An Inspirational Interior for a Digital Designer

Abstract: Geoff Dowd is the director of experience design at Adobe Systems in San Francisco. A building that breathes Adobe occupies the historical Baker and Hamilton building in the design district of San Francisco. It has a raw, exposed interior, with the ventilation ducts and electrical conduits visible. It also has the original brick walls and steel beams that provide earthquake protection. It’s like being in a living, breathing building. The space reminds me of the way things work and that beauty is on the inside of an object, too, not just the exterior. The company that constructed our building got its start supplying miners with picks, shovels and other tools during the Gold Rush of 1849. It’s kind of fitting that we make creative tools here today. Creating an experience My group, which works on seed projects, or tools of the future, is on the first floor. We took the name Adobe XD, for experience design, instead of the more common UX, or user experience. We were saying things like, “We need to get some XD on this project,” and it seemed to fit. Image Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times 1. Open-ended environment To me, the only way our creative team can work is in this open space. The low walls between cubicles allow us to peer over our neighbor’s fence to see where a co-worker is on a project. Or we might overhear a technical conversation or design critique and can jump in. If I see a group crowding around a computer screen having a debate, I’ll go over and give some guidance. Usually the group doesn’t want me there because I make more work for them. 2. Company collectibles Image Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times One of our designers came up with the idea of making trading cards of each person on the team. He commissioned employees to draw each other, and every quarter he gives out a new series of six or seven cards in a beautifully wrapped package, like baseball trading cards. We can’t wait to see who got drawn during the quarter. The cards make us celebrities, in a way, but keep us humble in knowing we’re part of a big family. 3. Birth of a pen Image Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times I keep prototypes around the office from our Adobe Ink product , which is a pen for the iPad, for use by designers, digital illustrators, art teachers and hobbyists. Lately I have a group of prototypes lying on a book about Richard Neutra , an architect. After-hours inspiration At the end of the day, we often retire to a pub while continuing a discussion about design. Our best critiques often happen when we’ve stepped away from our desks and are having some beers and brainstorming. Out and about There’s peer pressure to do well in this industry. We work some crazy hours and have pulled some all-nighters, but when there’s not a lot to do, we encourage each other to get outside and get inspired. As designers, we constantly have to be looking around, noticing people and trends. I keep a bike around the corner from my desk, and occasionally I’ll cruise down to the ballpark where the Giants are playing and catch an inning through the fence. Don’t tell my boss. 4. The motivator Image Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times In the summer of 2013 I flipped open New York magazine to this picture of Jay Z and haven’t moved it since. His expression is intimidating, yet motivating. When I have a failure and am feeling sorry for myself, he just stares at me, cold. When I have a great success and trot back to my desk full of myself, he gives me the same stare. Get back to work, he says. 5. His hero Image Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times My late father was a graduate of Juilliard and principal timpanist for the Eugene Symphony in Oregon. I grew up behind his kettle drums and deep in the back of an orchestra pit. I was constantly surrounded by professionalism, not only his, but that of his colleagues, students and stage hands. He’s so poised in this photo. Every day I look at it and sit up straighter, work with more intent and keep it professional.

Workplace
Geoff Dowd
Adobe
Design
San Francisco


Hundreds of Layoffs Expected at Yahoo

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo is planning to lay off hundreds of employees in an effort to increase its profitability, prop up its deflated stock price and narrow the focus of its sprawling Internet portal to a smaller number of crucial areas, people close to the company said Monday. The final number of layoffs from Yahoo’s work force of about 14,000 is yet to be determined and is likely to be announced around the end of the month, perhaps during Yahoo’s conference call on Jan. 29 with analysts after it reports fourth-quarter results, these people said. Company executives are still trying to determine exactly which areas will be cut. One person close to the discussions said a final plan, or perhaps a few alternative plans, would be submitted to the board at a coming meeting. The plan’s final shape may be influenced by the company’s fourth-quarter performance, this person said. Yahoo declined to comment specifically on any plan for layoffs. In an e-mail statement, a company spokeswoman, Diana Wong, said: “Yahoo plans to invest in some areas, reduce emphasis in others, and eliminate some areas of the business that don’t support the company’s priorities. Yahoo continues to attract and hire talent against the company’s key initiatives to create long-term stockholder value.” The statement echoes a strategy sketched out in recent months by Jerry Yang , the company’s co-founder, who was appointed chief executive last summer amid growing shareholder dissatisfaction. After a 100-day review of the company, Mr. Yang said in October that Yahoo would focus on three areas: becoming a “starting point” for the most consumers on the Web; extending its advertising offerings to sites across the Web; and opening up Yahoo’s technology infrastructure to third-party developers and publishers. The strategy is aimed at revitalizing Yahoo, which has been eclipsed by Google in Internet search, and has faced increasing competition from social networks like MySpace and Facebook. As a result, Yahoo’s share of the overall online advertising market has declined. Still, the company remains a powerful force on the Internet, with about 500 million people visiting its sites around the world each month. Company executives have said that to achieve its “starting point” goal, Yahoo would continue to invest in areas like Internet search, e-mail, the Yahoo front page and the personalized home-page service MyYahoo, as well as news, finance and sports. Some other areas would be de-emphasized. In recent months, Yahoo said it would phase out or consolidate services like photos, premium music, auctions and Yahoo 360, a largely unsuccessful social network. During the weekend, some blogs reported that Yahoo was considering layoffs of 10 to 20 percent of its work force. But the people close to the company, who discussed Yahoo’s layoff plans on condition that they not be identified, said the cuts would most likely be in the hundreds. The last time Yahoo had sizable layoffs was in 2001, after the dot-com crash. During the last year, the company added several hundred people, some through hiring and some through acquisitions of companies like the online advertising specialists Right Media and BlueLithium and the e-mail provider Zimbra. Mr. Yang and other Yahoo executives have said recently that they believe that those acquisitions and a series of reorganizations have primed the company for a turnaround. But they have cautioned that financial results may not improve quickly. They have also said they believe Yahoo can succeed as an independent company, amid growing speculation that the company could become a takeover target. With the stock price sliding, Mr. Yang and the board may see layoffs as necessary to ensure that the company can indeed remain independent. Yahoo shares have lost more than half of their value since early 2006, closing Friday at $20.78.

Computers and the Internet
Yahoo Inc
Layoffs and Job Reductions
Yang Jerry


Egypt Announces I.M.F. Loan

Abstract: CAIRO — Egypt ’s transitional government announced plans on Sunday to sign a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund worth $3.2 billion, less than a year after abruptly turning its back on a loan from the international lender, according to state media. The $3.2 billion loan will throw a much-needed financial lifeline to Egypt, a country reeling from a year of economic crisis and social unrest after the ouster of the longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak a year ago. The deal bears a striking resemblance to one Egypt’s military rulers negotiated, and abruptly rejected, last spring, citing concerns that it would saddle future governments with such a large debt that it would amount to a violation of Egyptian sovereignty. Those objections appear to have been eclipsed by the country’s mounting economic troubles, which have grown increasingly dire as persistent social unrest has led to a collapse of the tourism industry and the flight of foreign investors. Since October, seemingly monthly street clashes between protesters and security forces have killed more than 100 people and battered and burned much of downtown Cairo, leaving it divided by concrete walls and coils of razor wire. The loan will be disbursed in three stages over the next 12 months at an interest rate of 1.2 percent , the state-run newspaper Al Ahram reported Sunday. The first installment, around $1 billion, will be delivered once Egypt signs the agreement in March. The newspaper also reported that Egypt was negotiating a $1 billion loan from the World Bank, in part to make up for economic assistance pledged by Gulf Arab nations more than a year ago that never materialized. Egypt’s foreign reserves have plummeted from a high of $36 billion, before the revolution, to around $10 billion in late January, as the government has spent vast amounts to bolster the currency, which has come under mounting pressure. A devaluation of the Egyptian pound may be inescapable, economists say, raising the specter of increasing inflation and the potential for even greater social unrest. The tourism industry, long a lifeblood of the economy, has all but collapsed since the revolution, and a steady drumbeat of anti-American sentiment in the state-run media seems likely to keep many visitors away. Egypt’s military rulers may also be concerned about the possible loss of more than $1.5 billion of American aid over a dispute with the United States that has driven relations between the allies to a 30-year low. Egyptian authorities have accused several nonprofit groups, including four supported by the United States, of operating without proper licenses and illegally receiving millions of dollars of American assistance in the last several years. Criminal charges have been brought against 43 employees of the groups, including 19 Americans. Only seven of the Americans are still in Egypt, but they have been barred from leaving the country. The American-supported groups include the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, which have close ties to leaders in the United States Congress. American officials have tried to defuse the crisis through diplomacy, urging the ruling military council to throw out the charges against the Americans or at least allow them to leave the country. It is an effort that has so far born little fruit. On Saturday, Egypt announced that proceedings against the 43 defendants would begin in a Cairo criminal court on Sunday.

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


China’s Aviation Market Is Taking Hold

Abstract: TAIPEI — In the mid-1980s, more than three decades after Mao Zedong’s communist revolution, David Dixon was one of the first capitalists allowed by a wary Beijing to fly over China in a business jet — with an escort. “You had to have what was called a ‘navigator,”’ said Mr. Dixon, president of Jetcraft Asia in Hong Kong. “I don’t know who he worked for, and it was quite clear he didn’t know how to navigate anything, but he did know exactly where you were and if you were heading anywhere toward military installations.” Three decades later, China has embraced business aviation and is home to Asia’s largest business-jet fleet. After an extended period of rapid growth, it is experiencing growing pains that should be temporary, provided it can further relax its heavy control of its skies and airports. Data from the consultancy Asian Sky Group’s 2015 Asia Pacific Fleet Report shows that China, Hong Kong and Macau’s combined fleet saw a net addition of 26 jets last year, an increase of 6.2 percent, but just under half the net additions of 2014. A slowing of deliveries of new aircraft is partly due to the impact of President Xi Jinping’s austerity and anti-corruption campaigns. Beginning in 2013, the campaigns reduced demand for new business jet orders, which once had a two-year backlog. Last year’s dropoff of new deliveries is “a worrying sign for 2016 and on,” the report notes, “as it would seem to signify that the OEM sales funnel for Greater China has little backlog.” Despite the end of 20-percent annual growth, many in the industry are expecting strong, steady growth for years. “I think we’re definitely seeing an uptick from a year ago,” said Jason Liao, chairman and C.E.O. of China Business Aviation Group. “I’m very positive. I think we’ll see an average of 10 percent, sustainable long-term growth.” China’s shift from being a global investment destination to becoming a global investor is also changing the market. “China’s commercial interests are spreading all over, to Africa, to South America, regions which are not necessarily their traditional markets,” Mr. Dixon said. “When they go looking for resources, they’re usually in remote areas, so access becomes crucial. How do you get from Beijing to Angola easily and when you want to? The answer is business aviation.” For many Chinese businesses, that means long-range, wide-body aircraft. The top two models delivered to China and Hong Kong in 2015 were Bombardier’s Global 6000 and Gulfstream’s G650, designed for long-range use. Bombardier’s 2015 market forecast predicts that greater China will account for 875 deliveries valued at $33 billion in the coming decade, with medium and large aircraft accounting for 90 percent. “Geographic positioning of the Asia Pacific region and distances between major cities necessitates the need for long-range aircraft,” said Khader Mattar, Bombardier’s vice president of sales for the Asia Pacific region and China. “We expect the Chinese market to be one of the four most active markets and to generate the most deliveries over the next 10 years.” China’s business aviation market should benefit from support from Beijing, which has mentioned general aviation in the past two five-year plans. “General aviation is becoming one of the main directions in China’s national policy,” said Fang Xinyu, vice president of Deer Jet, China’s largest charter provider, now in its 21st year of operation. “The government is encouraging more investment in this industry.” Last year Deer Jet added two new fixed-base operators to its domestic network, which now totals eight. Its fleet size has dropped below 90 aircraft as it moves to replace older aircraft, and its turnover rose 10 percent, with its share of the Chinese charter market now at 70 percent, Mr. Fang said. The market is maturing but has far to go, he said. “We are still short of pilots, mechanics and even professional marketers.” Denzil White, C.E.O. at Deer Jet subsidiary Hongkong Jet, said the regulatory environment for business aviation in China also has room for improvement. “In America, I can decide at two o’clock in the afternoon that I want to leave at five o’clock from Los Angeles and fly to New York, and it’s quite possible to do it,” he said. “Here, if you get all your ducks in a row it’s a minimum of two days.” Other issues include restrictions on flight times, extremely limited flight paths due to military control of the skies and limited access to the high altitudes for which many jets are designed. A two-decade shortage of pilots has been addressed by more training centers, Mr. Liao said, but now there is a shortfall of captains, a problem that will be resolved in the coming two to three years once today’s first officers have met their flying hours requirements. A lack of sufficient slots and parking spaces at busier airports, especially Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA), where 132 business jets are served by a lone FBO , is also a major issue. “Hong Kong has a population in excess of seven million, with only one airport,” Mr. White said. “Most other major cities with this size population have a choice of four or more airports.” Hong Kong missed an opportunity to avoid this situation 18 years ago, when it could have retained its airport at Kai Tak for business jets. It has since been converted into a cruise ship terminal. As a result, a Hong Kong businessman returning home in his business jet may be denied landing and/or parking at HKIA due to slot restrictions, he said. To address that problem, Mr. White advocates forming a Pearl River Delta customs and immigration-free zone allowing business jets to land at airports in Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, and for passengers to commute within the zone by helicopter. “That would instantly resolve the parking and slot limitations for HKIA,” he said. China has fewer than 300 airports, against more than 5,000 in the United States. Mr. Liao said China is adding 20 airports a year and, even if that number rose, there are no short-term concerns of an airport glut for the world’s most populous country. “Even if they’re building 50 airports a year, in 10 years that’s 500, in 100 years that’s 5,000,” he said. “It’s still a very small number.” Mr. White emphasized the need for a vision for the development of China’s business aviation industry. “It is inevitable that the Chinese business jet population will eventually grow to a size similar to the U.S.,” he said. “However, without open skies, improved infrastructure and qualified manpower, this is not likely to happen in the near future.” Mr. Dixon expressed cautious optimism that infrastructure gains may be followed by further liberalization of the operational environment. “Hopefully they will open up more airways and more airspace,” he said. “If you see how far China’s come since the eighties, it’s moved a long way, but we would like to see it move faster.”

Airlines,airplanes
Airport
Private Aircraft
China


Olympics and N.H.L. Face Off Over Who Pays to Insure Players

Abstract: ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — With ice hockey’s top federations gathered in Russia for the men’s world championship, some people here are looking ahead two years. When it was reported last month that the International Olympic Committee would no longer cover the costs of insurance and transportation for N.H.L. players to participate in the Olympics, starting with the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea, the league’s continued Olympic participation was put in jeopardy. “Everyone would like to see the N.H.L. players participate,” said Matti Nurminen, general director of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association. “Everyone wants to see a tournament with the best on best, that’s for sure, but the I.O.C. sees things differently now compared to previous Olympics, and that has caused some challenges for our sport. There’s a bill to pay, and now they’re trying to find the money to cover it.” The travel and accommodation expenses are expected to be negotiated with sponsors in cooperation with the I.O.C. and national Olympic committees, but the real sticking point is insurance: Premiums could climb to $10 million. For the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia, the bill was $7 million. This issue goes beyond health insurance. It is about insuring the future income of a player and his value as an asset to the team should a long-term injury occur. In the same way a private owner lends art to a museum and asks it to pay an insurance premium to display a painting, the N.H.L. and its team owners are asking the I.O.C. to pay the insurance premiums on the assets they are lending out for the international showcase. It is not an abstract problem. At the 2014 Sochi Games, the Islanders’ John Tavares tore a knee ligament while playing for Canada and missed the rest of the N.H.L. season . With the I.O.C. no longer willing to cover those premiums and the International Ice Hockey Federation unable to cover the cost by itself, the governing bodies are reaching out to all parties involved to find a resolution. “The I.I.H.F. has asked the national associations and the national Olympic committees if they are willing to cover that, but from our perspective, that responsibility rests on who is organizing the event and who is collecting all the revenues from the event,” Nurminen said. “In our opinion, the same party should pay the bills, and that’s not us. All the countries replied to the I.I.H.F. that they are not willing to pay for the insurance or the travel or any of the other expenses that are related to having the N.H.L. players participate in Pyeongchang.” At least 150 N.H.L. players are expected to be selected for their countries’ Olympic teams, requiring the league to shut down for the duration of the Games. European leagues plan to make their players available, but none will have to shut down for three weeks, as the N.H.L. will. Discussions among the N.H.L., the Olympic committee and the ice hockey federation are continuing, with an unofficial deadline set for the end of this year, when the N.H.L. begins planning for the 2017-18 season. The agreement between the N.H.L. and the Olympic committee for the Sochi Games did not come until seven months before the event, but the expectation was that a deal would be completed because of how important hockey is to Russia. That is not the case with South Korea. And the national federations, especially those in Canada and the United States, need time to develop a Plan B if the N.H.L. decides not to make its players available. Before 1998, the Canadian and United States Olympic teams were composed of former college and junior hockey players, while the European squads consisted of players from professional leagues. Because of the disparity, the level of talent missing without N.H.L. players, and the success of the Olympic basketball tournament with the N.B.A.’s participation, the I.O.C. struck a deal with the N.H.L. to ensure the inclusion of its players and a competition among the world’s best players. Tom Renney, now the president and chief executive of Hockey Canada, was the coach for the Canadian team in the last non-N.H.L. Olympics, in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994. “It’s possible to find success without N.H.L. players, but it requires a lot more hard work, and we’d like to know as soon as possible if we need to do it that way again so we can get started,” he said. Jim Johannson, the assistant executive director for hockey operations at USA Hockey, said: “We like to talk about the growing depth of the American talent pool, and if N.H.L.ers don’t participate, we’ll find out pretty quick just how much depth we have.” If the N.H.L. declines to shut down for nearly three weeks to allow players to participate in the Olympics, the impact will be far-reaching. “The lack of N.H.L.ers at the Olympics would of course impact the commercial value for the Games for TV broadcasters, as well as for sponsors and spectators around the world,” said René Fasel, president of the I.I.H.F. since 1994. “Without a doubt, it would also impact the I.I.H.F.’s efforts to develop the game worldwide. The Olympic platform offers us a wide range of opportunities to present our game to a global audience. We have 74 member national associations within the I.I.H.F., and so many of these players picked up sticks for the first time after watching ice hockey at the Olympics.” The N.H.L. has no tangible stake in the Olympics. Not only does the league have to shut down its season and risk the health of its players, it earns no revenue directly from the event. “With all the issues related to going to the Olympics and the balancing act it is and what it does to the season, I’m not sure that there would be a lot of appetite for us, on top of that, to have to pay for the privilege,” Gary Bettman, the N.H.L.’s commissioner, said last month. “We don’t make money going to the Olympics. In fact, we kind of disappear for two weeks because historically the I.O.C. hasn’t even let us join in promoting our participation in the Olympics.” That is why the N.H.L. and the N.H.L. Players’ Association brought back the World Cup of Hockey , which will be held in Toronto in September and takes place every four years. While the national federations welcome the opportunity for another men’s international tournament featuring N.H.L. players, they say it cannot replace the Olympics. For now, one thing is certain: The national federations are unwilling to take money away from their player development programs to pay the bill. “As a federation, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Renney said. “We know that every elite hockey player wants the opportunity to compete for a gold medal at the Olympics. We know that it is very important to them, and we want to help them achieve that in any way we can. “But most hockey players don’t even come close to that level, and if we take money away from our development programs to cover that cost, how many kids won’t have the opportunity to play hockey because we don’t have the money to offer them free equipment to try it out?”

