News stories from Thursday December 27, 1979

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

Special checks on Iranian students by American immigration officials were upheld by a federal appeals court. It also ruled that the Carter administration had the right to seek deportation of those who were in the United States illegally or who did not report to immigration officials as ordered. [New York Times] Trials for American hostages in Teheran were urged by Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, who indicated he was giving up his attempt to find a way out of the impasse over the captives through an international tribunal. Both he and the leader of Iran's Revolutionary Council acknowledged that the captors, not the government, were, in effect, controlling policies. [New York Times] Twelve presidential aspirants will vie in the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 26 -- the nation's earliest state primary. By today's deadline, five Democrats and seven Republicans had entered the contest with the required 1,000 signatures. [New York Times] President Carter may not take part in a scheduled Jan. 7 campaign debate in Iowa because of the Iranian crisis, according to White House sources. They said he was seriously considering withdrawing amid a sharp dispute between his political and foreign policy advisers about the wisdom of participating. If he withdraws, it seems likely that this first scheduled debate among Democratic aspirants will be postponed or canceled. [New York Times] A state of emergency in Kansas City was declared by Gov. Joseph Teasdale of Missouri as he ordered 500 National Guardsmen to man fire stations. The city's 906 firemen continued a work slowdown to protest a deadlock in contract talks. The Governor said he believed that local officials could no longer insure public safety. [New York Times] An attempt to circumvent the Senate was made by President Carter as he announced the temporary appointment of William Lubbers as general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. The appointment is sharply opposed by business groups and some members of Congress on the ground that Mr. Lubbers is too close to the chairman of the board, who has been accused of favoring labor. The appointment, made with Congress in recess, precludes a threatened filibuster, at least for the coming year. [New York Times] A fire killed 10 prisoners and injured eight persons in the county jail in Lancaster, S.C. Firefighters cut through the roof of the jail, built in 1823, to extinguish the blaze. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. [New York Times] A coup in Afghanistan, reportedly backed by Soviet troops, resulted in the ouster and execution of President Hafizullah Amin. Babrak Karmal, a former Deputy Prime Minister, who has been living in exile in Eastern Europe, is the new President. Both men were viewed as pro-Soviet, but Mr. Karmal has been regarded as more to Moscow's liking. Witnesses had reported heavy fighting in the capital of Kabul involving Soviet forces.Moscow backed the Afghan regime of Babrak Karmal in reporting the text of his entire speech denouncing his predecessor as a butcher and an American puppet. By publicizing the takeover, Moscow gave the impression that a Soviet airlift of troops had been carried out to change the leadership. [New York Times] Ski resorts have been devastated by what has so far been one of the warmest winters on record. In the East, there has been no snow of consequence, crimping the critical Christmas season, and none is forecast. Blizzards have rescued slopes in the West, but prospects are grim for most of the country's 800 ski areas, which comprise a $3.5 billion industry that attracts 14.6 million skiers. [New York Times] New reparations to Jewish victims of Nazism would be paid under an agreement in principle in the West German Parliament. But the awards have become snarled in parallel efforts to discuss restoring pension rights to Hitler-era civil servants who were not cleared by de-Nazification tribunals. [New York Times] Religious fervor is sweeping Islam. The rising trend, which began before the Iranian revolution, has no cohesive unity, but reflects intensity, goals and tactics as widely diverse as the geography and history of the world's 700 million to 800 million Moslems. The movement frightens both those regimes anchored in orthodox traditions and those that thought themselves immunized through social revolution. [New York Times] The deaths of a Rhodesian rebel leader and three British airmen complicated Britain's initiative for a cease-fire scheduled to take effect in Rhodesia tomorrow night. Gen. Josiah Tongogara, a Patriotic Front army commander, was said by the Mozambican government to have died in a car accident. Three Britons in the truce monitoring force died in a helicopter crash. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 840.10 (+1.96, +0.23%)
S&P Composite: 107.96 (+0.18, +0.17%)
Arms Index: 0.78

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	706	13.46
Declines	795	11.79
Unchanged	476	6.16
Total Volume		31.41

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
December 26, 1979	838.14	107.78	24.95
December 24, 1979	839.16	107.66	19.15
December 21, 1979	838.91	107.59	36.16
December 20, 1979	843.34	108.26	40.39
December 19, 1979	838.91	108.20	41.79
December 18, 1979	838.65	108.30	43.30
December 17, 1979	844.62	109.33	43.83
December 14, 1979	842.75	108.92	41.82
December 13, 1979	836.09	107.67	36.70
December 12, 1979	835.67	107.52	34.66