U.S. moves against Chinese textiles
Washington The Bush administration announced Thursday that it was re-imposing import quotas on two types of Chinese clothing and textiles, intensifying trade tensions between the two nations in advance of a White House visit next week by China’s president.
The administration said that it would limit imports of fabric made with synthetic filament threads as well as bras, girdles, panty girdles and corsets in response to a surge in shipments that have battered the U.S. industry.
The action was taken hours after U.S. and Chinese negotiators broke off an effort in Bejing to reach a comprehensive agreement covering all categories of U.S.-made clothing and textiles being disrupted by a surge in Chinese imports since global quotas were lifted on Jan. 1.
The administration announced it was extending until Oct. 1 a deadline for making decisions in four other cases covering sweaters, robes, knit fabric and wool trousers.
Miss America pageant details financial losses
Atlantic City, N.J. The Miss America Organization lost $1.7 million last year, its fiscal fortunes plunging due to lower television revenue, according to the annual tax return of the organization that stages the struggling beauty pageant.
The pageant, which cited fiscal troubles last week in announcing plans to leave Atlantic City after 84 years, took in $3.2 million from ABC in 2004, compared with $5.6 million the year before.
The network had negotiated a lower payment because of the pageant’s falling ratings. It dropped the annual telecast entirely last October. The pageant has since signed with Country Music Television and will hold its next pageant in January, though no location for the pageant has yet been announced.
FBI arrests Russian for money laundering
New York A Russian United Nations official was arrested by the FBI Thursday on money laundering charges, a federal law enforcement official said.
Vadim Kouznetsov, who works with the powerful General Assembly committee that oversees the U.N. budget, was the second Russian U.N. official to be arrested by the FBI for alleged money laundering in recent weeks.
The charges involve money laundering and are only remotely connected to the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq which is the target of numerous corruption investigations.
New York theme park suffers second fatality
Farmingdale, N.Y. A 45-year-old woman was killed at Adventureland on Thursday after she was thrown from a ride at the park. The accident marks the second death in as many days at the Farmingdale, N.Y., park.
The woman was on the Top Scan ride, located on the north edge of the park. The woman, who has not been identified, was thrown from the ride and landed on a parked car in an adjacent lot.
The report of the woman’s death comes one day after an 18-year-old worker died from being run over by a roller-coaster car.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state Department of Labor were investigating