Olympics
Ice hockey
NHL
International Ice Hockey Federation
International Olympic Committee
Personal finance


William Pollack Dies at 87; His Vaccine Saved Infants

Abstract: William Pollack, a medical researcher who helped develop a vaccine that virtually eradicated a disease once responsible for 10,000 infant deaths a year in the United States, died on Nov. 3 in Yorba Linda, Calif. He was 87. He had diabetes and heart disease, his son Malcolm said in confirming the death. Dr. Pollack was a senior scientist in the research laboratory of Ortho Pharmaceutical Company in Raritan, N.J., in the early 1960s when he began a collaboration with two Columbia University researchers, Dr. Vincent J. Freda and Dr. John G. Gorman, to conceive a novel treatment for erythroblastosis fetalis, a blood disorder commonly called Rh disease. The ailment is caused by seemingly superficial differences in the blood types of pregnant women and their fetuses. Besides the biochemical traits that define the major blood types — A, B, AB and O — the blood of 85 percent of people carries a cluster of surface proteins known as the Rh factor, named for the rhesus monkeys in which it was first identified in 1940. Blood transfusions between people who have the Rh factor (known as Rh positive) and people who do not (Rh negative) cause severe immune reactions. Rh disease occurs when a pregnant woman is Rh negative and her fetus is Rh positive. In the mixing of blood between the two during pregnancy, the mother’s Rh-negative blood cells produce antibodies that attack the blood cells of the fetus. Depending on the strength of the mother’s immune response, the effects on the baby can range from mild anemia to stillbirth. Dr. Pollack and his partners devised an “ingenious” counterattack, as it was described in an introduction to their work in “ Hematology: Landmark Papers of the Twentieth Century ,” a collection published in 2000 by hematologist organizations. The three men produced a vaccine that patrols the mother’s body, dispatches invading Rh-positive cells and causes no harm to the fetus. The vaccine was made from a passive Rh-negative antibody, which soon wears out. It not only solves the mother’s temporary immunity problem but also, more important, prevents her immune system from mounting a full-fledged response of its own, which would endanger the fetus she was carrying as well as any future ones. “It was an absolutely brilliant idea,” said Dr. Richard L. Berkowitz, the obstetrics and gynecology director of resident education at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital. “A lot of people know who Jonas Salk is, but they should know William Pollack’s name, too. This disease was a major, major problem, and it’s been virtually eradicated.” Researchers had developed other approaches to treating Rh blood disease, including potentially dangerous intrauterine transfusions, before the idea of a vaccine emerged. Among his other contributions, Dr. Pollack was credited with devising the process in which the blood components needed to make the vaccine are isolated and recombined in a liquid solution. Image William Pollack Credit Lasker Foundation In 1980, Dr. Pollack and his colleagues received the Lasker Award , popularly known as the American Nobel Prize, for excellence in biomedical research. William Pollack was born in London on Feb. 26, 1926, one of two children of David and Rose Pollack. His father was a carpenter. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, he received a bachelor of science degree from the University of London in 1948 and a master’s degree in chemistry there in 1950. With his wife, Alison, he moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in the mid-1950s to work as a researcher at the Royal Columbian Hospital. In 1963 he went to work for Ortho Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson known mainly for developing spermicidal jellies, contraceptives and intrauterine devices. (It is now part of Janssen Pharmaceuticals.) While pursuing his idea for an Rh disease vaccine, he earned a Ph.D. in zoology from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. The vaccine, a gamma globulin solution known generically as Rh immune globulin and later by its brand name, RhoGAM, was first tested on volunteers at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y., and later on 600 Rh-negative women in clinical trials. It worked 99 percent of the time, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and went on the market in 1969. In 1971, the World Health Organization recommended to its 193 member nations that Rh testing and treatment with immune globulin be made part of the standard protocol of medical care for pregnant women. In a follow-up report in 1998, the organization said the incidence of Rh blood disease, once estimated at 200,000 cases a year worldwide, had become rare. Dr. Pollack, who later taught immunology at Rutgers and Columbia, left Ortho after 25 years to work at other pharmaceutical companies before starting a company of his own, Quotient Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing, in Anaheim, Calif. Besides his son Malcolm, he is survived by another son, David, who was a partner in Quotient, and by four grandchildren. His wife died in 2006. In a 1967 interview with Science News, Dr. Pollack cautioned that the Rh gamma globulin solution he and his colleagues had developed was not a cure for Rh blood disease. To be effective, the vaccine has to be given to susceptible patients every time they become pregnant. “The cure,” he said, “is for the next generation.”

William Pollack
Vaccines Immunization
Obituary


D.W.I. Trial for Adam Clayton Powell IV to Begin

Abstract: When Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV was taken to a police station house early one morning in March 2008, he seemed groggy, agitated and desperate to learn the results of an alcohol breath test that he had taken that morning, a video of him there shows. Shortly after a police officer sat him down in a narrow room, Mr. Powell asked for the result. The officer said he could not tell him. “But the previous test gives you a notion, a figure,” Mr. Powell insisted. “Was I over .08?” Later, after the officer, Donald Schneider, told Mr. Powell that he would ask him to take a different alcohol test, and that refusing could have legal consequences, Mr. Powell responded: “It’s not a refusal of the test; I took a test you gave me.” “Au contraire,” Officer Schneider responded. Mr. Powell eventually refused to take the second test — a more precise one than the test officers gave him when they stopped him — but he seemed to comfortably make it through a series of other sobriety tests that required walking in a straight line, standing on one foot and touching his nose. The scenes were captured in a video that was played on Tuesday in Manhattan Criminal Court, as Mr. Powell’s drunken driving case finally approached a trial, more than two years after he was arrested. The video was played during a hearing to determine whether the police had reason to stop Mr. Powell. Judge Larry Stephen, who is presiding over the case, ruled that the officers made a proper traffic stop, and a jury was picked. Opening arguments are expected on Wednesday, and the trial is expected to be concluded by the end of the day. If convicted, Mr. Powell faces up to a year in jail. Officer Schneider testified at the hearing that he stopped Mr. Powell’s vehicle after he saw the driver swerving and braking in the center lane of the northbound West Side Highway near 82nd Street about 2:30 a.m. on March 6, 2008. Officer Schneider said Mr. Powell had watery eyes and reeked of alcohol, and he asked him to take a breath test. “He wanted know if it was necessary; I told him, yes, it was necessary,” Officer Schneider said. He told Mr. Powell to blow into a hand-held device for six seconds, but he ended up giving “a very quick breath,” Officer Schneider said. The test produced a reading of 0.07 percent, Officer Schneider said, just below the level at which a driver is considered drunk, which is 0.08 percent. Prosecutors have argued that the reading was low because Mr. Powell did not give a full breath. That breath test is not expected to be entered into evidence, so jurors will have to rely on Officer Schneider’s testimony and Mr. Powell’s behavior on the video, including the other sobriety tests, to determine if he was intoxicated when he was driving that morning. The video shows Mr. Powell — wearing blue jeans, a dark blazer and an untucked button-down shirt — adamantly denying any wrongdoing. “Listen, this is a big misunderstanding,” Mr. Powell said. “I haven’t been drinking that much. You have no reason to stop me.” Later, while Officer Schneider was reading Mr. Powell the instructions for the second breath test, Mr. Powell cut him off and said: “I took a test. I’ll take the second test; I want to know what happened to the first test. What happened to the first test?” Mr. Powell grudgingly agreed to take the second test, but then changed his mind before Officer Schneider administered it. After the sobriety tests, Officer Schneider told Mr. Powell that he would be fingerprinted, photographed and would have to appear before a judge. “I got to wait to see the judge?” Mr. Powell said, rubbing his face. “Oh, you got to be kidding. O.K., I’ll take the test.” “It’s a little too late,” Officer Schneider responded.

