MIDEAST . . . YASSER AND THE BEAN COUNTERS

Yasser Arafat has got to change the P.L.O.'s loose accounting style before edgy international donors will agree to deliver $2.4 billion to help get his new Palestinian state off the ground. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who met Arafat in Gaza City today in the highest-level U.S.-Palestinian meeting there since self-rule began, told the P.L.O. chairman he'd have to provide the World Bank and other groups up-front paperwork on how the money would be spent. TIME State Department correspondent J.F.O. McAllister, traveling with Christopher, says Arafat wants it in a slush fund to continue his old grease-the-wheels style, but is coming to realize that heads of state in other countries don't set up schools and government services with bribes.