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September 2,1998 Dow roars back, gaining 288 points Second-highest gain ever brings indicators up after Monday's drop NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street came roaring back Tuesday, with the Dow Industrials recording its second biggest point gain ever, a surge of 288 in response to a 512-point rout ! Monday. In another day of wide swings, the Dow Jones industrial average jumped 143.41 as trading began, soon retreated to a loss of 138.77, then shot up in spurts, with the buy ing picking up in the closing hour. The Dow, which had plummeted nearly 1,000 points in the past three sessions alone, finished up 288.10 at 7,827.17, a 3.8 percent gain, in extremely heavy trading, according to preliminary figures. At its high for the day in the final half hour of trading, the Dow was up 358.90 at 7,897.97. Broader indicators also shot high er, including the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index, which was regaining about half Monday’s record plunge of 140.43 points. At least two prominent strategists seized upon Monday’s decline as a buying opportunity. Abby Joseph Cohen, the chief market strategist at Goldman Sachs & Co. and the most noted “bull” on Wall Street, recommended that investors shift available cash into stocks. Prudential Securities chief investment strategist Greg Smith also raised his suggested stock allocation. Monday’s 6.4 percent plunge by the Dow was the second-biggest point drop ever for Wall Street’s best known indicator. Only the Oct. 27, 1997, plunge of 554 points was larg er. But it was only the 25th largest percentage drop and well behind the 22.6 percent collapse of “Black Monday,” when it fell 508 points on Oct. 19,1987. Tuesday’s rebound was second only to the 337.17-point gain of last Oct. 28, the day after the record fall. The percentage gain, while large, was not a record. The selloff Monday, a drop of 12.61 to 7,539.07, left the Dow own 19.3 percent from its July 7 record high of9,337.97 and .7 percent below where it began the year. The selling spree, which accelerated in the final hour of Monday’s session, brought Wall Street plunging toward its first bear market since 1990. With Monday’s gain, the Dow was up 81 points below the level at the end of last year, ,908.25. But it still was 16.2 percent below the July record. President Clinton on Monday added his voice to efforts to restore calm to shaken markets. “We believe our fundamental economic policy is sound,” he said, echoing comments Monday by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Stock markets in Asia and Europe gave more ground Tuesday in the aftermath of Monday’s slide on Wall Street. But Japan’s stock market closed sharply higher and European markets cut their losses late in the day. Clinton to Russians: no painless solutions MU5L-UW (AP) - Witn a mes sage of support but offering no finan cial help, President Clinton urged Russians on Tuesday to “reject the failed policies of the past” in coping with their current economic crisis. “Given die frets before you, I have to tell you that I do not believe there * are any painless solutions,” Clinton erg atMoscowlstate Umversity^of International Relations. He repeatedly said that Russia must “play by the rules” of international commerce. Clinton met earlier with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in die first ses sion of a two-dry summit unlikely to deliver sweeping agreements from the politically wounded presidents. Despite the poor outlook, Yeltsin declared just before meeting with Clinton that “Russian-American rela tions are developing successfully.” He • greeted Clinton with a bear hug and handshake in the Krem&i% presiden $ dal study r':' ■ ■■ r - - *• > With Russia’s economic turmoil throwing the summit into uncertainty Clinton addressed the crisis with frankness, but also sympathy, saying die country has had only seven years’ experience with market reform. In the end, he said, Russia must find its own solutions. The first agreement to trickle out of die Clinton-\fehsin meetings was a joint pledge to eliminate some stock piles of plutonium taken from dis mantled missile warheads. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Clinton also would tell Yeltsin that while Russia has U.S. sup port, it cannot expect more interna tional aid unless it sticks to reforms that will produce a free market econo -i‘1^ ' *iNobody expects theWest to keep throwing money into this country if they are not willing to undertake the fundamental reforms, so it’s a combi nation of holding out some carrots - some money - and at the same time making clear that there need to be some fundamental changes,” Albright said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM., who flew here with Clinton, told a reporter the two presidents would sign an agreement today to gpt rid of about 50 metric tons of plutonium on each side and break down the weapons material / A draft of die leaders’joint state ment said the plutonium would be withdrawn in stages, with financing arrangements to be set by year’s end. “Measures to manage and reduce such stockpiles are an essential ele ment of irreversible arms reduction efforts and necessary to ensure that these materials do not become a pro liferation risk,” the draft said. * Erin Gibson Outshone? Comments? 