Powell Adam Clayton IV
Drunken and Reckless Driving
Decisions and Verdicts
Tests and Testing
Manhattan (NYC)


Mets’ Bats Wake Up, Briefly, but Pitching Fails Them

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — Predict an outcome from this scenario: Jacob deGrom, the Mets’ best pitcher, was staked to a four-run lead when Justin Ruggiano, fresh off the disabled list, smashed a grand slam off Madison Bumgarner, one of the best starters in baseball. In addition, the San Francisco Giants’ offense has been meager of late. A likely Mets win? Maybe a win? A victory was certainty possible, right? At a time when the Mets cannot afford to lose any ground in the wild-card race, baseball proved unpredictable, and the Mets’ struggles continued. The Mets had their ace on the mound with an improbable lead, but deGrom struggled, and the Mets fell, 10-7, to the Giants on Thursday at AT&T Park. “It seemed like everything I threw went right down the middle,” deGrom said. “These guys did a great job. Tonight is on me. I was terrible.” Before the game, Mets Manager Terry Collins insisted that he did not heed the playoff standings. But with the Mets falling under .500 for the second time in a week, the postseason projections are hard to ignore. “We take care of our own business; we don’t have to worry about the standings,” Collins said before Thursday’s loss. “We go and start winning games at a pace that makes us competitive, that takes care of itself. You can’t get up every morning and look and see, ‘Oh wow, we’re another game back.’ It drives you crazy. You’ve got to worry about winning today.” The Mets’ hitting woes have been one of their most defining concerns this season. Yet recently, their stout pitching has not been as sharp as usual. They have allowed at least five runs in four straight games. Thursday’s pitching showdown between deGrom and Bumgarner — two pitchers in the top five in E.R.A. entering the game — turned into a slugfest. Bumgarner lasted only five innings, as did deGrom. Thirteen hits and eight runs allowed were career highs for deGrom. Ruggiano’s at-bat against Bumgarner with the bases loaded in the fourth inning was one of the best of the night, and it opened the scoring floodgates. He fouled off two pitches and spat on a close one for a ball. When Bumgarner threw a full-count slider over the outside half of the plate, Ruggiano drilled it to straight center field. The grand slam gave the Mets a 4-0 lead. “I just took a long at-bat with him and finally got something I could hit,” Ruggiano said. Ruggiano, who returned from a hamstring strain on Thursday, has hit Bumgarner like few others in baseball. Only Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez (five) has more career home runs against Bumgarner than Ruggiano (three). But DeGrom squandered that margin with a five-run fourth inning. The backbreaking hits were produced by Eduardo Nunez and Bumgarner. With two men on, Nunez slapped an outside pitch to right field, and it landed inches fair. The triple trimmed the Mets’ lead to 4-3. Two batters later, Bumgarner smashed a fastball from deGrom over the left-field fence for a two-run home run that gave the Giants a 5-4 lead. For all of deGrom’s strong pitching this season, opposing pitchers have gone 11 for 34 against him. “I just wasn’t very good,” deGrom said. “That one’s on me.” The Mets’ bleeding did not stop there and carried over into the next inning. A single by Nunez drove in another run. And another ball that landed just fair — a double by Joe Panik just inside the left-field line — gave the Giants an 8-4 lead in the fifth. True to form, the game seesawed further. A two-run run triple by Ty Kelly trimmed the deficit to two runs in the sixth inning. With a bench short on available right-handed batters because of Neil Walker’s still-stiff back, Collins used a rare move: He pinch-hit the backup catcher Rene Rivera, whose run-scoring groundout brought the Mets to one run behind. The Mets were limited in the bullpen because Steven Matz, Friday’s scheduled starter, was going to be skipped with a shoulder problem, Collins said after the game. So Collins could not use Seth Lugo, who will start in Matz’s place. Kelly, however, grounded out to end a bases-loaded threat in the seventh inning. Any hope of a Mets comeback was squashed in the eighth when Hansel Robles and Addison Reed combined to allow two runs. Although Reed coughed up the two-run double to Buster Posey, it was Robles’s two previous walks that doomed the inning. If the Mets cannot win with their best on the mound, they have much to overcome.

Baseball
Mets
San Francisco Giants
Jacob deGrom


Facebook Introduces Video Chat in a Partnership With Skype

Abstract: PALO ALTO, Calif. — Hoping to give its users a more intimate way to stay in touch, Facebook on Wednesday introduced video chatting inside its online social network through a deal with Skype , the Internet calling service. The new feature allows users a way to connect with friends other than just posting messages, said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, said at a news conference here at the company’s headquarters. “It’s so easy, so minimal to use,” he said. Last week, Google introduced Google+, its latest and most serious challenge yet in social networking, which includes video chatting for up to 10 people in an area of the site called Hangouts. So far, Google has limited the number of people who can sign up for the networking service. To a certain extent, Facebook is playing catch-up — an unfamiliar position for a company that has grown to 750 million users worldwide, a figure Mr. Zuckerberg disclosed at the news conference. He has spent the last few years lifting Facebook past its rivals — it had 500 million users a year ago — but now faces questions about why he is following their lead. The new Facebook service does not allow for group video chats, for example. It is also not available on mobile phones, unlike Skype’s smartphone apps. Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land, an industry blog, said Facebook’s new service at least lets the company counter Google’s move with its video chat. But in the end, he said, video chatting has been widely available for years in a variety of ways, like through instant messaging services, Skype and Apple’s FaceTime. “I didn’t get the impression that people were finding it difficult to find one-to-one video chatting if they wanted to,” Mr. Sullivan said. “This potentially makes it easier for more people to get going, but I don’t see it as that hard to begin with.” To start a video chat on Facebook, users click a button on their Facebook chat list or on a friend’s profile page. A box will then appear on the computer screen of that friend to either accept or decline the call. Conversations take place inside a window that pops up within the browser. Downloading a plug-in is required to make and receive calls. Video chatting will be available to all Facebook’s users in the coming weeks. For now, however, users can access it at facebook.com/videocalling . For Skype, the partnership with Facebook provides a chance to have more visibility beyond its 170 million users. The service is free on Facebook, but Tony Bates, Skype’s chief executive, raised the possibility of eventually making paid calls available to Facebook users. Making calls from computer to computer through Skype is free. But people who use Skype to call a landline or a mobile phone must pay. Facebook’s alliance with Skype expands an existing partnership between the two companies. Their cooperation started last year when Skype let its users connect with their Facebook friends from Skype and to get news feeds. Last month, the Skype added a Facebook contacts tab and let Skype users send instant messages to their Facebook friends and comment on their friends’ status — all without leaving the Skype window. But making Skype available on Facebook is risky and may, in the short term, undermine its business, said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Opus Research. Facebook’s users will most likely flock to the new video chatting service, he said, while avoiding visiting Skype’s branded service directly. “Obviously this is a great feature for Facebook — it’s really simple and a lot of people will use it,” Mr. Sterling said. But he added, “I think it’s going to have an adverse impact on Skype.” Mr. Bates said: “We’ve always wanted to be as ubiquitous as possible. The long-term partnership far outweighs users moving from Skype, or visa versa.” Microsoft is closing in on its acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion. The purchase, announced two months ago, would give Microsoft a bigger footprint in online communications for consumers and corporate customers. Microsoft, through its Skype acquisition, would also strengthen its ties to Facebook. Microsoft bought a small stake in Facebook in 2007, and it continues to provide search results within Facebook. During the news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg signaled that the Skype integration was the first of several deals that would add services to Facebook with the help of other companies. “Independent entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurs that focus on one thing, will always do better than a company that tries to focus on a million things,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in a comment that could be interpreted either as an acknowledgment of Facebook’s limits, or as a dig at Google for its broad ambitions.


Donald Trump Catches Critics by Surprise With One Word: ‘Regret’

Abstract: Donald J. Trump went Thursday night where Donald J. Trump, the candidate, seemed to have never gone before: He expressed broad regret about some of his caustic language during the campaign. Precisely which words does Mr. Trump regret? He did not specify. But his speech in Charlotte, N.C., his third using a teleprompter this week, was praised by some of his critics as the best of his campaign. “Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing,” Mr. Trump said. “I have done that, and I regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.” Mr. Trump has prided himself on never acknowledging regret, even when he attacked the parents of a fallen American Muslim soldier after they criticized him at the Democratic National Convention . “But one thing I can promise you is this: I will always tell you the truth,” he added. On Twitter, users were gobsmacked that Mr. Trump had acknowledged doing anything wrong. Hillary Clinton’s aides pounced on the speech, trying to disabuse anyone of the idea that this could mean a “new” version of Mr. Trump. Indeed, he has tried to pivot before, only to revert to form soon after. And this version of Mr. Trump came after he brought on Stephen K. Bannon , a flame-throwing nationalist and executive of Breitbart News, as campaign chief. But the soothing words of Thursday’s speech were more reflective of Kellyanne Conway, the newly promoted campaign manager with whom Mr. Trump has worked for years. Mr. Trump spoke about a “New American Future,” a line similar to the “New American Century” that Marco Rubio heralded during the Republican primary. Elections are about the future, not the past, and Mr. Trump often dwells on a bygone era when he says he believes life was better in the United States. “What do you have to lose by trying something new?” he asked specifically of black voters, with whom he is polling at a dismal 1 percent in some surveys. Still, Mr. Trump invoked the touchstones of his campaign, including a restrictive immigration policy that would primarily affect Muslims. He is set to begin airing his first general election ads on Friday. And it will be hard for him to undo 14 months of a slashing, aggressive tone that polls show has alienated a wide portion of the electorate.

2016 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Speeches


Two Decades of Change Have Boston Sparkling

Abstract: BOSTON — During the 1988 presidential campaign, Vice President George Bush famously shined a spotlight on the “open sewer” that was Boston Harbor. He blamed his opponent, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, for failing to clean it up and called the harbor, which was choked with sludge and contaminated with chemicals, the dirtiest body of water in the country. Today the harbor is the pride of Boston, a playground for pleasure boaters and even swimmers as it glistens like a necklace, ringed by glassy towers, upscale restaurants and pricey hotels. The transformation of the harbor from embarrassment to showcase is emblematic of the larger transformation of the city over the last quarter-century. For most of that time, one man, Mayor Thomas M. Menino, 71, has been at the helm. Although he had nothing to do with the harbor cleanup, which was ordered by the courts, he maximized its potential by encouraging nearby development. Over the two decades of his tenure, the city’s progress became intertwined with his. He was an incrementalist who, with prodding and cunning and by exercising total control, nonetheless took advantage of national trends like the back-to-city migration and helped propel Boston forward. He leaves office on Monday having presided over and facilitated one of the most successful urban renaissance stories in modern American history. “In the ’70s and ’80s, cities were thought to be dying, when high crime, out-migration and despair were the order of the day,” said Robert Sampson, an urban sociologist at Harvard. “But Boston has really blossomed,” he said, even as other cities have nose-dived. “Menino had an incredible opportunity, and he played his hand well,” Mr. Sampson said. “I give him credit, but credit is also due to the context.” The challenge of maintaining the momentum of the Menino era now falls to Martin J. Walsh, who on Monday becomes the city’s first new mayor in a generation. Mr. Menino was an accidental mayor, elevated to office in 1993 when Mayor Raymond L. Flynn left for an ambassadorship. An old-school politician, Mr. Menino had little on his agenda beyond improving the neighborhoods. Even as he cemented his power, his only political ambition was to stay mayor, allowing him to focus on making the city work and earning him the title “urban mechanic.” At the time, Boston was limping its way out of a recession and still reeling from the crisis over school busing, which had worsened race relations in the city and accelerated white flight to the suburbs. After peaking at 800,000 in 1950, the city’s population had plunged to 563,000 in 1980. By the mid-’80s, people started drifting back to the city. By the ’90s, more immigrants began settling here. As people nationwide increasingly chose cities over suburbs, Boston drew graduate students, empty-nesters, urban professionals and young families. The population today is 636,000. Boston had a faster rate of growth than other magnet cities like New York and San Francisco, though housing costs were almost as high. The city’s complexion has changed, too. Today blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans in Boston collectively outnumber whites, though they have been slow to rise in the power structure. Last year’s election to replace Mr. Menino included black and Latino candidates; although they did not win, their endorsements of Mr. Walsh were crucial to his election. Boston’s boom was driven in part by a new dynamism among its universities and research institutions as technology expanded and the knowledge-based economy developed. Those institutions had always been here, but as Paul Grogan, the president of the Boston Foundation, which provides grants to nonprofit organizations, put it, “The world changed in a way that assigned a new value to them.” “We have eight research universities and 15 teaching hospitals, and there’s nothing else like it in the world,” he said. “The innovation economy gathers around institutions like these.” The success of those institutions drew biotechnology, pharmaceutical and technology firms that sought a young, educated work force, which in turn attracted more companies and created more housing and more amenities like restaurants. The surge in commercial and residential development in the city, with its continuously altering skyline, is the most obvious and visible change over the last 20 years. Another major impetus for growth in Boston was the cleanup of the harbor. It was prompted by environmental concerns, not a push for economic development. “But it turns out to be, next to the hospitals and universities, the biggest economic driver we have had,” Mr. Grogan said. The South Boston Waterfront underwent a striking overhaul. It had been a neglected industrial area pockmarked with vacant lots, boarded-up warehouses and the odoriferous output of fish-processing plants that no longer thrived, but city planners saw great potential. In 1991, after years of planning, construction began there on the Big Dig, a state and federal project to replace a deteriorating elevated artery with a vast network of underground tunnels. Despite construction flaws and cost overruns, it eased traffic congestion in downtown Boston and reconnected the city with its revitalized waterfront. One of the first big city projects in the waterfront district was the $1 billion Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, completed in 2004. Since then, the area has attracted at least 200 more businesses, including three dining spots opened by Barbara Lynch, a prominent restaurateur, and office buildings by Fidelity Investments, State Street Corporation and PricewaterhouseCoopers. James E. Rooney, the executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority , said Mr. Menino had focused attention on the district as the next new horizon. The mayor helped preserve older warehouses and encouraged entrepreneurs to repurpose them, he said. He gave some developers tax breaks and, to avoid driving away anchor tenants, insisted on planning and scheduling things like traffic diversions during the disruptions caused by the Big Dig. “He didn’t pay for the Big Dig or clean up the harbor,” Mr. Rooney said, “but he did use the power of his office to make sure they were done right.” Mr. Menino’s presence was felt as much in neighborhoods as in downtown, revitalizing run-down areas and faded commercial strips. The blight that afflicts many urban areas is absent here. Violent crime is also down, as it is in many major cities. Bill Forry, the managing editor of The Dorchester Reporter , could recall the days in the 1970s and ’80s when “everyone knew someone on one end of a gun,” either the victim or the gunman. When Mr. Menino took office, there were 98 homicides in Boston; last year, there were 38. In recounting the accomplishments of his tenure during a farewell address to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce , Mr. Menino pointed to the expansive development, the addition of green space and financial stability. “The new mayor will inherit a balanced budget, healthy reserves, a growing tax base and a Triple-A bond rating, the highest in Boston’s history,” he said. But he noted difficulties ahead: a decline in federal aid, which will hurt the city’s many research centers; a growing income gap, which other cities also face; and the soaring cost of college tuition and the growth of online teaching, both of which Mr. Menino said were threats to the Boston economy. Other challenges went unmentioned. The main criticism of his tenure was the failure to improve the public schools. The surge in housing development has largely been in luxury and higher-priced units, and the gentrification of neighborhoods has priced some longtime residents out of their own market. One problem that the mayor has taken the blame for is neglecting to untangle the city’s spaghetti pile of streets. “This city is terrible,” Mr. Menino told The Boston Globe . “These are all old cow paths. We just enlarged them and made them roadways. It’s probably my fault.”

Boston
Thomas M Menino
US Economy
Urban Planning
Urban area


Fehr Says Union Called to Have 2003 Drug Tests Destroyed

Abstract: Donald Fehr , the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, provided more details Tuesday about why, from the union’s point of view, anonymous drug tests from 2003 were not destroyed before they were seized by federal agents. At a meeting with reporters at the Mets’ spring training facility in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Fehr said officials for the players association had begun making calls to initiate the process of destroying the tests in November 2003 before learning that the government had subpoenaed them. Fehr said the process of making the calls began Nov. 14, 2003, four days after the players association learned the results of the tests. On Nov. 19, the union learned that the results had been subpoenaed. “At that point, we were frozen,” Fehr said. But Fehr’s account that calls were made does not mesh with what officials in the commissioner’s office have said. The officials have insisted that all the union had to do was to call the laboratories that had the information. On Feb. 9, an official from the commissioner’s office told The New York Times: “The fact of the matter is that this would all have been prevented if they had just called and said, ‘Destroy the tests.’ ” The official added: “All they had to do was make a call. There was nothing more complicated than that.” The union has been forced to answer questions since it was revealed Feb. 7 that Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for steroids in 2003. Testing that year was conducted on a survey basis; even the players were not supposed to know the results. Fehr was at the Mets’ facility as he made his way from camp to camp for his annual meetings with players. He acknowledged that the players had raised some questions about the 2003 tests. “What our job is to do is to make sure that players understand the facts, make sure they understand what happened,” Fehr said. “In this case, it takes a bit longer because there are an awful lot of players here who were not here in 2003 or 2004, therefore don’t have personal memories of what may have taken place, or how the testing programs were structured, or why it was that way and what the changes are. So you go through that and you explain what the situation is, and you answer questions.”

Major League Baseball Players Assn
Fehr Donald
Tests and Testing
Steroids


Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address

Abstract: WASHINGTON — President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a package of modest initiatives intended to help middle-class families, including tax credits for child care, caps on some student loan payments and a requirement that companies let workers save automatically for retirement, senior administration officials said Sunday. By focusing on what one White House official calls “the sandwich generation” — struggling families squeezed between sending their children to college and caring for elderly parents — Mr. Obama hopes to use his speech on Wednesday to demonstrate that he understands the economic pain of ordinary Americans. The proposals also include expanded tax credits for retirement savings and money for programs to help families care for elderly relatives. The address is still being written, but one senior official, describing it on the condition of anonymity, said its main themes would include “creating good jobs, addressing the deficit, helping the middle class and changing Washington.” With his poll numbers down and Democrats fearing disaster in this year’s midterm elections, Mr. Obama is at a particularly rocky point in his presidency and has been shifting his rhetoric lately to adopt a more populist tone. He heads into his first formal State of the Union speech in a radically reshaped political climate from even one week ago. His top domestic priority, a health care overhaul, is in jeopardy after the Republican victory in last week’s Massachusetts Senate race — a setback that White House advisers interpret as a reflection of Americans’ deep anger and frustration over high unemployment and Wall Street bailouts. One advantage of the president’s proposals is that they might appeal to people who are struggling financially without looking like the kind of broad expansion of the federal government that is making many Americans uneasy. They also would add little to the federal deficit at a time when Mr. Obama is pledging to reduce it. Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. plan to outline the proposals on Monday when they meet with the White House task force that has spent the past year examining ways to help the middle class. While Mr. Obama has been shifting his focus toward job creation in recent weeks, an official said the president also wanted to spotlight what the White House regards as “critical areas where middle-class families need a helping hand to get ahead,” like paying for college and saving for retirement. For example, the president is calling on Congress to nearly double the child care tax credit for families earning less than $85,000 — a proposal that, if adopted, would lower by $900 the taxes such families owe to the government. But the credit would not be refundable, meaning that families who pay no income tax would not receive cash payments. The nonrefundable credits reduce the tax liability, and therefore may increase the refund, of households that do pay taxes. Another of the president’s proposals, a cap on federal loan payments for recent college graduates at 10 percent of income above a basic living allowance, would cost taxpayers roughly $1 billion. The expanded financing to help families care for elderly relatives would cost $102.5 million — a pittance in a federal budget where programs are often measured in tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. And the automatic paycheck deduction program would simply be a way to encourage workers to save, and would include tax credits to help companies with administrative costs. Such programs are, notably, much less far-reaching than Mr. Obama’s expansive first-year agenda of passing an economic recovery package, bailing out the auto industry, overhauling the health care system, passing energy legislation and imposing tough new restrictions on banks. That agenda has left him vulnerable to criticism that he is using the government to remake every aspect of American society. Top advisers to the president insist that Mr. Obama is not in retreat and are resisting any comparisons to the kind of small-bore initiatives that the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, used to try to get his presidency back on track. “In no way does this represent a trimming of the sails,” one adviser said on Sunday, referring to the package. Instead, the White House wants to use Wednesday’s address to explain how initiatives like the health care overhaul fit into his broader plan for job creation and the economy. On Sunday, as senior administration officials fanned out on the television talk shows, David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, insisted that the health care bill was not dead. But he did suggest that the administration was now more focused on changing insurance practices than on a broad expansion of coverage to the uninsured. “There are so many elements of this — tax breaks for small business, extending the life of Medicare , more assistance for seniors with their prescription drugs, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses, help for people with pre-existing conditions — that are too important to walk away from,” Mr. Axelrod said on the ABC program “This Week.” With House and Senate leaders trying to figure out how to proceed legislatively, Mr. Axelrod also issued a warning to Democrats who were reconsidering their support for the health care measure. “As a political matter, the foolish thing to do would be for anybody else who supported this to walk away from it,” he said. He added, “The underlying elements of it are popular and important, and people will never know what’s in that bill until we pass it, the president signs it and they have a whole new range of protections they never had before.” How Mr. Obama will address health care in the State of the Union speech, though, remains an open question. Officials on Capitol Hill and at the White House said their talks on how to proceed with the legislation might not be resolved by Wednesday. This could put Mr. Obama in the awkward position of talking about a measure that is on shaky ground. Another open question is what the president will say about his program for job creation. The House of Representatives has passed a $154 billion bill to encourage job creation, and during an appearance in Ohio on Friday, Mr. Obama called for a jobs bill that would include tax breaks for small businesses and for people who make their homes more energy efficient. White House officials have not said what Mr. Obama’s jobs bill would cost, and they did not say on Sunday if he would mention a specific amount in Wednesday’s address. But they did try to hit hard on the jobs theme. And Mr. Axelrod, speaking on “State of the Union” on CNN, said Mr. Obama’s current predicament was no surprise. “A year ago, I said to the president, ‘A year from now, your numbers are going to be much different than they are right now because of the economic forecast that we were hearing,’ ” he said. “And we knew that even as the economy started growing, it would take time for the jobs to follow.”

Obama Barack
State of the Union Message (US)
United States Economy
Tax Credits
Families and Family Life
United States Politics and Government


Queens Crusader Turned the Tide for a Crumbling Park and Its Sea Wall

Abstract: Into her 80s, Elizabeth McQueen patrolled Queensbridge Park in Long Island City, Queens, wheeling her walker, a grandson or a great-grandchild at her side, eyes sweeping the walks and lawn. “If someone was barbecuing, she made sure they had garbage bags,” her grandson, Desmen Williams, said. “She had a bin of supplies. A rake if you needed to rake up. She made sure the fire barrels were out there, so you put coals in the barrel when you were done.” The park is on the eastern bank of the East River, across from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and Mrs. McQueen lived in the Queensbridge Houses, home to about 7,000 people, the largest public housing development in the country. “We used to take the kids down to the park,” Dolores Chauncey, her friend and neighbor, said. “She’d say, ‘We’re on one side of the river and the millionaires were on the other, but we have the better view. We can lay in the park and watch the boats go by, and wait for the stars and moon to come out.’ And we did.” Image Elizabeth McQueen leaned on officials to revamp Queensbridge Park, in Long Island City, whose esplanade reopened in summer 2014. Mrs. Chauncey and Mrs. McQueen met about 40 years ago, another age in New York. The children splashed in a baby pool in the summertime, fished from the rocks when they got older, picnicked at all ages. But along the riverfront, the sea wall, built on a foundation of loose stone called riprap, was falling apart. To keep people away from the hazard, the parks department fenced off the area, including an esplanade. Decay marched on: One of two playgrounds was turned into a parking lot for people working on the Queensboro Bridge. The park house, with its concession stand and changing rooms for the wading pool, was left to the elements. And the pool was drained and filled in, visible only in the mind’s eye. “It broke her heart that children were playing in a park that they could literally see crumbling into the river,” Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer , a Democrat who represents the area, said. “It wasn’t just about the park, it was about justice. Nowhere in Manhattan would this be allowed to happen.” Mrs. McQueen reared back and leaned against the universe. In between working as a technician at Polaroid and looking after her grandson, she became a world-class nudge. “She had no problem calling any elected official at any level,” said Chris Hanway, the executive director of the Jacob Riis Neighborhood Settlement House , where Mrs. McQueen served on the board. Image “My grandmother did things a lot of people wouldn’t do because they didn’t think it was their job,” Desmen Williams said of Mrs. McQueen. Credit Christopher Gregory for The New York Times And she leaned on nonelected officials, too. “This was a real problem site, and she in the most gracious possible way kept the pressure on,” said Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of the parks department from 2002 to 2012, who noted that the park was not in a fashionable neighborhood likely to attract private funds. She was installed as the park’s warden, a titled volunteer, in recognition of her stature. With friends and allies in the community and government, she organized Dancing Under the Stars nights, Super Soaker days for water-gun battles, puppet theaters, concerts and more. Battered as it was, the park remained alive and lively. That was the daily business. In the long term, she wanted New York City to rebuild the sea wall and restore access to the walkway along the water. At least four agencies had dominion over some piece of the park, and yet others had a say in granting permits. For the $7 million cost, Mrs. McQueen chased down elected officials, including Democrats like Mr. Van Bramer; Helen M. Marshall, then the borough president; Representative Carolyn B. Maloney; and Assemblywoman Catherine T. Nolan, as well as the mayor at the time, Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent. About half — $3.65 million — was secured by Mr. Van Bramer through the City Council. “When the grant came in for the sea wall, she came into my house and said, ‘We got it!’” her grandson said. “If she could have done back flips, she would have.” The esplanade reopened in summer 2014. She was not done. A new park house was needed. “She was right,” Mr. Van Bramer said. Work will begin in the fall. Mrs. McQueen died in February at age 83. On Friday, the city, urged on by Mr. Van Bramer, will declare the esplanade along the river to be Elizabeth McQueen Way. It runs atop the rebuilt sea wall, across from Manhattan towers named for corporations and real estate developers, a place where anyone who loves river breezes and moonlit nights can stroll. “My grandmother did things a lot of people wouldn’t do because they didn’t think it was their job,” Mr. Williams said. “She’s gone. But she’s still winning.”

