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Black Box From EgyptAir Flight 990 FoundA U.S. Navy search crew found the cockpit voice recorder Saturday night, four days after the flight data recorder was pulled from the sea south of Massachusetts' Nantucket Island. Information from the data recorder has only deepened the mystery behind the crash: Investigators hope the voices of the doomed jet's flight crew can answer questions the data recorder raised. "We are hopeful that we will have good voice information off this recorder," National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said early Sunday. The Boeing 767 went down in the early-morning hours of October 31, killing all 217 on board. The jetliner left New York for Cairo, Egypt, about half an hour before the crash. Saturday night's discovery came after days of searching the sea floor 250 feet below the ocean's surface, a process frequently interrupted by bad weather. "The black box was separated from the pinger," Rear Adm. William Sutton said. "It was missing its nameplate data and it is bent on one side." Hall said he was unsure if the data investigators need was damaged. Early Sunday, the recorder was aboard the salvage ship USS Grapple, whose probes located and recovered the device. Later Sunday morning, it will be transferred to the USS Austin, then flown to Washington, where NTSB investigators will get a chance to examine its contents. NTSB officials have learned so far that Flight 990 went into a steep, 40-second plunge, and a mysterious warning signal went off in the cockpit. The data recorder showed that both engines were cut off at an altitude of about 18,000 feet. But the recorder raised new questions about why that occurred and the details about the descent ‹ which was followed by a climb before the jet's final crash. That left investigators no closer to announcing the cause of the disaster. While recovery operations offshore are expected to be limited by bad weather this week, an NTSB group, joined by officials from EgyptAir, will be heading to Boeing headquarters in Seattle. They plan to use a 767 simulator there to help unravel the many mysteries surrounding the crash. |
China Close To Entering World Trade OrganizationThe U.S. delegation, once scheduled to leave China on Friday, appeared prepared to stay until at least Monday. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky shuttled back and forth between meetings with U.S. aides and Beijing's Trade Ministry officials all day Sunday, the fifth day of what was supposed to be a two-day session. Negotiators were reportedly at an impasse after those two days, but appeared reinvigorated after officials met with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji on Saturday. Barshefsky had a "productive" session with Zhu inside the Communist Party leadership compound, her spokesman Tom Tripp said. The negotiations have been billed as the best chance for breaking a long-standing stalemate over China's entry into the WTO, which sets global trade rules. China has been trying to join the group for 13 years, and must reach agreements with the United States, the European Union and other WTO members before entering. Little information about the issues under discussion leaked out of the talks. Before the talks began, the United States was pressing for greater access to Chinese markets for telecommunications, services and banking: China focused on gaining greater access to the U.S. textile market. Both the US and China are hoping for a deal before the WTO's 134 members meet in Seattle in late November to launch a new round of global trade talks. China froze all negotiations on the World Trade Organization after the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May. Talks reopened after China's President Jiang Zemin and U.S. President Bill Clinton met in New Zealand in September. |
United Nations Places Sanctions On Taliban In AfghanistanThe United States has placed bin Laden on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list and has offered a $5 million reward for his arrest after the 1998 embassy bombings. The U.N. sanctions order all states to freeze the Taliban's overseas assets and ban flights owned, leased or operated by the Taliban from taking off or landing. An exemptions to the flight ban is allowed for humanitarian reasons or to allow the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. The sanctions took effect at midnight Saturday EST. The U.N. Security Council did not consider a postponement, as Taliban authorities in Kabul requested. The Taliban have refused to hand over bin Laden, saying they have no extradition treaty with the United States and that Afghan culture and tradition make it impossible to turn a guest over to his enemies. Bin Laden, believed to be in his mid-30s, has lived in Afghanistan since May 1996. The Taliban, the Islamic militia that rules 90 percent of the country, offered him sanctuary. "Once again, we are requesting the United Nations either to change the decision or postpone its implementation in a bid to give time for the solution of this problem," the Taliban Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday. "The Taliban are ready for talks with the United States, but there is no positive response from Washington," the ministry said. Washington has repeatedly rejected the ruling Taliban's offers for talks or alternatives to surrendering bin Laden. In Kabul, where early morning temperatures Sunday barely climbed to freezing, residents complained bitterly about the United Nations and United States. "The Afghan people are dying. . . . It is an unfair decision for the Afghan people," said high school teacher Mohammed Ibrahim, who has lived in a sunbaked mud home since interfactional fighting destroyed his home in west Kabul several years ago. |
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