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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1992)
Page 10 The Battalion Monday, March 23, Pentagon overcharges taxpayers HOUSTON (AP) - Auditors have found the Pentagon billed taxpayers for as much as $9 mil lion in overcharges on NASA con tracts between 1985 and 1990, a newspaper reported Sunday. In a copyrighted story. The Houston Post said an audit last September shows the overcharges stem primarily from an arcane billing system that had put an 18.5 percent surcharge on every NASA contract handled by the military. The surcharge, which was first levied in 1985, was only applied to NASA contracts. Investigators say it was costing taxpayers about $2 million a year before it was abol- Audit shows $9 million bills on NASA military contracts ished in 1990. The Post, which obtained the information under the Freedom of Information Act, said investiga tors found the Pentagon was dou ble-billing the space agency by charging NASA for administrative work done by clerks and supervi sors. Under the terms of an agree ment between the space agency :n and Department of Defense, sucl work is supposed to be included in a basic charge. When NASA and the Pentagon first agreed to let the military ad minister space agency contracts in 1968, the basic rate was set at $9 per hour. By 1990, that rate had climbed to $38.74 per hour, auditors found. A NASA commission first questioned the costs of contract. administration in 1986, when payers gave $34 million to( Pentagon to handle NASAcc tracts. Since then, Pentaji billings have soared to morel $60 million per year. While NASA spendsnearli cents of every tax dollar on seni contracts for items ranging In paper to rocket systems, it spen little overseeing the contracts, auditors said. "DOD has advised Nil management that no mechaiti exists ... to research the appro; ateness of the surcharge billin{ space agency officials told at - tors. Mandela urges black unification PAARL, South Africa (AP) — ANC president Nelson Mandela on Sunday returned to the city ■Mfck where he had been freed to make a call for blacl unity. Speaking to a crowd of about 5,000 at Paarl, about 30 miles outside Cape Town, Mandela said the Pan Africanist Congress and the Azanian Peo ple's Organization should join talks with the gov ernment on ending apartheid. "We want unity. We want all black political or ganizations to speak with one voice," he said to cheers. The PAC and Azapo have boycotted negotia tions, saying they are a ploy by the white-led gov ernment to extend apartheid. Nineteen black and white political organizations held their first round of negotiations Dec. 20-21 and are expected to con vene again in April. Party The government's position was strengthened last week when white voters overwhelmingly ^ave their approval to the continuation of negotiations, which are aimed at writing a new constitution to give the black majority voting rights. Militant white groups that support apartheid also have boycotted the negotiations. Labor leader races to defeat British PM p | Gen topic intrigi frig 1 Yugoslav army attacks Croats Serbian-dominated military bombards town with artillery BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) — A predominantly Croat town in ethnically tense Bosnia-Hercegov- ina came under heavy mortar and Cannon fire from Yugoslav army positions Sunday. The mayor of Neum, Ivan Ben der, accused the Serbian-dominat ed army of trying to seize strategic points inland from the coastal town. The army, in a statement to the Tanjug news agency, said its troops were responding to attacks by ethnic Croats. Neum is on a spit of land reaching into the Adriatic Sea be tween territory of neighboring Croatia, which was the scene of heavy fighting after that republic declared independence last June. Croat and army officials have accused each other of sporadic vi olations of a U.N.-mediated truce that generally has held since Jan. 3. The territory around Neum is predominantly ethnic Croat and tensions have been high there as Bosnia's volatile mixture of Mus lims, Serbs and Croats try to work out their relationship in a future independent republic. Bender, reached by telephone, said the eastern part of the Neum district was under heavy fire from federal army forces. He said three people had been wounded and that.villagers on the outskirts of Neum fled into the center of town seeking shelter. Israelis lift ban, Palestinians return to jobs RISCA, Wales (AP) - Stin^gner; old passions in his nativeW, s C i en c and exuding new confidenc* eac j er: his Labor Party nu< iges ahJkQgg Neil Kinnock has established as formidable challenge for powd nco v One week into the camp* „ for Britain's April 9 election,M ^ tinning bad economic newsl F. ^ put Conservative Prime Mini rj®. n , John Major on the defensive. et m a A fiery and eloquent platfi F r speaker, Kinnock, 49, isalsoai i nc r e ^ ural street campaigner: thrus!