EVENTS
CLINTON CONSIDERS AIR POWER IN BOSNIA President Clinton said yesterday morning that the United States would "seriously consider" using air power in Bosnia-Herzegovina if asked to defend United Nations peacekeepers. Mr. Clinton, whose senior foreign-policy advisers planned to meet on the subject late yesterday, said, "The position of the US has long been that if the UN troops were attacked there, we would do our part to protect them by making available air power. We have not yet been asked to do that. If we are asked, that's something we will gi ve some consideration to." Bundesbank eases credit
The German Bundesbank, under pressure to reduce its official interest rates to support the weak French franc, yesterday allowed a key money market interest rate to drop sharply. The Bundesbank offered funds to the money market at a minimum rate of 6.95 percent in its regular securities repurchase operations, down from 7.15 percent last week.
Tension within the European Monetary System, which has pushed both the French franc and Danish crown close to their lowest intervention levels in the system, has put the Bundesbank under considerable pressure to ease its credit policy. Elected Nigerian is excluded
Nigeria's two political parties bowed to military ruler Ibrahim Banbangida on Tuesday and agreed to form an interim government that apparently excludes businessman Moshood Abiola, who won the nation's June 12 presidential election. The move was aimed at ending a political crisis that has paralyzed the government and forced hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people to return to their tribal homelands out of fear that the standoff would degenerate into ethnic fighting. India's Rao survives vote
Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao yesterday survived a no-confidence motion in Parliament that accused him of corruption and incompetence. It was the third no-confidence motion Mr. Rao's minority government has defeated since it came to power in June 1991. The victory means Rao can continue opening India's closed economy and battling the Hindu nationalists who have sparked Hindu-Muslim violence that has killed 3,000 people since 1990. Anti-Semitism in Japan
A leading Jewish group has demanded an apology from one of Japan's top newspapers after it ran an advertisement for books claiming there is a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Japan. The advertisement, which appeared Tuesday in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, "gives credence and respectability to blatant and outlandish lies about the Jewish people," the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center said.
The advertisement in the top business daily, claimed Jewish industrial and financial groups had taken over the rest of the world and were now attempting to destroy Japan. Savings and loan aftermath
A federal commission investigating the regulatory lapses behind the savings-and-loan crisis is calling for stiff restrictions on insured accounts at financial institutions. The National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement on Tuesday urged President Clinton and Congress to restrict deposit insurance to money-market style accounts invested in safe securities.
Although deposit insurance didn't cause the debacle, it allowed it to spiral out of control, the commission said. The commission's proposal would limit the government's chances of losing money by confining insurance to "monetary service companies."
They would offer depositors insured accounts and invest the money only in easily sellable, short-term corporate debt and government securities. Reggie Lewis, NBA star
Reggie Lewis, the captain of the Boston Celtics and a former National Basketball Association all-star, died Tuesday evening in Waltham, Mass. Lewis, Boston's top scorer the past two seasons, was respected as much for his quiet and gentlemanly way as for his scoring ability.
"Reggie's infectious smile and joyous love of basketball were always evident to all of us who were fortunate to have seen him play," said Celtics president Red Auerbach.
