to their subscribers. We have included them here since they were the most outwardly aggressive provider in our survey when it came to dealing with infringement.

“StrongVPN does not restrict P2P usage, but please note sharing of Copyrighted materials is forbidden, please do not do this or we will have to take action against your account,” they told us, later adding in a separate mail: “StrongVPN Notice: You may NOT distribute copyright-protected material through our network. We may cancel your account if that happens.”

StrongVPN website

Disappointing: VPN providers who simply failed to respond

In addition to the above, TorrentFreak also approached a number of other fairly well known VPN providers. It’s not clear if our questions were simply too tricky to answer in a positive light or whether there was some other reason, but disappointingly none of them responded to our emails, despite in some cases having acknowledged receipt of our questions.

They include Blacklogic.com, PureVPN.com, VPNTunnel.se [Update: VPNTunnel.se have now responded, see here], Bolehvpn.net [Update: Boleh responded after publication - they carry no logs] and Ivacy.com.

Should the above now feel able to respond directly to our questions, or if there are any other VPN providers reading who would like to be included in a future update, please contact us now with direct responses to the questions above. Apologies to the providers who contacted us at the last minute but were too late to be included in the report – we had to stop somewhere.

Final thoughts

When signing up to a VPN provider it really is evident that their their logging and privacy policies should be read slowly. And then read again, even more slowly than at first. Many are not as straightforward as they first appear (some even seem to be deliberately misleading) and that is the very reason why we asked our own questions instead.

In contrast to the the pessimism generated by yesterday’s report, as we can see from the list above, when it comes to offering real privacy there are plenty of services out there.

Original Page: https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/

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SSTO: A Spaceship for the Rest of US

SSTO

A Spaceship for the Rest of US

NSS Policy Paper (1992)

by Allen Sherzer


Introduction

Space is an important and growing segment of the U.S. economy. The U.S. space market is currently over $5 billion per year, and growing. U.S. satellites, and to a lesser degree U.S. launch services, are used throughout the world and are one of the bright stars in the U.S. balance of trade.

The future is even brighter. The space environment promises new developments in materials, drugs, energy, and resources, which will open up whole new industries for the United States. This will translate into new jobs and higher standards of living not only for Americans but for the rest of the world's people.

Standing between us and these new industries is the obstacle presented by the high cost of putting people and payloads into space. This paper addresses the reasons why access to space is so expensive and how those costs might be reduced by looking at the problem in a different way.

Finally, this paper will describe a radical new spacecraft currently under development. Called Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO), it promises to greatly reduce costs and increase flexibility.

Access to Space: Expensive and Dangerous

Access to space today is very expensive, complex, and dangerous With U.S. expendable launchers like Atlas, Delta, and Titan, it generally costs about $3,000 to $8,000 to put a pound of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). In addition, U.S. expendables require extensive ground infrastructure to do final assembly and payload integration and complex launch facilities to actually launch the rocket. Finally, despite all the extra care and effort, they don't work very well and even the best launchers fail about 3% of the time (would you go to work tomorrow if there was a 3% chance of your car exploding?).

Even the U.S. Space Shuttle, which was supposed to give the U.S. routine low cost access to space, has failed. A Shuttle flight costs about $500 million (roughly $10,000 per pound to LEO). Even going full out, NASA can only launch each Shuttle about twice a year (for a total of eight flights).

The effects of these high costs go deeper than the price tag for the launches themselves. Space equipment is much more expensive than comparable equipment meant for use on Earth, even when tasks are similar and the Earthly environments are harsh. The difference is that space equipment must be as lightweight as humanly possible and must be as close as humanly possible to 100% reliability. Both of these extra requirements are ultimately problems of access to space: if every extra pound costs thousands of dollars, and replacing or repairing a failed satellite is impossibly expensive, then efforts to reduce weight and improve reliability make sense. Unfortunately, they also greatly increase price.

With equipment so expensive, obviously building extra copies is costly, and launching them is even worse. This encourages space projects to try to get by with as few satellites as possible. Alas, this can backfire: when something does go wrong, there isn't any safety margin...as witness the U.S.'s shortage of weather satellites at this time. Expensive access to space not only produces costly projects, it produces fragile projects that assume no failures, because safety margins are too expensive. Lamentably, failures do happen.

Finally, although research in space holds great promise for new scientific discoveries and new industries, it is progressing at a snail's pace, and companies and researchers often lose interest early. Why? Because effective research requires better access to space. Scientific discoveries seldom come as the result of single experiments: even when a single experiment is crucial, typically there is a long series of experiments leading up to it and following through on it. And getting the "bugs" out of a new industrial process almost always requires a lot of testing. But how can such work be done if you only get to fly one experiment every five years? Good researchers and innovative companies often decide that it's better to avoid space research, because it costs too much and takes too long. The ones who haven't abandoned space research are looking hard at buying flights on Russian or Chinese spacecraft: despite technical and political obstacles, they can fly their experiments more often that way.

People excuse this because it has always been this way and so probably always will be (after all, this is rocket science). But there are a lot of reasons to think that it needn't be so complex and expensive.

Spacecraft are complex, expensive, and built to aerospace tolerances but they are not the only products of that nature we use. A typical airliner costs about the same as a typical launcher. It has a similar number of parts and is built to similar tolerances. The amount of fuel a launcher burns to reach orbit is about the same as an airliner burns to go from North America to Ausralia. Looked at this way, it would seem that the cost of getting into orbit should be much closer to the $1500 it takes to get to Australia than to the $500 million dollars plus it takes to put an astronaut up.

Why the differences in cost? Largely they are due to different solutions to the same problems. Some of these differences are:

1. Throw away hardware. A typical expendable launch vehicle costs anywhere from $50 to $200 million to build (about the cost of a typical airliner) yet it is used one time and then thrown away. Even the 'reusable' Space Shuttle throws away most of its weight in the form of an expendable external tank and salvageable solid rocket motors. This is the single biggest factor in making access to space expensive.

Airlines use reusable hardware and fly their aircraft several times every day. This allows them to amortize the cost of the aircraft over literally thousands of passenger flights. The entire Shuttle fleet flies only eight times a year, while many airliners fly more than eight times per day.

2. Redundant Hardware and Checks. Since expendable launchers are used one time and then thrown away, they cannot be test-flown; huge amounts of effort therefore go into making sure they will work correctly. Since the payloads they launch are typically far more expensive than the launcher (a typical communication satellite can cost three times the cost of the launcher) millions can be and are spent on every launch to obtain very small increases in reliability. This is well beyond the point of diminishing returns and sometimes results in greater harm. For example, a couple of years ago a Shuttle Orbiter was almost damaged when it was rotated from horizontal to vertical with a loose work-platform support still in its engine compartment. The support should have been removed beforehand...and three signatures said it had been.

Airliners, since they are reusable and can also be tested before use, thus are able to be built to more relaxed standards without sacrificing safety. The exact same aircraft flew to get to your airport and it is likely that any failure would already have been noticed. In addition, aircraft are built with redundancy so they can survive malfunctions; launchers usually are not. Most in-flight failures of airliners result, at most, in delays and inconvenience for the passengers; most in-flight failures of launchers result in complete loss of launcher and payload.

3. Pushing the Envelope on Hardware. Current launchers tend to use hardware that is run all the time at the outside limit of its capability. This may be fine for expendable launchers which are used one time and don't need to be repaired for reuse. But this has also tended to carry over to the Shuttle which, for example, operates its main engines at around 100% of its rated thrust (this is like driving your car 55 MPH in first gear all the time). Because the hardware is used to its limit every time, it needs extensive checkout after every flight and frequent repair.

Airliners tend to be much more conservative in their use of hardware. Engines are used at far less than their full rated thrust and airframes are stressed for greater loads then they ever see. This results in less wear and tear which means they work with greater reliability and fewer repairs.

4. Labor Requirements. For all of the reasons given above, existing launchers require vast amounts of human labor to fly. The efforts of about 6,000 people are needed to keep the Shuttle flying. This represents a huge expense and is amortized only over eight or so Shuttle flights every year.