®™ ca * into crowds on the main stree Ricsa, a former mining to his Islwyn parliamentary dii clutching outstretched hai hugging old ladies, rememl names, inquiring after anai husband. "Neil's a boy from theval dange and a man of the people, and potent! going to make a wonderfulp* The minister," Dorothy Phillips centers as Kinnock and his wife,Gle anc j p swept down the main street therap weekend in a re On the fringes of the Kn@p exas ] crowd. Conservative candiH Q en Peter Bone cut a lonely figure w p ing to hand out leaflets, were a few shouts of years born JERUSALEM (AP) — Tens of thousands of Pales tinians returned to their jobs in Israel on Sunday after the army lifted a two-day-old order that had banned them from leaving the occupied Gaza Strip. The order had been issued in response to a stab bing rampage in Tel Aviv's Jaffa section Tuesday in which a Gaza resident killed two Israelis and wound ed 20, many of them high school students. Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat decided Sunday to station armed guards in all schools in the city at an estimated annual cost of about $1 million, Israel ra dio said. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian fugitive wanted for tor turing Arab villagers and attacking Israeli security forces, the army said. scum. KjnnOck was born nea? the son of a coal miner. T& servative government dozens of unprofitable minaji— . the last colliery in this dii |P e frcier closed three years ago. The towns with theirta must u slate row houses now havet ernment-subsidized lightii tries. . iM Kurdish fighting continues in TurkejJ CIZRE, Turkey (AP) — Turkish Kurdish separatists and security forces clashed violent ly for a second day Sunday in the worst fight ing of the eight-year-old Kurdish insurgency. At least 45 people were killed over the week end. An 18-year-old Kurdish girl set herself on fire in the western city of Izmir to protest the killings of Kurds, police said. Elsewhere, demonstrators shouted sepa ratist slogans and waved the outlawed Kurdish flag. In predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, soldiers with armored vehicles blocked the road into the town of Nusaybin. Nearby, soldiers in green camouflage ponchos lay in muddy ditches under a driving rain, training their automatic weapons on the town. Other soldiers, many wearing the blue beret of the army's elite special operations unit, perched with rifles atop concrete-block houses outside the town. The army set up roadblocks throughout the southeast and placed several towns under cur- iseases Inco ampu choice c few. Telephone service to much of the r# was cut off. . Reporters saw a column of 10 military^ ^ eaiciri filled with soldiers heading toward Nusd ‘ theii from Mardin, farther north. inborn Authorities and news reports saidSuni? reatabl fighting killed at least 15 people and wouni diagr 67 others in southeastern Turkey. >uch as Marxist guerrillas of the outlawed Kuril :ould le Labor Party, or PKK, had called for agent Insuran uprising to mark a Kurdish holiday onSal provide essen humai receive blood have a about e 1 To d seems i raises £ questic questioi the ne: THE ONLY EASIER VW TO GET A JOB IS TO WORK FOR YOUR DAD. to certa genetic i Thes uestior divide ut aboi 'hildrei Ise w nforma oad, \ : $5.00 Off | ■ Complete Resume Package ( Present this coupon at participating Kinko's and receive | $5.00 off the purchase of a Complete Resume Package. . Packages vary from location to location. 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Just give us the information and we'll give you a full set of professionally designed, laser typeset resumes, complete with matching envelopes and cover letter sheets-plus you can choose from a wide variety of papers, styles, typefaces and formats. kinko's the copy center Open 24 Hours 509 University Dr. West • 846-8721 ©1992, Kinko’s Graphics Corporation INSTITUTE FOR STUDY ABROAD BUTLER U N I V E R S I T UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES IN GREAT BRITAIN AUSTRALIA IRELAND NEW ZEALAND Fully integrated study at British, Irish, New Zealand and Australian universities FALL OR SPRING SEMESTER • FULL YEAR INSTEP • SUMMER PROGRAM • INTERNSHIPS Study Abroad Information Session Representative: Mike Roberts Tuesday, March 24 11:00 - 12:00 MSC 228 Location: 12:00 - 2:00 MSC Main Hall For further information please contact: Your Study Abroad Office on campus or the Institute for Study Abroad, Butler University, 4600 Sunset Avenue. 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