News stories from Wednesday December 19, 1979

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

A delay in seeking sanctions against Iran in the United Nations Security Council has been agreed to by Washington while discussions on the Iran crisis proceed privately at the U.N. The request for delay was made by Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. [New York Times] Iran's envoy to Scandinavia was seized and militants occupying the American Embassy in Teheran produced what they said were embassy documents to accuse him of having collaborated with Washington. The ambassador, Abbas Amir Entezam, served as spokesman for the former revolutionary government of Mehdi Barzargan. [New York Times] A deadlock on oil prices was reported by several representatives at the meeting of petroleum exporting countries after six more hours of negotiations. The oil ministers indicated that pressure was rising on Saudi Arabia to raise its benchmark price, now $24 a barrel, but the Saudi minister said he was not considering any increase. [New York Times] Aid for Chrysler won Senate backing. Voting 53 to 44, the chamber approved $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for the automaker after defeating a controversial proposal to provide emergency, interim financing for the corporation while the larger rescue package was being assembled. The bill now goes to conference tomorrow with the House, which approved a similar bill Tuesday evening. [New York Times] Revision of food labeling laws is sought by the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department, which proposed that food processors be required to provide complete listings of ingredients and fuller disclosure of the amounts of each ingredient. The two agencies also want listed any amounts of sodium and potassium a product contains and a listing by specific name, rather than by complex chemical derivatives, of all coloring and spices in a product. [New York Times] Inadequate workers' compensation programs financed by employers are causing employees disabled by job-related diseases to get help from the Social Security System and welfare, according to a Labor Department report. The result, according to the report, is that taxpayers are, in effect, "subsidizing those industries responsible for industrial health hazards." [New York Times] Chicago's crises over school financing and a three-day transit strike led Mayor Jane Byrne to seek state aid for the insolvent school system and to assert that the costly walkout must be settled in court. Terming the strike illegal, the Mayor rejected an offer by the transit unions to accept a compromise that was worked out in her office more than a week ago. [New York Times] The C.I.A. concealed information from the Justice Department about South Korean efforts to bribe members of Congress, according to a former C.I.A. officer. A federal judge has ordered the sealing of court records in a civil lawsuit filed by the former agent. He has charged that C.I.A. officials in Korea manipulated intelligence reports to support foreign policy aims of the Nixon administration. [New York Times] Discarding costly state pension plans and replacing them with systems that promise to be less of a burden to taxpayers is being carried out by a number of states. Maryland is about to make such a change, establishing a less generous pension plan for new employees and phasing out the present system as participants die. [New York Times] Death sentences in Seoul were handed down by a military court to seven officers, including Kim Jae Kyu, the former director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, in connection with the Oct. 26 assassination of President Park Chung Hee and five of his bodyguards. [New York Times] A third Atlantic City casino will open next Thursday, under a certificate granted to the Bally Manufacturing Corporation. [New York Times] Possible fraud in United Nations voting has been suggested by the United States and Colombia in a heated contest between Colombia and Cuba for a vacant seat in the Security Council. After an abnormally high vote for Cuba, it became known that a high U.N. official was informed of the suspicions and asked "to be sure the procedures were watertight." [New York Times] Support for a censured theologian was expressed by 60 leading American and Canadian Roman Catholic theologians. They endorsed a statement protesting the Vatican's denunciation of the Rev. Hans Kung, the prominent liberal theologian, and its order that he no longer be recognized as a teacher of Catholic doctrine. [New York Times] A formula for releasing an arms report condemning the treaty with Moscow was reportedly agreed on by the Senate Armed Services Committee after a heated debate. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 838.91 (+0.26, +0.03%)
S&P Composite: 108.20 (-0.10, -0.09%)
Arms Index: 0.80

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	614	16.40
Declines	871	18.57
Unchanged	476	6.81
Total Volume		41.78

* 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 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
December 11, 1979	833.70	107.49	36.16
December 10, 1979	833.87	107.67	32.27
December 7, 1979	833.19	107.52	42.38
December 6, 1979	835.07	108.00	37.51
December 5, 1979	828.41	107.25	39.33