TECHNOLOGY

US AIR FORCE AND REFUELING TANKERS

An Air Force plan to acquire 100 refueling tankers from Boeing Co. was put on hold Tuesday for at least six months by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said the delay will give officials time to complete two additional studies he has ordered to evaluate the controversial deal. The studies will include an analysis of alternatives that requires a comprehensive look at other refueling options, he said. The decision was based in part on recommendations made by the Defense Science Board, which submitted a report critical of the tanker deal earlier this month. The report by the advisory panel said there is no compelling reason for the Air Force to immediately acquire 100 refueling tankers. Contrary to Air Force claims, corrosion of the aging tanker fleet is "manageable" and several options exist to refurbish the fleet, the report said. The science board report followed another study released last month by the Pentagon's inspector general, who concluded the Pentagon should not move forward on the $23.5 billion US plan until significant changes are made. Rumsfeld's announcement was welcomed by both supporters and opponents of the tanker deal. Supporters said it quashed rumors that the plan would be scrapped, while critics said the additional reviews should give officials more time to fix what they called a one-sided contract. A spokesman for Chicago-based Boeing said the company believes the two new studies are important. One study will address whether new tankers are needed, while the other will examine several refueling options. "We firmly believe that the 767 tanker is the only solution that fulfills all 26 of the Air Force's stated requirements" for its refueling program, Boeing spokesman Doug Kennett said in a statement. Republican Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, applauded Rumsfeld's decision. Warner was a key proponent of a revised plan, approved last fall, to lease 20 planes and buy the remaining 80, instead of leasing all 100 planes as the Air Force had first proposed. Keith Ashdown, a spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group, said he hopes the decision to review the deal yet again "will result in ripping up Boeing's gold-plated contract. The overpriced lease would stick taxpayers with a raw deal that would make a used-car salesman blush." Despite signs the contract was in jeopardy, Boeing has been maintaining publicly for months that it expected the deal to ultimately go forward. But the company acknowledged to regulators in a March filing that it was braced to take a $310 million US charge if it was rejected. Rumsfeld said the two new reports should be completed by November. The news emerged after the close of regular trading. Boeing shares lost 55 cents, or 1.2 per cent, in the extended session, after closing at $44.70, or 14 cents higher, Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.-AP.

RUSSIA LAUNCHES CARGO SPACECRAFT

Russia successfully launched a cargo spacecraft loaded with fuel, food and mail for the Russian-American crew of the International Space Station, an official at mission control said. The Progress M-49 craft lifted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz-U rocket at 8:34 a.m. EDT, spokeswoman Vera Medvedkova said. The Progress later shed its rocket stages and entered orbit, the Interfax news agency quoted space officials as saying. It is scheduled to dock with the station Wednesday at 9:55 a.m. EDT. The ship is carrying nearly three tonnes of cargo, Medvedkova said. Its payload also includes water, air and equipment for scientific experiments as well as clothing for the two crewmen and mail from their relatives. Russian commander Gennady Padalka and American flight engineer Michael Fincke arrived April 21 for a six-month stint at the station, whose assembly has been on hold since the space shuttle Columbia disaster in February 2003. -AP.

QUATTRONE NEW TRIAL

Frank Quattrone, the former star technology banker convicted earlier this month of obstructing justice, requested a new trial Tuesday based on "unorthodox and confusing" jury instructions. Lawyers for Quattrone said U.S. District Judge Richard Owen misled jurors about the legal standards the government was required to meet in order to find the ex-banker guilty. "These errors were highly prejudicial to the defence and seriously compromised the fairness of the trial," Quattrone lawyers said in papers filed in federal court in Manhattan. Federal prosecutors did not immediately return a call for comment on the motion. They will have a chance to respond to the papers before Owen decides whether to grant a new trial. Quattrone, among the best-known investment bankers of the late-1990s technology stock boom, was convicted May 3 of obstructing a federal probe into stock allocation at his bank, Credit Suisse First Boston. The case hinged on a 22-word e-mail Quattrone sent to subordinates at the bank on Dec. 5, 2000, suggesting bankers should "clean up those files." In particular, Quattrone lawyers objected to a portion of the judge's instruction to jurors in which he explained the concept of "reasonable doubt" about the guilt of a defendant. Owen said at the time that it was "practically impossible for a person to be absolutely and completely convicted of any controverted fact which by its nature cannot be proved by mathematical certainty." The judge also said jurors should convict if they had "an abiding conviction as to the guilt of the defendant." The court papers also noted Owen had rejected language requested by the defence. Defence lawyers included accounts of comments made by several jurors to news organizations, including The Associated Press, that the defence said showed jurors improperly "filled in gaps" in the government's case. In one story, a juror said he had voted to convict despite having "certain doubts." In another, a juror said it was difficult to gauge Quattrone's state of mind when he sent the e-mail. The news accounts show jurors relied "simply on Mr. Quattrone's position as a senior manager or his intelligence, and speculation about what he must have or should have known," the court papers said. The conviction came in Quattrone's second trial on charges related to the e-mail. The first ended in a mistrial last October, with jurors deadlocked on the same charges. In papers filed previously, lawyers for Quattrone have accused the judge of having a pro-government bias. They also have the option of later appealing the verdict to a federal appeals court. Quattrone, 48, is to be sentenced in September. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he could get more than a year in prison on his convictions for obstruction and witness tampering. -Erica Mclam

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