NEW YORK: US stocks closed mixed on Wednesday, with the Dow surging sharply higher and Apple dragging down the Nasdaq after its iPhone launch missed expectations.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 135.54 points (0.89 percent) to 15,326.60. The broad-market S&P 500 index advanced 5.14 points (0.31 percent) to 1,689.13, while the tech-rich Nasdaq dipped 4.01 points (0.11 percent) to 3,725.01.
After two days of gains, the stock indexes diverged as Apple took a beating a day after unveiling two new iPhones and dashing expectations that a media event in Beijing would reveal a deal with China Mobile, the country's biggest carrier.
The technology giant's shares sank 5.4 percent to US$467.71.
"The company failed to impress the analyst community with its latest iPhone introductions and the lack of an announcement of a China Mobile deal," said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.
Apple also suffered downgrades, including from Bank of America and UBS.
Wall Street had little reaction to President Barack Obama's televised address to the nation late Tuesday, when he opened the door to a diplomatic solution to a military strike on Syria, O'Hare said.
"The speech wasn't surprising and the relief that a diplomatic solution looks possible has been priced in."
The economic calendar was light. Mortgage applications fell 13.5 percent last week from the prior week, and refinancing applications dropped 20 percent to its lowest level since June 2009, amid rising interest rates, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association report.
Verizon Communications edged up 0.1 percent as it launched a $49 billion bond sale, by far the largest corporate bond sale in history.
Verizon is issuing new debt to help fund its US$130 billion buyout of Vodafone's 45 percent stake in their joint venture Verizon Wireless.
Other tech stocks scored strong gains. On the Dow, IBM jumped 2.2 percent and Microsoft rose 1.1 percent.
Texas Instruments fell 0.7 percent after lowering its earnings and profit forecast for the third quarter.
General Motors slid 1.8 percent. The Canadian government and Ontario province announced they had sold about a fifth of their share in General Motors, four years after joining a US bailout of the auto giant. -- AFP
A U.N. chemical weapons expert, wearing a gas mask, holds a plastic bag containing samples from one of the sites of an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Ain Tarma neighbourhood of Damascus August 29, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abdullah
By Anthony Deutsch
AMSTERDAM | Wed Sep 11, 2013 11:19am EDT
(Reuters) - If Saddam Hussein's Iraq is anything to go by, destroying Syria's massive chemical weapons arsenal will mean checking dozens of far-flung sites in a war zone while the government employs delaying tactics to hide the banned munitions, an expert involved in past U.N. disarmament missions said.
Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons network comprises remote underground bunkers where hundreds of tons of nerve agents are stored, scud missiles and artillery shells, possibly armed with cyanide, and factories deep inside hostile territory used to produce mustard or VX gas, experts believe.
"It's big. He has one of the biggest chemical weapons programs in the region and even in the world," said Dieter Rothbacher, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq who trained members of the team that just returned from Syria.
"There are calculations that to secure them up to 75,000 ground troops are needed," he said in a Reuters interview. "It took us three years to destroy that stuff under U.N. supervision in Iraq."
First there needs to be an iron-clad agreement, either by Syria joining the Chemical Weapons Convention, but more likely in the form of a U.N. Security Council agreement, in which Damascus relinquishes control of the weapons.
It could be similar to Iraq, where a U.N. Security Council resolution forcing Iraq to declare and destroy its chemical weapons. Certain militaries are already preparing for that scenario, Rothbacher said.
Russia proposed on Monday that Damascus could avoid U.S. military action to punish it for allegedly using chemical weapons in an attack in Damascus last month by agreeing to put its stockpiles under international control.
The Syrian chemical weapons program, set up in the 1970s, reportedly with assistance from Iran and Russia and supplies of raw chemicals from Western companies, was designed to counter Israel.
Its stockpile is believed by Western intelligence to be spread over dozens of sites and includes research and development centers and multiple production sites, some of them underground.
Along with Egypt and Israel, Syria is one of just seven countries that is not a member of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, overseen by the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Even if Syria follows through with the Russian plan drafted this week to let inspectors in, history also shows there is no guarantee of smooth sailing.
CAT-AND-MOUSE TACTICS
Syria's civil war, now in its third year, has already cost 100,000 lives, excluding as many as 1,400 believed to have been killed in the gas attack in Damascus on August 21, and security will be a major concern.
"Cruise missiles were coming in when we were stationed in Baghdad and we were flying out every day for the destruction," said Rothbacher, who now co-owns a weapons training consultancy, Hotzone Solutions.
Inspectors would begin by mapping out suspected locations and visiting them, then assemble chemicals and munitions at a purpose-built destruction facility.
"The Iraqis had moved all their munitions. They moved the bulk (chemicals). They spread it out, which made our work much more difficult," Rothbacher said, describing how Saddam's forces tried to undermine their efforts.
U.S. officials believe Syria has been moving its chemical stocks, which will make it harder to account for them.
Assad spent decades building an arsenal to deter the militarily superior Israel, which reportedly has both conventional and non-conventional weapons.
Elements of the Syrian military and intelligence apparatus consider destroying the chemical weapons a huge sacrifice that will compromise Syria's regional strategic position and possibly weaken them domestically.
Some experts believe the chemical weapons destruction cannot go ahead during war and warned that Assad may apply the delaying tactics used by Saddam to throw off inspectors.
"He knows that the inspectors must have the cooperation of the inspected state and he certainly saw in chapter and verse how Saddam Hussein's Iraq repeatedly did everything to hinder the inspectors," said Amy Smithson, an expert in chemical warfare at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Another priority will be ensuring the weapons don't fall into the hands of militant groups seeking to further destabilize the region.
"It's a tricky business to keep iron-clad control of multiple chemical sites that are located in urban settings that are themselves engulfed in an urban war," Smithson said.
A nation that just stepped back from the brink of conflict with Syria paused Wednesday to honor and reflect on the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11, the day terrorist attacks spurred two other long-running conflicts in the Middle East.
In New York, hundreds of friends and families of the victims stood silently — many holding photos of their loved ones — as bagpipes played. Relatives recited the names of those killed when two hijacked commercial airliners slammed into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. Another plane that day crashed into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and a fourth plunged into the ground near Shanksville, Pa.
President Obama marked the anniversary with a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House, along with first lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Biden and wife Jill Biden. They walked out of the White House at 8:46 a.m. ET, the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center tower. Bowing their heads in a moment of silence, they were followed by a bugler playing taps.
Obama attended a Pentagon ceremony later Wednesday morning, quoting the Bible, noting the resilience of victims' families and saluting those who served in the military and launched public service projects on behalf of 9/11 victims. A huge American flag draped the building near the spot where a hijacked jet struck at 9:37 a.m., killing 184 people.
A stronger police and security presence was apparent in New York and Washington, as it had been on past 9/11's.
In a speech to the nation Tuesday night, Obama made a case for military strikes at the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, invoking the image of hundreds gassed by chemical weapons. But the president said action would be delayed while a diplomatic resolution was being pursued.
In New York, one of those reading the names of victims put out a plea to the president to avoid conflict with Syria. "Pease don't bring us to another war," said the woman, who was honoring her late uncle, Jose Manuel Cardona.
Other relatives focused on the solemness of the day.
Denise Matuza, 46, from Staten Island, lost her husband, Walter, on 9/11. She plans to return to the memorial ceremony each Sept. 11. "We'll still keep coming back," she said, as her 21-year-old son, also named Walter, and two other sons stood nearby.
In Shanksville, dozens of relatives of those who perished aboard United Flight 93 gathered at the crash site.
"This allows us to reconnect with each other and share the day together and the sorrow," said Gordon Felt, who lost his brother Ed. "We reignite the memories of that day, so that we don't forget what happened."
Alice Hoagland, whose son, Mark Bingham was on United Flight 93, agreed that the anniversary serves a purpose. "I dread the day but I also welcome it, because we reconnect and because it's easier to be sad with other people who are, too," she said.
Hoagland was one of thousands around the nation who volunteered to work on projects as part of a 9/11 National Day of Service, a campaign launched in 2002 by victims' relatives and supporters.
"It helped turn around 9/11 for me," by making the anniversary a more positive occasion, said Hoagland, who planned to help fix up a fire training facility.
The Shanksville observance was low key compared to recent years. The event was attended by Michelle Obama in 2010, by the president on the 10th anniversary in 2011 and by Vice President Biden last year.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell started to cry toward the end of her remarks as she recalled a service at the national memorial the previous evening at which jet entrails appeared in the sky overhead.
"It was very powerful." Jewell said, choking up. She struggled to complete her speech and received a standing ovation when she did.
There were several milestones for the families to applaud: Ground was broken Tuesday for the memorial visitors center, and a National Park Service charity announced that $40 million had been raised to finish the building the memorial.
For many here, it was a day when sorrow was mitigated by pride -- in the memorial that's taken shape.
"In some ways this feels like the first year we came here," said Larry Catuzzi, whose daughter, Lauren, was on the flight. "But I'm so proud of what we've done to create this memorial."
Actor Gary Sinise, a long-time supporter of the military and disabled veterans, was scheduled to play an afternoon concert and barbecue with his Lt. Dan Band at Fort Belvoir, Va., on behalf of the military and their families.
"I wanted to do something special on Sept. 11,'' Sinise told USA TODAY. "Every year at this time, I feel a powerful urgency to make sure we pay tribute and respect to the military and first responders."
At New York's memorial, a small crowd gathered by 8 a.m. Some people invited to the memorial — which contained a much smaller group of attendees than this time during last year's anniversary — hugged and kissed each other. Others held photos of their loved one who had perished.
One woman wore a shirt that was emblazoned with the image of a woman's face. "We love & miss you" it said.
Like she has done in years' past, Kent Place School teacher Reba Petraitis will have a special lesson about remembrance and memorials on Wednesday. Since the majority of her 12th-graders at the Summit, N.J., school don't have clear memories of 9/11, Petraitis tells them to think about another loss that affected them, such as the death of a grandparent, and then talk about the need to memorialize others.
"It's really a highly emotional lesson," Petraitis said.
For most of those students, "Sept. 11 is history – they don't remember it," she said. "I also ask them to go home and ask their parents what are their memories of the day to foster family discussions."
Throughout the school year, Petraitis and her students also discuss domestic and international terrorism, school shootings, what makes someone decide to become a terrorist and what students can do "to make this world a better place to live."
The class is a senior elective on contemporary history, she said, but it has a large focus on terrorism and 9/11.
She noted that as time goes on, the attacks will become "more history than a living event."
But "as long as there are museums and memorials, then there are reminders" of Sept. 11, 2001," she said. "And that's the reason for the memorials."
NST Online Business Times : latest
