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BEIJING: Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp's (SAIC) planned purchase of troubled British car firm MG Rover has run into difficulties with Chinese regulators stalling on a decision, the Financial Times reported. It said state regulators are resisting British pressure to fast track approval, angered by Rover's decision to reveal it was in negotiations with SAIC, China's largest state-run automaker. For the deal to proceed, SAIC needs approval from the Shanghai city government, its owner, and from the National Development and Reform Commission, which is responsible for foreign investments by state-owned companies. However, Rover's decision to reveal it was in talks...

February 4, 2005 F.B.I. Director Faults Himself for Delays of Software By MICHAEL JANOFSKY ASHINGTON, Feb. 3 - "Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., told a Senate panel on Thursday that he and a federal contractor were to blame for agents still not having software that would allow them to file investigative and intelligence information directly into their computers.Appearing before an appropriations subcommittee whose Democratic members did little to shield their irritation, Mr. Mueller also said the failed efforts to develop the program, known as Virtual Case File, or V.C.F., would cost taxpayers as much as $105...

California defense contractor warns employees following computer theft The Associated Press Feb 3 2005 3:16PM "Thieves stole several computers containing personal information on 45,000 current and former shareholders of defense contractor Science Applications International Corp., which began alerting those people on Thursday. SAIC is one of the nation's largest employee-owned companies. The computers stolen from an SAIC administrative building in San Diego contained the name, Social Security number, address and telephone number of current and former shareholders, including the number of shares bought, held and sold. The company said it had no evidence that the thieves accessed the information or...

WASHINGTON – "San Diego defense contractor SAIC said Thursday it had fixed flaws in heavily criticized software it developed for the FBI as part of a $170 million contract to help the agency track terrorists and manage criminal cases. "We fully conformed to the contract we have and gave the taxpayers real value for their money," said Arnold L. Punaro, executive vice president of SAIC. He blamed the FBI for the initial problems, saying the agency had a parade of program managers and demanded too many design changes. During 15 months that SAIC worked on the program, 19 different government...

A 'bucket brigade' of tiny, wirelessly networked sensors someday may be able to track anything, anytime, anywhere Some big companies are trying to make the world--and almost everything in it--smarter. Science Applications International Corp., the big government IT contractor known as SAIC, is developing technology for the Defense and Homeland Security departments that could use hundreds of tiny, wireless sensors packed with computing power to help secure U.S. borders, bridges, power plants, and ships by detecting suspicious movements or dangerous cargo and radioing warnings back to a command center. BP plc, the world's second-largest independent oil company, aims to knock...

Updated: March 26th, 2004 05:30:23 PM FBI Nears Completion of Computer Upgrade ............ CURT ANDERSON Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI's effort to modernize antiquated computer systems, already more than $120 million over budget and nearly two years overdue, will be completed this summer, FBI Director Robert Mueller says. "I'm as frustrated, as impatient, as anybody to get our information technology to the point where we can be leaders as opposed to followers,'' Mueller told The Associated Press in an interview. The upgrade, known as Trilogy, is intended to move the FBI from decades of dependence on paper to...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A San Diego-based defense contractor pleaded guilty Wednesday to making donations to politicians he believed would help him win contracts, including Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and U.S. congressmen Duncan Hunter and Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Parthasarathi Majumder, the former president and chief executive of Science and Applied Technology Inc., made the contributions between 1993 to 1998 and also encouraged his friends and colleagues to do so, according to the U.S. Attorney General's Office. Majumder then reimbursed those donors more than $20,000, according to the plea agreement. U.S. election laws limit individual contributions to $1,000 to a candidate...

Of all the sights he witnessed on an eight-day trip this month through fast-changing China, it was a new subcompact Chevy that gave veteran Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. the greatest reason to come home feeling disgruntled.Chevrolet designed its zippy Spark solely for domestic Chinese buyers and builds it in its factories on the mainland. But no sooner did the Spark arrive in showrooms last year than a strikingly similar model called the Chery QQ appeared on the nation's crowded streets under the trademark of the rival Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., an indigenous Chinese automaker. To Sensenbrenner, a Republican from...

  The secret world of corporate mercenariesCorporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry by Peter W Singer Reviewed by David Isenberg It is rare in the field of international security to find a new book dealing with a subject that hasn't already been covered to death. It is even more rare when that book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the subject and promises to be the gold standard of analysis for years to come, a-la Samuel Huntington's The Soldier and the States. And, most unusual of all, is when said book was formerly a PhD...

Pentagon And Bogus News: All Is Denied [New York Times, December 5, 2003] Secretary Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence last year after it became known that the office was thinking about providing false news items to unwitting foreign journalists. A couple of months ago, however, the Pentagon quietly awarded a $300,000 contract to SAIC, a major defense consultant, to study how DoD could design an “effective strategic influence” campaign to combat global terror. Pentagon officials denied the SAIC deal is any kind of backdoor effort to resurrect the discredited office and is merely a study to understand...

