News Digest
Tuesday, February 7,1995 Page 2
Clinton proposes budget,
tells GOP to find deep cuts
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton unveiled a $ 1.61 trillion bud
get for 1996 on Monday that mixes
mild tax relief and spending reduc
tions with a sharp message to Repub
licans commanding Congress: You
want deeper cuts, go find them.
GOP leaders said they eventually
would do just that to finance their
hugely expensive promises of even
bigger tax reductions while balanc
ing the budget. And in their own
political attack, they accused Clinton
of failing to rein in red ink.
“Without the president’s leader
ship I don’t know where we are go
ing,” taunted Senate Budget Com
mittee Chairman Pete Domenici, R
N.M. “You will not get a balanced
budget without the leadership of the
president.”
In the first fiscal outline that a
Democratic president has sent a GOP
controlled Congress since 1948,
Clinton heeded the popular mood by
emphasizing downsizing and effi
ciency. There is no general tax in
crease, the Energy Department and
four other agencies are shrunk and
more than 400 mostly small programs
are slashed or combined.
“We’re not cutting government
blindly,” Clinton said as he intro
duced his blueprint for the fiscal year
that starts Oct. 1. “We’re clearing
away yesterday ’ s government to make
room for the solutions to the prob
lems we face today and tomorrow.”
The budget’s centerpiece is $144
billion in savings for the next five
years, when the government will
spend nearly $9 trillion.
Clinton would use $63 billion of
the reductions to lower taxes for mil
lions of middle-income families and
savers, and the remaining $81 billion
to steady annual deficits at about the
$200 billion level through the de
cade. The bottom line for 1996: red
ink of $196.7 billion, $4.2 billion
more than is expected in 1995.
Yet the savings yielded are but an
anthill compared with the task Con
gress’ new Republican chieftains have
set for themselves. Their proposed
tax cuts would cost nearly $200 bil
lion, and their pledge to balance the
budget by the year 2002 would take
another $1.2 trillion in savings, ac
cording to the nonpartisan Congres
sional Budget Office.
It was plain that Clinton’s strategy
was to let the GOP find its own sav
ings —* and bear any public hostility
that results. Republicans have so far
revealed none of their plans, which
they say they hope to nail down by
the spring.
“I challenge the leadership of the
Congress to do what we have doae,”
said Clinton, flanked by two mam
moth charts listing the programs he
would erase and shrink.
To trim the budget, Clinton pro
posed cutting military spending, sell
ing federal assets ranging from ex
cess uranium to power-producing
dams, and eliminating another 36,000
government jobs. That would bring
to 173,000 the number of slots in the
bureaucracy erased since Vice Presi
dent A1 Gore began his effort to rein
vent government in 1993.
The government would speed its
shift to loans made directly to college
AP
students rather than costlier aid that
flows through banks, a change the
GOP opposes. NASA would rely on
private companies to communicate
with satellites, and aid to Amtrak
would be pinched. And 271 small
programs would be folded into 27 —
mostly grants to state and local gov
ernments for public health, transpor
tation, education and housing.
Spaceships fly in close formation
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —
Two 100-ton spaceships - the biggest
ever to converge in space — flew in
formation just 37 feet apart Monday
in the first U.S.-Russian rendezvous
in 20 years.
“Unbelievable,” Discovery’s com
mander said.
“Almost like a fairy tale,” Mir’s
commander said.
It almost didn’t happen. Russian
space officials gave in at the last
minute, allowing Discovery and its
crew of six to creep close despite
fears that a leaking jet would damage
equipment on Mir.
“We are bringing our spaceships
closer together. We are bringing our
nations closer together,” Discovery’s
commander, James Wetherbee, said
at the moment of closest approach in
the mission, a dress rehearsal for the
first shuttle-Mir docking in June.
Wetherbee repeated his message
in Russian for the benefit of the three
Mir cosmonauts, and station com
mander Alexander Viktorenko replied
that all nine space travelers were
involved in the “greatest profession
God could give anyone.”
Later, after it was all over, President
Clinton called Discovery from the Oval
Office to congratulate die astronauts.
“We’re all so impressed,” Clinton
said. “This really proves, I think, that
Russians and Americans can work
together and that we can make this
international space station project
successful. I can’t tell you how much
I appreciate all the work that all of
you have done to that end.”
The encounter began 245 miles
above the Pacific Ocean and lasted
just 13 minutes, climaxing at 2:20
p.m. EST as both spaceships circled
Earth at 17,500 mph.
Spectacular video scenes beamed |
down from Mir showed Discovery
just 400 feet away and closing.
A comer of the sprawling Mir
station could be seen in some shots,
with a cloud-covered, blue planet as
the backdrop.
At the same time, Discovery’s
cameras zoomed in on Mir. NASA
simultaneously broadcast both im
ages on its television circuit.
Discovery’s Russian crew mem
ber, Vladimir Titov, was seen smil
ing and waving from a shuttle win
dow at the Mir cosmonauts.
It was the first encounter between
U.S. and Russian spacecraft since the
1975 Apollo-Soyuz docking and re
quired some of the most precise steer
ing in 14 years of space shuttle flight.
The Apollo and Soyuz capsules were
considerably smaller.
Sister tells of Nicole’s last night alive
LUS ANUELES — O.J. Simpson
had a “spooky... frightening” look in
his eye during a dance recital for his
daughter hours before Nicole Brown
Simpson was stabbed to death, and
sat by himself in the back of the
auditorium, staring at his ex-wife,
Ms. Simpson’s sister testified Mon
day.
