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IN THIS ISSUE
No. 40,764
Books 11
Business 14
Crossword 13
Culture 10
Opinion 8
Sports 12
ARTISANAL FOOD
FARM-TO-TABLE
PIZZA IN VIETNAM
INSIDE | SPECI AL REPORT
VAMPIRE KISSES
JIM JARMUSCHS
LATEST MOVIE
PAGE 10 CULTURE
ROGER COHEN
ON BEING NOT
QUITE HOME
PAGE 9 | OPI NI ON
ONLI NE AT I NYT. COM I NSI DE TODAYS PAPER
U.S. to publish employment data
After weak readings for December and
January, and then a slightly better
report for February, experts expect to
see a more robust picture for March in
the jobs data to be released by the Labor
Department on Friday. inyt.com/business
Aportable overdose treatment
U.S. regulators approved an emergency
drug overdose treatment for use in
homes and other community settings
outside hospitals. nytimes.com/health
Giving bees a leg (or 6) up
In Californias Central Valley,
researchers are trying to find
assortments of bee-friendly plants that
local farmers and ranchers can easily
grow. nytimes.com/science
App Smart: Conversions on the fly
Apps are available to tackle the most
common calculations and the most
unusual. nytimes.com/tech
E.C.B. weighs bond purchases
While the European Central Bank kept
interest rates steady on Thursday, it
gave a signal that it was mulling
unprecedented action to stimulate the
euro zones economy. BUSINESS, 14
The campaigns for Kabul
The odd alliances formed in the Afghan
presidential race showhowa flawed
political systemundermines democracy,
Matthieu Aikins writes. OPINION, 8
Gunman treated for depression
An Army official said that the suspect
in the Fort Hood shooting, Specialist
Ivan Lopez, was being evaluated for
post-traumatic stress. WORLDNEWS, 7
Battle rages for French mobile firm
A$20 billion contest for control of SFR
is testing the limits of President
Franois Hollandes willingness to let
market economics work. BUSINESS, 14
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MICHAEL BENSON/KINETIKON PICTURES
WATER ON SATURN MOON Inside Enceladus, beneath its icy veneer and above its rocky core,
is a sea of water the size of Lake Superior, scientists announced on Thursday. WORLDNEWS, 4
Smash and grab in heart of Paris
Awave of thefts targeting ostentatious
wealth has provoked more satire than
sympathy. WORLDNEWS, 3
Turkey ends blockage of Twitter
The government unblocked the site on
Thursday, a day after the highest court
ruled against the ban. WORLDNEWS, 3
ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A portrait of President Hamid Karzai at the Defense Ministry in Kabul. When Afghans vote for a newpresident on Saturday, they will be taking part in a process Mr. Karzai has shaped.
AKOS STILLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Prime Minister Viktor Orbans country house sits adjacent to a newsoccer stadiumin
Felcsut, his hometown. For businesses, being on the wrong side of his party can be costly.
Ex-leader
of Ukraine
is implicated
in shootings
KIEV, UKRAINE
BY ANDREW ROTH
TheUkrainianauthorities saidonThurs-
day that former President Viktor F. Ya-
nukovych had been involved in plans for
elite police units to open fire on antigov-
ernment protesters in February, in
whichtheykilledmore than100 people in
the days immediately before the down-
fall of Mr. Yanukovychs government.
The police have already arrested sev-
eral members of one elite riot police unit
responsible for the killings, said Arsen
Avakov, the countrys interim interior
minister, but some others under investi-
gation have fled to Crimea, which was
annexed by Russia last month.
The findings of the inquiry, which
were presentedbyMr. Avakovas well as
bythe countrys newgeneral prosecutor
andthe headof the securityservices, are
the first attempt by the government in
Kiev to give a comprehensive answer to
the shootings that caused the over-
whelming majority of deaths that took
place on the Ukrainian capitals main
square, the Maidan, in mid-February.
Anenormous number of people were
harmed in this meat grinder, Mr.
Avakov said.
Valentyn Nalivaichenko, the new
head of the Ukrainian Security Service,
the countrys successor to the Soviet-
era K.G.B., also said that Russia had
supplied the Ukrainian special services
with training, explosives, weapons and
equipment during the street protests,
which lasted for several months before
Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia in Febru-
ary. He did not immediately provide ev-
idence to support the charge.
Mr. Nalivaichenko said Mr. Ya-
nukovich was actively and personally
involved in suppressing the demonstra-
tions. Presented as a counterterrorist
operation, the actual organization of the
mass murder of people took place under
the direct leadership of former presi-
dent Yanukovych, Mr. Nalivaichenko
said.
Russias security service, known as
the F.S.B., said that it had not been in-
volved in the Ukrainian crackdown, ac-
cording to RIA Novosti, the Russian
state news agency. Let those state-
ments remain on the conscience of the
Ukrainian Security Services, the secu-
Health law
hits a mark,
but victory is
still elusive
WASHINGTON
BY BRIAN KNOWLTON,
ROBERT PEAR
AND MICHAEL D. SHEAR
Even as President Obama declared vic-
tory this week in the governments ag-
gressive push to enroll seven million
people in private health insurance plans
under his signature Affordable Care
Act, there seems no end in sight to the
debate over the laws ability to tame an
American health system marked by
high costs, an awkwardly hybrid nature
and patchwork coverage.
By American standards, backers say,
the law has been transformative, bring-
ing protection to uncovered millions
and beginning to bend downward the
sharp curve of rising health care costs.
But it falls well short of the coverage
standard set by many wealthy Euro-
pean and Asian countries, and still faces
daunting practical and political hurdles.
The Affordable Care Act employs a
system of mandates, subsidies and in-
surance exchanges to help cover mil-
lions of uninsured Americans requir-
ing nearly all to carry insurance, or pay
a penalty while seeking to improve
the quality of care and reduce costs.
But even if the health law were fully
implemented, said Jonathan B. Ober-
lander, a professor at University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill who stud-
ies health care politics, we still project
that were going to have 30 million
people without coverage, and that
would be unthinkable in Europe, or in a
place like Japan.
Still, considering the nightmarish
rollout in October of the governments
health care website, the seven million
enrollment mark, reached by a Monday
deadline, provided an unexpected mo-
ment of relief to the presidents Demo-
cratic Party after months of withering
Republican criticism.
In Hungary, the chiefs word is golden
Officials say Yanukovych
was involved in plans for
operation that killed 100
After vote, Karzai wont just fade away
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
BY MATTHEW ROSENBERG
American officials have been ignoring
him, and Afghanistans presidential
contenders have been trying to per-
suade voters that they will be different.
But those hoping to see President Ham-
id Karzai slip into a quiet retirement
may be sorely disappointed in the
months to come.
When Afghans vote for a new presi-
dent onSaturday, theywill betakingpart
in a process that Mr. Karzai has shaped
at every stage. He narrowed the field,
dissuadingpotential candidates fromen-
tering the race and forcing his brother
Qayumto leave it. He handpicked the of-
ficials who will preside over any election
disputes. Then he blessed two of the
three leadingcontenders withthe helpof
slush funds his office controls hedging
his bets that at least one candidate open
to his influence will make it to a runoff,
according to senior Afghan officials.
And Mr. Karzai will remain president
through what is expected to be months
of contested election results after Satur-
days voting.
Fewwho knowMr. Karzai personally,
includingsome of his critics, see a naked
power grab in the presidents maneu-
vering. But they say that Mr. Karzai is
being driven by a deep-seated belief
that he has become Afghanistans indis-
pensable man, uniquely suited to guide
the country through the tumultuous
years of transition. That starts with the
election, but Mr. Karzais ultimate aim,
the officials say, is to retain influence
with the newAfghan administration.
Mr. Karzai is being pulled and
pushed by two sides of his personality,
said Daud Muradian, a former foreign
policy adviser who now teaches at the
American University of Afghanistan.
One side wants to leave a legacy and
Even out of office,
Afghan president is
likely to retain influence
FELCSUT, HUNGARY
BY DANNY HAKIM
Something strange is going on here
among the humble Soviet-era cottages.
Construction cranes loom over what
will soon be a nearly 4,000-seat sports
stadium named after the Hungarian
soccer legend Ferenc Puskas. The price
tag? Upward of $17 million.
This blink-and-you-missed-it village,
about 24 miles west of Budapest, might
seem an odd place for such an extrava-
gance. After all, only about 1,800 people
live here.
But Felcsut is also the hometown of
Prime Minister Viktor Orban. And Mr.
Orban, an ardent soccer fan, will have
the best seat in town: His country house
sits about 20 feet fromthe stadium.
The whole town is working here,
said Laszlo Molnar, a construction
worker. Its like a cathedral.
What is happening in Felcsut is part of
the changes that have washedover Hun-
gary since Mr. Orban and his party,
Fidesz, swept to power in 2010. His gov-
ernment has rewritten the Constitution
andpassedhundreds of laws, includinga
tax code that allows deductions for busi-
ness investment insports. It has come to
dominate all branches of government
and lifted up a class of oligarchs. Mr.
Orban is expected to consolidate power
in parliamentary elections Sunday.
While the European Union has been
alarmedbythe rise of autocratic leaders
in countries outside its borders, some
see Mr. Orban as a strongman within its
borders. After recently fast-tracking a
nuclear energy agreement with Russia,
Mr. Orban, a onetime anti-Communist
activist, is pulling close to President
Vladimir V. Putin.
Here in Felcsut, the new stadium has
meant good jobs for many villagers. But
some have benefited more than others.
The mayor, Lorinc Meszaros, who is a
friend of the prime ministers, has gone
from being a pipe fitter to one of Hun-
garys wealthiest men. His construction
company is one of the main firms build-
Prime minister continues
consolidating grip, and
his allies are beneficiaries
SERGEY DOLZHENKO/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
Valentyn Nalivaichenko, Ukraines securi-
ty chief, at a briefing in Kiev on Thursday.
AN ELECTION FILLED WITH EMPTY HOPE
Despite the presence of security forces,
violence in rural areas means the vote
there matters little to many. PAGE 4
Americans are divided
and skirmishes persist
even as 7 million enroll
HEALTH, PAGE 7 KARZAI, PAGE 4
HUNGARY, PAGE 17
UKRAINE, PAGE 3
CURRENCIES STOCK INDEXES
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s Nikkei 225 close 15,071.88 +0.84%
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2 | FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
. . . .
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See what readers are talking about and
leave your own comments at inyt.com
1939 Chamberlains Peace Bloc
LONDON Prime Minister Neville Cham-
berlain, speaking before a House of Com-
mons united on the issue of foreign policy
as it has seldombeen since the World
War, appealed to all countries of good will
to join in his prospective bloc of peace
powers, determined to prevent Adolf
Hitler fromcarrying out any intention he
might have to dominate the world. The
newpolicy of collective security was nec-
essary, Mr. Chamberlain said, because
the assurances which had been given by
the German government, that it had no
wish to dominate other races, has now
been thrown to the winds absolutely.
1964 Purge of Leftists Begins
RI O DE JANEI RO Amass purge was
launched today against leftist support-
ers of Joo Goularts regime, ousted yes-
terday in a military-led revolt. Hundreds
of prominent leftists were reported to
have been arrested by troops and state
police. Among those rounded up by the
Guanabara state police were four
Chinese, alleged to have been carrying a
list of Brazilian generals earmarked for
assassination. The Guanabara state gov-
ernment said the Chinese had con-
fessed they were training guerrillas in
the area of Santo de Jubuiba in Rio de
Janeiro state.
29 million people, and more than half the
foreigners are in the country illegally.
Coming from Indonesia, the Philip-
pines and other Asian nations, these il-
legal workers toil in homes and at palm
oil plantations and construction sites.
Ms. Fernandez unearthed evidence of
their being beaten and nearly starved.
In an interview with The New York
Times in2012, shecharacterizedthesitu-
ation as slavery days coming back.
As much as their labors are needed,
the illegal workers irritate many Malay-
sians, as their counterparts do in many
countries. Some Malaysians join gov-
ernment-sanctioned volunteer groups
to seek themout.
In September, the government began
a campaign to arrest and deport 500,000
of these workers; it said their collective
consumption of social services like edu-
cation was expensive and went against
its policy of relying less on unskilled
labor.
Ms. Fernandez condemned the depor-
tation drive, partly because it failed to
distinguish refugees from other foreign
workers, she said.
She achievedher greatest prominence
BY DOUGLAS MARTIN
Irene Fernandez, a champion of the op-
pressed in Malaysia whose indefatig-
able advocacy for better treatment of
foreign migrant workers prompted her
government to denounce her as a traitor
and human rights groups to shower her
with awards, died on March 25 in Serd-
ang, Malaysia. She was 67.
The cause was heart failure, Human
Rights Watch said.
Ms. Fernandez abandoneda career as
a teacher in her early 20s to fight for so-
cial causes. She helped organize the
first textile workers union in Malaysia
and campaigned for womens rights, im-
proved consumer education and safer
pesticides.
Her signature crusade was for the
rights of the poorest, most marginalized
people in her relatively rich country: the
migrant workers whodothedirty, ill-pay-
ing jobs many native Malaysians snub.
Foreigners account for more than 16 per-
cent of the work force in a population of
in 1995 when she interviewed more than
300 migrant workers being detained by
the government. They told her of rapes,
beatings and inadequate medical care,
food and water. After a newspaper prin-
ted a memo she provided detailing her
findings, Malaysias government, in
March 1996, charged her with mali-
ciously publishing false news.
Her criminal trial dragged on for sev-
en years, one of the longest in Malaysi-
an history. Stanley Augustin, the prose-
cutor, accused her of blackening her
countrys reputation.
The court must take into account the
interests of the nation, he said. Free-
dom of the press is not freedom to say
anything you like. It must be confined
and cannot hurt the public or national
interest.
She was convicted and sentenced to a
year in prison, then released pending
appeal. In 2008, an appellate judge re-
versed her conviction.
In 2012, Ms. Fernandez again out-
raged her government by telling an In-
donesian newspaper that Malaysia was
not safe for foreign workers because it
did not have a legal framework or spe-
cific laws to protect them.
When she says something like that,
doesnt she realize that her actions do
not help the country or the Malaysian
people? DeputyPrimeMinister TanSri
Muhyiddin Yassin said in an interview
with The NewStraits Times, an English-
language Malaysian newspaper.
Ms. Fernandezs parents were Indi-
ans who movedto Malaysia to work ona
rubber plantationwhenthe countrywas
under British rule. She was born there
on April 18, 1946.
She traced her awareness of social
and political issues to her childhood,
when, as the daughter of a plantation su-
pervisor, she was told not to play with
laborers children.
She became a teacher, but at 23 left
the security of a government job for the
uncertain life of an activist, working for
various labor and rights groups.
In 1991, she formed the organization
Tenaganita (the name means womens
force in Malay), which ran shelters for
migrants and victims of human traffick-
ing. It eventually expanded its efforts to
include men.
Ms. Fernandezs many awards in-
clude the Amnesty International Award
in 1998, the International PENAward in
2000, the Jonathan Mann Award in 2004
and the Right Livelihood Award in 2005.
She never lost her taste for battle.
During her trial, she told The Los
Angeles Times that she was ready for
jail.
It will givemeanopportunitytowrite
a report on jail conditions and see what
changes need to be made, she said.
RAHMAN ROSLAN FOR THE NEWYORK TIMES
Irene Fernandez in 2012. She condemned
a drive to deport migrant workers.
Mideast peace talks in jeopardy
The Palestinians have every right to pursue
recognition of statehood through U.N.
agencies. Its a legitimate and peaceful
avenue. Israels attempt to thwart that
effort amounts to dirty dealing, and
suggests insincerity in achieving a two-
state solution.
CAROLYN, ST. AUGUSTI NE, FLA.
No easy answers here. You really cant
blame Abbas, as all hes had fromIsrael are
empty promises and more settlements.
There will be no peace until Israel stops
building settlements in occupied
territories. At the same time, the
Palestinians and others in the Muslim
world have to stop denying Israels right to
exist in peace and be treated with a fair
hand by the United States and other
countries. Finally, Pollard should stay
where he is. He is, first, last and always, a
spy who did harmto this country.
J. W. MATHEWS, CI NCI NNATI
I support the quest for a Palestinian state
wholeheartedly. I believe the never-ending
building of Israeli housing in the West Bank
is an effort to create facts on the ground
that will justify the establishment of
Greater Israel. That said, the Abbas
decision not to informSecretary Kerry in
advance of the announcement to join 15
international agencies is a very bad move.
It indicates an insincerity on the part of the
Palestinians. This obviously was in the
works for weeks. My problemis not the
strategy, but the surprise 180 turn.
TARRY DAVI S, NORFOLK, VA.
Fake meat that tastes like chicken
Beyond issues such as taste and texture,
what many people are disregarding is that
these mock meat products (as they are
sometimes called) represent one of the
most highly processed and chemically
treated forms of soy foods and, as such,
are not particularly healthy.
ROB SI NGER, MEXI CO
Alan
Cowell
LETTER FROM EUROPE
LONDON At the height of the Cold War,
Turkeys great landmass cemented its
place in the Western alliance, its huge
conscript army deployed across the
sweeping expanse of Anatolia to safe-
guard NATOs southeastern flank.
Even now, with crisis just across the
Black Sea in Crimea and Ukraine, that
same geography offers Western
strategists an anchor in a troubled re-
gion stretching from the borders of
Iran, Syria and Iraq to the far-flung
outposts of the European Union.
A generation ago, it was Ankaras as-
sumption that its central role in the re-
gions geopolitics would translate into
acceptance as a member of the pros-
perous European Union, now number-
ing 28 countries.
But that assumption has frayed. After
months of increasingly authoritarian
rule by an embattled Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the portals of
the club seemmore than ever to be clos-
ing on Turkey. And paradoxically, Tur-
keys most recent elections may deepen
its estrangement,
raising questions not
only about European
readiness to embrace
Turkey but also about
Mr. Erdogans in-
terest in pursuing it.
It is becoming
clear that Erdogans
Turkey does not be-
long to Europe, a prominent German
politician, Andreas Scheuer, said after
the Turkish leader accepted his partys
victory in the municipal ballot on Sun-
day not just as a personal vindication
but also a mandate for what an oppo-
nent called a witch hunt against his
adversaries. A country in which the
government threatens its critics and
tramples democratic values cannot be-
long to Europe, Mr. Scheuer said.
What happens next will worry many
Turks as they hear Erdogan vowing to
get even with his critics and opponents,
the columnist Simon Tisdall said in The
Guardian. That Turkey is nowa deeply
divided nation is only too clear. That Er-
dogans future actions may serve to
deepen those divisions is the great fear.
Since the creation of the modern
state in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
Turkey has been caught in the overlap-
ping dilemmas thrown into sharp relief
by its geography. While it straddles
Europe and Asia, only a small fraction
of its soil lies west of the Bosporus that
divides the two continents. For all the
boutiques and businesses of Istanbul
that look west to Frankfurt and Milan,
the countrys distant east surveys a
much rougher neighborhood.
The effort to accede to the European
Union haltingly underway since 2005
pulls at one set of reflexes, while Mr.
Erdogans style tugs at another. Last
year, he deployed the police against
protesters in Istanbuls Gezi Park. In
December a major corruption scandal
broke over his aides and his family.
Just in recent weeks, his government
has moved to block Twitter and You-
Tube depicted as his enemies tools
in a campaign to besmirch him with
faked evidence of malfeasance.
But the elections on Sunday showed
something else. While Western-looking,
secular, middle-class Turks are fre-
quently hostile to him, Mr. Erdogan and
his Islamist-rooted Justice and Devel-
opment Party still command the politic-
al bedrock among the working class
and in the countryside where Islam
Turkeys dominant faith is strong.
The question of identity is not limited
to Turkey. Divided among themselves
over the very idea of Turkish member-
ship of their largely Christian club, the
Europeans find themselves caught be-
tween the Western values they demand
of Turkish society and the realpolitik of
a volatile region.
We need Turkey as an important
ally, said a German government for-
eign policy specialist, but we cant ob-
serve with indifference developments
in the country.
In an interview before the election,
Fadi Hakura, a specialist in Turkish af-
fairs at Chatham House, the policy re-
search body in London, said there
seemed to be little appetite in Turkey
for the kind of reforms the European
Union is demanding to create a more
liberal, transparent and inclusive soci-
ety. The main concern now, he said,
seems to be to consolidate power, not
promote reform.
Mr. Erdogans uncompromising tone
since the vote, Mr. Hakura said later,
had merely strengthened that convic-
tion.
EMAIL: [email protected]
Turkey turns
its back
on the E.U.
IN OUR PAGES
IN YOUR WORDS
Irene Fernandez, 67, champion of oppressed in Malaysia
An evolving view of animals
OBI TUARY
It is becom-
ing clear that
Erdogans
Turkey does
not belong
to Europe.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIMFLACH
THE HUMAN FACTOR
TimFlach, a Lon-
don-based photo-
grapher, has been
documenting exotic
animals for two de-
cades. Most of his
intimate portraits of
animals are inten-
ded to be jarring in
their simplicity
concentrating on
subtle details that
impart a humanistic
feel. He wants
people to engage in
debates about our
relationships to an-
imals, with the be-
lief that howwe
treat animals is of-
ten dependent on
howthey display
characteristics we
think are human. A
collection of his
work was recently
published in the
book Evolution,
which highlights the
spectrumof living
species. Clockwise
fromtop left:
Grace, Axolotl,
Running Chicken,
Flying Mop,
Jambo Head and
Silver Tabby.
lens.blogs.
nytimes.com
FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 | 3 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
. . . .
World News
europe africa
Paris robberies inspire a satirical wink
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAPUCINE GRANIER-DEFERRE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Place Vendme in Paris, which has seen a wave of robberies three since March 15 that have targeted wealth in an otherwise weak economy, provoking more satire than sympathy.
PARIS
BY DOREEN CARVAJAL
Since the reign of the Sun King, the
Place Vendme has served as this citys
center of luxury, home to high-end fash-
ion boutiques and diamond stores, Coco
Chanels mansion and the palatial Hotel
Ritz Paris. Lately, though, this quarter
snug in the heart of Paris has turned in-
to the hub of a decidedly more low-rent
form of plunder: smash and grab rob-
beries.
Common crime is an indiscreet topic
here among merchants in the Vendme
quarter of stone streets and graceful ar-
cades. But many are clearly jittery from
a wave of robberies, three since March
15, that have targeted ostentatious
wealth in an otherwise weak economy,
provoking more satire than sympathy.
The culprits have mostly hit jewelry
stores. But the most recent break-in,
early on Saturday, by masked robbers
armed with a pump-action gun and an
ax, struck the citys temple of hip,
Colette. The eclectic three-story shop
ordinarily attracts the likes of Kate
Moss, Jay Z, and Kanye West with its
mix of limited-edition clothing, books,
dishes, jewelry and a water bar where
sparkling water is pricier than wine.
But shortly before the store opened,
two thieves stormed the entrance and
barked orders at seven employees, ac-
cording to the police. They smashed a
display case of watches on the first floor
and then fled within minutes on a mo-
torcycle with more than 600,000 euros,
or $825,000, in luxury watches.
They didnt want to steal clothes,
said Colette Roussaux, the owner.
They came for the opportunity and the
beautiful watches here. And we dont
sell Swatches.
With its high-fashion profile, the
Colette caper quickly provoked black
humor about the low concept of fashion
crime. A satirical French television
show, Le Petit Journal, re-enacted the
robbery with air kissing thieves in mus-
taches. Leafing through their wardrobe,
they bickered over mix-and-match ac-
cessories. What to wear to a heist?
Louis Vuitton gloves? A Jacquemus
ax?
In one frantic day, a group of ambi-
tious business and communications stu-
dents created an instant shop on a web-
site offering T-shirts emblazoned with,
I Robbed Colette. Twitter users
scoffed too, remarking that 600,000 at
the pricey store equaled two white T-
shirts and a pair of shoes.
But it was no laughing matter in the
Vendme quarter where many store
employees and the local merchant
group, the Vendme committee, said
they preferred not to comment about
the matter.
Since the latest robbery, the police
stepped up their presence in the com-
mercial area, increasing foot patrols, ac-
cording to Xavier Castaing, a police
spokesman in Paris, who added that the
overall trend in robberies is actually
down in the city, led by banks that have
reduced their cash on hand and adopted
newsecurity measures.
Now, he added, the police are working
with merchants to improve security in
the Vendme district, which is already
covered by extensive surveillance cam-
eras that have helped crack earlier rob-
beries in the area with little notice. Typ-
ically, the private security men in suits
that are nowubiquitous outside the jew-
elry stores are forbidden to bear arms.
But in the south of France some owners
of small jewelry stores have fired guns
at fleeing robbers, killings that have
provoked soul-searching debates about
howto prosecute such cases.
Among the more exotic security alter-
natives under discussion is a special
powder or fluid that is invisible to the
eye and can be sprayed on valuable
items. If a thief touches a sprayed ob-
ject, the fluid leaves a DNA trace that
can be read over a period of six weeks
with an ultraviolet light. But the exotic
approach still has not been accepted as
legal evidence in France.
Jacques Morel, a security adviser to
the French association of jewelers, UF-
BJOP, said stolen jewelry loses 80 per-
cent of its value when resold, but there
is a thriving trade among wealthy buy-
ers from Eastern Europe and thieves
fromthat region. The number of attacks
on jewelers fell last year, he added, but
what has changed is the audacity of for-
eign thieves coming to Paris who create
high dramas by barging in and out in a
matter of minutes.
They are using new techniques of
smash and grab, using weapons to
smash glass, he said, adding that the
thieves sometimes strike in large num-
bers. Passive security doesnt work ef-
fectively, so there is reflection now
among law enforcement about how to
improve.
In October, about 15 men demon-
strated that brute force, attacking the
jewelry store, Vacheron Constantin,
near the Place Vendme, with axes.
They snatched 20 watche and streamed
away on foot, an odd scene captured in a
shaky video by a witness.
Some suspects were captured by po-
lice on the same day. Others were
picked up a fewmonths later in a second
heist turned slapstick.
In January, eight men were arrested
on the Champs lyses after they at-
tacked a door of a jewelry store with
sledge hammers and axes. In a form of
poetic street justice, they were trapped
in an air space as they tried unsuccess-
fully to force through a second door.
In such cases, its difficult to resist the
comic possibilities of crime. After
Colette was robbed, a group of universi-
ty students in technology, business and
marketing decided to exploit the head-
lines.
David, 20 who declined to disclose
his last name to remain discreet
dreamed up the idea with four other
friends to create I robbed Colette T-
shirts. They quickly sold about 1,000
over two days and then closed up shop.
Spring exams beckoned.
We did it to be creative and funny
and to have a good time doing it, he
said Tuesday. Colette is so expensive.
Every time we run past it we see those
Chanel backpacks for about 2,500. That
was the aim of the project to react to
people wanting to buy so much stuff
there. Its so expensive.
In contrast to Colettes 135 designer
Kenzo T-shirts No Fish. No Noth-
ing the student collection was itself
a real steal: 25.
Dan Bilefsky contributed reporting.
rity agency said, according to the news
agency.
The Ukrainian authorities have
charged Mr. Yanukovych with mass
murder in connection with the deaths of
demonstrators and declared him
wanted as a fugitive on those charges.
In an interviewon Thursday with The
Associated Press and the Russian state
television channel NTV, Mr. Ya-
nukovych said that he had never given
any kinds of order for any shooting.
Yet the police authorities, which in-
clude the countrys new prosecutor, the
security services head and Mr. Avakov,
said that the order to open fire on pro-
testers had been disseminated through
the police chain of command, including
by the former interior minister, Vitaly
Zakharchenko. The officials did not give
more information on how Mr. Ya-
nukovych was involved, but again
called for his arrest.
Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign
minister, has suggested that the killings
mayhave beencarriedout byRight Sec-
tor, an armed ultranationalist group
that tookpart inthe protests against Mr.
Yanukovych.
At a news conference withthe Kazakh
foreign minister on Thursday, Mr. Lav-
rov lashed out at both Ukraine and the
West for exaggerating the issue of
the presence of Russian military troops
training near the Ukrainian border,
which Western officials have warned
may be a guise for mobilizing an inva-
sion force.
Mr. Lavrov also demanded more in-
formation about possible plans by
NATO to strengthen the defenses of
member countries in Eastern Europe
NATO foreign ministers, meeting in
Brussels earlier this week, ordered the
alliances military commanders to draw
up such plans.
InMoscow, GazpromonThursdayan-
nounced for the second time in a week
that it would raise the price it charges
Ukraine for natural gas, tightening eco-
nomic screws on the new pro-Western
government in Kiev.
The chief executive, Aleksei B. Miller,
said Gazprom stepped up the price by
an additional $100 per 1,000 cubic me-
ters, to a total of $485 for that volume of
gas. That is far more than Gazprom
charges utilities in other countries.
Gazprom holds a legal monopoly on
exporting natural gas from Russia, and
sets prices as its sees fit. This time,
however, United States and European
Union taxpayers will in all likelihood be
footing a part of Ukraines gas bill given
aide packages being offered to the new
LONDON
BY ALAN COWELL
In an apparent blow to international ef-
forts to bolster peacekeeping forces in
the Central African Republic, Chad said
Thursday that it was withdrawing from
an African Union force confronting a
wave of sectarian bloodletting that has
driven hundreds of thousands of people
fromtheir homes.
The Chadian announcement came as
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secre-
tary general, sought to persuade a gath-
ering of African and European leaders in
Brussels toexpandpeacekeepingefforts.
They nowconsist of 6,000 African troops,
2,000 French soldiers and a promised
force of 1,000 fromthe European Union.
In a statement, the Chadian govern-
ment said its 850 soldiers had been ac-
cused of siding with Muslim militias in
sectarian clashes with Christian fight-
ers that have swept the Central African
Republic for months.
Despite the sacrifices we have
made, Chad and Chadians have been
targeted in a gratuitous and malicious
campaign that blamed them for all the
suffering in the Central African Re-
public, the Chadian Foreign Ministry
said in a statement, according to news
reports.
The forces will remain until the logis-
tics of their withdrawal can be ar-
ranged, the statement said.
The surprise announcement came
after an episode last weekend when
Chadian troops were reported to have
killed dozens of people. On Monday, Af-
rican peacekeeping troops defended
their action, saying the Chadians had
been acting in self-defense after an at-
tack by Christian militants.
The latest accounts of violence in the
Central African Republic came on
Thursday in a report by Human Rights
Watch that described more killings in
remote areas by Christian and Muslim
militias. In the southwest of the country,
the report said, Christian militias
known as anti-balaka killed 72 Muslim
men and boys, some as young as 9, in
two attacks in February in the village of
Guen. Days later, fighters from the
Seleka, whose chaotic rule in the Cen-
tral African Republic collapsed in Janu-
ary, joined with cattle herders to
slaughter 19 people in the village of
Yakongo, 20 miles away.
These horrendous killings showthat
the French and African Union peace-
keeping deployment is not protecting
villages from these deadly attacks,
said Lewis Mudge, a researcher for Hu-
manRights Watch. The SecurityCoun-
cil shouldnt waste another minute in
authorizing a United Nations peace-
keeping mission with the troops and ca-
pacity to protect the countrys vulner-
able people.
He added, Peacekeepers are provid-
ing security in the main towns, but
smaller communities in the southwest
are left exposed.
The Human Rights Watch report fol-
lowed an assessment by the United Na-
tions on Tuesday that the fighting had
killed 60 people and injured more than
100 in the previous 10 days.
The violence has forcedalmost 640,000
people to flee their homes, including
more than 200,000 in Bangui, the capital.
More than 80,000, mostly Muslims, have
fled to neighboring countries.
The Colette store near Place Vendme in Paris. Two thieves stormed the entrance on a re-
cent morning and then fled on a motorcycle with watches worth more than 600,000.
A group of students created an
instant shop on a website
offering T-shirts emblazoned
with I Robbed Colette.
UKRAINE, FROM PAGE 1
Turkey ends
blockage of
Twitter after
2-week ban
ISTANBUL
BY CEYLAN YEGINSU
The Turkish government unblocked
Twitter on Thursday, a day after Tur-
keys highest court ruled that the two-
week ban on the social media site violat-
ed freedomof expression.
Twitter had been blocked in Turkey
since March 21, after Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to erad-
icate the site following the circulation
of leaked recordings that implicated
him and members of his inner circle in
sweeping corruption allegations. The
recordings emerged in the run-up to lo-
cal elections, which were held on Sun-
day and resulted in a resounding victo-
ry for Mr. Erdogans Islamist-rooted
Justice and Development Party.
Although the Constitutional Court is-
sued the ruling on Wednesday, the gov-
ernment did not move to lift the ban on
Twitter until Thursday evening, a time
lag that generated a great deal of specu-
lation about whether the government
would abide by the ruling. If it had not, it
would have set up a confrontation be-
tween the executive and judicial
branches of the government, and would
have likely emboldened Mr. Erdogans
many critics who say he has become in-
creasingly authoritarian.
The lifting of the ban is likely to take
heat off Mr. Erdogan in international
circles, wherehehas facedcriticismfor a
series of measures he has taken to push
back against the corruption investiga-
tion. But with a ban still in place on You-
Tube, and many other seemingly irre-
versible steps taken by the government
such as purges of the police and judi-
ciary and a law giving the government
greater control over the courts the
broad narrative of Turkey under Mr. Er-
dogan that has taken hold among his do-
mestic and foreign critics is unchanged.
In its ruling, the court called the Twit-
ter ban illegal, arbitrary and a serious
restriction on the right to obtain infor-
mation. An earlier ruling against the
ban by an administrative court in Anka-
ra, the capital, had not been recognized
by the government authorities.
While many users flocked to Twitter to
celebrate its return, some said they still
could not gain access to the site without
using measures to circumvent the ban.
Thegovernment later issuedastatement
saying restrictions would be lifted after
certain technical steps had been taken.
This is amajor victoryfor democracy
and freedom of expression in Turkey,
said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at
Istanbul Bilgi University who submitted
the petition to the Constitutional Court.
We didnt expect this today.
The main opposition Republican
Peoples Party, or C.H.P., which also
submitted an appeal to the Constitution-
al Court, welcomed the decision.
This ruling by Turkeys top Consti-
tutional Court is a legal response to the
Prime Ministers denial of lawand free-
domof speech, saidSezginTanrikulu, a
member of the C.H.P.
SebnemArsu contributed reporting.
Some see fodder
for humor as thieves
shock Vendme area,
Chad to quit peace effort
in central African country
Kiev implicates Yanukovych in shooting of protesters
pro-Western government in Kiev.
Gas pricing policies could be used to
siphon off some of that aide. The new
price announced Tuesday, Mr. Miller
said, reflected the cancellation of a
Black Sea base lease agreement on the
Crimean Peninsula, struck in 2010 be-
tween Russia and Ukraine. Under that
arrangement, called the Kharkiv Ac-
cord, Russia reduced the gas price by
$100 in exchange for an extension of the
lease from 2017, when it was to expire,
until 2042.
The Russian Parliament annulled
that deal this week, and officials made
clear that the gas price discount was no
longer warranted because Russia con-
siders the entire Crimean Peninsula, in-
cluding the base, to be its territory.
Prime Minister Dmitri A Medvedev
of Russia, who met with Mr. Miller of
Gazprom on Thursday for a televised
discussion of gas pricing, has main-
tained that Ukraine must nowrepay the
$100 per 1,000 cubic meter price reduc-
tion retroactively back to 2010. That is
because, under the Kharkiv Accord, the
reduction was an advance payment for
leasing the base starting in 2017 but
as Russia has annexed Crimea, Ukraine
will be unable to deliver its side of the
accord after that date and thus must re-
turn the entire sum, or $11 billion.
For comparison, the International
Monetary Fund aid package to Ukraine
is $18 billion.
David M. Herszenhorn and AndrewE.
Kramer contributed reporting from
Moscow.
SERGEI SUPINSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Kievs main square in February. An enormous number of people were harmed in this meat grinder, one senior official said.
INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES 4 | FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014
. . . .
CORRECTI ONS
An article on March 28 about Presi-
dent Obamas efforts to bolster the
NATO alliance after Russias takeover
of Crimea misstated the number of
American soldiers buried at Flanders
Field Cemetery in Belgium, where Mr.
Obama, in a speech, evoked the clash of
great powers that set off World War I,
the conflict in which the Americans
died, and defined the Cold War. There
are 368 American soldiers buried at
Flanders Field, not thousands.
An article on Tuesday about the poten-
tial ricochet effect on London of sanc-
tions against Russia because of its an-
nexation of Crimea misstated the posi-
tion of the Channel Islands in regard to
the sanctions against Russia for its an-
nexation of Crimea. While the islands
are independent from Britain and the
European Union, they have chosen to
mirror the sanctions. It is not the case
that Russian assets there are beyond
the reach of the sanctions.
world news asia americas
BY KENNETH CHANG
Inside a moon of Saturn, beneath its icy
veneer and above its rocky core, is a sea
of water the size of Lake Superior, scien-
tists announced on Thursday.
The findings, published in the journal
Science, confirm what planetary scien-
tists have suspected about the moon,
Enceladus, ever since they were aston-
ished in 2005 by photographs showing
geysers of ice crystals shooting out of its
south pole.
What wevedoneis put forthastrong
case for an ocean, said David J. Steven-
son, a professor of planetary science at
the California Institute of Technology
and an author of the Science paper.
For many researchers, this tiny, shiny
cueball of a moon, just over 300 miles
wide, is nowthe most promisingplace to
look for life elsewhere in the solar sys-
tem, even more than Mars.
Definitely Enceladus, said Larry
W. Esposito, a professor of astrophysic-
al and planetary sciences, who was not
involved in the research. Because
theres warmwater right there now.
Enceladus is caught in a gravitational
tug of war between Saturn and another
moon, Dione, which bends its icy outer
layer, creating friction and heat. In the
years since discovering the geysers, the
NASA spacecraft Cassini has made re-
peated flybys of Enceladus, photograph-
ing the fissures (nicknamed tiger
stripes) where the geysers originate,
measuring temperatures and identify-
ingcarbon-basedorganic molecules that
could serve as building blocks for life.
Cassini has no instruments that can
directly detect water beneath the sur-
face, but three flybys in the years 2010-
12 were devoted to producing a map of
the gravity field, noting where the pull
was stronger or weaker. During the
flybys, lasting just a few minutes, radio
telescopes that are part of the Deep
Space Network broadcast a signal to the
spacecraft, which echoed it back to
Earth. As the pull of Enceladus gravity
sped and then slowed the spacecraft,
the frequency of the radio signal shifted,
just as the pitch of a train whistle rises
and falls depending whether the train is
coming or going.
Using atomic clocks on Earth, the sci-
entists measured the radio frequency
with enough precision that they could
discern changes in the velocity of Cas-
sini, hundreds of millions of miles away,
as minuscule as 14 inches an hour.
They found that the moons gravity
was weaker at the south pole. At first
glance, that is not so surprising; there is
a depression at the pole, and lower mass
means less gravity. But the depression
is so large that the gravity should actu-
ally have been much weaker.
Then you say, Aha, there must be
compensation, Dr. Stevenson said.
Something more dense under the ice.
The natural candidate is water.
