February 5, 1993

The F.B.I. has halted all proceedings against agents accused of breaking rules that the bureau's Director was found to have violated. Page A13.

The Dow Leads the Stock Market to Record Highs Propelled by falling American interest rates and exuberant corporate earnings, the stock market surged again yesterday, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 42.95 points, to close at a record high of 3,416.74. In just the last two days, the Dow has risen nearly 3 percent in value. Page D1. Germany Central Bank Cuts Key Interest Rate Germany's powerful central bank lowered its major rates yesterday. The surprising German move was meant to reinforce the battered European curency-exchange-rate system, rekindle growth in a flagging economy and silence critics. Page D1. Japan Trade Tally Up Again Japan's exports are rising again, worrying Tokyo about relations with President Clinton. Page A7. Big Jump in Productivity American workers' productivity surged 4 percent in the fourth quarter, the Government said. Page D1. New Pension Problems Some corporations with underfunded pension plans are nonetheless expanding benefits, knowing that the Government will pay if the plans fail, Congressional auditors said. Page D1. From Orbit, a Beam of Light In a Russian experiment, a mirror in space sent a narrow beam of reflected sunlight flashing down to the Earth's dark side, testing the feasibility for much larger mirrors. Page A6. A Cry for Help Unanswered A fourth grader in Harlem wrote in a school essay, "My father raped me." But no action was taken to help her until she told her grandmother weeks later, an investigator said. Page B1. Rebels Keep Fighting in Peru One Peruvian city sees little hope that the Shining Path guerrilla movement will soon be subdued. Page A3.

Some of America's largest corporations are expanding their pension benefits, even though their current plans are already underfunded, with the knowledge that if the plans fail the Federal Government will pay the bills, Congressional auditors said today. The General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, found that 18 of 35 underfunded pension plans in the tire, automobile, airline and steel industries increased employee benefits by almost $2.2 billion in 1991. As a result of this change and continuing neglect of existing benefits, the companies' underfunding in the 35 pension plans more than doubled, from $5.1 billion to $10.7 billion.

When President Clinton announced the appointment of a supercomputer industry veteran, John A. Rollwagen, as Deputy Secretary of Commerce last Friday, the move alarmed at least one group: the Japanese. The news media in Japan immediately seized on the appointment as fresh evidence of the new Administration's hard-line stance on trade issues. As chief executive of Cray Research Inc., the dominant producer of supercomputers, Mr. Rollwagen has spent several years jousting with the Japanese Government and with computer executives and the news media in Japan, as he has put pressure on that country to open its federal markets to his company's machines.

The productivity of American workers shot up 4 percent in the fourth quarter, the Labor Department reported yesterday -- fresh evidence that corporate America is helping to generate a new surge in the American economy without hiring many new workers. The productivity numbers issued by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics were startling. The 4 percent rise in last year's fourth quarter was the highest increase for a single quarter since the early 1970's. And the 2.6 percent rise in productivity for all of 1992 was the best improvement since 1972.