News stories from Thursday June 23, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Students and police clashed in riots in Soweto, South Africa. The man who ordered the police action today and the arrests of student leaders earlier is Jimmy Kruger, the most powerful man in South Africa. He is the minister of justice, prisons and police. Kruger has said that rubber bullets are ineffective; real ones must be used to protect a man's life.
Kruger claims that American visitors like Vice President Mondale and United Nations ambassador Andrew Young bring their human rights campaign to South Africa but they only worsen racial tensions. Kruger noted that when blacks are told to go faster towards freedom, they will agitate and try to do so. He doesn't think there will be a blowup unless it is caused by outsiders.
[CBS] - In an unexpectedly close vote, the House passed a $6.7 billion foreign aid appropriations bill that put Cuba, Angola and Mozambique on a list of excluded nations that may not receive aid directly or indirectly. President Carter complained, his press secretary said, that the curbs would "severely restrict his ability to promote the interests of this country around the world." The bill now goes to the Senate. [New York Times]
- The latest development in the battle between Congress and President Carter regarding the fate of the Clinch River breeder reactor, is a leaked report of a study which concluded that the breeder project has no chance of success. A report was prepared in 1973 by Burns and Roe, the engineering firm in charge of designing the reactor project near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The report was never intended for publication, and the company says it is now outdated because the problems mentioned in the report have been corrected and the questions which were raised have been resolved. [CBS]
- A new tax on domestic oil -- the center-piece of President Carter's energy program -- might be killed by Northeastern and rural Southern Congressmen if rebates are not provided to their constituents for higher home heating costs. The tax is intended to raise the price of American oil, making it the same as that of imported oil, and thereby discourage consumption. [New York Times]
- The Labor Department reported that the number of job openings have increased 64% since the first of the year. [CBS]
- About 145,000 persons, many of them Mexicans, might be able to immigrate to the United States or, in the case of some already here without visas, legalize their status as resident aliens, government sources said. This possibility resulted from a suit against the government that was settled in Federal District Court in Chicago. [New York Times]
- The Supreme Court ruled that prisoners have no legal right to form unions; the case in question came from North Carolina. [CBS]
- President Carter made his first political visit to New York since his inauguration and was hailed by the Democratic Party's establishment, the same establishment he had to fight his way into during a grueling two-year campaign for the presidency. The President was the guest of honor at a Waldorf-Astoria Hotel dinner that raised more than $1 million for the Democratic National Committee and the President's own "political needs," such as polls and campaigning for congressional candidates next year. [New York Times]
- An explosion occurred in the Akron, Ohio, sewer system, which authorities say was caused when naphtha leaked into the sewer after the chemical was dumped by vandals at a rubber company which is the object of a strike. [CBS]
- The federal government assumes jurisdiction today over the nation's drinking water supply systems, carrying out through the Environmental Protection Agency the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. The law was enacted when repeated disease outbreaks and discovery of contaminants indicated that the states were generally not maintaining adequate water purity standards. [New York Times]
- The House of Representatives is moving to amend the foreign aid bill to block loans to several countries including Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Uganda and Mozambique. House Speaker Tip O'Neill complained that such amendments tie President Carter's hands. This was the background for a breakfast meeting Carter held today.
The president met with Senate leaders after the House vote. After the meeting, Senator Alan Cranston said that although Carter has good relations with Congress, he can't expect to win every time. The White House hopes the Senate won't agree to the bill's restrictions; the House is expected to give the bill final approval tonight.
[CBS] - Indecisiveness prevailed in the stock market, which finished mixed in continued heavy trading. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 925.37, down 0.94 point. Advancing stocks, however, outnumbered declining ones about 8 to 5. [New York Times]
- The Commerce Department denied an export license to Control Data Corp. of Minneapolis on its request to sell a computer to the Soviet Union. The government fears that the Soviets would use it for military purposes; Russia says it wants to use the computer to forecast the weather. [CBS]
- Major industrial countries were urged by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to set national economic growth targets for next year. This, he said, would establish a more expansionary world economic environment. He made the remarks in a speech at the opening in Paris of the annual ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, possibly setting off another round, possibly a decisive one, in the argument between advocates of expansionism and its opponents. [New York Times]
- The Supreme Court overruled a 1967 antitrust decision and said that a manufacturer's restrictions on the number and location of franchised retail outlets for its products were not necessarily illegal. In its 6-to-2 decision, the Court said it was returning to an earlier "rule of reason" doctrine in which each such franchise case had to be examined on its own economic facts, especially as to whether the restriction complained of put an unreasonable restraint on competition. [New York Times]
- A major China policy review by the Carter administration has concluded that the sale of United States military technology to China would lead to a "fundamental reassessment" of Soviet policies toward the United States and an increase of tension between Moscow and Peking. The review, in short, opposes the sale of military technology. Key figures in the administration are known to disagree seriously. [New York Times]
- Moscow used an editorial in a foreign affairs weekly that criticized the views of the Spanish Communist leader, Santiago Carrillo, to make a sweeping attack on Eurocommunism, of which Mr. Carrillo is a proponent. The editorial accused Mr. Carrillo of anti-Soviet attitudes and said that Eurocommunism was devised to promote a schism in international Communism. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 925.37 (-0.94, -0.10%)
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* |
| June 22, 1977 | 926.31 | 100.46 | 25.07 |
| June 21, 1977 | 928.60 | 100.74 | 29.73 |
| June 20, 1977 | 924.27 | 100.42 | 22.95 |
| June 17, 1977 | 920.45 | 99.97 | 21.96 |
| June 16, 1977 | 920.45 | 99.85 | 24.31 |
| June 15, 1977 | 917.57 | 99.62 | 22.64 |
| June 14, 1977 | 922.57 | 99.86 | 25.39 |
| June 13, 1977 | 912.40 | 98.74 | 20.25 |
| June 10, 1977 | 910.79 | 98.46 | 20.63 |
| June 9, 1977 | 909.85 | 98.14 | 19.94 |