News stories from Wednesday January 16, 1980

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

The threat of a halt in Iranian oil supplies led Japan to indicate it was opposed to joining the United States in im-posing economic sanctions against Teheran. It was also said that Japan would not take part in imposing sanctions against Moscow in retaliation for its military intervention in Afghanistan. [New York Times] The U.S. sought to ease India's concern over newly pledged military aid to Pakistan. President Carter, in a letter, told Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that Washington wanted to improve the security of both India and Pakistan fol-lowing the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.India criticized Moscow in a shift from previous statements. Prime Minister Gandhi said in response to a reporter's question that there was no justification for the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. [New York Times] Soviet military aims remain puzzling to Western diplomats and military analysts in Afghanistan. One analyst said there were more Russians than needed to secure the Soviet-installed regime in major cities and that the Russians were improperly equipped with heavy arms to fight rebels in the rugged mountain terrain.A veiled Afghan threat to Iran not to try to counter the Soviet military buildup in Afghanistan was seen by some Asian diplomats in a message from President Babrak Karmal to Ayatollah Khomeini. Military analysts in Kabul believe that more than 30,000 Soviet troops are now in western Afghanistan near the Iranian frontier. [New York Times] A virus-fighting breakthrough was announced by scientists, who said that human interferon, now scarce and prohibitively expensive, has been made successfully in a laboratory by gene-splicing techniques that give promise of economical commercial production. Interferon is believed to have great potential for curing a wide variety of virus diseases including colds and might also be used in the treatment of some forms of cancer. [New York Times] Protecting workers from carcinogens is the aim of the first comprehensive rules announced by the Labor Department. The government has been criticized by unions and others for moving too slowly to begin regulating exposure to cancer-causing substances in the workplace after years of study and exhaustive hearings. Industries assailed the new rules as being unclear and excessively rigid and costly. [New York Times] The immigration agency is hobbled, according to government officials and private experts, because of political interference, archaic working methods and improprieties. The experts describe the Immigration and Naturalization Service as being overwhelmed in striving vainly to stem a flow of millions of illegal aliens a year. [New York Times] Michigan's economy has been shaken by the long slump in the nation's auto industry, Officials said that the state had asked the federal government for a $260 million loan to enable it to continue paying unemployment benefits over the next three months. [New York Times] Acceptance of a new mobile missile by the residents of eastern Nevada and central Utah is being sought by the Air Force, which views the area as ideal for deployment of the $33 billion project. But the first of several scheduled meetings showed that residents have qualms about the planned intercontinental missile. [New York Times] Strong warnings against marijuana were issued by health officials and medical researchers, who said it was a major and growing public health problem. Witnesses at a Senate hearing said that the effects of marijuana could be "a potential hazard" to male and female reproductive systems. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 865.19 (-3.41, -0.39%)
S&P Composite: 111.05 (-0.09, -0.08%)
Arms Index: 1.18

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	801	28.72
Declines	747	31.66
Unchanged	343	7.32
Total Volume		67.70

* 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*
January 15, 1980	868.60	111.14	52.37
January 14, 1980	863.57	110.38	52.94
January 11, 1980	858.53	109.92	52.89
January 10, 1980	858.96	109.89	55.98
January 9, 1980	850.09	109.05	65.24
January 8, 1980	851.71	108.95	53.38
January 7, 1980	832.00	106.81	44.50
January 4, 1980	828.84	106.52	39.16
January 3, 1980	820.31	105.22	50.47
January 2, 1980	824.57	105.76	40.61