French Will Host Putin at D-Day Rites

Abstract: PARIS — President François Hollande of France will use D-Day commemorations next week as an opportunity to assume a more direct diplomatic role in the Ukraine crisis, becoming the first European leader to meet face to face with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia since the Western effort to isolate him for his annexation of Crimea. Though Mr. Hollande and lower-ranking French officials have been in regular contact with Mr. Putin and his inner circle for months, the French have played a quieter role on Ukraine than the Germans and the Americans. Recently, Mr. Hollande joined Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on a phone call with Mr. Putin. Mr. Hollande’s scheduled meeting with the Russian president now constitutes the French president’s most prominent diplomatic foray into the Ukrainian crisis since it began. It follows France’s announcement that it would honor a deal worth 1.2 billion euros, or $1.6 billion, to deliver two Mistral-class warships to Russia even after its land grab in Ukraine, a decision that displeased France’s Western allies. “The dialogue with Russia was always maintained,” with a goal of “de-escalation,” according to a French diplomat with knowledge of the talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to describe them. Presidential officials said there were now plans for a bilateral meeting on the eve of the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Allied landings, which will be held on June 6. Mr. Putin had long been scheduled to attend the events, leaving French officials with the choice of disinviting Mr. Putin to a solemn occasion that would in part honor the Allies’ World War II cooperation with Russia, or seeing the gesture through and, it seems, turning it into a chance to ease tensions with Russia. A State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, seemed to support allowing the commemorations to go ahead as planned, when asked on May 8. “Well, our current differences over Ukraine notwithstanding, the fact remains, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and many others united 70 years ago to defeat Nazism,” she said. “And this was a historic victory, and those who sacrificed to bring peace to Europe deserve to be honored as part of that.” Still, it remained unclear how thoroughly Mr. Hollande’s decision to use the occasion to meet with Mr. Putin was coordinated with American or other European officials, or whether they would interpret the move as undercutting the efforts to isolate the Russian leader. Nor was it clear whether Mr. Hollande, who has shown himself to be notably decisive in foreign crises, was stepping up his diplomatic role in an effort to offset his declining political fortunes at home, where his party suffered a significant setback in elections for the European Parliament on Sunday. Immediately after the annexation of Crimea in March, the Group of 8 industrialized countries, which includes the United States and European powers, suspended Russia from participation in the forum, and the United States and Europe have subsequently clamped sanctions on Mr. Putin, his inner circle, and Russian moguls in an effort to exact a cost for changing the borders of Europe by fiat. Officials at the French presidency denied reports that Mr. Hollande would host a dinner for Mr. Putin, or try to mediate directly between the Russian president and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro O. Poroshenko, the billionaire confectioner who was elected president on Sunday. But Mr. Hollande has invited Mr. Poroshenko to attend the commemorations as well. There are no plans for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, but the men will attend ceremonial events together with other heads of state, as well as a luncheon to be held at a chateau in Normandy, according to the French diplomat. Mr. Hollande is scheduled to meet with President Obama on the eve of the commemorations, the same day he will meet with Mr. Putin; there is no expectation that a joint meeting between the three leaders will be held, however, the diplomat said. Reports on Wednesday, based on statements by an aide to Mr. Putin, suggested that the French and Russian leaders would meet for dinner at the presidential palace. On Thursday, however, officials in France firmly denied that any plans had been made for a meal — which might have upset French allies — though they left open the possibility. In fact, presidential aides have hardly trumpeted Mr. Hollande’s decision to meet with Mr. Putin, expressing only reserved optimism about its possibilities. Analysts, too, though approving, have been skeptical about the potential for a reconciliation with Mr. Putin. “At some point or another, they’re going to have to talk to Putin again,” said Hubert Védrine, a former French foreign minister from Mr. Hollande’s Socialist Party. “I think this is an opportunity.” Still, Mr. Védrine cautioned, “It’s too early to be building castles in the sky.”

Francois Hollande
Ukraine
Vladimir Putin
Embargoes Sanctions
France


Haiti: U.N. Investigates Media Reports of Attacks by Brazilian Peacekeepers

Abstract: The United Nations said Friday that it was investigating allegations of assault and attempted homicide by peacekeepers in Haiti . Local media have reported that a group of Brazilian peacekeepers working for the United Nations mission in Haiti severely beat and left for dead three young Haitian men earlier this week.

