Diplomacy, not war
A2 Wednesday, March 7, 2012
GENERAL
Fire destroys home
Mark Wilson Photo
Firefighters battle a blaze that destroyed a home at 15 Carson City Road, just south of Roswell International Air Center, Tuesday afternoon.
Dow falls more than 200 Stocks suffered their biggest losses in three months Tuesday, the first hiccup in a strong and steady rally to start the year. Wall Street worried about the global economy and waited while Greece pressured the last investors to sign on for its bailout. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 200 points, giving up more than a quarter of its 745-point advance since Jan. 1, the best start to a year in the U.S. market since 1998. The sell-of f, which spread west from Europe, also interrupted a period of unusual calm on Wall Street. Before Tuesday, the Dow had not fallen 100 points for 45 straight trading sessions, the longest streak since 2006. The decline of 203.66 points was the worst for the Dow since Nov. 23 and left the average at 12,759.15. It was only last week that the Dow closed above 13,000 for the first time since May 2008, four months before the worst of the financial crisis. The gradual rally had been powered by optimism about the U.S. eco-
nomic recovery. But investors realized that Greece’s debt problems, Europe’s economic problems and Israel’s Iran problems were still very much their problems, too. Stocks fell sharply from the opening bell and never mounted a serious comeback. The Dow was down as much as 227 points. All but one of the 30 stocks in the average finished the day lower. Intel managed a gain of 7 cents. All 10 industry groups in the Standard & Poor’s 500 declined. Bank stocks, which typically take a hit when there is any reason to worry about Greece, led the declines, followed by industrial and materials companies, which depend on strength in the world economy. Alcoa, which makes aluminum and depends heavily on world economic demand, fell 4.1 percent, the worst of the Dow 30. China revised its projection for economic growth on Monday to 7.5 percent this year, down from 8 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 20.97 points, its worst decline
since Dec. 8, to 1,343.36. The S&P had not declined 1 percent or more for 45 straight trading days, also the longest streak since 2006. That year, the S&P put together 94 in a row. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 40.16 points to 2,910.32. The Nasdaq last week broke through 3,000 for the first time since December 2000, during the collapse in dot-com stocks. Last year, sell-offs like this were much more common. The S&P fell by at least 1 percent on 48 trading days, roughly one in every five. During the depths of the financial crisis in the last four months of 2008, it happened roughly one in every three days. The price of oil slipped $2.02 to $104.70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. New York crude has risen from $96 last month amid fears of a disruption in global oil supplies driven by the potential for military conflict with Iran. The price of gold fell $31.80 per ounce, or 2.1 percent, to $1,672.10 per ounce. Silver, platinum and copper all fell more than 2 percent.
$250 chain-link gate goes missing
•Police were dispatched to the 700 block of North Garden Avenue, Saturday. The victim reported a chain-link gate was removed. The gate was valued at $250. •Witnesses assisted police, Friday, after they saw the suspect remove about $4,000 worth of steel pipe. Police answering the call were able to make an immediate arrest. •Police were dispatched to Wakefield Oil, 311 S. Virginia Ave., Tuesday, where subjects cut through the fence to gain access to the yard. The subjects stole a total of four 24-volt batteries from two vehicles. The person reporting the incident valued the batteries at $161 each. •Police received a report from an individual, Monday, who had a utility vehicle and a carpet-cleaning machine taken from a location in the 1500 block of
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Fraud
Police received a walk-in report, Saturday, after a man received the second phone call for collections on a $1,600 debt owed to Verizon. The victim stated that he had never had a Verizon phone.
