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HANOI (AFP) - A Vietnamese man has contracted the deadly bird flu virus, becoming the country's second human case since late 2005, a health official said Saturday. The 19-year-old man tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus early this week after being admitted to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hanoi, a doctor there told AFP. The doctor, who asked not to be named, said the victim had been admitted on May 19 and was now in a stable condition. The daily Lao Dong said the patient had been working for a poultry slaughterhouse in the capital before...

The value of federal contracts awarded without competitive bidding has soared since President Bush took office in 2000, according to a new study to be released Monday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. Federal contracting grew from $203 billion in fiscal 2000 to $377 billion by fiscal 2005. During the same period, the value of federal contracts awarded without competitive bidding more than doubled, from $67 billion to $145 billion, the study found. At the same time, government oversight of contracting has weakened, according to the study's author, Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the center...

LOS ANGELES -- The California Department of Justice issued a new confidentiality policy Monday spelling out when information on its contracts may be withheld from state records. An Associated Press investigation had found tens of millions of dollars of contracts were improperly shielded from public view. "This policy change will absolutely ensure those things don't happen again," said agency spokesman Nathan Barankin. The AP investigation found that information on scores of Justice Department contracts, many of them let without bids, was erroneously labeled "confidential" and omitted from computerized state records, cloaking it from public sight. The hidden contracts included spending...

One Half of Green Power Contracts Fail "A contractor report prepared for the Energy Commission in 2005 identified renewable energy contract failure as a potentially significant impediment to achieving the state's aggressive renewable energy goals. A subsequent report summarized potentially relevant experience with renewable energy contract failure based on a contract sample of more than 21,500 MW of renewable energy capacity. The data suggest that a minimum failure rate of 20 to 30 percent should generally be expected for large solicitations conducted over multiple years. The likelihood of much higher failure rates is supported by historical experience, especially for projects...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. military contractors can expect to see a robust year in defense work, with the Pentagon's supplemental budget expected to balloon by 50 percent to roughly $99.7 billion next year, defense industry analysts say. The Defense Department is expected to submit its fiscal year 2007 supplemental budget request to Congress for approval in February. Initial estimates suggest the total fiscal budget for 2007 could reach $640 billion, including a $99.7 billion supplemental request and $70 billion in bridge funding. Defense companies like General Dynamics Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co., Alliant TechSystems Inc., DRS Technologies Inc., L-3...

As if you need another reason to love Iggy Pop, the veteran rocker (and his band The Stooges) have the single most entertaining concert rider TSG has ever obtained. The document--all 18 pages of which you'll find below--describes Iggy's requirements in terms of amplifiers, security, lighting, stage set up, and dressing rooms. But unlike most similar documents, Iggy's rider is written in a rollicking, stream-of-consciousness fashion that delivers multiple laughs per page. Apparently written by roadie Jos Grain, the Iggy rider is peppered with witty gems, tasteless asides, and typos. For example, in describing how Iggy's dressing room should be...

Saddam wanted nukes -and - no matter what the world did,went back time, and time again in an effort to obtain them. This is a brief history, with links to some material you may have never seen before.

HALIFAX (CP) - Boeing Corp. will win a controversial contract to provide heavy-lift transport planes and helicopters to Canada's military because it can deliver the aircraft faster than competitors, company officials claimed Saturday. Officials with the Chicago-based aerospace giant made the assertion Saturday, during tours of the C-17 transport plane at a Halifax-area air show. Len Tavernetti, a senior manager in charge of marketing the C-17, said Boeing was likely to win the $8-billion contract by next spring. "As we understand . . . there was no other aircraft that could meet the timeline with the same capabilities," said Tavernetti,...

Whistle-blower says Halliburton overcharged for Iraqi recreation

Total Purchases: $388,017,686,748 Fiscal 2005 Contract Awards Rank Parent Company Total $ DoD $ Civilian $ DoD Rank Civil. Rank 1 Lockheed Martin Corp. $26,312,273,206 $20,016,273,528 $6,295,999,676 1 1 2 Boeing Co. 21,347,810,866 18,890,249,207 2,457,561,658 2 5 3 Northrop Grumman Corp. 15,632,683,034 13,742,026,915 1,890,656,119 3 7 4 General Dynamics Corp. 11,527,395,499 11,182,583,664 344,811,834 4 38 5 Raytheon Co. 9,953,128,166 9,444,816,263 508,311,901 5 23 6 Halliburton Co. 6,099,064,859 5,956,162,998 142,901,860 6 84 7 L-3 Communications Holdings 5,341,120,624 4,849,615,503 491,505,120 8 25

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday implementing a contract with California's largest state employee union that includes an average pay raise between 7.8 percent and 9.8 percent over two years. The Republican governor also signed a bill installing a union contract with a similar wage increase for 12,000 highway maintenance workers, heavy-equipment operators and state employees in other related fields. Under the deal struck in June between state negotiators and the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, the 87,000-member labor group retained its current health care package for most members, in addition to the two-year raise and a $1,000 one-time...

