September 14, 1991

Efforts by the Dinkins administration to achieve significant concessions from New York City labor unions are faltering even as it faces new demands by city teachers for wage increases. Union officials say that a much-heralded effort by the administration to roll back $200 million in contract costs for well over 150,000 workers has stalled and appears headed for failure. The administration says it is continuing to press for an agreement, but with the talks faltering it has unilaterally begun offering groups of city employees incentives to retire early, even without union agreement.

Judge Clarence Thomas ended a week of sometimes contentious questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee today amid a growing sense among committee members that his confirmation to the Supreme Court seems inevitable. The subtle but unmistakable movement in favor of his prospects was evident both in the tone of questions posed to him during the hearings and in comments by individual senators outside the Senate Caucus Room.

In yet another move to settle longstanding regional disputes, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed today to stop all arms sales to combatants in Afghanistan to help pave the way for free elections and a final settlement of the Afghan civil war. After a meeting this morning to tie up the details, the Soviet Foreign Minister, Boris D. Pankin, and Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d read a joint statement declaring their intention to cease all weapons deliveries -- and to encourage all other countries to cease theirs -- by Jan. 1, 1992. In the interim, they agreed not to step up current arms shipments to their respective Afghan allies.

Faced with a raft of new evidence that the economy is still weak, the Federal Reserve today drove down the interest rates it controls to their lowest points since the 1970's. Across the country, large banks responded immediately by reducing their prime rate, the benchmark for many mortgages and other consumer and commercial loans.

The United Nations has concluded that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq could have possessed enough nuclear explosives to build at least two or three atomic weapons a year by the mid-1990's, if his secret production plants had not been destroyed by allied bombing during the Persian Gulf war. The unpublished report, produced by United Nations inspectors responsible for finding and destroying Iraqi plants capable of producing nuclear weapons and material, also said that other countries provided Baghdad with substantial quantities of equipment and material for part of its nuclear program, and "very probably" sent experts to give continuing technical advice.