THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
CAMPUS CRIME
3A
Burglaries prompt reminder
BY ERICK R. SCHMIDT
The KU Public Safety Office is investigating a series of car burglaries on campus.
Between 3:30 a.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, four vehicles were reportedly broken into in two separate parking lots. Two vehicles were broken into in Lot 114, which is at Stouffer Place. One vehicle had a CD player stolen and damage done to the dashboard, totaling $207. The second vehicle's glove box was disheveled, but no items were taken. In Lot 105 at McCollum Hall, one vehicle had
the faceplate of a CD player stolen. The damage was listed at $100. A car stereo was stolen from the other vehicle with a value of $300, plus $100 worth of damage done to the dashboard.
Capt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office said no connection had been established between the burglaries, but that the possibility was being investigated because of the time span. He said the Public Safety Office was following up on the reports by checking used-goods stores for the items.
Bailey reminded students to
take necessary precautions when choosing parking spots.
"Park in well-lit areas, with nothing of value in plain sight." Bailey said, "and remove faceplates from stereo systems."
Kansan staff writer Erick R Schmidt can be contacted at eschmidt@kansan.com.
Anyone with information can contact the Public Safety Office at 864-5900 or remain anonymous by calling KU Crime Stoppers at 864-8888.
— Edited by Ryan Schneider
>> STOCK EXCHANGE
Market suffers as oil prices fluctuate
BY J.W. ELPHINSTONE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Oil prices lost more than $1 a barrel Monday on continued concerns about stock market declines and an indication by an OPEC official that the cartel won't cut production at its next meeting.
Light, sweet crude for April delivery tumbled $1.57 to settle at $60.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. earlier, the contract dropped as low as $59.55 a barrel, dipping below $60 for the first time since Feb. 28.
Brent crude for April also fell $1.54 to settle at $60.54 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
"There's a general sort of recoil from risk in the market," said Tobin Gorey, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "There are still ongoing ramifications from China's drop last Tuesday. It was a jolt to the global economy."
Last Tuesday, the benchmark Shanghat Composite Index plunged 9 percent, triggering huge losses
on Wall Street and other markets. The oil market still closed at a twomonth high on Thursday on the news of tightening gasoline supplies, but afterward followed the stock market's downward pull.
On Monday, the Shanghai Composite Index tell 1.6 percent, while the Dow Jones industrials dropped 63.69 points to close at 12.050.41.
Comments from an oil official that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unlikely to call for another round of production cuts at its March meeting also undermined prices. Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said the cartel won't decrease production if crude oil stays near its current basket price of $58.34 a barrel, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Oppenheimer & Co. Analyst Gadel Helfet said that OPEC aims to keep oil within $55 and $65 a barrel. "Now at $60 a barrel is the sweet spot," Gheit said. "It will not kill demand growth for oil. It will slow it, but we won't see people running to conserve energy. People will get used to it."
Escalating tensions between Iran and the United States have buoyed prices lately, but reports on Monday that Iran may participate Saturday in an international conference on Iraq with the United States in attendance also may have "alleviated some of the political premium in the price" of oil, Gheit said.
If both countries attend, it would be the first public U.S.-franian meeting in nearly three years.
Washington is pushing for tougher U.N. sanctions on Tehran over its failure to comply with demands to halt its uranium enrichment program. Although the United States has said it has no plans for a military strike, the option has not been ruled out.
Underlying fundamentals for crude oil remain supportive, analysts said.
Last week's U.S. inventories report showed stockpiles of gasoline and distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, dropped by a larger amount than analysts had forecast. Meanwhile, demand for products during the last four-week period rose by 7.5 percent from the same period last year.
>> IRAQ WAR
Bombers disrupt pilgrimage
Mohammed Salman, who lost his brother in Monday's car bomb blast, grieves at the scene of the explosion in central Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday. A suicide car bomber turned a venerable book market into a deadly inferno Monday, killing at least 38 people.
BY LAUREN FRAYER ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHIDAD, Iraq — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up Tuesday in a crowd of Shite pilgrims streaming toward the holy city of Karbala, killing as many as 90 people in one of several attacks targeting the faithful ahead of a weekend holiday.
The attack came a day after U.S. forces suffered their deadliest day in nearly a month — nine American soldiers were killed in explosions north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday.
The coordinated attack Tuesday happened on a main street in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid. He said up to 90 people were killed and more than 150 wounded.
An Associated Press cameraman at the scene said the bombers struck a crowd of pilgrims filing into a pedestrian area. Ambulances and Iraqi police were swarming the area and there was no immediate sign of U.S. forces.
Both provinces are Sunni-dominated and have seen a rise in violence since additional U.S. forces
U. S. forces continued their push Tuesday into Sadr City, home to 2.5 million of the city's poorest residents as well as fighters loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Some 600 American soldiers searched the neighborhood's northwest quadrant, knocking on doors and searching homes, according to an Associated Press reporter traveling with them.
The U.S. forces are seeking a "reconcillatory approach" to avoid a backlash on the streets, said Col. Richard Kim. One group of soldiers were met Tuesday by Iraqi children, offering them ice cream bars.
Six American soldiers died when a bomb exploded Monday near their vehicles during a combat operation in Salahuddin province, the military said. Three others were wounded in the blast. Another three soldiers died the same day in a roadside bomb attack in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad.
surged into Baghdad as part of a security crackdown three weeks ago.
"Our hearts and prayers are with the families right now in their time of loss, and our resolve is stronger to accomplish our mission here," Donnellly said.
Monday was "a very traumatic day" for U.S. troops in Iraq, said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a spokesman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq.
It was the deadliest day for Americans in Iraq since Feb. 7, when 11 troops were killed — seven when their helicopter was shot down north of Fallujah and four others in combat operations.
The highest daily U.S. death toll since the Iraq war began was Jan. 26, 2005, when 37 Americans died in attacks.
U. S. officials say as violence has fallen in Baghdad, where the joint U.S. Iraqi security crackdown was in its third week, insurgents have fled the capital for outlying areas, such as those where the soldiers were killed Monday.
Saddam Hussein clan hails from Salabuddin, and the late al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musa al-Zarqawi was hiding out in Diyala when he was killed by a U.S. airstrike there last summer. Direct attacks on U.S. forces in Diyala are up 70 percent since last July, according to figures
provided by the U.S. military.
A suicide car bomber shattered the capital's relative calm Monday, striking a famous book market in the city's oldest quarter and killing at least 38 shoppers.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the bombing "a new message to the world that the terrorists oppose humanity and knowledge"
The bombing was seen as an effort by Sunni insurgents to bring major bloodshed back into the capital and into the lap of its Shiite-dominated government. The provocation could also erase Washington's plans for stability during a surge of more than 20,000 additional troops into Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Iraqi army units were preparing to deploy along major routes to ensure pilgrims' safety, according to a Defense Ministry statement issued Tuesday.
"The Defense Ministry hopes that the citizens will continue the rituals of the pilgrimage safely under efficient security protection," the statement said.
The nine U.S. deaths Monday brought to 20 the number of Americans killed in Iraq this month. At least 3,184 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.
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Auditoriums A.B & C
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