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Around the Nation
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WASHINGTON - A Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee said yesterday that he intends to offer his colleagues an alternative to impeachment that would strongly condemn President Clinton for his conduct but not impose any sanctions against him.
While the notion of censure has been discussed generally for months, Massachusetts Rep. William Delahunt is the first lawmaker to offer a way out of the current controversy short of removing Clinton from office.
"We are trying in the most constructive sense to get a ball rolling on this," said Steve Schwadron, Delahunt's press secretary. "It will either roll or it won't."
Delahunt's proposal is unlikely to alter the outcome in the committee, whose hard-line Republican majority is expected to approve articles of impeachment in the coming weeks. At the helm of the process is Judiciary Chairperson Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) who says the panel's role is to impeach or not impeach.
"Most Republican members have publicly rejected the idea of censure either because it is not constitutionally proscribed or because it would be a bad precedent given the seriousness of the allegations," a GOP committee aide noted.
Off the committee, however, Republican lawmakers appear to be more willing to embrace a compromise that acknowledges Clinton's transgressions while stopping short of impeachment.
Rep. Asa Hutchinson, (R-Ark.), a committee member, said one possible scenario would have both articles of impeachment and a censure motion going to the House floor for consideration.
Still, Hutchinson was not optimistic that his GOP colleagues would favor a rebuke: "If you have a censure (motion), you'd have a lot of Republicans voting against it," he said.
Also uncertain is whether lawmakers will coalesce behind Delahunt's proposal or a stronger measure that brings with it some form of punishment against the president. Previously, various lawmakers have floated proposals to fine Clinton, dock his pension or force him to apologize to the country from the House floor.
WASHINGTON - The government reported the worst drop in corporate profits in nearly nine years yesterday, even as stock prices hovered near record highs.
Economists predict earnings could fall again next year and say they fear the market is vulnerable to another downturn, perhaps worse than the Dow's 19 percent plummet between July 17 and Aug. 31.
So why did the Dow Jones industrial average begin the week by shooting to a record high?
Many attribute the market's startlingly swift recovery since early October to a shortsighted focus on recent interest-rate cuts and on a spate of corporate mergers, including yesterday's announcement that America Online will buy Netscape for $4.2 billion.
"Investors have overdone it. They were overly pessimistic a few weeks ago and they're overly optimistic today," said economist Mark Zandi of Regional Financial Associates in West Chester, Pa.
"There's no reason to believe investor psychology won't switch back the other way at some point next year," Zandi said.
It fell 73 points, or 0.8 percent, to 9,301.
Companies' after-tax profits fell 1.8 percent from July to September in the third quarterly decline of the past year, the Commerce Department said yesterday. They're down 6.2 percent from a year earlier, the worst drop since 1989.
A third of the world's economies, including most of Asia, remains mired in recession. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit is likely to set a record this year and another in 1999 and growth should slow appreciably.
However, other analysts believe investors are well aware of the risks and diminished prospects for next year, and instead are looking at the longer term.
"I don't think investors see a slowdown in 1999 as extending for a long time," said economist Norman Robertson of Smithfield Trust Co. in Pittsburgh. "There is now on the part of many investors a willingness to look beyond the next few months. That may be especially true among a large number of investors who are entering the market at a very early age."
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Pity the poor brussels sprout. The mini-cabbages smell bad, they're almost always overcooked and kids hate them. Now, the little vegetable has emerged as one of the losers under NAFTA.
Along California's central coast, where 93 percent of the nation's brussels sprouts are grown, the North American Free Trade Agreement could spell the end of a tight-knit group of second-and third generation farmers.
Five years ago, before NAFTA, most brussels sprouts served on American tables were grown in foggy, oceanside fields in San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. Since the trade agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States, an increasing number come from Mexico.
"If you look broadly at NAFTA, it's been good for farmers and ranchers in Mexico, Canada and the U.S.," said John Skorburg, a trade specialist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farm organization. "But if you look at specific commodities, there are winners and losers."
NAFTA built in some protections against this type of economic damage, but it takes influence to petition successfully for help. Brusselss sprout growers just don't have the clout, Skorburg said.
After all, brussels sprouts are almost no one's favorite vegetable.
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Around the World
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BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder yesterday convened the first Cabinet meeting here since Adolf Hitler was in power, symbolizing his impatience over the stalled move of the capital from Bonn, where the new chancellor still works in the shadow of Helmut Kohl.
Schroeder, who succeeded Kohl only four weeks ago, has repeatedly pushed the army of builders and planners at work refitting this city to speed up construction of the new government quarters along the Spree River.
The chancellor is Germany's first leader with no personal memories of World War II and the Nazi horrors, and he has made it clear he wants to govern a reunified state that has moved beyond a "postwar era" to a time defined by prosperity and peace.
But Schroeder's eagerness to put his stamp on the country has already undercut his assurances to Western allies that the new leftist leadership will maintain continuity in its relations with other countries.
Although the entire Cabinet traveled to Berlin for yesterday's meeting, it couldn't escape mounting criticism in Bonn and Washington over Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's suggestion that NATO renounce its claimed right to "first-strike" use of nuclear weapons.
That deterrence policy developed in the Cold War stare-down with the Soviet Union has long been a cornerstone of alliance security strategy.
"He's let the cat out of the bag," said Angelika Merkel, a leading member of Kohl's Christian Democratic Union, suggesting that Greens party member Fischer was showing his true colors. Fischer was among the most vocal and active protesters against NATO nuclear missile deployments in Germany in the 1970s but has joined Schroeder in declaring the new government's support for NATO.
Even Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, a Social Democrat like Schroeder, seemed to distance himself from Fischer's remarks in this week's Der Spiegel magazine. Scharping, on a visit to Washington, told German journalists that he believes the ruffled feathers of U.S. security gurus had been smoothed by his assurances that Germany has no intention of pushing for fundamental changes in NATO strategy.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - The slain democracy pioneer Galina Starovoitova was buried yesterday in a grand and somber funeral, as Russia's embattled reformers spoke emotionally of how their achievements - and their own lives - now seem in grave danger.
"They're killing our friends. They're killing our comrades," Anatoly Chubais, a leader of the reform movement who was ousted from government this summer, said in a eulogy, his voice rising in anger. "They want to frighten us. But they won't succeed."
Sarovoitova was shot dead by a pair of killers who ambushed her Friday night at the doorstep of her apartment. Her prominence in national politics - she was by far the country's leading woman politician - was enough to ensure outrage and despair.
Coming on top of an economic depression, vicious political battles, military disintegration, renewed anti-Semitism and persistent ethnic conflicts, the killing reinforced the feeling that Russia is coming unglued. Though hideous crimes and rampant corruption have plagued the country since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the news of Starovoitova's assassination unleashed fresh uncertainties: If she can be killed, who can not? Who is next?