International Relations
United Nations
Haiti
Brazil
Assaults


Cuomo, Eulogizing Slain Aide, Deplores Violence and Urges Tough Gun Laws

Abstract: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, during a fiery eulogy on Saturday for a lawyer in his administration who died after being shot in the head, implored New Yorkers to carry on the slain man’s mission by reforming schools, fixing public housing and, above all, demanding stronger federal gun laws. Mr. Cuomo’s remarks came in a 17-minute address delivered at the funeral of the lawyer, Carey W. Gabay, 43, who was apparently caught in a shootout between rival gangs during a pre-dawn celebration that was a precursor to the annual West Indian American Day parade in Brooklyn. The service was an opportunity to reflect on the more private gifts of a man whose rise from a public-housing project in the Bronx to Harvard has been cast as the embodiment of the American dream. Mourners outside the service, at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn, said the proceedings, while somber, celebrated a man who gave to friends as if they were family. For his part, Mr. Cuomo described Mr. Gabay’s public service as a reminder of what government can do for marginalized people, and said his death should serve as a call to stop the spread of gun violence in New York City. “The violence has become so brutal, so aimless, that the most innocent can be struck down anytime, anywhere,” Mr. Cuomo said in the eulogy, invoking mass killings in Newtown, Conn. and Charleston, S.C., alongside the seven people killed in shootings in the city last weekend . “Maybe there’s nothing you can do about it,” he added. “If only that were true — it’s not.” As an assistant counsel to Mr. Cuomo, and, more recently, first deputy counsel for the state’s main economic development agency, Mr. Gabay pushed an “action agenda” touching on issues as wide-ranging as affordable housing and anti-discrimination efforts, the governor said. Image Pallbearers at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Brooklyn handled Mr. Gabay's coffin. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times That mission seemed to dovetail with Mr. Cuomo’s own, and the governor offered a spirited appeal for competent, common sense governance. He said Mr. Gabay wanted better public housing, and a public education system that did not settle for “second-rate equipment and second-rate standards or politicians who protected the bureaucracy at the expense of the students.” The governor also said Mr. Gabay was committed to “a society that has more compassion and a government that has more competence than to allow homeless people to sleep on the street and children to sleep in the squalor of shelters.” The governor later walked out of the church with Mr. Gabay’s widow, Trenelle, on his arm. She received hugs from dozens of mourners, including Kenneth P. Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, and the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a civil rights advocate. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was also at the service, left quickly and did not speak to reporters. Gospel music spilled out of the church’s arched doorways as seven pallbearers carried Mr. Gabay’s wooden coffin outside and placed it inside a cobalt-colored hearse along with bouquets of red roses. One of the pallbearers was Mr. Gabay’s brother, who afterward stood with his right hand on the hearse, his head bowed and his body heaving with sobs. He, his two sisters and their mother all spoke at the service, which was closed to the public. Rowan Marques, 43, a fire department lieutenant in Miami who had befriended Mr. Gabay in Brooklyn, said, “He was one of the friendliest people you would ever want to meet.” Image Mourners paid their respects at the hearse holding Mr. Gabay's coffin. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times Mr. Marques added, “He treated his friends the same way he treated his family.” During the four years Mr. Gabay worked for the state, Mr. Cuomo said, he showed how “intelligent government action is a vehicle for justice.” He credited Mr. Gabay with drafting a 2011 measure that raised the rent and income thresholds at which landlords were allowed to deregulate apartments, a move that fell short of what tenant advocates hoped for but added protections for renters. Mr. Gabay also worked to promote opportunities for women- and minority-owned businesses. At the end of his eulogy, the governor said he had not gotten to ask Pope Francis during his visit to New York why God took such an innocent man as Mr. Gabay, but heard the pontiff “repeatedly speak about a young man who grew up in poverty and raised himself up and lived a life of love and selflessness,” only to be violently killed. Jesus “sent a message that touched and inspired many,” Mr. Cuomo said, without mentioning his name, and he added that Mr. Gabay had a great impact, too. But the governor was focused on gun control, criticizing politicians in comments outside the church for being too afraid of losing votes to pass stricter laws, a risk he said he took by signing a gun control package in 2013. He also said Democrats in Congress needed a stronger answer to Republican obstinacy. If Republicans were willing to shut down the government, Mr. Cuomo said in his eulogy, “then our people should have the same resolve and threaten to shut down the government if they don’t get a real gun control law.” No one has been arrested in Mr. Gabay’s killing. Pasha Durr, 43, who befriended Mr. Gabay a decade ago in their Brooklyn neighborhood, said that considering Mr. Gabay’s character, and the circumstances of his death, he would have wanted something good to come from the tragedy. “He was selfless, genuine, Carey was the real deal,” Mr. Durr said, recalling especially “his willingness to turn around and make others happy.”

Andrew Cuomo
Carey Gabay
Funerals
Gun Control
West Indian American Day
Murders and Homicides
Emmanuel Baptist Church
Brooklyn
New York


Junaid Hussain, ISIS Recruiter, Reported Killed in Airstrike

Abstract: LONDON — A 21-year-old hacker from Birmingham, England, who tapped into American military networks and was a central figure in the Islamic State militant group’s online recruitment campaign, has been killed in Syria by an American airstrike, according to three senior American officials. The hacker, Junaid Hussain, was a leading member of the CyberCaliphate, an Islamic State unit that broke into the United States Central Military Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts this year. He was considered to be the second-most prominent British member of the Islamic State, after Mohammed Emwazi, a fighter often referred to as “Jihadi John” because of his role in the videotaped killings of Western hostages. The American officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence reports, said Mr. Hussain had been killed Tuesday in an airstrike outside Raqqa, Syria. Last week, the White House announced that another prominent Islamic State figure — Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali, a deputy to the group’s leader — had been killed in an airstrike in northern Iraq. The news of Mr. Hussain’s death comes as the Obama administration is debating the effectiveness of the American-led military coalition’s campaign against the Islamic State. The Defense Department’s inspector general is looking into whether military officials have skewed intelligence assessments to present a more optimistic picture. Mr. Hussain’s unit has been credited with the Islamic State’s adept manipulation of social media to recruit fighters and spread propaganda, and his online activity was increasingly linked to plots carried out far from the battlefields in Syria and Iraq, experts said. Mr. Hussain, who was believed to use the nom de guerre Abu Hussain al-Britani, offered encouragement on Twitter to the two gunmen who staged a shooting attack in Garland, Tex., in May, at a contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. After the shooting, Mr. Hussain wrote : “Allahu Akbar!!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire ... ” He also used social media to threaten to raise the black Islamic State flag over “10 Downing Street and the White House,” referring to the official residence of the British prime minister. In June, Mr. Hussain was linked to an Islamic State plot to attack an Armed Forces Day parade in South London using a bomb rigged in a pressure cooker, similar to the one used in the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013. The plot was thwarted after Mr. Hussain unwittingly revealed details to an undercover reporter from The Sun, a British tabloid, who was posing as a potential recruit. Mr. Hussain was prosecuted for hacking in Britain in 2012, and was convicted on charges that he illegally gained access to former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s address book the year before. He spent six months in prison. Afterward he was arrested again, on a charge of violent disorder, and while free on bail in 2013 he moved to Syria. He was joined there by his wife, Sally Jones, 45, a former punk rock musician from southeastern England who met Mr. Hussain online. Mr. Hussain took his hacking skills to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL. He helped instigate online attacks, posted information about American military forces and officers, and acted as a cheerleader for other fighters in the group, said Raffaello Pantucci of the Royal United Services Institute in London, a research organization specializing in defense and security. Mr. Hussain’s activity “was an irritant that had developed a worrying edge, as he was linked increasingly to plots being instigated from the battlefield,” Mr. Pantucci said. “Undoubtedly his online skills will be missed by the group,” he said, “but it is unlikely to dramatically change the pattern of dangerous plots emanating from the group, or the phenomenon of some young Westerners being drawn to fight alongside the group.” British and American officials met several months ago and decided that Mr. Hussain and other prominent Britons in the Islamic State group should be hunted down and either killed or captured, one of the senior United States officials said. The two countries collaborated in tracking Mr. Hussain and in gathering evidence to use in prosecuting him if he were to be taken alive. Asked about the reports of Mr. Hussain’s death, a spokeswoman for the British Home Office would say only that the British government was aware of them. “We have consistently warned people against going to fight for ISIL in Syria or Iraq,” she said. “ISIL has declared itself an enemy of the U.K., and those who have chosen to fight with ISIL and subscribe to their barbaric ideology will continue be subject to coalition action to stop them killing indiscriminately, committing barbaric acts and planning terrorist acts.”