Airliners are far more streamlined and, for the reasons given above, don't need nearly as many people. A typical airliner only has 150 people supporting it, including baggage handlers, flight crews, ticketing people, and administration. Since the cost of those 150 people are amortized over thousands of flights per year, the cost per flight is very low.

Our current launchers are expensive and complex vehicles. Yet the fact that we routinely use vehicles with similar cost and complexity for far less cost indicate that the causes of high launch costs lie elsewhere. If we looked at the problem in a different way, we could try to build launchers the same way Boeing builds airliners. The next section will describe just such a launcher and how it is being built.

A Spaceship that Runs Like an Airliner: SSTO

For a long time, some launcher designers have realized that designing launchers the way airliners are designed would result in lower costs. Several designs have been proposed over the years and they are generally referred to as Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) launchers.

1. Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO). Unlike an existing launcher which has multiple stages, a SSTO launcher has only one stage. This results in far lower operational costs and are key to reusability. Conventional launchers need expensive assembly buildings to stack the stages together before going to the launch pad. An SSTO only has one stage, so these facilities are not needed. This means that the only infrastructure needed to launch a SSTO is a concrete pad and a fuel truck.

2. Built for Ease of Use. SSTO vehicles are built to be operated like airliners. They can fly multiple times with no other maintenance needed other than refueling. If a problem is discovered, all components can be accessed with ease (by design). The defective Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) is replaced and launch can occur with only a short delay. If the problem is more complex or other maintenance is needed, the SSTO is towed to a hanger where the easy accessibility of parts insures rapid turnaround.

3. Standard Payload Interface. Payloads need access to services like power, cooling, life support, etc., while waiting for launch. The interfaces which provide these services are not standardized, adding cost and complexity to existing launchers. In effect, part of the launcher must be redesigned for each and every launch. SSTOs, however, would be designed with standard payload interfaces. This allows payload integration to occur hours before launch instead of weeks before launch. (Although in all fairness, the makers of expendable launchers are also slowly moving in this direction).

4. Built to be tested. Unlike expendables, SSTO vehicles do not have to be perfect the first time. Like airliners, they can survive most failures. Like airliners, they can be tested again and again to find and fix problems before real payloads and passengers are entrusted to them. Even when a failure does occur with a real payload aboard, usually neither the vehicle nor the payload will be lost. The reliability of SSTO vehicles should be close to that of airliners -- a loss rate of essentially zero -- and far better than the 3% loss rate of existing launchers.

SDIO Single Stage Rocket Technology Program

Recent advances in engine technology and materials have made most critics believe that the technology is now available to build a SSTO. In 1989, SDIO recognized the potential of this approach and commissioned a study to assess its risk. The study concluded that a SSTO vehicle is possible today. As a result of this study, SDIO initiated the Single Stage Rocket Technology Program (SSRT). The goal of the three phase SSRT program is to build a SSTO, thus providing routine cheap access to space.

Phase I consisted of four study contracts to develop a baseline design for a SSTO. General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas proposed vehicles which both take off and land vertically (like a helicopter). Rockwell proposed a vehicle which takes off vertically but lands horizontally (like the Space Shuttle does today). Finally, Boeing proposed a vehicle which both takes off and lands horizontally (like a conventional aircraft).

In August 1991, SDIO selected the McDonnell Douglas vehicle (dubbed Delta Clipper) for Phase II development, and contracted for the construction of a 1/3 scale prototype vehicle called DC-X. This prototype is currently under development and should begin flying in April, 1993.

DC-X will provide little science data but a wealth of engineering data. It will validate the basic concepts of SSTO vehicles and demonstrate the ground and maintenance procedures critical to any successful orbital vehicle.

Phase III of the program will develop a full scale prototype vehicle called DC-Y. DC-Y will reach orbit with a substantial payload, hoped to be close to 20,000 lbs, and demonstrate total reusability. In addition, McDonnell Douglas will begin working with the government to develop procedures to certify Delta Clipper like an airliner so it can be operated in a similar manner.

Phase III was scheduled to begin in September of 1993 but SDIO will not be able to fund the Phase III vehicle. There is some interest in parts of the Air Force and it is hoped that they will fund DC-Y development. It will be a great loss for America if they do not.

After Phase III, it will be time to develop an operational Delta Clipper launcher based on the DC-Y. At this point government funding shouldn't be needed any longer and the free market can be expected to fund final development.

Conclusion

If a functional Delta Clipper is ever produced it will have a profound impact on all activities conducted in space. It will render all other launch vehicles in the world obsolete and regain for the United States 100% of the western launch market (half of which has been lost to competition from Europe and China). It will allow the United States to open up a new era for mankind, and regain our once commanding lead in space technology.

IF WE BUILD IT THEY WILL COME; IF I BUILD IT FIRST, I WILL GO!

hahahahha!

BEAM E UP!

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The Creation of Free Settlements

The Creation of Free Settlements


This section will contain information useful to those who wisth to build future extraterrestrial settlements, whether those interests are in the engineering, the funding, earth based examples, or political structures. If you have any data or documents that you feel would be suitable, please pass them on and we'll convert them to html if they aren't already.

Learning from Terra

We recommend that you take a long and close look at Oceania - The Atlantis Project, since the success of their venture would bode very well for those interested in free settlements in space. Although they will not have to deal with the life support systems and transportation costs that affect a space settlement, they will have to deal with and solve the problems of funding; of creating a nation where the very ground must be engineered; and all the myriad political problems that will be created by a world full of powerful unfree states.

Possibly one of the most likely ventures to succeed is the Freedom Ship Project. The idea of building a very large ship of 24,000 high priced Condominiums is one that financial markets can handle. It's a combination Real Estate and Shipping deal, although with a price tag at the upper end of such projects. According to Wired it may be flying an Irish flag while it circumnavigates the globe every two years. Freedom ship rates high on liberty as well. They state that "There will be no intrusion into, or involvement with, personal business, finances, or commercial transactions." Only food sanitation would be regulated. Tax and duty free business are encouraged. They avoid some of the potential problems of Oceania by mobility. If the neighbors to the international waters they stay within become threatening to liberty... they move elsewhere and don't come back.

Another interesting project is the First Millennial Foundation. It is initially ocean based, but has space settlement as its' ultimate goal. Marshall Savage's concept is to bootstrap from the seas to space by starting with the construction of ocean thermal power generators.

The League of New Worlds is an international organization committed to exploration and colonization of space and the seafloor. It offers real hands-on exploration opportunities to its members as well as a world class Space Academy for formal member training.

Antarctic research stations are often cited as a source of data on the social dynamics of life in isolated artificial environments. You can take a peek at THE NEW SOUTH POLAR TIMES for ongoing, first-hand account of life at the South Pole from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Space settlements will have to be very frugal with their material resources. One might take a look at earthly recycling efforts, such as the Home Page of Global Recycling Network.

Stations and Business Parks

There will be research outposts and business parks in orbit before we see true extraterrestrial settlements - an economy must be built to a bare minimum bootstrap point before people can simply pick up and GO! because they want to.

One concept for flexible space business parks is of interest because it emphasizes structuring facilities to be able to expand as commercial requirements dictate (see Space Station "DNA"). Whether this particular concept is viable or not, the point that it makes is well taken - a business park in space must supply basic services to attract customers; customer space has to be easily customizable; the facility must be able to start from a minimal (in the sense of capital investment) configuration and grow as the base of paying customers grows.

Colonies in Free Space

One of the most important sources for information on Space Settlement is the Space Studies Institute, founded by Dr. Gerard O'Neill. SSI has been in the vanguard of critical research that relates to opening up the O'Neill scenario for the creation of L5 Colonies. Donations to the research projects of this organization are highly recommended.

Al Globus at NASA has a Space Colonization Bibliography with most of the important references on the L5 concept. His Space Colonization page is an excellent resources.