Liquid water is 8 percent denser than
ice, so the presence of a sea 20 to 25
miles below the surface fits the gravity
measurements. Its an ocean that ex-
tends in all directions from the south
pole to about halfway the equator, Dr.
Stevenson said.
The underground sea is up to six
miles thick, much deeper than a lake.
Its a lot more water than Lake Super-
ior, Dr. Stevenson said. It may even
be bigger. The ocean could extend all
the way to the north pole.
Theconclusionwas not asurprise, said
Christopher P. McKay, a planetary scien-
tist at NASA Ames Research Center in
Mountain View, Calif., who studies the
possibility of life on other worlds.
It also makes Enceladus a more at-
tractive destinationfor a future mission,
especially one that would collect
samples from the plumes and return
them to Earth to see if they contain any
microbes.
TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Afghan Army has deployed troops in the Charkh district, in the eastern Afghan province of Logar, but the expectation is that no one is going to vote in the district on Saturday.
cidedto support the Russianannexation
of Crimea ina fit of pique after seeingre-
ports that the United States might give
Pakistan some of the military equip-
ment being shipped out of Afghanistan.
Senior Afghan officials said Mr. Kar-
zai saw in the reports fresh evidence of
duplicityonthe part of anallywhohe be-
lieves has sought for years toundermine
his government. He was against the
surge, he felt betrayed by the bungling
American attempt to unseat him in the
2009 election, and, more recently, he has
come to believe that the United States,
intentionally or not, is in league with Pa-
kistan and, by extension, the Taliban.
The ill-will is shared by many Ameri-
can officials, who see Mr. Karzai as an
unreliable ingrate. But as much as they
would prefer to see Mr. Karzais presi-
dency end, the Americans are still
counting on him in one respect: Some
hope his influence can help mediate
what is expected to be a messy after-
math to an election that has already
seen candidates accuse each other of
planning to commit fraud and pledging
not to accept the results if they lose.
Even Mr. Karzais fiercest critics
credit him with keeping Afghanistans
ethnic and regional rivalries in check
over the past 12 years, using cash, fa-
vors and acute psychology to assemble
the unruly collection of ambitious politi-
cians and old warlords that has defined
the Afghan government.
His ideal post-presidential role, the
Afghan officials said, would be doing
what he does best: presiding over meet-
ings with elders, villagers and power
brokers of all stripes, helping his suc-
cessor keep the country together. He
could also focus on trying to persuade
the Taliban to talk peace.
The things Mr. Karzai is said to hate
dealing with war strategy, navigating
relationships with Western nations, the
daily briefing outlining the days casual-
ties would be the problemof the actu-
al president.
Mr. Karzai has certainly not shied
away from shaping the field of candi-
dates hoping to fill that job. Even seem-
ingly casual asides had telling effects on
candidacies as early as last year.
After Farooq Wardak, the education
minister and an early favorite to be-
come an eventual front-runner, hurt his
leg during a trip to the provinces last
spring, Mr. Karzai told him in front of
the entire cabinet, Thats what you get
when you run too fast to be president,
according to a senior Afghan official
who heard the remark. Mr. Wardak
chose to stay out of the race.
EventhosewhohadMr. Karzais impli-
cit blessing found they had to tread care-
fully. When Zalmay Rassoul, his foreign
minister at the time, began trying to sell
himself to potential backers by distan-
cing himself from Mr. Karzai, the presi-
dent responded by luring away some of
Mr. Rassouls potential running mates.
He promised to make one of them a
cabinet minister. And he directed anoth-
er, Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic
Uzbekwarlordwho couldpotentiallyde-
liver hundreds of thousands of votes, to
the join the camp of a rival presidential
candidate, Ashraf Ghani, a technocrat
who holds a doctorate fromColumbia.
What are you doing going with that
oldman? meaning Dr. Rassoul Mr.
Karzai told Mr. Dostum, according to the
senior Afghanofficial. Mr. Ghani canget
you out of that human rights problem.
Mr. Karzai then gave Mr. Ghani
$40,000 incashto seedhis campaignwar
chest and did the same for Dr. Rassoul,
with whom he had made peace, two se-
nior Afghan officials said. Both candi-
dates are now considered leading con-
tenders going into Saturdays election.
Mr. Karzai offered no such deal to his
elder brother, Qayum, fearing that the
electionof another Karzai would tarnish
his legacy. Instead, he engaged in a bit
of classic Karzai maneuveringto endhis
brothers candidacy, orchestrating a
meeting of ethnic Pashtun elders, who,
after some initial drama, dutifully re-
commended that the presidents broth-
er join the Rassoul camp.
One official close to Mr. Karzai said
that decision and the rejection of Amer-
ican demands to sign the security deal
were the ones that have most set Mr.
Karzai at ease in recent weeks.
There are things he has decided in
his mind, said Umar Daudzai, the in-
terior minister and Mr. Karzais former
chief of staff. When you are not sure,
you are not relaxed.
Though American officials worry that
his continued influence will be used to
obstruct them at every turn, they are
still counting on him in one respect:
Some hope he can help mediate what is
expected to be a messy aftermath to an
election that has already seen candi-
dates accuse each other of planning to
commit fraudandpledgingnot to accept
the results if they lose.
Mr. Karzai, in a speech broadcast
Thursday night, urged candidates to not
go down that path after the election.
Expressing different and opposing
views during the election campaign is
one of the principles of democracy, he
said. But I am sure that once the elec-
tion campaign is over, the candidates
will respect peoples votes, prioritize
the national interest and will accept the
legitimate results of the election.
BRI EFLY
Asia
TOKYO
Japancancels whale hunt
but leaves door openfor 2015
Japan has canceled this years whale
hunt off Antarctica, days after an inter-
national court ruled against the killings,
which had drawn worldwide criticism.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he
would comply, although the ministry in
charge of the hunt, which canceled it on
Wednesday, appeared to leave Japan
some flexibility for the future. The ac-
tion leaves open the possibility that Ja-
pan will try to revive the programun-
der different legal reasoning next year.
The hunt had taken advantage of a
provision in a 1986 international com-
mercial-whaling moratoriumthat al-
lowed killings for research purposes, a
reason rejected on Monday in a ruling
by the International Court of Justice.
I SLAMABAD, PAKI STAN
Government frees prisoners,
but Taliban status is disputed
The Pakistani Interior Ministry said
Thursday that the government had re-
leased 16 noncombatant members of
the Taliban. But Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharifs office said those freed had
been involved in petty crimes and were
not insurgents.
IslamZeb, the highest government
official in South Waziristan, said the 16
were among 800 prisoners whose re-
lease the Pakistani Taliban had deman-
ded on the ground that they were inno-
cent family members. He said an
additional 100 prisoners on the
Talibans list would be released in the
next fewdays. (REUTERS)
I SLAMABAD, PAKI STAN
Bomb goes off near Musharraf convoy
Abomb apparently directed at Pervez
Musharraf, the former Pakistani mili-
tary ruler charged with treason, ex-
ploded on Thursday in an intersection
in Islamabad minutes after his convoy
passed by, the police said, but no one
was hurt. The convoy was moving Mr.
Musharraf froma military hospital in
Rawalpindi to his farmhouse on the
outskirts of Islamabad.
For some Afghans, vote is empty promise
CHARKH, AFGHANISTAN
BY AZAM AHMED
Oneof thefewpollingcenters inthis part
of Logar Province is the governments
district headquarters, a building so dev-
astated by rocket attacks and Taliban
gunfire that it looks more like a bomb
shelter than an administrative office.
As the body count for security force
members has risen over the past few
days in this district, a stretch of dusty
farmland surrounded by mountains, it
has become clear that no one here is go-
ing to vote on Saturday, for president or
for provincial council delegates.
So far, that has not stopped security
officials from proclaiming the district
open for voting: It is not among the
roughly 10 percent of 7,500 total national
sites shut down as too dangerous to pro-
tect. The Charkh district center has
been pumped full of security force mem-
bers to keep the vote a nominal possibil-
ity, but residents knowthat within a day
or twoafter the elections, the guards will
be gone and the Taliban will remain.
The government has no meaning
here, said Khalilullah Kamal, the dis-
trict governor, who was shot two times
in the stomach a few months ago while
speaking in a mosque. If there is no ex-
pectation that we will arrest people who
break the law, then how do we expect
the people to come and vote?
Security is the cornerstone of the
Afghan governments promise to deliv-
er a free and fair election, and this time
around the entire operation rests on the
countrys security forces. They are fac-
ingaTalibancampaignof violent disrup-
tion that has repeatedly struck at West-
ern and government targets, including
on Wednesday, when a suicide bomber
killed six police officers at the gate of the
Interior Ministry in Kabul, the capital.
Despite that, many early reports have
been favorable. Afghan and Western of-
ficials alike believe that more people
will vote on Saturday than in the 2009
elections. The violence in Kabul still
grabs headlines, but officials say that
elsewhere, attacks are down since the
last election. And generally, Afghans in
Kabul and other major population cen-
ters have been enthusiastically en-
gaged in the campaign.
But the reality in some rural and con-
tested parts of Afghanistan is far differ-
ent. In Charkh and similar districts in
pockets of the south and east, the
Talibans threat is more real than the
governments promise. Their allotted
ballots will not add to any Kabul admin-
istrations credibility, and worse, there
is real fear that the governments pres-
ence will be completely driven out after
Western troops are gone. For now,
Afghan forces are struggling to keep
these districts on the electoral map.
Officials say security in major popula-
tion centers has improved to the point
that some districts where no real voting
was possible in 2009, particularly
around the southern city of Kandahar,
are more likely to count this time. The
Afghan Army has deployed an extra
60,000 soldiers across the country in re-
cent weeks, focusing heavily on the
areas that sit on the bubble of insecure
and just secure enough.
That technically includes Charkh. But
the truth is that the insurgents have
held sway here for years, including
when American forces were present.
Then, the dirt road leading into the
district was riddled with explosives, the
villages armed with machine guns, the
residents determined to expel foreign-
ers from their midst. When Afghan
forces took over, the assumption was
that the district would quickly fall to the
Taliban. But the security forces proved
resilient, willing to go after the insur-
gents or at least hold their ground.
Still, before a recent surge of opera-
tions that began two weeks before the
election, the road was deadly, laced with
bombs. Large mudcompounds flank the
street, offering ample cover for Taliban
fighters. When soldiers venture into the
communities to find the shooters, they
find women and unarmed farmers.
The administrative buildingsits at the
center of the main roads path through
the district itself a link in a major
thoroughfare of insurgent traffic across
a broader region of the countrys east.
Every surface within the battered maze
of Hesco barriers and concrete walls
used to secure the building has been
gouged by repeated fire, leaving the im-
pression that the entire compound is
suffering a lethal bout of chickenpox.
More than 550 security force mem-
bers, soldiers and police officers have
been operating in Charkh over the last
few weeks, trying to shore up security
enoughfor civilians to get out andvote if
they choose to. After the elections,
however, their numbers here will dwin-
dle to about 150, the majority from the
army. Even the most optimistic security
officials acknowledge that the road will
again become impassable.
Residents say they feel besieged by
the Taliban, who rule with an iron fist,
and the government, which has shown a
heavy hand in the last few weeks as it
hassles drivers in an effort to ferret out
suicide bombers.
The villagers are fed up with the
government and the Taliban, said Mo-
hammad Nafi, a teacher, as he was
searched for the fifth time in an hour. I
dont think a single person will come out
and vote.
His friend Mohammad Isa put it more
bluntly, We will be very, very happy to
see the Afghan forces leave this area.
Other villagers who are more enthusi-
astic about the government acknowl-
edge that there is nothing it can do
about Taliban control. Abdul Malik, a
tribal elder inthe district, saidno matter
how much security the government
provided, it meant nothing if officials
could not govern.
The Taliban have a district center,
Mr. Malik said, sitting in a circle of mil-
itary commanders he had come to visit
Wednesday morning. We have a gov-
ernment district center, too, but nobody
cares about it, and they definitely dont
want to be seen there. So they go to the
Taliban district center instead.
Haris Kakar contributed reporting from
Charkh, and Taimoor Shah fromKanda-
har, Afghanistan.
Sea of water
is discovered
under ice on
Saturn moon
Violence in rural areas
is expected to prevent
meaningful participation
The villagers are fed up
with the government and the
Taliban. I dont think a single
person will come out and vote.
bejudgedas atruestatesmanwhotrans-
ferred power peacefully for the first time
in Afghanistan, Mr. Muradian said. At
the same time, he his being pulled by his
Machiavellian side, and he wants to re-
main relevant in Afghan politics and be
the power behind the next president.
That may be bad news for Obama ad-
ministration officials who had basically
given up working with Mr. Karzai after
he refused to sign a long-term security
deal that would allow American troops
to stay. The leading candidates to suc-
ceed him have all promised to sign the
deal once inaugurated, but that day is
likelyto be months away. Mr. Karzai will
remain president in that time, and his
public frustration with American policy
has only been hardening in recent
months, Afghan officials say.
The presidents advisers insist,
however, that Mr. Karzai is taking pains
to avoid any appearance of overt influ-
ence in the election. A wide array of
Afghan and Western officials concede
that he has allowed a real presidential
race to develop once he helped set the
field. And he has let the competing fac-
tions within his government support
whomever they preferred.
Thenewfirst vicepresident hejust ap-
pointed, for example, supports the one
candidate whomMr. Karzai is said to be
most opposed to seeing elected: Abdul-
lah Abdullah, the presidents chief polit-
ical opponent. Mr. Karzai has said he be-
lieves Dr. Abdullah relies too narrowly
on his appeal to his Tajik ethnic political
base and might tip the country back into
civil war if elected, but the president still
has not publicly spoken against him, ac-
cording to some of his aides.
The aides, along with several other of-
ficials interviewed about Mr. Karzai,
spoke on condition of anonymity to
avoid angering the president.
Yet upsetting Mr. Karzai might be
tougher to do these days. The president,
officials close to him say, has suddenly
relaxed in the past month. After com-
mitting to his course by rejecting the
Obama administrations pressure to
sign a security deal, he was said to be
immensely pleased when the flow of
American officials into his office slowed
to a trickle as a result.
Still, the relationship is not over just
yet. And if he is more relaxed, Mr. Kar-
zai has still shown no tendency to soften
his criticismof the Americans.
Late last month, for instance, he de-
WAKIL KOHSAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE GETTY IMAGES
Hamid Karzai arriving to deliver his final address as president in the Afghan Parliament
in March. Officials close to Mr. Karzai say he has suddenly relaxed in the past month.
After Afghan elections, Karzai wont just fade away
KARZAI, FROM PAGE 1
. . . .
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properties
Panama City capitalizes on glimmers of a resurgence
PANAMA
BY KEVIN BRASS
At the tip of Punta Pacfica, a neighbor-
hood in Panama covered with sky-
scrapers, a narrowbridge leads to a new
25-acre artificial island.
The island, which covers 10 hectares,
is the first part of a residential and mar-
ina development called Ocean Reef,
originally announced in 1998 by Empre-
sas ICA, a Mexican conglomerate.
Today, Grupo Los Pueblos, a Panamani-
an company hired by Empresas ICA to
develop the project, is handing over the
first lots to buyers planning to build
homes there.
The project, with a marina and resort-
style amenities, has all the elements of a
development designed for international
buyers seeking a second home. But of
the 63 buyers so far, 56 are from
Panama, said Alfredo Alemn, execu-
tive vice president of Grupo Los
Pueblos.
Sales to foreign buyers dried up here
after the 2008 global economic crisis.
But developers like Mr. Alemn are re-
viving their global marketing efforts
amid signs of renewed interest from in-
ternational buyers in a city that is often
called the Miami of Latin America.
Such optimismin the residential mar-
ket is fueled by the continued strength
of the local economy, analysts say. The
$5.2 billion expansion of the Panama
Canal is scheduled for completion in
2015, although it has been mired in dis-
pute and work suspensions. And First
Quantum Minerals, a Canadian com-
pany, is planning a $6 billion copper
mining operation in western Panama.
In the residential market, a lot of the
growth will come fromexisting multina-
tionals that already have moved here,
said Justin Boyar, who tracks the mar-
ket for Jones Lang LaSalle, a property
consulting firm.
There is no central source of reliable
real estate data in Panama. But agents
say that prices increased 10 percent or
more inthe last year, witha jumpinbuy-
ers from Venezuela, Colombia and
North America.
For example, apartments selling for
$186 a square foot six months ago now
are selling for $205 to $214 a square foot,
said Duncan McGowan president of
Punta Pacifica Realty, a local estate
agent (Panama real estate is typically
transacted in dollars.)
The price increase is a contrast to the
steady declines of recent years. After a
building boom in which dozens of resid-
ential towers were completed, prices in
many projects dropped 30 percent to 50
percent from 2008 to 2012, according to
industry estimates. At the time, more
than 300 towers were in the planning
stages, under construction or recently
completed in the city.
More than 50 percent of the buyers in
Trump Ocean Club which opened in
2011 as the tallest building in Central
America at 932 feet forfeited their de-
posits rather than complete the pur-
chase of units that had significantly
dropped in value.
Even as the global economy re-
covered, prices in the city were slow to
rebound. And projects completed after
the downturn have added more than
4,000 apartments to the market over the
past three years, according to data
tracked by Panama Equity, a local es-
tate agency.
Yet many say that they believe that
the canal and mining projects will at-
tract more buyers.
I think there will be two Panamas:
the Panama before the expansion of the
canal and the Panama afterward, said
Jos Bern, president of Empresas Bern,
one of the most prolific residential build-
ers in the city along Avenida Balboa, the
main road on the central citys water-
front.
Industry supporters and local resi-
dents also hope that the completion of a
long list of infrastructure projects will
help ease the citys longstanding prob-
lems withsewage andtraffic. Acitywide
RODRIGO ARANGUA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The Punta Pacfica neighborhood in Panama. Optimism in the citys residential market is generated by the continued strength of the local economy, analysts say.
After economic slump,
developers see renewed
interest from foreigners
subway system, the first in Central
America, is scheduled to open this
spring.
The biggest hope is that it will re-
lease us from the massive amount of
cars on the road here, said Sandie Dav-
is, a Seattle native who invested in real
estate even before she moved to the city
five years ago.
In 2006, Ms. Davis paid a preconstruc-
tion price of $117,000 for a three-bed-
room, 1,100-square-foot apartment in
the Costa del Este, a fast-growing mas-
ter-planned, 310-acre development a
few miles outside the city center. She
rented it out for $1,800 to $2,000 a month,
finally selling it in 2012 for $180,000.
Ms. Davis nowlives in a 2,368-square-
foot, two-bedroom apartment in an
older building in Obarrio, the citys
banking district, about a block from a
newmetro station. She paid $240,000 for
the apartment, including the furniture,
in 2009.
Withthe market indecline at the time,
it was a little bit of an emotional play,
she said, adding, Id seen the apart-
ment a year before and fell in love with
it.
Most of the newresidential activity in
the city has come from Costa del Este.
Empresas Bern is shifting its emphasis
to the newer area, said Mr. Bern, the
company president.
Weve completed delivery of our last
building on Avenida Balboa, he said.
Development is also increasing in
Panam Pacfico, a 3,450-acre project at
the former Howard Air Force Base, on
the west side of the Panama Canal. De-
veloped by the British company London
&Regional Properties, the project plans
for more than 20,000 residential units as
well as office and commercial space.
So far, about 800 homes have been
sold, most in the past two years, said
Marco Ruiz, London &Regionals direc-
tor of residential development. As for
construction, 270 homes were built in
2013, with 600 scheduled for completion
this year, he said.
Eric Carrasco, a Panamanian who
runs a tour company, recently pur-
chased a four-bedroom, 3,330-square-
foot home being built in Panam Pac-
fico. He says the newhouse will give his
family a different life than what they
nowhave in a congested Panama neigh-
borhood.
Now I drive my kids to school and it
takes 45 minutes, Mr. Carrasco said.
There, they will be able to ride their
bicycles to school.
About 80 percent of the buyers in
Panam Pacfico are Panamanian, but
the developers expects international
sales to account for a larger percentage
in the future.
We know its going to turn around,
Mr. Ruiz said. The demographics are
there. Theyve always been there.
I think there will be two
Panamas: the Panama before
the expansion of the canal and
the Panama afterward.
. . . .
americas world news
LARRY DOWNING/REUTERS
President Obama said in Chicago that officials were going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. Were heartbroken something like this might have happened again.
KILLEEN, TEX.
BY DAVID MONTGOMERY,
MANNY FERNANDEZ
AND ASHLEY SOUTHALL
Military officials testifying at a hearing
on Thursday in Washington provided
some detail about the soldier at Fort
Hood accused of killing three people and
wounding 16 others at the post on Wed-
nesday before taking his own life.
The secretary of the Army, John M.
McHugh, said at a Senate Armed Ser-
vices Committeethat thesuspect, anIraq
war veteran identified as Specialist Ivan
Lopez, was being evaluated for post-
traumatic stress disorder at the time of
the shooting. Army officials said that
Specialist Lopez had been prescribed
Ambien, a sleep aid, and other medica-
tions to treat anxiety and depression.
Specialist Lopez was examined by a
psychiatrist within the last month, the
Army secretary said, but showed no
signs that he might commit a violent act.
The plan forward was just to continue
to monitor and treat him as deemed ap-
propriate, Mr. McHugh said.
He also said that the suspect had had
no involvement with extremist organi-
zations of any kind, and that he had a
clean record.
Fort Hoods weapons rules for sol-
diers who are not police officers rely in
large part on the honor system. Soldiers
must register their firearms, which
Army officials said Specialist Lopez had
failed to do. Regardless of registration,
most of the vehicles of the soldiers en-
tering the base are not given a thorough
screening for firearms.
The bases rules prohibit soldiers
from storing weapons in their vehicles,
require firearms to be kept in certain
storage areas and mandate that all per-
sonnel bringing a privately owned fire-
arm onto base in a vehicle must declare
that they are doing so and state the rea-
son why. Violators face judicial or ad-
ministrative penalties.
On Nov. 5, 2009, inside a medical pro-
cessing building at Fort Hood, Major
Nidal Malik Hasanshot andkilled12 sol-
diers andone civilianwhile woundingor
shooting at 30 other soldiers and two po-
lice officers. He drove onto the base that
day with an FN Five-seven semi-auto-
matic handgun and a .357-caliber re-
volver in his vehicle.
The security procedures put in place
following the 2009 shooting were but
one of several avenues of inquiry for
Army officials and federal investigators
on Thursday.
The soldier had been a member of the
Puerto Rico National Guard for nine
years before joining the Army in 2008,
the military said. In addition to serving
as a truck driver in Iraq in 2011 fromAu-
gust to December, Mr. Lopez had been
deployedtotheSinai Peninsulafor about
one year while in the National Guard.
He was a very experienced soldier,
said Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the
Armys chief of staff.
According to media reports, the gun-
mans wife had been interviewed and
was cooperating with law enforcement
officials.
On Thursday morning, the base an-
nounced that it was making counselors
available and that a number of activi-
ties, including physical training, had
been canceled for the day.
Nine of the 16 injured were taken to
Scott & White Healthcare, a hospital in
nearby Temple, Tex., for treatment, the
authorities said. Three of the wounded
were in critical condition on Thursday.
Hospital officials said doctors had oper-
ated on two patients a man and a
woman who had suffered gunshot
wounds to the abdomen and neck. The
third person in critical condition has an
abdominal injury.
Fort Hoods commanding general said
Wednesday that the gunman had died of
a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The com-
mander, Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley, told re-
porters that the soldiers motive re-
mainedunclear, but that theshootingdid
not appear to be related to terrorism.
General Milley said that while the
gunman was being evaluated for post-
traumatic stress disorder, no diagnosis
had been made. There were indications
that he had reported a traumatic brain
injurywhenhe returnedfromIraq, Gen-
eral Milley said.
Reports of the shooting sent dozens of
local, state and federal lawenforcement
officials rushing to the base as they had
in November 2009. In Chicago, Presi-
dent Obama said that White House and
Pentagon officials were following the
events closely.
We are going to get to the bottom of
exactly what happened, Mr. Obama
said. Were heartbroken something
like this might have happened again.
The episode appeared to have unfol-
ded around 4:30 p.m. at a medical sup-
port building. Witnesses described
chaos as gunshots rang out.
The base was put on lockdown, as
Army officials took to Twitter and Face-
book to alert soldiers there to shelter in
place and stay away fromwindows. The
injured were transported to Fort Hoods
medical center and other area hospitals.
The authorities said Specialist Lopez
appeared to have walked into one build-
ing, then gone inside a vehicle and fired
shots from the vehicle with a .45-caliber
Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol
that had recently been bought in the
Killeen area. He got out of the vehicle,
walked into another building and
opened fire again, and then engaged
with a military police officer before
shooting himself.
He put his hands up, General Milley
said, then reached under his jacket. The
officer pulled out her weapon, and then
Specialist Lopez put his weapon to his
head and fired. General Milley de-
scribed the police officers actions as
clearly heroic, adding: She did her
job. She did exactly what we would ex-
pect of U.S. Army military police.
Major Hasan, who carried out the at-
tack in 2009, was found guilty and sen-
tencedto deathafter a militarytrial held
at Fort Hood last year under tight secu-
rity. He was transferred after the trial to
Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, home of
the militarys death row and death
chamber.
In addition to the 2009 attack and the
one on Wednesday, Fort Hood was the
site of a planned attack that was foiled
by the authorities.
A 22-year-old Army private, Naser
Jason Abdo, was arrested in July 2011
and charged with trying to detonate an
explosive device at a restaurant fre-
quented by Fort Hood soldiers. Private
Abdo was found at a hotel roomnear the
base with a .40-caliber semiautomatic
pistol, bomb-making materials and an
article describing how to make a bomb
in a kitchen. He had been involved in
disputes with the military over his
Muslim beliefs and his coming deploy-
ment to Afghanistan. He was convicted
by a federal jury of attempted use of a
weapon of mass destruction, among
other charges.
Representative Michael McCaul, Re-
publican of Texas and chairman of the
Homeland Security Committee, said the
three episodes had given him concern
that the base was becoming a target
for potential jihadists.
In Washington, intelligence officials
said Thursday that they were investi-
gating potential terrorist connections to
the shooting, but so far had no evidence
to suggest any.
Dave Montgomery reported fromKilleen,
Tex., Manny Fernandez fromHouston
and Ashley Southall fromNewYork.
Timothy Williams and Emma G. Fitzsim-
mons contributed reporting fromNew
York, AndrewMcLemore fromTemple,
Tex., and Eric Schmitt fromWashington.
WASHINGTON
BY MARK LANDLER
Each year, just before Passover, Mal-
colmHoenlein sends a letter to the pres-
ident, requesting that he grant clem-
ency to Jonathan J. Pollard, an
American sentenced to life in prison in
1987 for passing suitcases stuffed with
classified documents to Israel.
This week, with his goal suddenly
within reach, Mr. Hoenlein, the leader of
an umbrella group of American Jewish
organizations, has put a hold on the let-
ter. He is waiting to see whether Presi-
dent Obama will release Mr. Pollard as
part of a prisoner exchange with Israel
that would extend peace negotiations
between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Even now, nearly three decades later,
Mr. Pollards case bedevils American
Jews. While more and more of them be-
lieve that the time to release himis long
past he spiedfor anally, not anenemy,
they say, and has expressed remorse
they are deeply, often viscerally, divided
over whether he should be used as a chit
in a diplomatic transaction with Israel.
For those directly involved in trying
to broker Middle East peace, the talk of
freeing a Reagan-era spy has roused an-
other ghost fromthe past: the dark sug-
gestion that American Jews, like Mr.
Pollard, inevitablyholddividedloyalties
and cannot be trusted in sensitive posts.
American Jews worry that if Mr. Pol-
lard receives a heros welcome in Israel
alikelyscenario, giventhe Israeli gov-
ernments long campaign on his behalf
it would cause a backlash in the
United States, where Mr. Pollard is still
viewedbymany, especiallyinthenation-
al-security establishment, as a traitor
who sold his countrys secrets for cash.
Pollard represents the ultimate be-
trayal, said Aaron David Miller, one of
a circle of American Jewish diplomats
who came of age at the time of Mr. Pol-
lards arrest. He is also a poster child
for one of the darker tropes in American
society: that Jews simply cannot have a
single loyalty.
Born in Galveston, Texas, to a Jewish
family shadowed by the Holocaust, Mr.
PollardgrewupwithZionist ideals anda
fascination with the world of spying.
With a degree fromStanford University,
he was hired as Navy intelligence ana-
lyst and soon began selling classified in-
formationtoanIsraeli handler, whopaid
him $1,500 a month, bought his wife a
diamondandsapphire ring, andsent the
couple on expensive trips to Europe.
In 1985, Mr. Pollard sought asylum in
the Israeli Embassy in Washington but
was disavowed by the Israelis. In 1987,
after a reading a memo from the de-
fense secretary at the time, Caspar W.
Weinberger, detailing the damage he
had done, a judge sentenced Mr. Pollard
to a life term. Since 1993, he has beenina
federal prison in North Carolina.
Mr. Hoenlein, who has visited Mr. Pol-
lard in prison, said he should be re-
leased purely onhumanitariangrounds.
But he said he was resigned that it
wouldprobablybe linkedto Middle East
politics, particularly since Mr. Pollard is
eligible for parole in November 2015,
which makes hima diminishing asset as
a bargaining chip.
All along, many of us felt his release
would be part of a larger context, said
Mr. Hoenlein, the executive vice chair-
man of the Conference of Presidents of
Major Jewish Organizations.
For some Jewish leaders, however,
the prospect that Mr. Pollard would be
released reflects the desperation of Sec-
retary of State John Kerry to keep the
peace talks alive.
Mr. Kerry, in Algiers on Thursday for a
security conference, pointedly warned
Israeli and Palestinian leaders that time
was running short to salvage the peace
talks. HecanceledatriponWednesdayto
the region when a seemingly imminent
deal to extend the talks reportedly in-
cludingMr. Pollards release fell apart.
But in Washington, the White House
spokesman, JayCarney, saidthat thedia-
logue remained open and that both sides
wanted to find a way to move forward.
The potential release of Mr. Pollard
also muddies the moral issue, since as
part of the deal, Israel wouldagree to re-
lease 400 prisoners, including Arab-Is-
raelis, some of whomare guilty of killing
Jews.
If everything the secretary of state
has achieved hangs on the thread of ex-
changing Jonathan Pollard for Palestin-
ian murderers of women and children,
than there wasnt much there to begin
with, saidAbrahamH. Foxman, the na-
tional director of the Anti-Defamation
League.
At the time of Mr. Pollards arrest,
American Jews were uniformly ap-
palled by his crimes, Mr. Foxman said,
and worried that it might reverberate
on them. He recalled rejecting a request
that the Anti-Defamation League de-
clare the life sentence anti-Semitic.
Nowhere was the anxiety more acute
than among Jews working in sensitive
jobs involving the Middle East jobs
that were just opening up to Jews dur-
ing the Reagan administration.
Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former ambassa-
dor to Egypt and Israel, said he knewof
Jews who were removed from projects
involving Israel after Mr. Pollards ar-
rest. Even now, he said, Americans with
relatives living in Israel are sometimes
denied high-level security clearances.
Dennis B. Ross, asenior adviser onthe
Middle East to both President Bill Clin-
ton and Mr. Obama, recalled fearing that
his loyalty as a Pentagon policy analyst
would be questioned after Mr. Pollards
arrest. Initially, there was a kind of ab-
horrence, he said. But the longer hes
been in, the more people ask questions.
Among those who have publicly
called for Mr. Pollards release are two
former secretaries of state, Henry A.
Kissinger and George P. Shultz, and a
former director of the C.I.A., R. James
Woolsey. For the Israelis, who granted
Mr. Pollard citizenship in 1995 and ad-
mitted he had spied for themin 1998, his
release is nowan article of faith.
He is the embodiment of a national
narrative of the Jewwho sacrificed him-
self for his people, said Michael B.
Oren, an American-born historian who
renounced his United States citizenship
in 2009 to become Israels ambassador
to Washington.
While Mr. Pollard remains a reviled
figure for many American Jews, sup-
port for his release crosses political
boundaries.
This is someone whose politics I de-
test, and whose role inpublic sphere will
to be support reactionaryIsraeli policy,
said Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, a
progressive Jewish magazine in Berke-
ley, Calif. Nevertheless, his continued
imprisonment is unconscionable.
Still, Mr. Lerner noted that the issue
of dual loyalties had faded for American
Jews, along with Mr. Pollards case. If
one asked young Jews about Jonathan
Pollard, he said, the answer would be
Pollard who?
Hes not an issue, Mr. Lerner said,
hes not in peoples consciousness.
Armageddon has not arrived, Mr.
Obama said on Tuesday at the White
House, embracing the news as an exon-
eration.
Instead, this law is helping millions
of Americans, and in the coming years it
will help millions more.
The questions noware howmany mil-
lions more, how much help and at what
cost.
The Congressional Budget Office esti-
mates that enrollment in the federal and
state-run exchanges set up to help indi-
viduals find affordable insurance will
grow to 22 million in 2016. The Congres-
sional Budget Office has predicted that
expansions of the Medicaid program
will cover nine million people this year.
But for now it is difficult to say pre-
cisely how many Americans of the 48
million estimated by the Census Bureau
to have lacked insurance in 2012 re-
main uncovered.
White House officials said they did
not yet have a tally of those enrollees
who had previously been insured under
plans that were canceled, nor of how
many people who signed up have paid
their initial premiums.
The reality is that a very, very high
proportion of them already had insur-
ance, or would have had insurance with-
out enactment of the A.C.A., said
Joseph R. Antos of the American Enter-
prise Institute, a former Congressional
Budget Office analyst who specializes in
health-policy economics.
The actual cost to the government per
newly covered individual, Mr. Antos
said, might prove pretty astronomic-
al.
Key questions linger: whether con-
sumers continue to pay their share of
monthly premiums, whether they have
access to the doctors and hospitals they
need and those they want and wheth-
er insurance companies might have to
raise premiums because too few
healthy, young people have enrolled.
Assessing how the law, so far, has af-
fected health care costs is difficult.
While those costs have generally been
rising at a slower pace in the past few
years, part of that slowing preceded the
laws passage and part is attributed to
post-recession economic weakness.
Administration officials say that the
laws emphasis on preventive care and
cost containment has helped. Indicators
such as a decline in hospital readmis-
sion rates suggest that the laws incen-
tives have encouraged providers to hold
down spending. Mr. Obama said in July
that health care costs were growing at
their slowest rate in 50 years.
United States spending on health care
remains far above world standards. The
French system, for example, provides
universal coverage and a highly rated
quality of care at roughly half the cost,
per capita, of the American system.
The government there negotiates
prices for hospitals, doctors and pre-
scription drugs; because the medical-
industrial complex in France carries
less clout than its American counter-
part, stronger cost controls result.
France has fewer private health in-
surers and lower administrative costs.
A typical specialist in France makes
nearly $100,000 less a year than his or
her American counterpart, according to
2010 figures from the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Develop-
ment, though Americans generally
leave medical school with far higher in-
debtedness. And the United States has a
substantially higher ratio of specialists
to generalists.
American hospitals, medical-device
makers, specialists and other providers
can sometimes set prices that are dras-
tically higher than those prevailing in
other countries. Controlling a health
care system that layers government
regulation and oversight above a
private insurance system and profit-
driven health care economy is likely to
challenge presidents long after Mr.
Obama leaves office.
And the political battles over health
care are far from over. Administration
officials say that Democratic candidates
must be prepared for a fierce fight in the
months leading up to November elec-
tions to convince Americans that Re-
publicans with their call to repeal and
replace the healthlawwant to take in-
surance away frommillions of people.
Those who call for a return to the
status quo ante, said Jay Carney, the
White House spokesman, are going to
have some explaining to do to those mil-
lions of Americans who nowhave the se-
curity of affordable health insurance.
Robert J. Blendon, a professor of
health policy at Harvard University,
said several dynamics would keep the
issue alive at least through November
and the midterm elections: Many key
electoral fights will be in Republican-
leaning states where the law is unpopu-
lar; further bumps on the road to imple-
mentation seem inevitable; and a rela-
tively small number of Americans have
so far visibly benefited from the new
law.
There will not be a single Republi-
can running for office that I can find,
Mr. Blendon said, who will do anything
but talk about repealing or scaling back
this bill.
Mr. Antos agreed: Republicans will
continue to scream repeal and replace
eventhoughthat hasnt made any sense
for a long, long time.
Mr. Obama on Tuesday proclaimed
himself mystified by the continuing as-
saults on the law, and said the enroll-
ment figures should finally put an end to
Republicans repeated repeal attempts.
Ive got to admit, I dont get it, he
said. Why are folks working so hard
for people not to have health insur-
ance?
As if on cue, Mr. Obamas Republican
adversaries dismissed the enrollment
data as flawed and irrelevant. Senator
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the
minority leader, called the health care
lawa catastrophe for the country.
While some officials described the en-
rollments as the end of a marathon, Mr.
Blendon of Harvard said, the reality for
the administration is that it is the end
of the first stretchof the marathon. They
got through the first stretch, and all you
can say is that its not as bad as would
have been expected.
U.S. health lawhits a mark, but critics persist and political battles loom
HEALTH, FROM PAGE 1
Middle East talks
focus on jailed spy
Were going to have
30 million people without
coverage, and that would be
unthinkable in Europe.
KARL DEBLAKER/ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1998
Jonathan J. Pollard is eligible for parole
next year, reducing his bargaining value.
Iraq war veteran accused
of killing 3 had been
evaluated at Fort Hood
The plan forward was
just to continue to monitor
and treat him as deemed
appropriate.
Gunman was treated for depression
Israel wants U.S. to free
former Navy analyst,
but case remains divisive
He is also a poster child for
one of the darker tropes.
8 | FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
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Ghazi Stadium, where every event in-
vites comparisons by Western journa-
lists to the public executions the Taliban
once held here. In a voice hoarse from
campaigning, Mr. Ghani spoke to the
crowd about politics, religion, ethnic
harmony and social welfare, promising
a brighter future and a newstyle of gov-
ernance. The stadiumwas only half-full,
but the attendees, mostly young men,
were excited.
Polls showthat Mr. Ghani is one of
the three most popular candidates,
along with Abdullah
Abdullah, a northern-
er who placed second
in 2009, and Zalmay
Rassoul, an unas-
suming bureaucrat
widely considered to
be Mr. Karzais favor-
ite. All three regu-
larly drawcrowds of
tens of thousands of
people whether attracted by the poli-
tics or the prospect of a free meal. In
Kabul and other cities, a messy demo-
cratic process, skewed by violence and
corruption, and fed as much by cyn-
icismas enthusiasm, is underway.
But this belies the reality of life in the
war-torn countryside, where neither
democracy nor development has found
much success. Across the city from
Ghazi Stadium, I visited the refugee
Undaunted by Chinas aggressive rhetoric and expansionist
claims to nearly all of the South China Sea, the Philippines
has filed a legal case against Beijing with an international
arbitration tribunal in The Hague. This is an appropriate
venue to resolve a major dispute peacefully and in accord
with global norms. The strategy of the Philippines has
implications for others with similar claims against China
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan and thus
deserves support fromthe international community.