Junaid Hussain,Abu Hussain al-Britani
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Syria
Great Britain
Cyberwarfare
Targeted Killings
Terrorism
US Military
CyberCaliphate


All-Star Is Sent Down

Abstract: The Coyotes’ John Scott, voted by fans as one of four captains for the N.H.L. All-Star game, was sent to Springfield of the A.H.L. Arizona sent Scott down to make room for Kevin Connauton, a defenseman claimed off waivers from the Columbus Blue Jackets. Arizona Coach Dave Tippett said Scott would probably be back soon, allowing him to participate in the All-Star Game on Jan. 31. ■ Mark Streit and Wayne Simmonds scored third-period goals as the host Philadelphia Flyers rallied past the Boston Bruins, 3-2.

Ice hockey
John Scott
All-star game
Kevin Connauton


Law on Light Bulb Efficiency Angers Conservatives

Abstract: WASHINGTON — American protests against the encroachment of government have been spurred by many causes — tea, of course, and guns, frequently. The latest catalyst: light bulbs. A 2007 bill, passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress and signed into law by George W. Bush , will make the familiar incandescent bulb subject to strict efficiency standards next year. The effect will be to make current 100-watt bulbs obsolete — and that has sent conservative lawmakers, libertarians, some environmental activists and owners of Easy-Bake Ovens into a frenzy of activity to get the law repealed or, at least, to stockpile the bulbs before they disappear from store shelves. “I do care about my carbon footprint, not to mention my light bill,” said Dana Carpender, a cookbook author in Bloomington, Ind. “But unless something dramatic happens to bring down the cost of alternatives, I will be stashing away a pile of incandescents.” The law does not outlaw incandescent bulbs or dictate that consumers must use the spiral-shaped compact fluorescent lights that have become increasingly popular in recent years. Rather, it sets standards for the amount of light emitted per watt of power used. Current 100-watt bulbs must become 25 percent more efficient, and makers are designing new bulbs . To Representative Joe Barton , the Texas Republican who has sponsored a bill to reverse the new guidelines, that nevertheless means Congress is dictating what types of light Americans can use in their homes. “From the health insurance you’re allowed to have, to the car you can drive, to the light bulbs you can buy, Washington is making too many decisions that are better left to you and your family,” Mr. Barton said when he introduced his bill in January. Opponents of the regulations say the fluorescent bulbs are too expensive, flicker annoyingly and are health hazards because they contain mercury. While they are not unanimous on the issue, some environmental activists counter that by saying the mercury in a single fluorescent bulb is less than what some power plants throw into the atmosphere while generating the electricity it takes to light one incandescent bulb. Makers of appliances and light bulbs, meanwhile, support the federal standards because they do not want to have to make scores of products to meet individual state regulations. But to many Americans, the 100-watt bulb has become a cause célèbre. Tea Party campaigners have adopted it; Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota , who introduced a bill to repeal the light bulb law in 2008 and again this year, talked about the issue in her response to the president’s State of the Union message in January. And this week, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said not only did he resent the light bulb standards but he also blamed the government for poorly working toilets in his house because of the regulations on how much water they should use. The light bulb regulations already have affected the American economy. Last fall, General Electric closed its last major United States plant producing the old-style incandescent bulbs, in Winchester, Va. Nearly all compact fluorescent bulbs are made in Asia , although some United States manufacturers are retooling former factories to make other energy-efficient bulbs. Several companies in the United States are working on light-emitting diode, or LED, bulbs, and on energy-efficient halogen incandescent bulbs, which use a halogen element enclosed in a traditional glass bulb. The Energy Department says the energy savings are significant. Kathleen Hogan, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the department, told a Senate committee this week that by meeting the new lighting standards, consumers could save nearly $6 billion in 2015. A household that upgrades 15 current incandescent bulbs could save about $50 a year, Ms. Hogan said, even after accounting for the higher cost of the fluorescent bulbs, which average above $1 each, versus about 35 cents for incandescent. Halogen incandescent bulbs now cost about $1.50 each, and LED bulbs, which have only begun to be introduced, can cost $20 or more each, though they can last 10 years or more. Three-way bulbs, appliance bulbs and a few other specialty products are excluded from the new standards. All of which serves to convince some people that the government should not dictate light bulb standards. Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative group, said she already had about 100 old-style incandescent light bulbs stored in her basement in Laurel, Md., and she hoped to have several hundred by the time the new standards go into effect on Jan. 1. Ms. Ridenour said that she opposed the government interference, but that her hoarding was primarily driven by concerns about the mercury in the compact fluorescent bulbs. Her middle child, a 10-year-old son, is autistic , Ms. Ridenour said. “He’s knocked over quite a few lamps,” she said, and broken plenty of light bulbs in the process. The Environmental Protection Agency issues detailed instructions on how to clean up a broken fluorescent bulb because of the potential for spilling mercury. Each bulb contains about four milligrams of mercury, compared with 500 milligrams in old-style glass thermometers. Nevertheless, the E.P.A. recommends recycling used fluorescent bulbs rather than disposing of them in household garbage. Unknown, so far, is the economic impact of the retooling of the Easy-Bake Oven, the source of an unimaginable number of forced smiles summoned by parents after tasting a child’s cookies and cakes. The oven, a member of the National Toy Hall of Fame, uses a 100-watt bulb as its heat source, so Hasbro must give it a makeover. This fall, it will introduce the new Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven, which will use a different, so far undisclosed, heating element.

