FIRST OFF . . .

Blaming Congressional budget cuts, the State Department has blocked $50 million allocated for the construction of a radio transmitter in Israel, the Washington Post reported. The transmitter would enable the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty to broadcast deep into the Central Asian regions of the Soviet Union--currently an area of resentment against centralized Soviet authority. The action drew protests from Malcolm S. Forbes Jr., chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversees Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Forbes argued that “the Israel project is the linchpin of a transmitter modernization program that will enable the United States to reach tens of millions of new listeners in the USSR, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.”