The rivalry between China and the Philippines is bitter
and potentially dangerous, with frequent face-offs at sea
over the disputed islands and rocks. It is not hard to imagine
incidents spiraling out of control. In the latest episode, on
Saturday a Philippine vessel outmaneuvered the Chinese
Coast Guard and resupplied a ship that has been stranded
for 15 years on a tiny reef called the Second Thomas Shoal.
The Philippines intentionally grounded the vessel in 1999 to
stake claimto the reef, and it has since served as, effectively,
a military outpost. The Chinese ships were trying to block a
delivery of fresh food and troops fromreaching it.
The Second Thomas Shoal is at the heart of the legal
brief filed with the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It
argues that the shoal, known as Ayungin in the Philippines
and Renai Reef in China, is 105 nautical miles fromthe
Philippines, well inside the 200 nautical miles of an
exclusive economic zone that allows the Philippines to
control and exploit the waters around the shoal under the
United Nations Convention on the Lawof the Sea. Aruling
is expected sometime next year.
China is a signatory to the 1982 Convention on the Lawof
the Sea, though it has opted out of international jurisdiction
over some territorial issues. Its proposed remedy in this
case bilateral talks has been on offer for years and
clearly has not led to a settlement. Given all the tension, it is
time for a legal proceeding allowing both sides to present
their best arguments and obtain a judgment. The United
States has not taken sides on the claims but has argued for
a peaceful resolution and backed the right of the Philippines
to use the tribunals dispute mechanism. Other countries
should take a similar stand or risk sending China a message
that it can keep trying to bully its rivals into submission.
Clemens Wergin
Contributing Writer
BERLIN Remember Americas pivot to
Asia? Just over three years ago, Presi-
dent Obama announced that Washing-
ton would rebalance its resources to a
part of the world where, it was believed,
the decisive battles of the 21st century
would be fought.
It seemed to make sense. China was
the big story. The United States was
tired of the Middle East. And Europe, fi-
nally pacified after the Cold War and
the Balkan conflicts, didnt seemto
pose much of a security challenge.
Today, though, the pivot to Asia ap-
pears to have been largely called off.
The Middle East, with its revolutions
and power vacuums, is sucking America
back in. Meanwhile, the European Un-
ions failure to stop the Russian invasion
of Crimea means that the United States
has again been drawn into continental
politics, with the looming possibility of
another Cold War. And both Europe and
the United States are nowmaking a
quietly revolutionary attempt to rewrite
the rules of trans-Atlantic trade.
This is a remarkable comeback for
America. In Europes last crisis, over
the euro, the United States was largely
absent partly for a lack of financial
resources, and partly, it seems, out of
frustration with the muddled way that
the union went about saving itself.
In the midst of that crisis, European
leaders, with American backing, put
forward the idea of a trans-Atlantic free
trade zone as a way to jump-start
growth without more stimulus spend-
ing. With the crisis we thought that
was the right moment to get something
done, recalled WilliamKennard, the
American ambassador to the European
Union at the time. Official negotiations
for the resulting plan,
the Transatlantic
Trade and Invest-
ment Partnership,
started in mid-2013.
But what was seen
in the beginning as
predominantly an
economic issue has
nowmorphed into a
major strategic en-
deavor. Aresurgent Russia means that
the West needs to find ways to coordi-
nate and consolidate its interests. In
that vein, the partnership is the most
ambitious project to date to bind both
sides of the Atlantic into a more perfect
Western union, and to add an economic
pillar to the longstanding military one
represented by NATO.
Still, the process has been slowgoing,
and fraught with tension. In mid-March,
while the fourth round of negotiations
was taking place in Brussels, I took a
State Department-funded trip to Brus-
sels and Washington to see the talks
Matthieu Aikins
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN Most politi-
cians homes I have visited here are
heavy on fake gilt and rococo furniture,
but Ashraf Ghani, one of the leading
candidates in Saturdays presidential
election, is known as a technocrat and a
sophisticate. Its a beautiful house, I
said, looking around at the exquisite
Nuristani carved chests and Persian
miniature paintings that decorated his
living room. It is, replied Naseem
Sharifi, one of Mr. Ghanis campaign
managers, beaming. Then he frowned.
The other day, they collected three or
four kilos of human flesh off the roof.
Mr. Ghanis house is next door to a
branch office belonging to the election
commission, which was assailed by sui-
cide bombers last week, one of many
Taliban attacks in the capital recently.
Like the other seven candidates, Mr.
Ghani has been conducting a campaign
in the midst of war, a fraught exercise
that has come to typify the countrys
struggling democracy.
This will be Afghanistans fifth elec-
tion since the fall of the Taliban in 2001,
the third for the presidency. Hamid
Karzai, who has led the country since
then, wont be running this time; he has
reached the constitutional two-term
limit. His departure, combined with
that of international combat forces at
the end of the year, means that the
stakes of the upcoming transfer of
power are extraordinarily high.
If you believe the candidates rhetoric,
this is a momentous occasion for politic-
al change and democratic renewal. But
it is hard to imagine that this election
will be any less marred by controversy
and fraud than previous ones. With a
clear winner unlikely to emerge on Sat-
urday, a protracted vote count and run-
off election seemall but certain. And the
peculiar alliances formed during the
campaign have already exposed howAf-
ghanistans deeply flawed political sys-
temhas undermined democracy by en-
couraging elites to bargain for power at
the expense of public accountability.
Mr. Ghani arrived, and the entourage
of us journalists and aides who had been
waiting to accompany himto a rally in
the city center piled into the armored
SUVs parked outside. Amotley array of
gunmen surrounded the vehicles not
only guards fromthe police and intelli-
gence services, but also tough-looking
Kandaharis fromthe south with tricked-
out M4 rifles and platoons of camo-clad
Uzbeks sent by Mr. Ghanis running
mate, Abdul Rashid Dostum, the contro-
versial strongman fromthe north.
We sped off to the rally. It was held in
camp at Charahi Qambar. Here, several
thousand people live under mud huts
and tarps on a plateau of packed mud
crossed by refuse-clogged rivulets, al-
most all of theminternally displaced
refugees fleeing violence in the south.
The camp has been in place for years,
with Kabul expanding around it.
There was little enthusiasmfor the
election there. I asked a group of men
at the camps mosque if they planned to
vote. What difference does it make?
Mohammed Fatih, a refugee fromHel-
mand, replied. We voted in 2004 and
2009, and were worse off than ever.
Politics is for the rich and important
people, not the landless and unfortu-
nate. The others nodded in agreement.
These men are representatives of the
vast swaths of Afghanistan that have
hardly benefited fromthe international
intervention and the newdemocratic
order it established. The rural-urban di-
vide is stark: While the cities are vi-
brant, there is a full-blown and worsen-
ing humanitarian crisis in many
conflict-affected areas. The United Na-
tions reports, for example, that cases of
severe malnutrition among children
have increased by 50 percent since
2012. The number of internally dis-
placed Afghans has been rising as well.
This gap between urban democracy
and rural misery is the product not only
of the countrys conflict with the Taliban
but also of a political systemthat disen-
franchises its constituents. Given that in
2001 development experts treated Af-
ghanistan as a tabula rasa, it is perverse
just howmuch the systemthey put in
place nowcontributes to, rather than al-
leviates, the countrys difficulties.
Afghanistan has a winner-take-all
system, where the president appoints
all positions in government, down to
the district level. His office is barely
checked by the judiciary or Parliament,
both of which are weak on paper and
weaker in practice. But then the all-
powerful executive is itself a fiction.
Given howfragmented the country is,
and howfeeble its institutions are, the
president must co-opt local power-
brokers, in an informal and corrupt pro-
cess of favor-swapping that takes place
behind the scenes.
Much of Mr. Karzais most frustrating
behavior his propensity to divide-
and-rule, his tolerance of corrupt allies,
his strategically erratic behavior can
be understood as a response to the de-
mands this systemplaces on its nominal
leader. It is a systemthat will remain un-
changed by this latest election: Even an
educated technocrat like Mr. Ghani was
compelled to partner with a man like Mr.
Dostum, whomhe himself once called,
well before this race, a known killer.
International donors have spent
around $1 billion on elections and re-
lated development projects here since
2001, and the current round will cost an-
other $126 million, according to Ziaul-
haq Amarkhil, the chief electoral officer.
Despite the expense, the fundamental
flaws that make fraud easy have not
been fixed. Most glaringly, there is the
lack of a proper census and voter rolls,
meaning that there is no way of match-
ing voters against a database. Some 21
million voter IDcards have been is-
sued, even though there are only 12 mil-
lion eligible voters. If Afghanistans
next president wishes to be seen as le-
gitimate by his people, he will have to
do more than simply win.
MATTHIEU AIKINS is a magazine writer
living in Kabul.
firsthand. I got the impression that
there is a lot of good will on both sides,
but that the devil lies in the details.
The partnership is not your usual
trade agreement. It is much bigger. Its
aimis to align rules and regulations to
lower market-access hurdles, espe-
cially for small and medium-size busi-
nesses that provide most of the jobs in
the United States and Europe.
More important, it will provide a
framework of common standards for
future negotiations worldwide. We are
the global rule makers, and that is at
the heart of T.T.I.P., said the economist
Andr Sapir, a senior fellowat Bruegel,
a think tank in Brussels. Mr. Sapir esti-
mated that the two sides are respon-
sible for 80 percent of global rules and
regulations.
The immensity of the task of coordi-
nating all those rules and regulations,
and the importance of getting it right, is
what makes it so hard to move ahead.
But the challenges go beyond the
mere complexity of the agreement.
Both sides were used to dealing with
less-powerful trade-negotiation part-
ners, who usually would adapt to the
bigger partners standard.
Both sides are trying to carve out pro-
tections the United States wants to ex-
clude financial services because it fears
a watering down of the Dodd-Frank re-
forms, while Europe has excluded audi-
ovisual media to protect its filmindustry.
And talks have stalled on the investment
chapter because of German opposition
to rules governing dispute settlements.
There may be good reasons behind each
position, but this sort of approach is the
perfect way to downsize a big and bold
project to an inconsequential size.
In other fields, though, the Ukraine
crisis has helped focus the talks.
Europe nowwants an energy chapter
that would lift restrictions on American
oil and gas exports, so that the Conti-
nent will be less dependent on Russian
exports a step that President Obama
has come to endorse.
The trade deal has its critics on both
sides of the Atlantic. But it is not just a
good idea; it is necessary for the future
of the West.
Yes, it will boost growth and lower
costs of trans-Atlantic business. But
perhaps more important, it will counter
the belief that the West is on the decline.
The power of states and alliances is
not only about numbers, but also percep-
tions, and a successful deal is one impor-
tant way to tell the world that the West is
alive and ready to shape the global order,
and that it stands united in that effort.
The economic crises of recent years,
and the return of a belligerent Russia,
have forced the West to refocus its ob-
jectives. It is a chance that Europe and
the United States should not waste.
CLEMENS WERGIN is the foreign editor of
the German newspaper group Die Welt
and the author of the blog Flatworld.
Pope Fran-
cis rightly
seeks to
restrain
lavish and
hypocritical
spending
by his
prelates.
Any Roman Catholic prelate who missed the message from
Pope Francis that he wanted a church which is poor and
for the poor certainly had to pay attention last month
when the Vatican forced the resignation of the bishop of
Limburg, Germany, because of his taste for opulent
housing worthy of the Holy Roman Empire.
Scandal arose when Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van
Elst was discovered spending at least 31 million euros, or
nearly $43 million, to renovate his princely home, right
down to a new15,000 bathtub. The Vatican found that the
bishop had tried to hide the true costs fromhis flock, and
he was unceremoniously forced to resign for some
humbler station.
Though the verdict is still out on Francis impact on the
hidebound Vatican bureaucracy, which he hopes to reform,
he is obviously galvanizing the church laity to complain
about the double standards and hypocrisy in the lush
lifestyles of their shepherds. In the United States, Wilton
Gregory, the archbishop of Atlanta, apologetically
announced this week that he would not be moving in to a
new$2.2 million, 6,000-square-foot mansion he had custom
built. Archbishop Gregory conceded that he had second
thoughts after being rebuked by lay Catholics struggling
to pay their mortgages even as they faithfully heeded his
pleas for church donations.
Leaders of a half-dozen other American dioceses have
moved to plainer surroundings as Francis keeps up the
pressure, urging simple runabouts, not limousines, as
preferable transportation for priests and nuns.
Howfar will the pope go in his refreshing demand for an
unpretentious lifestyle for the global church? By
coincidence, the centuries-old church of St. Francis at
Ripa, in a less elegant part of Rome, is in a state of
impoverished disrepair, forced to appeal for support on the
crowdfunding website Kickstarter as tourists begin
showing up by the busloads because the newpope chose
the name of Francis. The saint stayed there in a cell that
contains a stone he is said to have used as his sleeping
pillow.
No word yet on whether Pope Francis thinks it is time to
prescribe stone sleeping pillows for dedicated church
workers.
RISKY GAMES IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
WHEN SHEPHERDS GO DELUXE
The campaigns for Kabul
America needs a pivot to Europe
The Philip-
pines asks
a court to
rule on
Chinas
aggressive
territorial
moves.
Peculiar alli-
ances have ex-
posed howthe
flawed politic-
al system
undermines
democracy.
A trade pact
could bind
both sides of
the Atlantic
into a more
perfect West-
ern union.
Opinion
MITCH BLUNT
. . . .
Roger
Cohen
LONDON In a fascinating recent essay
in The London Reviewof Books, called
On Not Going Home, James Wood
relates howhe asked Christopher
Hitchens, long before he was termin-
ally ill, where he would go if he had only
a fewweeks to live. Would he stay in
America? No, Id go to Dartmoor, with-
out a doubt, he told me. It was the land-
scape of his childhood.
It was the landscape, in other words,
of unfiltered experience, of things felt
rather than thought through, of the
world in its beauty absorbed before it is
understood, of patterns and sounds that
lodge themselves in some indelible
place in the psyche and call out across
the years.
That question is worth repeating: If I
had only a fewweeks to live, where
would I go? It is a good way of getting
rid of the clutter that distracts or blinds.
I will get to that in a moment.
In the essay, Wood, who grewup in
England but has lived in the United
States for 18 years, explores a certain
formof contemporary homelessness
lives lived without the finality of exile,
but also without the familiarity of home.
He speaks of existences marked by a
certain provisionality, a structure of de-
parture and return that may not end.
This is a widespread modern condi-
tion; perhaps it is the modern condition.
Out of it, often, comes anxiety. Wood
does not focus on the psychological ef-
fects of what he calls a certain out-
sider-dom, but if you dig into people
who are depressed you often find that
their distress at some level is linked to a
sense of not fitting in, an anxiety about
belonging: displacement anguish.
Wood describes looking at the famili-
ar life of his Boston street, the heavy
maple trees, the unkempt willowdown
at the end, an old white Cadillac with
the bumper sticker Ted Kennedy has
killed more people than my gun, and I
feel . . . nothing: some recognition, but
no comprehension, no real connection,
no past, despite all the years I have
lived there just a tugging distance
fromit all. Apanic suddenly overtakes
me, and I wonder: Howdid I get here?
Having spent my infancy in South
Africa, grown up and been educated in
England, and then, after a peripatetic
life as a foreign correspondent, found
my home in NewYork, I understand
that how-did-I-get-here panic. But
Wood and I differ. He has no desire to
become an American citizen.
He quotes an immigration officer
telling him, AGreen Card is usually
considered a path to citizenship, and
continues: He was generously saying,
Would you like to be an American cit-
izen? along with the less generous:
Why dont you want to be an American
citizen? Can we imagine either senti-
ment being expressed at Heathrowair-
port?
No, we cant. And its that essential
openness of America, as well as the
(linked) greater ease of living as a Jew
in the United States compared with life
in the land of Lewis Namiers trem-
bling Israelites, that made me become
an American citizen and elect New
York as my home. Its the place that
takes me in.
But it is not the place of my deepest
connections. So, what if I had a few
weeks to live? I would go to Cape
Town, to my grandfathers house,
Duxbury, looking out over the railway
line near Kalk Bay station to the ocean
and the Cape of Good Hope. During my
childhood, there was the scent of salt
and pine and, in certain winds, a pun-
gent waft fromthe fish processing
plant in Fish Hoek. I would dangle a
little net in rock pools and find myself
hypnotized by the silky water and quiv-
ering life in it. The
heat, not the dry
high-veld heat of Jo-
hannesburg but
something denser,
pounded by the time
we came back from
the beach at lunch-
time. It reverberated
off the stone, angled into every recess.
The lunch table was set and soon
enough fried fish, usually firm-fleshed
kingklip, would be served, so fresh it
seemed to burst fromits batter. At
night the lights of Simons Town
glittered, a lovely necklace strung
along a promontory.
This was a happiness whose other
name was home.
Wood writes: Freud has a wonder-
ful word, afterwardness, which I need
to borrow, even at the cost of kidnap-
ping it fromits very different context.
To think about home and the departure
fromhome, about not going home and
no longer feeling able to go home, is to
be filled with a remarkable sense of af-
terwardness: It is too late to do any-
thing about it now, and too late to know
what should have been done. And that
may be all right.
Yes, being not quite home, accept-
ance, which may be bountiful, is what is
left to us.
Nicholas
Kristof
We in the United States growup celeb-
rating ourselves as the worlds most
powerful nation, the worlds richest na-
tion, the worlds freest and most
blessed nation.
Sure, technically Norwegians may be
wealthier per capita, and the Japanese
may live longer, but the world watches
the N.B.A., melts at Katy Perry, uses
iPhones to post on Facebook, trembles
at our aircraft carriers, and blames the
C.I.A. for everything. Were No. 1!
In some ways we indisputably are,
but a major newranking of livability in
132 countries puts the United States in a
sobering 16th place. We underperform
because our economic and military
strengths dont translate into well-be-
ing for the average citizen.
In the Social Progress Index, the
United States excels in access to ad-
vanced education but ranks 70th in
health, 69th in ecosystemsustainabil-
ity, 39th in basic education, 34th in ac-
cess to water and sanitation and 31st in
personal safety. Even in access to cell-
phones and the Internet, the United
States ranks a disappointing 23rd,
partly because one American in five
lacks Internet access.
Its astonishing that for a country
that has Silicon Valley, lack of access to
information is a red flag, notes Mi-
chael Green, executive director of the
Social Progress Imperative, which
oversees the index. The United States
has done better at investing in drones
than in children, and cuts in social ser-
vices could fray the social fabric further.
This Social Progress Index ranks
NewZealand No. 1, followed by
Switzerland, Iceland and the Nether-
lands. All are somewhat poorer than
America per capita, yet they appear to
do a better job of meeting the needs of
their people.
The Social Progress Index is a
brainchild of Michael E. Porter, the em-
inent Harvard business professor who
earlier helped develop the Global Com-
petitiveness Report. Porter is a Repub-
lican whose work, until now, has fo-
cused on economic metrics.
This is kind of a journey for me,
Porter told me. He said that he became
increasingly aware that social factors
support economic growth: tax policy
and regulations affect
economic prospects,
but so do schooling,
health and a societys
inclusiveness.
So Porter and a
teamof experts
spent two years de-
veloping this index,
based on a vast
amount of data re-
flecting suicide,
property rights,
school attendance,
attitudes toward im-
migrants and minorities, opportunity
for women, religious freedom, nutri-
tion, electrification and much more.
Many who back proposed Republican
cuts in Medicaid, food stamps and pub-
lic services believe that such trims
would boost Americas competitive-
ness. Looking at this report, it seems
that the opposite is true.
Ireland, fromwhich so many people
fled in the 19th century to find opportu-
nity in the United States, nowranks
15th. Thats a notch ahead of the United
States, and Ireland is also ahead of
America in the category of opportuni-
ty.
Canada came in seventh, the best
among the nations in the G-7. Germany
is 12th, Britain 13th and Japan 14th.
The bottomspot on the ranking was
filled by Chad. Just above it were Cen-
tral African Republic, Burundi, Guinea,
Sudan and Angola.
Professor Porter notes that Arab
Spring countries had longstanding
problems leading to poor scores in the
opportunity category. If thats a pre-
dictor of trouble, as he thinks it may be,
then Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and
Iran should be on guard. None do well
in the category of opportunity.
In contrast, some countries punch
well above their weight. Costa Rica per-
forms better than much richer coun-
tries, and so do the Philippines, Estonia
and Jamaica. In Africa, Malawi, Ghana
and Liberia shine. Bangladesh (No. 99)
ranks ahead of wealthier India (No.
102). Likewise, Ukraine (No. 62) out-
performs Russia (No. 80).
China does poorly, ranking 90th, be-
hind its poorer neighbor Mongolia (No.
89). China performs well in basic educa-
tion but lags in areas such as personal
rights and access to information.
All this goes to what kind of a nation
we want to be, and whether we put too
much faith in G.D.P. as a metric.
Over all, the United States economy
outperformed Frances between 1975
and 2006. But 99 percent of the French
population actually enjoyed more gains
in that period than 99 percent of the
American population. Exclude the top 1
percent, and the average French citizen
did better than the average American.
This lack of shared prosperity and op-
portunity has stunted our social pro-
gress.
There are no quick fixes, but basic
education and health care are obvious
places to begin, especially in the first
fewyears of life, when returns are the
highest.
The arguments for boosting opportu-
nity or social services usually revolve
around social justice and fairness. The
Social Progress Index offers a remind-
er that whats at stake is also the health
of our society and our competitive-
ness around the globe.
Michel Wieviorka
PARIS It was clear for months that the
French had fallen out of love with their
president. But the municipal elections
that ended Sunday showed that the dis-
affection ran much deeper. Abstention
rates were at record highs. The main-
streamright gained ground. The
Greens consolidated their standing
within the left. And, most significant for
the long term, the extreme right made
unprecedented inroads.
These results were a searing rebuke
to the leftist government of President
Franois Hollande. The first to admit as
much, Mr. Hollande immediately re-
placed the prime minister and re-
shuffled the cabinet. Political analysts
sometimes say that there is a general
political crisis in Europe, and that rep-
resentative democracy here is in bad
shape. In France at least, it turns out
that it is mostly the Socialist Party that
is in crisis.
And so nowthe National Front, the
leading far-right party, will govern 11
municipalities, including two rather
large cities in the south, as well as one
district in Marseille. (Another far-right
party also picked up three municipalit-
ies.) In many other places, the F.N. will
be a viable opposition force. This elec-
tion marks the advent of a newera: The
party, which controlled no township be-
fore, nowhas between 1,200 and 1,500
local councilors of its own.
This change will weigh heavily on
Frances political future, and not only
because local councilors elect senators.
The F.N., which used to pride itself on
being anti-systme (against the sys-
tem), today calls itself un parti de
gouvernement (a government party).
Nowthat it has become one of Frances
main political parties, the overall equi-
libriumbetween the left and the right
may change.
Agood turnout for the F.N. is always
evidence, at bottom, of a protest vote;
people cast their ballot for the party as
a way of complaining about the main-
stream. But this time the F.N. was espe-
cially clever about tapping the discon-
tent so as to legitimize itself. To capture
votes among disaffected blue-collar
workers, for example, it abandoned its
traditional endorsement of economic
liberalism, instead promoting social-
economic policies. It supplemented its
classic opposition to globalization with
a virulent critique of the European Un-
ion, proposing to bring an end to the
economic crisis by having France with-
drawfromthe euro zone a rather
popular argument, including on the left.
Many of the F.N.s members and sup-
porters remain motivated by a hatred
of immigrants and a dread of both Juda-
ismand Islam. But since Marine le Pen
succeeded her father at the partys
helmin early 2011, it has distanced itself
frommore explicit forms of racism. The
F.N., like other national-populist forces
in Europe, is no longer embarrassed by
its contradictions; though still extrem-
ist, it has become respectable. The tra-
ditional right has helped that process
along by endorsing some of the F.N.s
core positions, notably on immigration
and the Roma.
And while this is not the first time the
F.N. scored impressively it did well
in local elections in 1995 and during the
first round of presidential elections in
2002 and 2012 this time, rather than
just playing the part of spoiler and un-
dermining one of the mainstreamcan-
didates, it has gained real power. The
F.N. nowhas hundreds of elected offi-
cials at its disposal to serve actual con-
stituents. This is a chance for it to take
root, building up a political apparatus
and developing broad policies.
The F.N.s excellent showing in these
local elections will probably be con-
firmed, perhaps even surpassed, in the
elections for the European Parliament
in a fewweeks. This is not to say,
however, that the partys influence will
necessarily keep growing beyond that.
For one thing, there is plenty of time for
the F.N. to let its voters down before the
next presidential elections, in 2017. For
another, it remains to be seen if the
party will be able to stand up to the
mainstreamright.
After all, the French municipal elec-
tions were also notable for the tradi-
tional rights strong showing, despite
rivalries within the party, an apparent
lack of leadership or planning capacity
and various scandals concerning
former President Nicolas Sarkozy and
some of his close advisers.
This is one reason why Mr. Hollande
sacked his prime minister and replaced
himwith Manuel Valls, until then the
interior minister, who is considered
more centrist than leftist. Mr. Valls is
not a social-democrat, but a social-liber-
al, and is often compared to Bill Clinton
and Tony Blair. In short order a new
government was put together that is
both small and supposed to synthes-
ize the main strands within the Social-
ist Party.
The Greens, who did well in the mu-
nicipal elections and have doubts about
Mr. Vallss dedication to ecology, have
refused to join the government. (The
newenvironment and energy minister
is Sgolne Royal, a former candidate
for president and Mr. Hollandes former
partner.) Their defiance is one har-
binger of future tussles within the left.
Mr. Valls is supposed to introduce
more austerity to economic policy, for
example, by reducing public expenses.
Such an agenda would be a challenge
anytime, but it will be especially so in
the months ahead, with the leftist end
of the Socialist Party having just re-
ceived a boost fromvoters. Areal eco-
nomic renaissance is unlikely, and
more political trouble lies ahead the
recent local elections may be just the
first of many setbacks for the left in
France.
MICHEL WIEVIORKA, a sociologist, is the
head of the Fondation Maison des
Sciences de lHomme in Paris and
a member of the European Research
Councils Scientific Council.
Were not No. 1! Were not No. 1!
A punch to the French left
In search of home
America un-
derperforms
because eco-
nomic and
military
strength does
not translate
into well-be-
ing for the av-
erage citizen.
If you
had a few
weeks to live,
where would
you go?
opinion
FRED DUFOUR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Prime Minister Manuel Valls
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INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES I | FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014
. . . .
A highlight of the 2013-14 season at the
Royal Opera House promises to be the new
production by the renowned theater and op-
era director Jonathan Kent of Puccinis early
masterpiece Manon Lescaut. Starring the
Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais and the
German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, the opera
will be performed fromJune 17 to July 7, with
a live cinematic broadcast on June 24.
Manon Lescaut is Kents second
Puccini collaboration with The
Royal Opera and the com-
panys music director, Antonio
Pappano, following Kents
sumptuous production of To-
sca, which also makes a wel-
come return this season, May
10 to June 26.
Kents production of To-
sca has the original setting of
Rome in 1800, but Kent says
that Manon Lescaut, set in France and
Louisiana in the 1730s, does not invite such
a historicist approach: There has to be a
dialogue between the time that the opera
was written and the time that it is per-
formed, without distorting the intents of the
original or denying the romanticism of the
music. The themes in Manon Lescaut
that speak to the modern world, says Kent,
are the cult and temptations of celebrity, ex-
ploitation of women and the culture that
likes to name and shame.
One of the challenges Kent faced was to
find a narrative road in this episodic
piece. With the opera starting in an inn, he
imagined an actual road leading to the
heroines ultimate destruction. The son and
brother of architects and onetime aspiring
painter, Kent likes to begin working on his
productions visually, using design as a way
of formulating ideas. For me, he says,
the way of approaching opera is to build
the house that the piece can live in and then
to imagine how the piece can tell itself.
Pappano describes the enormous
symphonic canvas of Manon Lescaut,
which he calls one of the biggest chal-
lenges for a conductor. He sees echoes of
Wagner in the music, a style that Puccini all
but abandoned in his later
works.
The composer was 34
when the opera had its
premiere in 1893. For a
young man to have such com-
mand of the possibilities of
the orchestra is extraordi-
nary, says Pappano. The
piece is quite dark, with a
foreboding and sadness that
are palpable. Harmonically, also, it is much
more complex and adventurous than many
of Puccinis later operas.
Kent says he enjoys directing the early
works of composers and dramatists, such
as Chekhov or Wagner, whose Der Flie-
gende Hollnder he directed for the English
National Opera in 2012. There is a wildness
and aspiration about them, which is very
exciting, he says, adding that he finds the
emotional anarchy of Manon Lescaut
particularly fascinating. As for the character-
ization of the operas protagonists, he
strove to find a way of honoring the great
story on which the opera is based (written in
the 18th century by the French writer Abb
Prvost) of a fallible not always admirable
heroine and a constant sometimes fool-
ishly constant young man.
At the same time that David McVicars
sumptuously decadent staging of Gounods
Faust is making a return to the Royal
Opera House, April 4 to 25 with a brilliant
international cast led by the Operalia win-
ners Sonya Yoncheva and Joseph Calleja,
and including Alexia Voulgaridou (sharing the
role of Marguerite with Yoncheva), Bryn
Terfel and Simon Keenlyside the Linbury
Studio Theater is hosting two specially com-
missioned one-hour operas also on the
Faust theme, performed on alternate nights,
April 3 to 12.
John Fulljames, associate director of op-
era at Covent Garden, explains that this is
part of a joined-up artistic conversation
between the main stage and the Linbury.
One of the Royal Opera Houses recent
Nowinits thirdfull seasonof relaying opera
and ballet throughout the world, the Royal
Opera House has committed itself to a full
program of live cinema broadcasts, currently
with 1,400 cinemas in 40 countries involved.
The purpose of the live relays is less to at-
tract more people to come to Covent Garden,
which already has a high attendance rate,
than to reach a wider public worldwide, and
the Royal Opera House says that the broad-
casts are proving to be enormously popular.
The Royal Opera House relies on a small
group of in-house experts and an excellent
media suite with very good sound facilities,
and also brings in a team of freelancers for
each broadcast. From an early stage in the
process, especially with new productions,
a multicamera director works closely with
the stage director. For operas released on
DVD, considerable time is spent in post-
production to deliver the best possible ver-
sion of each opera.
When it comes to choosing the reper-
toire to be broadcast, a balance is struck
between reflecting the range of works pro-
duced in the opera house and selecting op-
eras that might have a broad appeal for
worldwide audiences. The technical teamis
constantly looking for new initiatives that
continue to make use of the latest tech-
nology, such as on-demand streaming of
live opera or broadcasting from locations
other than the Royal Opera House when
performances take place elsewhere.
So those who find it difficult to visit Cov-
ent Garden still have much to look forward
to. Live broadcasts in movie theaters com-
ing up in the next few months include the
world premiere on April 28 of a full-length
ballet version of Shakespeares The
Winters Tale, choreographed by Christoph-
er Wheeldon, and the new production of
Puccinis Manon Lescaut, directed by
Jonathan Kent and conducted by Antonio
Pappano, on June 24. To find screenings in
theaters around the world, go to
www.roh.org.uk/cinemas. n
ROLEX CULTURE PARTNERS:
SPOTLIGHT ON THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE
MANON LESCAUT
NEW STAGING FOR AN EARLY PUCCINI WORK
LINBURY STUDIO THEATER
MODERN RETELLINGS OF THE FAUST STORY
BROADCASTS
COMING LIVE
TO THEATERS
AROUND
THE WORLD
The Royal Opera House is offering a Faustian Pack, with a production of Gounods grand opera on the main stage and two contemporary works in the Linbury Studio Theater.
The Euronews Musica series
regularly drops in on the Royal Opera
House, most recently as it resounded
to the words of Happy Birthday for
Kiri Te Kanawa, who celebrated her
70th birthday in what was her first
performance in 17 years. In July, the
series will feature Maria Stuarda,
Donizettis tale of rival queens. See
the programs on the Web at
euronews.com/programs/musica.
Medici.tv offers live webcasts
and a large catalog of classical
music videos. At last years
Salzburg Festival, The Royal
Operas music director, Antonio
Pappano, conducted Jonas
Kaufmann in Verdis Don Carlo.
Watch a video interview with them
about the production at
www.medici.tv/#/don-carlo-
salzburg-musica-euronews.
Opera Online covers works of
opera, opera houses, composers
and musicians, and productions.
The website features a news
section as well as an online
encyclopedia. Go to tinyurl.com/
ROHhistory for its profile of the
Royal Opera House, which includes a
history as well as links to entries
about current productions at
Covent Garden.
THE PIECE
IS QUITE
DARK, WITH A
FOREBODING
AND SADNESS
THAT ARE
PALPABLE
C
A
T
H
E
R
IN
E
A
S
H
M
O
R
E
/
R
O
Y
A
L
O
P
E
R
A
H
O
U
S
E
THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE
CENTER STAGE
That sometimes foolishly constant
young man, Des Grieux, is to be performed
by the tenor Jonas Kaufmann, whom
Pappano describes as an amazing, techni-
cally gifted artist who dominates every
corner of the repertoire. The production will
be the first time Kaufmann has sung the role
at Covent Garden.
Asked if singing Des Grieux poses vocal
and interpretative challenges different from
those of Cavaradossi in Tosca, Kaufmann
exclaims: Oh, yes! The part of Des Grieux is
not only much longer than Cavaradossi, its
much more demanding as well. Just think of
those great scenes with Manon in the
second and fourth acts, let alone the con-
trast between the love song in the first act
Donna non vidi mai and the dramatic
outburst in the third act, No, no, pazzo son,
which is a trial for any tenor. O.K., Cavara-
dossis Vittoria! isnt easy either. But I think,
much more than Cavaradossi, Des Grieux
requires the full vocal range fromlyric to dra-
matic. That goes as well for the develop-
ment of the character.
Kaufmann notes that he is particularly
pleased to be able to perform again at the
Royal Opera House with Pappano. He made
his Covent Garden debut nearly 10 years
ago, in a leading role as Ruggero in Puccinis
La Rondine, returning two seasons later
as Don Jos in a new production of Car-
men under Pappano. With Pappanos sup-
port, these performances proved to be the
launchpad for his international career and,
since then, he has returned to Covent
Garden on several occasions, singing op-
posite such stars as Anna Netrebko and
Bryn Terfel.
I always feel at home at Covent Garden,
he says, for the working conditions as well
as for my colleagues and Tony Pappano.
Singing with himis always a joy. There are not
so many conductors like himnowadays, mu-
sicians who have grown up with opera, who
know the repertoire inside out, who know
how to bring out the drama in the music and
breathe with the singer at the same time.
He remembers with particular pleasure
the recording sessions they made together
in Rome of the Verismo Arias album, es-
pecially when he sang Vesti la giubba,
from Ruggero Leoncavallos Pagliacci, for
the first time: It went so well that we hugged
each other, jumping and giggling like kids.
You can imagine how much Im looking for-
ward to singing my first Des Grieux in Man-
on Lescaut with him!
On April 6, Kaufmann will also be per-
forming Schuberts late song cycle Winter-
reise on Covent Gardens main stage with
his regular accompanist, Helmut Deutsch.
Asked about the challenges of singing in
such a large theater, he replies: When you
are singing in a house bigger than those you
are used to, youre easily tempted to give
more voice and to sound less intimate. It is
almost like a reflex. Most of the singers I
knowhad this experience when they sang at
the NewYork Met for the first time, although
they had been warned before: Dont try to
give more than you normally do, just trust
your projection! And this is the keyword.
Singing without a microphone or any other
sort of amplification means that you should
be able to adjust your voice projection to the
repertoire, the space and the specific
acoustics. There are small houses with very
tricky acoustics and vast places with perfect
ones. When I had my first song recital at the
Met, I was really surprised that despite the
vastness of this space its possible to cre-
ate an intimate atmosphere there, acoustic-
ally as well as in terms of communication.
The different space might change the
way he approaches the interpretation of the
songs, he explains, but not to a great extent.
He recounts that one of the most important
things he learned during his early years on-
stage from Giorgio Strehler, the great Italian
theater and opera director, was: Never give
the same performance twice! Always try to
tell the story as if you are going to tell it for
the first time. n
major innovations has been to place both the
main stage and the Linbury under the same
umbrella, and the creative results are begin-
ning to show. The two newoperas have been
in development for two years and take very
different approaches to the Faust myth.
Through His Teeth, by the 35-year-old
English composer Luke Bedford, with a lib-
retto by the Scottish playwright David
Harrower, concerns a woman lured into a
passionate affair with a ruthlessly charming
car salesman; his secret life is revealed as
she becomes trapped in his dark other world.
The internationally acclaimed conductor Sian
Edwards is working with an exciting young
cast including AnnaDevin, VictoriaSimmonds
and Owen Gilhooly, and the London-based
chamber ensemble Chroma.
The English electronic composer Matthew
Herberts The Crackle, conducted by Tim
Murray, involves a mysterious stranger offer-
ing afrustrated music teacher technology that
unlocks a hidden power in music. Fulljames
describes the opera as being about tech-
nological progress taking the soul away.
Bryn Terfel, who plays Mphistophls in
Gounods Faust in the main theater,
appears in Herberts work as an invisible
prerecorded voice that, as Fulljames puts it,
is completely integrated into Matthew
Herberts sound world.
Both operas are proof of the Royal Op-
era Houses continuing commitment to new
music. Fulljames will be directing another
modern opera in the Linbury Studio Theater
in June, a musical setting by the Italian com-
poser Luca Francesconi of Heiner Mllers
play Quartett.
Quartett, set in a bunker at the end of
time, explores the nature of the only two hu-
mans left alive, who happen to be the
Machiavellian central characters from
Lacloss novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte
de Valmont. All they can do is play mind and
sexual games with each other, enacting
their fantasies through role play.
Fulljames, who first saw the opera in
Vienna and was blown away by it, stresses
the immersive effect of the work, staged in
traverse, with the audience on two sides of a
stage suspended above the orchestra pit. In
the play, there seems to be no life of any
kind outside the bunker, he says, but in the
opera, the music gives the sense of some
sort of organic life continuing outside.
Francesconi has written music not only
for a live orchestra but also for a recorded
orchestra and chorus. The composer, who
has been commissioned by The Royal Opera
to write an opera for the main stage in 2020,
will be present at rehearsals, a prospect
that excites Fulljames. Luca Francesconi is
interested in singers, he says, and in new
ways that singing can communicate.
Fulljames, who was appointed associate
director of opera in 2011, has now had time
to settle in at Covent Garden along with the
director of opera, Kasper Holten, appointed
the same year. It is beginning to feel like
home, says Fulljames. It is a privilege to
work in such a place with amazing artists.
There is a real energy here. n
Jonas Kaufmann sings the Des Grieux role
in Manon Lescaut, June 17 to July 7.
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FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 | II INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
. . . .
A great soprano who has long been asso-
ciated with the Royal Opera House, Kiri Te
Kanawa, celebrated her 70th birthday and
marked her retirement by singing in Doni-
zettis La Fille du Rgiment at Covent
Garden in March. The beauty and warmth of
her voice, especially in Mozart, Strauss and
Puccini, will long be cherished by those who
had the good fortune to hear her.
