The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 04, 2001, Page 5, Image 5
Diplomats visit Navy crew in China
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College Press Exchange
A U.S. Navy file photo shows an EP-3E Aries II, similar to the
plane involved in a midair collision with fighter aircraft from
the Republic of China on April 1.
by Martin Fackler
Associated Press
HAIKOU, China—American diplomats
met Tuesday night with the crew of a U.S.
spy plane, nearly three days after it made
an emeigency landing at a Chinese military
base after colliding with a Chinese fighter
jet. An American diplomat said they were
in good health but gave no indication of
when they would be released.
President Bush demanded that China
allow the 24 crew members to leave and
return the surveillance plane.
“This accident has the potential of
undermining our hopes for a fruitful and
productive relationship between our two
countries,” Bush said in Washington. “To
keep that from happening, our servicemen
and women need to come home.”
Army Brig. Gen. Neal Sealock, the
U.S. Embassy defense attache, was allowed
to meet late Tuesday with the 24 crew
members. It was their first contact with
an American official since their EP-3
surveillance plane landed on the tropical
Chinese island of Hainan after a collision
with a Chinese fighter jet.
“They are in good health,” Sealock
said of the American servicemen and
women. He said U.S. officials were working
for their release, but gave no indication
that would happen immediately. “Our goal
is to get them home as soon as possible,”
Sealock said.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
called Tuesday for the “rapid” return of
the crew and the sophisticated surveillance
plane as he welcomed the meeting j^ith
the crew. Bush had complained about
Chinese delays in allowing the meeting.
“I’m encouraged by the fact that the
meeting is taking place. It shouldn’t have
taken this long to happen.” Powell said in
Key West, Fla. “But, now that it has
happened, I hope this starts us on a road
to a full and complete resolution of this
matter.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
Zhu Bangzao said the crew’s fate would
be decided in light of a Chinese
investigation. Asked at a Beijing news
conference when the crew would be
released, Zhu replied, “I don’t know.”
China demanded the United States
apologize for the collision, which it blamed
on the American plane. The pilot of the
Chinese fighter parachuted out and remains
missing.
Postal Service considers
ending Saturday delivery
by David Ho
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Through snow,
rain and gloom of night — but maybe
not on the weekend.
Battered by slowing business and
huge projected losses, the Postal Service
announced Tuesday that it will study
cutting back to a five-day schedule
that would eliminate mail delivery on
Saturdays. The agency also will examine
how much money can be saved by
consolidating and closing some postal
plants and offices.
With rising costs, postal officials say
they face a $2 billion to $3 billion loss
this fiscal year. After five years in the
black, die post office had a $ 199 million
loss this past fiscal year.
The agency’s governing board will
ask Postal Service management to report
their study results within 90 days, said
S. David Fineman, the board’s vice
chairman.
Fineman said the financial savings
of going to five-day service could be
“substantial.”
“It could offset the amount of the
loss that we have, and we would hope
that whatever actions we take will be
able to cause us to ask for less of a rate
increase,” he said.
The price of first class mail went up
a penny to 34 cents in January. Postal
managers are preparing to apply this
summer for another rate increase, which
would take effect next year.
The study will examine ending
Saturday delivery for all mail, except
overnight delivery. The study won’t
consider closing post office windows for
other services.
The study of consolidating postal
facilities will focus on behind-the-scenes
operations, such as mail sorting and
delivery, and will seek ways to avoid
affecting consumers, Fineman said.
Last week, the Postal Service
announced that it plans labor,
administrative and transportation cuts
over the next five years. Deputy
Postmaster General John Nolan has said
the agency is committed to cutting costs
by $2.5 billion by 2003.
Earlier this month, the Postal Service
said it was freezing more than 800 new
construction and leasing projects across
the country.
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Department of
Education lost
$450 million
■ Investigation
says funds were
stolen, misused
by Greg Toppo
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — In the final
three years of the Clinton
administration, the Education
Department lost track of $450 million
through waste, fraud and errors, the
department’s chief inspector said. A
Republican lawmaker likened the
agency’s financial practices to those
of “a Third World republic.”
In one case, $250 million in grants
were paid twice before the recipients
sent back the extra payments. ,
The department, which has a $44.5
billion budget and manages billions
more in student loans, has reported
that poor oversight resulted in several
instances where money was stolen
or improperly spent. In others,
payments for grants were duplicated,
or money was never distributed.
