The Pentagon made an interesting choice when it hired a US company to build a small wireless phone network in Iraq: MCI, aka WorldCom Inc, perpetrator of the biggest accounting fraud in American business and not exactly a big name in cellular service.
The Iraq contract incensed WorldCom rivals and government watchdogs who say Washington has been too kind to the company since WorldCom revealed its US$11 billion accounting fraud and plunged into bankruptcy last year.
"We don't understand why MCI would be awarded this business given its status as having committed the largest corporate fraud in history," said AT&T Corp spokesman Jim McGann. "There are many qualified, financially stable companies that could have been awarded that business, including us."
"I was curious about it, because the last time I looked, MCI's never built out a wireless network," said Len Lauer, head of Sprint Corp's wireless division.
The contract in Iraq is part of a short-term communications plan costing the US Department of Defense about US$45 million, said Lieutenant Colonel Ken McClellan.
The Pentagon also plans to have Motorola Corp establish radio communications for security forces in Baghdad, a deal worth US$10 million to US$25 million depending on the options exercised, said McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman.
The contract with WorldCom -- which plans to adopt the name of its MCI long distance unit when it emerges from bankruptcy -- has prompted grumbling in the telecommunications industry from people who say it was not put up for bids.
"We were not aware of it until it showed up in some news reports," Motorola spokesman Norm Sandler said.
McClellan said he had no details on the process that led to the deal, which he said was signed early this month. WorldCom spokeswoman Natasha Haubold declined to comment on details of the contract.
The company is to build a small wireless network with 19 cell towers that can serve 5,000 to 10,000 mobile phones used by reconstruction officials and aid workers in the Baghdad area.
The network, using the GSM wireless standard dominant in Europe and the Middle East, is expected to be running by July.
"This is an interim, quick government solution -- this is not the basis for some national long-term solution for Iraq," McClellan said. "That will probably have to be undertaken by the Iraqis."
WorldCom is not a commercial wireless carrier. It once resold other wireless carriers' service in the US but dropped that approach recently.
However, Haubold said her company is fully qualified to perform the Iraq work.
She pointed to the company's work on a wireless system in Haiti in the 1990s and contract last year, in which it served as a subcontractor, to provide long-distance connections for a wireless network in Afghanistan.
McClellan also agreed that WorldCom's experience in Haiti and Afghanistan is "analogous work" to what is needed in Iraq.
Haubold also stressed the company's overall deep relationship with the US military and government.
In fact, a recent review by Washington Technology, a trade newspaper that follows computing-related sales to the government, found that WorldCom jumped to eighth among all federal technology contractors last year, with US$772 million in sales.
It was the first time WorldCom cracked the top 10.
That US$772 million figure refers only to deals in which WorldCom is the prime contractor to federal agencies. The company gets much more taxpayer money -- exactly how much is not disclosed -- from state contracts and from federal deals in which it is a subcontractor.
That infuriates WorldCom critics, who say the government has kept the company afloat while the General Services Administration barred Enron and Arthur Andersen from getting contracts after their scandals emerged.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS