News stories from Friday December 15, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Cleveland's officials, trying to pull the city back from default, were meeting tonight at City Hall, where they were to vote on a sweeping rehabilitation plan proposed by Mayor Dennis Kucinich. Banks with which the city had contracted to repay about $15.5 million in short-term loans by the end of the business day had granted an extension until midnight. [New York Times]
- The People's Temple's Swiss bank reportedly told the Justice Department that the cult's account, estimated as high as $8 million, had been removed. However, an Embassy official in Switzerland said that steps had been taken to protect United States interests.
The People's Temple withdrew permission it had given the late Representative Leo Ryan to visit its Jonestown settlement in Guyana when it learned that reporters and relatives of the cult's members would accompany the California Democrat, the State Department said in a report to the House International Relations Committee. The Committee had asked Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to respond to its inquiry into the killings and suicides at Jonestown.
[New York Times] - The California lettuce crop has been saved by emergency spraying with new pesticides that halted an insect infestation, state agricultural experts said. Damage from the tobacco budworm early in the season and an unseasonal frost last week could push lettuce prices to 89 cents a head in some Eastern cities for a few days. [New York Times]
- Federal lands in the West could be reopened to coal mining in ways that would not endanger the environment, Cecil Andrus, the Secretary of the Interior said in presenting a federal coal management program. The proposal calls for a spring comment period and a midsummer decision by Mr. Andrus on how much coal from federal lands the nation will need to meet its energy requirements in the next five to 10 years. [New York Times]
- The United States and China will establish full diplomatic relations on Jan. 1, President Carter announced. In his address, televised nationally, the President said that Teng Hsaio-ping, China's Deputy Premier, would visit Washington on Jan. 29. Mr. Carter also announced that the United States would terminate diplomatic relations and its mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. [New York Times]
- Israel rejected the latest American-endorsed Egyptian peace proposals and the United States' "attitude and interpretation" regarding them, killing any hope that the Sunday deadline for completing the negotiations could be reached. After a four-hour cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Menachem Begin told reporters "the consultations, the negotiations will resume -- we cannot say when."
Israel deliberately distorted the new proposals taken to Jerusalem by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in his most recent mission on behalf of the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations, the Carter administration said. Obviously irritated by the Israeli cabinet's rejection of the proposals, officials in Mr. Vance's party gave reporters an unusually detailed briefing to rebut Prime Minister Menachem Begin's statements following the meeting.
[New York Times] - The United States is middleman among the factions in Iran's crisis, with the administration prodding the Shah to replace the military government with a broad-based civilian coalition. The administration's new policy, according to government officials, is to step up its contacts with the Shah's opponents and the military while maintaining close links with the Shah.
Further economic turmoil in Iran was planned by the Shah's opponents. The Moslem leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, from exile in France, declared that Monday would be a day of mourning in Iran and called for a general strike in support of the oil workers whose walkout has crippled Iran's oil production. The Ayatollah said that Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlavi was "mentally disturbed" and "on the verge of his downfall."
[New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 805.35 (-7.19, -0.88%)
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 14, 1978 | 812.54 | 96.04 | 20.85 |
| December 13, 1978 | 809.86 | 96.06 | 22.48 |
| December 12, 1978 | 814.97 | 96.59 | 22.21 |
| December 11, 1978 | 817.65 | 97.11 | 21.01 |
| December 8, 1978 | 811.85 | 96.63 | 18.56 |
| December 7, 1978 | 816.09 | 97.08 | 21.18 |
| December 6, 1978 | 821.90 | 97.49 | 29.68 |
| December 5, 1978 | 820.51 | 97.44 | 25.66 |
| December 4, 1978 | 806.83 | 96.15 | 22.02 |
| December 1, 1978 | 811.50 | 96.28 | 26.83 |