The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 119

The fear gripping the stock market escalated Thursday as panicky investors pushed the Dow Jones industrial average to its biggest one-day percentage loss in more than two decades and worries grew that efforts to ease the global credit crisis work. The Dow plunged 678.91 points, or 7.3%, to close at 8,579.19, its lowest level since May 2003. The blue-chip index is now down from its all- time high set one year ago Thursday with half of that decline coming in the last seven trading days alone. In Asia early today, markets opened sharply lower, with stocks sinking as much as in Tokyo and in Hong Kong. The cascade of anxious selling indicated that many investors who held on through most of the recent wave of declines were now throwing in the towel, some analysts said.

are said Conrad Gann of TrimTabs Investment Research in Sausalito, which tracks mutual fund investments. are tired of losing money week after week in the stock For former surfer Donald Wise of Newport Beach, the stock plunge reminded him of wiping out at the legendary Wedge on the Balboa Peninsula in his youth. are three feet down and you can see the sky and the sun, but you seem to get he said. Asimilar fear is spooking the stock market, said Wise, now a hotel industry consultant. just came out of a time Nightmare on Wall St.

brings more big losses Panic selling sends Dow to its lowest level since 2003 By Martin Zimmerman and Maura Reynolds Times Staff Writers Oct. 9, 2007: 14,164.53 Oct. 9, 2008: 8,579.19 Total loss: 3 9 Source: Bloomberg News. Graphic by Robert Burns Los Angeles Times Dow Jones industrial average since its peak in October 2007, daily closes How low will it go? 11,000 12,000 13,000 14,000 15,000 SeeMarkets, PageA22 Source: BBC Los Angeles Times Big bears 1929-32 1906-07 1937-38 1919-21 1901-03 1973-74 1916-17 1939-42 The worst bear markets for the Dow (By percentage loss in the Dow) copyright200892pagesSFVN designated areas higher DODGERS DROP GAME 1 Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times Derek Lowe, here working with a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning, later gave up two home runs in L.A.’s 3-2 loss to Philadelphia as the National League Championship series began. SPORTS, D1 andy Tran walked quickly past the majestic domes and marble statues of Capitol Hill, looking for the CannonHouseOffice building and the people he believed could help him.

Tran, a Vietnamese pop singer who lives in a Bay Area suburb and sleeps on a couch, flew 2,900 miles to be here. He rehearsed what he wanted to say. His English was not perfect. He was afraid he would have just a few minutes to make his case. He had a 3p.m.

appointment in the office of a Wisconsin congressman. He was not exactly sure what the congressman did, but he was certain that this was a powerful man who could help untangle a political process that had ensnared himand thousands like him. Tran came to Washington on behalf of abandoned children of American soldiers and Vietnamese during the Vietnam War and, like him, seeking citizenship in the country their fathers fought for. Called Amerasians, many were left to grow up in the rough streets and rural rice fields of Vietnam where they stood out, looked different, were taunted as of Most were brought to the United States 20 years ago after Congress passed the Amerasian Homecoming Act, COLUMN ONE Born in wartime Vietnam, offspring of American servicemen seek an identity through U.S. citizenship.

Raised as outcasts, living as refugees, fighting to belong By My-Thuan Tran Times Staff Writer SeeAmerasians, PageA20 Cervical cancer vaccine rate The CDC calls first-year data but sales have fallen. Nation, A17 Weather: Mostly sunny and cooler. Downtown L.A: Page B10 Latest news: latimes.com Complete index: Page A2 Inside The Times 7 6 859 44 00050 If the selection of French writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio as the 2008 Nobel literature laureate has anything to tell us, that Horace Engdahl means what he says. Last week, Engdahl, the Swedish permanent secretary, called Ameri- can literary culture isolated, too insular. They translate enough and really participate in the big dialogue of com- ments widely seen in the United States as evidence of the insularity of the Nobel itself and proof that American writers would be shut out again.

The last American to win the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993; since then, recipients have included Wislawa Szymborska, Dario Fo, Chinese-born Gao Xingjian and Elfriede Jelinek. That such authors are not household names has led to charges that the Nobel committee is willfully obscure, or worse, motivated by political considerations. Certainly, the last three winners Harold Pinter, NOTEBOOK The Nobel an open book A little-known selection revives the question: What is the purpose of the prize? By David L. Ulin Times Staff Writer WINNER: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio was chosen to receive the prestigious literature prize. PAGE A10 Michel Euler Associated Press washington way the current financial crisis spread around the world like a brush fire, outracing all efforts to contain it, underscored a painful reality: We have a global econo- mybut nothing close to a global system for managing it.

The world may be flat when it comes to the increasingly interconnected economies of the 21st century, but it still has borders and conflicting national interests to go with them. Now, as senior economic policymakers from the major developed nations meet here today, the question is whether the worst economic crisis since before World War II will open the doorfor a comprehensive, unified economic strategy. U.S. officials have been careful not to raise expectations for the so-called Group of 7 meeting, which brings together the top financial officials of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and the U.S. have very different countries, economies of different sizes, financial systems with different Treasury Secretary Henry M.

Paulson said this week. going to have different But pressure is building for that to change both in response to this crisis and to head off potential crises in the future. The head of the International Monetary Fund warned Thursday that governments must act forcefully and to prevent a global recession. no domestic solution to crises like this IMF Managing Director Dominique Calls grow for global strategy No country can solve the credit crisis alone, an IMF official says. By Jim Puzzanghera and Maura Reynolds Times Staff Writers Economic turmoil In a rut: GM, Ford slide into junk territory, but bankruptcy appears unthinkable.

Business, C1 Retail woe: Dismal sales in September bode well. Business, C1 washington intelligence analysts eavesdropped on personal calls between Americans overseas and their families back home and monitored the communications of workers with the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, according to two military linguists involved in U.S. surveillance programs. The accounts are the most detailed to date to challenge the assertions of President Bush, CIA Director Michael V. Haydenand other administration officials that the controversial overseas wiretapping activities have been carefully monitored to prevent abuse and invasion of U.S.

privacy. Describing the allegations as Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D- W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the panel had launched an inquiry and requested records from the Bush administration. The linguists said that SeeCalls, PageA18 U.S.

said to have spied on families, Red Cross By Greg Miller Times Staff Writer year-old brother, Roger Madison, in 1968 and buried him alongside the freeway. This week, armed with new clues, authorities began digging up sites along the freeway, prompting Barlow to fly in Thursday from Oklahoma to mount a vigil. if they find anything, I can stand there close to where he is and say said Barlow, 53. I never got a chance to say The last time anyone in his family saw Roger alive was in December 1968, when he left the Sylmar home after an argument with his father about smoking. The family thought he had run away.

Two years later, her mother sat down with Barlow and her younger sister Annie to tell them the bad news. said she had some- She knows it be easy. It will be noisy and dusty. It will bring back awful memories from decades ago. And it might ultimately prove fruitless.

But Sherry Barlow plans to spend this morningstanding alongside the 23 Freeway in eastern Ventura County, hoping to provide her brother with along-delayed memorial. Authorities believe a serial killer fatally stabbed her Sad homage to a slain brother Sherry Barlow will stand vigil as crews dig for the remains of her sibling, the victim in of a serial killer. By Andrew Blankstein and Evelyn Larrubia Times Staff Writers Enterprises, Inc. NOW PLAYING 1 MOVIE! CMYK.