News stories from Sunday December 19, 1976

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Israel's Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, gave up his tenuous control of Parliament with the ouster of the National Religious Party from his shaky coalition government. The move stunned Israeli politicians and there were predictions that Parliament would soon be dissolved and that elections scheduled for next November would be held earlier. The action was considered by some to be a political reprisal. [New York Times] Griffin Bell of Atlanta, a former federal appellate judge who is said to be a lifelong friend of President-elect Jimmy Carter, will be nominated as Attorney General in the Carter administration, sources close to Mr. Carter said. Mr. Carter, who still has seven cabinet appointments to make this week, if he is to meet his self-imposed Christmas deadline, said he would announce "two or three appointments" at a news conference tomorrow in Plains, Ga. [New York Times] William Simon, Secretary of the Treasury, said in a television interview that he did not agree with recent statements that the economy was in another recession. He said: "We're in the midst of a balanced, healthy expansion that's been underway since 1975, and the pause that is currently underway, and I believe ended, is not a phenomenon." He cautioned against tax cuts without balancing reductions in federal spending, and said that oil price increases of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would have little effect on the United States. [New York Times] The largest merger in American business history becomes effective Monday when the General Electric Company and Utah International Inc. formally become one. Utah International mines uranium, iron, copper and coal in this country and has large mining operations in Australia. G.E. stockholders who met in Stratford, Conn., last week, and Utah International stockholders who met in San Francisco, approved G.E.'s $2.17 billion acquisition of Utah International for about 41 million G.E. common shares. Businessmen believe that General Electric through its merger with Utah International will get a long-sought access to Japanese markets as well as the much more publicized advantages of diversification into the field of natural resources. A security analyst said that the merger was "an interesting way for G.E. to buy into Japan through the coking coal agreements that Utah International has had in effect." [New York Times] Two things that the Federal Reserve Bank did last week clearly showed that the central bank intends to he accommodating to the credit markets as the year ends. Last Friday, the central bank permitted the Federal Funds rate, the basic rate of the money market, to trade at 4 9/16 percent, and took no action to keep the rate from drifting that low. Later, the central bank announced a reduction in the volume of reserves that banks are required to hold against checking accounts. Further developments in the Federal Reserve's monetary policy through late January will be decided tomorrow. [New York Times] Mafia-directed swindlers are operating in the West, cheating businessmen out of millions of dollars and then moving in to take over some of the businesses that borrowed Mafia money. Detectives in six Western states who are investigating say that in some cases officers and other employees of banks had participated in the swindles. A bank in Phoenix, possibly another in Denver, has been taken over by organized crime, they said. They believe that the number of "rigged" banks could exceed 100. The Carlo Gambino Mafia family of New York is believed to be deeply involved. [New York Times] Despite almost universal criticism, the Occupation Safety and Health Administration, a small, five-year-old agency in the Labor Department, carries on, preserved by the politicians' reluctance to vote against an appealing concept like worker safety and by widespread agreement among union and business leaders that the theory behind the agency is sound even though it has little impact. [New York Times] Africa's Christian churches, once derided as paternalistic agents of African colonialism, are now been praised by black Africans for their role in challenging white supremacy and their contribution to the development of the existing black states. "The truth is that the churches have spread more revolution on this continent than Che Guevara, Lenin and Mao Tse-tung," a Zambian politician said. [New York Times] East Germany, which won 40 gold, 25 silver and 25 bronze medals at the 1976 Olympic Games, has perfected a system for producing Olympic champions. This year, for the first time, some secrets of how the system works have been revealed. [New York Times] The Arab boycott office in Damascus denies it, but a company can have its name removed from the Arabs' Israel boycott list with a payment of $25,000 to $40,000 -- provided its contacts with Israel are not too obvious. This is one of the "questionable corporate payments abroad" examined by Business International, a private publishing, research and advisory organization. [New York Times]