Marking another birth, that of Richard
Strauss 150 years ago, was a new produc-
tion of Die Frau ohne Schatten, which fin-
ished its run on April 2. Christof Loys pro-
duction of Strausss Ariadne auf Naxos
returns June 25 to July 13, starring the
Finnish soprano Karita Mattila and conduct-
ed by The Royal Operas director of music,
Antonio Pappano.
Apart from these notable anniversaries,
The Royal Opera has concentrated this year
Center stage: The Royal Opera House
was produced by the Creative Solutions
department of the International New York
Times and did not involve the newspapers
reporting or editorial departments. Text by
NICK HAMMOND.
on rarely performed and new works, as well
as its core repertoire. Richard Eyres much-
loved production of Verdis La Traviata
runs April 19 to May 20, with Dmitri
Hvorostovsky and Simon Keenlyside alter-
nating in the role of Giorgio Germont, and
Diana Damrau and Ailyn Prez alternating as
Violetta.
Mozarts Le Nozze di Figaro, starring
Alex Esposito, Camilla Tilling, Rebecca Evans
and Gerald Finley, returns in David McVicars
beautifully realized staging, May 2 to 15,
conducted by The Royal Operas head of
music, David Syrus.
Jonathan Kents production of Puccinis
Tosca comes back with an exceptional
cast, including Roberto Alagna, the rising
star Oksana Dyka and Thomas Hampson.
Oleg Caetani conducts May 10 to June 3,
and Plcido Domingo takes up the baton for
four performances, fromJune 16 to 26, with
a new cast, including a Metropolitan Opera
favorite, Sondra Radvanovsky, as Tosca,
and Bryn Terfel and Lucio Gallo as Scarpia.
Later in the season, a new production by
Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser of Doni-
zettis Maria Stuarda runs July 5 to 18. The
American superstar Joyce DiDonato sings
the role of Mary, Queen of Scots.
John Copleys naturalistic production of
Puccinis La Bohme celebrates its 40th
year in The Royal Operas repertory, July 7 to
19, in a revival with a cast that includes the
sopranos Ermonela Jaho and Angela Gheor-
ghiu as Mim, and the tenors Charles Castro-
novo and Vittorio Grigolo as Rodolfo.
Arnold Schoenbergs magnificent and
rarely performed Moses und Aron will be
shown July 25 and 26. This production
marks the beginning of a three-year artistic
partnership between the Welsh National Op-
era and The Royal Opera, and features the
great Wagnerian bass-baritone John Tomlin-
son in the pivotal role of Moses, with Rainer
Trost as his eloquent brother Aron.
Looking further ahead, two exciting new
productions of rarely performed operas are
planned for 2015. John Fulljames will pro-
duce Kurt Weills Rise and Fall of the City of
Mahagonny, a work Fulljames calls a po-
tent satire on consumption, and Antonio
Pappano will conduct the gorgeously exotic
Krl Roger, about Roger II of Sicily, by the
Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. n
SEASON HIGHLIGHTS
A SUMMER OF DRAMA AND DELIGHT
Plcido Domingo will conduct four performances of Puccinis Tosca at the Royal Opera House in June.
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Bringing his production of Dialogues des
Carmlites to the Royal Opera House is a
little like returning home for the Toronto-born
director Robert Carsen, who first saw
Francis Poulencs masterpiece at the Royal
Opera House at Covent Garden in 1983.
This opera is very special to me, he
says. Its a unique piece on every level, with
a very moving background. Although, in
keeping with so many operas, Dialogues is
about love and death, it is not the traditional
use of love and death. Here we are dealing
with love directed toward ones faith and
death as martyrdom.
The opera was first performed at the Roy-
al Opera House in 1958, the year after its
premiere at La Scala in Milan, and the cast in-
cluded Joan Sutherland singing the role of
Madame Lidoine (to be played in this produc-
tion by the British soprano Emma Bell).
The opera is inspired by real events during
the French Revolutions Reign of Terror, when
nuns from the Carmelite order were sent to
the guillotine. Poulenc drew his material from
a film script by Georges Bernanos (which the
writer later turned into a play), in turn based
on a novella by Gertrud von le Fort (whose
name is uncannily similar to that of the
heroine of the opera, Blanche de la Force).
Carsen insists that the work has relev-
ance for all people, not simply for those who
share Poulencs Catholic faith. He sees the
opera as abstract and modern in concep-
tion, but with music of great clarity. As the
title indicates, the opera deals with a series
of encounters, with the characters coming
into conflict, passing each other by and oc-
casionally finding themselves in harmony
with each other.
Although the story on paper seems a
very tragic one about the martyrdom of
women, Carsen insists that Poulencs music
has a lightness and liberation about it, and
the extraordinary final hymn sung by the
nuns as they go to the scaffold should be
viewed as something positive, as the music
seems to become ever more disconnected
from the earth.
For a piece that is so deeply rooted in re-
ligion, it might seeman obvious ploy for a di-
rector to fill the stage with religious imagery,
but Carsen has opted to leave the stage
bare apart from benches and tables, and
uses no religious icons other than the nuns
rosaries. Carsen explains: The audience
needs to believe in the space before them
without our resorting to overly theatrical
scenery. I have tried to reflect the sense of
solitude and the mob by using people rather
than constructed elements as the
scenery.
Past Carsen productions, such as his
Les Contes dHoffmann and Capriccio,
both of which were shown in Paris in 2013,
have focused on the self-regarding nature
of the theater, but in Poulencs opera, self-
conscious theatricality has no place. De-
cisions that serve the work the best come
from an intuitive and instinctive sense, he
says. Im interested in creating a world
where you will hear the music more clearly
without distraction.
The central part of Blanche is to be sung
by the English soprano Sally Matthews, who
has had a long association with Covent
Garden, ever since she stepped in at short
notice to sing the role of Nannetta in Verdis
Falstaff under Bernard Haitink in 2001.
She was in the first cohort of The Royal Op-
eras Young Artists Program, between 2001
and 2003, and she says she is excited to be
returning to a place she knows well.
Matthews sang Blanche under Carsen
in Vienna in 2008, and says that it is prob-
ably the best production that I have ever
been in.
The psychological journey for the singer
playing Blanche is very intense, she says,
but she found the role surprisingly easy to
play. The part seems very childlike she
is so wide-eyed and innocent, yet incredibly
passionate. She has the ability to feel
scared, and she is also quite erratic. You
have to live every moment with her. In
Carsens production, she adds: Everything
makes sense and is organic.
This production of Dialogues des Car-
mlites is Carsens third collaboration with
the Royal Opera House (he staged
Iphignie en Tauride there in 2007 and
Falstaff in 2012). He says he is thrilled to
be returning to Covent Garden, which he
sees as one of the best-run companies in
the world on both an organizational and a
technical level.
Conducting is Simon Rattle, whom
Carsen has known for many years, ever
since they both worked in the early 1980s at
Glyndebourne Festival Opera in East Sus-
sex. Simon is ideally suited to conduct
this, says Carsen. He has a wonderful dra-
matic instinct and yet also such a musical
limpidity and way of shaping the music.
Matthews has enjoyed performing with
Rattle on a number of occasions, notably
as Sophie in Strausss Der Rosenkava-
lier in 2011 in Amsterdam, and she is rel-
ishing the chance to sing Blanche under his
baton. He is understanding and warm,
she says, and someone with whom you
feel very safe as a singer.
The rest of the cast for Dialogues is
stellar, and includes two great veteran op-
era singers, Deborah Polaski and Thomas
Allen, singing the roles of Madame de
Croissy and the Marquis de la Force. The
production runs from May 29 to June 11. n
DIALOGUES DES CARMLITES
LOVE, FAITH, MARTYRDOM AND LIBERATION
A scene from Robert Carsens production of Dialogues des Carmlites at the Dutch National Opera.
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Culture
film music
CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
BY MELENA RYZIK
The filmmaker Jim Jarmusch is old
school. He writes all his scripts out by
hand and then dictates them to a typist.
Ideas are jotted down in small, color-co-
ordinated notebooks and, despite the
presence of an iPad and iPhone in his
life, he doesnt have email. I dont have
enough time as it is to read a book or
make music, or see my friends, he said.
People dont believe me, too. They
think Im just saying that because I
dont want to give it to them. But no, I do
not have email.
So his interest in vampires, the subject
of his latest movie, Only Lovers Left
Alive, is hardly modish: He hasnt seen
Twilight or True Blood or read
Anne Rice, but can recount the origin of
one of the first English vampire stories,
which dates to around 1816. His film,
which continues a limited worldwide re-
lease through June, stars Tom Hiddle-
stonandTildaSwintonas AdamandEve,
an ur-cool bloodsucking couple whose
lovespans centuries andcontinents he
lives in crumbling Detroit; she in seedy,
tangled Tangier. Theyre united as much
bytheir creative andliteraryappetites
hes a musician, shes a reader as by
their darker urges. In some ways, Mr.
Jarmusch said, its quite a personal film.
Mr. Jarmusch could be called vampir-
ic, too, andnot just for his predominantly
black wardrobe and movie-villain-like
nimbus of silver hair, whichhehas styled
and cut himself since he was a boy. At 61,
he still has an unquenched cultural
thirst: old school but with a tremendous
jones for new (or new-to-him) projects.
His catholic tastes reflect the cross-pol-
linating downtown artistic life that flour-
ished in tandemwith his early career.
Through Thursday, the Film Society
of Lincoln Center is offering a retro-
spective, Permanent Vacation, on his
11 feature films, several shorts and mu-
sic videos, including some for repeat
collaborators like Jack White and Tom
Waits. More than three decades into
filmmaking, Mr. Jarmusch remains the
rare indie director who achieved critical
success (and four prizes at Cannes) and
enough prestige to cast bankable movie
stars like Cate Blanchett and Johnny
Depp, and yet never made a move to-
ward Hollywood, never even leapt at di-
recting a commercial. Instead he has
maintained, in movies and music, his
own wry, rad vision.
For my generation of European film
nerds, he was pretty much the first who
showed us America through the eyes of
an American alien, said Ms. Swinton,
who has made three films with him. As a
student, she saw Stranger Than Para-
dise, his 1984 breakthrough, and ever
since, he has been a consistent North
Star for me, she wrote in an email, a
reliable idiosyncratic bass note under
the anthem of generica sounding
around him.
The film is part of a productive swoop
for Mr. Jarmusch. Its the first in which
his five-year-old band, Sqrl, provides
much of the soundtrack, in collaboration
with the composer and lutist Jozef van
Wissem; alongside musicians like Zola
Jesus and Yasmine Hamdan, they have
played shows in Berlin, Paris and New
York to promote the accompanying al-
bum, from ATP Recordings. Coming
projects include a quasi-documentary
about theStooges (alittlepoetic essay,
Mr. Jarmusch said); an opera about
Nikola Tesla, in collaboration with his
friend the composer Phil Kline and the
international director Robert Wilson;
and another feature, about a bus driver
and poet in Paterson, N.J., that Mr. Jar-
musch wrote in the years he waited for
Only Lovers to come together.
I take on a lot more now, he said,
partly out of age, experience and desire,
and partly out of professional gumption.
Hemmed in by financing, Only Lov-
ers Left Alive is thefirst moviehes shot
digitally, a concession (he prefers film),
but one he eventually liked. The things
I hateabout digital aredaylight depths of
field and skin tones, he said, neither of
which were a problem in a movie about
extra-pale creatures who wither in sun.
After a long hiatus, he also started play-
ing guitar again, because music making
is moreimmediatethanfilm, andalsobe-
cause he startedto wonder, Whydont I
use my left hand for anything?
I had this period where I would try
shaving or brushing my teeth with my
left hand, he said. Its like, what the
hell, its got to have something in your
brain that helps it. So then I thought:
O.K., Ill pick up the guitar again. You
use both hands.
Mr. Jarmusch is nocturnal, which is
why his films so often take place at
night; sitting recently at BBar, the 80s-
era haunt in the East Village, he seemed
to waken as the midafternoon light
faded. He has long had a loft on the
Lower East Side, and a place in the Cat-
skills, too that saves my sanity, he
said with his longtime partner Sara
Driver, also a filmmaker. He came to
New York from Akron, Ohio, for college
in the 1970s and never left, baking him-
self into a scene that produced DIYrock
stars and idiosyncratic auteurs.
What I loved when I came here from
Ohio is that I realized, you could be the
weirdest person in the world and then
walk around, and in three blocks, youre
going to see someone way weirder than
you, he said.
Though he misses the wildness of
those days (in the SoHo of the late 70s,
I looked out my window at about 3:30
a.m., and I saw a man walking a llama
down Prince Street), Im not nostal-
gic, he said. Because NewYorks only
about change and conning everybody
out of whatever they have. Thats just
what NewYork is.
If his work has eccentric tonal similar-
ities long, slow takes; a penchant for
black-and-white; evocative, obscuremu-
sic; tinder-dry humor Mr. Jarmusch
has applied themto familiar genres, like
westerns (Dead Man, with Mr. Depp),
martial arts-gangster flicks (Ghost
Dog: The Way of the Samurai with
Forest Whitaker) and dark rom-coms
(Broken Flowers, with Bill Murray,
his highest-grossing filmto date).
He conceived Only Lovers Left
Alive as a tender romance. Vampires
were, to him, a way to sneak in an over-
viewof cultural history. John Hurt plays
an undead Christopher Marlowe, now
writing in Tangier; in Detroit, Adam
and Eve point out Jack Whites child-
hood home. A wall of fame includes por-
traits of their illustrious friends like
Mark Twain, Franz Schubert and Rod-
ney Dangerfield all Mr. Jarmuschs
suggestions. In under two minutes of
conversation at B Bar, he moved seam-
lessly from Godard to a 1955 Droopy
Dog cartoon to Beethovens productiv-
ity. Mr. Jarmusch quit smoking a few
years ago, and we drank tea, not coffee.
But otherwise, it couldve been a scene
in one of his movies.
In the new film, Adam is a reluctant
virtuoso who shares Mr. Jarmuschs af-
finity for avant drone rock (with lute).
He has a weakness that he wants to
hear his own music echo back, Mr. Jar-
musch said. Thats not a smart thing to
do, if youre trying to live undercover.
Unlike Eve she has no need for that,
shes full of wonder at things, and thats
enough for her.
He thought a bit. As a filmmaker who
has always played coy with popularity,
I have his weakness, Mr. Jarmusch
said. I think shes more enlightened
somehow.
TomWaits had a different, more char-
itable take. While Jim toils alone, he
said, as all great men must, his films
freely roam the world, like weather bal-
loons that astound and awe those here
on the ground.
He also couldnt resist pinging his
JARMUSCH, PAGE 11
The filmmaker works
in only one genre,
and thats his own
The indie director Jim Jarmusch , above,
multitasked for his new film Only Lovers
Left Alive, both directing and playing
much of the soundtrack with his band,
Sqrl. Tilda Swinton, left, plays a vampire.
Jarmusch is kissing vampires
SANDRO KOPP/SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
A music writers opus, now with sound and video
BY LARRY ROHTER
As a college classics major, the music
historian, writer and critic Peter Gural-
nick once submitted a paper comparing
the Roman poet Catulluss Little Bird,
Delight of My Girl to Robert Johnsons
Stones in My Passway. It was not
well received, he recalled recently, but
it helped establish a template that has
served Mr. Guralnick superbly in writ-
ing groundbreaking books on blues,
country and soul music, and biogra-
phies of pop music figures like Elvis
Presley and SamCooke.
In more than 40 years of writing about
music and musicians, one of Mr. Gural-
nicks fundamental premises, he said,
has beento take Howlin Wolf or James
Brown as seriously as you would take
Tess of the dUrbervilles. That may
seemcommonplace today, but when Mr.
Guralnick was starting out, it was a con-
troversial, even revolutionary, concept.
NowMr. Guralnick, 70, is extendinghis
franchise. Seven of his books, beginning
with Feel Like Going Home and Lost
Highway, his two earliest, but also in-
cluding the Presley and Cooke biogra-
phies, are being reissued this year and
next in enhanced e-book editions that
include video and audio material and, in
some cases, newchapters on figures like
Jerry Lee Lewis and Delbert McClinton.
Mr. Guralnick, who has had four of his
books inducted into the Blues Hall of
Fame, said that inserting video and au-
dio material into his books seemed a
natural outgrowth of what he has been
doing in other media. The writer and co-
producer of a documentary about the
rock n roll pioneer Sam Phillips, he
also wrote the scripts for a Grammy-
winning documentary about SamCooke
and for Martin Scorseses blues docu-
mentary Feel Like Going Home.
Peter is a meticulous archivist, and
these are among the most cited books
on American music ever written, said
John Parsley, an editor at Little, Brown
and Company, which publishes Mr. Gur-
alnicks work and is a division of the
Hachette Book Group. So, it was cry-
ing out to be used in neweditions.
In its original print format, Mr. Gural-
nicks work has been foundational,
said Jim Miller, the original editor of
The Rolling Stone Illustrated History
of Rock & Roll. Of his two-part Presley
biography, for example, Bob Dylan said
the first book cancels out all others,
and in a review in The New York Times
Book Review, Gerald Marzorati de-
scribed the two volumes as the finest
rock-and-roll biography ever written.
Though Mr. Guralnick began writing
in the era of Hunter Thompson and the
Almost Famous school of journalism,
that wasnt himat all, addedMr. Miller,
now a professor of liberal studies at the
New School in New York City. In fact,
he was almost the opposite: extremely
thoughtful, veryreservedinsome ways,
fastidious about the accuracy of the in-
formation he was gathering, and with a
classicists sensibility of the alien and
the strange as being an invitation to un-
derstanding and interpretation.
Mr. Guralnicks e-book project is a
particularly ambitious example of what
seems be a growingtrendinthe publish-
ing world. As the technology for adding
enhanced content like music, video
and documents to the electronic ver-
sions of books advances, publishers are
incorporating more of that material into
workabout popular music, whether crit-
ical assessments like Mr. Guralnicks or
the autobiographies and memoirs writ-
ten by musicians.
At Penguin Random House, the
worlds largest trade book publisher,
two memoirs by members of Crosby,
Stills, Nash and Young issued in the last
year Graham Nashs Wild Tales
and Neil Youngs Waging Heavy
Peace have received that treatment,
as has DollyPartons DreamMore. At
HarperCollins, recent memoirs by
Gregg Allman, Tony Bennett, Sammy
Hagar and Steven Tyler are now avail-
able in enhanced e-book editions.
The phenomenon might be growing
even faster, were it not for copyright is-
sues. Because of predatory practices
long widespread in the business, musi-
cians often dont own the rights to songs
they have writtenor recorded, and must
ask permission of publishing and record
companies to use them.
Those companies, hungry for reven-
ue, may demand too high a price to
make the inclusion of music in books
worthwhile. Editors said the actual pro-
duction costs of inserting the additional
material into e-books, done in-house, is
not onerous, and that the payoff in addi-
tional sales is clear.
Mr. Guralnick, of course, doesnt con-
trol any song copyrights, but he did pre-
serve tapes of many of his interviews,
and excerpts have been inserted into
the e-book versions of Feel Like Going
Home and Lost Highway. They
provide both context and atmosphere:
In an interview with Muddy Waters at
his Chicago home, his grandchildren
can be heard scampering around in the
background, and during a conversation
with the blues songwriter and producer
Willie Dixon, conducted at the business
offices of Chess Records, the telephone
is constantly ringing.
Hearing Johnny Cash talk about his
admiration for the gospel singer Sister
Rosetta Tharpe is instructive, but a 1980
Peter Guralnicks project
taps into growing trend
for amplified e-books
BOOKS, PAGE 11
JOE BUGLEWICZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Peter Guralnick is reissuing seven works.
. . . .
interview with Merle Haggard,
conducted in a motel room in Meridian,
Miss., with a dog yelping in the back-
ground, seems especially revealing.
When Mr. Guralnick asks this prickly,
self-assured country singer if he had
any models for his songwriting when he
was starting out, the answer is a long si-
lence and then just one word, Nope.
With a camera rolling, Mr. Guralnick
also went back to reinterview some of
the sources for his books. His conversa-
tions with Roland Janes, originally the
guitarist in Jerry Lee Lewiss band and
later a pioneering recording engineer
and producer, and the rockabilly singer
Sleepy LaBeef are especially lively and
informative, their thick Southern
drawls contrasting with Mr. Guralnicks
Boston accent.
The ideawas to digdeeper into these
people, and not tell the same stories that
are in the book, said the documentary
filmmaker and author Robert Gordon,
who shot the sequences. We wanted to
give an intimate feel of what its like to
hang out with Dan Penn or WilliamBell
or Rick Hall, and give a back door view
into howPeter and his process work.
One characteristic of Mr. Guralnicks
work, on display in the video content as
well as the books, is that he likes to talk
not just to the stars, but also to the
people who work with them behind the
scenes: sidemen, producers, song-
writers, managers and even, in the case
of the singer Bobby Blue Bland, his
valet and driver. That is an approach in-
creasingly rare in an era obsessed with
celebrity and seemingly bored by pro-
cess.
I never saw a distinction there, any
more than I sawthe distinction between
high culture and so-called low culture,
Mr. Guralnick said. Someone like
Merle Haggard or Ernest Tubb may
have changed the location of their life,
but none of themabandon their identity,
which is as much tied up in these people
the world has never heard of as in any-
thing else.
In some cases, Mr. Guralnicks rela-
tionship with subjects of his books be-
came so close that he felt he had to
swear off writing further about thembe-
cause I didnt want the challenge of
either writing truthfully or maintaining
my friendship, so I chose friendship.
The soul singer Solomon Burke was one
example, and the country music singer
and pianist Charlie Rich is another.
To Mr. Guralnicks surprise, Mr. Rich
was so moved by the warts-and-all por-
trait of him in Feel Like Going Home
that he wrote a song with the same title,
nowa pop standard of regret and disap-
pointment. Later, he invited Mr. Gural-
nick to help produce what ended up be-
ing his last album, the jazz- and blues-
flavored Pictures and Paintings.
For the last eight years or so, Mr. Gur-
alnick has been working on a biography
of Sam Phillips, the Memphis record
producer and Sun Records founder
whose discoveries include Elvis Pres-
ley, Howlin Wolf, Johnny Cash and
Jerry Lee Lewis. Phillips was a prime
source for some of Mr. Guralnicks other
books, and thoughthe biography, sched-
uled for publication next year, will in-
clude video and audio in an e-book edi-
tion, Mr. Guralnick stressed that these
are merely aids to enrich the process-
oriented storytelling approach he has
honed over the years.
music art film books culture
Dana Stevens
I started shaping my reading list
around the recommendations of
people I wanted to be friends with,
to get close to, to emulate, to be.
Anna Holmes
Figurative or literal checklists of
published texts can suck the joy
out of reading and should be
avoided at all costs.
IM LESS ATTRACTED to
the question of books I
felt I should read and
more interested in the
idea of should as an
friend. I think Leavenworth was good
for Jim, he wrote, lying and deadpan
eveninanemail. It disciplinedhimand
gave him a sense of containment and
appreciation for the austere. In metal
shop, he made a camera out of a Coke
bottle and piece of pipe. His color
palette, gray tones and shadows, was
informed by the bits of rat hair and
cobwebs that decorated his cinder-
block cell.
Mr. Jarmusch, who started in bands
before movies, has always enjoyed com-
munionwithsongwriters. Hes studying
Arabic popvia Ms. Hamdan, a Lebanese
singer who appears in the film, and he
can as readily name-drop the rapper
and producer El-P as the conductor
Claudio Abbado.
Hes definitely not just a director
who does some music, hes definitely a
musician, said Deborah Kee Higgins,
the co-director with her husband, Barry
Hogan, of ATP Recordings and the rov-
ing festival All Tomorrows Parties. Mr.
Jarmusch was its curator in 2010. As
part of the noise trio Sqrl, hes got his
own sound, Mr. Hogan said. Its not
for the faint of heart, but its really
great.
With film, Mr. Jarmusch likes to im-
provise, writing new pages, adding
scenes when locations strike him and
shooting as much as he can. He works
as the musician he is, Ms. Swinton
said, assembling and tickling up a
rhythm and a relaxedness in the scene
by extended jamming before eventu-
ally laying down tracks. I happen to love
this free-fall way of working.
He rehearses his actors, but only in
scenes that will never be in the movie, a
technique to keep their reactions fresh.
In Ghost Dog, Mr. Whitaker plays a
loner urban samurai. To prepare, they
roamed the East Village, Mr. Whitaker
in character. He carried a practice
wooden sword in his backpack, and he
was dressed like Ghost Dog, right, and
he hardly speaks its super intense,
Mr. Jarmusch said, especially when he
whipped out the weapon to practice
martial arts in East River Park, to the
delight of nearby schoolchildren. Ghost
Dog even went to get a slice. (Mr. Jar-
musch said he hopes to translate the
film into a TV series, with Mr. Whitaker
and the rapper RZA involved, and have
someone else direct.)
Mr. Jarmuschs real-life stories easily
equal, or maybe surpass, the narrative
leaps of his movies. A lot of strange
things happen, yeah, for sure, he said.
Its sort of been my way. I have a lot of
weird experiences by not having a plan.
I have that, too, while filmmaking. I
have this motto of: Its hard to get lost
when you dont know where youre go-
ing.
Which is not to say that Mr. Jarmusch
wants to live forever, extending his self-
proclaimed dilettanteness into the cen-
turies, like his loving vampires. I like
that theres an end, he said, putting on
his metal voice. Because thats the
way I like it baby. I dont want to live
forever. Thats from a Motrhead
song.
But as an aficionado of decay, he has,
of course, imaginedhis owndemise. The
Zoroastrians, an ancient Iranian reli-
gious group, get eaten by vultures, he
said. They put their dead bodies on a
mountaintop, and they get eaten. I
would love that.
BERLIN
BY MELISSA EDDY
The Evidence fromwhich the Ai Wei-
wei exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-
Bau derives its name could be the dis-
played collection of hard drives, laptops
and notebooks the Chinese authorities
confiscated after arresting the artist in
2011 as he tried to board a plane. Or it
could be the life-size replica of the cell
where he was held under constant sur-
veillance for 81 days following his deten-
tion. Or even the 6,000 wooden stools
that fill the sunken atrium of the space,
in a silent testimony to a lost way of life
in the Chinese countryside.
Mr. Ais solo exhibition, which opened
here on Thursday and runs through July
7, is the largest showof his works to date.
It reflects boththecurrent social upheav-
al in China, as well as the artists own ex-
periences with repression. Organizers
said they encouraged Mr. Ai, who has
long angered the Chinese authorities
through his outspoken opinions about
censorship and art, to highlight the polit-
ical element of his works in the show.
He is always accused of being a
political activist, said Gereon Siever-
nich, the director of the Martin-Gropius-
Bau, in a recent interview. Mr. Siever-
nich made several trips to China to meet
with Mr. Ai, who has not been allowed to
travel since his release. We took that
charge and stood it on its head and fully
embraced the political, he said.
That this is taking place in the Mar-
tin-Gropius-Bau, which is funded by the
German state, is a German response to
this political art and to the power of cul-
ture, said Monika Grtters, Germanys
minister for culture, before the opening.
She also stressed the importance of
holdingthe exhibitioninone of the coun-
trys most prominent, state-funded ex-
hibition spaces for art.
Evidence was two years in the mak-
ing, said Mr. Sievernich, who curated the
showwithMr. Ai. Members of theartists
teamwho were allowed to travel came to
Berlin to help install the works, most of
which were shipped by sea from China,
while a fewarrived fromNorth America.
The installations are displayed in 18
rooms and several of the main conceptu-
al works were made for the exhibition,
while the others have not previously
been shown in Germany, where Mr. Ai
enjoys a large following. Chancellor An-
gela Merkel of Germany pressured the
Chinese government for Mr. Ais release
in 2011 and there were hopes that she
would be successful in securing him a
newpassport to attendthe openingof the
exhibition in Berlin. That did not happen.
Instead, Mr. Ai sent a video message
from his studio in Beijing, where the in-
stallations were conceived and pre-
paredwithhis teamof 20 assistants. The
message was shown at the opening of
the exhibition.
This show reflects the work in past
years. Most of themare newworks, Mr.
Ai said, speaking in English. Some are
related to my current condition, related
tomyconcerns. Somearemoreaesthetic
presentation of the kind of concerns that
I always have with art and art history.
Some are more involved with my activi-
ties on the Internet and documentary.
An element of that condition the
constant surveillance of Mr. Ai by the
Chinese authorities greets visitors as
they enter the exhibition in the form of
two cameras, marble replicas of those
trained on the entrance to the artists
Beijing studio.
Above them, a web of 150 bicycles by
the Shanghai-based Forever bike
makers hangs suspended from a ro-
tunda. Called Very Yao, the work is a
nod to Marcel Duchamp, the conceptual
artist who Mr. Ai often references. It also
commemorates the controversial case of
a young Beijing resident, Yang Jia, who
was arrested on charges of stealing a
bike in 2007 and gained public sympathy
for speaking out against the police har-
assment he said he suffered. Mr. Yang
later killed six Shanghai police officers
and was executed in 2008, but to many
Chinese he remained a symbol of the in-
dividual standing up against govern-
ment injustice.
For Stools, a collectionof 6,000 tradi-
tional Chinese stools lined up in tight
rows, Mr. Ai designed the work to fit the
sunken level of the 19th-century exhibi-
tionhalls central atrium. Tocreateit, Mr.
Ai carefully studied the buildings archi-
tecture anddrawingplans, creatingtight
rows that look pixelated froma distance.
Alexander Ochs, a Berlin-based gal-
lery owner who has known Mr. Ai since
the late 1990s and helped to build his fol-
lowinginGermany, saidthe showreflec-
ted the full range of the artists abilities.
Ai Weiwei has givenus a verypolitic-
al, but also very aesthetically and a
deeply spiritual exhibition, said Mr.
Ochs, who helped found the Friends of
Ai Weiwei group, which has raised
awareness of Mr. Ais situation with the
German public and politicians.
The artist had hoped until the last
minute that he would be able to attend
the opening, telling the German public
radio broadcaster ARDlast week that he
kept a suitcase packed and ready. Mr.
Ochs and his friends have been lobbying
Ms. Merkels government to take up the
case with Chinese officials, including
President Xi Jinping who visited Berlin
last week.
Supporters in the United States,
where exhibitions are planned at the
Brooklyn Museum and on Alcatraz in
California, have also taken up the call
for Mr. Ai to be allowed to travel. Last
month the graphic artist Shepard
Fairey released a poster of Mr. Ai, his
head shaved and bearing a gash from a
run-in with police, in a sign of solidarity.
Despite, or perhaps because, of Ger-
manys support, Mr. Ai did not shy from
awinkat the powerful industrial country
in an installation included in the show. It
involves eight ceramic vases from the
Han Dynasty painted in the metallic
greens, shimmering silver and irides-
cent blue of the luxury automobiles that
earn German carmakers millions each
year in sales to the Chinese market.
Everywhere he is sending us little
messages in a bottle, Mr. Sievernich
said.
MARKUS SCHREIBER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Above, an installation of 6,000 stools at the newAi Weiwei exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. The Chinese authorities did not permit Mr. Ai, below, to travel to the opening.
Ai Weiwei embraces the political
JARMUSCH, FROM PAGE 10
UNTIL I WAS 13 OR SO, my
primary reasons for
reading any given book
were that (a) it was in
our house; and (b) I
hadnt yet read it. In fact, (b) wasnt
enough of a reason, as I was more than
happy to read my childhood favorites
over and over again. (Even now, hand
me a copy of The Secret Garden and
Imset for the afternoon.) Indiscrimin-
ate bibliophagia didnt give way to the
search for the right book to read until the
age when the authority conferred by that
notion the right book, the right music,
the right person began to matter.
I started shaping my reading list
around the recommendations of people
I wanted to be friends with, to get close
to, to emulate, to be. My eighth-grade
friend Jen, who played guitar and
somehowgot me to sing a Beatles song
onstage with her in the middle-school
talent show, once meaningfully lent me
a grubby, clearly beloved copy of C.S.
Lewiss novel The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe. She prefaced my read-
ing with a spoiler-filled exegesis of the
ending, laying particular stress on the
Christ-like resurrection of the fallen li-
on king. Though I doubt she was trying
to convert me, Jen was a devout Chris-
tian, and she was clearly eager to share
the good news as well as a good book.
So I threwmyself into reading the Nar-
nia series but perhaps because of the
advance notice, Lewiss allegorical
fantasy struck me as schematic and
flat, and I made it through only the first
volume. It wasnt until I read his auto-
biographical works (Surprised by
Joy, AGrief Observed) more than a
decade later that I was able to appreci-
ate the depth and clarity of his writing
a slow-arriving present fromJen.
I was probably 15 when The Brothers
Karamazov was pressed on me ur-
gently by Chris, a boy two years my se-
nior with whomI had a complicated
friendship for the years when we over-
lapped in high school. Neither of us
quite had a crush on the other Im
not sure we even enjoyed each others
company all that much but we none-
theless kept trying awkwardly to mat-
ter to each other in some way, for the
simple reason that we both cared tre-
mendously about words and ideas, and
had fewother friends we could share
that obsession with.
I have no idea what Dostoyevskys
bizarre, ungainly last novel must have
read like to me then. I would reread it
years later in a Russian-literat-
ure-in-translation course in college, and
come to love if never fully to under-
stand it. (As I would discover in that
class, Immore of a Chekhov girl.) But
Ill never forget the conspiratorial thrill
of sneaking that thick red-and-white pa-
perback into health class to read under
my desk, or of sitting up late at Dennys
with Chris, the two of us arguing as only
a 15- and 17-year-old can over what the
Grand Inquisitor chapter was trying to
say about faith and justice and free will.
Later I would experience the DNA-al-
tering joy of discovering a great book at
the same time as, and in the company of,
a great love. I would start to choose
auxiliary verb applied to anything oth-
er than treating others with kindness
and respect, paying taxes and the con-
sumption of leafy green vegetables.
But let me back up a bit. In the interest
of full transparency, Imgoing to
provide a list of books that, at one point
or another, I felt obliged to read but
didnt: Moby-Dick, The Rise and
Fall of the Third Reich, Anna Karen-
ina, Catch-22, The Adventures of
TomSawyer, Cannery Row, The
Age of Innocence, Great Expecta-
tions, 1984, Gravitys Rainbow. In
later years i.e., my early to late 20s
there were others: Infinite Jest,
Motherless Brooklyn, Bastard Out
of Carolina, Jazz, Fight Club,
Generation X, The Corrections.
There are, of course, many, many more.
Do I feel sheepish about this? Some-
times, yes. But Ive also come to accept
that the holes in my ongoing literary syl-
labus are not so much intellectual fail-
ings as symptoms of a larger affliction
a stubbornness against culturally
mandated consumption and a lifelong
disdain for authority, legal or literary. In
short, my ambivalence about any num-
ber of what are commonly held to be
great or important books is a direct re-
sult of the fact that they are held to be
great or important books, especially
when it comes to more contemporary
works, whose agreed-upon influence
may have as much to do with an au-
thors social capital and publicity-ma-
chine marketing dollars as the quality
of the prose or the contours of the story.
This obstinacy, this default setting of
suspicion, inevitably means that I
sometimes throwthe baby out with the
bath water, like the moment in 1996
when, faced with what felt like the
500th glowing review, I vowed never to
pick up a copy of Frank McCourts An-
gelas Ashes. To be fair, Im40 now,
and this insolence has waned some in
the 17 years since I rejected McCourts
Pulitzer-winning memoir, which, by all
accounts, is a wonderful, moving por-
trait of individual resilience amid eco-
nomic and domestic catastrophe.
But I continue to be less interested in
what the conventional arbiters and
gatekeepers of culture agents, edit-
ors, publicists, critics deemneces-
sary than what titles speak to me in any
given moment: What I would want to
read as opposed to what I should.
Sometimes these interests line up, as
was the case with Freedom, by
Jonathan Franzen (meh), or Gone
Girl, by Gillian Flynn (loved it). Some-
times it takes a fewmonths or years,
as with ColumMcCanns lovely Let
the Great World Spin for me to
warmup to the idea of a book, to come
to a particular novel or memoir or his-
torical survey on my own, despite, not
because of, exhortations like best
book of the year or instant classic!
Rejecting should in favor of could
seems to me preferable, a privileging of
curiosity and discovery over necessity,
even if this sometimes haphazard ap-
proach doesnt always guarantee stimu-
lating conversation among the literati.
The fact is that books one should read
are fine for high school English cur-
riculums or collegiate surveys of literat-
ure, but beyond that, figurative or literal
checklists of published texts can suck
the joy out of reading and should be
avoided at all costs. Unless, of course,
youre a professional critic or editor of
said critics, in which case, I salute you.
And nowImoff to read whatever I want.
Anna Holmes has written for numerous
publications, including The Washington
Post, Salon, Harpers, Newsweek, Sports
Illustrated and The NewYorker online.
ONLINE: AGREE? DISAGREE?
Post comments, read columnist bios and
browse the archive at nytimes.com/books
books because they were mentioned in
other books, or because I heard an au-
thor give an interviewon the radio that
stayed with me, or because they offered
a windowonto some larger body of
knowledge I became, in short, an
adult capable of deciding for myself
what to read next, and Imglad of it. But
theres a power to those early memories
of books as talismans, passed fromone
initiate to the next as in a holy rite. Even
now, many of my best literary discover-
ies are directly traceable to passionate
recommendations fromfriends, prefer-
ably issued as they stand next to a book-
case gesticulating with a dog-eared
copy. Insisting people absolutely have
to read a book you loved what better
way of telling themyou love them?
Dana Stevens is the filmcritic at Slate
and a co-host of the Slate Culture
Gabfest podcast.
PEOPLE
KARENJOY FOWLER has won the PEN/
Faulkner prize for fiction for her novel
We Are All Completely Beside
Ourselves, the PEN/Faulkner Founda-
tion has announced. The $15,000 award
is the largest peer-juried prize for fiction
in the United States. The judges
MADISONSMARTT BELL, MANUEL MUOZ and
ACHY OBEJAS reviewed more than 430
novels and short-story collections before
choosing Fowlers novel about a lost sis-
ter, set in the Midwest in the 1970s. The
other finalists were DANIEL ALARCN, PER-
PHOTOGRAPHS: AP, AFP
CIVAL EVERETT, JOANSILBER. Ms. Fowler is
best known for her novel The Jane
Austen Book Club.
Alost masterpiece of British silent
cinema has been discovered in a small
cinema in the Netherlands, BBCNews
reported. Love, Life and Laughter,
written and directed by GEORGE PEARSON,
was made in 1923 and had been one of the
British FilmInstitutes 75 Most Wanted
films. Starring the British silent actress
BETTY BALFOUR, it told the story of a chor-
us girl who falls for an impoverished au-
thor. Only one other complete filmby
Pearson survives, according to the BFI.
The institute says it hopes to screen the
90-minute filmin Britain later this year.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY R. KIKUO JOHNSON
For largest exhibition yet,
dissident artist was
urged to be outspoken
BOOKENDS
Barring books read for school, what were the first books you felt you should read, and why?
