Capital

Gunmen killed two Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers and seriously wounded a third at a checkpoint in a Port-au-Prince slum that is a stronghold for supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a United Nations spokesman said. The three Jordanians were on duty at the Cite Soleil checkpoint in the capital when they came under fire. The shootings occurred three weeks before previously postponed elections to replace an interim government.

The nation's 1,000 largest manufacturers boosted their capital appropriations in 1984 to $116 billion, despite heavy cutbacks in the petroleum industry, the Conference Board said. Capital appropriations in the fourth quarter rose 5% from the previous quarter to $29 billion, the business-sponsored research organization said. Excluding the petroleum industry cutbacks, fourth-quarter appropriations rose 17% from the third quarter, it said.

Riot police fired tear gas at stone-throwing squatters and broke through blazing barricades to close down six squatter compounds around the capital, Amsterdam. Thirteen officers were injured in one confrontation, and more than 15 squatters were arrested through the day. Police were enforcing a court eviction order for three 17th century warehouses.

Maybe Tom Petruno is right and the unprecedentedly low capital gains tax rate of 15.4% would lead to a soaring stock market; but if it's living standards we want to raise, let's get those top income tax brackets up to an equally unprecedented 95%! There are many arguments that need to be made against a capital gains tax cut, but the most obvious one that I have not heard others make is: How do you know that investors won't take advantage of the cut to buy machinery? Just what we need in this time of rising unemployment--more automation?

Myanmar's secretive military government began moving its ministries out of the capital in a long-awaited exercise that analysts said was driven by fears of a U.S. attack. Convoys of trucks laden with bedding, clothes and chairs headed out of Yangon for the provincial trading post of Pyinmana, 200 miles to the north.

The U.S. Embassy in war-torn Tajikistan was evacuated Sunday, but by nightfall the militants who had seized key government buildings the day before in Dushanbe, the capital, were withdrawing and local television was saying that "the attempted putsch has failed."

Roy M. Cohn, the controversial defense lawyer who was disbarred last month in New York state, has returned to the National Institutes of Health for treatment, a hospital spokeswoman said Monday. Cohn, who was treated last year at the National Cancer Institute for liver cancer, has been admitted to the NIH Clinical Center. Irene Haske, a hospital spokeswoman, said Cohn was at the center, but said she was not authorized to say when he was admitted or for what he was being treated.

BEIRUT - The Syrian government says its forces this week seized a strategic township east of Damascus after weeks of fighting, but some opposition activists dispute the asserted regime victory. Several official Syrian press outlets reported that government troops had assumed "total control" of Otaiba, considered an important supply hub for opposition forces based in the Ghouta region. Forces opposed to President Bashar Assad's government have for months been closing in on Damascus, the capital, from suburban and rural areas.

A modest package of proposals aimed at expanding small business' access to capital cleared the House with broad bipartisan support, a rare accomplishment in this politically divided Congress that puts the legislation on track for passage. President Obama has repeatedly called on Congress to send him such measures that he could sign into law. "What it demonstrates is that we are able to set aside our differences when we want to and come together for producing results that people want to see," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.)