WASHINGTON Despite a major shakeup last year, grave problems still dog the Pentagon's national missile defense program, jeopardizing a deployment go-ahead decision in mid-2000. An independent group of 12 military experts chaired by Air Force Gen. (ret).

LONDON A U.K. parliamentary committee has labeled the Ministry of Defense’s plan to privatize government research laboratories as “fatally flawed.” Noting Pentagon warnings, the panel said the move would jeopardize cooperative work with the U.S. as well as other European countries and “should not proceed as planned.”

WASHINGTON Northrop Grumman's Ryan Aeronautical Center is the latest company to reveal its design for an unmanned vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that the U.S. Navy could fly from small helicopter decks on combat ships on real-time reconnaissance missions.