By The
Associated Press
Edited by Jennifer Mlratsky
News Digest
Thursday, January 12,1995
Page 2
U.S., Japan talks positive,
but trade tensions persist
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton emerged from a meeting with
Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama today pointing to recent
progress on thorny trade disputes but
insisting that “further progress must
be made.”
“We are clearly making progress,
but not enough and we have to move
on auto parts and autos,” Clinton
said, highlighting one of the biggest
sources of the $62 billion trade im
balance.
Murayama spoke more generally
of making “efforts to advance the
Japan-U.S. partnership.”
Clinton and Murayamaspoke with
reporters in the White House Grand
Foyer after the Japanese prime
minister’s first official visit to Wash
ington.
Trying to cast the U. S .-Japan trade
issue in domestic terms, Clinton said
encouraging free trade would bring
more high-paying jobs to the United
States.
The two leaders pointed to their
mutual support for a deal to provide
light-water nuclear power reactors to
North Korea as a way to head off
Pyongyang’s suspected development
of nuclear weapons.
Working together with our South
Korean allies, we have confronted
the nuclear threat and stopped it,” he
said. Murayama said Japan pledged
to play a “significant financial role”
without being more specific.
Ending on a positive note, Clinton
presented the prime minister with a
basket of Washington state apples,
since Murayama had left Japan be
fore he had a chance to sample the
U.S. apples just now coming on the
market there.
In keeping with efforts to project
discussions beyond the bitter auto
markets dispute, Commerce Secre
tary Ron Brown today said “it would
be irresponsible” to ignore the mas
sive U.S. trade deficit with Japan, but
that the leaders’ talks “go way be
yond issues of trade; they’re really
about our bilateral relationship gen
erally, security issues, and many other
issues will be primary on the table.”
Even as the two countries tried to
put a new positive spin on their rela
tionship by announcing a financial
services dealTuesday, aseparate U.S.
proposal to reduce auto trade ten
sions got a chilly reception in Japan.
The president of Honda Motor Co.
said in response to Brown’s call for
direct U.S. government talks with
Japanese automakers that “our job is
to do business and we aren’t inter
ested in doing anything else.”
Brown said today he expects such
talks nonetheless to occur.
No breakthroughs were expected
today on U.S. efforts to broaden the
Japanese market for American cars
and parts. But Secretary of State
Warren Christopher said Tuesday that
“more progress must be made” on the
issue when negotiators meet later this
month.
Last year, talks between Clinton
and then-Prime Minister Morihiro
Hosokawa ended in a standoff over
Japan’s estimated $62 billion trade
surplus with the United States. This
year, neither country has set specific
negotiating goals.
Instead, officials from both coun
tries said the leaders would under
score agreements in such areas as
agriculture and financial services.
Murayama’s visit is in official rec
ognition of the 50th anniversary of
the end of fighting in the Pacific
during World War II. The Japanese
leader has said he wanted to focus on
the closeness of U.S.-Japan ties.
Stressing the positive, the coun
tries on Tuesday announced that To
kyo will expand opportunities for
foreign financial-service companies
in Japan. It opens an estimated 50
percent of Japan’s $ 1 trillion pension
fund market to competition by for
eign firms, up from 1 percent of the
market. It also liberalizes restrictions
on new financial instruments, many
of which have been pioneered by
American securities firms.
Also on Tuesday, Christopher and
Japan’s foreign minister, Yohei Kono,
discussed common support for a deal
to provide light-water nuclear power
reactors to North Korea as a way to
head off Pyongyang’s suspected de
velopment of nuclear weapons.
“Japan is going to actively partici
pate in this project,” because it en
hances Japan’s own security, said
Kono’s spokesman, Takeshi Nakane.
But he said it was premature to dis
cuss specifics because the cost might
change and because South Korea and
potential European contributors must
be consulted.
News...
in a Minute
Airline crashes with 52 aboard
BOGOTA, Colombia — A DC-9 jetliner with 53 people aboard
crashed Wednesday en route from Bogota near the resort city of
Cartagena on the Caribbean, news reports said.
A 10-year-old girl survived with a broken arm, a witness told radio
station RCN.
Rescuers were headed to the site of the reported crash, 10 miles west
of Cartagena, news reports said.
The pilot apparently was attempting a crash landing in a swamp but
hit a grassy field and the aircraft broke apart, witness Argemiro
Vergara told RCN radio.