The Army has awarded its five-year, $5 billion Worldwide Satellite Systems contract to six vendors. The award winners include two large businesses—Boeing Co. and General Dynamics Corp.—and four small businesses: DataPath of Duluth, Ga.; D&SCI of Eatontown, N.J.; Globecomm Systems of Hauppauge, N.Y.; and TeleCommunications Systems of Annapolis, Md. Under the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, each vendor is required to bring turnkey commercial satellite systems and associated support services for satellite terminals, including all hardware, software, services and data to operate the terminals. Both Defense and non-DOD agencies can order from the contract. Army officials say WWSS products and services will support...

The government awarded 70 percent of its contracts for Hurricane Katrina work without full competition, wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the process, says a House study released Thursday by Democrats. The report, a comprehensive overview of government audits on Katrina contracting, found that out of $10.6 billion in contracts awarded after the storm last year, more than $7.4 billion were handed out with limited or no competitive bidding. In addition, 19 contracts worth $8.75 billion were found to have wasted taxpayer money at least in part, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the report....

Gun maker seeks U.S. Army contract Bloomberg News Published: August 22, 2006 WASHINGTON Smith & Wesson, fresh from winning military contracts in Afghanistan, now wants a bigger prize back home: a U.S. Army deal worth as much as $500 million that would be its biggest defense order ever. The largest U.S. handgun company, which makes the .44 Magnum popularized in Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" movies, will bid on a contract to make about 645,000 of its .45-caliber pistols over the next 10 years, the chief executive, Michael Golden, said in an interview. Beretta of Italy has the current Army contract,...

WASHINGTON – Eight months after former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham confessed to taking massive bribes in exchange for providing at least $230 million in questionable defense and intelligence contracts, the Defense Department inspector general still has not determined whether any of those projects were improper. This week, the Pentagon announced that it would not renew one contract related to the scandal. But officials have been tight-lipped about the status of other taxpayer-funded work that may have been tainted, including a secret counterintelligence program. In fact, although several other Defense Department public affairs personnel and a congressional press aide have said...

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2006 – The United States has contracted a commercial ship to assist in a possible mass evacuation of Americans from Lebanon, a Defense Department spokesman said here today. The cruise ship Orient Queen is expected to arrive in the area of operations sometime tomorrow, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The ship can accommodate hundreds of passengers and may be used to ferry U.S. evacuees from the port of Beirut to the island of Cyprus. The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Gonzalez has been tasked to escort the Orient Queen as a force-protection measure, Whitman said. A number of...

From Citizen Kane to All the President's Men, Hollywood has enjoyed an enduring love affair with newspapers. But now that relationship seems to be cooling. As film studios have undergone their own strains in recent years, they have increasingly turned away from newspaper advertising.During the first quarter of the year - the busiest time for film industry advertising because of the seasonal awards - spending on newspapers was $233m, according to the Newspaper Association of America, an industry trade group. That marked a steady decline from the same period three years ago, when newspapers hauled in $310m from Hollywood.For most...

Former Army reservist will admit guilt in bidding scheme related to Iraq reconstruction. _____ WASHINGTON--A former U.S. Army Reserve officer from Spotsylvania County has agreed to plead guilty to playing a key role in a kickback scheme that steered millions of dollars in Iraq-reconstruction contracts to one businessman. Bruce D. Hopfengardner, 46, served as a special adviser to the U.S.-led occupation forces, recommending funding for projects on law-enforcement facilities in Iraq. Documents filed yesterday in U.S. District Court said that Hopfengardner will plead guilty to conspiring with Philip H. Bloom, a U.S. citizen with businesses in Romania, Robert J. Stein,...

The Central Intelligence Agency has warned former employees not to have unapproved contacts with reporters, as part of a mounting campaign by the administration to crack down on officials who leak information on national security issues. A former official said the CIA recently warned several retired employees who have consulting contracts with the agency that they could lose their pensions by talking to reporters without permission. He added that while the threats might be legally "hollow," they were having a chilling effect on former employees. The CIA called the allegations "rubbish". Jennifer Millerwise Dyke, spokeswoman for CIA director Porter Goss,...

Prime minister has said that he will look for the needs of the people in putting his government program, and will take his voice from the voices of the Iraqis. He threatened that he will take revenge from terrorists, condemning killings and displacement events.This came in a meeting with the delegate of Congress yesterday in which he showed that his government will work to allow investments and rebuilding projects, and finding job opportunities for Iraqis to improve their living standers. He added that the government will emphasize on the concept of national unity government to apply constitution and make Iraq...