We have included many of the images from the 1975 (Space Settlements, A Design Study, NASA SP-413) and 1977 Summer Studies (Space Resources and Space Settlements, NASA SP-428) and others. These design studies brought together many of the founders of the space movement and were the birth of current ideas on large free space settlements. They were also the direct cause for the birth of the L5 Society which formally merged with the National Space Institute to form the National Space Society during the 6th ISDC in Pittsburgh in March 1987.

O'Neill Cylinders - Island Three

O'Neill Cylinders come in contra-rotating pairs to cancel torque. This pair appear in the 1975 study as a front to chapter 7. View to the Future. Visiting spaceships dock at the center of one of the hubs.

Looking along the axis of rotation from inside an O'Neill Cylinder we see three habitation strips alternated with three windows. The windows do not allow direct sunlight. Light is reflected from mirrors into the interior. The cylinder sits with one hub pointed so that a maximum shielding affect is gained in the direction of maximum solar storm flux. The axis is at zero gravity and could be used for human powered flight, zero g sports or whatever your imagination allows.

Once it is possible to build one colony, many will be built. This image shows numerous pairs of cylinders. The whole point of space settlements is diversity. Each colony can be a different world without a totally different society. And if there is trouble with the neighbors - you just move. Note that opened wings used to reflect sun light into the interior through the three window strips. The "bicycle wheel" holds solar thermal generators on its' rim.

O'Neill cylinders can be quite large. This artist's conception includes the San Francisco Bay bridge and the surrounding area to give a sense of scale. The view point is from up in the "mountains" at the hub farthest from the sun. A few people and houses are visible in the foreground. At the top you can see some of a wing mirror and the backs of solar thermal generators as you look out the "sky" window in the sunwards direction.

Settlements can be so large that they form their own cylindrical weather systems around the axis. This disconcerting view is down the length of a colony cylinder from a bit below the rotation axis. There is no reason why such settlements can not be gardens or wilderness if their inhabitants so desire. When construction on this scale becomes possible, the ability to use energy and matter will be well beyond present financial capabilities and will most likely require molecular engineering.

A Norwegian student suggested a architecture modification to the baseline O'Neill Cylinder design in Space Tech Digest v18no211. The concept is to make the window areas concave inwards so that pressure puts them under compressive load.

The Stanford Torus

The Stanford Torus is the second class of space settlement and is much more like the classical space station concept writ large. The shielding consists of rock and soil on the outer rim. An inner torus rotates inside of this. The wheel stays edge on to the direction of maximum hazard from solar storms. Sunlight is reflected from a mirror seen above the wheel. The inside rim is a a window. Visiting spaceships dock at the hub in the middle of the wheel, just as in 2001.

This view is similar but shows other Stanford Torus', a spaceship for scale, and in the far distance at bottom right, an under-construction Solar Power Satellite. This view of the torus shows more clearly the inner ring of mirrors. Sunlight reflects from the large mirror to the ring on the torus, and from there outwards (down to the gravitationally challenged) through the window on the settlement's inner rim. The long tethers connect the settlement to a nuclear power plant and radiators.

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The Bernal Sphere - Island One

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Lunar Settlements

The Clementine project of the BMDO was the first spacecraft to do lunar survey work in a generation. During the lunar mission phase it took 1.8 million images, and all of them and their associated data are, or will eventually be, available through the Lunar Image Browser on the Clementine page at the Naval Research Laboratory. This should be a truly major resource for settlement and mining studies. Images can be retrieved by specifiying the sensor, the date and the lunar coordinates - or by clicking on the desired location on a global map (70N - 70S).

AvWeek 6-Mar-95, p18 announced NASA's intent to "place a simple, economical spacecraft in orbit around the moon in July, 1997." It will map the lunar chemical composition and will give us the long awaited Gamma Ray Spectrometer data. This will give us the long awaited yea or nay on lunar polar ice deposits.

The Artemis Project is working on a plan to colonize the moon using a self bootstrapping commercial program. They plan to utilize movie rights, pet moon rocks and any other bit of crass commercialism they can think of. If it buys us our tickets off this rock - who cares? Read The Artemis Project FAQ for more information on the idea and on how to get involved.

Artemis was recently featured in an article in the Dallas Morning News - 950313 written by Dallas Morning News Staff writer Jeffrey Weiss.

Luna 2001 is a proposal for going back to the moon using a mix of existing hardware and low risk new hardware development.

Degradation of the Lunar Vacuum by a Moon Base is a paper by Geof Landis that discusses the impact of a 20 person lunar base on the ambient pressure.

Here is one of the Lunar poles.

Mars Settlements

Perhaps the most exciting thing that has happened in a very long time is the possible fossil evidence found in meteorites of martian origin. If the NASA/Stanford results pass muster in the literature, we will know it is very unlikely that we are the sole intelligence in the galaxy.

There will also be a very strong desire on the part of the scientific community to gather more evidence. There is very little else that could make the idea of a journey to Mars as likely a near term possibility as the firm knowledge that primitive alien life forms once existed there.

If you are interested in Mars Settlements, you might want to look at the existing image database via NASA's Mars Atlas web site. There is more information on the Malin Space Science Systems Home Page under Mars - Color and High Resolution Viking Lander Images. Within this document you should note in particular Mike Caplinger's writeup for the Planetary Society's MARSLINK project, about the Viking Lander imaging system (which includes a red/blue anaglyph of a portion of the VL-2 site, and the Viking lander surface images.

The Center for Mars Exploration at NASA is also worth monitoring on a regular basis.

One of the most interesting recent proposals for Mars colonization has been Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct Proposal. Try the Mars Direct Bibliography.

These two images give a good overview of the Martian globe: one and two

The upcoming Mars Pathfinder mission exemplifies a number of useful technologies as well as being exactly the sort of precursor mission that is needed prior to the first stages of colonization.


Related Technology Developments

Agriculture

AGENCIES FORM JOINT PROGRAM IN PLANT BIOLOGY (NASA 94-213). Work on engineering food plants for adverse growth conditions has obvious applications.

Airbags for Landing

Mars Pathfinder will use some novel means for softlanding, including the use of airbags to soften the impact. Creative ideas like this save on mission cost and allow more to be done with the available resources.

Autonomous Systems

The EUVE project has broken new ground in autonomous spacecraft with its' Eworks project. It is an expert system for monitoring an operational spacecraft and taking actions to keep it functioning in emergency circumstances. This sort of autonomy will soon be extended to other spacecraft and will certainly be part of the available background technology for space systems relevent to space settlements. We have some of the papers stored locally. You can read the Phase I. Development Status Report (8/11/94) as a postscript document or as a sort of html-ified text document.

Other work on automation of spacecraft systems is being done by JPL - they have a system under test that applies Virtual reality concepts to systems monitoring.

For an idea of how far automation could go, you might try D.M. Amon, "The Impact of Molecular Engineering on Spacecraft Information Systems", Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Aug 1994.

Colonists

Ken Jenks at NASA provides a great deal of data on human's in space. Of special interest is " How long can a human live unprotected in space?" which discusses the effects of human exposure to vacuum. Ken tells an anecdote of great interest: direct exposure has already happened - and with very little after effect:

"At NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now renamed Johnson Space Center) we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a near vacuum (< 1 psi) in an incident involving a leaking space suit in a vacuum chamber back in '65. He remained concious for about 14 seconds, which is about the time it takes for O2 deprived blood to go from the lungs to the brain. The suit probably did not reach a hard vacuum, and we began repressurizing the chamber within 15 seconds. The subject regained conciousness at around 15,000 feet equivalent altitude. The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the air leaking out, and his last concious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil."
More information on this event can be found in NASA CR-1223, "Rapid (Explosive) Decompression Emergencies in Pressure-Suited Subjects", by E.M. Roth.

Ken Jenks has also published a good summary of the Bone Demineralization problem. He also maintains his own page on the subject.

A new book from NASA is also of interest:

Designing For Human Presence in Space: An Introduction to Environmental Control and Life Support Systems, NASA Reference Publication 1324, Paul O. Wieland, George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama, 1994.