Burglary
Police went to Riverside Drive, Friday, where subjects gained entry into a residence by smashing a window with a rock, and removed an RCA 32-inch LCD television, valued at $300. •Police were called to the 300 block of East McGaffey Street, Monday, after someone cut the lock on the front door and removed a Lincoln welder, valued at $1,000, and Miller stick welder, worth $200. •Police responded to three separate vehicle burglaries, Monday, located in the 700 block of North Mississippi Avenue, the 700 block of Eldora Drive and A Street. In each instance,
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purses containing money, identification and bank cards were removed from the vehicles
Alarm call
Police responded to an alar m call in the 1400 block of East Tilden Street, Monday. When of ficers arrived at the scene, they discovered an open shed and a man hiding inside the shed. The suspect was arrested. Anyone having information about these or any other crime is asked to contact Crime Stoppers, 888-594-TIPS (8477). Callers may remain anonymous and could be eligible for a reward.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alarmed by rising talk of war, the United States, Europe and other world powers announced Tuesday that bargaining will begin again with Iran over its fiercely disputed nuclear efforts. Tehran, for its part, invited inspectors to see a site suspected of secret atomic weapons work. In Washington, President Barack Obama declared he had been working to avert war with Iran during intensive meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Israel, fearing the prospect of a nuclear Iran, has been stressing a need for possible military action, but Obama said sanctions and diplomacy were already working. The president rebuffed Republican critics, who say his reluctance to attack Iran is a sign of weakness, holding up the specter of more dead Americans in another Mideast war. “When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war,” Obama said. “This is not a game. And there’s nothing casual about it.” European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany had agreed to a new round of nuclear talks with Iran more than a year after suspending them in frustration. Previous talks have not resolved international suspicions that Iran is engaging in a nuclear energy program as cover for an eventual plan to build a bomb. On a practical level, the negotiating group also has failed to strike a deal for Iran to stop enriching uranium that might one day be turned into bomb fuel. The rush to diplomacy was partly an answer to increasingly hawkish rhetoric from Israel, which is publicly considering a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities this spring. Obama and Western allies say such a strike would be risky and premature, and that there is still time to persuade Iran that it is better of f without nuclear weapons. Iran insists that its program is only for energy production and other peaceful purposes. In sitting down with Iran, Ashton said negotiators want “constructive dialogue” that will deliver real progress in resolving the international community’s long-standing concerns on its nuclear program.” The time and venue of
Roswell Daily Record
AP Photo
The armchair of Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, remains empty at the start of the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center, in Vienna, Tuesday.
the new talks have not been set. Iran has a history of agreeing to talks or other concessions when it feels under threat, and Western leaders have grown skeptical that Iran will bargain in good faith. Following gatherings in five-star European hotels, Iran often publicly rejects pressure but privately agrees to small compromises. Diplomats return home to consult their presidents and prime ministers, and Iran, the theory goes, presses on with its nuclear development work. However, initially mild economic sanctions on Iran have grown stronger and more difficult for the gover nment to circumvent. The oil-rich country is still able to sell its oil, mostly in Asia, but labors under severe banking restrictions that will get far tougher this summer. Europe also imposed an unprecedented oil embargo on Iran, to take effect in July. Obama and others said diplomacy and such sanctions should be given more time. Iran appeared to partially answer concerns Tuesday from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency that it has something to hide, by announcing longsought access to its Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran. The IAEA has singled out the complex, which Iran had long refused to open for inspection. Terms appeared limited and unclear in Iran’s announcement. In Washington, speaking at his first press conference this year, Obama said he saw a “window of opportunity” to use diplomacy instead of military force to resolve the dispute. He declared anew that his policy on Iran is not one of containment but of stopping Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Britain’s foreign secre-
CITY COUNCIL MEETS THURSDAY
The Roswell City Council will hold its regular business meeting at 7 p.m., Thursday at City Hall, 425 N. Richardson Ave. Councilors will hear six Lodger’s Tax funding requests for various events set to happen in the community. The council will also consider the adoption of Resolution No. 12-11 regarding the inducement for industrial revenue bonds in amount not to exceed $5 million for Sunrise NM Phase II LLC Project. Sunrise Energy Ven-
S uppo rt the U n i t e d Wa y
tary, William Hague, said the onus would “be on Iran to convince the international community that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called for a diplomatic solution. “A nuclear -ar med Iran must be prevented,” he said. Obama publicly rejected the assertion, heard most loudly from Republicans and Israelis, that the window for diplomacy was closing. “It is deeply in everybody’s interests — the United States, Israel and the world’s — to see if this can be resolved in a peaceful fashion,” Obama said. “This notion that somehow we have a choice to make in the next week or two weeks or month or two months is not borne out by the facts.” A day earlier, Netanyahu said Israel could not afford to wait much longer. Following a lengthy meeting with Obama at the White House, he accused Iran of a shell game that allows it to get ever closer to a bomb. A leading Democratic senator emerged from discussions with Netanyahu on Tuesday saying he was convinced that an Israeli strike was likely. Asked whether he had made such a decision, Netanyahu would say only that he had decided not to talk about it. “I think it’s likely because Iran is not responding to the international call for it to abide by the U.N. resolutions,” said Senate Ar med Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich. “Iran is violating six different U.N. resolutions. I think that being the case, they continue to do it, don’t open up their uranium facilities to inspection and don’t stop the enrichment of uranium, then I would say an attack on them by Israel is very likely.”
tures has requested the issuance of the city’s bonds to finance all or part of the costs of solar electricity generation facilities and all necessary and useful equipment, which will be constructed and installed in various locations within the city and used for the generation of electricity. Prior to the meeting, the canvas of election results will occur, and newly elected councilors will take their oaths of office at City Hall at 6 p.m.
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