Elizabeth McQueen
Queensbridge Park
Parks
Long Island City Queens
Geographic Names
Urban Planning
NYC
East River


Chinese Regulators Search Daimler Offices

Abstract: The German automobile giant Daimler has become the latest multinational company to bear the brunt of a Chinese regulatory inquiry, and an official from the agency that visited the company’s offices in Shanghai said on Wednesday that it was under investigation for “monopolistic behavior.” The visit to the office on Monday came just a day after Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, said it would cut the price of Mercedes-Benz repair parts sold in China by an average of 15 percent “in response to antimonopoly investigations into the automobile industry” by a Chinese agency, the National Development and Reform Commission. A Daimler spokesman in Germany confirmed on Tuesday that the Shanghai offices had been searched and said that the company was cooperating with officials. He said Daimler would not comment further on the continuing investigation and declined to give his name, citing company rules. Separately, Senol Bayrak, a spokesman for Daimler Greater China in Beijing, said by email: “We confirm that we are assisting the authorities in their investigation.” He added: “We are unable to comment further on what is an ongoing matter.” On Wednesday, an official for the commission, Li Pumin, confirmed that investigators had carried out an investigation at Daimler’s offices in Shanghai, Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported. “Whether Mercedes-Benz has engaged in monopolistic behavior is still under investigation and collection of evidence,” Mr. Li said. Daimler joins a succession of foreign multinational companies that have come under intensifying pressure over pricing from Chinese government regulators, often wielding an antimonopoly law passed in 2008 to question whether the companies overcharge businesses and consumers for goods sold at a lower cost in other markets. Last week, state investigators descended on Microsoft offices in four Chinese cities, where they questioned members of the staff and took away sales records and other documents. This year, Qualcomm, a United States microchip maker, has been the target of a Chinese antimonopoly investigation . Foreign pharmaceutical makers have also come under intense scrutiny, and members of the staff of GlaxoSmithKline, a British company, have been detained and accused of bribing hospital staff members to prescribe their drugs. Companies face the additional complication that several Chinese agencies claim a role in enforcing rules against unlawful monopolies and price-fixing, creating potential for confusion and rivalry. Microsoft is under investigation by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, separate from the National Development and Reform Commission, which Mr. Bayrak said had visited Daimler. Mr. Li, the official from the commission, said the vehicle makers Chrysler and Audi have also been under investigation in separate parts of China and would soon be fined over their pricing, Xinhua reported. Twelve Japanese auto parts companies have also been investigated and would be fined over their pricing, he said. The “goal is to protect orderly competition in the motor vehicle marker, and protect the legitimate interests of consumers,” Xinhua cited Mr. Li as saying. China has become a prized market for foreign automakers, and the pressure on their pricing there could hurt earnings. German makers, in particular, have a lucrative position selling higher-end cars, and any problems in China can be a serious setback for Daimler, which has fought for market share with Audi and BMW. China is the third-largest market for Mercedes-Benz vehicles, after the United States and Germany, and it is the fastest-growing of the three. In the second quarter, Mercedes sold 68,000 vehicles in China, a 13 percent increase from a year earlier. Since last year, Chinese television and newspapers have reported complaints that foreign carmakers overcharged Chinese customers in particular.

Daimler AG
China
Competition law
Regulation and Deregulation
Cars


Amid Bloodshed in Pakistan, a Stock Exchange Soars

Abstract: LONDON — If the best time to buy, as the old business adage says, is when there is blood on the streets, then Pakistan’s commercial capital, Karachi, offers the ideal investment opportunity. For more than a decade, the sprawling seaport megalopolis of about 20 million people has been racked by political, militant and criminal violence that has taken thousands of lives. Yet, over the same period, the city stock market, which is also Pakistan’s main exchange, has posted spectacular results. Over the past 12 months alone, the Karachi Stock Exchange has surged more than 44 percent, placing it among the world’s top-performing stock markets in dollar terms this year, according to Bloomberg. That follows a decade of growth in which one dollar invested in an index fund of Pakistani stocks 10 years ago would have earned, on average, 26 percent every year, analysts say, in a period otherwise notable mostly for bad news. As the stock market rose, the Pakistani military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf fell, Osama bin Laden was captured and Taliban violence spread from the northwest to cities across the country, including Karachi. Just as surprising, perhaps, Wall Street firms are driving the latest phase of the stock boom. Bad news can make for a good bargain, they say. “What you see in the popular press is just one part of the picture,” said Mark Mobius, a fund manager at Franklin Templeton Investments, which has more than $1 billion invested in Pakistan stocks, mostly in the energy sector. “There’s another side to these countries, where life goes on. And that’s what we focus on.” The gloomy image of Pakistan obscures positive aspects of its economy that, investors say, make some companies an attractive bet. Beyond the headline news, much of the country is getting on with normal life. And with a population estimated at nearly 200 million people — a high proportion of them young — Pakistan offers a large, lucrative market for consumer goods, construction and financial services firms, which constitute the bulk of the Karachi stock market. The biggest publicly listed companies — like the multinational Nestlé, the Oil and Gas Development Company and Fauji Fertilizer, a military-run conglomerate — pay handsome dividends, which makes them attractive to foreign investors. And the recent election victory of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a business tycoon, has injected confidence into the financial community, which had been wary of the previous government. For a time, Pakistani stocks were undervalued by as much as 50 percent to account for risk, compared with a regional discount of about 20 percent, said Taha Javed, a financial analyst in Karachi. Now, as foreign investors pile in, he said, “we are catching up.” Still, there is much to overlook. With painful power shortages, a sliding national currency and dwindling foreign reserves, Pakistan’s economy has been on life support in recent years. In August, the International Monetary Fund approved a $6.6 billion emergency loan, on top of $5 billion that Pakistan already owes the fund. Business safety is a problem. Paramilitary security forces combed Karachi last week as part of a fresh effort to combat criminal gangs that have terrorized the city. Kidnapping for ransom is common. In a “livability” survey of 140 world cities , published by the Economist Intelligence Unit in August, Karachi shared the fourth-to-last rank with the Algerian capital, Algiers. And that is only part of Pakistan’s broader security problem, with militant groups and frequent violence against religious and ethnic minorities. And for all its impressive growth, the stock market can be worryingly unstable, as a sudden dive of about 5 percent last week demonstrated. That slump has now stabilized — it was more of a correction than a crash, it seems — but the market has a history of volatility. The Karachi exchange closed for four months in late 2008 after an abrupt drop in prices; more recently, it has faced allegations by the news media of insider trading and cronyism. A former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan , which regulates the market, is being prosecuted for corruption and tax evasion. The juxtaposition of a booming stock market with bombs and economic austerity suggests sides to Pakistan, both positive and negative, that are little appreciated outside the country. It shows resilience and business acumen, certainly, but also worrisome fragmentation in a society where rich and poor live ever further apart. In Karachi, where most big companies and banks have their headquarters, about 2,500 people died violently last year. But the bloodshed is concentrated in the city’s working-class areas, allowing the wealthy to continue with life as normal — with some adjustments like layers of security barriers and heavily armed private security forces. “As far as the killings go, forget about it — that’s part of life,” said Zain Hussain, chief executive of the stock brokerage firm Taurus Securities. “It’s something that I am immune to, and so are most investors.” Despite some recent overhauls, experts say the exchange is also still perilously underregulated. The current boom was bolstered last year by a law that allowed investors to put money into stocks without having to explain its origin — effectively facilitating money laundering, critics said. “The penalties are minimal here,” said Javed Hassan, chief executive of the Institute of Capital Markets, a body that licenses participants in the Karachi exchange. “Nobody has gone to jail for manipulating the market.” While the Karachi market’s success is impressive, it has been built on the money of a small number of foreign investors like Mr. Mobius. If they were to withdraw precipitously, for whatever reasons, prices would most likely tumble again. “Despite all the positives,” said Muddassar Malik, chief executive of BMA Funds, an investment firm, “it’s not a country for the fainthearted.”

