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Morning News

Crisis in the Middle East: One Dead, More Than a Dozen Injured in Two Bombings; President Clinton Assessing Peace Process Setbacks

Aired December 28, 2000 - 10:03 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We turn to two stories that are developing in the Middle East. Two sets of explosions just a few hours apart have left at least one person dead and more than a dozen injured.

CNN's Matthew Chance joining us now from Jerusalem -- Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Daryn. Well, right, we are covering a number of developing news stories out of the region right now. Let me first bring you up to date on the latest explosion reported to has taken place at a crossing point between the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip and Israel proper. The Israeli Defense Force -- that's the Israeli army -- says there have been a number of injuries, including soldiers and possibly a number of civilians.

Emergency workers on the ground are reporting, though, that one person has been killed in this latest explosion. And the three injured, one of those injured, said to be seriously injured.

The explosion took place at the Sufa crossing point, according to defense officials. That's one of the main crossing pointing between Israel proper and the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. And the whole area down there has been a point of confrontation and violence over several months now of confrontation between the Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters.

Well, earlier today, of course, we've been reporting an explosion, or a series of explosions, out of Tel Aviv. Police there say those explosions rocked a bus traveling -- a public bus traveling along a busy commuter highway, one of the main highways, in fact, that leads out of Tel Aviv to its eastern suburbs; 30 people are said to have been on board the bus when the explosions took place. The latest figures that we have on that is that 13 of them at least are said to have been injured by emergency workers on the -- emergency workers say they've been injured -- one of those injured said to be seriously injured. No deaths reported, though, at this stage from that incident.

Back to you in the studio.

KAGAN: Matthew Chance in Jerusalem, thank you very much. And now I want to get the latest from the White House perspective on these latest developments. And for that, we go to Major Garrett at the White House.

Major, good morning.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Well, the White House strongly condemns this latest rash of violence in the Middle East. Senior administration officials saying to CNN that the enemies of peace will stop at nothing. That's the sense here at the White House.

About 48 hours ago, Daryn, I can tell you that White House officials were pretty optimistic about the way this week would progress. They were not expecting a new rash of violence. And they were expecting a meeting today in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt between the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak; the Israel leader, Ehud Barak; and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. That clearly has been canceled.

The president of the United States is expected to make numerous phone calls to the region today to try to find out if this cancellation is a very big glitch in the peace process that he was hoping to lay out. And there's expected to be a decision today based on those phone calls whether or not to invite Mr. Arafat to meet with the president here in Washington and Mr. Barak to meet with the president later on after that meeting. Those things are all still on hold until the president finds out what the situation is on the ground -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Major, meanwhile, we expect to see and hear from President Clinton a couple of hours from now?

GARRETT: Yes, we do. The president of the United States will come to the briefing room at noon Eastern to talk about new budget numbers the Office of Management and Budget have just come up -- that is, come up with. These numbers are based on the final budget that the Congress passed just a couple of weeks ago. There were large increases for federal education spending and for health care.

And based on those increases, the projected surpluses, while still growing, will be a bit smaller than some Republicans had hoped for. The broad numbers are this: The Republicans had hoped for 10- year budget surpluses of some $6 trillion. These new budget numbers will put that at about $5 trillion.

And what the president will argue is that if the country decides not to do a big tax cut of the size that President-elect Bush has proposed -- some $1.3 trillion -- it can pay off the national debt as early as 2009. If the country decides to have a modest tax cut and maybe a prescription drug benefit, it can still pay off the national debt by 2010.

That was big priority of the president's, and he'll make one last pitch that that's the direction the country should go in before president-elect takes -- President-elect Bush, rather, takes over and pushes that big tax cut before Congress -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Major Garrett at the White House, thank you very much.

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