Jarmusch
takes on
vampires
GAO YUAN
BOOKS, FROM PAGE 10
Music writer
amplifies his
digital books
KARENJOY FOWLER, BETTY BALFOUR
. . . .
Sports
soccer golf basketball
GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS
Ezequiel Lavezzi of Paris St.-Germain. It took only four minutes for Lavezzi to give P.S.G. an early lead, when he settled a weak clearance from Chelsea and fired it into the net.
Huge loss for P.S.G. as it wins big
SOCCER PARIS
BY SAM BORDEN
The ball had barely settled in the back of
the net, and Jos Mourinho, Chelseas
unpredictable manager, was already on
his way to the Paris St.-Germain bench.
While the P.S.G. players and coaches
celebrated Javier Pastores last-minute
goal, Mourinho somewhat bizarrely
walked around shaking hands with the
ecstatic home side, too.
Mourinho said later that he simply
wanted to beat the traffic in the tunnel
on the way back to the locker rooms;
after all, he noted, the referee blew the
final whistle seconds later. But in some
ways, the strange gesture looked as if
Mourinho was tacitly acknowledging
the gravity of Pastores goal: After a 3-1
victory Wednesday inthe first leg of this
Champions League quarterfinal, P.S.G.
is in prime position to eliminate Chelsea
and advance to the final four of Europes
top club competition.
A one-goal deficit would have been
manageable for Mourinhos teamin next
weeks second leg. Two goals, however,
maybetoomuchtoaskof ateamthat has
struggled to identify which of its strikers
if any can consistently produce.
It is difficult for us to score goals,
Mourinho said afterward. It is difficult
to transform the half-chances into
chances. And when you make the defen-
sive mistake, you are in trouble.
Chelseas best hope for a comeback?
It may lie in the fate of P.S.G.s star,
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who was removed
from the game after an hour with what
appeared to be a hamstring injury.
P.S.G.s president, Nasser al-Khelaifi,
indicated to French news media that
Ibrahimovic may be out for several
weeks, and if he is unable to play in
Tuesdays game at Stamford Bridge, it
will be a significant setback.
But Pastore, who came off the bench,
showed P.S.G.s depth. His goal in the
94th minute was well-taken, though
Mourinho and his players rued the ease
withwhichhezippedaroundtwoChelsea
defenders and whipped a shot past goal-
keeper Petr Cech at the near post.
The thirdgoal was ajoke, Mourinho
said. It was not a goal. It was a joke.
Chelsea defender Gary Cahill added:
It was a horrible time to concede, and a
sloppy goal, which is unlike us. Its a big
blow.
Chelseas woeful finish came several
hours after ugliness of a different kind.
The underbelly of continental soccer
was on display earlier Wednesday as
several groups of fans, believed to be
supporting Chelsea, were involved in vi-
olence on the streets of the city center.
The scenes on Rue St. Denis, among
other areas, were troubling: Witnesses
reported seeing fans making fascist sa-
lutes and spewing racial invective to-
ward black Parisians.
Additionally, flares were set off while
numerous storefronts and windows
were damaged.
After that unsavory beginning, P.S.G.
got off to a sizzling start in the game,
seizing a lead four minutes into the
game when Ezequiel Lavezzi settled a
weak clearance from Chelseas captain,
John Terry. Without missing a beat, he
rifled a stunning half-volley into the top
corner of the net.
That early punch should have sent the
home side flying, but P.S.G. could not
take advantage of Chelseas unorthodox
lineup. Mourinho has made no secret of
his displeasurewithhis strikers recently,
so, in a typically Mourinho-style move,
he played without one, starting the game
with midfielder Andre Schrrle playing
alone up front. At one point, Mourinho
screamed at Schrrle not to drop back
too far (as he was surely used to doing),
imploring himto push forward.
Ultimately, it was a series of mistakes
from P.S.G. that led to Chelseas equal-
izer. Ibrahimovic, who was largely in-
visible even before his injury, gave the
ball away easily in midfield, and mo-
ments later Thiago Silva, the veteran
P.S.G. captain and defender, made a
misguided challenge on Oscar just in-
side the penalty area. Eden Hazard
coolly scored the penalty kick to give
Chelsea a coveted away goal.
The Blues couldhave hada secondbe-
fore halftime Hazard hit the post with
anartful drive about five minutes before
the interval and that would have
surely tilted the series. But P.S.G. went
ahead after the hour mark when
Chelseas David Luiz turned the ball in-
to his own net. The biggest mistake of
the sequence was when Luiz fouled
Blaise Matuidi to give P.S.G. a free kick
in the first place. After that, there was
little Luiz could do once Lavezzis
wickedly bending ball turned him
around.
Optimists will recall that Mourinhos
teams have won the Champions League
twice before, so he certainly knows
what a comeback requires. But after
this result, he struggled to find cause for
hope.
It will not be easy, he said flatly.
We are not a teamfull of talent to score
lots of goals especially at this level.
Club beats Chelsea, 3-1,
but Ibrahimovic exits
game with leg injury
Real Madrids sole focus is on a 10th crown
Rob
Hughes
GLOBAL SOCCER
LONDON The craving that consumes
Real Madrid to try to win La Decima
a tenth European Cup or Champions
League crown moves inexorably on.
But for Borussia Dortmund, the in-
juries, suspensions and loss of players
to its biggest rival have combined to
become too big a burden for even
Coach Jrgen Klopp to repair.
After a deluge of rain and of goals at
the Santiago Bernabu Stadium in
Madrid on Wednesday, Real must
surely have one foot in the semifinals.
Gareth Bale scored with his first shot.
Isco glided out of midfield to strike a
second. And, almost inevitably, Cristi-
ano Ronaldo danced into the battered
and beleaguered remnants of
Dortmunds defense to score again.
Why would Ronaldo not score on this
night? He was celebrating his 100th
Champions League appearance and
tied the record of 14 tournament goals
in a single season (held, of course, by
Barcelonas Lionel Messi).
And Ronaldo has now accumulated
64 goals in this, the worlds premier
club tournament, compared to Messis
67 in 85 matches.
A minor knee injury should not pre-
vent Ronaldo from progressing to at
least the semifinals this year.
Most of injured Borussia players will
not be back for the second leg in
Dortmund on Tuesday, though Robert
Lewandowski, the Pole who struck four
goals in one night against Madrid last
season, should return after suspension.
Even that will probably be Lewan-
dowskis last stand because he, like
Mario Gtze a year ago, has already
decided he would rather play for Ger-
manys wealthiest team, Bayern Mu-
nich. And Dortmund, though still in
second place in the Bundesliga, has no
contractual power to resist.
But with injuries removing five from
the side that carried Borussia all the
way to the final last season, the Bern-
abeu was a bridge too far.
Sporting revenge, said Isco to re-
porters in Madrid after Wednesdays
game, is a beautiful thing. Now we
hope to knock them out.
Isco is 21. Vengeance for him was
personal and twofold, because
Dortmund had not only knocked Real
Madrid out of the Champions League
last year, it also eliminated his previous
club, Mlaga. He is a player expected
to mature into a vital No. 10 for Spain,
though on Wednesday he stole in from
the left flank to strike with a shot
sweetly placed low beyond the reach of
Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weiden-
feller.
Before that, the power and speed and
cool finish of Bale picked holes in a
Dortmund rearguard that appeared
barely to have come out of the locker
room. And when Ronaldo came
through that same defense, too quick
for Sokratis Papastathopoulos and
Mats Hummels, his finishing stroke
was full of the majesty that has decor-
ated his career.
One hundred Champions League
games and counting. Carlo Ancelotti,
the Italian who specializes in guiding
clubs to this trophy, cautioned that
Real is still three games away from the
final in May. The coachs caution is no
doubt born of the fact that his defend-
ers showed complacency that would
have been punished, had Lewandowski
been present.
We practically assisted two of their
goals, Klopp said after the game. We
had our chances in the second half, but
we didnt execute either the final pass
or the attempt on goal. So we are not in
a position to make battle cries about
the return leg.
Klopp spoke realistically about the
obligation to throw everything at the
game. He used the phrase glimmer of
hope.
But his Dortmund is not the
Dortmund of last year. The absentees
cannot help, and even the fit players,
such as that fine and spirited creator
Marco Reus and the energetic Kevin
Grosskreutz, appeared on Wednesday
to be snatching at their half chances.
Too eager. Too fatigued by a season
of trying to lift a side which has had its
legs torn from underneath it.
There was succor offered to
Dortmund in the way that Pepe, for ex-
ample, mixed timely interceptions and
blocks with his habitual errors in de-
fense. But Borussia was too tired and
too erratic to capitalize. The team that
won two Bundesliga titles this decade
and made it to the Champions League
final a year ago is no match at the mo-
ment for Real.
Madrid has come through its own
wobble in Spains domestic league. But
everyone knows and everyone has
seen it in the way that Real has
hammered opponents in Europe that
this club is about one thing this season:
La Decima.
DANI POZO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Dortmund defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos was sandwiched between Pepe and Ser-
gio Ramos as Real Madrid rolled to a 3-0 victory in the Champions League quarterfinal.
Houston
is missing
look of true
contender
BASKETBALL
BY BECKLEY MASON
After losing to the Nets in Brooklyn on
Tuesday night, the Houston Rockets
(49-24) acted as if they had had enough
of the N.B.A.s grueling 82-game regular
season. They played that way, too.
Missing three starters, including
Dwight Howard, the Rockets, who ap-
pear destined for the Western Confer-
ences fourth seed when the playoffs
start in three weeks, offered a listless,
impatient performance in Brooklyn.
We didnt attack, Rockets Coach
Kevin McHale said. We settled a lot.
Even given the injuries, Tuesdays
game raised questions about the Rock-
ets preparedness to make a deep play-
off run. They remain untested, through
no real fault of their own: There may be
no amount of regular-season winning
that canfullyprepare ayoungteamfor a
tough seven-game series. When teams
playeachother over andover, as theydo
in the playoffs, there is no hiding flaws,
just mitigating themwhere possible.
The Rockets have had a top-10 de-
fense and top-five offense nearly all sea-
son. These are reliable surface indica-
tors of a balanced team with
championship aspirations. But for all of
their winning, the Rockets may lack the
on-court seasoning to break through in
the brutal Western Conference.
The Rockets offense is almost exclus-
ively concerned with drives to the bas-
ket andspot-up3-pointers. No midrange
jumpers for them. It is a mathematically
and tactically prudent strategy, but in
execution it can almost look cynical.
James Harden, the Rockets best
player, spent his Tuesday night flinging
himself toward the rim on drives that
seemed intended to draw fouls rather
than score layups. That is probably a
meaningless distinction, and ultimately,
his style works. Harden earned and
made 16 free throws for his trouble, fin-
ishing with 26 efficient points.
Thequintessential Rockets possession
lasts only a handful of seconds. To push
the tempo, three or more of the Rockets
on the court have license to bring up the
ball. Theyoftenappear to be playingona
slanted court as they barrel toward the
rim in search of a crease in the other
teams worried transition defense.
Seen once, the Rockets manic transi-
tion offense appears simplistic and raw.
The kind of chaos they create demands
its own kind of discipline. Every N.B.A.
teamsays it wants to run more, but run-
ning is hard labor, and staying organ-
ized at top speed is even tougher. The
Rockets runwithpurpose. The wings fill
prescribed positions in the corners,
where the 3-point line is shortest.
The Rockets have the first 10 seconds
of a possession figured out. Their issues
are with the back half of the shot clock,
when things slow down. The freedom
and aggressiveness they play with at
the start of a possession can devolve in-
to disorganized stagnation at the end.
The Rockets can seemto lack a plan be-
yond putting Harden in a pick-and-roll
never a bad option when the shot
clock is short.
This was the case in Tuesdays loss,
and the frustration in the locker room
was evident. Our spacing tonight was
not very good, forward Chandler Par-
sons said with a growl. We didnt do
anything to help anyone else.
The Rockets know they can play bet-
ter, more together. They did so for a sol-
id 20-game stretch last month. But as
the playoffs near, the Rockets are still
chasinga level of consistencynecessary
to advance against the likes of the San
Antonio Spurs.
Other teams have made a leap in ma-
turity in the playoffs. Most recently, the
2012 Thunder, a teamHarden played for,
put together their best stretchof basket-
ball for four magnificent games against
the Spurs.
The longer we play together, the
more comfortable were going to be,
Parsons said. By now, its getting late
in the season. We are who we are.
The Rockets will be dangerous in the
playoffs. But they may have to wait an-
other 82-game regular season before
they can call themselves contenders.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
James Harden, right, Houstons top scorer.
Rockets struggle to adapt,
if their offensive system
doesnt work right away
Astudent
and a master
of the game
GOLF RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF.
BY KAREN CROUSE
The week of the Founders Cup in Ari-
zona, Karrie Webb sat for an interview
with filmmakers for a feature-length
documentaryonthe 13 womenwho star-
ted the Ladies Professional Golf Associ-
ation. The project intrigued Webb, a
seven-time winner of major tourna-
ments and a World Golf Hall of Fame
member whose excellence in the game
is surpassed only by her encyclopedic
knowledge of its history.
After Stacy Lewis posted a string of 13
consecutive top-10 finishes that was
snapped in Singapore in March, some
people mused that it must be some kind
of record until Webb quietly mentioned
to Lewis that she had recorded 16 in a
rowin 1998-99.
Asked recently howshe had managed
to return to the winners circle at the ad-
vanced age of 39, Webb, who has two
titles in four 2014 tour starts, pointed out
that Juli Inkster won eight events, in-
cluding two majors, after turning 40.
I wouldnt have known that, Ink-
ster, 53, said, adding, But Webbie
knows the history of the game, knows a
lot about it.
The past is important to her, but so is
the future, which is why Webb, who
turns 40 in December, is on the
L.P.G.A.s board of directors. During a
meeting in which the fine print of the
new season-long points race was dis-
cussed, Webb supported a system that
would avoid a repeat of what happened
in 1998, when Se Ri Pak won two majors
but lost the points-based Player of the
Year award to Annika Sorenstam.
She gets what she needs to do to
make the L.P.G.A. a better place, Ink-
ster said, adding, She really thinks
things through.
Webb made her debut in the Kraft
Nabisco Championship where she
will again play this week two years
after the death in 1994 of the tourna-
ments inimitable host, Dinah Shore.
Webb has kept alive her memory by ad-
vocating that Shores name be returned
to the events title.
Webb, the 2000 and 2006 champion,
did not have to meet Shore, a big-band
singer and television star, to know how
much the tournament, the first to fea-
ture a $100,000 purse, meant to womens
golf.
The sports legacy never stopped
mattering to Webb even as she built and
buffed her own. It is why, after she came
from six strokes back to win the
Founders Cup last month, she decided
on the spot to donate $25,000 of her
$225,000 check to help finance the film
on the L.P.G.A.s original 13.
Its so Karrie, said Paige Macken-
zie, another player on the L.P.G.A.
board. She loves this tour and has such
respect for its history.
Webbs golf story was made for the
big screen. She won the Womens Brit-
ish Open in 1995 at 20, before she joined
the L.P.G.A. Tour. In a three-year
stretch beginning in August 1999, Webb
won six major titles. At 24, she ascended
to No. 1 in the world. Webb was so dom-
inant that she drew comparisons with
Tiger Woods.
After 2002, fear and insecurity crept
into Webbs game. She had one victory
in 2003 and 2004 and none in 2005, the
year she was inducted into the World
Golf Hall of Fame. Her world ranking
dropped to 27.
I guess I meandered there for a little
while, Webb said. But winning here
early in 2006, in the fashion that I won, I
think really turned everything around
for me.
At the 2006 Kraft Nabisco Champion-
ship, Webb holed a pitching wedge from
116 yards for an eagle on the par-5 18th
on the final day, then defeated Lorena
Ochoa in sudden death.
On Monday, Webb played a practice
round with two 17-year-old amateurs
from her native Australia, Minjee Lee
and Su Hyun Oh. They asked me when
we were on 18 where I made the shot
from, Webb said.
Her caddie, she said, consulted his
yardage book and pointed to the spot in
the fairway where Lees mother was
standing.
Webb has beenstanding onsevenma-
jors since. She would love to win her
eighth this week, but she knows better
than to try too hard. Whether she suc-
ceeds or not, her legacy is secure. That
is what she keeps reminding herself.
Ask Webb a question
about golfs history, and
she can usually answer it
DONALD MIRALLE/GETTY IMAGES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Karrie Webb has won seven majors.
Decimated by injuries,
Dortmund is not the team it
was last year, when it made it
to the Champions League final.
. . . .
tennis sports
SCOREBOARD
NON SEQUITUR PEANUTS DOONESBURY CLASSIC 1972
GARFIELD CALVIN AND HOBBES
WIZARD of ID DILBERT
Across
1 Romania and
Bulgaria, once
16 Frank Loesser
show tune
17 It might cover
an oil spill
18 Doing the rounds?
19 Sporting goods
chain with
the slogan Get
outside yourself
20 Potsdam pronoun
21 Peculiar: Prefix
22 Start-up helper:
Abbr.
24 Pace at Pompano
Park
26 Shoving matches?
29 Relative of une
tulipe
31 Frasier role
33 Match cry
34 Pooh-pooh
38 Youre probably
right
40 Mojo
41 Sister co. of Virgin
42 Middle square,
maybe
43 Sea of ___ (view
from Crimeas
eastern coast)
45 Chart, in Cdiz
48 Sol mates?
50 Frost-covered
52 Crooks place
54 Many activists
concerns: Abbr.
56 One given up for
good?
61 What a sight for
sore eyes!
62 Its islands are not
surrounded by water
63 Unease
Down
1 Some defensive
weapons, in brief
2 Love and Death on
Long Island novelist
Gilbert
3 Lead-tin alloys
4 Unmarried, say
5 Activist Guinier
6 Some claims
7 Cool, dude
8 Many a backpacker,
at night
9 62-Across option
north of the border
10 Go a couple
of rounds
11 Preweighed, in a way
12 Very rarely heard
instruments
13 Long shift, perhaps
14 Ending to prefer?
15 Young or old
follower
23 Rich persons suffix?
25 Alternative to .net
27 Rural parents
28 Cry of pleased
surprise
30 Songwriters Hall
of Fame member
who wrote
April Love
32 Get-up-and-go
34 Doo-wop syllable
35 Body part detecting
odeurs
36 One getting rid
of possessions?
37 Third Watch
actress Texada
39 Hester Prynne wore
one
44 Labor Day arrivals,
e.g.
46 Conf. whose
membership
increased by two
in 2011
47 Melodic
49 Not leave the house
51 Prefix with second
53 Sticks in the brig?
55 Utah senator who
co-sponsored
a tariff act
56 Potential serial
material
57 ___ in Full
(Tom Wolfe novel)
58 Security figure:
Abbr.
59 Abrupt transition
60 Some picnic
supplies
CROSSWORD | Edited by Will Shortz 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16
17
18
19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42
43 44 45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52 53 54 55
56 57 58 59 60
61
62
63
Solution to April 3 puzzle PUZZLE BY MARTIN ASHWOOD-SMITH AND JOE KROZEL THE NEW YORK TIMES
A H E M S N U F F S A I D
R A D I O S A S I A N F L U
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SUDOKU No. 0404
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BRIDGE | Frank Stewart
If your assumptions are wrong, your
conclusions arent likely to be too good
either. Such was demonstrated in
todays deal.
Against four spades, West took two high
clubs (not best) and shifted to a trump.
South drew trumps and assumed that
the three-to-one odds would hold up, and
one of the red-suit finesses would win.
He led the queen of hearts from dummy,
and West won and returned a heart.
South won and next let the queen of dia-
monds ride, but East produced the king;
down one.
Red Kings
The play came to a sad conclusion for de-
clarer because he made the wrong as-
sumptions. If West held both red kings
plus the A-K of clubs and shortness in
spades, he would have acted over one
spade. So South can assume that East
has one red king.
After taking two high trumps, South
must lead a lowdiamond fromdummy. If
East wins, South can play low, saving his
queen, and later discard two hearts on dummys A-J.
If West had the king of diamonds, South could expect the heart finesse to win.
Daily Question: Youhold: 8; K74; 98642; AK87. Neither side vulnerable.
The dealer, at your right, opens one spade. You pass, the next player bids two spades
and two passes follow. What do you say?
Answer: You couldnt act at your first turn, but nowthat the opponents have stopped
low, you can compete. Partner surely has some values, and since the opponents have
a spade fit, your side probably has a fit somewhere. Double, which he should treat as
for takeout. Tribune Content Agency
South Dealer
N-S vulnerable
North
Q 10 9 5
Q J 3
A J 7 3
J 3
West
8
K 7 4
9 8 6 4 2
A K 8 7
East
7 4 2
9 8 6 2
K 10
Q 10 5 4
South
A K J 6 3
A 10 5
Q 5
9 6 2
South West North East
1 Pass 3 Pass
4 All Pass
Opening lead - K
SPORTS
Roundup
SOCCER
More arrests made inEngland
inmatch-fixinginvestigation
Seven more players fromFootball
League clubs in the northwest of Eng-
land have been arrested after a match-
fixing investigation by the British au-
thorities, taking the number of suspects
to 13.
The National Crime Agency said
Thursday that seven newarrests had
been made as well as the re-arrest of
six players held in December under
suspicion of conspiracy to commit acts
of bribery and money laundering.
In December the third-tier club Old-
hamAthletic fired the winger Cristian
Montao after the investigation into
match-fixing. The N.C.A.s investigation
began after revelations on Sunday in
the British tabloid The Sun. (REUTERS)
Senior FIFAofficial says Brazil
is not ready for WorldCup
The secretary general of FIFA, Jrme
Valcke, has again raised concerns about
Brazils World Cup preparations, saying
that the stadiumfor the opening game is
one of two venues that worry himmost.
Just two months before the
showpiece tournament starts, Valcke
said Wednesday in South Africa that
the stadiums in So Paulo, where the
opening game will be played June 12,
and Porto Alegre in the south were
where we have more work to do than
in the other 10.
If you want me to summarize, Val-
cke said when asked to describe
Brazils status, we are not ready. (AP)
OLYMPI CS
Judo chief dislikes proposal
to move sport to winter
The head of judos world governing
body has fired back at international
cyclings newchief for suggesting the
martial art could be moved to the
Winter Olympics.
The cycling president, Brian Cookson,
had said that some indoor sports could
be switched to the Winter Games to
take pressure off the Summer Olympics.
That didnt sit well with the Interna-
tional Judo Federation president, Mari-
us Vizer, who offered to help Cookson
in better understanding the world
sports movement and in avoiding press
communications at times when he actu-
ally does not have any message to
transmit. The Winter Olympics are re-
stricted to sports on snowor ice. (AP)
Swiss unleash their stars in Davis Cup
TENNIS
BY CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
The tennis band still known as the Big
Four is split in two this week. Roger Fe-
derer and Andy Murray are playing in
the Davis Cup quarterfinals, while Ra-
fael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are rest-
ing up for the clay-court tussles soon to
come.
Yet this is still better news than usual
for the beleaguered Cup, which might
not have all the major stars engaged
and enthused but does have a number of
potentially resonant story lines that
could bring the sports leading team
competition back to a wider audience.
Switzerland and that includes Fe-
derer has never won the Davis Cup.
Britain has not won it since 1936 and has
not reached a World Group quarterfinal
since 1986, a year before Murray was
born in Dunblane, Scotland.
Novelty is good plot fodder, and a full-
strength semifinal between Switzerland
and Britain, which would be staged in
Britain in September, would be the kind
of high-profile clash that has been too
rare in recent years, contributing to the
events decline.
But first the Swiss and the Brits need
to win this weekend.
Switzerland looks like a lock with its
two Grand Slam singles champions
Stanislas Wawrinka and Federer in
the lineup at home against Kazakhstan,
which beat a Federer-free Swiss teamin
2011 but has no player in the top 50 this
time.
The British, more of a one-man show
withMurray, areinamuchtighter spot in
Naples on outdoor clay against an Italian
team with two talented, well-established
singles players in the 13th-ranked Fabio
Fognini and 34th-ranked Andreas Seppi.
Fognini is carrying a thigh injury, and
Murray had health problems of his own
Thursday, missing the drawbecause of a
stomach illness. But he practiced later in
the day and presumably will have to be
close to his best perhaps in doubles,
too for TeamGB to have a chance. He
is nowwell-accustomed to ending histor-
ical droughts for his nation after becom-
ingthefirst Britishmanin77 years towin
the singles title at Wimbledon last July.
But Murray has not made it past the
semifinals in any tournament since
then, cutting short his 2013 season in
September because of back surgery and
splitting with his coach Ivan Lendl last
month. He has not hired a replacement
and is down to No. 8 in the singles rank-
ings, which is no help to the Big Four
brand even if Murray is clearly still
viewed as a member of the ruling class.
He showed signs of revival in Miami
last week, losing in the quarterfinals of
the Masters 1000 event in two tough sets
to Djokovic. But this will be a quick tran-
sition to clay, which remains his weak-
est surface even if he has reached two
quarterfinals and a semifinal at the
French Open.
Even so, he will be favored to win both
his singles matches, unlike the 161st-
ranked James Ward, the 27-year-old
who pulled off the upset of the first
round by defeating Sam Querrey of the
United States on an outdoor clay court
in San Diego. He has, however, won just
one match on the main tour since then.
It could thus be a wild weekend in
Naples, assuming the forecast of rain
does not extend the matches into next
week. And it would have been a much
more interesting weekend in Ariake
Coliseum in Tokyo if Japans star, Kei
Nishikori, had not had to withdrawfrom
the quarterfinal withthe CzechRepublic
because of a groin injury aggravated in
his runtothesemifinals inMiami, where
he beat Grigor Dimitrov, David Ferrer
and Federer before withdrawing.
Without the 18th-ranked Nishikori,
the highest ranked Japanese man in his-
tory, the home team has no players in
the top 130 and has had to get creative,
calling up the Davis Cup rookie Taro
Daniel to play singles.
The Czechs have won the Cup the last
two years and are now big favorites to
reachthe semifinals, most likely against
France, which is playing host in Nancy
to a German team missing its top four
players.
But the Czechs are also far from full
strength, although not because of injur-
ies. Their leader Tomas Berdych has de-
cided to conserve his energy for indi-
vidual pursuits by not playing away
matches this year and has become the
latest of many stars to lobby for a
change to the Cups annual format.
It should be at least every two
years, the 5th-ranked Berdych said in
Miami.
That is quite a statement from a man
who has been one of the most loyal Cup
players. But Berdychhas seenandheard
enoughto knowthat change remains un-
likely with Francesco Ricci Bitti, the
president of the International Tennis
Federation that runs the event, consis-
tently opposing any major format shifts.
The prize no longer means what it
used to mean, which is a paradox and a
pity considering how much energy and
suspense a Cup match can generate and
howmuch a biennial teamevent like the
Ryder Cup in golf has grown in impor-
tance in recent years.
But Federer, who has won all the indi-
vidual titles that matter except the
Olympic gold in singles, has decided
that it is a prize still worth chasing at
age 32, andnot just because his personal
coach, Severin Lthi, is the captain.
With Wawrinka at a newlevel, Feder-
er has committed to the campaign and
for the first time since he was a teen-
ager, he will not play No. 1 singles.
Wawrinka, this years surprise Australi-
anOpenchampion, is rankedNo. 3 inthe
world, one spot ahead of Federer, the 17-
time Grand Slamsingles champion.
Whatever the pecking order, plenty of
Swiss will cheer themon.
The Palexpo inGeneva canaccommo-
date 15,900 and there should be few
empty seats as the duo that has been
dubbed Fedrinka return to action.
It would be quite a surprise if Fed-
rinka is not back in action again for the
semifinals, where Murray just might be
welcoming themboth back to Britain.
CLIVE BRUNSKILL/GETTY IMAGES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Stanislas Wawrinka is ranked higher than Roger Federer, so he will play No. 1 singles as Switzerland meets Kazakhstan in the Davis Cup.
ONLINE: COMPLETE SPORTS RESULTS
inyt.com/sports
BASKETBALL
SOCCER
N.B.A.
EASTERN CONFERENCE
ATLANTIC DIVISION W L Pct GB
x-Toronto 43 32 .573
x-Brooklyn 40 34 .541 2
New York 33 43 .434 10
Boston 23 52 .307 20
Philadelphia 16 59 .213 27
ITALIAN SERIE A
WEDNESDAY
AS Roma 4 Parma 2
P W D L F A Pts
Juventus 31 26 3 2 67 22 81
AS Roma 31 22 7 2 62 17 73
Napoli 31 19 7 5 59 32 64
Fiorentina 31 15 7 9 49 33 52
Inter Milan 31 12 13 6 49 33 49
Parma 31 12 11 8 51 41 47
Atalanta Bergamo 31 14 4 13 37 39 46
Lazio 31 12 9 10 40 40 45
Verona 31 13 4 14 46 52 43
Torino 31 11 9 11 45 40 42
AC Milan 31 11 9 11 47 43 42
Sampdoria 31 11 8 12 40 43 41
Genoa 31 10 9 12 34 39 39
Udinese 31 11 5 15 34 42 38
Cagliari 31 7 11 13 29 41 32
Chievo Verona 31 7 6 18 26 46 27
Bologna 31 5 11 15 24 48 26
Livorno 31 6 7 18 34 58 25
Sassuolo 31 5 6 20 29 61 21
Catania 31 4 8 19 23 55 20
(REUTERS)
SOUTHEAST DIVISION W L Pct GB
y-Miami 52 22 .703
x-Washington 39 36 .520 13
Charlotte 37 38 .493 15
Atlanta 32 42 .432 20
Orlando 21 54 .280 31
CENTRAL DIVISION W L Pct GB
y-Indiana 53 23 .697
x-Chicago 43 32 .573 9
Cleveland 31 45 .408 22
Detroit 27 48 .360 25
Milwaukee 14 61 .187 38
WESTERN CONFERENCE
SOUTHWEST DIVISION W L Pct GB
y-San Antonio 59 16 .787
Houston 49 25 .662 9
Dallas 44 31 .587 15
Memphis 44 31 .587 15
New Orleans 32 43 .427 27
NORTHWEST DIVISION W L Pct GB
x-Oklahoma City 54 19 .740
Portland 49 27 .645 6
Minnesota 37 37 .500 17
Denver 33 42 .440 22
Utah 23 52 .307 32
PACIFIC DIVISION W L Pct GB
y-L.A. Clippers 54 22 .711
Golden State 46 29 .613 7
Phoenix 44 31 .587 9
Sacramento 27 48 .360 26
L.A. Lakers 25 50 .333 28
x-clinched playoff spot; y-clinched division
WEDNESDAY
Cleveland 119, Orlando 98
Indiana 101, Detroit 94
Washington 118, Boston 92
Charlotte 123, Philadelphia 93
New York 110, Brooklyn 81
Toronto 107, Houston 103
Miami 96, Milwaukee 77
Chicago 105, Atlanta 92
Minnesota 102, Memphis 88
San Antonio 111, Golden State 90
Denver 137, New Orleans 107
L.A. Clippers 112, Phoenix 108
Sacramento 107, L.A. Lakers 102
(AP)
. . . .
Business
Parliament
backs net
neutrality
for Europe
LONDON
BY MARK SCOTT
AND JAMES KANTER
European lawmakers approved new
rules on Thursday aimed at guarantee-
ing equal access to the Internet and cut-
ting cellphone charges across the 28-
member European Union.
The proposals, which had been sub-
ject to intense lobbying by industry
groups and consumer advocates, mir-
ror similar efforts inthe UnitedStates to
allow access by all companies and indi-
viduals to the Internets pipelines for
services like streaming music, on-de-
mand television and cloud computing.
The newlegislation, whichaims tocre-
ate a single market for electronic com-
munications across the bloc, faces a few
more hurdles before it can become law.
The next European Parliament, elect-
ed next month, would still need to give a
final endorsement of the rules, and indi-
vidual countries would need to reach
agreement with the Parliament and the
European Commission on a reconciled
version of the proposed law.
Any future horse-trading, particu-
larlyover howtelecomgiants charge In-
ternet companies for access to their
data networks, may lead to changes in
the final rules after domestic politicians
and regulators provide feedback for the
pan-European proposals.
Despite the uncertainty, Internet
companies and consumer advocacy
groups voiced support on Thursday for
the new rules, while telecom companies
said the changes would potentially cur-
tail investment inthe Continents mobile
and fixed-line Internet infrastructure.
European politicians inserted last-
minute amendments intendedto provide
a strict definitionof so-callednet neutral-
ity, whichmeans that telecomcompanies
and other Internet service providers
cannot discriminate between different
services that run on their data networks.
The lawmakers also made it mandat-
ory for mobile phone companies to com-
ply with rules to phase out roaming
costs when consumers use cellphones
in other European Union countries by
the end of next year.
This vote is the E.U. delivering for
citizens, Neelie Kroes, the European
commissioner responsible for telecom-
munications, said in a statement on
Thursday. This is what the E.U. is all
about getting rid of barriers to make
life easier and less expensive.
Industry lobbyists said that the cuts
in cellphone roaming charges, which re-
ceived widespread political backing,
were likely to stand when a new Parlia-
ment convened. The net neutrality pro-
visions, which passed with slimmajorit-
ies, could be reopened depending on the
outcome of the parliamentary elections.
The legislation is part of a continuing
debate inEurope over howto payfor the
PARIS
BY DAVID JOLLY
AND ALISSA J. RUBIN
A$20 billionbattle for control of a French
mobile phone operator is testing the lim-
its of President Franois Hollandes will-
ingness to let market economics work,
whilealarmingconsumer advocates who
worry that the governments favored
solution would reduce competition.
Whatever theoutcome, thewinner will
be one of the two billionaires vying to ac-
quire SFR, the mobile unit of the Vivendi
media and entertainment conglomerate,
with 21 million cellphone subscribers.
Only the mobile carrier Orange, with
about 27 million subscribers, is bigger.
Leading one team of bidders, and the
governments favored contestant, is
Martin Bouygues, the scion of one of
Frances biggest family fortunes and
boss of the countrys No. 3 mobile play-
er, Bouygues Telecom, with 11 million
customers.
His rival is Patrick Drahi, an enigmat-
ic French-Israeli entrepreneur who con-
trols the largest French cable television
operator and is seeking to break into the
mobile market.
The outcome could be decided as soon
as Friday when Jean-Ren Fourtou,
Vivendis chairman and chief executive,
meets with his colleagues on the board
to consider the rival offers.
The deal wouldbe byfar the largest
ever in the French telecommunications
sector, according to Frederic Boulan, an
analyst in the London office of Nomura,
the financial services group.
From the start, Arnaud Montebourg,
the outspoken Socialist Party stalwart
who was named economy minister on
Wednesday in a shake-up after last
weekends local elections, has made it
clear that he opposes the bid from Mr.
Drahi.
Mr. Drahis holding company, Altice,
is based in Luxembourg. Besides its be-
ing foreign, it is financed with an exten-
sive amount of debt that Mr. Monte-
bourg deems dangerous.
Mr. Montebourg has also cast suspi-
cion on Mr. Drahis personal finances,
and French media reported that the Fi-
nance Ministry had begun investigating
his tax status.
Mr. Montebourg, seen as being on the
left of the Socialist Party spectrum, has
said the state wants to reduce the num-
ber of mobile operators to three from
four, because the current market com-
petition is so cutthroat that it endangers
jobs and the companies ability to fi-
nance new investment. His critics say
he has seemed less concerned about the
possible anticompetitive impact of re-
ducing the number of companies.
As evidence of the governments back-
ing, the state-owned finance business
Caisse des Dpts et Consignations is
ponying up 300 million euros, or $411 mil-
lion, to back Mr. Bouyguess offer. Two of
Frances wealthiest families, Pinault and
Decaux, have also rallied to his side.
For all the commotion, the deals are
actually very similar. Both Bouygues
Telecomand Mr. Drahis cable business,
Altice-Numericable, are offering about
$20 billion in a combination of cash and
shares for SFR. And both would leave
Vivendi with a significant minority
stake in the merged entity.
But there are crucial differences.
A company created from a combina-
tion of Altice-Numericable and SFR
wouldhave shares tradedonthe market.
That would enable Vivendi which
wants to sell SFR as quickly as possible
toeasilyunloadits residual stake. And
a lack of overlapping operations means
the deal would be unlikely to encounter
trouble with antitrust regulators.
In contrast, a combined Bouygues
Telecom-SFR would not be publicly
traded, making it harder for Vivendi to
dispose of its stake. And there is a risk
that antitrust regulators would demand
significant asset sales because of the
overlap between the two companies
mobile operations.
If Bouygues hopes to win, it will need
to reassure Vivendi on its ability to exit
from the minority stake, according to
people close to the negotiations.
Three weeks ago Vivendi agreed to
enter exclusive talks with Mr. Drahis
Altice-Numericable, saying its proposal
was the better one. But Mr. Bouygues
has not given up.
Xavier Niel, a maverick entrepreneur
who shook up the French mobile market
in 2012 with the introduction of his Free
ultra-low-cost mobile service, has also
signed on with Mr. Bouygues.
Bouygues Telecomagreed last month
to sell him portions of his existing mo-
bile networks hardware and a number
of valuable radio frequencies for 1.8 bil-
lion, if the deal goes through, to address
antitrust concerns. That side deal would
transformMr. Niel into a muchmore im-
portant telecomplayer in France.
Both Mr. Bouygues and Mr. Drahi
have kept a low profile over the last
month, and both declined to comment
for this article.
Vivendi declined to comment, beyond
saying that it planned to work in the
best interest of our shareholders and
employees.
The focus on choosing between the
billionaires is misplaced, according to
consumer advocacy groups. Antoine
Autier, a project manager at UFC-Que
Choisir, Frances largest consumer or-
ganization, said the government was
not paying enough attention to the con-
cerns of mobile phone users.
Theres a certain incoherence in the
governments thinking, Mr. Autier
said. On the one hand, theyre saying
the market needs to shrink because four
operators is too many, he said. On the
other, theyre saying prices are not go-
ing to rise for consumers.
French mobile rates, once among the
highest in Europe, are now among the
lowest, thanks to Mr. Niels Free mobile
service, Mr. Autier said. Competition
has been very beneficial for the con-
sumer, he said.
The open involvement of the French
government in trying to shape the out-
come of a big business battle is part of a
long history of such interventions, tra-
cing fromthe legendary 17th-century fi-
nance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a
strong believer in the states role in the
creation of wealth.
Acceptance of Colbertism, which con-
trasts with Adam Smiths invisible
hand, is shared to some extent across
the French political spectrum. Jacques
Chiracs center-right government in
2005 put the kibosh on a takeover of
Danone, the French yogurt maker, by
the American giant Pepsi. More re-
cently, Mr. Montebourg torpedoed the
plan by Yahoo another foreign com-
pany to acquire VideoMotion, a
French competitor to YouTube.
In those cases, the government wor-
ried that strategic assets would be sold
to foreign companies that were little
concerned with maintaining French
jobs. But the current case involves two
French investors.
Speaking in a radio interview last
month in which he clearly signaled his
preference for Mr. Bouyguess plan, Mr.
