News stories from Monday November 10, 1980

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

A "positive" American reply to Iran's conditions for the release of the 52 hostages was delivered by a high-level delegation to Algeria, the intermediary in the negotiations, American officials said. The reply reportedly agrees to pledge not to interfere in Iran's affairs and to unfreeze Iranian assets, but cites legal problems involved in an abrogation of all claims pending against Iran and the return to Iran of the assets of the late Shah and his family. [New York Times] Iraq stepped up warnings to Iran, saying that Iraqi forces would apply "any amount of pressure necessary" to bring about Iranian recognition of Iraq's territorial demands. [New York Times] Ronald Reagan's plans on education will be developed with advice from a 14-member task force. Advisers said Mr. Reagan was likely to delay any effort to dismantle the new Department of Education, a key plank of the Republican platform. They also said that his administration would probably move quickly to revise federal rules on bilingual education, sex discrimination, affirmative action and education of the handicapped to make the rules less costly and more flexible. [New York Times] A deficit in the current federal budget totaling $38.6 billion was estimated by the House Budget Committee. Democrats decided to ask President-elect Reagan, who charged in the campaign that there was fraud and waste in the budget, to find savings to reduce the deficit to $25.6 billion. [New York Times] Japanese imports were downgraded as the main cause of the slump in the American auto industry by the International Trade Commission. The federal agency, in a 3-to-2 ruling, said that greater causes of Detroit's troubles were the recession and the shift in consumer tastes to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. The panel rejected a management and union petition for import quotas and increased tariffs. [New York Times] Scores of wildfires that have scorched more than 35,000 acres of woodland roared out of control in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Officials attributed many of the blazes to "people mad at landowners or people who like to see fire burn." [New York Times] Catholicism should maintain policies even if they clash with popular modern views, according to Archbishop John Quinn, the president of the National Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops. He defended the role of the American hierarchy at the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome that affirmed opposition to contraceptives. [New York Times] Poland's unions won a major victory when the nation's Supreme Court ruled that their charter could stand without a reference to the "leading role" of the Communist Party in Polish society. Jubilant leaders of the independent union organization promptly canceled plans for a national strike on Wednesday that, it was feared, could spark a violent confrontation between the government and the 10-week-old workers' movement. [New York Times] The new chief of Britain's Labor Party is Michael Foot, an intellectual left-wing socialist who is an ardent advocate of nuclear disarmament. In a vote of the party's Members of Parliament, Mr. Foot defeated Denis Healey, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer who was the candidate of the right wing, by 139 to 129. [New York Times] New successes by Afghan insurgents were reported by diplomatic sources in India. They said that the influence of the Moslem guerrillas was "pervasive" in Kandahar, Afganistan's second largest city. [New York Times] A powerful new gun is being developed by both the United States and the Soviet Union. The magnetic weapon, called a railgun, could loft objects into orbit and relatively small versions of it could blast through the thickest armor of a tank or battleship. The railgun may one day supersede the gunpowder arms used for 1,000 years. [New York Times] A Chinese who set off an explosion last month in Peking's main rail station, killing nine people including himself and injuring 81, was said to have acted because of anger over his not being allowed to return to his home in the capital after being forcibly resettled in the country during the Cultural Revolution 10 years ago. A source close to the inquiry said Peking's police believed this was the motive. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 933.79 (+1.37, +0.15%)
S&P Composite: 129.48 (+0.30, +0.23%)
Arms Index: 0.83

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	777	17.36
Declines	737	13.74
Unchanged	422	4.62
Total Volume		35.72

* 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*
November 7, 1980	932.42	129.18	40.06
November 6, 1980	935.41	128.91	48.89
November 5, 1980	953.16	131.33	84.29
November 3, 1980	937.20	129.04	36.62
October 31, 1980	924.29	127.47	40.11
October 30, 1980	917.75	126.29	39.06
October 29, 1980	929.18	127.91	37.20
October 28, 1980	932.59	128.05	40.30
October 27, 1980	931.74	127.88	34.44
October 24, 1980	943.60	129.85	41.03