NASA and the National Library of Medicine have made available on the Internet a jointly developed database of space life sciences research dating from 1961 to the present. There is a nominal fee for use of this service. More information is available in NASA Internet Advisory 95-17.

NASA has a database of life sciences information on line. This contains "30 years of space-based research into the effects of microgravity on living systems, including the human body".

Radiation Shielding

In most environments beyond Earth surface, long term settlement requires some form of shielding. This will particular be true of interplanetary spacecraft and L5 colonies. Magnetic shielding is on possible approach and is discussed by Geof Landis in Magnetic Radiation Shielding: An Idea Whose Time Has Returned?,

Solar Power Satellites

Although Solar Power Satellites are a potential revenue source large enough to support L5 settlements, it is difficult to bootstrap into that magical world where the two exist. In "An Evolutionary Path to SPS", Geof Landis suggests a way forward with SPS's.

Teleoperated Systems

Dave Stephenson supplied a Comment on " Teleoperated Load/Haul/Dump Vehicles at Sudbury (941294)." Many do not realize that teleoperated vehicles are already being used in commercial large scale mining operations in a Terran crater. David has also kindly supplied the start of a bibliography on mining automation.

There will soon be a test of a Russian Marskokhod at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. This Rover is capable of both lunar and martian operations and is marketed by Lavochkin.

Mars Pathfinder's rover will be the first of it's kind on Mars and the first remotely controlled rover since Lunekhod in the early 1970's.


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Forward

Welcome to the Island One Society web pages. Island One is a beast of the information age, a well which is intended as a meeting place for future space colonists and business people of a libertarian or at least live and let live bent. Our name is taken from Dr.Gerard O'Neill's concept for a full fledged L5 Colony, a Bernal Sphere he labeled "Island One".

This is not a membership organization - it is you and I and anyone else who assists in making this server a resource useful for those who will build free societies beyond the Earth. If you have useful reports or documents in electronic form that you feel will be of general interest; if you have suggestions for format changes; if you are artistic or a good ferret and have some nice icons; if you would like to translate important hardcopy space policy, law, study, biographical, or any documents you feel are relevant to free market space activists and are willing to type in, find or translate documents to html, drop us a line at amon@islandone.org or amon@vnl.com.

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    AGREEMENT RELATING TO THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE ORGANI

    AGREEMENT RELATING TO THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE ORGANIZATION "INTELSAT" (with annexes and Operating Agreement) (1971)

    islandone.org | Nov 30th -0001 

    AGREEMENT RELATING TO

    THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS

    SATELLITE ORGANIZATION

    "INTELSAT"

    (with annexes and Operating Agreement)

    (1971)