Montebourg raised concerns about Mr.
Drahis personal finances.
Numericable is a Luxembourg hold-
ing, his company is quoted on the Am-
sterdam bourse, its bosss personal
holding is in Guernsey, a tax haven of
Her Majesty the Queen of England, and
he is a Swiss resident, Mr. Montebourg
said. Should he return to France, Mr.
Montebourg added, the tax authorities
will have some questions for him.
Mr. Montebourg appeared to be back-
pedaling this week, saying Tuesday on
France Inter radio that I dont support
Bouygues, I dont support anyone, and I
have no friends inthe grande bourgeois-
ie franaise.
Nonetheless, Mr. Boulan, at Nomura,
said Mr. Montebourgs promotion to
economy minister had added a new ele-
ment to the equation, because in theory
that wouldgivehimtheauthoritytoover-
rule the French antitrust authorities.
Whatever happens, consumers will
be watching closely their phone bills.
FRANKFURT
BY JACK EWING
The European Central Bank gave its
strongest signal yet that it was consid-
ering unprecedented actionto stimulate
the euro zone economy. But the bank
immediately faced criticism that talk of
large-scale bond purchases the same
method used by the Federal Reserve to
help restart the United States economy
was little more than a bluff.
Mario Draghi, the central banks
president, said that members of the
banks Governing Council, which met
Thursday, had a rich and ample dis-
cussion about so-called quantitative
easing, purchases of government or cor-
porate bonds on a grand scale as a way
of reducing market interest rates.
Inflation in the euro zone was 0.5 per-
cent in March, its lowest level since
2009. Mr. Draghi said that the Govern-
ing Council had grown concerned about
some of the negative effects of subdued
price increases, which make it harder
for euro zone countries like Greece or
Italy to reduce their huge debts.
The Governing Council is unani-
mous in its commitment to using also
unconventional instruments to con-
front the risks of a prolonged period of
low inflation, Mr. Draghi said, reading
froma prepared text.
The statement was the central banks
most explicit indication yet that it was
ready to deploy quantitative easing.
Use of the word unanimous in the
statement was evidently designed to
show that such a move would not face
dissent within the council from conser-
vative members like Jens Weidmann,
who is also president of the German
central bank, the Bundesbank.
At a news conference, though, Mr.
Draghi declined to give specifics about
how quantitative easing might be car-
ried out in Europe, where most credit
comes from banks rather than corpo-
rate bonds as in the United States. That
means the central bank would have few-
er assets to buy as a way of pumping
money into the economy.
The lack of detail caused some ana-
lysts to conclude that Mr. Draghi, whose
most effective monetary tool has often
been his spoken words, was bluffing.
Its hard to say how much of the rhet-
oric is a genuine signaling of Q.E. intent
andhowmuchis just trying to talk down
the euro, Luke Bartholomew, an in-
vestment manager at Aberdeen Asset
Management, said in an email.
The central bank left its benchmark
rate at 0.25 percent on Thursday,
already a record low. The euro dipped
against the dollar following Mr.
Draghis remarks to $1.37, down 0.37
percent fromearlier in the day.
Mario Draghi said inflation was ex-
pected to pick up in April. That was
probably one reason that the Governing
Council decided to not take any steps
now to stimulate the economy. And
while Mr. Draghi said the council ex-
pected inflation to remain low in the
midterm, the bank still expects inflation
to approach the 2 percent level, which
the bank sees as its target, in 2016.
Mr. Draghi may be hoping that an in-
crease in inflation in April will remove
pressure on the central bank to be more
aggressive. Mr. Draghi betrayed some
annoyance Thursday with outsiders, in-
cluding top officials of the International
Monetary Fund, who have been exert-
ing such pressure.
The I.M.F. has been recently ex-
tremely generous with its suggestions
of what we should do or not do, Mr.
Draghi said with obvious sarcasm. We
are really thankful for that.
The central banks council, he said, is
unanimous in its commitment to taking
steps to address lowinflation if it deems
them necessary. But for now, he said,
we need more information.
Some economists have begun to warn
of the perils of lowflation, a newterm
used to describe the phenomenon af-
fecting the euro zone.
Lowflation is not as damaging as de-
flation, a broad-based decline in prices
that undercuts corporate revenue and
often leads to higher unemployment be-
cause companies stop creating jobs.
ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
Big discounts in Athens. Declining prices in countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain make it more difficult for their governments to pay down their large debt burdens.
E.C.B. mulls vast bond purchases
Britain leans
toward new
tobacco law
LONDON
BY STEPHEN CASTLE
The British government took a step
Thursday toward imposing a ban on
branding for cigarette packs, indicating
that it was likely to go ahead with
sweeping new restrictions on the mar-
keting of tobacco.
Until late last year the government
appearedto oppose anyrequirement for
plain cigarette packaging, which is in-
tended to make smoking less attractive
to young people who might be tempted
by the brand messages of tobacco
companies.
But on Thursday, Jane Ellison, the un-
der secretary for public health, pub-
lished the findings of an independent
study on the issue, which found that
there was enough evidence to say that
standardized packaging is very likely to
contribute to a modest but important re-
duction in smoking.
Ms. Ellison said she was inclined to
proceed with laws to standardize ciga-
rette packaging and told lawmakers that
if the rate of smoking by children was re-
ducedevenby2 percent, 4,000fewer chil-
dren would take up the habit each year.
She said that, before proceeding, she
would review any new information that
had emerged since the last full public
consultationin2012 and could be relev-
ant to a final decision on this policy.
Any such lawwould give public health
advocates a big lift by introducing some
of the toughest restrictions on tobacco
sales in the world. Australia requires
plain packaging, and Ireland intends to
eliminatetrademarks andlogos onpacks
and to set rules on the size and position-
ing of health warnings. All packs would
be one plain neutral color, with the brand
name in the same uniformtypeface.
New restrictions across Europe will
soon increase the size of mandatory
health warnings on cigarette packages.
In February, the European Parliament
approved regulations to permit picture
andtext healthwarnings that wouldcov-
er 65 percent of the front and the back of
the packs, and 50 percent of their sides.
Countries inside the 28-nation bloc
are permitted to go further if they wish.
The report published Thursday was
written by a prominent pediatrician,
Cyril Chantler. He said in a statement
that research cannot prove conclus-
ively that any one measure would
have an impact on curtailing smoking,
but he noted that even a moderate de-
cline was important.
The Labour Party criticized the Brit-
ish government for requiring a con-
sultation period instead of pressing
ahead immediately with legislation.
How many more children are going
to take up smoking before this govern-
ment takes firm and decisive action?
saidLuciana Berger, a spokeswomanon
public health issues for the opposition.
Some opponents of the plan have ar-
gued that plain packaging would en-
courage counterfeit cigarettes, but Mr.
Chantlers report rejected that idea. It
found no evidence that standardized
packaging is easier to counterfeit, and
indeed in Australia hardly any counter-
feit standardized packages have been
found to date.
The report said the effect on tobacco
consumption of the new rules in Aus-
tralia, which were introduced in 2012,
was unclear, and that the switchover
process might have distorted the statis-
tics. Tobacco shipped to retailers actu-
ally increased in volume by around 0.3
percent in 2013. But cigarette sales in
grocerystores fell byaround0.9 percent
in the same year, the report said, citing
the Retail World trade magazine.
Mark Littlewood, the director general
of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a
research institute in London that favors
free markets, said that the British gov-
ernment should resist a rush to regu-
late.
The early evidence from Australia,
where plain packs have been intro-
duced, suggests this policy has not had
any impact on youth smoking rates in
fact, overall smoking appears to have
risen, he said in a statement.
High stakes in cellphone battle of the billionaires in France
DANIEL ROLAND/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Lack of details about the program had analysts wondering if Mario Draghi was bluffing.
The bidders are the scion of
one of Frances biggest family
fortunes and an enigmatic
French-Israeli entrepreneur.
Health official publishes
report calling for plain
packaging of cigarettes
This is what the E.U. is all
about getting rid of
barriers to make life easier
and less expensive.
EUROPE, PAGE 17 RATES, PAGE 17
CONOR ASHLEIGH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
An example of the antismoking messages
that appear on Australian cigarette boxes.
. . . .
technology media business
Amazon seeks a portal via the TVscreen
EDUARDO MUOZ/REUTERS
Peter Larsen, an Amazon vice president, demonstrating the Fire TV device at a Manhattan news conference this week. It will show programming that Amazon creates and licenses.
BY DAVID STREITFELD
Amazon is a retailer that makes and
sells entertainment. This week it took a
big step toward a future in which shop-
ping and video are tightly linked, per-
haps even inseparable.
If Amazon has its way and it did not
become one of the United States most
valuable companies by drifting with the
current even watching home movies
of your sisters adorable children or a
friends crazy cat will become market-
ing opportunities.
The company began selling a device
Wednesday that lets consumers watch
Amazons extensive video library, as
well as play a wide array of games on
their television sets.
Amazon has a vested interest in
making sure it is present at every mo-
ment of possible consumption, which is
all the time, said James McQuivey, an
analyst with Forrester Research. It
wants to get into that television screen
and start to build a relationship.
Amazon Fire TV is part of a multi-
billion-dollar effort by Amazon to move
from selling goods produced by others,
which is traditionally a low-margin
business, to presiding over the entire
process of creation and consumption.
Physical formats such as books, CDs
and DVDs are being replaced by down-
loads and streaming.
In books, Amazon has largely made
this transition. It makes e-readers and
tablets and then sells the content for
them. Some writers produce their books
exclusively for Amazon.
Video is much more competitive. Net-
flix, which began by renting the same
DVDs that Amazon was selling, is the
leader both in streaming video and cre-
ating original shows to feature on it.
Streaming is the long-term future of
video, saidWilliamV. Power, ananalyst
for Robert W. Baird & Company.
Amazonneeds tocapitalizeonthat. The
prize is controlling much of the living
roomand a big piece of the economy.
Fire TV, which arrives after years of
speculation, costs $99. In addition to
content fromAmazons studios, it offers
programming the retailer licenses for
an estimated 20 million Amazon Prime
subscribers. Those customers pay as
much as $99 a year for a membership
that includes videos and shipping.
Other Fire content will come from es-
tablished players like Hulu and Netflix.
Another source will be homemade films.
With a separate $40 controller, Fire TV
can also be used to play games, includ-
ing a version of the popular Minecraft.
Were missionaries about inventing
andsimplifyingonbehalf of customers,
Peter Larsen, an Amazon vice presi-
dent, said at a Manhattan news confer-
ence held to announce the device.
Mr. Larsen, speakingona stage outfit-
ted to look like a living room, said
devices fromcompetitors, whichinclude
Roku, Google and Apple, have three
problems: It is too hard to search for
content, performance is slowand unreli-
able, and the content is a closed system.
He noted that Apple TV users could not
get the full Amazon Prime experience.
Among the enhancements promoted
for Fire TV: a voice search function that
allows users to say a name like George
Clooney and see results instantly pop
up, and a prediction feature that knows
what you want and lines it up.
Amazon is leveraging its position as a
retailer to expand into newfields, some-
thing it has become very good at. Be-
cause were selling millions of set-top
boxes already, we hear whats working
and we hear whats not working, Mr.
Larsen said. Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazons
founder and chief executive, was not
present at the news conference.
Dave Limp, another Amazon execu-
tive, dismissed all the new and old
companies that will be dukingit out with
Amazon in the consumers living room.
We dont go at it from the perspec-
tive of who youre going to compete
against, he said. We dont think of this
as a sporting event where there has to
be one winner.
But ina chart onAmazons site, where
the company has already started selling
the Fire TV, it made explicit comparis-
ons with those competitors, whom it
judged wanting. Amazons chart was
immediately attacked for leaving out
things that its competitors did better.
For instance, Roku offers more options
for live-streaming sports events.
Consultants are already laying bets.
The likely winners are Apple and
Amazon, both of which offer entire eco-
systems, are excellent at merchandis-
ing content and are capable of subsidiz-
ing prices and making up the revenue
elsewhere, said Bill Rosenblatt, presi-
dent of GiantSteps Media Technology
Strategies. The likely losers are
Google, which has a poor track record in
entertainment devices and is not very
good at merchandising content, and
Roku, which has no ecosystemor syner-
gies with other devices or services.
For all the lure of new devices like
Google Glass, Americans still spend
four hours a day watching television.
The dream of securing that audience
has fired up many a technology mag-
nate. Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Intel
all have tried, with mixed results. No
one has done for TVs what Steven P.
Jobs did for computers, portable music
players and cellphones.
TVwasonMr. Jobssto-dolist. Idlike
to create an integrated television set that
is completely easy to use, he told his bi-
ographer, Walter Isaacson. I finally
cracked it. But then he died, and Apple
fans havewaited. AppleTV, aset-topbox,
is the leader inthe field, but until recently
Apple referred to it as a hobby.
In Amazons vision, the television be-
comes a supercharged home-shopping
ecosystem.
Imagine, Mr. McQuivey said, Im
watchinga JasonBourne movie. Hes on
the run through Europe. The movie
pauses and lets you move into an inter-
active game with Bourne. Or maybe he
goes through Vienna, and you always
wanted to go there, so heres how you
could plan a trip or at least buy a book
about it. Amazon will know who to offer
these deals to because those people are
already in front of it at that moment.
This was not something Amazon
talked about much at the news confer-
ence, but Amazon is also not a company
that gives away its secrets.
One small clue to the companys ulti-
mate plans: Amazon is promoting an
app for its box from a start-up called
Magisto. It offers free automatic video-
editing software that can reduce the
three-hour movie you shot about your
cat to something far snappier. The com-
panysays it has tens of millions of users,
a small percentage of whom choose to
make their films public.
Magisto has the potential to be a sort
of YouTube for Amazon customers.
Reid Genauer, chief marketing officer
of Magisto, said he had no idea how
Amazon would generate revenue from
Magistos app but speculated that the
metadata in each video could be auto-
matically analyzed in the same way
Google automatically scans Gmail mes-
sages and then advertises against them.
In the same way that I write, Im
coming to see you in England, and then
I see airfare ads, Mr. Genauer said,
you could see how someone could use
metadata in video to sell products.
Jonah Bromwich contributed reporting.
Berlin aims
to cement its
role as haven
for start-ups
BY MARK SCOTT
Berlin has one of the fastest-growing
start-up communities, as engineers and
designers have flocked to the German
capital in recent years, attracted by the
underground music scene, cutting-edge
art galleries, stylish bars and lowrent.
Yet as a number of European technol-
ogy companies close in on high-profile
initial public offerings, following the re-
cent debut of King Digital Entertain-
ment, the maker of the Candy Crush
Saga franchise, many wonder whether
Berlin will be able to capitalize on its
burgeoning reputation.
Entrepreneurs there complain that
there is still a lack of funding available
from local venture capitalists, many of
whom were badly burned during the
dot-com crash more than a decade ago.
Logistics also make it difficult for Amer-
ican investors to scout talent and start-
ups in Berlin. (There are no direct
flights from the German capital to the
West Coast, for example.)
U.S. venture firms find it tough to in-
vest in Berlin, said Konstantin Guer-
icke, a German co-founder of LinkedIn,
who now is a United States-based part-
ner of the German venture capital firm
Earlybird. Until we see really big exits
coming from Berlin, U.S. venture capi-
talists will remain happy with what they
can get in the U.S.
Mr. Guericke, who joinedEarlybirdas
a consultant in 2012 and became a full
partner in the firm on Wednesday, is
banking that Berlins technology com-
munity can overcome these challenges
to cement itself alongside Tel Aviv, Lon-
don and Stockholmas a leading technol-
ogy center outside Silicon Valley.
Currently, Germany lags behind oth-
er countries in the amount of venture
capital raised per capita, according to
the data provider DJXVentureSource.
Earlybird, which has raised a com-
bined $960 million since being founded
in 1997 and has expanded into Eastern
Europe and Turkey in search of new
start-ups, has a number of portfolio
companies that have garneredattention
frommajor American investors.
Last year, Union Square Ventures, a
New York firm that has backed compa-
nies like Twitter, Zynga and Tumblr, an-
nounced that it had invested $7 million
in Football App, a Berlin-based start-up
that is also funded by Earlybird. Se-
quoia Capital also invested$19 millionin
6WunderKinder, another Earlybird-
backed technology company that
makes an online task application.
Its time for another SAPto come out
of Germany, said Mr. Guericke, in ref-
erence to the countrys software be-
hemoth. Berlin has done a good job of
marketing itself as one of Europes main
tech ecosystems.
The city is home to companies like
SoundCloud, the audio-sharing service;
Wooga, the Internet gaming company;
and Rocket Internet, a technology in-
cubator known for copying successful
ideas from American start-ups all of
which have reached global audiences.
Other local start-ups, including
ResearchGate, a social network for sci-
entists that has raised money from Bill
Gates and Benchmark Capital, have
also garnered attention abroad.
For Mr. Guericke, Berlin is well situ-
ated to profit from Europes expanding
technology industry. Its location in Cen-
tral Europe gives it access to developers
from countries like Hungary and Ro-
mania, and it offers cheaper living and
working costs in comparison with cities
like London.
Berlin is ready for global category
leaders, Mr. Guericke said. The city is
at a point to take advantage of what
European tech has to offer.
Yet for Berlin to secure a place among
Europes technology clusters, many in-
vestors will bekeepingaclose eye onthe
potential multibillion-dollar initial pub-
lic offering this year by Zalando, an e-
commerce start-up considered to be a
German copy of Zappos, the online shoe
retailer. Zalando, initially backed by
Rocket Internet, has now spread to 15
European countries since starting in
2008 and reported a 52 percent rise in its
sales, to $2.4 billion, in 2013.
People have to remember that it will
take time for major exits, Mr. Guericke
said.
Nonetheless, he added, if I was a
copy of myself looking to create a com-
pany, I would start it in Berlin.
Machine
Learning
MOLLY WOOD
Your search history contains some of
the most personal information you will
ever reveal online: your health, mental
state, interests, travel locations, fears
and shopping habits.
And that is information most people
would want to keep private. Unfortu-
nately, your web searches are carefully
tracked and saved in databases, where
the information can be used for almost
anything, including highly targeted ad-
vertising and price discrimination
based on your data profile.
Nobody understands the long-term
impact of this data collection, said Ca-
sey Oppenheim, co-founder of Discon-
nect, a company that helps keep people
anonymous online. Imagine that
someone has 40 years of your search
history. Theres no telling what hap-
pens to that data.
Fortunately, Google, Microsofts Bing
and smaller companies provide ways to
delete a search history or avoid leaving
one, even if hiding fromthose ads can
be more difficult.
Google makes it easy to find your
personal web history, manage it and
even delete it. Just go to google.com/
history and log in to your Google ac-
count. There, you will see your entire
history and can browse it by category.
For example, in the last month, Ive
done image searches for Gal Gadot
(who will play the newWonder Wom-
an), pointy nail trend and Wayne
Rooney hair transplant, plus a few
more intelligent things, Imsure.
If you would like this history to go
away, click the gear icon in the upper
right of the page and choose Settings.
Here, you can turn off search history, so
Google wont save future searches. You
can delete your history fromGoogles
database or just remove specific items
fromyour recent history.
This does not opt you out of ad track-
ing, however. It just gets rid of a poten-
tially embarrassing or damaging his-
torical record. Google also lets you opt
out of targeted and search ads on the
web and in Gmail, at google.com/set-
tings/ads.
You can turn off and erase your
search history on Microsoft Bing at
www.bing.com/profile/history. Yahoo
lets you turn off future search histories
but doesnt have a way to delete the old
one. Visit search.yahoo.com/prefer-
ences to turn off your history.
Even with your history turned off,
though, you are still sending a lot of
personal data when you surf or search
fromall three, especially if you are
logged in to your Google, Microsoft or
Yahoo account when you search.
Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive at
the alternative search engine Duck-
DuckGo, says there is a different way,
and it can still involve making money
fromsearch-related ads.
DuckDuckGo collects no personally
identifying information (like your I.P.
address) as you search and doesnt
save any search history that can be tied
to you. But DuckDuckGo still makes
money on ads. Its a myth that the
search engines need to track to you to
make most of their money in web
search, Mr. Weinberg said. Most of
the search ads are based on the queries
you type in and have nothing to do with
your search history.
DuckDuckGo said its searches more
than doubled from2012 to 2013 to over a
billion queries a year. That is tiny com-
pared with Google (100 billion searches
a month) or even Bing or Yahoo, but the
growth demonstrates a real interest in
private searching. Other options in-
clude PrivateLee, Qrobe.it and IxQuick,
which is based in the Netherlands.
Using DuckDuckGo or another
private engine takes a little getting
used to. DuckDuckGo doesnt autocom-
plete search terms, for example, but
PrivateLee does. They obviously dont
filter results on the basis of your past
searches, either. The results may seem
a little strange as a result.
If you are partial to Google, Bing or
Yahoo as a search engine but want it to
be anonymous, try Disconnect Search.
The web version lets you specify
Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo or
Blekko as your engine, but it searches
themwithout sharing your Internet ad-
dress or saving a search history.
You can also install Disconnect
Search as a plug-in for the Chrome or
Firefox browsers, so you dont have to
remember to go to the site. There is an
Android app available, but none for
Apples iOS. Disconnect also offers oth-
er privacy tools that block ad tracking
in browsers and on iOS.
So why do all of this? If you have been
wondering why eerily specific ads keep
showing up on every site you visit, in
your email, on Facebook or anywhere
else you go online, its because those
advertisers do knowyou that well.
Search companies like Google feed
your queries to advertisers, who use
themto showyou ads related to your
interests and that is just on Googles
site.
When you click search result links,
the sites you visit can access your
search terms and your I.P. address,
which can determine the location of the
computer you are using. That means
those third-party sites also knowwhat
you searched for and who you are or at
least where your computer lives.
For me, the right combination of pri-
vacy and search convenience came
frommaking DuckDuckGo the default
search engine in my browser. I like its
instant search results, which appear
above the rest of the results, and its
fast and accurate. Ads are clearly
marked and often relevant.
While Google does give users some
control over their web and search activ-
ities and ad tracking, it will always be in
that companys best interest to share
your information to serve you better ads
and to collect as much as it can. That is
not necessarily in your best interest.
Privacy matters for many reasons,
both tangible and not, and its wise to
exercise control when you can.
JAMES BEST JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES
HONG KONG
BY NEIL GOUGH
The latest Chinese technology company
to seek a stock market listing in the
United States comes with heavyweight
backers andis a rare attempt at anoffer-
ing by a parent company already listed
in Hong Kong.
On Thursday, Kingsoft Corporation, a
Chinese software company listed in
Hong Kong, announced that its subsidi-
ary, Cheetah Mobile, had filed for an ini-
tial public offering in the United States.
Cheetah, which develops Internet se-
curity software, said in a filing on Wed-
nesday with the United States Securi-
ties and Exchange Commission that it
may seek to raise $300 million. Cheetah
did not indicate whether it planned to
list on the NewYork Stock Exchange or
the Nasdaq.
Coming amid a number of tremend-
ously successful Chinese technology
I.P.O.s in the United States, Cheetahs
planned offering stands out on several
fronts. The companys biggest backers
are Lei Jun, a billionaire software and
smartphone entrepreneur, and Tencent,
a Chinese online video game and social
networking company with a market
value of about $130 billion.
It is alsouncommonfor acompanylist-
ed in Hong Kong to seek a newlisting for
a business in the United States. In doing
so, Cheetah plans to adopt a two-tiered
shareholding structure that would give
the companys founders a disproportion-
ate say over the way the company is run.
While HongKongs stockmarket regu-
lators have frowned on such structures,
similar arrangements are commoninthe
United States, especially among technol-
ogy companies like Google, which is cre-
atinganewclass of shares withnovoting
rights or Facebook. Partly as a result
of this stance, Alibaba, the Chinese e-
commerce giant, has chosen the United
States over Hong Kong for an I.P.O. that
analysts expect will surpass Facebooks
$16 billion offering two years ago.
Cheetah has developed mobile apps
and computer programs that block vir-
uses, remove unwanted files and gener-
ally improve security. It had a total of
329.5 million monthly active users as of
December. Last year, it made a profit of
62 millionrenminbi, or about $10 million,
on revenue of 750 million renminbi.
Covering
your tracks
on the web
JEROME FAVRE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Kingsoft, Cheetah Mobiles parent company, is already listed on the Hong Kong exchange.
Kingsoft files for I.P.O.
for its mobile subsidiary,
a security software maker
City offers a cutting edge
and plenty of promise
but lacks access to capital
U.S. listing for China company
FLORIAN SCHUH/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
The TV Tower in Berlin; start-ups there
would benefit from better American links.
. . . .
ONLINE: DEALBOOK
Read more about deals and the deal
makers. nytimes.com/dealbook
BY SHIVANI VORA
The Refinery, a luxury hotel in the heart
of the fashion district in Midtown Man-
hattan, was converted froma former hat
factory from the early 19th century. The
11-month-old NewYork property has 197
rooms on 12 floors and a distinct contem-
poraryfeel, withtouches payinghomage
to the buildings millinery days. Every
staff member, for example, wears a pin
adorned with needle, thread and scissor
charms, and the desks with cast-iron
legs in the rooms are meant to resemble
early 19th-century sewing machines.
Original works from local artists adorn
the walls. From$459 for a studio queen.
LOCATION The Refinery is on a non-
descript block of West 38th Street but
has a prime location: Times Square, the
theater district, Bryant Park and the
Empire State Building are all within a
10-minute walk. Most major subway
lines are also nearby.
THE ROOM My husband, Mahir, and I
had booked a 250-square-foot studio
queen, the lowest category of room, but
were upgraded free of charge to a 400-
square-foot Empire State studio king,
which had views of the landmark its
named for. Tasteful dcor was clearly a
priority: A long hallway led to a crisp
and inviting bedroom with high ceil-
ings, plenty of natural light, gleaming
hardwood floors, two large blue and red
abstract paintings and a large contem-
porary floor lamp with a red patterned
shade. All rooms are decorated in a
similar style. There was also a comfort-
able chair, 42-inch flat-screen television
and robes and slippers from Frette, the
luxury Italian linen house.
THE BATHROOM A frosted-glass door
slides open into the spacious bath,
which has white marble floors, attract-
ive chrome accents and a hanging light
fixture. The divine-smelling toiletries
come from Le Labo, a New York City
fragrance house. Our one nitpick was
the small single-sink area with limited
counter space.
AMENITIES A rooftop with indoor and
outdoor seating is a hideaway in the
heart of Midtown and has already be-
come a popular happy hour spot for the
fashion set working in the area. The
lobby bar, Winnies, is an equally styl-
ish place to imbibe and features live
jazz and piano performances. Wi-Fi and
a daily newspaper are complimentary,
and there is also a small gym on the
second floor.
ROOM SERVICE Parker & Quinn, the
propertys American bistro, provides
all the food for room service. Our $35
breakfast of mixed fruit, an omelet,
toast, tea and coffee arrived in 15
minutes, but the presentation was
sorely lacking: The food came in black
plastic takeaway boxes with plastic
utensils and in a brown paper bag. The
eggs had no condiments such as salt,
pepper and ketchup, and the fruit was
an unappetizing small portion of not-so-
sweet mixed melons. A representative
said recently that the hotel has rolled
out a more refined room service.
BOTTOM LINE With its hat factory his-
tory, good location, upscale finish and
an eager-to-please staff, the Refinery is
a definite draw and is an ideal place for
travelers who are looking to be near the
citys major tourist attractions. It
lacked the polish of other well-estab-
lished luxury properties in town, but
that may improve over time, and its
charm more than makes up for it.
Refinery Hotel, 63 West 38th Street,
1-646-664-0310, refineryhotelnewyork.com
Luxury in the heart of a fashion capital
I NTERNATI ONAL TRAVELER
dealbook
finance companies business
Windowon
Wall Street
JESSE EI SI NGER
PROPUBLICA
The regulatory cloud has lifted for Ken-
neth D. Lewis, the former head of Bank
of America. Last week, he received a
modest penalty, paid for by the bank,
and a temporary ban froman industry
he is no longer a part of.
In this seminal financial crisis inves-
tigation, regulators put on a master
class in howto take a strong case and
render it weak.
Its worth recounting the story from
its beginning.
Bank of America was an unwieldy ag-
glomeration of dozens of banks tacked
together with spit and spreadsheets. As
the world economy imploded in
September 2008, the bank rushed into
yet another acquisition, taking over
Merrill Lynch. Merrill was failing, fac-
ing the same short-termfunding run
that would have collapsed all the in-
vestment banks, had it not been for the
governments intervention.
In what nowreads as unintended
comedy, Mr. Lewis called it the stra-
tegic opportunity of a lifetime. Oh, and
he said there had been absolutely no
pressure fromthe Federal Reserve to
take Merrill over. He would later ac-
knowledge that this was untrue.
We nowknow, of course, that Bank of
Americas acquisition of Merrill was
one of the worst deals in corporate his-
tory. As the two banks moved to con-
summate the merger in the fourth
quarter of 2008, Merrill bled billions
while paying huge bonuses to its execu-
tives. Bank of America ended up need-
ing two bailouts fromthe Treasury De-
partment, as well as extraordinary
lending fromthe Federal Reserve.
On Feb. 4, 2010, AndrewM. Cuomo,
then NewYork States attorney gener-
al, accused Bank of America of mislead-
ing its shareholders and the public
about the losses and the bonuses by fail-
ing to disclose thembefore sharehold-
ers voted on the merger on Dec. 5, 2008.
According to the complaint, Bank of
America executives wrestled over
whether to tell investors about the
mounting Merrill losses. On Nov. 13,
2008, Bank of Americas general coun-
sel, Timothy J. Mayopoulos, and the
banks outside lawyers fromWachtell,
Lipton, Rosen &Katz decided that the
numbers would have to be disclosed in
a Securities and Exchange Commission
filing, according to the complaint. Then,
they consulted Joe Price, the banks
chief financial officer, and decided to re-
verse their decision.
On Dec. 4, 2008, the complaint al-
leges, Mr. Price knewthat the losses
had breached the threshold that Mr.
Mayopoulos had laid out as the bench-
mark for requiring disclosure. The
shareholder vote went ahead without
any filing.
On Dec. 9, 2008, according to Mr.
Cuomos complaint, Mr. Mayopoulos
listened while Mr. Price told the board
that Merrill was going to lose $9 billion
in the fourth quarter. In truth, Merrill
JOHN GRESS/REUTERS
Kenneth D. Lewis did not admit or deny any wrongdoing in leading the troubled merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.
LONDON
BY CHAD BRAY
The legal costs keep piling up for Credit
Suisse.
On Thursday, the Swiss bank revised
its results again to reflect an additional
charge of 468 million Swiss francs, or
about $528million, inincreasedlegal pro-
visions primarily related to a continuing
investigation into Americans who
secretly held assets in Swiss accounts.
As a result, Credit Suisse reported a
fourth-quarter loss of 476 million francs.
In February, the bank initially report-
ed a profit of 267 million francs for the
last three months of 2013. Its quarterly
results initially reflected 514 million
francs in legal provisions related to
mortgage litigation and the tax inquiry.
Inrecent weeks, however, thebankhas
revisedits results downwardtoreflect an
$885 million settlement to resolve claims
that it had sold questionable loans to the
mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and
FreddieMac inthe run-uptothefinancial
crisis, and has now made additional pro-
visions related to the tax investigation.
Thelatest provisioncomesontheheels
of a two-year investigation by the United
States, which found that Credit Suisse
BY BEN PROTESS
AND MICHAEL CORKERY
Just as Citigroup was putting a troubled
past of taxpayer bailouts and risky in-
vestments behind it, the bank has found
itself in the governments cross hairs
again.
Federal authorities have opened a
criminal investigation into a recent $400
million fraud involving Citigroups Mex-
ican unit, according to people briefed on
the matter, one of a handful of govern-
ment inquiries looming over the giant
bank. The investigation, overseen by
the F.B.I. and prosecutors from the
United States attorneys office in Man-
hattan, is focusing in part on whether
holes inthe banks internal controls con-
tributed to the fraud in Mexico. The
question for investigators is whether
Citigroup as other banks have been
accusedof doinginthe context of money
laundering ignored warning signs.
The bank, which also faces a parallel
civil investigation from the Securities
and Exchange Commissions enforce-
ment unit, hired the law firm Shearman
& Sterling to lead an internal inquiry in-
to the fraud, said the people briefed on
the matter, who spoke only on the condi-
tion of anonymity. At a meeting last
month, the banks lawyers presented
their initial findings to the government.
The bloomof activity stems fromCiti-
groups disclosure in February that its
Mexican unit, Banamex, uncovered an
apparent fraud involving an oil services
company. The disclosure that at least
one Banamex employee processed fals-
ified documents that helped the oil ser-
vices company obtain a loan that cannot
be repaid generated immediate in-
terest from federal authorities. But the
decision by the F.B.I. and prosecutors to
open a formal investigation, a move that
has not been previously reported, has
now officially drawn a faraway crime to
Citigroups doorstep.
The case represents another setback
for the bank, which has also come under
fire from regulators in Washington.
Last week, the Federal Reserve rejec-
ted Citigroups plan to increase its divi-
dend. The rebuke embarrassed the
bank and raised questions about the re-
liability of its financial projections.
Thescrutinycoincides withCitigroups
recent announcement that it faces a sep-
arate, and perhaps more threatening, in-
vestigation from federal prosecutors in
Massachusetts. The prosecutors, who
have sent subpoenas to Citigroup, are ex-
amining whether the bank lacked proper
safeguards against clients laundering
money. Thecasestems fromtheprosecu-
tors suspicion that drug money was
flowing through an account at the bank.
Together, the developments threaten
to complicate Citigroups relationships
with government authorities, who had
previously lost faith in the bank after it
required two bailouts and came to epi-
tomize Wall Streets role in the financial
crisis. While Citigroups chief executive,
Michael L. Corbat, has repaired ties to
regulators using a blend of contrition
andself-accountability, the latest investi-
gations could test those improvements.
Still, the government scrutiny could
be short-lived. Citigroup has not been
accused of wrongdoing, and prosecu-
tors might ultimately close the cases
without extracting fines or imposing
charges, which typically come only if
wrongdoing was pervasive.
And Citigroup is sharing the spotlight
withbanks like JPMorganChase, whose
missteps, including a $6.2 billion trading
loss in London, make its own problems
seem manageable by comparison. A
Citigroup spokesman declined to com-
ment. In a letter to shareholders last
month, Mr. Corbat said: We continue
to investigate what took place in Mexico
and are working to identify any areas
where we need to strengthen our con-
trols through stronger oversight or im-
proved processes.
Spokesmen for both the F.B.I. in New
York and Preet Bharara, the United
States attorney in Manhattan, declined
to comment.
At first glance, Citigroup appeared to
be the victim of the fraud involving the
Mexican oil services company Oceano-
grafa. After all, the bank lost millions of
dollars. But the F.B.I. and prosecutors,
the people briefed on the matter said,
are questioning whether Citigroup was
equal parts victimand enabler.
For one, it is unclear whether the
wrongdoing at Citigroup was actually
limited to a single Banamex employee,
as early reports indicated. The authorit-
ies, according to the people briefed on
the matter, are investigating whether
the scheme involved co-conspirators at
the banks offices in the United States.
Prosecutors also tend to weigh
whether an episode was isolated or il-
lustrative of a broader problem. In the
case of Banamex, the fraud was the
latest in a series of questionable loan
deals for the Citigroup unit. Bank em-
ployees say that Banamex, which ac-
counts for 13 percent of Citigroups rev-
enue, undergoes the same level of
oversight as any other business arm.
But others inside the bank say that the
Mexican unit has always had some de-
gree of autonomy fromNewYork.
And even if Oceanografa defrauded
Citigroup , the bank may have lacked
the proper controls to thwart the
scheme at its inception.
Under the law, banks must report sus-
picious activity and set up compliance
programs to prevent money laundering
and other illegal activity. When banks
fail to do so, it couldamount to a criminal
or civil violation, depending on the
severity of the problem. For a break-
down to be criminal, prosecutors would
typicallyneedtoshowthat thebankwill-
fully ignored warning signs of the fraud.
With the focus on bank controls, the
Banamex case and the separate money
laundering investigation in Massachu-
setts echo other recent Wall Street in-
vestigations. Prosecutors have claimed
that lax controls enabled drug traffick-
ing, money laundering and business
deals withblacklistedcountries like Iran
and Cuba.
At Banamex, Oceanografa became
one of the banks largest corporate cli-
ents. Under a short-term lending ar-
rangement, Banamex would advance
money to Oceanografa, whose exist-
ence hinged almost entirely on govern-
ment contracts. Banamex issued the
loans with the understanding that
Oceanografa had received contracts
from the state-owned oil monopoly Pe-
mex. Once the work was completed, Pe-
mex would repay the loan to Banamex.
But this year, the Mexican authorities
suspended Oceanografa from obtain-
ing additional government contracts for
several months. Shortly after, Banamex
discovered a fraud.
There was valid documentation for
$185 million of work, Citigroup said, but
Banamex had advanced Oceanografa a
total of $585 million. Some of Oceano-
grafas invoices, Citigroup said, were
falsified to represent that Pemex had
approved them. A Banamex employee
processed them.
Mexican authorities, including law-
makers and the attorney general, have
directed their own investigations into
the fraud. Citigroup has said it has
worked with the Mexican authorities
to initiate criminal actions that may
allow it to recover some of the missing
money.
We are exploringeveryavailable op-
tion to recoup the misappropriated
funds and we will be relentless in pursu-
ing their recovery, Mr. Corbat said in a
memo to employees. All will be held
equally responsible and we will make
sure that the punishment sends a crys-
tal-clear message about the con-
sequences of such actions.
Jessica Silver-Greenberg contributed re-
porting.
Apivotal case ends with a whimper
U.S. investigates Citigroup
over fraud at Mexicanunit
had helped American citizens hide bil-
lions of dollars from the tax authorities.
Credit Suisse executives, including
Brady W. Dougan, the chief executive,
were questioned on the findings at a Sen-
ate committee hearing in February.
The United States Department of
Justice is investigating more than a
dozen Swiss financial institutions and
has prosecuteddozens of Americans who
failed to pay taxes on income-generating
accounts they held in Switzerland and
had not disclosed to the American gov-
ernment.
The banks have been reluctant to
share client information for fear of
breaching Swiss bank secrecy laws.
In 2009, the Swiss bank UBS paid a
$780 million fine and entered a deferred-
prosecution agreement with the United
States government. As part of the
agreement, it turned over the names of
more than 4,000 Americans with UBS
accounts.
Last year, Wegelin & Company, the
oldest bank in Switzerland, pleaded
guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge
and was ordered to pay $74 million. We-
gelin, which was founded in 1741, has
sold off its assets and plans to close its
doors once it resolves legal issues re-
lated to the American investigation.
Credit Suisse revises results as legal costs climb
The authorities are looking
into whether holes in the
banks internal controls
contributed to fraud in Mexico
had already lost $9 billion and expected
to lose billions more before the quarter
was over. After the board meeting, Mr.
Mayopoulos tried to discuss the losses
with Mr. Price, who was unavailable.
