News stories from Tuesday August 25, 1981

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

The Consumer Price Index spurted by 1.2 percent in July, marking the steepest inflation rate in 16 months after three months of moderate increases, the government reported. The shift suggested decreased prospects for an early drop in interest rates. Much of the increase was prompted by sharply higher mortgage and home-buying costs, but costs for food, medical care and public transit also surged. [New York Times] Anti-Reagan sentiment on Wall Street was indicated by financial analysts and investors. They hold the administration and continuing high interest rates responsible for much of the recent dramatic slide in prices on the securities markets just as they credited the President with much of the rise earlier this year. [New York Times] A meeting on the controllers' strike was held privately last week by Reagan administration officials and the leader of organized labor's public employee unions. But administration officials denied that the unannounced session involved any attempt to open secret negotiations to settle the 23-day-old walkout. [New York Times] Vulnerability of land-based missiles is a subject of deep controversy among strategic experts. Some of them question whether the American warheads are highly susceptible to a Soviet missile strike and that billions of dollars must be spent to safeguard them, but all agree that it is either unnecessary or unworkable to build the kind of vast shelter system that was favored by the Carter administration. [New York Times] The training of terrorists for Libya was begun four years ago by 10 men drilled as members of the United States Army's Green Berets. Participants and federal investigators said that the Americans went to Libya with the blessing of the Army. The 10 believed that the mission was a covert C.I.A. operation designed to infiltrate the Libyan regime. Whether it was remains uncertain. [New York Times] A dispute over Soviet Jewish refugees erupted between Israel and the United States. The State Department and United Hias Service, an immigrant aid group, said they opposed Israel's new plan to curtail the flow of Soviet Jews to countries other than Israel. In recent months, about 85 percent of the refugees have chosen to go from Vienna, the transit stop, to places other than Israel, with most choosing the United States. [New York Times] Egyptian-Israeli talks began in Alexandria. President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin exchanged formal but cordial greetings at the start of a two-day conference designed to resolve snags that have marked efforts to normalize relations and to resume the Palestinian autonomy talks. [New York Times] The leaders of Libya and Syria met in Damascus and discussed ways to increase cooperation in the face of the renewed Egyptian-Israeli peace efforts and what Libyan officials denounced as the "imperialist designs" of the United States. [New York Times] A South African incursion into Angola was reported by the Angolan press agency, and analysts in South Africa said a major offensive against black guerrillas was underway. [New York Times] About 100,000 slaves in Mauritania probably make up the world's largest slave population, according to a report under study by the United Nations. The slaveholders, the study said, are predominantly Moors who are victimizing blacks in the poor country in northwestern Africa. [New York Times] Voyager 2 swept toward Saturn and its retinue of moons and sent back data and pictures of dazzling and perplexing worlds. The American spacecraft photographed four of the moons in greater detail than ever before, tried to count and measure the thousands of strands in the Saturnian rings and then plunged within 63,000 miles of the mysterious planet's stormy yellowish-brown clouds. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 901.83 (+1.72, +0.19%)
S&P Composite: 125.13 (-0.37, -0.29%)
Arms Index: 0.47

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	373	18.18
Declines	1,218	28.18
Unchanged	317	8.24
Total Volume		54.60

* 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*
August 24, 1981	900.11	125.50	46.74
August 21, 1981	920.57	129.23	37.67
August 20, 1981	928.37	130.69	38.27
August 19, 1981	926.46	130.49	39.39
August 18, 1981	924.37	130.11	47.26
August 17, 1981	926.75	131.22	40.84
August 14, 1981	936.93	132.49	42.57
August 13, 1981	944.35	133.51	42.44
August 12, 1981	945.21	133.40	53.65
August 11, 1981	949.30	133.85	52.59