    ENTERED INTO FORCE: 12 Feb 1973 PREAMBLE The States Parties to this Agreement, Considering the principle set forth in Resolution 1721 (XVI) of the General Assembly of the United Nations that communication by means of satellites should be available to the nations of the world as soon as practicable on a global and nondiscriminatory basis, Considering the relevant provisions of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, and in particular Article I, which states that outer space shall be used for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, Noting that pursuant to the Agreement Establishing Interim Arrangements for a Global Commercial Communications Satellite System and the related Special Agreement, a global commercial telecommunications satellite system has been established, Desiring to continue the development of this telecommunications satellite system with the aim of achieving a single global commercial telecommunications satellite system as part of an improved global telecommunications network which will provide expanded telecommunications services to all areas of the world and which will contribute to world peace and understanding, Determined, to this end, to provide, for the benefit of all mankind, through the most advanced technology available, the most efficient and economic facilities possible consistent with the best and most equitable use of the radio frequency spectrum and of orbital space, Believing that satellite telecommunications should be organized in such a way as to permit all peoples to have access to the global satellite system and those States members of the International Telecommunication Union so wishing to invest in the system with consequent participation in the design, development, construction, including the provision of equipment, establishment, operation, maintenance and ownership of the system, Pursuant to the Agreement Establishing Interim Arrangements for a Global Commercial Communications Satellite System, Agree as follows: Article I. (DEFINITIONS) For the purposes of this Agreement: (a) "Agreement" means the present agreement, including its Annexes but excluding all titles of Articles, opened for signature by Governments at Washington on August 20, 1971, by which the international telecommunications satellite organization "INTELSAT" is established; (b) "Operating Agreement" means the agreement, including its Annex but excluding all titles of Articles, opened for signature at Washington on August 20, 1971,' by Governments or telecommunications entities designated by Governments in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement; (c) "Interim Agreement" means the Agreement Establishing Interim Arrangements for a Global Commercial Communications Satellite System signed by Governments at Washington on August 20, 1964; (d) "Special Agreement" means the agreement signed on August 20, 1964, by Governments or telecommunications entities designated by Governments, pursuant to the provisions of the Interim Agreement; (e) "Interim Communications Satellite Committee" means the Committee established by Article IV of the Interim Agreement; (f) "Party" means a State for which the Agreement has entered into force or been provisionally applied; (g) "Signatory" means a Party, or the telecommunications entity designated by a Party, which has signed the Operating Agreement and for which it has entered into force or been provisionally applied; (h) "Space segment" means the telecommunications satellites, and the tracking, telemetry, command, control, monitoring and related facilities and equipment required to support the operation of these satellites; (i) "INTELSAT space segment" means the space segment owned by INTELSAT; (j) "Telecommunications" means any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images and sounds or intelligence of any nature, by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems; (k) "Public telecommunications services" means fixed or mobile telecommunications services which can be provided by satellite and which are available for use by the public, such as telephony, telegraphy, telex, facsimile, data transmission, transmission of radio and television programs between approved earth stations having access to the INTELSAT space segment for further transmission to the public, and leased circuits for any of these purposes; but excluding those mobile services of a type not provided under the Interim Agreement and the Special Agreement prior to the opening for signature of this Agreement, which are provided through mobile stations operating directly to a satellite which is designed, in whole or in part to provide services relating to the safety or flight control of aircraft or to aviation or maritime radio navigation; (l) "Specialized telecommunications services" means telecommunications services which can be provided by satellite, other than those defined in paragraph (k) of this Article, including, but not limited to, radio navigation services, broadcasting satellite services for reception by the general public, space research services, meteorological services, and earth resources services; (m) "Property" includes every subject of whatever nature to which a right of ownership can attach, as well as contractual rights; and (n) "Design" and "development" include research directly related to the purposes of INTELSAT. Article II. (ESTABLISHMENT OF INTELSAT) (a) With full regard for the principles set forth in the Preamble to this Agreement, the Parties hereby establish the international telecommunications satellite organization "INTELSAT", the main purpose of which is to continue and carry forward on a definitive basis the design, development, construction, establishment, operation and maintenance of the space segment of the global commercial telecommunications satellite system as established under the provisions of the Interim Agreement and the Special Agreement. (b) Each State Party shall sign, or shall designate a telecom- munications entity, public or private, to sign, the Operating Agreement which shall be concluded in conformity with the provisions of this Agreement and which shall be opened for signature at the same time as this Agreement. Relations between any telecommunications entity, acting as Signatory, and the Party which has designated it shall be governed by applicable domestic law. (c) Telecommunications administrations and entities may, subject to applicable domestic law, negotiate and enter directly into appropriate traffic agreements with respect to their use of channels of telecom- munications provided pursuant to this Agreement and the Operating Agreement, as well as services to be furnished to the public, facilities, divisions of revenue and related business arrangements. Article III (SCOPE OF INTELSAT ACTIVITIES) (a) In continuing and carrying forward on a definitive basis activities concerning the space segment of the global commercial telecommunications satellite system referred to in paragraph (a) of Article II of this Agreement, INTELSAT shall have as its prime objective the provision, on a commercial basis, of the space segment required for international public telecommunications services of high quality and reliability to be available on a non-discriminatory basis to all areas of the world. (b) The following shall be considered on the same basis as international public telecommunications services: (i)Domestic public telecommunications services between areas separated by areas not under the jurisdiction of the State concerned, or between areas separated by the high seas; and (ii)Domestic public telecommunications services between areas which are not linked by any terrestrial wideband facilities and which are separated by natural barriers of such an exceptional nature that they impede the viable establishment of terrestrial wideband facilities between such areas, provided that the Meeting of Signatories, having regard to advice tendered by the Board of Governors, has given the appropriate approval in advance. (c) The INTELSAT space segment established to meet the prime objective shall also be made available for other domestic public telecommunications services on a non-discriminatory basis to the extent that the ability of INTELSAT to achieve its prime objective is not impaired. (d) The INTELSAT space segment may also, on request and under appropriate terms and conditions, be utilized for the purpose of specialized telecommunications services, either international or domestic, other than for military purposes, provided that: (i)The provision of public telecommunications services is not unfavorably affected thereby; and (ii)The arrangements are otherwise acceptable from a technical and economic point of view. (e) INTELSAT may, on request and under appropriate terms and conditions, provide satellites or associated facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment for: (i)Domestic public telecommunications services in territories under the jurisdiction of one or more Parties; (ii)International public telecommunications services between or among territories under the jurisdiction of two or more Parties; (iii)Specialized telecommunications services, other than for military purposes; provided that the efficient and economic operation of the INTELSAT space segment is not unfavorably affected in any way. (f) The utilization of the INTELSAT space segment for specialized telecommunications services pursuant to paragraph (d) of this Article, and the provision of satellites or associated facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment pursuant to paragraph (e) of this Article, shall be covered by contracts entered into between INTELSAT and the applicants concerned. The utilization of INTELSAT space segment facilities for specialized telecommunications services pursuant to paragraph (d) of this Article, and the provision of satellites or associated facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment for specialized telecommunications services pursuant to subparagraph (e) (iii) of this Article, shall be in accordance with appropriate authorizations, at the planning stage, of the Assembly of Parties pursuant to subparagraph (c) (iv) of Article VII of this Agreement. Where the utilization of INTELSAT space segment facilities for specialized telecommunications services would involve additional costs which result from required modifications to existing or planned INTELSAT space segment facilities, or where the provision of satellites or associated facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment is sought for specialized telecommunications services as provided for in subparagraph (e) (iii) of this Article, authorization pursuant to subparagraph (c) (iv) of Article VII of this Agreement shall be sought from the Assembly of Parties as soon as the Board of Governors is in a position to advise the Assembly of Parties in detail regarding the estimated cost of the proposal, the benefits to be derived, the technical or other problems involved and the probable effects on present or foreseeable INTELSAT services. Such authorization shall be obtained before the procurement process for the facility or facilities involved is initiated. Before making such authorizations, the Assembly of Parties, in appropriate cases, shall consult or ensure that there has been consultation by INTELSAT with Specialized Agencies of the United Nations directly concerned with the provision of the specialized telecommunications services in question. Article IV. (JURIDICAL PERSONALITY) (a) INTELSAT shall possess juridical personality. It shall enjoy the full capacity necessary for the exercise of its functions and the achievement of its purposes, including the capacity to: (i)Conclude agreements with States or international organizations; (ii)Contract; (iii)Acquire and dispose of property; and (iv)Be a party to legal proceedings. (b) Each Party shall take such action as is necessary within its jurisdiction for the purpose of making effective in terms of its own law the provisions of this Article. Article V. (FINANCIAL PRINCIPLES) (a) INTELSAT shall be the owner of the INTELSAT space segment and of all other property acquired by INTELSAT. The financial interest in INTELSAT of each Signatory shall be equal to the amount arrived at by the application of its investment share to the valuation