Affirmative action questions are certainly on the minds of the nine high court justices, since on Oct. 31 they will hear for a second time a case challenging limited racial preferences in a federal transportation contracting program.
It also means awarding crucial transportation contracts to firms that are committed to working with their regional partners.
He was charged with abusing his position to win promotions, project contracts and cargo transportation contracts, personally pocketing 64.6m yuan in bribes during his time in the job.
Mr. Bloomberg said that the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, in a ruling last year, legally barred the city from including employee protection polices in transportation contracts.
The issue dates back to 1979, when job protections were first put into transportation contracts after the last bus strike, which lasted 13 weeks.
The workers were angered when the city announced that it could no longer require private companies bidding for transportation contracts to hire drivers on the basis of seniority and maintain previous pay rates.
By Monday, the union had changed its negotiation strategy, taking its demands to the bus companies it bargains with rather than trying to force the city to include its demands in requests for bids for transportation contracts.
The report questions why the World Food Program would steer 80 percent of its transportation contracts for Somalia, worth about $200 million, to three Somali businessmen, especially when they are suspected of connections to Islamist insurgents.
In response to the investigation, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced that he had dismissed Louis P. Benevento, the executive director of the Education Department's division of financial operations, which oversees contracts and purchasing and was responsible for managing the transportation contracts.
Six days after the crash of a chartered Ukrainian jet killed 62 Spanish soldiers returning home from Afghanistan, the Spanish Defense Ministry announced that it had decided to suspend a transportation contract with NATO's logistics agency and use domestic aircraft to move troops.
The move is designed to take advantage of the raft of transportation contracts expected in this fast moving region, particularly in Beijing, which will soon be under the international spotlight when it hosts the 2008 Olympics.