In Iraq, private contractors do just about everything a soldier would do. They sling Spam in mess tents. They tote guns along base perimeters. They shoot. They get shot. Sometimes they get killed. And it's not just in Iraq, but around the world — in conflict zones from Liberia to Kosovo to Afghanistan — that the United States is putting hired help behind the front lines to ease the burden of its overworked armed forces. By paying civilians to handle military tasks, the Bush administration is freeing up U.S. troops to fight. But the use of contractors also hides the...

<p>The bioweapons expert who made headlines in the FBI's anthrax investigation brought two high-powered lawyers to fight a $5 ticket in D.C. traffic court yesterday — and still lost.</p> <p>Steven J. Hatfill tried to get the ticket issued for "walking to create a hazard" on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown dropped. He said he was in the street attempting to take a picture of FBI agents tailing him when they then drove over his foot.</p>

<p>The signature understatement is vintage J. Robert Beyster as he mounts the podium for his annual address on a company whose low profile belies its enormous role in national security.</p> <p>No fanfare. No crowd-pleasing jokes.</p> <p>"We generally responded pretty nicely to changes in the business climate," the 78-year-old nuclear physicist tells his employees in a gravelly monotone.</p>

Having achieved a military victory in Iraq and with U.S. ground forces engaged in post war operations in that country, Washington is likely to redeploy a sizable proportion of its air and naval power to East Asia, according to the former Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on Tuesday, Admiral Dennis Blair noted that while the war in Iraq has had very little direct impact on East Asia, the war had "very important indirect effects." U.S. Navy carrier battle groups and Air Force expeditionary units no...

The Army received approval May 18 to move the cornerstone of its transformation — Future Combat Systems — into the nearly $15 billion system development and demonstration phase.Edward "Pete" Aldridge Jr., undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, signed the milestone B decision after last week's meeting of the Defense Acquisition Board, according to Army officials. Aldridge is scheduled to retire this week.FCS is a networked family of 18 systems that uses advanced communications and technologies to link soldiers with manned and unmanned air and ground platforms and sensors.Speaking May 19 at a Pentagon press briefing, Lt. Gen....

Boeing Wins Army Modernization Contact 1 hour, 46 minutes ago Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo! WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co. has won a $14.92 billion contract to design and test the tanks and weapons of the future as part of the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s plan to modernize the U.S. Army, The Washington Post reported on Friday. Related Quotes DJIANASDAQ^SPC 8713.141551.38946.67 +65.32+16.480.00 delayed 20 mins - disclaimerQuote Data provided by Reuters   The Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board approved the contract, moving into the second phase of the Future Combat System late on Wednesday, the newspaper reported, citing a...

U.S.-Backed Iraqi Exiles Return to Reinvent Nation Sat May 3, 2:58 PM ET Add Top Stories - The New York Times to My Yahoo! By DOUGLAS JEHL The New York Times This article was reported by Danny Hakim, Douglas Jehl and Michael Moss and written by Mr. Jehl. ?/td> Health Agency Took Swift Action Against SARS ?/td> Struggle to Go On After Club Fire ?/td> For the latest breaking news, visit NYTimes.com ?/td> Get DealBook, a daily email digest of corporate finance newsDealBook. Search NYTimes.com: Related Quotes PFEDJIANASDAQ^SPC 31.558582.681502.88930.08 +0.56+128.43+30.32+13.78 delayed 20 mins - disclaimerQuote Data provided by Reuters   ARLINGTON,...

Agency nears completion of financial enterprise architectureBy Matthew FrenchThe Defense Department next month will complete a $100 million project that few thought could be finished on time and within budget: the world's largest financial enterprise architecture. The financial management enterprise architecture project, an ambitious undertaking designed to consolidate and standardize all of DOD's financial reporting systems, is scheduled to be completed in April, just one year after the contract was awarded.The project is designed to help the department obtain a clean financial audit &#8212; something it has been unable to do. With DOD on the brink of war, this goal...

SAIC [Science Applications International Corp.] sold two Mobile VACIS trucks to the Department of the Army-SECOM. The Mobile Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System (VACIS) is a truck-mounted gamma-ray imaging system designed to non-intrusively inspect the contents of trucks, containers, cargo and passenger vehicles for explosive devices and/or contraband. Each Mobile VACIS truck contains one 1.6 Ci Cs-137 sealed source. The trucks were to be shipped first, then the Cs-137 sealed sources were to be shipped later. However on September 30, 2002, the trucks were shipped with the sealed sources inside by mistake without the proper DOT paperwork and marking/labeling. This...