Karachi Stock Exchange
Pakistan
Karachi
Stocks,Bonds


Tom Christian, Descendant of Bounty Mutineer, Dies at 77

Abstract: Tom Christian, known as the Voice of Pitcairn for his half-century-long role in keeping his tiny South Pacific island , famed as the refuge of the Bounty mutineers, connected to the world, died at his home there on July 7. Mr. Christian, Pitcairn’s chief radio officer and a great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian , the mutiny’s leader, was 77. With his death, Pitcairn’s permanent population stands at 51. The cause was complications of a recent stroke, his daughter Jacqueline Christian said. Though Mr. Christian was the world’s best-known contemporary Pitcairner, word of his death — reported in the July issue of The Pitcairn Miscellany , the island’s monthly newsletter — reached a broad audience only this week, when it appeared in newspapers in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. “It takes awhile for news to get out,” Ms. Christian said by telephone from Pitcairn on Thursday. Mr. Christian’s death is a window onto colonial history as played out in the South Pacific; onto a storied 18th-century mutiny, which lives on in books and motion pictures; and onto a 21st-century criminal case that made world headlines a decade ago — a case on which Mr. Christian took a public position, described in the news media as courageous, that led to his ostracism on the island on which he had lived his entire life. Britain’s only remaining territory in the Pacific, the Pitcairn archipelago lies roughly equidistant between Peru and New Zealand, about 3,300 miles from each. It comprises four small islands: Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno. Only Pitcairn Island, named for the sailor who sighted it from a British ship in 1767, is inhabited. Pitcairn, settled by the mutineers and their Tahitian consorts in 1790, is a rocky speck of about two square miles. (Manhattan, by comparison, is about 24 square miles .) Most of its inhabitants are descended from the mutineers and the Tahitian women they brought with them. Mr. Christian, who for his services to Pitcairn was named a Member of the British Empire in 1983, was long considered an elder statesman on the island. He served for years on the Island Council, the local governing body, and was a lay elder in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to which most islanders belong. For decades, starting in the mid-1950s, he operated radio station ZBP, Pitcairn’s official lifeline to the world. His duties included filing daily reports to the island’s administrative headquarters, formerly in Suva, on Fiji, and now in Wellington, New Zealand. Mr. Christian filed his reports in Morse code, switching to voice communication only in the mid-1980s after Pitcairn acquired a radiotelephone. Though Pitcairn today has some trappings of 21st-century technology — electricity 14 hours a day and a country code, .pn, on the Internet — it still maintains a striking degree of isolation. The island has no airstrip: it can be reached by flying to Tahiti and taking a once-a-week plane from there to Mangareva Island, in the Gambier Islands, followed by a two- to three-day sea voyage. There are no automobiles on Pitcairn, and the island’s rocks and cliffs bear names redolent of long-ago tragedies: “Where Dan Fall,” “Where Minnie Off,” “Oh Dear.” The supply ship comes quarterly, and is met by Pitcairners in aluminum longboats. Boarding the ship, they sell the local wares (stamps, baskets, honey) on which the island’s economy has long depended, along with the curios they carve from miro wood, which they harvest on Henderson Island. They do likewise with the few passenger ships that call at Pitcairn each year. Conversing with outsiders, Pitcairners speak a New Zealand-inflected British English. Among themselves, they use an indigenous creole — an amalgam of Tahitian and late-18th-century English — that confounds outside ears: “Wut a way you?” (How are you?), “Fut you no bin larn me?” (Why didn’t you tell me?), “You se capsize and o-o!” (You’ll fall over and get hurt!) For many years Mr. Christian also manned an unofficial but no less vital lifeline: his shortwave radio, which he used to converse with amateur radio operators around the globe. Over time — he officially retired in 2000 but continued his amateur broadcasting until just a few years ago — Mr. Christian reached more than 100,000 people. As The Sunday Star-Times of Auckland wrote this week, “Tom Christian — along with the late King Hussein of Jordan — was the most popular contact in the ham radio world.” On his occasional trips overseas, Mr. Christian lectured on Pitcairn’s history and daily life. To his enraptured listeners, he was, like the island itself, a living link between the 1700s and the present. “They think we’ve all got sticks through our noses,” Mr. Christian, smiling, told The New York Times Magazine in 1991. He brought the past to life in more tangible ways. In 1957, as a young assistant on a National Geographic-sponsored dive off Pitcairn, Mr. Christian helped bring up a cache of nails, carbonized wood and old hull fittings — the sunken remains of the Bounty. Image Tom Christian was a great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian, who led the mutiny on the British ship Bounty in 1789. Credit Neil Tweedie/The Daily Telegraph UK In December 1787, His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty left England for Tahiti to collect breadfruit with which to feed slaves on Britain’s Caribbean plantations. On April 28, 1789, less than a month into the return voyage, the master’s mate, Fletcher Christian, weary of what he described as the bullying of the captain, William Bligh, led crewmen in seizing control of the ship. Captain Bligh and 18 sympathizers were cast adrift; most, Bligh included, eventually made their way to England. Christian and his men sailed the Bounty to Tubuai, in the Austral Islands, and then back to Tahiti, where some mutineers chose to remain. Knowing that the British admiralty would scour the seas for him — and that a court-martial and a hanging would follow — Christian set sail again with eight of his men, plus a small group of Tahitian men and women. They landed at Pitcairn, then uninhabited, in January 1790. There, to avoid detection, they burned and scuttled the Bounty. The ship’s history was recounted in the popular 1932 novel “Mutiny on the Bounty,” by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Hollywood filmed it three times: in 1935 , with Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Christian; in 1962 , with Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando; and in 1984 , with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. But what the films did not depict was the mutineers’ brutal lives on Pitcairn: by the time an American seal-hunting vessel came across the island in 1808, most of them, including Christian, had been killed in fights with the Tahitian men. For the mutineers’ descendants, life is challenging in more everyday ways. “Pitcairn is not a place for a lazy person; you have to work or you’re not going to be able to do anything,” Herbert Ford, the founder and director of the Pitcairn Islands Study Center at Pacific Union College in Angwin, Calif., said on Thursday. Besides his radio work, Mr. Christian, like all the island’s adults, had a spate of duties. “He had three or four garden plots, because you have to grow your own food or you’d starve to death,” Professor Ford said. “He also was responsible for public works, as the other people were, like the upkeep of roads and work on the Pitcairn Island longboats: there’s such a terrible surf that they have to be constantly up-kept. And he would spend part of his week crafting some of the curios that he or members of his family would be selling to passing ships.” Thomas Colman Christian, son of Frederick Christian, grandson of Daniel Christian, great-grandson of Thursday Christian, great-great-grandson of Friday Christian and great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian, was born on Pitcairn on Nov. 1, 1935. As a boy, he became fascinated by the local radio station, ZBP, erected on Pitcairn by the New Zealand military during World War II. At 17, after completing his schooling on the island, he was sent to Wellington to train as a radio operator. “I was up before daylight,” Mr. Christian told People magazine in 1989 , recalling his approach to New Zealand. “I went on deck and saw Wellington and these lights running. It seems dumb, but I didn’t know that those running lights were cars.” At 20, Mr. Christian returned to Pitcairn and began running ZBP. When he was ill or injured (in 1972, after being dashed against the rocks when his longboat capsized, he was evacuated to a New Zealand hospital, where he spent four months), Pitcairn fell silent. The rest of the time, he kept the island going. In January 1974 , amid the global energy crisis, Mr. Christian put out the call on shortwave radio that Pitcairn needed fuel. Barrels of it materialized from around the world. Besides his daughter Jacqueline, Mr. Christian’s survivors include his wife, the former Betty Christian, whom he married in 1966 (like many Pitcairn couples, they are distant cousins); three other daughters, Raelene Christian, Sherileen Christian and Darlene McIntyre; and six grandchildren. Pitcairn received wide unwelcome attention in 2004, when seven men were tried on charges of sexually assaulting under-age girls there. The defendants maintained that initiating girls into sex was a time-honored South Seas custom and that they were unaware that British law was in effect on Pitcairn. Mr. Christian, who was not implicated, publicly disputed the defendants’ contention, as did his wife. (At the trial, held on Pitcairn, six of the seven defendants were convicted under English law of more than 30 sexual offenses in all; the convictions were later upheld on appeal.) As a result of their stance, Mr. and Mrs. Christian were shunned by much of the island for years afterward, Professor Ford said. Mr. Christian went about his life, tending his garden, working his radio and continuing to travel and lecture. At a talk in London in 2005, he had the joy of catching up with an Englishman he first met in 1971. That November, a cargo ship on which the Englishman was traveling stopped at Pitcairn and, disembarking, he was introduced to Mr. Christian. The Englishman was Maurice Bligh, the great-great-great-grandson of Capt. William Bligh. From that day forward, Mr. Bligh and Mr. Christian were fast friends.

Tom Christian
Pitcairn Islands
Obituary
Mutiny on the Bounty


European Union Presses China to Alter Trade Practices

Abstract: BRUSSELS (Reuters) — The European Union pressed China on Wednesday to amend its trade practices to stop technology theft, counterfeiting and discrimination against foreign companies, after it failed to make Beijing budge on its exchange rate. Opening a day-long meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao of China, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said the commercial relationship between China and the European Union, worth 327 billion euros ($453 billion) in 2009, was vital for the global economy. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the leader of Europe’s biggest exporting country, met Mr. Wen on Tuesday evening and pledged to work for China to be granted the European Union’s coveted “market economy” trade status by 2016. That would give Beijing better protection against European antidumping penalties — a major irritant for the Chinese. But the European trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, set out a litany of European grievances on which he said China must make progress if it wanted that status before it automatically receives it in 2016 under World Trade Organization rules. “This question must be considered on the basis of clear commitments, for example, on access to the Chinese market, public procurement, protection of intellectual property and even the exchange rate,” Mr. De Gucht told the French daily Le Monde. Euro zone policy makers urged Mr. Wen on Tuesday to allow China's currency to rise more rapidly , but he politely rebuffed them, repeating Beijing’s standard line on seeking currency stability. The monetary dialogue came against a backdrop of growing global ”currency wars” in which major industrial nations such as Japan and the United States are seeking to weaken their exchange rates while emerging economies such as Brazil and South Korea are taking or threatening measures to curb capital inflows. Separately on Wednesday, the European Union signed a free trade agreement with South Korea , its first such pact with an Asian partner, after announcing the start of negotiations for a similar accord with Malaysia. With the Doha round of global trade liberalization talks at an impasse, Brussels is increasingly looking to bilateral and regional trade agreements as a way forward to bolster commerce, especially with fast-growing Asian economies.

International Trade and World Market
Europe
China
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry