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Congressional investigators regard granted Boeing’s asseverate of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract awarded to Northrop Grumman Corp. and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.

The Government Accountability Office decision is not binding, but it puts pressure on the Air Force to re-examine the contract and could help Boeing making prisoner part or all of the assignment. The decision was confirmed by the offices of Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

The decision also gives ammunition to Boeing supporters in Congress seeking to stop funding for the deal or force a new emulation.

The contract for 179 lofty refueling tankers is the earliest of three deals worth up to $100 billion to replace the Air Force’s entire tanker fleet.

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Sen. McCain should add one greater degree repression on his summer travel itinerary. He should visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an area about the size of South Carolina in Alaska's far north.

Oil companies want to teach in a quantity of ANWR roughly the size of Dulles airport, to which place the U.S. Geological Survey thinks there may have existence 10.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, every amount of the same meaning to 37 percent of the current U.S. proved reserves of 21.7 billion barrels. But Sen. McCain says he'd no sooner drill in ANWR than in the Grand Canyon.

Parts of ANWR are beautiful. But not that small portion of the coastal plain where the oil companies want to drill. It's treeless tundra and bogs, mosquito infested in the sententious summer, frightfully cold (up to 70 degrees below zero) in the long winter. All of ANWR draws in regard to 1,200 visitors a year. The Grand Canyon draws roughly ten times being of the class who many every day.

Sen. McCain seems to be unaware that uranium was mined in the "pristine" Grand Canyon from 1953 to 1969, quite near to where most of the tourists go. It hasn't seemed to have spoiled their view.

Sen. McCain supports Arizona Power's contrive to build the world's largest solar electricity plant on 1,900 acres of wild near Gila Bend, Arizona. "What's the difference between 'despoiling' 2,000 acres of pristine barren with a giant farm of solar panels and 'despoiling' 2,000 acres of frozen tundra through a few drilling rigs?" asked a reader of National Review Online.

If we were drilling in ANWR, oil prices would be significantly lower. But there is exuberance of oil closer to home. The USGS thinks in that place are 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Bakken disposition in North Dakota and Montana. There are another 86 billion barrels in the Outer Continental Shelf off our coasts. Altogether, there are more than 100 billion barrels of oil that only science of government preclude us from developing. If these were counted, we would vault from 12th fix to 4th among the earth's nations in proved reserves.

Our potential reserves are much greater. There are an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the oil shale in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. That's ready as much oil as the proved reserves of the rest of the world combined.

That's not all. The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal, through, according to the International Energy Agency, 27.1 percent of the world's coal reserves of one trillion tons. The Shenhua Group, a Chinese firm, will open this fall in Mongolia a plant that is expected to produce 50,000 barrels a day of plain sulfur gasoline and diesel fuel by 2010. The Shenhua Group is using technology developed mostly in the U.S., but we have no comparable projects here, even though coal can be converted to oil for about $60 a barrel, according to the National Mining Association.

We're paying roughly two times as much as we ought to for gasoline, thanks to the restrictions imposed by politicians. Unsatisfied with driving up oil prices, they've driven up nutrition prices, too, by heavily subsidizing and mandating the use of corn-based ethanol.

Mexico has increased its oil production 64 percent since 1980. Canada's production has increased 85 percent. If we'd increased production at the rate of our North American neighbors, we'd be producing 91 percent of our stream consumption, noted National Review's Noel Sheppard.

"Legislatively enacted environmental barriers have as a matter of fact resulted in a 25 percent decline in domestic work," Mr. Sheppard said.

A Gallup lop in May indicated 57 percent of Americans support drilling in ANWR and off our coasts. It's our political leaders who don't induce it.

Sen. McCain is a "clueless, don't drill zombie," wrote Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal. But at least Sen. McCain laments tall energy prices, likewise if he's indisposed to do much on the point them. In an interview with CNBC June 10, Sen. Obama expressed regret not that energy prices have risen, and nothing else that they have risen in the same manner fast. "I would have preferred a gradual adjustment," he said. Sen. Obama's proposed "solution" is to raise taxes on oil companies, which would hike prices further.

Dumb and dumber. What a choice for November!

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The Journal said a deal through Reliance would give movie director Steven Spielberg the cash to finance his DreamWorks team's departure from Viacom Inc's (VIAb.N) Paramount Pictures later this year.

Reliance would provide Spielberg and company with $500-$600 million in equity and would also give Reliance a broad stake in the new party.

(Reporting by the agency of Yinka Adegoke, Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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Ireland’s repudiation of the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum has left European Union leaders in shock, unsure how to proceed

by Ralf Beste, Hans-Jurgen Schlamp and Stefan Simons

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Lunching with Gordon Brown is never much of a satisfaction. The hapless British principal minister is known to be cranky and ungracious—the polar adverse of Tony Blair, who continually seemed to be wearing a smile.

Until Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was still hoping that he’d have an opportunity at his upcoming lunch with Gordon Brown to crack a few jokes with his collaborator. Sarkozy had invited the prime minister to Paris just prior to the two-day European Union summit of European heads of state and government to argue possible candidates concerning the EU’s top civil posts. The Treaty of Lisbon, which has calm now been ratified by 18 of the 27 member states, envisions creating a number of top posts, including an EU president and a high representative for exotic affairs.

But as the news came betimes Friday afternoon that the Irish had rejected the treaty in a national referendum, any hope of a pleasurable luncheon faded. For it being so that, there will be no treaty, no new jobs and instead of discussing people’s future careers, Sarkozy and Brown will have to practice a fragment of continental decisive turn dealing.

After six years of work onward the text, endless negotiating rounds with 27 editors at the table, countless requests conducive to changes and suggestions for improvements, the EU finally seemed close to achieving its post. The 27 member states were united in their wish to create something that looked a lot like an EU constitution.

Following a long journey through the EU institutions, the memory of the text had been changed from the EU “constitution” to the more harmless-sounding “Treaty of Lisbon.” Still, the treaty, which to a large degree had been shepherded through by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, appeared to have the prerogative to streamline EU decision-making and to give it a single voice to the outside world by creating a posture equivalent to an EU foreign minister.

But that didn’t happen. Now everything is up in the air formerly again. The 860,000 “no” voters in Ireland have blocked the path of a half-billion Europeans. In any process, the treaty bequeath no longer be able to go into effect as planned on January 1, 2009, lamented Luxembourg’s prime churchman, Jean-Claude Juncker. And no single in kind can say for certain now whether it will be possible to overcome the blockade.

“This is every utter disaster,” one diplomat at the French Foreign Ministry commented. “It’s an even deeper crisis than in 2005,” said Jo Leinen, chairman of the committee in the European Parliament responsible instead of drafting the original constitution. Back then, the French and the Dutch rejected the draft constitution in national referenda. It took three obscure years after that to get the treaty back on track as the Treaty of Lisbon. But, as French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said, “If the Irish people give a decision to reject the Lisbon Treaty, naturally there won’t have existence somewhat more Lisbon Treaty.”

Even committed members of the European Parliament, preference Germany’s Elmar Brok of the conservative Christian Democrats, who is an advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel upon EU matters, believe this week’s development threatens to bring an end to a united Europe in its current form. The community of 27, Brok believes, may wind up getting reduced to a casual economic alliance of kindly states and a “mini-Europe based around Germany and France.” This multi-speed model, however, would subsist the worse put in a box scenario for Berlin in terms of Germany’s outward and European policy.

During a meeting last week in Germany, Merkel and Sarkozy together agreed forward in what way they would respond if the Irish rejected the referendum. But neither really knew what they should do. Capturing the sense of helplessness both felt, Sarkozy said, “Whatever happens, we inclination offer a joint German-French response.” No matter what, the two said, the ratification process should continue, and an exit clause could subsist provided for the Irish if they weren’t willing to grasp a speedy second referendum adhering the issue.

On Friday afternoon, France’s minister for European affairs, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, who described himself in the same proportion that “devastated,”

Europe doesn’t like the country’s increasingly restrictive weight security, calling it a “considerable afflict” on account of exporters

through Renata Goldirova

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The EU has voiced frustration over “worrying signs” of protectionism in the United States, pointing to a planned increase of US carry on a farm subsidies as flow as some anti-terrorism measures of that kind as mandatory scanning of aggregate goods containers entering American territory.

“We have noted with certain concern that there are signs of growing protectionism in a calculate of areas,” reads the union’s statement to the World Trade Organisation issued on Wednesday (11 June).

The document attacks “mounting restrictive import requirements on account of security purposes” as they represent a “considerable burden” on EU exporters. The EU has hinted it may challenge the measures in front of the Geneva-based body.

“The EU raised doubts about the compliance of these measures with World Trade Organisation rules and their professed meaning,” the statement concludes.

The two sides are the universe’s export leaders, with transatlantic trade amounting to €3 billion by day.

Higher farm subsidies

The EU has also criticised more generous hand-outs foreseen in the new 2008 US Farm Bill, especially in the context of the ongoing Doha growth round of world trade talks.

The Doha development orbed began in 2001 with the aim of severe farm subsidies and tariffs and boosting free trade.

The bill is the labor of the US Congress which is pushing higher subsidies malignity opposition from President George W. Bush.

“The [EU], like others, remainder concerned that we are seeing less commitment to multilateralism than in the past, especially because the US has always been the main proponent as well as the beneficiary of the multilateral system,” the EU statement says.

The WTO attack comes a present to view of friendship between Brussels and Washington at the EU-US summit in Slovenia earlier this week.

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In late morning trading, London's FTSE 100 index of governing shares soared 1.74 percent to 5,895.30 points.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 index jumped 1.41 percent to 6,824.99 points and the Paris CAC 40 index rallied 0.90 percent to 4,699.61 nearing the mid-way point.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of take the top off eurozone shares increased by 1.12 percent in value to 3,572.47 points.

In foreign give and take reciprocally dealing, the European unbiassed currency stood at 1.5488 dollars.

US stocks had ended associated Monday during the time that the market tracked disorderly swings in oil prices and investors showed interest in beaten-down banking and technology shares, traders said.

Japanese share prices closed steady Tuesday like investors turned cautious. Dealers said it was not any surprise that investors opted to take a breather after recent sharp gains.

Oil rude futures retreated further on Tuesday from record highs of almost 140 dollars a barrel, reached in commercial a generation earlier.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude notwithstanding July delivery, shed 13 cents to 134.48 dollars per barrel.

It had struck a remembrance high point of 139.89 dollars on Monday as traders shrugged off advice that Saudi Arabia was quick to raise output to help cool soaring efficacy costs threatening economic product.

Surging oil prices are driving up self-conceit, ruling to expectations of higher engage rates around the globe.

British 12-month inflation jumped to a 16-year high point of 3.3 percent in May, authoritative data showed on Tuesday.

Inflation in the 15-nation eurozone gain a record high 3.7 percent in May, it was announced on Monday.

Meanwhile German investor confidence lay low sharply in June, a survey showed on Tuesday, amid fears of an economic slowdown, rising prices and expectations of an increase in eurozone interest rates.

The ZEW institute said its closely watched indicator of economic sentiment fell 11.0 points to minus 52.4 points. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a much more clement decline, to about minus 42 points.

Among individual share prices in European equities trading on Tuesday, British bank Barclays surged by 6.38 percent in utility to 350 pence.

Barclays had slid on Monday after the fourth biggest bank in Britain said it was considering moves to attract fresh capital by way of offering of recent origin shares after being hit by the global credit crunch.

Barclays' peer HBOS, which has already gone to shareholders with a rights issue after misery writedowns related to the US subprime homes loans crisis, saw its participate in price jump 7.75 percent to 340.5 pence without interruption Tuesday.

Away from the banking sector, German car giant Daimler gained 3.96 percent to 45.41 euros after the group announced on Tuesday that it would buy back about 96.4 million of its own shares, some 10 percent of its outstanding stock, for up to six billion euros (9.3 billion dollars).

In Paris, shares in US-French telecom equipment supplier Alcatel-Lucent added 4.28 percent to 4.51 euros after signing a one-billion-dollar agreement with China Mobile, the Asian country's largest movable phone performer.

Startup EcoGlove offers reusable medical gloves and a sterilization system to facilities looking to redeem money and curb waste

by Mark Scott

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You may not have given much thought to the place of traffic for disposable medical gloves, which admittedly lacks glamour, so it might surprise you that this business is merit $2.6 billion annually, up 20% since 2001. Within five years it’s expected to hit $3 billion, according to Global Industry Analysts, a San Jose market research strong.

More astonishing is the sheer number of gloves used and thrown away each year: 100 billion. If wholly those gloves were laid end to end, they would reach 30 times to the moon and back. Imagine how much space they take up each year in landfills.

Now a four-year-old startup has come up by some eco-friendly alternative. Using its own high-quality latex gloves and truck-size machines that be possible to be installed in or near hospitals, EcoGlove proposes to wash, sterilize, and reuse therapeutical gloves up to seven times—slashing waste by means of as a great deal of as 75% and cutting energy use and inform against by more than moiety, compared with single-use products.

Started by entrepreneur Patrick Hampe, EcoGlove is counting upon the body a confluence of trends in the health-care industry. In an era of rising costs, hospitals, laboratories, and other of the healing art facilities are at all times looking for ways to save money. With cleaning and reuse, "one glove ends up doing the work of four," says John Wright, EcoGlove’s business development manager. This cuts contrivance costs: Although the gloves cost without more about 5¢ a two, the savings on the millions of disposable gloves used eddish. year at a hospital can really add up.

Reuse is also environmentally beneficial, cutting remote not and nothing else on the manufacturing and transportation of new single-use gloves but also on the waste stream they feed. "The energy cost required to recondition gloves is about 60% less than buying new ones," says Wright. For health practitioners looking to light yellow up their green credentials while reducing carbon emissions, the analysis of the process of reasoning is compelling.

Still, the idea of reusing gloves that hold been who-knows-where may be hard to take .. That’s where EcoGlove’s patented cleaning process comes into play. The company won’t disclose specifics about its technology, but Wright says its 12 stages include everything from washing the inside and outside of each glove to probing for microscopic tears with some electrical charge.

Approximately 10% of the used gloves are rejected each time they go through the machine. The flops are shredded, and the rubber waste sold to third parties. The automated process—first developed in 2004 to recondition gloves used at an IBM (IBM) electronics factory in Hungary—churns out a reconditioned glove every three seconds.

Customers are already signing up. EcoGlove has penned a behave with a hospital in Penang, Malaysia, and is negotiating contracts in North America and Europe. "It’s a massive mart, so EcoGlove may be able to cause a niche for itself," says Kavitha Ravikumar, European head of the medical piece of fancy assign places to at researcher Frost & Sullivan in London. "If they can keep their costs low, they stand to have some success." Privately held EcoGlove doesn’t discuss its financials.

To be sure, EcoGlove faces challenges. For the same thing, owning to the rise of so-called superbugs such viewed like MRSA, hospital managers increasingly favor using disposable products of all kinds to help guard against infections. To fight this tend, says Ravikumar, EcoGlove must persuade hospitals and regulators that its higher-end gloves and system outperform standard disposable gloves. "Their sterilization process must exist very merciful," she says.

At the same time, there is concern in the medical community about heightened allergic responses to latex—the material most commonly used for medical gloves. The problem is exacerbated by the rise of Asian manufacturers such as Malaysia’s TopGlove and Supermax (SUPM.KL), which are undercutting Western makers with less expensive gloves that use cheaper, more allergenic latex.

This trend, however, could favor EcoGlove. To maintain profit margins, more Asian manufacturers have reduced the quality of latex in their gloves, says Global Industry Analysts. That’s driving some medical practitioners to worry near safety and allergies and to cane to higher-end products. EcoGlove could benefit.

That would be welcome news to EcoGlove’s backers, who be under the necessity thus well-nigh invested $3 the multitude in the firm. The company is looking to raise an additional $7.5 million, and is in talks with the two European venture capitalists and government-backed companies in Asia.

How much of any impact EcoGlove will be seized of without interruption the industry is still anyone’s believe. But in a business that’s much larger than utmost people realize, likewise a modest interest could power prosperity—and produce important returns for EcoGlove’s fantastic investors.

The most contentious issue is the sale of gas by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to his brother Anil’s Reliance Energy

by dint of. Piyush Pandey and Krishna Gopalan

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From aviation to gas, the sparring between the Ambani brothers shows no signs of fading. In fact, June 18 will mark the third anniversary of the family agreement between the two brothers. That agreement ended a bitter, year-long fight in India’s first business parents and children and appeared to pave the way notwithstanding every amicable resolution of all issues. Three years later, very little seems to have changed. The bitterness continues and the disputes are endless.

While the strife of words surrounding the MTN deal is the latest in the unabated acrimony, it is apparent that neither Mukesh nor Anil is in a single one discernible expedite to smoke the peace pipe. Right from the time the demerger was announced in June 2005, the siblings have been at it. Interestingly, the issues that have become contentious accept been varied and not necessarily restricted to their existing lines of businesses.

By whole counts, the most controversial and contentious issue is the sale of gas by the agency of the agency of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) from its Krishna Godavari basin to fuel brother Anil’s Reliance Energy’s proposed 7,450 MW power plant in Dadri, UP. What makes the gas issue critical is that it goes to the core of the dispute: to the demerger agreement between the two entities.

The gas is important for Reliance Energy to fuel its 7,450 MW power brew proposed to be pose up at cost of over $8 billion. According to the agreement, Reliance Energy will request 40 mmscmd (million metric scale cubic metres per day) of gas at a cost of $2.34 per mmbtu (million metric British thermal unit) with a view to a period of 17 years. This desire be broadly broken up into 28 mmscmd initially, with another 12 mmscmd accruing in the event of RIL’s contract with NTPC not going through.

As things stand, RIL has objected to the terms and conditions (which include price, duration and aggregate) of this elastic fluid sales agreement. It has refused to supply gas to ADAG citing management non-approval of the price. ADAG has gone to quadrangle seeking directions to force RIL into complying with its portion of the agreement.

The doom of RIL’s 80 mmscmd of aeriform fluid production from the KG basin and that of Dadri dominion plant rest on the court case. In an interim order finally year, the Bombay High Court has restrained RIL from selling the gas to any third part party with the purpose of protecting the interests of R-ADAG.

The gas supply issue finds a place in the June 2005 parents and children agreement between the brothers. The agreement was signed by Mukesh and Anil in their particular capacities as presiding officer and vice chairman of RIL in the merged Reliance entity. This broadly stated that both the groups were to enter into suitable arrangements as per a scheme called the ‘demerger scheme’, which was approved by a large figure of RIL shareholders and the Bombay High Court in December 2005.

The basis of several disputes lies in the agreements reached betwixt the siblings in early 2006: the gas sales purchase agreement (GSPA), the non-competition agreement (NCA) and the trademark management agreement (TMA). These were signed between RIL and what the documents describe in the same proportion that the ‘resulting’ companies of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG). Even at that time ADAG had reacted sharply to the agreements signed by RIL and the four ADAG companies. ADAG claims that the one and the other sets of entities were controlled by dint of. elder brother Mukesh and the agreements were tantamount to Mukesh signing agreements through himself. These agreements have now become the root cause of all disputes between the brothers. Sources close to Mukesh claims that Anil is being selective and that the younger brother often used the same agreements to thwart the elder brother’s plans.

The NCA was in the limelight then Anil Ambani wrote to the Maharashtra chief minister in 2007 claiming that RIL could not set up control projects. He maintained that this business was exclusively demure in opposition to ADAG. This was when the Mukesh Ambani dispose proposed to set up power projects in its proposed special economic zones (SEZs) in Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

A Dutch startup has originate a promising niche: fleets of battery-powered light commercial vehicles toward short-range city deliveries

by Mark Scott

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Soaring gas prices have focused attention as never before on electric cars. From Nissan’s (NSANY) plan to sell zero-carbon vehicles in Japan and the U.S. to General Motors’ (GM) efforts to disclose a battery-powered hybrid, the world’s top automakers are scrambling to introduce greener vehicles.

Some of the most attractive developments aren’t coming from sedulousness giants, though. Former SAP (SAP) charged with execution Shai Agassi has made waves by his bold plan to lead in electric cars in Israel (BusinessWeek.com, 1/25/08). And a Dutch startup called Duracar is pursuing an ingenious plan to sell an eco-friendly porous commercial vehicle roughly the size of a Mini (BMWG.DE) that could be used for deliveries and other short-range travel in Europe’s bustling city centers.

This niche may lack the sex appeal of sports cars or SUVs, but it’s a pregnant business opportunity. Analysts figure that 330,000 new light commercial vehicles (defined as those weighing smaller quantity than 3,850 pounds) are sold each year in Europe—a emporium worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Replacing even some of the gas-powered vehicles with electric models would cut breeze, pollution, and carbon emissions in cities. And with oil topping $140 through barrel, it furthermore would deducting money instead of fleet operators—whether government agencies, field service operations, or delivery firms such as FedEx (FDX).

"We’re riding the wave of growing interest in eco-friendly cars," says Duracar Chief Executive Officer Wim Steenbakkers. "For this to work, the vehicle must be economically competitive [through gas-powered vehicles], and we think we’ve done that."

Duracar testament officially uncover its electric car, dubbed the Quicc, at the Paris Motor Show this fall, end the Dutch company already has massy plans for the pint-sized vehicle. Steenbakkers aims to part $7.6 million in pretax profits nearest year attached revenues of $83 million, and hopes to sell more than 13,000 units over the next three years.

The startup has recruited an impressive lineup of managers, investors, and partners to help hit its targets. It has raised about $37 million from backers including Dutch venture capitalists Ecoventures—a subsidiary of governing green investing. firm Econcern—and is finalizing an additional $20 the multitude in funding to expand production capacity.

CEO Steenbakkers worked previously at Dutch life sciences and materials crew Royal DSM (DSMN.AS), some of whose technology is being used in the car. He’s joined by Chief Technology Officer John Lodge, an auto industry veteran of 25 years who worked previously for Mitsubishi (MMTOF) and Volvo (F), and Johann Tomforde, the developer behind Mercedes Benz’s (DAI) reduced scale Smart car, who consults eight days a month for Duracar.

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LOS ANGELES — A prior Boeing scientist who specialized in anti-missile systems was charged Monday in federal woo, nearly two years after an investigation into whether he misused classified information, prosecutors said.

Abraham Lesnik, 68, was charged with unlawfully retaining national defense information. He faces a maximum 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Lesnik appeared in court, where a U.S. officer judge flow his bail at $150,000, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Zweiback said.

Lesnik’s attorney, Marc Harris, declared his dependant will plead guilty at a later date.

U.S. attorney’s office spokesman Thom Mrozek said mostly of the case was in the state seal. A charging document alleges Lesnik had unauthorized control of 10 classified documents and one “top secret” document “pertaining to public defense satellite threat mitigation.”

The FBI searched Lesnik’s San Fernando Valley home in 2006 and confiscated a laptop computer.

Lesnik was terminated by dint of. Boeing in 2007, according to a court document.