effected pursuant to Article 7 of the Operating Agreement. (b) Each Signatory shall have an investment share corresponding to its percentage of all utilization of the INTELSAT space segment by all Signatories as determined in accordance with the provisions of the Operating Agreement. However, no Signatory, even if its utilization of the INTELSAT space segment is nil, shall have an investment share less than the minimum established in the Operating Agreement. (c) Each Signatory shall contribute to the capital requirements of INTELSAT, and shall receive capital repayment and compensation for use of capital in accordance with the provisions of the Operating Agreement. (d) All users of the INTELSAT space segment shall pay utilization charges determined in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement and the Operating Agreement. The rates of space segment utilization charge for each type of utilization shall be the same for all applicants for space segment capacity for that type of utilization. (e) The separate satellites and associated facilities referred to in paragraph (e) of Article III of this Agreement may be financed and owned by INTELSAT as part of the INTELSAT space segment upon the unanimous approval of all the Signatories. If such approval is withheld, they shall be separate from the INTELSAT space segment and shall be financed and owned by those requesting them. In this case the financial terms and conditions set by INTELSAT shall be such as to cover fully the costs directly resulting from the design, development, construction and provision of such separate satellites and associated facilities as well as an adequate part of the general and administrative costs of INTELSAT. Article VI. (STRUCTURE OF INTELSAT) (a) INTELSAT shall have the following organs: (i)The Assembly of Parties; (ii)The Meeting of Signatories; (iii)The Board of Governors; and (iv)An executive organ, responsible to the Board of Governors. (b) Except to the extent that this Agreement or the Operating Agreement specifically provides otherwise, no organ shall make determinations or otherwise act in such a way as to alter, nullify, delay or in any other manner interfere with the exercise of a power or the discharge of a responsibility or a function attributed to another organ by this Agreement or the Operating Agreement. (c) Subject to paragraph (b) of this Article, the Assembly of Parties, the Meeting of Signatories and the Board of Governors shall each take note of and give due and proper consideration to any resolution, recommendation or view made or expressed by another of these organs acting in the exercise of the responsibilities and functions attributed to it by this Agreement or the Operating Agreement. Article VII. (ASSEMBLY OF PARTIES) (a) The Assembly of Parties shall be composed of all the Parties and shall be the principal organ of INTELSAT. (b) The Assembly of Parties shall give consideration to those aspects of INTELSAT which are primarily of interest to the Parties as sovereign States. It shall have the power to give consideration to general policy and long-term objectives of INTELSAT consistent with the principles, purposes and scope of activities of INTELSAT, as provided for in this Agreement. In accordance with paragraphs (b) and (c) of Article VI of this Agreement, the Assembly of Parties shall give due and proper consideration to resolutions, recommendations and views addressed to it by the Meeting of Signatories or the Board of Governors. (c) The Assembly of Parties shall have the following functions and powers: (i)In the exercise of its power of considering general policy and long-term objectives of INTELSAT, to formulate its views or make recommendations, as it may deem appropriate, to the other organs of INTELSAT; (ii)To determine that measures should be taken to prevent the activities of INTELSAT from conflicting with any general multilateral convention which is consistent with this Agreement and which is adhered to by at least two-thirds of the Parties; (iii)To consider and take decisions on proposals for amending this Agreement in accordance with Article XVII of this Agreement and to propose, express its views and make recommendations on amendments to the Operating Agreement; (iv)To authorize, through general rules or by specific determinations, the utilization of the INTELSAT space segment and the provision of satellites and associated facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment for specialized telecommunications services within the scope of activities referred to in paragraph (d) and subparagraph (e) (iii) of Article III of this Agreement; (v)To review, in order to ensure the application of the principle of non-discrimination, the general rules established pursuant to subparagraph (b) (v) of Article VIII of this Agreement; (vi)To consider and express its views on the reports presented by the Meeting of Signatories and the Board of Governors concerning the implementation of general policies, the activities and the long-term program of INTELSAT; (vii)To express, pursuant to Article XIV of this Agreement, its findings in the form of recommendations, with respect to the intended establishment, acquisition or utilization of space segment facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment facilities; (viii)To take decisions, pursuant to subparagraph (b) (i) of Article XVI of this Agreement, in connection with the withdrawal of a Party from INTELSAT; (ix)To decide upon questions concerning formal relationships between INTELSAT and States, whether Parties or not, or international organizations; (x)To consider complaints submitted to it by Parties; (xi)To select the legal experts referred to in Article 3 of Annex C to this Agreement; (xii)To act upon the appointment of the Director General in accordance with Articles XI and XII of this Agreement; (xiii)Pursuant to Article XII of this Agreement, to adopt the organizational structure of the executive organ; and (xiv)To exercise any other powers coming within the purview of the Assembly of Parties according to the provisions of this Agreement. (d) The first ordinary meeting of the Assembly of Parties shall be convened by the Secretary General within one year following the date on which this Agreement enters into force. Ordinary meetings shall thereafter be scheduled to be held every two years. The Assembly of Parties, however, may decide otherwise from meeting to meeting. (e) (i) In addition to the ordinary meetings provided for in paragraph (d) of this Article, the Assembly of Parties may meet in extraordinary meetings, which may be convened either upon request of the Board of Governors acting pursuant to the provisions of Article XIV or XVI of this Agreement, or upon the request of one or more Parties which receives the support of at least one-third of the Parties including the requesting Party or Parties. (ii) Requests for extraordinary meetings shall state the purpose of the meeting and shall be addressed in writing to the Secretary General or the Director General, who shall arrange for the meeting to be held as soon as possible and in accordance with the rules of procedure of the Assembly of Parties for convening such meetings. (f) A quorum for any meeting of the Assembly of Parties shall consist of representatives of a majority of the Parties. Each Party shall have one vote. Decisions on matters of substance shall be taken by an affirmative vote cast by at least two-thirds of the Parties whose representatives are present and voting. Decisions on procedural matters shall be taken by an affirmative vote cast by a simple majority of the Parties whose representatives are present and voting. Disputes whether a specific matter is procedural or substantive shall be decided by a vote cast by a simple majority of the Parties whose representatives are present and voting. (g) The Assembly of Parties shall adopt its own rules of procedure, which shall include provision for the election of a Chairman and other officers. (h) Each Party shall meet its own costs of representation at a meeting of the Assembly of Parties. Expenses of meetings of the Assembly of Parties shall be regarded as an administrative cost of INTELSAT for the purpose of Article 8 of the Operating Agreement. Article VIII. (MEETING OF SIGNATORIES) (a) The Meeting of Signatories shall be composed of all the Signatories. In accordance with paragraphs (b) and (c) of Article VI of this Agreement, the Meeting of Signatories shall give due and proper consideration to resolutions, recommendations and views addressed to it by the Assembly of Parties or the Board of Governors. (b) The Meeting of Signatories shall have the following functions and powers: (i)To consider and express its views to the Board of Governors on the annual report and annual financial statements submitted to it by the Board of Governors; (ii)To express its views and make recommendations on proposed amendments to this Agreement pursuant to Article XVII of this Agreement and to consider and take decisions, in accordance with Article 22 of the Operating Agreement and taking into account any views and recommendations received from the Assembly of Parties or the Board of Governors, on proposed amendments to the Operating Agreement which are consistent with this Agreement; (iii)To consider and express its views regarding reports on future programs, including the estimated financial implications of such programs, submitted by the Board of Governors; (iv)To consider and decide on any recommendation made by the Board of Governors concerning an increase in the ceiling provided for in Article 5 of the Operating Agreement; (v)To establish general rules, upon the recommendation of and for the guidance of the Board of Governors, concerning: (A) The approval of earth stations for access to the INTELSAT space segment, (B) The allotment of INTELSAT space segment capacity, and (C) The establishment and adjustment of the rates of charge for utilization of the INTELSAT space segment on a non-discriminatory basis; (vi)To take decisions pursuant to Article XVI of this Agreement in connection with the withdrawal of a Signatory from INTELSAT; (vii)To consider and express its views on complaints submitted to it by Signatories directly or through the Board of Governors or submitted to it through the Board of Governors by users of the INTELSAT space segment who are not Signatories; (viii)To prepare and present to the Assembly of Parties, and to the Parties, reports concerning the implementation of general policies, the activities and the long-term program of INTELSAT; (ix)To take decisions concerning the approval referred to in subparagraph (b) (ii) of Article III of this Agreement; (x)To consider and express its views on the report on permanent management arrangements submitted by the Board of Governors to the Assembly of Parties pursuant to paragraph (g) of Article XII of this Agreement; (xi)To make annual determinations for the purpose of representation on the Board of Governors in accordance with Article IX of this Agreement; and (xii)To exercise any other powers coming within the purview of the Meeting of Signatories according to the provisions of this Agreement or the Operating Agreement. (c) The first ordinary meeting of the Meeting of Signatories shall be convened by the Secretary General at the request of the Board of Governors within nine months after the entry into force of this Agreement. Thereafter an ordinary meeting shall be held in every calendar year. (d) (i) In addition to the ordinary meetings provided for in paragraph (c) of this Article, the Meeting of Signatories may hold extraordinary meetings, which may be convened either upon the request of the Board of Governors or upon the request of one or more Signatories which receives the support of at least one-third of the Signatories including the requesting Signatory or Signatories. (ii) Requests for extraordinary meetings shall state the purpose for which the meeting is required and shall be addressed in writing to the Secretary General or the Director General, who shall arrange for the meeting to be held as soon as possible and in accordance with the rules of procedure of the Meeting of Signatories for convening such meetings. The agenda for an extraordinary meeting shall be restricted to the purpose or purposes for which the meeting was convened. (e) A quorum for any meeting of the Meeting of Signatories shall consist of representatives of a majority of the Signatories. Each Signatory shall have one vote. Decisions on matters of substance shall be taken by an affirmative vote cast by at least two-thirds of the Signatories whose representatives are present and voting. Decisions on procedural matters shall be taken by an affirmative vote cast by a simple majority of the Signatories whose representatives are present and voting. Disputes whether a specific matter is procedural or substantive shall be decided by a vote cast by a simple majority of the Signatories whose representatives are present and voting. (f) The Meeting of Signatories shall adopt its own rules of procedure, which shall include provision for the election of a Chairman and other officers. (g) Each Signatory shall meet its own costs of representation at meetings of the Meeting of Signatories. Expenses of meetings of the Meeting of Signatories shall be regarded as an administrative cost of INTELSAT for the purpose of Article 8 of the Operating Agreement. Article IX. (BOARD OF GOVERNORS: COMPOSITION AND VOTING) (a) The Board of Governors shall be composed of: (i)One Governor representing each Signatory whose investment share is not less than the minimum investment share as determined in accordance with paragraph (b) of this Article; (ii)One Governor representing each group of any two or more Signatories not represented pursuant to subparagraph (i) of this paragraph whose combined investment share is not less than the minimum investment share as determined in accordance with paragraph (b) of this Article and which have agreed to be so represented; (iii)One Governor representing any group of at least five Signatories not represented pursuant to subparagraph (i) or (ii) of this paragraph from any one of the regions defined by the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union, held at Montreux in 1965, regardless of the total investment shares held by the Signatories comprising the group. However, the number of Governors under this category shall not exceed two for any region defined by the Union or five for all such regions. (b) (i) During the period between the entry into force of this Agreement and the first meeting of the Meeting of Signatories, the minimum investment share that will entitle a Signatory or group of Signatories to be represented on the Board of Governors shall be equal to the investment share of the Signatory holding position thirteen in the list of the descending order of size of initial investment shares of all the Signatories. (ii) Subsequent to the period mentioned in subparagraph (i) of this paragraph, the Meeting of Signatories shall determine annually the minimum investment share that will entitle a Signatory or group of Signatories to be represented on the Board of Governors. For this purpose, the Meeting of Signatories shall be guided by the desirability of the number of Governors being approximately twenty, excluding any selected pursuant to subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article. (iii) For the purpose of making the determinations referred to in subparagraph (ii) of this paragraph, the Meeting of Signatories shall fix a minimum investment share according to the following provisions: (A)If the Board of Governors, at the time the determination is made, is composed of twenty, twenty-one or twenty-two Governors, the Meeting of Signatories shall fix a minimum investment share equal to the investment share of the Signatory which, in the list in effect at that time, holds the same position held in the list in effect when the previous determination was made, by the Signatory selected on that occasion, (B)If the Board of Governors, at the time the determination is made, is composed of more than twenty-two Governors, the Meeting of Signatories shall fix a minimum investment share equal to the investment share of a Signatory which, in the list in effect at that time, holds a position above the one held in the list in effect when the previous determination was made, by the Signatory selected on that occasion, (C)If the Board of Governors, at the time the determination is made, is composed of less than twenty Governors, the Meeting of Signatories shall fix a minimum investment share equal to the investment share of a Signatory which, in the list in effect at that time, holds a position below the one held in the list in effect when the previous determination was made, by the Signatory selected on that occasion. (iv) If, by applying the ranking method set forth in subparagraph (iii) (B) of this paragraph, the number of Governors would be less than twenty, or, by applying that set forth in subparagraph (iii) (C) of this paragraph, would be more than twenty-two, the Meeting of Signatories shall determine a minimum investment share that will better ensure that there will be twenty Governors. (v) For the purpose of the provisions of subparagraphs (iii) and (iv) of this paragraph, the Governors selected in accordance with subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article shall not be taken into consideration. (vi) For the purpose of the provisions of this paragraph, investment shares determined pursuant to subparagraph (c) (ii) of Article 6 of the Operating Agreement shall take effect from the first day of the ordinary meeting of the Meeting of Signatories following such determination. (c) Whenever a Signatory or group of Signatories fulfills the requirements for representation pursuant to subparagraph (a) (i), (ii) or (iii) of this Article, it shall be entitled to be represented on the Board of Governors. In the case of any group of Signatories referred to in subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article, such entitlement shall become effective upon receipt by the executive organ of a written request from such group, provided, however, that the number of such groups represented on the Board of Governors has not, at the time of receipt of any such written request, reached the applicable limitations prescribed in subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article. If at the time of receipt of any such written request representation on the Board of Governors pursuant to subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article has reached the applicable limitations prescribed therein, the group of Signatories may submit its request to the next ordinary meeting of the Meeting of Signatories for a determination pursuant to paragraph (d) of this Article. (d) Upon the request of any group or groups of Signatories referred to in subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article, the Meeting of Signatories shall annually determine which of these groups shall be or continue to be represented on the Board of Governors. For this purpose, if such groups exceed two for any one region defined by the International Telecommunication Union, or five for all such regions, the Meeting of Signatories shall first select the group which has the highest combined investment share from each such region from which there has been submitted a written request pursuant to paragraph (c) of this Article. If the number of groups so selected is less than five, the remaining groups which are to be represented shall be selected in decreasing order of the combined investment shares of each group, without exceeding the applicable limitations prescribed in subparagraph (a) (iii) of this Article. (e) In order to ensure continuity within the Board of Governors, every Signatory or group of Signatories represented pursuant to subparagraph (a) (i), (ii) or (iii) of this Article shall remain represented, either individually or as part of such group, until the next determination made in accordance with paragraph (b) or (d) of this Article, regardless of the changes that may occur in its or their investment shares as the result of any adjustment of investment shares. However, representation as part of a group constituted pursuant to subparagraph (a) (ii) or (iii) of this Article shall cease if the withdrawal from the group of one or more Signatories would make the group ineligible to be represented on the Board of Governors pursuant to this Article. (f) Subject to the provisions of paragraph (g) of this Article, each Governor shall have a voting participation equal to that part of the investment share of the Signatory, or group of Signatories, he represents, which is derived from the utilization of the INTELSAT space segment for services of the following types: (i)International public telecommunications services; (ii)Domestic public telecommunications services between areas separated by areas not under the jurisdiction of the State concerned, or between areas separated by the high seas; and (iii)Domestic public telecommunications services between areas which are not linked by any terrestrial wide-band facilities and which are separated by natural barriers of such an exceptional nature that they impede the viable establishment of terrestrial wide-band facilities between such areas, provided that the Meeting of Signatories has given in advance the appropriate approval required by subparagraph (b) (ii) of Article III of this Agreement. (g) For the purposes of paragraph (f) of this Article, the following arrangements shall apply: (i)In the case of a Signatory which is granted a lesser investment share in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (d) of Article 6 of the Operating Agreement, the reduction shall apply proportionately to all types of its utilization; (ii)In the case of a Signatory which is granted a greater investment share in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (d) of Article 6 of the Operating Agreement, the increase shall apply proportionately to all types of its utilization; (iii)In the case of a Signatory which has an investment share of 0.05 per cent in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (h) of Article 6 of the Operating Agreement and which forms part of a group for the purpose of representation in the Board of Governors pursuant to the provisions of subparagraph (a) (ii) or (a) (iii) of this Article, its investment share shall be regarded as being derived from utilization of the INTELSAT space segment for services of the types listed in paragraph Ct~ of this Article; and (iv)No Governor may cast more than forty per cent of the total voting participation of all Signatories and groups of Signatories represented on the Board of Governors. To the extent that the voting participation of any Governor exceeds forty per cent of such total voting participation, the excess shall be distributed equally to the other Governors on the Board of Governors. (h) For the purposes of composition of the Board of Governors and calculation of the voting participation of Governors, the investment shares determined pursuant to subparagraph (c) (ii) of Article 6 of the Operating Agreement shall take effect from the first day of the ordinary meeting of the Meeting of Signatories following such determination. (i) A quorum for any meeting of the Board of Governors shall consist of either a majority of the Board of Governors, which majority shall have at least two-thirds of the total voting participation of all Signatories and groups of Signatories represented on the Board of Governors, or else the total number constituting the Board of Governors minus three, regardless of the amount of voting participation they represent. (j) The Board of Governors shall endeavor to take decisions unanimously. However, if it fails to reach unanimous agreement, it shall take decisions: (i)On all substantive questions, either by an affirmative vote cast by at least four Governors having at least two-thirds of the total voting participation of all Signatories and groups of Signatories represented on the Board of Governors taking into account the distribution of the excess referred to in subparagraph (g) (iv) of this Article, or else by an affirmative vote cast by at least the total number constituting the Board of Governors minus three, regardless of the amount of voting participation they represent; (ii)On all procedural questions, by an affirmative vote representing a simple majority of Governors present and voting, each having one vote. (k) Disputes whether a specific question is procedural or substantive shall be decided by the Chairman of the Board of Governors. The decision of the Chairman may be overruled by a two-thirds majority of the Governors present and voting, each having one vote. (l) The Board of Governors, if it deems appropriate, may create advisory committees to assist it in the performance of its responsibilities. (m) The Board of Governors shall adopt its own rules of procedure, which shall include the method of election of a Chairman and such other officers as may be required. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (j) of this Article, such rules may provide for any method of voting in the election of officers which the Board of Governors deems appropriate. (n) The first meeting of the Board of Governors shall be convened in accordance with paragraph 2 of the Annex to the Operating Agreement. The Board of Governors shall meet as often as is necessary but at least four times a year. Article X. (BOARD OF GOVERNORS: FUNCTIONS) (a) The Board of Governors shall have the responsibility for the design, development, construction, establishment, operation and maintenance of the INTELSAT space segment and, pursuant to this Agreement, the Operating Agreement and such determinations that in this respect may have been made by the Assembly of Parties pursuant to Article VII of this Agreement, for carrying out any other activities which are undertaken by INTELSAT. To discharge the foregoing responsibilities, the Board of Governors shall have the powers and shall exercise the functions coming within its purview according to the provisions of this Agreement and the Operating Agreement, including: (i)Adoption of policies, plans and programs in connection with the design, development, construction, establishment, operation and maintenance of the INTELSAT space segment and, as appropriate, in connection with any other activities which INTELSAT is authorized to undertake; (ii)Adoption of procurement procedures, regulations, terms and conditions, consistent with Article XIII of this Agreement, and approval of procurement contracts; (iii)Adoption of financial policies and annual financial statements, and approval of budgets; (iv)Adoption of policies and procedures for the acquisition, protection and distribution of rights in inventions and technical information, consistent with Article 17 of the Operating Agreement; (v)Formulation of recommendations to the Meeting of Signatories in relation to the establishment of the general rules referred to in subparagraph (b) (v) of Article VIII of this Agreement; (vi)Adoption of criteria and procedures, in accordance with such general rules as may have been established by the Meeting of Signatories, for approval of earth stations for access to the INTELSAT space segment, for verification and monitoring of performance characteristics of earth stations having access, and for coordination of earth station access to and utilization of the INTELSAT space segment; (vii)Adoption of terms and conditions governing the allotment of INTELSAT space segment capacity, in accordance with such general rules as may have been established by the Meeting of Signatories; (viii)Periodic establishment of the rates of charge for utilization of the INTELSAT space segment, in accordance with such general rules as may have been established by the Meeting of Signatories; (ix)Action as may be appropriate, in accordance with the provisions of Article 5 of the Operating Agreement, with respect to an increase in the ceiling provided for in that Article; (x)Direction of the negotiation with the Party in whose territory the headquarters of INTELSAT is situated, and submission to the Assembly of Parties for decision thereon, of the Headquarters Agreement covering privileges, exemptions and immunities, referred to in paragraph (c) of Article XV of this Agreement; (xi)Approval of non-standard earth stations for access to the INTELSAT space segment in accordance with the general rules which may have been established by the Meeting of Signatories; (xii)Establishment of terms and conditions for access to the INTELSAT space segment by telecommunications entities which are not under the jurisdiction of a Party, in accordance with the general rules established by the Meeting of Signatories pursuant to subparagraph (b) (v) of Article VIII of this Agreement and consistent with the provisions of paragraph (d) of Article V of this Agreement; (xiii)Decisions on the making of arrangements for overdrafts and the raising of loans in accordance with Article 10 of the Operating Agreement; (xiv)Submission to the Meeting of Signatories of an annual report on the activities of INTELSAT and of annual financial statements; (xv)Submission to the Meeting of Signatories of reports on future programs including the estimated financial implications of such programs; (xvi)Submission to the Meeting of Signatories of reports and recommendations on any other matter which the Board of Governors deems appropriate for consideration by the Meeting of Signatories; (xvii)Provision of such information as may be required by any Party or Signatory to enable that Party or Signatory to discharge its obligations under this Agreement or the Operating Agreement; (xviii)Appointment and removal from office of the Secretary General pursuant to Article XII, and of the Director General pursuant to Articles VII, XI and XII, of this Agreement; (xix)Designation of a senior officer of the executive organ to serve as Acting Secretary General pursuant to subparagraph (d) (i) of Article XII and designation of a senior officer of the executive organ to serve as Acting Director General pursuant to subparagraph (d) (i) of Article XI of this Agreement; (xx)Determination of the number, status and terms and conditions of employment of all posts on the executive organ upon the recommendation of the Secretary General or the Director General; (xxi)Approval of the appointment by the Secretary General or the Director General of senior officers reporting directly to him; (xxii)Arrangement of contracts in accordance with subparagraph (c) (ii) of Article XI of this Agreement; (xxiii)Establishment of general internal rules, and adoption of decisions in each instance, concerning notification to the International Telecommunication Union in accordance with its rules of procedure of the frequencies to be used for the INTELSAT space segment; (xxiv)Tendering to the Meeting of Signatories the advice referred to in subparagraph (b) (ii) of Article III of this Agreement; (xxv)Expression, pursuant to paragraph (c) of Article XIV of this Agreement, of its findings in the form of recommendations, and the tendering of advice to the Assembly of Parties, pursuant to paragraph (d) or (e) of Article XIV of this Agreement, with respect to the intended establishment, acquisition or utilization of space segment facilities separate from the INTELSAT space segment facilities; (xxvi)Action in accordance with Article XVI of this Agreement and Article 21 of the Operating Agreement in connection with the withdrawal of a Signatory from INTELSAT; and (xxvii)Expression of its views and recommendations on proposed amendments to this Agreement pursuant to paragraph (b) of Article XVII of this Agreement, the proposal of amendments to the Operating Agreement pursuant to paragraph (a) of Article 22 of the Operating Agreement, and the expression of its views and recommendations on proposed amendments to the Operating Agreement pursuant to paragraph (b) of Article 22 of the Operating Agreement. (b) In accordance with the provisions of paragraphs (b) and (c) of Article VI of this Agreement, the Board of Governors shall: (i)Give due and proper consideration to resolutions, recommendations and views addressed to it by the Assembly of Parties or the Meeting of Signatories; and (ii)Include in its reports to the Assembly of Parties and to the Meeting of Signatories information on actions or decisions taken with respect to such resolutions, recommendations and views, and its reasons for such actions or decisions. Article XI. (DIRECTOR GENERAL) (a) The executive organ shall be headed by the Director General and shall have its organizational structure implemented not later than six years after the entry into force of this Agreement. (b) (i) The Director General shall be the chief executive and the legal representative of INTELSAT and shall be directly responsible to the Board of Governors for the performance of all management functions. (ii) The Director General shall act in accordance with the policies and directives of the Board of Governors. (iii) The Director General shall be appointed by the Board of Governors, subject to confirmation by the Assembly of Parties. The Director General may be removed from office for cause by the Board of Governors on its own authority. (iv) The paramount consideration in the appointment of the Director General and in the selection of other personnel of the executive organ shall be the necessity of ensuring the highest standards of integrity, competency and efficiency. The Director General and the personnel of the executive organ shall refrain from any action incompatible with their responsibilities to INTELSAT. (c) (i) The permanent management arrangements shall be consistent with the basic aims and purposes of INTELSAT, its international character and its obligation to provide on a commercial basis telecommunications facilities of high quality and reliability. (ii) The Director General, on behalf of INTELSAT, shall contract out, to one or more competent entities, technical and operational functions to the maximum extent practicable with due regard to cost and consistent with competence, effectiveness and efficiency. Such entities may be of various nationalities or may be an international corporation owned and controlled by INTELSAT. Such contracts shall be negotiated, executed and administered by the Director General. (d) (i) The Board of Governors shall designate a senior officer of the executive organ to serve as the Acting Director General whenever the Director General is absent or is unable to discharge his duties, or if the office of Director General should become vacant. The Acting Director General shall have the capacity to exercise all the powers of the Director General pursuant to this Agreement and the Operating Agreement. In the event of a vacancy, the Acting Director General shall serve in that capacity until the assumption of office by a Director General appointed and confirmed, as expeditiously as possible, in accordance with subparagraph (b) (iii) of this Article. (ii) The Director General may delegate such of his powers to other officers in the executive organ as may be necessary to meet appropriate requirements. Article XII. (TRANSITIONAL MANAGEMENT AND SECRETARY GENERAL) (a) As a matter of priority after entry into force of this Agreement, the Board of Governors shall: (i)Appoint the Secretary General and authorize the necessary support staff; (ii)Arrange the management services contract in accordance with paragraph (e) of this Article; and (iii)Initiate the study concerning permanent management arrangements in accordance with paragraph (f) of this Article. (b) The Secretary General shall be the legal representative of INTELSAT until the first Director General shall have assumed office. In accordance with the policies and directives of the Board of Governors, the Secretary General shall be responsible for the performance of all management services other than those which are to be provided under the terms of the management services contract concluded pursuant to paragraph (e) of this Article including those specified in Annex A to this Agreement. The Secretary General shall keep the Board of Governors fully and currently informed on the performance of the management services contractor under its contract. To the extent practicable, the Secretary General shall be present at or represented at and observe, but not participate in, major contract negotiations conducted by the management services contractor on behalf of INTELSAT. For this purpose the Board of Governors may authorize the appointment to the executive organ of a small number of technically qualified personnel to assist the Secretary General. The Secretary General shall not be interposed between

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