“The airplane deviated from its course and fell to (an altitude of)
about 300 meters (900 feet), but it caught fire and fell to the ground,
breaking in two,” said Vergara.
“An intense fire started. A girl was thrown clear, about 10 meters
(30 feet) away,” he said. “The girl didn’t say anything. She was in
shock.”
The plane was cleared to descend to about 25,000 feet to start its
landing approach to the airport “when all contact was lost with it,” said
Alfonso Ramirez, the president of Intercontinental Aviation.
New testimony in Simpson trial
LOS ANGELES —O.J. Simpson threatened to cut off the heads of
any ofhis wife’s lovers he caught driving his cars, an actor who worked
with Simpson claimed in court papers released today that graphically
describe a history of abuse.
The statement is the most dramatic yet suggesting a motive for the
killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman,
who was allowed to drive Ms. Simpson’s Ferrari.
Eddie Reynoza, an actor on the set of the film “Naked Gun 2 1/2,”
recounted for prosecutors a conversation with Simpson in which
» Simpson became agitated and hostile when talking about who could
drive his luxury cars.
Reynoza quoted Simpson as saying if he ever caught his wife’s
boyfriends driving his cars, he would “cut their (expletive) heads off!”
according to die court papers.
The papers were filed in an effort to introduce evidence of domestic
violence to point to a motive and identity of the killer.
The documents also include a previously unreported statement from
a person at Ms. Simpson’s funeral who said Simpson uttered over her
casket: “I’m sorry ... I’m sorry ... I loved you too much.”
Prosecutors said police responded as many as nine times to domestic
abuse calls from Ms. Simpson.
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Former HUD Secretary Pierce
admits role in housing scandal
WASHINGTON — Former HUD Secre
tary Samuel Pierce admitted today that his
conduct contributed to the federal housing
scandal of the 1980s, but the ex-Cabinet secre
tary in the Reagan administration avoided
criminal prosecution.
Independent counsel Arlin Adams released
a statement in which Pierce admitted his meet
ings with personal friends who were lobbying
for federal housing funds “sent signals to my
staff that such persons should receive assis
tance.”
“These meetings and conversations, and
my following discussions with staff members,
created the appearance that I endorsed my
friends’ efforts,” Pierce’s statement, dated Dec.
15, said.
Pierce also acknowledged that he did not
testify accurately on Capitol Hill when a con
gressional subcommittee began looking into
HUD.
“Reviewing my exchanges with Members”
of Congress, “I see that I answered certain
questions with broad responses that did not
always accurately reflect the events occurring
at HUD several years earlier,” Pierce stated.
While saying that “I never received a single
improper benefit for my actions,” Pierce said
that “I was the guardian of the HUD gates, and
I rested on my post when vigilance was most
needed.”
Adams said he won’t prosecute Pierce be
cause of his age - 72 - poor health and “the
absence of any evidence that he or his family
profited from his actions at HUD.”
Prosecutors said the major investigative
phase of their probe of HUD is at an end, but
they continue to delve into possible peijury
and obstruction of justice by others.
The probe of HUD has resulted in 16 crimi
nal convictions of former high-ranking offi
cials and businessmen and $2 million in crimi
nal fines.
Pierce’s two-page statement placed much
of the blame on his aides.
“I .failed to monitor and control” a HUD
program to rehabilitate housing for people
with moderate incomes, said Pierce.
“As a result, a number of political appoin
tees, including Deborah Dean and certain other
members of my staff, used the program to see
that their friends or political allies received
'mod rehab’” Pierce added.
“Manypeople I trusted with authority clearly
were not deserving of either the powers of
office or my trust,” the former HUD secretary
concluded. “I realize that my own conduct
contributed to an environment in which these
events could occur.”
Deborah Gore Dean - Pierce’s former ex
ecutive assistant - was convicted in 1993 of 12
felony counts of defrauding the government,
taking a payoff and lying to Congress.
At Dean’s trial, prosecutors said she stood
at the center of “a partnership in crime” that
enriched her family and friends, including
Richard Nixon’s former Attorney General,
John N. Mitchell.
Testifying in her own defense, Dean blamed
Pierce and other HUD officials for deciding to
funnel housing to developers who hired con
sultants like former Kentucky Gov. Louie
Nunn.
While acknowledging that she was the con
tact point for politically well-connected devel
opers, she said her boss, Pierce, was the one
who made all the decisions on where to send
“mod-rehab housing.”
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