Defense attorneys challenging her
testimony showed the jury a home
video in which a laughing Simpson
scoops up his son and kisses his fam
ily that evening after the recital. The
tape was taken by another parent.
Prosecutor Christopher Darden
objected to showing the tape but said
v it doesn’t contradict Brown’s testi
mony.
As Judge Lance Ito previewed the
tape with the jury out of the room,
Simpson rocked back in his chair and
gestured toward his face as if to point
out that he looked neither glazed nor
spooky, as his former sister-in-law
had claimed.
Brown, 37, has publicly declared
her belief that Simpson killed her
sister and Ronald Goldman hours af
ter the recital.
In a gentle cross-examination
style, defense attorney Robert Shapiro
began his effort to show jurors that
Brown had changed history in her
mind after the murders and was exag
gerating the problems of Simpson
and her sister.
Darden was the first to bring out
the fact that Brown is a recovering
alcoholic, and under cross-examina
tion she acknowledged she could not
remember how many drinks she had
on the nights of the three key inci
dents.
Last week, Brown told jurors that
an enraged Simpson hurled his wife
against a wall and tossed her and her
friends out of his house when Brown
accusedhim of taking her sister Nicole
for granted.
Simpson
trial update
► Denise Brown detailed the
day her sister was murdered,
saying O.J. Simpson had a
“frightening" look in his eye at
a dance recital that day for
the couple's daughter.
► The defense showed a video
taken by a parent at the
dance recital in which
Simpson is smiling and
joking. Lawyers noted the
contrast between his
demeanor in the video and in
descriptions from witnesses.
AP
Mastermind
admits guilt
NEW YORK — The alleged
mastermind of a campaign of
bombings and assassinations
pleaded guilty Monday to plotting
a war of urban terrorism and ac
cused his religious leader of in
spiring and approving the plan.
Cutting a deal with prosecutors
who had called him the ringleader,
Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali told a
federal judge he was sorry for his
involvement in a plot that “does
not reflect Islam at all.”
Siddig Ali said Sheik Omar
Abdel-Rahman had given him a
fatwa, or religious order, to kill
Egypt’s president and to bomb the
United Nations and bridges and
tunnels linking New York City
with New Jersey.
The plea halted the biggest ter
rorism trial in U.S. history at least
temporarily, as defense lawyers
for the sheik and 10 other defen
dants scrambled to see if it was
; possible to salvage the proceed
ings. Opening statements began
last week.
The government alleged the
conspiracy included plans to blow
up the United Nations; FBI head
quarters in New York; and the
Holland and Lincoln tunnels and
George Washington Bridge, used
daily by tens of thousands of com
muters.
Prosecutors contend the only
two acts carried out by the defen
dants and other unindicted co-con
spirators were the 1993 bombing
of the World Trade Center, which
killed six and injured more than
1,000, and the assassination of
militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. One
of the defendants in the terror trial,
El Sayyid Nosair, was convicted
in state court of weapons viola
tions in the Kahane slaying but
acquitted of murder.
Siddig Ali said he and govern
ment informer Emad Salem origi
nally planned to bomb “military
targets.” But “after hearing a ser
mon by the sheik regarding the
United Nations, I asked the sheik
for a fatwa to attack the United
Nations, and I was told by the
sheik it was permissible.”
Siddig Ali said Salem had told
him he had been making bombs
“at Nosair’s request” and Nosair
had told him to kidnap Richard
Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
He concluded his speech with
an apology, saying he wanted to
“send a clear message to all Mus
lims and non-Muslims all over the
world that the acts that I personally
was involved in with others does
not represent Islam and does not
reflect Islam at all, because God
did not tell us to kill innocent
people for his sake.”
Siddig Ali signed a cooperation
agreement with the government,
though prosecutors did not say
whether he had agreed to testify
against the others.
Judge Michael Mukasey told
Siddig Ali he would face life in
prison unless he followed through
on his promise of “substantial co
operation.”
Siddig Ali, 34, of Jersey City,
N.J., was accused of conspiracy to
wage a war of urban terrorism and
to murder Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, and related weap
ons charges.
jNews...
in a Minute
U.S., China will resume talks
WASHINGTON — The United States and China will resume talks
next week in Beijing in hopes of heading off a brewing trade war, the
Clinton administration’s top trade official said Monday.
The offer to resume the talks came less than 24 hours after the
United States said it would impose 100 percent tariffs on $1.08 billion
worth of Chinese products. The amount is roughly equal to what
American businesses say they lose because of Chinese piracy of
copyrighted U.S. music, movies and computer software.
“I don’t know how China could have responded more quickly,” an
upbeat Kantor said.
But he cautioned that “we’re not going to rule anything out” if the
talks collapse and the Chinese follow through with their threat to
retaliate with their own tariffs.
China said last week it would retaliate with its own sanctions if the
tariffs go into effect as scheduled on Feb. 26.
Russia starts air attack on Grozny
ALKHAN-YURT, Russia — Russian forces attacked Chechnya’s
capital region from the air Monday, targeting petrochemical plants in
maneuvers one rebel leader described as acts of frustration.
“It means they’re losing hope of taking Grozny,” said Salaudin
Kitayev, a Chechen commander, standing on the outskirts of Alkhan
Yurt as Russian fighter-bombers dropped their cargo. “Otherwise,
they’d save the factories for themselves.”
Russia has been unable to take.Grozny, the secessionist republic’s
capital, despite a ferocious five-week offensive. Fierce fighting also
was reported Monday on the ground in Grozny south of the Sunzha
River, a rough front line for weeks.
The air attacks quickened the exodus from the capital, once home
to 400,000 people.
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