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[03] NY ECON WRAP (S&L) BY ELAINE JOHANSON (NEW YORK)

INTRO: U-S stock prices rallied today (Friday) on the heels of a jobs report that seems to indicate that the six interest rate hikes by the U-S central bank over the past year are working to slow the U-S economy down. VOA correspondent Elaine Johanson reports from New York:

TEXT: The Dow Jones Industrial Average went up 142 points, over one percent, to 10-thousand-794. The Standard and Poor's 500 index rose 28 points - two percent. And the Nasdaq composite closed more than six percent higher. Clearly, technology stocks have re-taken the lead. The Nasdaq is up 19 percent for the week. The Dow Industrials are five percent higher - boosted largely by their technology components. The latest on the U-S economy shows the unemployment rate in May rose for the first time in three months - off its 30-year low - and there were no significant signs of wage inflation. Meanwhile, U-S factory orders fell in April over four percent - the biggest drop in 10 years. Analysts say this all points to an economic slowing, which is what the U-S central bank wants and what Wall Street says it needs to re-inspire the stock market.

[04] FRIDAY'S EDITORIALS BY ANDREW GUTHRIE (WASHINGTON)

INTRO: The little Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, rescued from a shipwreck off Florida last year and thrust into an international custody battle, is dominating the editorial columns in the United States this Friday. A federal court has ruled he does not have the right to appeal for asylum in this country, clearing the way for his father to take him back to Cuba. Other topics of interest in the Friday commentaries include: the volatile situation in Lebanon and neighboring Israel, an estimation of how the West fared in the Balkan war, President Clinton's summit meeting in Moscow, the thwarting of democracy in Peru, and Europe still dealing with an allegedly neo-fascist politician in Austria. Now, here is __________ with a closer look in today's Editorial Digest.

TEXT: The Friday editorial pages are filled with thoughts on the latest chapter in the case of Elian Gonzalez, rescued from the sea last November off Florida. His mother and several other adults drowned in their attempt to flee from Cuba. His distant relatives in Miami took the boy in and are fighting to keep him in this country. On Thursday, a federal appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia upheld a lower court ruling that only Elian Gonzalez's father can apply for political asylum on his behalf. The father, visiting the United States, wants to take the boy back to Cuba. The case is generating intense interest in Florida, where The Miami Herald comments:

VOICE: ... [the] ruling affirms the Immigration and Naturalization Service's position denying Elian an asylum hearing, setting the stage for the boy's return to Cuba with his father ... A sense of resignation that Elian will return to Cuba seems to be settling on Miami, though it hardly dampens the ardor of the many ... who feel the decision is fundamentally wrong. ... The clash of values posed by Elian's plight has torn into our collective soul.

TEXT: In an accompanying editorial, The Herald adds that it feels "the door to asylum must not be shut to children," which it feels is virtually what the court has ruled. In North-Central Florida, The Orlando Sentinel says the decision was "In Elian's interest."

VOICE: A federal appeals court was right to uphold the denial of a request for asylum for Elian Gonzalez. Now his father can speak for [him] ... and that's as it should be.

TEXT: The Denver [Colorado] Post editorial headline reads, simply: "Look homeward, Elian," while Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal calls the court's decision: "a sensible conclusion." In Washington State, The Seattle Times feels the "Elian saga nears [an] end" and calls the ruling "reasonable." In Northern California, The San Jose Mercury News feels the court "shows common sense in [the] decision," but there is dissent. The Oklahoman, in Oklahoma City says what is happening to the boy is "Still a Tragedy," adding:

VOICE: In another time -- like, say, Ronald Reagan's -- Elian Gonzalez would have been a poster child for freedom. Instead, the Clinton administration plays the obedient lapdog, letting the boy's Cuban handlers begin the brainwashing that will make Elian a good little communist. Trite but true: A mind, particularly a child's, is a terrible thing to waste.

TEXT: And lastly, The Washington Times agrees the "saga appears to be coming to a close." But the paper is not happy the child will return to the Communist- ruled island.

VOICE: It is a grim childhood. As an adult, the Cuban model hardly allows families to provide for their most basic needs. Religious people, including children, endure severe repression. The regime is the ultimate arbiter of what career one may choose. In Cuba, only the regime has rights ... Indeed, the only happy ending to the Elian saga is for Mr. Castro to disappear.