The next morning, Mr. Mayopoulos
was fired and frog-marched out of the
building, according to people briefed on
the matter.
Bank of America installed Brian T.
Moynihan as general counsel. Mr.
Moynihan hadnt practiced lawin 15
years. His legal career was such an af-
terthought that he had let his bar mem-
bership lapse. He would go on to be-
come chief executive of the bank.
Merrills fourth-quarter loss would
eventually be more than $15.8 billion,
and Merrill paid more than $3.6 billion
in bonuses.
It is a crime to knowingly deceive
shareholders about the financial condi-
tion of your company. Top officers of
Bank of America knewabout giant, sur-
prising Merrill losses but did not dis-
close thempromptly or precisely to the
board or shareholders. They took steps
to cut out people who advocated dis-
closing the information. That sure
seems like a lot of smoke.
At least one regulator thought it mer-
ited a criminal investigation. The Office
of the Special Inspector General for the
Troubled Asset Relief Programre-
ferred the case for criminal investiga-
tion to the chief federal prosecutor in
Manhattan.
Raymond J. Lohier, who was the chief
of the securities and commodities fraud
task force at the prosecutors office,
took charge of the investigation. But he
seemed to viewit with skepticism, ac-
cording to a person close to the investi-
gation. The Federal Reserve, both a
regulator and one of the potential vic-
tims because it was lending to Bank of
America, contended that it did not con-
sider the losses material. The investiga-
tion didnt go anywhere. Mr. Lohier, the
Fed and the prosecutors office declined
to comment.
White-collar criminal cases are al-
ways difficult, and this one would have
been especially hard. One big problem:
Mr. Mayopoulos, the general counsel
who was summarily fired, never turned
against his former bosses.
The Justice Department, of course,
isnt the only securities lawenforcer
out there. The Securities and Exchange
Commission brought its own case. In-
ternally, however, that agency felt that
the NewYork State complaint over-
reached, unconvinced, for instance,
that Mr. Mayopoulos was fired over the
issue of whether to disclose the losses.
The agency eventually settled with the
bank in August 2009 for $33 million.
Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District
Court in Manhattan found that amount
ludicrously low. Several months later,
the agency bumped it up to $150 million
and Judge Rakoff reluctantly signed off,
writing with obvious fury that this was
half-baked justice at best.
The NewYork State case was settled
last week. Mr. Lewis agreed to pay $10
million, provided by Bank of America,
which also reached a settlement with
the state for $15 million. He did not ad-
mit or deny any of the charges. He is
barred frombeing an executive or di-
rector of a public company. I dont con-
sider that entirely toothless; it dam-
ages his standing in society. But its not
exactly severe.
On Friday, the office of the current
NewYork State attorney general, Eric
T. Schneiderman, intends to seek to
permanently bar Mr. Price, who did not
settle, fromserving as a director, officer
or in any capacity in the securities in-
dustry, according to a person close to
the investigation. If it happens, it would
be a serious accomplishment.
Mr. Prices lawyer did not respond to
a request for comment.
Heres a Where Are They Now?
roster. Mr. Lohier was appointed by
President Obama to be a judge on the
United States Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit. Mr. Mayopoulos be-
came chief executive of Fannie Mae.
Mr. Cuomo became governor of New
York.
Then there is Mr. Lewiss high-priced
lawyer, who initially issued a scathing
assessment of the case. Mr. Cuomos
decision to sue was a badly misguided
decision without support in the facts or
the law, this lawyer said, asserting
that there was not a shred of objective
evidence to support the case.
Who was this zealous advocate?
Mary Jo White. You may recall her
fromsuch roles as the current chair-
woman of the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
And the public? We got as much
justice as we have come to expect.
Jesse Eisinger is a reporter for ProPub-
lica, an independent, nonprofit news-
roomthat produces investigative journa-
lismin the public interest.
25-30
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NORWAY
SWEDEN FINLAND
POLAND
GERMANY
BELARUS
LITH.
LATVIA
ESTONIA
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
GREECE
TURKEY
TUNISIA
LIBYA
EGYPT
SAUDI
ARABIA
JORDAN
SYRIA
ISRAEL
LEBANON
MOROCCO
SPAIN
ALGERIA
BRITAIN
MOSTLY
CLOUDY
STATIONARY
COMPLEX
WARM
COLD
SHOWERS
FLURRIES
SNOW
RAIN
ICE
T-STORMS
HIGH
LOW
Travelers forecast
High/low temperatures, in degrees Celsius and
degrees Fahrenheit, and expected conditions.
C..................... Clouds
F .......................... Fog
H........................ Haze
I.............................. Ice
PC.......... Partly cloudy
R......................... Rain
Sh................. Showers
S.......................... Sun
Sn...................... Snow
SS....... Snow showers
T ........ Thunderstorms
W...................... Windy
Abu Dhabi 30/22 86/72 T 27/20 81/68 S
Almaty 17/7 63/45 C 12/6 54/43 R
Athens 22/15 72/59 C 20/12 68/54 C
Bangkok 35/27 95/81 T 35/26 95/79 T
Barcelona 18/11 64/52 PC 19/11 66/52 S
Beijing 23/7 73/45 S 22/6 72/43 S
Belgrade 23/14 73/57 PC 21/7 70/45 R
Berlin 16/6 61/43 PC 18/8 64/46 H
Boston 7/4 45/39 C 13/3 55/37 PC
Brussels 18/11 64/52 PC 17/12 63/54 PC
Buenos Aires 26/19 79/66 PC 24/19 75/66 T
Cairo 26/15 79/59 S 29/18 84/64 S
Chicago 12/0 54/32 Sh 10/-1 50/30 S
Frankfurt 24/11 75/52 S 23/10 73/50 Sh
Geneva 18/11 64/52 C 15/8 59/46 R
Hong Kong 24/19 75/66 C 24/20 75/68 PC
Istanbul 17/12 63/54 PC 18/14 64/57 C
Jakarta 31/24 88/75 T 31/24 88/75 T
Johannesburg 23/11 73/52 T 22/10 72/50 PC
Karachi 34/23 93/73 S 33/23 91/73 S
Kiev 11/-1 52/30 PC 9/-2 48/28 S
Lagos 32/25 90/77 T 32/25 90/77 T
Lisbon 13/11 55/52 Sh 18/12 64/54 PC
London 18/7 64/45 PC 17/12 63/54 Sh
Los Angeles 20/11 68/52 PC 22/13 72/55 S
Madrid 16/7 61/45 C 19/8 66/46 Sh
Manila 34/24 93/75 S 34/25 93/77 S
Mexico City 29/14 84/57 S 27/13 81/55 T
Miami 29/23 84/73 PC 30/23 86/73 PC
Moscow 4/-7 39/19 SS 3/-3 37/27 PC
Mumbai 36/26 97/79 H 35/26 95/79 H
Nairobi 29/16 84/61 T 29/16 84/61 PC
New Delhi 34/19 93/66 H 35/21 95/70 H
New York 8/6 46/43 R 16/4 61/39 PC
Nice 19/14 66/57 Sh 21/14 70/57 S
Osaka 15/6 59/43 PC 12/4 54/39 Sh
Paris 18/8 64/46 C 17/12 63/54 PC
Riyadh 26/16 79/61 S 27/14 81/57 S
Rome 17/9 63/48 R 18/10 64/50 PC
San Francisco 16/9 61/48 C 17/9 63/48 PC
Sao Paulo 25/19 77/66 PC 27/18 81/64 S
Seoul 12/1 54/34 PC 13/2 55/36 PC
Shanghai 19/10 66/50 S 16/4 61/39 S
Singapore 33/26 91/79 T 31/26 88/79 T
Stockholm 7/0 45/32 PC 10/3 50/37 PC
Sydney 25/18 77/64 Sh 26/18 79/64 Sh
Taipei 21/16 70/61 PC 24/16 75/61 S
Tel Aviv 21/14 70/57 S 26/15 79/59 PC
Tokyo 20/8 68/46 R 14/7 57/45 PC
Toronto 10/0 50/32 R 6/-2 43/28 W
Tunis 21/12 70/54 PC 19/12 66/54 Sh
Vienna 22/9 72/48 S 21/9 70/48 S
Warsaw 12/1 54/34 S 13/1 55/34 S
Washington 19/12 66/54 R 18/4 64/39 PC
Friday Saturday
C F C F
Meteorology by
AccuWeather.
Weather shown
as expected
at noon on
Friday.
. . . .
economy markets business
multibillion-euro investments neededto
upgrade the Continents mobile and
landline Internet infrastructure. In the
absence of clear rules, Europe has
slipped increasingly behind the more
advanced data networks of North
America and Asia.
Operators like Vodafone of Britainand
Deutsche Telekom of Germany want to
charge Internet companies like Google,
Netflix and smaller start-ups for use of
their networks because services like on-
line-television streaming occupy a large
percentage of the Internet pipelines.
In contrast, Internet companies and
consumer advocacy groups warn that
the telecom companies could reduce
consumer choice if they require compa-
nies to pay extra for access to data net-
works. Companies say only those with
deep pockets, such as Internet giants
like Microsoft, which owns the video
messaging service Skype, would be able
to pay for greater access to Europes In-
ternet infrastructure.
The vote on Thursday provided extra
protection for equal access to Europes
mobile and fixed-line data networks. In-
ternet service providers like cable
companies would still be able to sell ac-
cess to higher-quality networks, as long
as that access did not affect the existing
infrastructure.
Consumer advocacy groups wel-
comed the changes.
The E.U. seized the opportunity to
secure users rights and protect innova-
tion and freedom of expression online,
Raegan MacDonald, the European
policy manager at the consumer group
Access, said in a statement.
Telecomcarriers, which have plans to
put billions of euros into the Continents
mobile and landline Internet infrastruc-
ture over the next 10 years, are con-
cerned that they will not be able to re-
coup their investment from consumers
growing appetite for online services like
streaming of music and TV.
For many telecom companies, roam-
ing also is a significant source of reven-
ue in an increasingly competitive mar-
ket where more thanfour major carriers
in each European country typically vie
for consumers attention.
Todays vote risks derailing the orig-
inal objectives of the Connected Conti-
nent regulation, Luigi Gambardella,
chairman of the European Telecommu-
nications Network Operators Associ-
ation, said in a statement. The access
of European citizens and businesses to
innovative and high-quality services
will be negatively affected.
Mark Scott reported fromLondon, and
James Kanter fromBrussels.
E.U. officials
approve net
neutrality
EUROPE, FROM PAGE 14
Thursday, April 3
United States Last Chg 12 mo.%
World markets
The Americas
Europe and Middle East
Asia
U.S. Dow Jones indus. 16,558.36 14.64 +12.9
U.S. S.&P. 500 1,887.64 3.26 +20.2
U.S. S.&P. 100 834.27 0.81 +18.0
U.S. Nasdaq composite 4,250.63 25.83 +30.6
U.S. NYSE composite 10,586.72 30.15 +16.4
U.S. Russell 2000 1,183.60 9.21 +26.7
Mexico IPC 40,729.34 171.19 7.7
Canada S.&P./TSX 14,389.78 69.33 +13.5
Brazil Bovespa 51,591.68 109.37 6.0
Argent. Merval 6,539.54 +98.89 +93.4
Chile Stock Market select 3,786.02 23.84 13.9
Euro zone Euro Stoxx 50 3,206.76 +19.31 +19.7
Britain FTSE 100 6,649.14 9.90 +2.4
Germany DAX 9,628.82 +5.46 +21.2
France CAC 40 4,449.33 +18.47 +16.9
Italy FTSE MIB 21,992.08 +300.04 +41.4
Spain IBEX 35 10,584.10 +148.30 +31.5
Switzerland SIX 8,521.63 +13.37 +7.9
Sweden OMX 30 1,368.88 8.62 +13.1
Russia RTS 1,210.71 11.76 15.9
Czech Rep. Prague Stock Exch. 1,015.97 1.70 +3.9
Israel TA-25 1,417.26 +2.36 +14.1
Japan Nikkei 225 15,071.88 +125.56 +25.6
H.K. Hang Seng 22,565.08 +41.14 +0.9
Australia All Ordinaries 5,415.68 +6.89 +8.4
China Shanghai composite 2,043.70 15.29 8.3
S. Korea Kospi 1,993.70 3.55 +0.4
India S.&P. CNX Nifty 6,706.35 46.20 +16.7
Taiwan Taiex 8,888.54 16.91 +12.3
Singapore Straits Times 3,220.06 +27.28 2.9
Thailand SET 1,391.64 4.98 10.2
Indonesia Jakarta composite 4,891.32 +21.12 1.3
Interest rates
10-year govt. Ask yield Chg 12 mo. ago
Britain 2.750% 0.023 1.769%
France 2.107 0.025 2.016
Germany 1.600 0.011 1.303
Japan 0.635 +0.012 0.555
United States 2.777 0.026 1.861
Britain 0.386% 0.017 0.196%
France 0.181 +0.007 0.062
Germany 0.130 0.002 -0.005
Japan 0.075 unch. 0.045
United States 0.101 0.015 0.126
1-year govt
Britain n.a.% n.a. n.a.%
France 0.176 +0.010 -0.037
Germany 0.032 +0.032 -0.099
Japan 99.989 0.001 n.a.
United States 0.015 0.015 0.073
3-month govt Ask yield Chg 12 mo. ago
Britain (bank) 0.50% 0.50 (Mar. 5) 0.50%
Canada (overnight) 1.00 unch. (May. 14) 1.00
Euro zone (refinancing) 0.25 0.25 (Nov. 12) 0.75
Japanese (overnight) 0.10 unch. (Jun. 25) 0.10
United States (prime) 3.25 0.75 (Dec. 16) 3.25
Benchmark rates Last Latest chg
Agricultural City Units Delivery Last Chg
Futures
Metals, energy
Corn Chicago $/bu May 4.97 +0.02
Cotton N.Y. $/lb. May 0.91 0.01
Soybeans Chicago $/bu May 14.68 +0.06
Wheat Chicago $/bu May 6.74 +0.05
Rice Chicago $/cwt May 15.72 +0.07
Cocoa N.Y. $/ton May 2,915.00 2.00
Coffee N.Y. $/lb. May 1.73 unch.
Sugar N.Y. cts/lb. May 17.06 +0.09
Orange juice N.Y. cts/lb. May 154.50 +0.80
Aluminum London $/m. ton 3 mo. 182,950 +3400
Copper N.Y. $/lb. May 3.03 0.02
Gold N.Y. $/tr.oz. June 1,287.70 3.10
Palladium N.Y. $/tr.oz. June 787.80 unch.
Platinum N.Y. $/tr.oz. July 1,441.50 +2.80
Silver N.Y. $/tr.oz. May 19.85 0.21
Brent crude London $/bbl. May 105.77 +0.98
Light sw.crude N.Y. $/bbl. May 100.06 +0.44
Natural gas N.Y. $/mln.BTUs 3 mo. 4.43 +0.07
Cross rates
Australia 1.086 1.487 1.799 1.044 0.031 1.216 0.983
Brazil 2.281 3.126 3.782 2.195 0.064 2.556 2.067
Britain 0.603 0.826 - 0.580 0.017 0.676 0.546
Canada 1.104 1.512 1.830 1.062 0.310 1.236 -
China 6.210 8.510 10.296 5.974 0.175 6.958 5.626
Denmark 5.447 7.464 9.032 5.240 0.153 6.104 4.935
Euro zone 0.730 - 1.210 0.702 0.021 0.818 0.661
India 60.165 82.494 99.788 57.905 1.695 67.476 54.507
Japan 103.94 142.43 172.32 - 2.925 116.46 94.170
Mexico 13.126 17.987 21.762 12.600 0.000 14.707 11.892
Russia 35.518 48.683 58.901 34.200 - 39.810 32.187
Singapore 1.263 1.731 2.094 1.215 0.036 1.415 1.144
S. Africa 10.600 14.570 17.629 10.200 0.301 11.914 9.633
S. Korea 1057.50 1449.09 1753.23 1017.30 29.759 1184.87 958.05
Sweden 6.548 8.972 10.856 6.299 0.184 7.337 5.931
Switzerland 0.892 1.222 1.479 0.858 0.025 - 0.808
Taiwan 30.280 41.487 50.198 29.100 0.853 33.923 27.433
U.S. - 1.370 1.658 0.962 0.028 1.121 0.906
One One
One Swiss Can.
$1 1 1 100 ruble franc doll.
Exchange rates
Euro 0.730 0.004 - - 1.210 0.003
Dollar - - 1.370 0.007 1.658 0.005
Pound 0.603 0.002 0.826 0.002 - -
Swiss franc 0.892 0.006 1.222 0.002 1.479 0.005
Yen 103.94 0.090 142.43 0.530 172.32 0.330
Asia
Australian dollar 1.086 0.005 1.487 0.001 1.799 0.002
Chinese renminbi 6.210 0.005 8.510 0.032 10.296 0.020
Hong Kong dollar 7.757 0.001 10.627 0.053 12.861 0.037
Indian rupee 60.165 0.265 82.494 0.036 99.788 0.228
Indonesian rupiah 11320.0 30.000 15508.4 37.930 18768.6 6.710
Malaysian ringgit 3.281 0.012 4.495 0.006 5.440 0.004
Philippine peso 45.060 0.130 61.732 0.136 74.709 0.009
Singapore dollar 1.263 0.001 1.731 0.007 2.094 0.005
South Korean won 1057.50 0.300 1449.09 6.250 1753.23 4.370
Taiwan dollar 30.280 0.013 41.487 0.214 50.198 0.164
Thai baht 32.480 0.070 44.498 0.131 53.852 0.046
Europe
Czech koruna 20.024 0.088 27.433 0.019 33.200 0.046
Danish krone 5.447 0.025 7.464 unch. 9.032 0.020
Hungarian forint 224.08 1.350 306.99 0.290 371.52 1.125
Norwegian krone 6.009 0.041 8.232 0.014 9.963 0.038
Polish zloty 3.038 0.012 4.162 0.005 5.037 0.005
Russian ruble 35.518 0.080 48.683 0.100 58.901 0.014
Swedish krona 6.548 0.072 8.972 0.057 10.856 0.098
Turkish lira 2.137 0.014 2.928 0.004 3.543 0.013
Argentine peso 8.000 0.003 10.960 0.052 13.264 0.035
Brazilian real 2.281 0.013 3.126 0.003 3.782 0.011
Canadian dollar 1.104 0.001 1.512 0.006 1.830 0.004
Chilean peso 556.32 3.120 762.16 0.402 922.38 2.407
Mexican peso 13.126 0.039 17.987 0.029 21.762 0.005
Venezuelan bolivar 6.284 unch. 8.609 0.044 10.419 0.031
Middle East and Africa
Egyptian pound 6.972 unch. 9.552 0.049 11.560 0.035
Israeli shekel 3.471 0.002 4.755 0.022 5.755 0.014
Saudi riyal 3.750 unch. 5.138 0.026 6.218 0.019
South African rand 10.600 0.050 14.570 0.046 17.629 0.089
Major currencies $1 Chg. 1 Chg. 1 Chg. Asia (cont.) $1 Chg. 1 Chg. 1 Chg. The Americas $1 Chg. 1 Chg. 1 Chg.
World 100 The companies with the largest market capitalization, listed alphabetically by region. Prices shown are for regular trading.
A + or indicates stocks that reached a new 52-week high or low.
Abbott Laborat. 38.55 0.03 +6.7 32.93 40.12
Amazon.com 333.7 8.3 +26.7 248.2 407.1
Apple 539.4 3.2 +25.5 390.5 570.1
AT&T 35.50 +0.13 5.5 31.86 39.00
Bank of America 17.09 0.14 +40.7 11.44 17.92
Berkshire Hath. 186,112 647 +18.1 153,784 187,850
Caterpillar 102.3 0.4 +20.5 80.4 99.4
Chevron 119.6 +0.2 +0.5 109.5 127.8
Cisco Systems 23.06 +0.07 +8.7 20.24 26.38
Citigroup 47.40 0.84 +7.5 42.50 55.20
Coca-Cola 38.10 0.23 6.4 37.05 43.09
Comcast 51.10 +0.20 +20.8 38.91 55.24
ConocoPhillips 70.66 0.23 +17.7 56.81 74.34
Exxon Mobil 98.45 +0.50 +8.7 85.16 101.51
General Electric 26.12 +0.08 +11.9 21.35 28.03
Google 581.6 553.5 +4.1 557.0 567.2
Home Depot 79.64 0.31 +12.1 69.47 82.91
IBM 193.0 0.6 10.0 172.8 214.4
Intel 26.42 +0.53 +23.1 20.94 26.67
J&J 97.85 0.38 +18.3 79.68 98.23
JPMorgan Chase 60.44 0.04 +25.2 46.64 61.07
Kraft Foods 56.70 +0.05 +8.3 50.09 58.29
McDonalds 97.60 +0.01 2.7 93.02 103.59
Merck 56.08 0.38 +24.9 43.69 57.47
Microsoft 40.90 0.45 +42.0 28.16 41.42
Occidental Petrol. 96.31 +0.29 +19.4 78.01 99.37
Oracle 40.79 0.34 +24.6 29.96 41.49
P&G 80.10 0.03 +1.4 75.25 85.41
Pepsico 82.81 +0.08 +3.9 77.10 86.80
Pfizer 32.25 0.04 +10.3 27.23 32.75
Philip Morris 82.42 0.04 12.7 75.39 96.44
Qualcomm 80.80 +0.66 +22.0 59.39 79.28
Schlumberger 98.45 +0.76 +31.6 69.95 97.96
United Technol. 119.6 0.3 +28.6 91.1 118.3
UPS 98.46 +0.49 +17.3 82.37 105.08
Verizon 47.95 +0.13 3.1 45.91 53.91
Visa 213.9 0.7 +27.4 161.3 233.0
Wal-Mart 77.41 +0.23 +1.8 71.87 81.21
Walt Disney 81.74 +0.07 +42.2 56.21 83.34
Wells Fargo 49.73 0.04 +34.8 36.27 49.77
The Americas
AmBev (BR) -9,999,401 unch. unch. n.a. n.a.
Ame`r. Mo`vil (MX) 13.43 0.01 +5.4 12.26 15.37
Bradesco (BR) 32.25 0.05 3.4 25.27 35.40
Ecopetrol (BR) 4,055 +25 18.5 3,390 5,070
Itau Unibanco (BR) 35.01 0.24 +0.2 26.80 35.99
Petrobras (BR) 15.05 0.61 6.9 12.02 20.34
R. Bk of Can. (CA) 72.72 0.47 +16.9 58.92 73.18
Toronto Dom. (CA) 51.53 0.07 39.0 47.62 100.11
Vale (BR) 29.86 +0.50 6.2 25.90 34.44
Middle East and Africa
Saudi Basic In. (SA)118.0 closed +22.0 90.3 118.0
Europe
A-B InBev (BE) 77.93 +0.25 0.9 65.05 78.66
BASF (DE) 80.03 0.34 +15.1 64.79 83.81
BG Group (GB) 1,137 2 1.6 1,019 1,352
BP (GB) 485.2 0.3 +4.6 428.3 508.8
Brit. Am. Tob. (GB) 3,324 +16 7.5 2,881 3,784
ENI (IT) 18.20 +0.03 +1.1 15.29 18.98
Gazprom (RU) 134.5 0.4 +2.8 107.2 157.9
GDF Suez (FR) 19.71 0.03 +27.0 14.53 19.96
Glaxo (GB) 1,578 4 +2.0 1,513 1,791
HSBC (GB) 610.5 0.7 13.8 591.8 770.7
LOre`al (FR) 119.1 0.5 6.4 115.2 136.7
LVMH (FR) 133.6 0.7 2.3 119.3 149.3
Nestle` (CH) 67.50 +0.15 2.9 59.30 69.50
Novartis (CH) 74.45 0.40 +9.7 63.25 75.30
Novo Nordisk (DK) 244.5 1.5 74.3 200.9 1,015.0
R. Dutch Shell (GB)2,209 +14 +2.8 1,987 2,279
Roche (CH) 265.0 +1.7 +18.6 214.1 273.0
Rosneft (RU) 230.5 2.5 2.5 208.5 266.0
Sanofi (FR) 75.79 +0.80 6.4 69.40 86.67
Santander (ES) 7.15 +0.13 +32.7 4.84 7.04
SAP (DE) 58.99 +0.16 6.5 52.20 64.05
Sberbank (RU) 81.51 1.16 17.8 69.84 110.74
Siemens (DE) 98.98 +0.60 +15.3 76.00 101.35
Statoil (NO) 167.8 +0.5 +18.9 123.0 171.3
Telefo`nica (ES) 11.61 +0.11 +9.5 9.61 13.11
Total (FR) 48.00 +0.16 +25.7 35.25 48.03
Unilever (GB) 2,539 8 9.4 2,306 2,900
Vodafone (GB) 219.5 1.7 +13.5 176.2 249.0
Volkswagen (DE) 190.7 0.3 +21.0 138.5 204.2
Asia
Agric. Bank (CN) 2.39 0.05 11.2 2.29 2.90
Bank of China (CN) 2.58 0.02 11.9 2.45 2.99
BHP Billiton (AU) 37.53 +0.16 +14.7 30.65 39.38
CBA (AU) 77.03 +0.08 +11.7 65.02 79.32
CCB (HK) 5.40 +0.05 14.8 4.90 6.64
China Life (CN) 13.75 +0.01 19.9 12.91 17.67
China Mobile (HK) 71.90 +0.55 13.1 64.50 88.40
Chi. Shenhua (HK) 22.60 +0.50 20.1 18.20 28.75
CNOOC (HK) 11.82 +0.12 21.6 11.54 16.28
Honda Motor (JP) 3,700 +38 +9.8 3,370 4,365
ICBC (CN) 3.42 0.02 15.8 3.23 4.22
Mitsubishi UFJ (JP) 580.0 +1.0 +6.6 532.0 732.0
NTT (JP) 5,554 33 +38.5 3,960 6,008
NTT DoCoMo (JP) 1,605 +11 98.8 1,518 165,800
PetroChina (HK) 8.59 +0.04 16.6 7.34 10.30
Rio Tinto (AU) 63.68 0.42 +12.7 50.24 70.88
Samsung El. (KR)1,390,000+33000 8.91,217,000 1,544,000
Sinopec (HK) 6.95 0.01 23.8 5.08 9.14
Toyota Motor (JP) 5,840 7 +26.5 4,615 6,640
TSMC (TW) 118.5 1.5 +17.9 94.4 116.5
Westpac Ban. (AU) 34.47 0.15 +11.1 27.47 34.90
Data are at 1600 U.T.C. Prices are in local currencies.
Source: Reuters Infographics by: CUSTOM FLOW SOLUTIONS
Company 52-wk price range
U.S. Last Chg 12 mo.% Low Last () High
Company (Country) 52-wk price range
U.S. (cont.) Last Chg 12 mo.% Low Last () High
Company (Country) 52-wk price range
Europe (cont.) Last Chg 12 mo.% Low Last () High
ing the stadium and has flourished on
state contracts. Mr. Meszaros declined
to comment.
The former mayor, Gyorgy Varga, ob-
jected to terms of a deal that would have
sold village land for the stadium. After
that, the state passed a lawthat seemed
tailored to usher Mr. Varga out of a job,
disqualifying him from holding office
because of an outstanding tax debt.
In the Communist times, it didnt
matter if you knew your trade or if you
were qualified to do a job, but if you
were a loyal comrade, you got the job
anyway, Mr. Varga said. Today, its
the same. You just dont have to be a
good comrade, but a good friend.
Hungarys business leaders clearly
want to please Mr. Orban. Mayor Mesz-
aros is the president of a foundation that
will operate the new stadium, along
with an accompanying soccer academy
that Mr. Orban founded. (Mr. Orbans
son, Gaspar, who now plays for the
academys professional team, was once
a student.) That foundation has been
bankrolled by some of the countrys
largest corporations. Among them are
MOL, the state gasoline giant, and OTP,
the biggest bank. Contributing, too, is
Kozgep, a construction company tied to
Mr. Orban; his son-in-law sits on the
board. Coca-Cola Hungary and Suzuki
have also kicked in.
To Mr. Orbans critics, Felcsut is the
centerpiece of a lucrative alliance be-
tween his government and politically
connected corporate interests. The
prime ministers ambitions are visible
in the cavernous arena here, which is
topped with towers and an undulating,
black-shingled roof.
Hungarys autocratic turn has made
it something of a black sheep in the
European Union, which it joined in 2004.
Mr. Orban is pushing his special proj-
ects even as the Hungarian economy
struggles and financial markets worry
about the nations currency, the forint.
Gordon Bajnai, Hungarys former So-
cialist leader, has called Felcsut the
capital of Orbanistan.
Think of a stadium that has double
the capacity of the population of the vil-
lage, Mr. Bajnai said. The whole thing
is like Disneyland. Whenyouare a child,
youdreamof havinga Disneylandat the
end of your garden where you can go
every day, and now this dream is being
realized.
Mr. Orban declined to comment. A
spokesman provided his public disclo-
sure form, which showed that the prime
minister owned homes in Budapest and
Felcsut, as well as modest land hold-
ings. Alocal newspaper recently report-
ed that 94 acres of land near the stadium
were registered in his wifes name.
For businesses of all sizes, being on
the wrong side of Fidesz can be costly.
The party has chilled outside invest-
ment by targeting industries for special
taxes and, in some cases, structuring
those taxes to favor domestic compa-
nies whose leaders back Fidesz.
One leaked audiotape caught a Fidesz
official discussing the possibility of
granting licenses to sell tobacco only to
party loyalists. Mr. Orban was also
caught on tape saying he could create a
lawthat would allowBudapest to repat-
riate a building froma foreign investor.
Coca-Cola Hungary said it worked
with various partners to promote an
active lifestyle and called the soccer
academy, which has 130 full-time stu-
dents, one of the most recognized or-
ganizations for education and training
of young football talents in the country.
The bank, OTP, said it earmarked its
contributions for the development and
education of talented youngsters, not
building stadiumor arena in Felcsut.
The academys foundation also runs a
local cable channel anda 37-bedhotel ina
neighboring town. It is planning a bigger
hotel closer to the stadium, as well as a
museum. Gyorgy Szollosi, a spokesman
for theacademy, saidthestadiumhadnot
come to be built next to the house of a
primeminister disputingareporters
phrasing but the prime ministers
family built their weekend house next to
the old football pitch of the village.
While Mr. Orban has no official role in
the academy, Mr. Szollosi said: We all
know that Mr. Orban is a very popular
politician and that this project, which is
for future generations and which is well
known, is important to him, was well
supported by a number of private
companies even when he was the leader
of the opposition.
Anita Komuves contributed reporting.
But very low inflation has other neg-
ative effects. When inflation falls, bor-
rowers effectively pay more interest on
existing loans. For example, a company
that took out a loan when inflation was 2
percent, the E.C.B.s official inflation
ceiling, would expect the effective cost
of the loan to decline over time as price
rises eroded the value of the principal.
But if inflation falls, the cost of the
loan is higher than the company expect-
ed. If the company is not able to raise its
prices, it might have trouble paying its
debts. In Europe, this negative effect is
especially damaging because the coun-
tries with the highest debts tend to have
low or negative inflation. In Greece,
Portugal and Spain, prices are falling.
With low inflation the real value of
this debt doesnt go down as fast as it
would if inflation were higher, Mr.
Draghi said. It makes the adjustment
of imbalances much more difficult.
Mr. Draghi also argued, though, that
low inflation is largely the result of fall-
ing energy prices and other one-time
factors and will pick up in May.
He acknowledged that deflation had
posed problems in Japan in the 1990s,
but added, We dont see those risks
nowin the euro area.
The problem for the central bank is
that the measures available to stimulate
the euro zone economy are all risky and
controversial.
Extensive purchases of corporate or
government bonds, the same tool used
by the Federal Reserve to pump money
into the American economy, would be
more difficult in Europe. The Fed can
buy United States Treasury bonds, the
most widely traded debt in the world.
The E.C.B. would have to choose among
different bonds from its member coun-
tries. In addition, the corporate bond
market in Europe is much smaller be-
cause companies tend to get credit di-
rectly frombanks.
Our institutional and financial setup
is considerably different from what it is
in the United States, Mr. Draghi said.
The program has to be carefully de-
signed.
Mr. Draghis specific talk of quantita-
tive easing on Thursday may have
raised expectations that will be difficult
to meet, some analysts said.
From here on, a further verbal step-
ping up seems impossible, Carsten
Brzeski, an economist at ING Bank,
said in a note to clients. In a way its a
gamble, either the recovery continues
and inflation picks up again, or the
E.C.B. will have to act.
In Hungary, the chiefs word is golden
HUNGARY, FROM PAGE 1
AKOS STILLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Construction is booming in Felcsut. Its mayor, Lorinc Meszaros, a friend of the prime minister and owner of a construction company, has become one of Hungarys wealthiest men.
E.C.B. mulls
a Fed-style
programof
bond buying
RATES, FROM PAGE 14
For online listings and past performance visit
www.morningstar.com/Cover/Funds.aspx April 3, 2014
T|e dala |r l|e ||sl aoo1e |s l|e r.a.1. supp||ed oy l|e lurd groups lo V0R|l|03TAR. ll |s co||aled ard reloraled |rlo l|e ||sl oelore oe|rg lrars|lled lo l|e llT. T|e llT rece|1es payerl lro
lurd groups lo puo||s| l||s |rloral|or. V0R|l|03TAR ard l|e llT do rol Warrarl l|e qua||ly or accuracy ol l|e ||sl, l|e dala ol l|e perlorarce ol l|des ol l|e Furd 0roups ard W||| rol oe ||ao|e
lor l|e ||sl, l|e dala ol Furd 0roup lo ary exlerl. T|e ||sl |s rol ard s|a|| rol oe deeed lo oe ar oller oy l|e llT or V0R|l|03TAR lo se|| secur|l|es or |r1eslerls ol ary ||rd. lr1eslerls car
la|| as We|| as r|se. Pasl perlorarce does rol guararlee lulure success. ll |s ad1|sao|e lo see| ad1|ce lro a qua||l|ed |rdeperderl ad1|sor oelore |r1esl|rg.
- $ter||ngs; - u$ 0o||ars; Au0 - Austra||an
0o||ars; 0A0 - 0anad|an 0o||ars; 0hF - $w|ss
Francs; 0KK - 0an|sh Krones; 6 - Euros; hK0 - hK
0o||ars; N0K - Norweg|an Krones; $EK - $wed|sh
Krones; Y - Yen; ZAP -Pand;
a - asked + - 0ffer Pr|ces; N.A. - Not Ava||ab|e; N.0. -
Not 0ommun|cated; o- New; $ - suspended; $|$ -
stock $p||t; * - Ex-0|v|dend; ** - Ex-Pts; - 0ffer
Pr|ce |nc|. 3 pre||m. charge; * - Par|s exchange; ++
-Amsterdam exchange; e - m|squoted ear||er; x-not
reg|stered w|th regu|atory author|ty. P: H|dd|e of b|d
and offered pr|ce. E: est|mated pr|ce; y: pr|ce
ca|cu|ated 2 days pr|or to pub||cat|on; z: b|d pr|ce.
The marg|na| symbo|s |nd|cate frequency of
quotat|ons supp||ed: d - da||y; w - week|; b -
b|-month|y; f - fortn|ght|y; r - regu|ar|y; t - tw|ce
week|y; m - month|y; | - tw|ce month|y.
