EE,WB P1JW3580B4-4-A00100-1---WO P1JW3580B4-4-A00100-1---WO P1JW3580B4-4-A00100-1---WO WO **** BLACK 12/24/2001 s 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ! VOL. CCXXXVIII NO. 123 EE/WO 1111 MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2001 WSJ.com iiii $1.00 Pressing Issues Gross Domestic Product The Outlook Crisis Management In War’s Early Phase, What’s News— Annualized growth rate in U.S. GDP For Tech, the Hard Part Argentina Will Halt iii iii News Media Showed 7 10% May Just Be Beginning Some Debt Payments Business and Finance World-Wide 8 A Tendency to Misfire 7 7 San Francisco In the Wake of Unrest Amongbattered high-techcompa- ETAIL TRAFFIC WAS slower than AIR TRAVELTOOK a fresh blow as what 6 nies and their investors the talk is all expected duringthe final weekend seems to have been a bombing bid was foiled. R about stability, the apparent end to a Skepticism and Unfamiliarity before Christmas. Despite steeper Initial tests point to plastic explosives in New Interim President Vows the high-top sneakers of a man subdued by 4 year of sharply decliningsales. But markdowns and marathon shopping Bred Pessimism, Coloring passengers on American Air’s Paris-Miami the relief that conditions are no longer To Maintain Costly Link hours at retailers such as Kmart and flight Saturday when he was seen trying to ig- 2 worseningobscures a growingcon- Reports and Analyses Sears, many major stores likely will nite a fuse with a match. Questions about air- cern that tech will emerge from this Between Peso and Dollar port security were raised anew. The man’s see holiday sales results range from 1% 0 recession more slowly than the rest of or 2% increases to slight decreases. claimed identity had aroused suspicion and ‘I Had to Eat a Little Crow’ he had almost no luggage for a trans-Atlan- the economy, contributingto a slug- A Bad Sign for the Neighbors (Article on Page B1) –2 gish overall recovery. iii tic flight. In fact, police kept him from board- 1995 ’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 The technology industry is suffering Consumer sentiment rose late this ingthe same flightthe day before. Mean- By Matthew Rose while, the hunt for Osama bin Laden contin- Source: Commerce Department from a rare “triple whammy,” says BUENOS AIRES—Days after riotingtop- Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal month, a sign of growing confidence ued in Afghanistan as more U.S. troops were Stephen Levy, director of the Center for pled the government and turned this capi- NEW YORK—On Oct. 27, six days after about an economic rebound. But per- deployed to search Tora Bora caves. Paki- the ContinuingStudy of the California tal’s stately boulevards into urban battle- the U.S. escalated the bombingof Taliban sonal spendingfell in November. stan’s president said he believes the alleged Economy. The U.S. recession has battered grounds, a newly installed caretaker presi- front lines, National Public Radio senior (Article on Page A2) terrorist mastermind has been killed in U.S. For Families of Arabs domestic demand while the global eco- dent took aim at Argentina’s foreign credi- news analyst Daniel Schorr was pessimis- iii bombing. A provisional Afghan government nomic slowdown has stifled tech exports. tors. In one of his first acts in office, Adolfo tic. “This is a war in trouble,” he said OPEC likely will cut 1.5 million bar- headed by Pashtun leader Hamid Karzai And after years of breathtakinginnova- Rodríguez Saá announced a halt in pay- Caught in Afghanistan, tion, there are few new advances to moti- duringthe “Weekend Edition” show. rels of oil a day from world-wide mar- was installed in a Kabul ceremony Satur- ments on some of his country’s $132 billion day. (Articles on Pages A3, A4, A7, A8 and A12) vate chief technology officers to spend pre- of public debt. On Oct. 31, the New York Times’s R.W. kets. The expected decision comes with- Apple Jr. compared the war in Afghani- Some Afghan leaders accuse the U.S. Pride Mixes With Fear cious corporate cash. As the blue-and-white Argentine flag out the firm concessions OPEC wanted of killing at least 50 people on their way The combination has been devastating. stan to the U.S. experience in Vietnam. iii flew at half mast for the 27 people killed in “Signs of progress are sparse,” the news- from Russia and averts a price war. to the ceremony in airstrikes Thursday. Sales of computers, software and commu- last week’s riots, President Rodríguez Saá, paper’s chief correspondent wrote in a (Article on Page A2) The U.S. maintains they were Taliban. nications equipment began sliding last the former provincial governor who was iii Kuwait’s Enezis Hail Martyrdom news analysis. iii winter as most of the economy was