From Our Own Correspondent
Washington, Oct 15
The Senate foreign relations committee has cut almost $850m (£340m) from the Administrations foreign aid request and is likely to make further cuts before it has finished with the Bill next week.

A ban on all military and economic aid to Pakistan, which was written into the Bill by the House of Representatives, was strengthened by the Senate committee to block all conceivable loopholes. All materials in the aid “pipeline” and war materials being shipped privately under United States licence would now be blocked.

Aid could only be resumed when President Nixon certified that Pakistan was allowing refugees to return to Pakistan “to the extent feasible”.

The committee last night also deleted a supplemental request for $250m in aid for East Pakistan refugees, but it simultaneously ordered that the same amount should be taken out of other programmes to fund famine relief.

A vote on a controversial end-the-war amendment by Senator John Cooper (Republican. Kentucky) and Senator Frank Church (Democrat. Idaho) was postponed until next week. It would direct the President to negotiate a total American withdrawal from Indo-China, with further funds for military operations stopped.

The largest cuts—some 20 per cent—in the Administration’s request for $3,600m in aid were made in the military assistance programme and in the economic development loan programme for developing nations.

A special fund of $85m in supporting assistance for Israel was established at the insistence of Senator Jacob Javits (Republican, New York). The assistance is allocated for countries that are suffering serious economic problems because of war or defence burdens.