April 22, 1986

A Jordanian was reported today to have been arrested in connection with the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque, and authorities here identified him as a brother of a man seized in London last week on suspicion of trying to blow up an Israeli airliner. According to security sources and Western diplomats, the suspect arrested in West Berlin over the weekend is Hazim Mansour, a brother of Nezar Hindawi, a 35-year-old Jordanian who was seized in a London hotel on Friday in connection with an incident at Heathrow Airport. ''Despite the difference in name, he's definitely the brother,'' said a diplomat, who added that Mr. Mansour had operated under a number of aliases. ''He has a checkered past and a lot of multiple passports,'' the diplomat said.

The Reagan Administration today generally endorsed Senator Bob Packwood's plan to raise excise taxes by about $75 billion over the next five years to pay for lower income tax rates and the retention of various tax subsidies. But representatives of the industries that would have to pay the taxes opposed them strenuously at a day-long hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, and the idea seemed to have little support among the committee members. The excise tax proposal is a central feature of the tax-revision plan, which appears to be in serious trouble, that was put forward by Senator Packwood, the Finance Committee chairman and an Oregon Republican. It was the best way he could find, the Senator said, to generate enough revenue so that the top income tax rate could be cut to 35 percent from 50 percent, business investment incentives improved and other tax preferences maintained, without lowering total Government receipts.

The Critic's Choices column in The Guide on Sunday gave outdated information for a group of dance concerts by Phyllis Lamhut. The performances (originally scheduled this Thursday through Saturday) have been rescheduled for June 12-14 and June 17-21 at Playhouse 46, 423 West 46th Street.

The dollar continued to fall sharply yesterday, reaching a postwar low against the yen despite efforts by Japan's central bank to stabilize the market. The Bank of Japan, concerned that the yen was rising too far too fast and hurting Japanese exporters, bought about $1.5 billion in American currency, according to dealers. But Japan's intervention was unable to stem the slide in the dollar, which came against a backdrop of falling interest rates in the United States and a comment by President Reagan that the yen's rise so far was ''legitimate.''

New York State will ban all commercial fishing for striped bass in its waters because of unsafe levels of PCB's in the fish. As a result, striped bass will be virtually unavailable in restaurants or stores in the metropolitan area. Since last summer, commercial fishing for striped bass has been been banned in all state waters except those off eastern Long Island. But on the basis of a new study, the State Department of Environmental Conservation said the levels of PCB's - polychlorinated biphenyls - in the fish in all waters exceeded the safe limits set by the Federal Food and Drug Administration.