grow- sworn in early yesterday, said the govern- “There does not appear to be a political Schering-Plough said it may have to BUSH IS CONSIDERING belt-tightening Of a 40-Year-Oldand Make ing. After rising at double-digit annual ment wasn’t repudiatingits obligations, moves to counter costs of war and recession. force capable of replacingthe Taliban,” pay up to $500 million in fines to end a rates for four consecutive years, business just seekingto work with foreigncreditors As work begins on the fiscal 2003 budget, 7 Urgent Pleas for His Son, 15 7 said staff editorial writer Jacob Heilbrunn federal probe of its manufacturing spending on high-tech gear fell at a 20% to reach a “rational” solution to the coun- aides are proposingcuts in energy-conser- annual rate through the first nine months try’s crushingdebt load. He didn’t make in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 4. methods. It also warned earnings for the vation, environmental and public-works pro- of the year. By contrast, nontech business clear just what portion of Argentina’s debt Five days later, the strategically impor- B Yaroslav Trofimov quarter and year will miss estimates. grams while preparing to boost military and y investment fell at a 2.2% annual rate. payments would be suspended. Even so, tant city of Mazar-e-Sharif fell to Northern The Wall Street Journal (Article on Page A3) homeland-defense spending. They also want Staff Reporter of To make matters worse, there are Latin America’s third-largest economy ap- iii to end automatic increases in some big enti- QURAIN, Kuwait—Struggling to de- few tech offerings to inspire bravery. pears to be embarkingon one of the largest- A New Stage The IRS will waive customary penal- tlements, such as state social-services grants. scribe his missingbrother Hadi, Abdullah In the 1990s, a steady stream of inno- ever government bond defaults. (See article § U.S. commanders mull how to redeploy ties for taxpayers who voluntarily dis- But many areas tagged as bloated have pow- Enezi fingered his cellphone and finally vation stirred waves of tech spend- on page A7.) thousands of troops in Afghanistan, A3. put it this way: “He’s the kind of regular close their use of improper tax shelters erful defenders and have resisted the knife ing, including the mass adoption of In a speech rife with populist rhetoric, § Afghanistan must rebuild with almost in years past. (Articles on Pages A3 and A12) guy who goes from home straight to work, and the name of the shelter’s promoter. personal computers, the linking of Mr. Rodríguez Saá added that “we have none of the bulwarks of power, A8. The Pentagon is close to finalizing a and from work straight to home.” corporate computers into networks, made payingthe so-called foreigndebt a pri- § Pakistan has ties to a group accused of (Article on Page A2) plan to create a team of missile-defense Work for Hadi Enezi was the Kuwaiti iii business-process software, and the In- ority over the debt the country has with its sharing nuclear data with terrorists, A8. contractors and researchers to integrate police force, where the 40-year-old retired ternet. Now, most tech sectors seem own people.”He was referringto the auster- Honeywell agreed to pay Northrop individual projects into a cohesive shield. as a lieutenant colonel in October. Home to have hit an innovation trough all at ity measures imposed by the former govern- iii Alliance troops aided by U.S. bombingsor- $440 million to settle 11-year-old litiga- was a palatial, green-carpeted residence once. “I don’t see an obvious killer ment in hopes of stemmingthe country’s ties. The army overran Kabul a few days tion stemmingfrom Honeywell’s use of Argentina’s interim leader suspended with crystal chandeliers here in this oil- app,” to stimulate spending, says economic crisis. Those later. Three weeks after that, the Tali- aircraft technology developed by a payment on the nation’s $132 billion debt but rich Persian Gulf emirate. Goldman Sachs hardware analyst measures, on top of said the peso will continue to be pegged one- ban’s southern stronghold of Kandahar company Northrop bought this year. But after years of prosperous life with Laura Conigliaro. more than three years was taken. In Bonn, Germany, various to-one with the dollar. After unrest toppled no outward signs of political radicalism, Mr. Levy thinks at least two of the of recession and ram- (Article on Page B2) President de la Rúa last week, Peronist Ado- anti-Taliban forces from Afghanistan were Hadi took his 15-year-old son Mohammed three trends have to reverse for tech to pant unemployment, iii lfo Rodríguez Saá was named to serve until negotiating a deal to set up an interim two months ago and said he was leaving begin growing again.