ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Top finance officials from the United States and China pledged greater cooperation Tuesday on a range of economic issues from dealing with soaring energy prices to coping with the global shocks from America’s subprime mortgage crisis.
However, it was clear that the fourth round of high-level economic talks would leave both nations far apart on several contentious subjects.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson hoped that the two days of talks will produce enough results to persuade the next administration to continue the meetings.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan said he believed that real progress had been made in dealing with contentious issues such as currency and the trade deficit, and he urged patience going forward as China implements necessary reforms.
D.C.: Scandal conviction dismissed
The Justice Department overreached in prosecuting a former Bush administration official in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, a federal appeals court said Tuesday as it dismissed some charges and ordered a new trial on others. The decision overturns the conviction of David Safavian, the former chief of staff for the General Services Administration and the only person in the four-year scandal who opted to go to trial rather than accept a government plea deal. The ruling also forces prosecutors to decide whether to bring a new case or accept defeat in what had been an early victory in the corruption investigation.
FDA warns cancer-cure peddlers of unsubstantiated claims
Tumorex, Immune Ace, Ellagic Insurance Formula, PC Hope, Pacific Ocean Shark Cartilage, Breast Cancer Tea Formula. They are all products sold to desperate cancer patients or people worried they might become one. On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration told the companies selling them to stop claiming the products will work like drugs or face seizure of their property and possibly criminal charges. The FDA’s list of “fake cancer cures” is at www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/factsheets/fakecancercures.html.
Wisconsin: Prison time for federal health insurance fraud
A federal judge has sentenced a former health care executive to five years in prison for helping his Philippines-based company swindle $99.9 million from the U.S. military health insurance program. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb told Thomas Lutz at his Tuesday sentencing hearing in Madison that “it’s just horrifying” he was able to get away with taking so much from the Pentagon’s Tricare program. Crabb says Lutz and his company, Health Visions Corp., must pay the U.S. government $99.9 million in restitution.
California: Marine’s Haditha charges are dismissed
A military judge dismissed charges Tuesday against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis. Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after finding that a four-star general overseeing the case was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha. Chessani, of Rangely, Colo., was the highest-ranking officer to face a combat-related court-martial since the Vietnam War.
Connecticut: Python refuses owner’s ‘Get them!’ order
Police in Bridgeport say they arrested a man after he ordered his pet to attack two officers. Lucky for them, 9-foot-long pythons aren’t very obedient. Police say Victor Rodriguez was charged with threatening officers and disorderly conduct after Monday’s incident. No one was hurt. Police arrived at Rodriguez’s apartment after receiving a report that he was threatening his girlfriend with the albino python. After the building’s superintendent opened the apartment door for the officers, Rodriguez allegedly threatened them with the snake and told it to “Get them!”
Virginia: $11 million settlement in Virginia Tech shootings
A judge on Tuesday approved an $11 million state settlement with families of most of the victims in last year’s Virginia Tech slayings that will avoid a court battle over whether anyone but the gunman was to blame. Families of 24 victims — out of 32 killed by Seung-Hui Cho — will be compensated under the settlement approved by Circuit Court Judge Theodore J. Markow. The settlement also covers 18 people injured, but their cases did not require court approval.
Japan: Three killers are hanged
Japan hanged three convicted murderers on Tuesday, bringing the number of executions to 13 in the past six months and ramping up the pace of capital punishment to the highest level in more than three decades. One of those hanged on Tuesday was among the most reviled serial killers in Japan’s recent history. Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, killed four young girls in the late 1980s and left the charred bones of one 4-year-old victim on her parents’ doorstep.
France: Larger role in NATO proposed
President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday announced a major new defense policy that would integrate French troops into the command structure of the NATO alliance for the first time in more than four decades. In 1966, France withdrew its troops from NATO’s integrated command structure in defiance of the United States. France continued to provide troops for NATO operations but insisted they remain under French command.
Indonesia: Bali bomber predicts revenge bombings
An Islamic militant awaiting execution in Indonesia for carrying out the 2002 Bali bombings has warned that al-Qaida would be “very likely” to launch revenge attacks if authorities kill him, a magazine reported. Imam Samudra and two other Indonesian militants were sentenced to death in 2003 for their roles in the suicide attacks that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, at two nightclubs on the resort island of Bali.
From Herald news services
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