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ALL MATERIAL C0PYTOGHT1W8 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN Microsoft still may be sued Government urges judge not to drop case WASHINGTON (AP) - In court papers released Tuesday, the govern ment leveled new accusations that Microsoft moved illegally to smother the market for a rival Internet browser by Netscape. It also said Microsoft illegally tried to kill in its infancy a new tech nology, called Java, that threatened to supplant Windows as the world’s dominant operating system. The government also made pass ing mention to Microsoft’s alleged discussions with rivals Intel, Apple Computer and RealNetworks as “part of a pattern... to divide the market and restrict or eliminate competi tion.” It said Microsoft tried to dissuade Intel from continuing to develop soft ware, tried to convince Apple not to sell its competing QuickTime for Windows and wanted promises from RealNetworks that it wouldn’t share technologies with Microsoft com - petitors. In its 89-page court filing, the government contended that . Microsoft “set out to eliminate the potential threats posed by Netscape and Java.” It said the company acted “at the specific and pointed direction of Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.” Gates, who was questioned by government lawyers two days last week, “displayed a particular failure of recollection at his deposition,” the court filing said. Gates was scheduled for a third day of questioning Tuesday. The Justice Department and the 20 states suing Microsoft urged the judge to reject company’s request to dismiss the most important parts of the pending antitrust case. The docu ment was filed late Monday and pub licly released Tuesday. The latest allegations brought by the government don’t substantively broaden its lawsuit against Microsoft.r Claims about the company’s actions toward Netscape and Java were included in its original filing, but not with the level of detail afforded by Tuesday’s court documents. For example, the government accused Microsoft of cutting deals with Intuit, which makes personal finance software, and with Apple to stifle the market for Netscape and Java, a technology developed by rival Sun Microsystems. “Microsoft’s dealings with Apple are illustrative of how far Microsoft was willing to go to limit Netscape’s opportunities and to stifle Java,” the government said, adding that the company’s effort “is particularly telling since Apple represents the main alternative to desktop PC’s run ning Microsoft Windows.” The trial is scheduled to start Sept 23. Governments hatch IRA plan BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — The British and Irish gov ernments unveiled plans Tuesday for a crackdown on IRA dissidents who engineered the deadliest bombing in three decades in Northern Ireland. The plans are expected to be approved in emergency parliamen tary sessions this week. Also, in a carefully worded statement tied to Thursday’s visit of President Clinton, Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams proclaimed that “the violence we have seen must be for all of us now a thing cf the past, over, done with and gone.” The statement represented a significant rhetorical shift for his IRA-allied party and was wel comed by the British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahem. But it fell short of demands from Protestant politicians for the Irish Republican Army to declare specifically that its “war” to desta bilize Northern Ireland was over - and for the outlawed group to prove it by starting to disarm, a goal con tained in April's peace agreement. The proposed crackdown restricts the right to silence for ter rorist suspects, allows courts to convict suspects based chiefly on testimony from senior detectives and empowers authorities to seize property from people who lend sup port to truce-defying paramilitary groups. Britain’s version of the bill was hastily drafted in response to the Aug. 15 car bomb in Omagh, Northern Ireland, which killed 28 people and wounded more than 330. That attack was committed by IRA dissidents opposed to the par ent organization’s July 1997 truce. In his statement, Adams appealed for Northern Ireland lead ers “to work politically to make the Omagh bombing the last violent incident in our country. II Northwest lays off 177; strike reaches fourth day MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Northwest Airline^ laid off 177 workers Tuesday and said many of its 50,000 employees could be next as a strike by pilots readied a fourth day. Spokeswoman Marta Laughlin said 162 dispatchers and 15 meteorologists would be laid off by the end of the day. Northwest put a decision on its other employees on hold until today, she said. The layoffs came before U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater met with Northwest chief execu tive John Dasbuig and union leaders in Washington and urged than to resume negotiations. Laughlin said the meeting in Washington could affect the timetable for layoffs. “As a company, the last resort we want to look to is layoffs,” Laughlin said. Once workers are laid off it will take longer to restart the airline, she noted. Craig Merrilees, a Teamsters spokesman, said officials of the flight attendants’ 11,000-member Local2000 were notified Monday that die compa ny planned to begin making furlough calls Tuesday. Japan protests firing of North Korean missile TOKYO (AP)-Tokyo issued a for mal protest Tuesday against North Korea for firing a missile over Japan and sent military ships to die spot in the Pacific Ocean where it was believed to have landed •••' The missile launch Monday renewed worries over security in Asia and raised serious questions about die adequacy of Japan’s missile detection and anti-missile systems. Government spokesman Sadaaki Numata said Japan did not know about the missile laundi until it was informed bytheUS.mililary. Japan also abandoned its yearlong offer to resume talks aimed at establish ing tfylomatic ties with North Korea, a Foreign Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Committee finds no evidence veterans were exposed to gas WASHINGTON (AP) - There is no evidence to support the theory that mysteriously ill U.S. soldiers who fought in the Persian Gulf War were exposed to nerve gas or chemical weapons, a Senate committee conclud ed. At the same time, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee argued in a report released Tuesday that the Pentagon may have overestimated that as many as 100,000 soldiers were exposed to chemical weapons. The report Mamed the Pentagon for inadequate record keeping and prepara tion for possible biological and chemi cal weapons attacks - shortcomings that continue today, according to the committee. *1 am particularly concerned that if we found ourselves in a similar situa tion (Tuesday), the departments of Defense and Veterans’ Affairs would prove ill-prepared to respond to the needs of our men and women in uni form,” said Sen. Alien Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the committee.