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To: William Harvey who wrote (50902)	3/30/2000 7:26:00 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116931

Thursday March 30 7:01 AM ET Cracks Discovered on Volcano, May Signal Eruption By Kazunori Takada TOKYO (Reuters) - A military helicopter spotted cracks opening up on Thursday on the slopes a rumbling volcano on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, a sign the snow-capped mountain may be about to blow its top, officials said. Dozens of earthquakes and tremors were shaking the volcano and surrounding villages every hour and officials have told residents to move further away after nearly 10,000 people were evacuated on Wednesday amid warnings of an eruption. Cracks up to 330 feet long on the slopes of the 2,402-foot Mount Usu were spotted by a military helicopter patrol, the Meteorological Agency said in an emergency bulletin(cont) dailynews.yahoo.com

To: William Harvey who wrote (50902)	3/30/2000 12:01:00 PM
From: Alex	Respond to of 116931

U.S. Q4 '99 GDP growth strongest in 16 years (Adds background, details from report) WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth boomed ahead at its strongest rate in nearly 16 years during the final quarter of last year, the government said on Thursday in a report underlining the vigorous economy's resistance to a series of interest-rate rises designed to slow it. The Commerce Department said gross domestic product, or GDP, accelerated to a surprisingly brisk 7.3 percent annual rate in the final three months of 1999, up from the previously reported 6.9 percent. This handily topped Wall Street economists' expectations for a 7 percent annual rate of increase in goods and services output. It was the most vigorous quarterly growth rate since 9 percent in the first quarter of 1984. All the key engines of growth were firing in the fourth quarter, pushing the GDP expansion rate up from the third quarter's 5.7 percent. Growth was due to faster spending by consumers and by the government, higher levels of inventory-building ahead of year-end and a modestly better trade performance as exports rose more than previously thought, Commerce said. The Federal Reserve -- the United States' central bank -- raised short-term interest rates three times in the final six months of 1999 and has boosted them twice more so far in 2000 to try to gently brake the pace of the long-running expansion, and so keep a lid on inflationary wage and price rises. Though there was no sign in the GDP report that prices had picked up from previous estimates, the step-up in growth highlighted policymakers' difficulty in curbing the rate of expansion, which has led to predictions of more and possibly larger interest-rate rises ahead. William McDonough, president of the New York Fed bank, said in Tokyo on Thursday that the U.S. central bank was prepared to keep raising interest rates until it saw a slowdown in consumer spending -- which fuels about two-thirds of economic activity. The GDP report's so-called chained measure of price increases for personal consumption spending rose 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter. This was the same as estimated a month ago and up from 1.8 percent in the third quarter. For 1999 as a whole, GDP expanded by 4.2 percent -- a third straight year in which growth exceeded 4 percent, after increases of 4.3 percent in 1998 and 4.2 percent in 1997. biz.yahoo.com