005 AB5OLUTE FERFORN T:31 20 5722 110
d FUlsdr NUlIi LId 227.08
007 ALLAN GRAY
Orbs nv0sl0r 50rvc0s T0um +1 441 26 3000
w AfriCd EqUiIy Rdnd 217.04
1 BANQUE DEGROOF
d Asid FdCifiC FOrf0rmdnCO A 6 25.20
d Asid FdCifiC FOrf0rmdnCO B 35.48
d Asid FdCifiC FOrf0rmdnCO C 6 23.4
d Asid FdCifiC FOrf0rmdnCO O 33.8
r Asid FdCifiC FOrf0rmdnCO F 101.31
d Eq EUr0pO BOhdvi0rdl Vdl A 6 3.85
d Eq EUr0pO BOhdvi0rdl Vdl B 6 38.08
310 GLOBAL 5ELECTON ADV5OR5
r AmOriCdn 5OlOCIi0n H0ldings NV 214.1
r EUr0pOdn 5OlOCI H0ld N.V. Bid 6 173.78
m Ol0bdl 5OlOCIi0n H0ldings NV 123.57
r Nipp0n 5OlOCI H0ld N.V. Bid 17.0
r 1igOr 5OlOCI H0ld N.V. Bid 274.5
5 GUTZWLLER FOND5 NANAGENENT AG
www.gulzwII0r-fun0s.c0m
T0I.:+41 61 205 70 00
d OUIwillOr OnO 308.50
m OUIwillOr 1w0 CHF CHF 112.40
m OUIwillOr 1w0 U5O 152.0
03 JANE5 RVER CAFTAL CORF.
m III FUnd LId.25/03/11 37.8
16 NAVERCK CAYNAN 345 4-0658
r NdvOriCk FUnd LOC 840.7E
132 ORB5 NVE5T B0rmu0u 441 26 3000
w Ol0bdl EqUiIy24/03/11 181.40
w Jdpdn EqUiIy U524/03/11 37.22
w LOvOrdgOd EUr024/03/11 6 4.83
w LOvOrdgOd U524/03/11 143.4
w LOvOrdgOd YOn24/03/11 Y 1128.00
w OpIimdl EUr024/03/11 6 2.
w OpIimdl U524/03/11 81.1
w OpIimdl YOn24/03/11 Y 1133.00
w Orbis 5iCdv Ol0bdl EqUiIy24/03/11 6 12.72
w 5ICAVAsid Ox-Jdpdn EqUiIy U5O24/03/11 22.34
w 5ICAV Jdpdn EqUiIy EUr0 Cldss24/03/11 6 24.07
w 5ICAV Jdpdn EqUiIy YOn Cldss24/03/11 Y 32.00
International Funds
For information please contact Clare Chambers
Fax +44 (0)20 7061 3529 | e-mail [email protected]
AIl0rnulv0 nv0slm0nls
82 GEN5 NANAGENENT
www.g0msu0vs0rs.c0m
[email protected]
w OOms L0w V0ldIiliIy ROgUldr U5O 332.5E
w OOms ROC0vOry ROgUldr U5O 2425.02E
131 OFTNA FUND NANAGENENT
www.0plmu.c0m 441 25 8658
m JENOF Ol0bdl HOdlIhCdrO FUnd A 14.4
m OpIimd FdrInOrs Ol0bdl FUnd 14.48E
m 1hO OpIimd Fd LId 0.77E
m 1hO OpIimd OisCrOIi0ndry NdCr0 Fd LId 8.55
m 1hO OpIimd FdrInOrs F0CUs Fd Cldss A 1.83
m 1hO O0rsOI EnOrgy Fd LId 5.7
m 1hO FldIiniUm Jdpdn Fd LId 45.41
m 1hO FldIinUm Fd LId 8.2
25 E. . 5TURDZA5TRATEGCNANAGENENTLTD
T0I :+44 1481 70713 Fux :+44 1481 707127
www.0slur0zu.c0m
m 5IrdIOgiC EvdriCh Jdp Fd LId JFY Cl Y 87.00
m 5IrdIOgiC EvdriCh Jdp Fd LId U5O Cl 873.50
m 5IrdIOgiC Ol0bdl Inn0vdIi0n Fd LId 1358.83
w 5IrdIOgiC Ol0bdl Inn0vdIi0n Fd LId EUR 6 1317.2
141 FRENER NVE5TNENT FUND5 LTD
c/0 F.O. B0x 1100, Grun0 Cuymun
Fux: 345 4 03
m FrOmiOr Ol0bdl Bd Fd 317.13
m FrOmiOr Ol0bdl YiOld Fd 270.8
m FrOmiOr InIl EqUiIiOs FUnd 3588.7
m FrOmiOr 10Idl ROIUrn Fd 133.72
m FrOmiOr U5 EqUiIy FUnd 5737.14
EDNOND DE ROTH5CHLD FRFUND
www.00r-prfun0.ch
T: +41 58 818 5 68 E: [email protected]
d B0nd 6 Cldss A 6 15.5
d B0nd Cldss A 178.1
d EUr0pOdn EqUiIiOs Cldss A 6 10.4
d U5A EqUiIiOs Cldss A 155.31
AIl0rnulv0 Fun0s 0f Fun0s
m Alphd UnC0rrOldIOd 6 Cldss A 6 204.35
m Alphd UnC0rrOldIOd Cldss A 21.2
m Alphd V0ldIiliIy Cldss A EUr0 6 148.54
m Alphd V0ldIiliIy Cldss A U5O 157.4
m Alphd 1rddOrs Cldss A EUr0 6 150.53
m Alphd 1rddOrs Cldss A U5O 11.2
345 5FNNAKER CAFTAL GROUF
www.spnnuk0rcupluI.c0m
m Ol0bdl EmOrging NdrkOIs K131/12/10 114.11
m Ol0bdl Opp0rIUniIy K131/12/10 103.17
25 E. . 5TURDZA5TRATEGCNANAGENENTLTD
T0I :+44 1481 70713 Fux :+44 1481 707127
www.0slur0zu.c0m
d Nipp0n Or0wIh UCI15 JFY A Y 8712.00
d Nipp0n Or0wIh UCI15 JFY B Y 72737.00
d Nipp0n Or0wIh UCI15 JFY C Y 7053.00
w Nipp0n Or0wIh FUnd LimiIOd Y 84585.00
d 5IrdIOgiC Chind Fdndd EUR 6 244.30
d 5IrdIOgiC Chind Fdndd OBF 241.27
d 5IrdIOgiC Chind Fdndd U5O 2512.21
w 5IrdIOgiC EmOrging EUr0pO Fd EUR Cl 6 100.5
w 5IrdIOgiC EmOrging EUr0pO Fd U5O Cl 1027.8
d E.I. 5IUrdd 5IrdIOgiC EUr0 Bd CHF ACCCHF 8.4
d 5IrdIOgiC EUr0 B0nd FO ACC 6 1130.05
d 5IrdIOgiC EUr0 B0nd FO OI51 6 104.30
m 5IrdIOgiC EvdriCh Jdp Fd LId JFY Cl Y 87.00
m 5IrdIOgiC EvdriCh Jdp Fd LId U5O Cl 873.50
m 5IrdIOgiC Ol0bdl Inn0vdIi0n Fd LId 1358.83
w 5IrdIOgiC Ol0bdl Inn0vdIi0n Fd LId EUR 6 1317.2
d 5IrdIOgiC U5 N0mOnIUm VdlUO FUnd 77.52
d 5IrdIOgiC Ol0bdl B0nd FUnd RNB 1043.2
d 5IrdIOgiC Ol0bdl B0nd FUnd U5O 1033.83
263 TROCADERO FUND5
d Frimd CdpiIdl FUnd A 43.82
d Frimd CdpiIdl FUnd C CHF 222.8
d Frimd CdpiIdl FUnd O 6 318.41
d Frimd Opp0rIUniIy FUnd -A- 143.1
d Frimd Opp0rIUniIy FUnd -B- 6 135.7
d Frimd Opp0rIUniIy FUnd -C- CHF 124.20
d 1r0CddOr0 CdpiIdl H0ldings LId. A 11.27
d 1r0CddOr0 CdpiIdl H0ldings LId. B 6 151.0
r 1r0CddOr0 CdpiIdl H0ldings LId. C CHF 107.4
17 W.F. 5TEWART HOLDNG5 N.V.
d W.F. 5IOwdrI H0ld. N.V.LisIOd A'ddm5E 282.12
d W.F. 5IOwdrI QUdl. Or0wIh Fds O inC 105.54
d W.F. 5IOwdrI QUdl Or0wIh Fds I dCC 115.87
d W.F. 5IOwdrI QUdl Or0wIh Fds F dCC 115.4
OTHER FUND5
m EmOrgO CdpiIdl 77.45
d HdmilI0n LdnO FrivdIO Eq Fd FlC 108.05
m HdUssmdn H0ldings Cldss C 6 2285.78
m HdUssmdnn Hldgs N.V. 217.54
m Ld FdyOIIO EUr0pO FUnd LId 6 235.24
m Ld FdyOIIO H0ldings EUr0 Fd LId Cl A 6 14.5E
m Ld FdyOIIO H0ldings U5O Fd LId Cl A 58.04E
m Ld FdyOIIO Opp0rIUniIy Fd LId U5O Cl 220.5E
w LOdf 5iCdv 2.58
r NdIIOrh0rn Offsh0rO Fd 13748.70E
The Independent Mark of Quality
Morningstar Analyst Research and Ratings for Funds
www.morningstar.co.uk
. . . .
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WEATHER / TRAVEL ON PAGE 16
Floyd
Norris
HI GH & LOW FI NANCE
Call it the banality of tax avoidance.
What was most impressive about this
weeks Senate hearing into the way
Caterpillar ducked billions of dollars in
United States income taxes was the
simple strategy involved. There was no
subsidiary that somehowqualified to
be taxed nowhere, as at Apple. There
was no Double Irish With a Dutch
Sandwich, a strategy made famous by
Google in its quest to avoid taxes.
Instead, back in 1999, Caterpillar,
helped by its audit firm, Price-
waterhouseCoopers, decided that to
sharply reduce the American tax on
profits from the sale of parts sent from
the United States to customers around
the world, it had to do little more than
take the name of the American parent
off the invoices and put in the name of
a Swiss subsidiary.
So even though the parts might have
never come within a thousand miles of
Switzerland, the profits accrued to the
Swiss subsidiary. And Caterpillar nego-
tiated a deal to tax those profits well
below Switzerlands norm. Senator
Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat
who is chairman of the Senate Perma-
nent Subcommittee on Investigations,
put the rate at 4 to 6 percent.
That cut the Caterpillar tax bill by
$300 million a year.
Was that legal? Opinions differ. Pro-
fessors called by the subcommittee
said it was not. A professor retained by
Caterpillar said it was, and company
officials told the subcommittee they
had complied with the law. Documents
released by the subcommittee showed,
however, that some at Caterpillar had
been worried about the strategy and
that the company had taken steps to re-
al ones, had an obligation to help pay
for their government.
Instead, the preferred cure was to
cut the corporate tax rate now 35
percent, though virtually no multina-
tional company pays anything near
that amount. The country must become
more competitive in attracting these
companies, the senators said.
Under current law, United States
companies can defer taxes on foreign
income until that income is brought
home. The Caterpillar case, perhaps in-
advertently, provides an example of
how that can work in practice to give
breaks to those that need them the
least. Caterpillar has had to bring some
of its profits home and pay taxes on
them, because it needed the money in
the United States. Apple seems to have
not had that problem.
Much of the problem with taxation of
multinational companies is that, as
Professor Kleinbard put it, The tax
system treats foreign subsidiaries as if
they were independent actors, which
they are not.
The lawdeals with transfer pricing is-
sues transactions between two parts
of the same company by requiring
they be conducted as if they were
arms-length transactions. One of the
funnier parts of the hearing was Sena-
tor Levins long, and ultimately unsuc-
cessful, effort to get a Caterpillar official
to admit the obvious that the com-
pany would never have made a similar
deal with an unaffiliated company.
The ideal solution would be for multi-
national companies to face multination-
al tax authorities that share the goal of
ensuring that a company pays its fair
share of taxes and agree on ways to di-
vide up the money. Perhaps that could
be based in part on where the ultimate
purchaser was, and in part on where
the company was based or had signifi-
cant operations.
Large countries have agreed that
something should be done, and the
Group of 20 has asked the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Devel-
opment to work on a BEPS project,
for base erosion and profit shifting.
Chances of an effective action plan
seem small.
In the Caterpillar case, the deal the
company struck with Switzerland en-
abled that country to collect low taxes
on profits that based on the kind of
analysis an ordinary person might use
clearly had nothing to do with
Switzerland.
duce slightly the amount of profit being
diverted, hoping that would make the
strategy more likely to pass muster.
In any case, the Internal Revenue
Service does not seemever to have
challenged it, even after a former Cater-
pillar tax official filed a whistle-blower
lawsuit. That suit was unsuccessful.
What was most notable about the
Caterpillar strategy was its sheer lack
of creativeness. This is boring as an
intellectual matter, said Edward D.
Kleinbard, a tax lawprofessor at the
University of Southern California and a
former chief of staff at the congression-
al Joint Tax Committee. If this strategy
is vulnerable to legal challenge, he said,
it would largely be because Caterpillar
changed its corporate structure to save
taxes. Had it had the foresight to adopt
the structure decades earlier, the com-
pany would be on much safer ground.
Apple, he told me, set up an Irish sub-
sidiary as soon as it moved out of the
garage. He conceded that was an ex-
aggeration, but not, he said, a large one.
Under current corporate tax law, it is
easy for multinational companies to
park profits in subsidiaries based in
low-tax countries. Companies that op-
erate only in the United States find it
much harder, although not always im-
possible, to avoid taxes.
It was interesting that Senator Levin
was the only senator who appeared to
be exercised over what Caterpillar and
PricewaterhouseCoopers had done.
The revenue lost to those strategies
increases the tax burden on working
families, and it reduces our ability to
make investments in
education and train-
ing, research and de-
velopment, trade
promotion, intellec-
tual property protec-
tion, infrastructure,
national security and
more investments
on which Caterpillar
and other U.S.
companies depend for their success,
he said. It is long past time to stop off-
shore profit shifting and start ensuring
that profitable U.S. multinationals meet
their U.S. tax obligations.
Not all the Republicans joined Sena-
tor Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky,
in offering an apology to Caterpillar for
the existence of the hearing, but they
generally agreed that it was proper for
a company to do everything it could to
avoid paying taxes. None of them
seemed interested in the question of
who should pay taxes if the companies
do not. Nor was there the slightest indi-
cation of agreement with Senator Lev-
in that corporate citizens, like individu-
The name
of the game:
Avoiding tax
REUTERS BREAKINGVIEWS
As Spain heals, bankers count their blessings
Filling top slot is Glencores big challenge
opportunity for investment bankers.
Equity markets are also back from
the dead. Two real estate funds raised
over 900 million of fresh capital this
year. The travel company eDreams will
be the first corporate I.P.O. since 2011.
Rebounding stock prices are a sign of
growing confidence in Spains revival
and will help drive mergers and acqui-
sitions like Vodafones recent $10 billion
purchase of the cable operator Ono.
Competition remains stiff. Many
banks made do on the occasional crumb
fromSpains largest companies, corpo-
rate debt restructurings or with low-
paying government mandates. As a con-
sequence, Madrid sawno meaningful
decline in banking capacity, with Euro-
pean and American banks vying against
hometown institutions for business.
So the recent emergence of smaller
companies tapping the debt and equity
markets for capital has Madrileno
bankers in robust spirits. Indeed, at the
current rate, Spanish corporate finance
fees could hit nearly $2 billion this year.
While belowthe 2007 peak of $3.3 billion,
any rain on the plain will be much ap-
preciated in Spain. FIONAMAHARG-BRAVO
The investment bankers of Madrid are
regaining some of their cheer, thanks to
the countrys recovery. After a fewlean
years, cash-starved Spanish companies
are turning frombanks to capital mar-
kets for debt. The market for initial pub-
lic offerings is reviving. Corporate fi-
nance fees rose 70 percent year on year
in the first quarter, according to Thom-
son Reuters and Freeman Consulting,
but fell in other big euro zone countries.
More than 40 percent of the activity
was driven by a surge in bond sales
including high-yield issues, where fees
are juicier. Subinvestment-grade
companies like Abengoa (renewable en-
ergy), Grifols (pharmaceuticals) and
Isolux (construction and energy) tapped
bond investors in March. The banks
Santander, BBVAand Popular raised
capital via contingent convertible bonds.
Meanwhile, companies struggling to
get back on their feet are keeping
bankers busy. FCC, the construction gi-
ant, just closed a loan restructuring deal
of 4.5 billion euros, or $6.2 billion, and is
working to refinance a convertible bond.
Thats part of a turnaround plan that in-
cludes 2.2 billion of asset sales, another
Ms. Masterss main handicap is that
she has not been a chief executive her-
self, although she had many senior lead-
ership positions at JPMorgan. And the
Glencore board already has some
former chief executives on it includ-
ing Morgan Stanleys ex-chief, John
Mack so it might be hard for Ms. Mas-
ters to run the board authoritatively. Mr.
Macks presence also dilutes the value
of Ms. Masterss financial perspective.
There is also the question of what is in
it for Ms. Masters. Nonexecutive chair-
men may be relatively well paid by Brit-
ish standards: Tony Hayward got
$742,000 as Glencores interimchair-
man and senior independent director
last year. But the rewards of finance are
usually greater, and the Glencore job
would rule out other opportunities.
If Glencore finds a better chairman
who satisfies the multiple criteria for
the role, it will be well served. And it
may still have vacancies for a masterful
newnonexecutive. CHRISTOPHERHUGHES
Blythe Masterss exit fromJPMorgan
Chase with the sale of its physical com-
modities business could solve Glencores
longstanding search for a chairman. Ms.
Masters, the brains behind the credit de-
fault swap, has the expertise to join the
trading houses board, whose all-male
roster makes it an anachronismin the
FTSE100. But there is one big obstacle
to her leading this or any board: She has
never run a company before.
Time is short. Glencore has commit-
ted to filling the chairman vacancy be-
fore its annual meeting on May 20. It is
not surprising the search has dragged
on there are fewpeople who have all
the skills for the job. The key attribute
needed is the ability to act as both a sup-
port and a balance to the chief executive,
Ivan Glasenberg, who has more influ-
ence than most bosses since he owns an
8.3 percent stake. The candidate also
needs to have the backing of British in-
stitutional shareholders. That argues for
someone whose curriculumvitae is
heavy with British company experience.
Knowledge of commodities is also essen-
tial if the chairman is to participate fully
in strategic and technical discussions.
E.U. TAKES FIRMSTAND
FOR NET NEUTRALITY
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FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 | S1 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
. . . .
DON DUONG, VIETNAM
BY MIKE IVES
The cheesemaking hub of Universal
FoodCreation, anarroworangebuilding,
looks no different from the other struc-
tures lining the main street in this dusty
farming village in southern Vietnam.
But on a recent Wednesday morning,
about a dozenworkers made mozzarella
and burrata cheeses inmetal bowls with
milk from 25 neighborhood cows. The
fresh batches, produced with Danish
rennet, would ship that evening to up-
scale hotels and restaurants across Vi-
etnamand Southeast Asia.
Yosuke Masuko, the companys chief
executive and a former financial
strategist from Tokyo, opened the mod-
est factory in 2012 to complement his
popular restaurant, Pizza 4Ps, in Ho
Chi Minh City, about 200 miles south.
In addition to fresh cheeses, his top-
pings include vegetables grown on five
farms not far from the factory. The
farms, which have contracts with the
company, are scattered across the
southern portion of the countrys Cen-
tral Highlands, a hilly regionwitha tem-
perate climate.
Mr. Masukos holistic approach to
pizza is reminiscent of farm-to-table en-
terprises in Europe and the United
States, but is a rarity in Vietnam. The
key to his success appears to lie in a
technical precision honed during his
previous career in finance, coupled with
a quixotic instinct to engineer the per-
fect pizza experience.
The overall goal is delivering wow
and happiness, Mr. Masuko, 35, said at
the 860-square-foot factory as two Viet-
namese employees weighed balls of
burrata on a digital scale and sealed
themin plastic bags. But to create those
effects, he added, The important thing
is detail, detail, detail, detail, detail.
Pizza 4Ps serves around 350 diners
every night, about two-thirds of them
Vietnamese, and onaverage turns away
another 50, he said, even though the res-
taurant has doubled in size since it
opened without any formal marketing
in May 2011. It does not deliver, and
seasoned customers typically reserve
tables in advance.
This in a country that has a rice-based
cuisine and an annual per capita income
that is the equivalent of around $1,800.
While Mr. Masuko began making
cheese to serve his pizza restaurant, he
now also has a separate cheese export
business that sells 10 varieties, including
camembert and mimolette, to upscale
hotels andrestaurants inVietnam, Cam-
bodia, Singapore and Japan. It accounts
for 15 percent of his total revenue.
Geoffrey Bouillet, operations man-
ager for four restaurants in Vietnam
owned by Didier Corlou, a French chef,
says that Mr. Masukos camembert
works nicely in a salad with arugula and
artichoke. And at 55,000 dong, or $2.59,
for a 5.3-ounce portion, it costs roughly
half as much as the imported French
version.
Its a nice product, not so strong as a
Camembert from Normandy, Mr.
Bouillet wrote in an email. But a very
nice value.
Mr. Masuko is a self-described pizza
maniac who said he developed a love
for the dish about 10 years ago after
building a wood-fired pizza oven in his
Tokyo backyard at the request of a now
former girlfriend. He later traveled on
pizza pilgrimages to Rome, Naples,
London and other European cities.
In 2008 he moved to Hanoi, the Viet-
namese capital, as the country director
for CyberAgent Ventures, a Tokyo-
based venture capital firm specializing
in high-tech investments. But soon he
began pondering ways of striking out as
an entrepreneur. Given his interest in
pizza and Vietnams rising middle class,
he said, opening a pizzeria with a wood-
fired oven struck him as a logical
strategy.
Mr. Masuko said he leased an alley-
side building in Ho Chi Minh City and in-
vested about $100,000 of his savings into
a renovation, kitchen gear and other
start-up essentials. He and a Japanese
employee, Keinosuke Konuki, taught
themselves how to make mozzarella by
watching a YouTube video.
Finding the highest-quality milk en-
tailed traveling around Vietnam by mo-
torbike and talking with small-scale
farmers, who typically agreed ona price
of around 15,000 dong per liter, or about
71 cents for a quarter of a gallon, Mr.
Masuko said. He made the cheese in his
apartment, and later at the restaurant.
Mr. Masuko and his wife, Sanae Ma-
suko, who met in Japan while working
together at the parent company of
CyberAgent Ventures, said one obstacle
to starting Pizza 4Ps was her parents,
who were highly skeptical of the whole
idea. I was a very good child, and I al-
ways followed their decisions, Ms.
Masuko, 30, said. But she disobeyed
themin this particular case.
Pizza 4Ps is now rated in the top
three of the roughly 5,000 restaurants
reviewed on the Vietnamese food web-
site Foody.vn, which draws about 1 mil-
lion unique visitors per month, accord-
ing to Dang Minh, chief executive of the
sites parent company, Foody Corp.
Customers like Pizza 4Ps, where the
average pie costs about 200,000 dong,
because it serves quality products at
competitive prices, Mr. Minh said. He
added that the restaurants Japanese-
influenced pizza toppings, such as fish
sashimi and teriyaki chicken, appeal to
Sometimes artisans focus their skills on the edible such as reimagining a traditional Japanese candy or helping bees to make honey on the rooftops of London.
Farm-to-table pizza
PIZZA, PAGE S4
An entrepreneur wants
rice-loving Vietnam
to enjoy his pies
)+KJ )>LA
+4).65)5012
ONLINE: PIZZA PARTY
For more photographs of Yosuke
Masukos operations. inyt.com/style
PHOTOGRAPHS BY AARON JOEL SANTOS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Digging in
A meal at Pizza 4Ps
in Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam. The
restaurants name
stands for Platform
of Personal Pizza for
Peace.
CHER DIOR COLLECTION
Yellow gold, white gold, pink gold, diamonds, garnets,
rubies, tanzanite, sapphires and Paraiba tourmalines.
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INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES S2 | FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014
. . . .
)+76)*8- craftsmanship
TOKYO
BY KELLY WETHERILLE
Attend just about any major street fes-
tival in Japan and, along with vendors
selling fried octopus balls and yakisoba
noodles, you are bound to encounter an
amezaiku artist perched on a lowstool,
creating intricate candies as local chil-
dren stare in wonder.
Amezaiku loosely translates as
candy craft, and it is an art that has
evolved over hundreds of years. Origi-
nally brought to Japan fromChina and
used to create offerings at temples, it
began to flourish in the mid-Edo period
(1603-1867), when its rawingredient,
mizuame, began to be produced in large
quantities.
attached to the end of wooden sticks.
The candy is pinched, pulled and cut in-
to the desired shape. Finishing touches,
like eyes, the stripes of a tiger, or pollen
clusters on flowers are painted on with
food dye.
Japanese amezaiku artists were tra-
ditionally like traveling salespeople,
setting up their stands at whatever lo-
cation was deemed to be best for busi-
ness. Today, they are mainly seen at
festivals and corporate or cultural
events.
Takahiro Yoshihara, 38, is one of the
fewamezaiku artists to have a perma-
nent shop as his base. In the Sendagi
district of Tokyo, Amezaiku Yoshihara
opened in 2008, after Mr. Yoshihara had
apprenticed with a master for about
two years and worked on his own for
four. He says the shop, where three oth-
er artisans work alongside him, was the
first in Japan dedicated to amezaiku.
Q. Why did you decide to open an
amezaiku shop?
A. In the past, amezaiku was done in
the streets, like on roads children would
take on their way home fromschool, or
at parks or shrines. But nowwe cant
do any of that because of hygiene laws.
So unfortunately the amezaiku artists
have disappeared.
I hear a lot of people saying, We
never see amezaiku anymore, so I
thought I wanted to create a place
where you could go and see amezaiku
anytime. When I thought about that, I
thought the only legal way to do it
would be to open a shop. So, rather than
going around to different places and
festivals, I thought people would notice
a shop more.
Q. Recently there is a lot of talk about
Japans traditional arts disappearing.
Would you say that is true of amezaiku?
A. Yes. As far as I know, there are only
about 30 people who are doing
amezaiku nowin Japan. Of course,
there are some people fromthe young-
er generation who have started doing
it, but I think there are a lot of people
who cant easily make a living fromit,
so maybe they end up doing it as a
hobby or something.
Q. Howdid you get into amezaiku? What
drewyou to it?
A. When I was a child I would go to fes-
tivals and see the candy makers, and I
thought, I want to do that.
But then when I grewup I forgot
about that and went into a different line
of work. I worked in a restaurant cook-
ing food and, since I was cooking Italian
food, I went to Italy to study a bit and
travel a bit.
During that time when I went
fromJapan overseas I really felt how
Japanese I was and I thought that in-
stead of cooking Italian food, I wanted
to do something related to Japanese
culture.
And it was at that time that I re-
membered I had wanted to do
amezaiku, so when I came back to Ja-
pan I started doing it.
Q. Does every amezaiku artist make the
same figures, or is each persons work
unique?
A. Basically, in the beginning, you copy
the kinds of things that the person you
learned frommakes. But then from
there you start thinking things like, If
I do it this way, I can make something
beautiful, and your style gradually
changes.
Of course, a lot of people make the
same kinds of animals, but usually at a
glance you can see that theyre slightly
different.
Q. You also do workshops fromthe shop.
What made you decide to offer that
service?
A. Most people have seen amezaiku in
places like festivals, and I think a lot of
people have thought that theyd like to
try making it themselves. I want to ful-
fill that dreamfor them.
In actuality, amezaiku is quite diffi-
cult, and a lot of people dont realize
that until theyve tried doing it them-
selves. Then they can really under-
stand the true meaning of amezaiku.
Q. What are the most challenging
aspects of amezaiku?
An artisan reimagines
the traditional shapes
for a taffy-like treat
ONLINE: THE CANDY MENAGERIE
More photographs of Takahiro
Yoshiharas creations. inyt.com/style
A. For one, well, of course the candy is
hard but we heat it to soften it, and the
first mizuame you take is at 80 degrees
Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit). Its
extremely hot. And you have to make
the candy before it cools, so you cant
hesitate.
You need to have an image of what
youre going to make in your mind from
the beginning, and then just do it all at
once. So that is quite difficult. Also to
come up with something that is not
already done to do something unique
is also very difficult.
You do burn yourself when you first
start making amezaiku. But eventually
of course your hands get used to it
but you also learn howto handle the
candy without burning yourself. Thats
one of the toughest things in the begin-
ning.
Q. Is there a particular shape or item
that sells the best?
A. Our original character a rabbit,
whose name is Amepyon we sell the
most of him.
Usually amezaiku shapes are anim-
als, but to suddenly change the pose of
one means you have to make it in a dif-
ferent way, which can be quite diffi-
cult.
But for our original character, we
made it so that we can change the pose
freely. So we can ask the children what
pose theyd like, and we can make it
that way for them. Then after that we
can add props and other parts. So since
there are many things we can do with it,
people get very happy to buy one of
these.
Q. Do you think youll continue doing
this kind of work for the rest of your
career?
A. Yes, I want to. I want to preserve the
profession.
There are a lot of people who dont
knowabout amezaiku, so I want them
to notice this one element of Japanese
culture. I want to showthemsomeone
who is working hard at it.
I think in the future, amezaiku wont
survive without these kind of shops.
Q. Why is that?
A. At festivals, you buy amezaiku for
yourself, and the fun part is watching it
being made. But in a shop like this one,
people come to buy something to give
to someone else, so the person who re-
ceives it doesnt knowhowit was made.
And if the thing they receive is not ex-
tremely well made, they wont be
happy to receive it.
One thing I noticed since I opened the
shop is that I think the shapes become
more and more beautiful.
Candy thats a feast for the eyes
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KOSUKE OKAHARA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Feather touch
Takahiro Yoshihara,
bottomleft, owns a
shop dedicated to
amezaiku, the art of
making whimsical
shapes out of
superheated candy.
Above, the signs of
the Chinese zodiac.
At left, crafting a
crane. Bottomright,
the store, which
opened in 2008 in
the Sendagi district
of Tokyo.
Mizuame means water candy, and
is created when starch is converted to
sugar. The taffy-like substance is solid
at roomtemperature but becomes pli-
able when heated.
In the Chinese style of candy making,
artists blowinto a ball of mizuame to
create balloon-like shapes much like
glass blowing but that practice is
nowoutlawed in Japan for hygienic rea-
sons. Instead, candy makers use their
hands, as well as tools like scissors and
pliers, to shape animals, flowers and
mythical creatures.
They start with balls of soft
mizuame, dyed with food coloring and
FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014 | S3 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES
. . . .
LONDON
BY HANNAH OLIVENNES
The honeybees on the roof of the luxury
department store Fortnum&Mason are
living the life.
The four hives, which overlook Picca-
dilly, have sweeping views from the
Shard to Big Ben. They were made of
Englishoakbythe Welshcarpenter Kim
Farley-Harper, painted in the famous
Fortnum eau de nil turquoise and
topped with gold leaf-covered finials
shaped like traditional bee skeps.
Most important of all, since they ar-
rived in 2008 the bees have had the at-
tention of their keeper, Steve Benbow.
Mr. Benbow, 45, is an urban beekeep-
er who clearly loves what he does. I
live my life by my bees, he said, his ex-
pression conveying his enthusiasm. I
get grumpy when I dont see my bees
for a while.
On this particular day atop Fortnum
&Mason, he is wearing a waistcoat over
an orange shirt, jeans and a flat cap a
dapper outfit nothing like the veiled
hats and gauntlet gloves used by some
beekeepers.
Its nice to beekeep without gloves
because you can be more tactile and
you can make sure you dont squash
anyone, he noted. You get stung quite
a bit but only when youre clumsy.
Although, he added, you become im-
mune to it, and you dont really notice it
most of the time.
Mr. Benbow opened the hives care-
fully and removed the 10 or so frames in-
side each one, taking a look at how the
bees early efforts at creating honey-
combs were coming along. Bees are
very sensitive creatures, he noted.
Youve got to be quite gentle with
them, you dont want to be banging
around.
Honeybees are dormant over the
winter. But it was a very warm March
afternoon and Mr. Benbow said the
bees, a mix of the Welsh Black and
Buckfast Cross species, soon would be
flying as far as three miles at a time, for-
aging Londons flora in well-known
spots like Green Park, Hyde Park and
even BuckinghamPalace.
At the height of the summer, he esti-
mates, the hives will be home to 50,000
bees, and he will add more layers and
frames to the hives to give them plenty
of space to make honey.
I love being outdoors, connecting
with nature or on the rooftop, he said.
Seeing my bees coming in with pollen
is awesome.
The production of Fortnums Bees
Honey depends mostly on the weather,
so the number of jars the company has
to sell varies widely each year a very
cold and wet spring limited the 2012
batch to 430 jars, but there was a record
850 in 2010. (The waiting list opens after
Easter, with jars actually going on sale
in July at 25 pounds, or $41.25, a jar.)
Two of Mr. Benbows grandparents
were beekeepers. But he only started
keep bees seriously 17 years ago, when
he was living in South East London and
decided he wanted to make honey from
rooftop hives.
He trained for a while with a friend
who was a professional beekeeper.
When I became a commercial bee-
keeper, as opposed to a hobbyist, I
wasnt allowed to touch bees for about
six months until I had the sufficient
skill, even though Id been in contact
with bees all my life, he said. I had to
showthat I was competent.
During a visit to Paris, he was in-
spired by the hive installations on top of
the Opra Garnier and in the Luxem-
bourg Gardens and, in 2004, he founded
The London Honey Company.
Fortnum&Mason, which heard about
him by word of mouth, became his first
client and soon he also was beekeeping
atop the Tate Modern and Tate Britain,
the Victoria &Albert Museumand other
city locations.
Mr. Benbow now is something of an
urban beekeeping star. He has been the
subject of numerous newspaper and
magazine articles and has written a
book, The Urban Beekeeper: AYear of
Bees in the City, and has another one
on the way.
The beekeeper wont disclose how
many clients he has or the total num-
ber of hives he tends, other than to say
there are hundreds and some are in
such locations as Shropshire, Salisbury
and Wales. Those produce the 10 variet-
ies of honey he distributes to customers
such as the Savoy hotel and Harrods
and sell at the London Honey Company
headquarters in the Bermondsey dis-
trict of south London.
In an area called Spa Terminus, a cen-
ter for food producers and distributors,
Mr. Benbow has a small space that
houses his factory and warehouse, and
his office on the mezzanine.
At the front of the factory is a small
shop, where he sells his London Honey
Company jars for 6 each every Satur-
day morning.
The smells of honey and beeswax hit
visitors as soon as they walk through
the door. Three dead bees are on dis-
play, pinned under a magnifying glass
on a long wooden table, and beeswax
candles hang from the ceiling. Wooden
wine crates hanging on the walls serve
as shelves for some old bee frames, pho-
tos and even some dried flowers that
are examples of the blossoms bees fa-
vor.
The honey pots are displayed in rows,
so visitors can see the various shades of
honey, and the store also has four large
honey tanks.
Customers can come in with their
empty pots for a refill, said Kim Bur-
rows, 33, who works for Mr. Benbow
three days a week and is one of his four
employees. We offer then a 20 pence
discount on their honey but its really
more about the recycling.
High up on the left hand side wall is a
large sepia picture of Mr. Benbows pa-
ternal grandmother in front of a bee
hive in her garden.
Mr. Benbow said his first bee-related
memory happened in that garden. He
was six years old, having honey on a
big slab of bloomer bread, he recalled,
looking into the distance and indicating
the size of the piece of bread, as if he
could picture it perfectly.
Although she died before he was 10,
shes really such an inspiration to me,
he said.
The shop opens at 8:30 a.m., but by
9:30 Mr. Benbow had left it in his em-
ployees care and was driving off some-
where in his weathered white pickup
truck.
I live a nomadic life, very much on
the road, he said.
Every day he wakes at 5 a.m., has
granola with yogurt and a massive dol-
lopof honey, andplans where he will go
next to check on his bees. Well drive
off and work those bees for a couple of
days, do a bit of rough camping and then
come back to check that the factory is
O.K., he said, using the plural as he of-
ten takes an employee along with him.
While he spends most of his time on
the production side, he also runs the
company and noted proudly that it will
be going into a bigger space soon. Its a
big move for us, he said.
They will also be taking on an appren-
tice, supported by a government train-
ing program and the Bee Farmers As-
sociation of the United Kingdom,
something that Mr. Benbow is very ex-
cited about.
The average age of beekeepers is
around 60 years old, and were taking on
someone who is about to turn 21, and
shes a woman, which is fantastic be-
cause there are also fewfemale beekeep-
ers he said. Theres a real lack of pass-
on of knowledge, so this is brilliant.
Mr. Benbow often talks to groups
about his craft people coming to us
to learnabout pollinationandthe impor-
tance of pollination and he said he
Nurturing
bees with
a view
A devoted beekeeper
takes care of hives on
some London rooftops
Its nice to beekeep without gloves because you
can be more tactile and you can make sure
you dont squash anyone.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM JAMIESON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A taste of honey
Left and below,
Steve Benbow,
beekeeper and
owner of the
London Honey
Company, inspecting
one of the four hives
atop Fortnum&
Mason in London.
Bottom, the stores
honey display, which
will start to sell
Fortnums Bees
Honey in July.
would like to do more such sessions in
the future.
But, he added, Beekeeping is not
something you can learn on the Internet
or in a weekend course.
Above all, he said, you have to be con-
siderate of the bees.
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INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES S4 | FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014
. . . .
local palates.
The taste is delicious and the price is
reasonable, Vuong Binh, an import-ex-
port dealer from Ho Chi Minh City, said
on a recent Monday evening in the res-
taurants packed dining room.
Francesco Patella, a VietnamAirlines
pilot from Italy, was sitting on the
mezzanine with a group of other Italian
pilots. He said Pizza 4Ps could easily
rival pizzerias inbothNaples andRome,
and he had even come to love some of
Mr. Masukos nontraditional creations,
such as a four-cheese pizza served with
honey for drizzling.
His only major complaint was that the
pizzas were always cooked and served
one at a time, forcing him to share
rather than eat his own.
The pilots said the restaurants spe-
cialty a pizza topped with prosciutto,
arugula and a ball of fresh burrata
was unheard-of in Italy because fresh
burrata, a mix of mozzarella cheese and
heavy cream, is so expensive. (Mr. Ma-
suko said after an Italian customer re-
quested fresh burrata as a topping in
December 2012, he decided to make it a
menu mainstay even though producing
the cheese locally requires considerable
effort.)
It quickly became the pilots favorite,
and they now order it whenever they
eat at Pizza 4Ps, usually once or twice a
week.
This kind of pizza in Italy would be
impossible because a ball of burrata
costs around 9 euros there, or $12, said
Mr. Patella, who was the head pizza chef
for about 10 years at Spaccanapoli, his
familys restaurant in Rome. He has a
brilliant idea.
The pilots and other customers said
they were impressed by the attention to
detail. Toppings, for example, are posi-
tioned according to how many people
plan to eat the pie, so cutting is easier
and toppings wont slide off, Mr. Ma-
suko said.
Pizzas also are baked for a specific
period of time, which he asked a report-
er to keep secret because he considers it
proprietary information.
Mr. Patella said Mr. Masuko occasion-
ally refused to be paid for pizzas that
were not perfectly round, even though
Mr. Patella could find nothing wrong
with them. (Mr. Masuko noted such
times were extremely rare, in part be-
cause of his rigorous quality control
standards.)
The restaurants full name Plat-
form of Personal Pizza for Peace re-
flects such a continuing effort to listen
to customers and constantly improve
their pizza experience, said Takayuka
Oka, one of Mr. Masukos employees.
Mr. Oka is one of several Japanese em-
ployees. Another is Masashi Kubota, the
cheese department manager in Don
Duong, who trained in France and
emailed Mr. Masuko from Hokkaido to
ask for a job after searching online for
Asia and cheesemaker in Japanese.
One of the five contract farms is
staffed by five Japanese farmers who
moved to Vietnam after the Fukushima
nuclear plant accident, said one of them,
Motoyuki Takano.
At 7:30 a.m. on a recent Thursday, Mr.
Takano was inspecting rows of toma-
toes and eggplants inside a 1,000-
square-meter, or 1,076-square-foot,
greenhouse in Dasar, a village about 50
miles from the cheese factory in Don
Duong.
Mr. Takano, 32, a former Tokyo busi-
nessman, said he had learned how to
farm partly by reading about it online,
and that the real thing is full of sur-
prises. For example, Mr. Masuko had
asked him to grow San Marzano toma-
toes, an Italian variety, for the restau-
rants pizza sauce but the project failed
for reasons that are still not entirely
clear.
As a result, the restaurant has contin-
ued to import San Marzanos while Mr.
Takano grows salad tomatoes fromJap-
anese seeds.
We are very, very beginner! he
said amid peals of laughter. But no
stress.
There have been other obstacles, Mr.
Masuko said, including a failed attempt
to build a cheese cave at the factory and
difficulties in importing rennet from
Denmark, which he says he prefers be-
cause it offers the best combination of
quality and value. He also said some of
his former employees had moved to an-
other pizzeria in Ho Chi Minh City and
appropriated some of his signature
dishes.
But Mr. Masuko recently purchased a
one-hectare, or 2.5-acre, farm near Don
Duong where he intends to grow vege-
tables and try again to build a cheese
cave. He also plans to buy 10 cows, pos-
sibly fromThailand because, he said, its
dairy cows tend to be of higher quality
than Vietnamese ones.
He is determined to expand his brand
far beyondHo Chi MinhCity, withanini-
tial goal of opening Pizza 4Ps restau-
rants in every Southeast Asian capital,
and later in Tokyo, London and New
York.
He also intends to develop a fast-food-
style version of the restaurant, starting
in Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok and
Singapore, although he has not leased
any sites yet.
As for longer-term goals, he has been
browsing auction websites in hopes of
finding an island for sale at around $10
million. By 2025, he wants to open an
ecological resort on a private island
in Asia or beyond where guests could
learn about pizza making and sustain-
able agriculture.
Making something from scratch is
always fun, Mr. Masuko said.
In Vietnam, pizza
from farm to table
PIZZA, FROM PAGE S1
Delivering wow and happiness is the goal at
Pizza 4Ps, Yosuke Masuko said. The important
thing is detail, detail, detail, detail, detail.
AARON JOEL SANTOS FOR THE NEWYORK TIMES
Delivering wow
Yosuke Masuko, the
owner of Pizza 4Ps,
with his wife, Sanae.
Mr. Masukos
approach to pizza
can be reminiscent
of farm-to-table
enterprises in
Europe and the
United States.

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