TEXT: On to the Middle East now, where the situation along the Israeli-Lebanese border remains in a state of flux after Israel's military withdrawal. Friday's St. Louis [Missouri] Post-Dispatch notes:

VOICE: The departure of Israeli troops ... subtly [alters] the complex political calculus of the Middle East by modifying the roles of both Lebanon and Syria. As long as Israel controlled southern Lebanon and Syria had 30- thousand troops in Lebanon, not to mention a dominant hand over Hezbollah, Lebanon was little more than a proxy battlefield. Through Hezbollah, Syria could taunt Israel as much as it wanted without much danger of embroiling itself in a wider war. That option is now out of the picture. ... If Lebanon is no longer a proxy battleground, it is still a pawn ... not independent of Syria or in control of its own territory ...

TEXT: The Chicago Tribune is worried about how the Palestinians and Israelis will settle their feud over joint claims on Jerusalem to be their capital.

VOICE: Jerusalem is only one of the so-called final status disputes that Israel and the Palestinians must tackle, and time is running out. But President Clinton wisely realized that such a settlement may be more of a possibility now that Israel has pulled its troops out of Lebanon, and he is moving to help. ... He agreed to send Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the Mideast next week for another round of diplomacy to try to help the two parties forge an agreement mapping out how they will clinch a permanent treaty by September 13th.

TEXT: Strong criticism of the Pentagon continues for greatly exaggerating the damage estimates of the NATO air war against Yugoslav forces in Kosovo province. Today's blast comes from The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville.

VOICE: It was a decisive victory, the Clinton Pentagon said. Depends on what the meaning of "decisive" is. Rather than counting equipment actually destroyed, the Clinton count was based on whatever pilots thought they saw from 15- thousand feet (4,572 meters) in the air while flying 600 miles (965 kilometers) an hour. By that standard, 120 tanks and 450 Serbian artillery pieces were destroyed. How about 14 tanks and 20 guns? That's how many actually were confirmed in a report the Clinton Pentagon suppressed in favor of the pilots' guesses. It took 38-thousand sorties flown over 78 days to do that minimal damage -- and destroy the Chinese embassy.

TEXT: President Clinton is headed to Russia this weekend for a meeting with the new Russian President Vladimir Putin, and several newspapers, including The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, look forward to what it might or might not -- produce, as regards agreement on a limited, U-S anti-nuclear missile defense system.

VOICE: It's as if the Cold War had never left us, what with the two [United States] presidential candidates trading proposals about the nation's nuclear arsenal and the president headed for a make-or-break summit in Moscow. ... The administration has been trying to convince the Russians that its planned system ... would be designed to deter a few missiles from a fledgling power, not an all-out Russian nuclear attack. ... Europeans are horrified at the idea that suddenly North America could be immunized from the nuclear threat, leaving them awfully exposed. ... President Clinton should tread carefully in Moscow, and resist the temptation to make a deal at any cost to bolster his legacy. There should be no hurry to deploy a limited missile defense ... in his last months in office...

TEXT: The Cleveland, Ohio Plain Dealer has a more optimistic view of the visit's potential, suggesting:

VOICE: ... the ambiguity of the sessions need not make them time wasted for either man. [Mr.] Clinton, within sight of his term's end, and [Mr.] Putin, busily consolidating power in ways at once practical, ominous and Russian, can set the groundwork for understanding, if not approval, of each nation's agenda for years to come.

TEXT: Regarding Africa, Ethiopia's claims of victory in the border war against Eritrea, in the Horn of Africa, draws this comment from the Portland [Maine] Press Herald.

VOICE: In a world full of conflict, it was too easy for the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea to go unnoticed by Americans. The two-year border dispute, however, claimed thousands of lives and diverted scarce resources away from people in desperate need of food and shelter. After a month-long offensive, Ethiopia has retaken all of the territory it claimed Eritrea had wrongly held and declared a unilateral cease-fire. ... and the status quo -- with any luck - - might just hold. Stability is all too rare in Africa these days, so even a peace as tentative as this holds out hope for the future.

TEXT: In Western Hemispheric affairs, The San Francisco Chronicle is counseling the Clinton administration to be tough on Peru in the wake of last Sunday's questionable, one-candidate presidential election.

VOICE: Now is no time to soften the message to Peru's autocratic President Alberto Fujimori. Washington is wrong to backpedal from outright condemnations of his stacked-deck [Editors: unfair] re-election.

TEXT: We continue on the subject of strong leaders, with questionable human rights records being held accountable for their action. Friday's Oregonian in Portland cheers the arrest of Indonesia's former president Suharto, and Chile's stripping away the immunity from former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

VOICE: /// OPT /// The arrest this week of Indonesia's former president Suharto is the latest striking example of a nation holding a strongman accountable for crimes against his country. /// END OPT /// If this indeed marks a trend, it's one worth cheering. /// OPT ///