Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 15:19:55 EST Message-ID: \SE A;TOP OF THE NEWS;NATION \BY FROM WIRE DISPATCHES AND STAFF REPORTS S=NEW STORY Madigan denies Iraq papers shredded Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan is denying allegations that department documents about Iraqi loan guarantees were shredded, but the chairman of the House Banking Committee called yesterday for further investigation. Mr. Madigan was responding to allegations last week by Rep. Henry Gonzalez, Texas Democrat, that employees of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service shredded documents during the previous weekend about department loan guarantees to help Iraq buy U.S. grain. "The episode demonstrates the need for an independent counsel who could ensure that all records are safe and would investigate freely," Mr. Gonzalez said. He also said he had information from the CIA that it had informed the Agriculture Department in 1990 that managers from Banco Nazionale del Lavoro in Rome were involved in illegal loans from the bank's Atlanta branch to Iraq. He said he wanted to know why the department never investigated the involvement of the Rome BNL officials in the loans. S=NEW STORY Actress has tumor removed from colon LOS ANGELES - Actress Audrey Hepburn had a tumor removed from her colon, a hospital official said yesterday. It wasn't disclosed whether the tumor was cancerous. Miss Hepburn, 63, was expected to stay at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for about a week, hospital spokesman Ron Wise said. Miss Hepburn underwent surgery and was moved from the hospital intensive care unit to a private room yesterday. Miss Hepburn, who performed in such films as "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Roman Holiday" and "My Fair Lady," has been goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and she recently visited towns and refugee camps in Somalia and Kenya. It was at first thought she was suffering from some kind of amoeba contracted there. S=NEW STORY Observers assigned to voting centers Assistant Attorney General John R. Dunne said yesterday that 210 Justice Department observers will be assigned today to voter polling centers in five states, including Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, New York and Utah. Mr. Dunn, head of the department's civil division, said the observers will ensure compliance with minority provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act, record activities during voting hours and observe the counting of ballots after the polls close. Federal law requires counties to provide "minority language information" to voters throughout the country - including Chinese in New York City, the Zuni and Hopi languages in the Southwest and West, and Spanish. Mr. Dunn said federal observers assigned in Georgia will ensure that black voters "are afforded their fair opportunity to cast their ballot" and that others who require assistance in casting their vote because of inability to read or write, blindness and disability also will be assisted. S=NEW STORY INS breaks up smuggling scheme NEW YORK - The Immigration and Naturalization Service said yesterday its agents arrested two key figures in a major scheme to smuggle Chinese aliens into the United States. The INS said it is one of the largest smuggling cases ever pursued by the agency. Defendants George Huang, 42, of Queens and William Chen, 45, of Plainview, a New York City suburb, were both charged with conspiracy to smuggle 150 persons into the United States. The men were charged with allegedly trying to bring the Chinese aliens into the United States on a converted fishing trawler they own. Each person reportedly paid or promised to pay between $20,000 to $30,000 to Mr. Huang and Mr. Chen for the service. The U.S. Coast Guard had intercepted the ship off the coast of North Carolina in September after stops in South Africa and Haiti. S=NEW STORY Bush signs drift-net bill President Bush signed a bill yesterday mandating trade sanctions against any country fishing with drift nets in the North Pacific Ocean next year and extending the penalties to the North Atlantic in 1994. The sanctions put some teeth into a resolution the United Nations adopted last year banning use of the so-called "curtains of death" on the high seas effective Jan. 1, 1993. Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are the dominant users of the nets. The nylon webs stretch as long as 30 miles and are used primarily to catch squid in the North Pacific Ocean, but critics say they indiscriminately kill all marine life in their path. Last year, the administration adopted regulations banning U.S. imports of fish caught with drift nets and placed Taiwan and South Korean on notice they could face sanctions if drift-netting continues. Taiwan responded by announcing its intention to stop drift-netting by the time the U.N. ban goes into effect at the end of this year. S=NEW STORY U.S. steel mill to be shipped to China LOS ANGELES - Part of a California steel mill that turned pig iron into ribbons of semifinished steel will be broken down and shipped to China for reassembly, officials said yesterday. California Steel Industries Inc. agreed to sell Kaiser Steel's old Fontana mill, 20-story building and all, to the Capital Iron and Steel Corp., based in Beijing. The deal, expected to be completed tomorrow, is worth under $20 million. California Steel bought Kaiser's finishing mill, but not the blast furnaces and other front-end operations, in 1984, a year after Kaiser shut down. California Steel continues to produce finished steel. The facility, built in 1978, has been shut since 1982. S=NEW STORY Treasurer is suspect in FBI investigation The former company of U.S. Treasurer Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, who is at the center of an FBI influence-peddling probe, received $68.6 million in noncompetitive federal contracts under a program for minority businesses, according to government data released yesterday. The $68.6 million includes seven Small Business Administration contracts, worth a total of $8 million, that Communications International received before August 1985, when Mrs. Villalpando joined the company. There was no indication that any of the SBA contracts figure in the current investigation, nor was there any indication that Mrs. Villalpando had worked on them. Mrs. Villalpando, whose signature appears on all current paper money, was put on administrative leave last Thursday at her request, after FBI agents raided her Washington apartment and several other locations. At issue is whether she took payoffs - including travel, lodging and other benefits - from Communications International. S=NEW STORY Explosion devastates housing project building NEW YORK - An explosion yesterday devastated the top three floors of a public housing project, killing at least one person and injuring four more, according to authorities. Witnesses said the apartments, which house mainly elderly people, looked as if they had been hit by a missile, with only the steel girders of the building still in place. The walls in the top three apartments were blown out by the force of the explosion. A fire department spokesman said he knew of one person dead and four injured. The cause of the blast, which occurred at about 5:15 p.m. EST, was unknown. The explosion hit the 14-story Riverton Apartments, which houses mainly senior citizens in the Harlem neighborhood in northern Manhattan. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM