News stories from Monday February 5, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Farmers pressed demands for increased price supports in demonstrations in Washington. Hundreds of farm families rolled into the capital on tractors, camper vans and pickup trucks and jammed major streets, delaying federal employees up to three hours in getting to work. There were clashes with policemen as farmers chained tractors together to block the entrance to the Agriculture Department's main building and then set fire to a tractor they had stalled. [New York Times]
- The cult phenomenon in America was the subject of a three-hour inquiry on Capitol Hill. Jackie Speier, an aide to Representative Leo Ryan, who was slain last fall in Guyana after visiting the People's Temple commune, testified, "It was a sad experience to see so many lost and misdirected people whose ability to seek individual goals had been destroyed." [New York Times]
- Luring the apparel industry to Atlanta is a major aim of Georgia and its capital, which has built a $41 million apparel mart and is aggressively recruiting manufacturers from Manhattan. A study said that Atlanta had the labor pool and proximity to raw materials to recapture some of the more than 100,000 American apparel industry jobs lost to foreign competition in the last decade. [New York Times]
- Ayatollah Khomeini pressed plans for Iran's future. He named Mehdi Bazargan, a staunch opponent of the Shah, as Prime Minister of a "provisional government" and instructed him to form a cabinet and organize elections for a constituent assembly to promulgate a new constitution to make Iran an Islamic republic. The Ayatollah warned that opponents of his action would be treated "very harshly" as violators of Islamic law. His followers reacted jubilantly.
Questions over American arms sales have been raised by the Iranian upheaval. One issue, Carter administration officials said, is whether the sale of nearly $20 billion in arms contributed to the instability that led to the Shah's departure.
[New York Times] - A defense of its new China policy was opened by the Carter administration on Capitol Hill. It urged Congress to avoid approving bills to strengthen Taiwan's security that would invite President Carter's veto. Expanding American-Chinese cooperation was indicated by Deputy Prime Minister Teng Hsiao-ping as he ended his nine-day American tour. [New York Times]
- The next Middle East peace effort will be on "the ministerial level" and will deal "with the issues as a whole," Secretary of State Vance said of attempts to break the impasse over an Egyptian-Israeli treaty. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 823.98 (-10.65, -1.28%)
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* |
| February 2, 1979 | 834.63 | 99.50 | 25.35 |
| February 1, 1979 | 840.87 | 99.96 | 27.92 |
| January 31, 1979 | 839.22 | 99.93 | 30.33 |
| January 30, 1979 | 851.78 | 101.05 | 26.91 |
| January 29, 1979 | 855.77 | 101.55 | 24.18 |
| January 26, 1979 | 859.75 | 101.86 | 34.24 |
| January 25, 1979 | 854.64 | 101.19 | 31.45 |
| January 24, 1979 | 846.41 | 100.16 | 31.71 |
| January 23, 1979 | 846.85 | 100.60 | 30.18 |
| January 22, 1979 | 838.53 | 99.90 | 24.39 |