Police began interviewing employees at a Lockheed Martin plant in Mississippi on Wednesday, hoping to discover why an assembly line worker went on a shooting rampage that left five co-workers dead and nine others wounded.

Doug Williams, 48, killed himself Tuesday morning, just minutes after opening fire with a shotgun and semi-automatic rifle at a Lockheed aircraft parts factory on the outskirts of this industrial town in eastern Mississippi.

Some of the 138 employees at the plant have said Williams, who was white, was a racist with a long history of run-ins with managers and employees. Eight of the 14 shooting victims were black, including four who were killed.

The shooting occurred after Williams stormed out of an ethics and sensitivity class at the factory.

Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie said on Wednesday that authorities had not established a racial motivation for the crime. "This individual had issues with numerous personnel at the plant, black and white," Sollie said.

He added that three of the nine people injured in the shooting had been released from a local hospital overnight.

Those killed in the rampage have been identified as Lanette McCall, 47, Micky Fitzgerald, 45, Sam Cockrell, 46, Thomas Willis, 57, and Charlie Miller, 58.

The incident was the latest in a series of workplace shootings in the United States and the deadliest since seven people were gunned down at an Internet consulting firm in Massachusetts on Dec. 26, 2000.

It also came one week after a 25-year-old man shot and killed three co-workers and wounded five others at a manufacturing plant in Jefferson City, Missouri, before killing himself in a shootout with police.

Raytheon Company has been awarded a contract modification for low rate initial production (LRIP) of the Joint Standoff Weapon (AGM-154C) for the U.S. Navy. The LRIP contract, valued at approximately US$26 million, was made by the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.

The U.S. Navy exercised an option on an existing JSOW (AGM-154A) contract to reallocate funds for JSOW-C LRIP. The work will be performed at Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson and will be completed by February 2005.

JSOW is a joint Navy and Air Force program. It is a family of low-cost, air-to-ground weapons that employs an integrated Global Positioning System/Inertial Navigation system that guides the weapon to the target.

The AGM-154C JSOW incorporates a Raytheon-developed uncooled, long-wave imaging infrared seeker with automatic target acquisition (ATA) algorithms, thus providing the U.S. Navy with a launch-and-leave weapon with long-range standoff, highly survivable, precision strike capability.

The AGM-154C is the first U.S. weapon to incorporate the Broach multi-stage blast fragmentation/penetrator warhead, and the Multi-Application Fuze Initiation System (MAFIS) developed by Team Broach.

The contract award follows a successful development program highlighted by four free-flight demonstrations of the new JSOW-C seeker and independent U.S. Navy sled testing of the Broach warhead. The flights successfully demonstrated the capability of the weapon's imaging infrared seeker and ATA technology to hit various targets with high precision.

The JSOW is a low cost family of long-range glide weapons using a common delivery vehicle for different payloads. The JSOW-A is in production and delivers the BLU-97 Combined Effects Bomblets for area targets. The JSOW-A version is being produced for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force for use on the F/A-18, F-16, F-15, B-1, B-2 and B-52 aircraft. JSOW-C is planned for use on the U.S. Navy F/A-18 and Joint Strike Fighter Block II.

China Telecom has awarded its first commercial Next Generation Network (NGN) contract to Alcatel. The contract was awarded by China Telecom's subsidiary Shanghai Telecom to Alcatel Shanghai Bell, Alcatel's flagship Chinese company and the leading Chinese telecom technology vendor. This follows China Telecom's successful NGN trial with Alcatel Shanghai Bell in 2002.

Next Generation Networks allow service providers to evolve from their traditional voice services to a full range of multimedia services. When completed by end of this year, Shanghai Telecom will be able to provide fully integrated voice, data and multimedia services via Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) and Ethernet to its broadband residential and enterprise customers.

These services include broadband Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, video telephony and video conferencing, personal communication assistant (PCA), IP Centrex, voice virtual private network (VPN) and unified messaging. The PCA is a Web-based personal communications service while the IP Centrex allows enterprises to outsource their complete voice services needs.

Alcatel's end-to-end NGN solution will form the heart of Shanghai Telecom's next generation network. This solution includes the Alcatel Softswitch, the Alcatel Media Gateway, and the Alcatel Litespan Multi-service Access Gateway, accompanied by a Alcatel Open Services Platform with applications such as the personal communication assistant and video conferencing. The contract also encompasses an integrated network management system and a series of application servers and customer premise equipment (CPE) devices.

Healthcare processing capability in India provides key link in Perot Systems' healthcare transformation strategy and global Perot Systems Corporation representatives have announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Vision Healthsource India Private Limited and Vision Healthsource, Inc. -- collectively known as "Vision" -- a leading provider of billing and claims solutions for healthcare service providers in the United States.

Headquartered in Chennai, India, Vision was founded in 1997 and pioneered outsourced offshore transaction processing for the U.S. healthcare industry. Today the company has primary delivery operations in India and senior market facing personnel in the United States. It is one of the largest U.S./India remote healthcare claims processing companies.

With a client base of more than 25 U.S.-based healthcare billing companies, Vision handles more than US$1 billion in healthcare provider claims per year for physicians and hospital-based and physician specialties across the United States. The company's ISO-9001 certified claims processing centers and call centers in Chennai process more than 25 million transactions and 670,000 phone calls per year.

Vision's approximately 500 employees will become a part of Perot Systems' healthcare group, the company's largest industry group.

Perot Systems agreed to acquire Vision for an aggregate value up to US$10 million - US$3 million in cash at closing and an additional US$7 million if certain performance targets are met through 2006. For the 12 months ending December 2002, Vision had revenues of approximately US$2.4 million.

The closing of the acquisition is subject to final regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas J. Keck has joined Raytheon Missile Systems as vice president of Business Development.

Keck is responsible for leading, developing, coordinating and directing all existing and developing sales efforts, marketing and business development strategies for the business. He also will be responsible for identifying, creating and exploiting competitive advantages to position Missile Systems for continued growth in existing and developing markets. He joins Raytheon from General Dynamics Decision Systems where he was vice president of Business Development for Air Combat Systems.

Keck had a distinguished 34-year career in the U.S. Air Force. His last assignment was Commander of the Eighth Air Force at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. His other assignments included Vice Commander, Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley AFB, Va.; Vice Commander, Twelfth Air Force and U.S. Southern Command Air Forces, Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz. He earned his pilot's wings at Williams Air Force Base in Chandler, Ariz., and piloted B-52, B-1, U-2, A-10 and SR-71 aircraft during his service.

Keck is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and he holds master's degrees in business management from Central Michigan University and in systems management from the University of Southern California.