On Tuesday, Lorraine Lewis, the
agency’s inspector general, told the
House Education and Workforce
investigations subcommittee that,
according to her estimates, $450 million
was lost or misspent in the past three
fiscal years because of fraud, disallowed
costs and other errors.
“It is a very serious problem,” she
said.
Lewis said a department audit
found 21 cases in which grant payments
totaling $250 million were issued twice
to the same state boards and school
districts. The duplicate payments were
recovered, Lewis said.
She estimated an additional $200
million was lost in unauthorized
purchases and fraud cases. Some of the
money was recovered through court
orders of restitution to people outside
the department.
Lewis and others who reviewed a
department audit said the audit showed
that 21 employees could write checks
of up to $10,000 without supervision.
An audit of department finances from
May 1998 to September 2000 found
that 19,000 of these checks were
written, totaling $23 million.
“This leaves the system open to
fraud and abuse,” said Jeff Steinhoff of
the General Accounting Office.
The audit also found that as of
October, about 230 employees had
government credit cards in their names,
with most allowed to charge up to
$10,000 per month.
ALL WOMEN KEEP SCORE
ONLY THE GREAT ONES PUT IT IN WRITING.
RENEE ZELLWEGER COLIN FIRTH and HUGH GRANT
BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY
Uncensored. Uninhibited. Unmarried.
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STARTS FRIDAY APRIL 13TH IN THEATERS EVERYWHERE!
World Briefs
■ Campaign finance
reform legislation
heads to House
WASHINGTON (AP) - Campaign
finance legislation emerged from the
Senate after two grueling weeks and t
headed to the House, where it faced
yet another set of obstacles.
Just getting a vote could be a problem
in the House because Republican leaders
there are hostile to the measure and also
see it as taking away front time needed
to pass President Bush’s agenda.
If the House passes legislation
different from the Senate version, it could
require a House-Senate conference — a
graveyard for other major bills in recent
years — and more House and Senate
votes if a compromise is reached. Then
it’s on to an uncertain fate at the White
House. Bush has opposed the main aspect
of the legislation that passed the Senate
5941 Monday, a ban on loosely regulated
“soft money” donations made by
corporations, unions and wealthy
individuals to the political parties. But
he has said he was willing to sign a bill
that “improves the system.”
■ Jailed Milosevic
admits to financing
ethnic Serb rebels
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP)
— A defiant Slobodan Milosevic
denounced his arrest as “politically staged”
in an appeal that contained a startling
admission — that the former president
financed Serb rebellions that bloodied
Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s.
Milosevic, jailed in Belgrade’s Central
Prison as authorities build a case of alleged
corruption and abuse of power against
him, demanded his release in a statement
written from his cell Monday.
Answering accusations that he
illegally channeled millions of dollars to
secret funds, Milosevic acknowledged
for the first time that he funneled cash
to ethnic Serb forces in neighboring
Bosnia and Croatia, who unsuccessfully
foughf to prevent those republics from
breaking away from the former
•Yugoslavia.
■ Bangladesh strike
leads to four deaths,
300 injuries
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) -
Violent clashes in Bangladesh have killed
four people and injured 300 as a general
strike intended to force Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina’s resignation shut down
cities throughout Bangladesh for a
third day Tuesday.
Opposition activists and government
supporteis have used guns and homemade
bombs since the strike began Sunday, a
working day in Bangladesh, closing
businesses and schools and halting most
traffic in the capital, Dhaka, and 60 other
cities and towns.
Police have detained close to 300
protesters. Strikers on Tuesday smashed
scores of tricycle rickshaws for defying
the protest by seeking customers.
Commuters, mostly government
employees, used the rickshaws to travel
to work as buses and private cars stayed
off the streets.
Three strike-related deaths were
reported on Monday in the southern
districts of Chittagong, Brahmmanbaria
and Choumohoni. A trucker was killed
in a bomb attack on Sunday.
■ Stowaways found
in cargo ship docked
in Long Beach
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) —
Twenty-three Chinese stowaways
were discovered huddled inside two
cramped cargo containers after apparently
enduring more than three weeks at sea.
The immigrants were taken to a
hospital Monday night for medical
evaluation before being transferred to a
federal detention center, said Capt. Mike
Garcia of the Long Beach Fire
Department.
The canvas-topped steel containers
had been unloaded from a cargo ship. The
Maple River, wlrich left China on March
14 and stopped in Vancouver, British
Columbia. It arrived Monday in Long
Beach. The immigrants were discovered
in a dockside storage area after a stowaway
fell and broke his imklc while climbing
out of one container, Garcia said.