Incandescent light bulb
Energy Efficiency
Legislation


Death Penalty Repeal Fails in Colorado

Abstract: DENVER — An effort to repeal Colorado’s death penalty law stumbled Monday in the State Senate after two hours of sometimes anguished and angry debate, leaving the bill in limbo and supporters scrambling to find votes as the end of the session looms this week. The Colorado House voted in support of repeal, by a single vote majority, last month. In their debate, lawmakers focused on questions of deterrence, certainty or doubt in the age of genetic evidence, and, far from least in the mix, money in a time of shrinking government resources. As proposed, the bill would have redirected about $1 million now devoted to death penalty costs to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for investigating unsolved crimes known as cold cases. But the amendment that passed on a voice vote Monday pledged new money for cold cases — popular with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — but made no mention of the death penalty. Democrats control both chambers of the General Assembly. “They got what they wanted, and we got left behind,” said Bradley A. Wood, the director of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry — Colorado, which supported repeal. Questions of justice resonated from both sides. Senator Morgan Carroll, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said more money for cold-case work would mean more killers brought to justice. “Justice at least means: find the person who did it,” Ms. Carroll said. She also said the costs of making a mistake when imposing the ultimate sanction were too high. “In a democracy,” she said, “the decisions of the state come with blood on all of our hands in the event that we are wrong.” Senator Shawn Mitchell, a Republican, responded that life was imperfect and that some heinous crime must be set apart with greater sanctions, including the death penalty. “It is the closest we can come to justice,” Mr. Mitchell said. “Not complete justice, it’s just the closest we can get.” Contrary to the myths and legends of rough justice, most of the West — with the major exception of California — did not race back to imposing the death penalty after 1976, when the United States Supreme Court allowed states to resume the practice. Colorado, Montana and Wyoming each have only two inmates on death row, as did New Mexico when it repealed its death penalty law in March, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based research group that opposes capital punishment. Colorado has executed only one person since 1976. The Colorado repeal bill was very much in keeping with what has become a national debate about the financial costs of the death penalty, especially as the recession hits state budgets hard. For example, the Republican sponsor of a death penalty repeal proposal in Kansas specifically cited cost-benefit analysis in tough times as a reason for rethinking capital punishment. The bill cleared a legislative committee and was sent back for more study, ending its chances of passage this year. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, also mentioned cost as part of his reason for signing a repeal measure.

Colorado
Capital Punishment
Law and Legislation
Politics and Government
State Legislatures
Mitchell Shawn
Morgan Mike


Sheldon Adelson Sets New Standard as Campaign Aid Surges Into 8 Figures

Abstract: Even in a political season marked by unprecedented levels of political spending, Sheldon Adelson stands alone. In recent days, Mr. Adelson, a billionaire casino owner, and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, gave $10 million to Restore Our Future, a “ super PAC ” backing Mitt Romney , people with knowledge of the contribution said Wednesday. The move leaves the Adelsons by far the most prolific campaign donors in the country. All told, they have given at least $35 million to pro-Republican super PACs during the 2012 campaign, along with several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of $2,500 checks directly to federal candidates. That is more than twice as much money as the closest competitors for the title, the conservative Texas billionaire Harold C. Simmons and his wife, Annette, making Mr. Adelson a uniquely powerful force in the annals of presidential politics. In the wake of court rulings and other actions that have largely deregulated the campaign finance system, wealthy donors and corporations are planning to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into this year’s presidential and Congressional elections, mostly in support of Republicans. The cascade of money has left President Obama struggling to keep up, with few Democrats willing to write multimillion-dollar checks to super PACs, in part because many of them object to the existence of super PACs in the first place. It has also set off an arms race among Republican candidates for the allegiance of a small group of very rich donors. With a net worth of roughly $25 billion, Mr. Adelson is among the richest of all: In an interview with Forbes magazine this year, he suggested he would consider personally spending as much as $100 million on the 2012 elections. Many wealthy donors have put their money into issue advocacy groups that are not required to disclose their identities to the Federal Election Commission, leaving unknown the true scale of outside money flowing into the 2012 campaigns. A group of conservative donors led by Charles and David Koch, for example, have pledged to raise as much as $400 million for issue groups, including the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity, and Mr. Adelson himself has financed such organizations in past elections. But during the Republican primaries, Mr. Adelson stood out for his willingness to spend money on super PACs, which must register with the election commission and disclose details of their contributions and spending. The Adelson family almost single-handedly bankrolled Winning Our Future, a super PAC backing Newt Gingrich, a Romney rival, during the primaries, giving the group more than $20 million. Winning Our Future pounded Mr. Romney with millions of dollars in radio and television advertisements this winter, injecting into the race some of the toughest and most sustained attacks on his record at the private equity firm Bain Capital. Mr. Adelson has in the past publicly expressed doubts about Mr. Romney, describing him as timid in comparison with Mr. Gingrich. But although Mr. Romney is barred from specifically asking Mr. Adelson to contribute large checks to Restore Our Future for his benefit, he has been courting him since January, around the time the Adelsons began giving millions of dollars to Winning Our Future for Mr. Gingrich. At the time, Mr. Adelson relayed assurances that he would support Mr. Romney’s super PAC even more generously should he become the nominee, saying that he was committed to defeating Mr. Obama. Mr. Gingrich dropped out in May. Later that month, Mr. Romney and Mr. Adelson met for lunch at Mr. Adelson’s Las Vegas hotel, the Venetian. By last week, according to Politico, Mr. Adelson was considering a contribution of $1 million to $10 million to the pro-Romney super PAC. Mr. Adelson is close to many of Mr. Romney’s other supporters, particularly wealthy Jewish donors, with whom he has served on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is known for his influence in Israeli politics and his hawkish views on American foreign policy, views shared by Mr. Gingrich and to some extent by Mr. Romney. And Mr. Adelson has ties to Restore Our Future; the group’s political director, Carl Forti, helped run Freedom’s Watch, an issue advocacy group to which Mr. Adelson gave $17 million during the 2008 election. Mr. Forti declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Mr. Adelson. Some of the leading Republican super PACs were established during the 2010 elections, raising tens of millions of dollars to counter labor unions and helping Republicans to win control of the House. Democrats have since sought to match Republicans’ super PAC advantage, but with little success. The Adelsons’ $35 million is more than the three leading Democratic super PACs have raised combined. The top donor to Democratic super PACs is Jeffrey Katzenberg, the studio executive, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He had given just over $2 million through the end of April. “For the conservatives backing Mitt Romney, these multimillion-dollar investments are small pittances compared to the return they will make when their industries are deregulated and their tax cuts even more than President Bush prescribed,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for Priorities USA, a super PAC backing Mr. Obama. “Right-wing Republicans will literally pay any price to see to it that their candidate Mitt Romney is elected.”

Adelson Sheldon G
Presidential Election of 2012
Political Action Committees
Campaign Finance
Romney Mitt
Restore Our Future


Higher Royalties for Oil Leases

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (Bloomberg News) — Companies that lease tracts in the Gulf of Mexico in an oil and natural gas sale planned for March will pay higher federal royalties, the Minerals Management Service said Tuesday. The leases include an increase in the royalty rate to 18.75 percent, from 16.7 percent, and will include rental rates of $6.25 an acre for tracts in water depths of 200 meters or less, and $9.50 an acre for tracts in deeper waters, the service said. Some of the blocks being leased were made available by a 2006 law passed by Congress to allow drilling in the eastern Gulf. “This is the first sale in the eastern Gulf of Mexico planning area to offer these blocks since 1988,” C. Stephen Allred, assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said. “It is also the first sale where sharing provisions of the Energy Security Act will start immediately.” Under the 2006 law, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas will share in revenue from all leases resulting from this sale.

Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Royalties
Renting and Leasing
Law and Legislation


Pakistan Court Bars Sharif From Election

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A high court on Monday barred the leader of the junior partner in the government, Nawaz Sharif , from running for Parliament in a by-election later this week, a decision that is bound to intensify the hostilities within the fractious ruling coalition. Mr. Sharif, who was twice prime minister and is now the most popular politician in the nation, according to some opinion polls, has differed with the leader of the coalition, Asif Ali Zardari, over the reinstatement of judges fired last November during emergency rule. The ruling against Mr. Sharif by the High Court in Lahore was made by three judges appointed by President Pervez Musharraf after he declared the emergency rule. The three judges are among those who Mr. Sharif contends were illegally appointed. He has made a major public issue about the independence of the judiciary since the government took office in late February, and called for the reinstatement of judges fired by Mr. Musharraf, and the dismissal of those he had appointed. In contrast, Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader who was assassinated in December, has said that he believes that the judges appointed to the Supreme Court and four High Courts by Mr. Musharraf should be allowed to stay. Mr. Sharif had been barred from running in the February parliamentary elections because of a conviction on charges of hijacking, which stemmed from an earlier tangle with Mr. Musharraf. Trying to pre-empt the overthrow of his government when he was prime minister in 1999, Mr. Sharif diverted a plane carrying Mr. Musharraf, who was then head of the military. The military then sided with Mr. Musharraf anyway, and Mr. Sharif was ousted and eventually forced into exile until he returned late last year. Earlier this month, the national election commission ruled that the hijacking conviction was not sufficient to prevent Mr. Sharif’s candidacy. But on the basis of a voter’s petition that argued the election commission was wrong, the three-judge panel in Lahore cited the hijacking conviction on Monday as sufficient reason to bar Mr. Sharif from running in the by-election. A lawyer for Mr. Sharif, Ashtar Ausaf Ali, said the ruling on Monday would have immediate political repercussions. “The political situation in Pakistan is more intense now. The whole matter seems to be heading for an impasse,” he said. Mr. Sharif prevented Mr. Ali from appearing on his behalf before the Lahore High Court to argue the case. Such an appearance, in Mr. Sharif’s opinion, would be tantamount to a recognition of judges he deemed to be working illegally, Mr. Ali said. On the same ground, Mr. Sharif had ordered him not to appear before the Supreme Court to lodge an appeal, Mr. Ali said. Newspaper editorials and analysts have argued that Mr. Zardari was intent on keeping the judges appointed by Mr. Musharraf because he believed they would protect an amnesty on corruption charges granted to him and Ms. Bhutto on their return to Pakistan from exile. Mr. Sharif withdrew his 9 ministers from the 24-member cabinet in May in protest of Mr. Zardari’s failure to agree to reinstate the fired judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. After the ruling on Monday, Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the party that Mr. Sharif leads, said on Dawn television that Mr. Zardari was allowing “a mockery” to be made of democracy in Pakistan. In a more cooperative spirit, Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the Pakistan Peoples Party, which is led by Mr. Zardari, said he was disappointed with the ruling, and added that it could force the parties to settle their differences on the judges.

Pakistan
Decisions and Verdicts
Sharif Nawaz
Elections
Courts
Musharraf Pervez


Sri Lankan President Dissolves Parliament

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Sri Lanka ’s president dissolved Parliament on Tuesday, clearing the way for elections to choose a new legislature even as a bitter dispute raged over the fate of the main challenger in last month’s presidential election. Angry supporters of Sarath Fonseka, the retired general who was arrested Monday night after his unsuccessful run for president, accused the government of assaulting him and worried about his safety while in government custody. Anoma Fonseka, the candidate’s wife, said she had not been able to find General Fonseka since he was arrested by dozens of military police officers in what witnesses described as a commando-style raid on his office. “I am so worried because I know he is in danger,” Mrs. Fonseka said in a telephone interview. Several people who attended the meeting of political leaders where he was arrested said General Fonseka was badly manhandled and carried bodily out of the room when he tried to protest. General Fonseka ran for president in last month’s election, mounting a surprise challenge to his onetime ally, President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The two men had worked closely together to defeat the 26-year-old Tamil Tiger insurgency but became estranged in the aftermath of the war. Mr. Rajapaksa had hoped to cruise to an easy victory buoyed by the surge of popularity that ending the war brought him, but General Fonseka won the backing of a coalition of opposition parties and mounted a spirited challenge. Nevertheless, Mr. Rajapaksa won handily , by 17 percentage points. Supporters of General Fonseka said he was arrested for daring to challenge the president’s rule. “Democracy today in Sri Lanka is nonexistent,” said Ravi Rajakarunanayake, a member of Parliament from an opposition party that had backed General Fonseka. “It is very tense here today.” Brig. V. U. B. Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said the charges against General Fonseka stemmed from his last months in the military and were unrelated to his political activities since retiring. Brigadier Nanayakkara said the fact that the arrest happened after the election was purely a coincidence. “This is a military matter that has nothing to do with politics,” he said, adding that new evidence from army deserters arrested after the election was crucial to the government’s case. Brigadier Nanayakkara said General Fonseka would have access to lawyers and his family. Under Sri Lanka’s Constitution the president has the power to dissolve Parliament and call for new elections. Mr. Rajapaksa and his allies hoped, analysts said, to capitalize on the wide margin of victory in the presidential election to win a two-thirds majority in Parliament.


U.S. Simulation Forecasts Perils of an Israeli Strike at Iran

Abstract: WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials. The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict. But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policy makers over the consequences of any Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those in the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States. The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there. The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation. The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon; in Tampa, Fla., where the headquarters of the Central Command is located; and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation. In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel , and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said. American and Israeli intelligence services broadly agree on the progress Iran has made to enrich uranium. But they disagree on how much time there would be to prevent Iran from building a weapon if leaders in Tehran decided to go ahead with one. With the Israelis saying publicly that the window to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb is closing, American officials see an Israeli attack on Iran within the next year as a possibility. They have said privately that they believe that Israel would probably give the United States little or no warning should Israeli officials make the decision to strike Iranian nuclear sites. Officials said that, under the chain of events in the war game, Iran believed that Israel and the United States were partners in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites and therefore considered American military forces in the Persian Gulf as complicit in the attack. Iranian jets chased Israeli warplanes after the attack, and Iranians launched missiles at an American warship in the Persian Gulf, viewed as an act of war that allowed an American retaliation. Internal Look has long been one of Central Command’s most significant planning exercises, and is carried out about twice a year to assess how the headquarters, its staff and command posts in the region would respond to various real-world situations. Over the years, it has been used to prepare for various wars in the Middle East. According to the defense Web site GlobalSecurity.org , military planners during the cold war used Internal Look to prepare for a move by the Soviet Union to seize Iranian oil fields. The American war plan at the time called for the Pentagon to march nearly six Army divisions north from the Persian Gulf to the Zagros Mountains of Iran to blunt a Soviet attack. In December 2002, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who was the top officer at Central Command, used Internal Look to test the readiness of his units for the coming invasion of Iraq. Many experts have predicted that Iran would try to carefully manage the escalation after an Israeli first strike in order to avoid giving the United States a rationale for attacking with its far superior forces. Thus, it might use proxies to set off car bombs in world capitals or funnel high explosives to insurgents in Afghanistan to attack American and NATO troops. While using surrogates might, in the end, not be enough to hide Iran’s instigation of these attacks, the government in Tehran could at least publicly deny all responsibility. Some military specialists in the United States and in Israel who have assessed the potential ramifications of an Israeli attack believe that the last thing Iran would want is a full-scale war on its territory. Thus, they argue that Iran would not directly strike American military targets, whether warships in the Persian Gulf or bases in the region. Their analysis, however, also includes the broad caveat that it is impossible to know the internal thinking of the senior Iranian leadership, and is informed by the awareness that even the most detailed war games cannot predict how nations and their leaders will react in the heat of conflict. Yet these specialists continue their work, saying that any insight on how the Iranians will react to an attack will help determine whether the Israelis carry out a strike — and what the American position will be if they do. Israeli intelligence estimates, backed by academic studies, have cast doubt on the widespread assumption that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would set off a catastrophic set of events like a regional conflagration, widespread acts of terrorism and sky-high oil prices. “A war is no picnic,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio in November. But if Israel feels itself forced into action, the retaliation would be bearable, he said. “There will not be 100,000 dead or 10,000 dead or 1,000 dead. The state of Israel will not be destroyed.”

United States Defense and Military Forces


Considering Interleague Play All Season Long

Abstract: PHOENIX The American and National Leagues mingled on Tuesday for the last time before the World Series. For the rest of July, all of August and September, and most of October, A.L. teams will play A.L. teams, and N.L. teams will play N.L. teams. But change could be coming , perhaps as early as next season. If the leagues are realigned with 15 teams in each, interleague games would be played all season. Michael Weiner, the executive director of the union, said Tuesday that players strongly favored 15 teams in each league. The current collective bargaining agreement expires after this season. “It’s arithmetic,” Weiner said at a luncheon with writers before the N.L.’s 5-1 victory in the All-Star Game. “Players take the competition very, very seriously, and if you talk with players and many people on the management side as well, they want the competition to be fair.” Since the last expansion, in 1998, the National League has had 16 teams and the American League has had 14, with six teams in the N.L. Central and four in the A.L. West. The Milwaukee Brewers switched to the N.L. to make it happen, but Weiner said the union never really liked it. “In a sense it would be akin to having the U.S. Open tennis tournament with a different number of entrants on one side of the draw as opposed to the other,” he said. “Nobody would stand for that. The best reason for 15-15 is everybody would have four competitors to win their division, and everybody would have the same number of competitors to qualify for wild-card positions.” Commissioner Bud Selig and Weiner both said that so-called radical realignment — the elimination of divisional identities and/or several teams switching leagues — was not under consideration. Selig was more cautious than Weiner about a 15-15 split, but said he supported realignment generally and had kept an open mind. “The teams in the N.L. Central fairly say, ‘Why should we have six teams in one division and other teams have no more than four or five?’ ” Selig said, at a separate luncheon. “And that’s a fair comment. So there are things I’d like to accomplish. I think if you’re really thinking about significant realignment, it’s probably going to have to wait. But I’ll pick up the phone and call some people who are really knowledgeable with schedules.” Several All-Stars said they had no real preference or had not thought much about the issues. Heath Bell of the Padres said he hoped all teams in a division would play the same interleague schedule; Matt Cain of the Giants said he hoped an extra team in the A.L. West could make travel easier for players in that division. “We just go out and compete,” the Reds’ Brandon Phillips said. “We don’t really think about the schedules. But if you think about it, it would make more sense to have 15 and 15. It really would. But who’s going to be the team that leaves? That’s going to be the problem.” The Arizona Diamondbacks have offered to move to the A.L. if asked. The Houston Astros, who are undergoing an ownership change, would be a logical choice to move to the A.L. West, where they would join their in-state rival, the Texas Rangers. Hunter Pence, the Astros’ All-Star representative, said he liked the National League but would not object to moving. He did not feel the Astros were at a disadvantage by playing in a six-team division. “The scheduling would seem kind of funny, to have interleague every day, but then again I really enjoy interleague,” Pence said. “Sometimes change is good.” One change Selig, Weiner and the players strongly support is the addition of another wild-card team to each league. Selig said the format was still under debate, but Pence would favor a one-game playoff between two wild-card teams. Some in baseball strongly favor this option as a way to jump-start the postseason and emphasize winning the division. “If it does come down to one game, how exciting is that one game?” Pence said. “ Remember the Tigers and Twins in ’09 ? I couldn’t leave the TV. That one game was so amazing. Imagine if we had that every year? That is awesome.” Weiner acknowledged the problems of playing interleague games every day, including on opening day and the final series of the season. But he said the benefits of more even competition would outweigh the negatives. “Like a lot of things in life, maybe 15-15 ain’t perfect,” Weiner said. “But the fact that we’re focusing on those undeniable positives, I view as a real plus.” Weiner and Selig addressed several other topics at their luncheons, with Selig confirming that he had cleared David Einhorn as the Mets’ minority partner, pending the final details of the agreement with the Wilpons. Selig also said the Mets’ “chances look pretty good” to host the All-Star Game in 2013. As for Derek Jeter, who skipped this year’s All-Star Game to rest his right calf for the second half, Selig said: “There isn’t a player that I’m more proud of in the last 15 years than Derek Jeter. He has played the game like it should be played. He’s even been a better human being off the field, as great as he is on the field. So any concerns that I keep hearing about Derek Jeter, I know why Derek Jeter isn’t here. I respect that.”

Baseball
American League
National League
Selig Bud


A Tibetan Blogger, Always Under Close Watch, Struggles for Visibility

Abstract: BEIJING WOESER, a Tibetan poet and blogger whose every word is of great interest to the Chinese authorities, described the nightmare that jolted her awake shortly before a reporter arrived for what some might describe as a foolhardy interview. She dreamed that she was back in Tibet and that an army truck was passing before her, its cargo enveloped in green canvas. One side of the truck was uncovered, however, and inside she could see a heap of black-and-blue bodies, Tibetans old and young, who had been battered into submission. Desperate to record the sight, she reached for her camera but it was gone. “The dream ends with me chasing the truck, wailing and yelling,” said Ms. Woeser, 42, who follows Tibetan tradition of using a single name. The nightmare vividly reflects the anxiety felt by many Tibetans, both inside and outside China . But it is a particularly fitting reflection of the sense of helplessness that confronts one of China’s best-known bloggers as she tries to chronicle life in Tibet amid a continued yearlong crackdown on dissent. Her books are banned here, and the blog she has kept since 2005 is currently blocked. Still, with foreign media banned from much of the Tibetan plateau, Ms. Woeser’s blog, “ Invisible Tibet ,” has become one of the few reliable news outlets for those able to circumvent what is cynically referred to as The Great Firewall. Ms. Woeser has been kept especially busy by a run of politically delicate dates, including the 50th anniversary of the “liberation” of Lhasa by the Chinese Army, which upended the Tibetan aristocracy and sent the Dalai Lama into exile. This year Beijing christened March 28 a national holiday, Serf Liberation Day, but among many Tibetans it was a time for mourning. This year’s commemoration was made all the more tense by a security lockdown that accompanied the first anniversary of the riots in Lhasa in which 19 people were killed, many of them Han Chinese migrants. In the weeks and months that followed, hundreds of Tibetans were arrested; by her own tally, based on accounts of those she said she trusts, as many as 300 people may have died at the hands of public security forces. “It’s impossible to know the exact number because the bodies are always immediately cremated,” she said. “I am sympathetic to the loss of Han lives, but I am angry at the government for responding with such heartlessness. They have only made the situation worse by awakening the anger of the Tibetan people.” A graceful, soft-spoken woman whose disquieting tales are often punctuated by nervous laughter, Ms. Woeser has become an accidental hero to a generation of disenfranchised young Tibetans. Like many of her peers, she was schooled in Mandarin, part of a policy of assimilation that left her unable to write Tibetan, and she grew up embracing the official version of history — that the Communist Party brought freedom and prosperity to a backward land. HER pedigree is all the more notable because her father, the son of a Han father and a Tibetan mother, was a deputy general in the Chinese Army who oversaw Lhasa. It was only at 24, after seven years studying Chinese poetry and literature, that she reconnected with her Tibetan DNA. During a visit to Lhasa, an aunt dragged her to the Jokhang Monastery, one of Tibetan Buddhism’s holiest sites, and she found herself overwhelmed by the emotional intensity of the faithful. “I was crying so loudly a monk told my aunt, ‘Look at that pathetic Chinese girl, she can’t control herself.’ “It was that moment I realized I had come home,” she said. She moved back to Lhasa, found a job at Tibetan Literature, a government-run journal, and began delving into the history and folklore of Tibet. In 2003, a publisher in Guangzhou put out her first book, “Notes on Tibet,” a collection of prose and short stories that quickly sold out. It was just before the second print run that the authorities took notice. They promptly banned the book, saying it contained “serious political mistakes.” In their condemnation of the book, her employer, the Tibetan Literature Association, said she had glorified the Dalai Lama, harmed the solidarity of the nation and “exaggerated and beautified the positive function of religion in social life.” They demanded a confession of her errors. She refused, and found herself unemployed. With no means of support, she moved to Beijing. After gushing to friends about one of China’s best-known writers, Wang Lixiong, an introduction was made. They married a year later. In contrast to Tibetan dissidents who agitate from places of exile, Ms. Woeser’s is a rare voice that emanates from China. Robert Barnett , a professor of modern Tibetan studies at Columbia University, described her as “fierce and courageous” but said she was never strident. “She is not a politician but a poet who quite late in her career started talking about politics,” he said. “She is an eloquent reminder of what’s happening in Tibet.” One of her most startling recent projects is “Forbidden Memory,” a book of photographs taken by her father during the Cultural Revolution. Published in Taiwan, the book provides a disturbing glimpse of the tumultuous decade that destroyed thousands of temples and laid waste to countless lives. There are pictures of trampled relics, jubilant crowds bearing oversized Mao portraits and a female living Buddha, head bowed in humiliation, as she is hectored in the streets. “My father loved photography and no one dared stop him because he was in uniform,” she said. The photographs also offer a telling window into the soul of a conflicted man. Ms. Woeser recalled her father as a devoted Communist who would publicly denounce religion by day and seek refuge in Buddhist texts at night. After he died in 1991, she found a dog-eared biography of the Dalai Lama hidden on his bookshelf. “He was like many Tibetans who work for the government,” she said. “They are divided inside. We call them people with two heads.” In recent years Ms. Woeser has become less tolerant of Chinese rule and more vocally opposed to the Han migrants and tourists who she claims have diluted Tibetan culture and damaged a fragile ecosystem. Such outspokenness has only heightened the interest of the authorities, who blocked her first three blogs. (The fourth, she said, was destroyed by hackers.) LAST year, she and her husband were briefly placed under house arrest after they spoke to the foreign news media. Her visits to Tibet are even more tightly scrutinized. The police track her every move, interrogating any friend who dares to meet with her. “Most of my friends no longer have the guts to see me,” she said. During her last visit in August, public security officials searched her mother’s home in Lhasa, confiscating computers and subjecting Ms. Woeser to eight hours of questioning. When she returned home, her mother, fearful for her safety, begged her to pack her bags and go. “That was one of the most heartbreaking moments,” she said. Most of the news that appears on her blog arrives through e-mail messages or via Skype, the Internet calling service, although they are not without risk. She said 13 of her friends are still in detention, some facing charges that they illegally disseminated details of arrests and protests to the outside world. “Every day I cry because I don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” she said, glancing out the 20th-floor window of her apartment, with its expansive view of a hazy Beijing sunset. Despite her relatively high profile both inside and outside China, she is well aware that her liberty is fragile. Since 2004 she has been waiting for a passport, which would allow her to travel and speak abroad. “I feel so insecure inside,” she said. “I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of a cliff and I could fall down at any moment.”

China
Blogs and Blogging (Internet)
Tibet
Poetry and Poets
Woeser


Traditional Ways Spread AIDS in Africa, Experts Say

Abstract: NKOLONDOGO, Cameroon — When Innocent Zamba Manga was born this summer, doctors advised his mother, Marise, who is H.I.V. positive, not to breast-feed, because nursing can pass the virus that causes AIDS from mother to child. Mother and baby left the hospital with bottles and formula supplied by a Catholic charity. But the very next week, the proud parents took their baby to the father’s village in the south of Cameroon, to take part in a traditional birth and naming ceremony. Custom required the new mother to nurse little Innocent, so she did. And she continued for two weeks. “Why would you risk his health in this way?” scolded Dr. Suzie Tetang Moyo, sighing deeply in frustration when she saw the parents recently at her clinic on a dirt road here in this rural district north of the capital, Yaoundé. As researchers spend more time studying Africa’s overwhelming pediatric AIDS problem, they are finding that the routes of transmission may be different than in the industrialized countries, and that strategies for preventing the disease’s spread must be adapted to local realities. In developed countries, the only real risk factor for children is that they can get H.I.V. from their mothers at birth. But here, researchers have come to agree, a host of traditional ceremonies and practices is creating transmission routes unique to Africa — dangers that have, up to now, been ignored. There are naming ceremonies, like Innocent’s, that require nursing. But there are potentially even more hazardous moments, such as when body fluids of different people are mixed. In scarification ceremonies for ethnic identification and cutting for ritual healing, blades are used in sequence again and again. There is also the practice of communal breast-feeding a single baby by numerous women, common in many tightly knit villages. In a country like Cameroon, where more than 5 percent of the population and 11 percent of pregnant women are infected with H.I.V. — the vast majority unknowingly — such practices could lead to a wildfire spread. “If we are only biology, biology, biology, then we are only doing half of our mission,” said Marcel Manny Lobe, director of the new International Reference and Research Center for H.I.V.-AIDS in Yaoundé. “We need also to do the sociology and anthropology and then make biological interventions.” Researchers here and elsewhere in Africa are just beginning to study the role of these common traditional practices of rural Africa, to determine if they account for a small or large portion of H.I.V. transmission. “We don’t know enough about this important topic, but there is no doubt that traditional practices are spreading H.I.V. It’s a growing concern,” said Dr. Edward J. Mills, an epidemiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who has done extensive work in South Africa. “Unaids has been ignoring it,” he said, referring to the United Nations agency that deals with the disease. “I think it’s because people think it’s culturally insensitive to talk about. Even if it turns out to be only a minor amount, it’s a preventable amount so we really need to address it.” In Batié, a village three hours from Yaoundé, most people go to both traditional healers and medical doctors, and traditional treatments often involve blades to cut the skin. On a recent afternoon, Berlin Simeu, a villager, visited the darkened hut of Sop Kamtchewo, a healer, in a ceremony intended to ward off illness and witchcraft. With a razor blade that had been wrapped in a sheet of paper, the healer made three short cuts on his patient’s body — one each on his wrist, back and shoulder. A fruit was placed on the wounds to draw out any bad influences. It was unclear whether or how the blade would be cleaned before its next use. Yves Moumbé, a doctor in Batié, said that almost all of his patients with H.I.V. went to traditional healers before they saw him. “It is not clear if they are using any sterile technique at all,” Dr. Moumbé said. “They don’t have much knowledge of H.I.V. and how it is spread. So it could be a serious problem.” An estimated 70 percent of Africans use traditional healers as their primary source of health care, a function of tradition and availability. In Africa, there is one medical doctor for every 40,000 people, but one traditional healer for every 500. In one small survey, 50 percent of ritual healers were H.I.V. positive, doctors at the International Reference and Research Center for H.I.V.-AIDS in Yaoundé said. “We’re used to saying this is all about sexual intercourse, but now we have to remind people it can be elsewhere in the body, and there are other dangers as well,” said Bertrice Mabule, who started the Children’s Education and Health Foundation to promote H.I.V. awareness in Batié. A 2004 study in the journal Tropical Doctor by Dr. Etete J. Peters at the University of Calabar in southeastern Nigeria concluded that there was “a serious risk inherent in the practices of Nigerian traditional healers” because of “the continuous usage of unsterilized instruments and cross contamination of patients’ blood and body fluid in their practices.” Though Dr. Peters has continued to work with the healers, he said there was little financing to carry out H.I.V. sensitization campaigns directed at this group, so “such awful practices persist in Nigeria and Africa in general.” In much of rural Cameroon, tiny scars are made to identify members of different ethnic groups, with large numbers of children scarred simultaneously. “You see them everywhere, three lines on a cheek, on the forehead — the Pygmies make slashes between the eyebrows,” said Serge Florent Moudt, an H.I.V. educator who works at the center in Yaoundé as well as in the West Province, his home. “It’s a real worry.” If just one child in a village had H.I.V., a common blade could spread the virus to dozens who come after him. The same is true for group circumcisions. “There are traditionally African aspects of this fight,” said Jean Stéphane Biatcha, executive secretary of African Synergy, an AIDS prevention group. “We’re taking the message to rural areas where traditions are very strong, and you have to work carefully and slowly.” Another traditional practice that government officials acknowledge could be spreading H.I.V. is communal breast-feeding, the norm in many rural villages. Polygamy is legal in Cameroon, and a chieftain might have 30 or 40 wives, Mr. Biatcha said, because wealthy men routinely marry the wives of male relatives who have died. It is common for the wives — or even friends — to help out by nursing each other’s infants. In fact, it is an essential service if a mother has to go to work or take a trip into the city. But again, in a country where studies have found that 11 percent of women of child-bearing age are infected with H.I.V., the practice presents an open conduit for childhood infections. Mr. Biatcha said people were generally unaware of such risks, so the first step was information. In the last few years, an increasing number of medical doctors have warmed to collaborating with the traditional healers, to encourage safe practice and to use them as AIDS educators. “We have to open a dialogue with the traditional healers,” said Dr. Mills, the epidemiologist. “They may well be spreading H.I.V., but instead they could be part of the solution.”

Africa
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
Nursing of Infants
Children and Youth
Babies
Sociology
Medicine and Health
Doctors
Cameroon


Pennsylvania: Health Costs Imposed on Teachers

Abstract: Philadelphia teachers vowed to fight a sudden move by the district Monday that cancels their union contract and requires them to start paying health premiums of $55 to $140 a month. District leaders said there was nothing else to cut after years of funding woes that have prompted nearly $1 billion in cuts that include the loss of 5,000 positions and the closing of 30 schools. Both Superintendent William R. Hite and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president, Jerry Jordan, along with Mayor Michael Nutter, agreed that the problem lies in the state funding formula for education. But Mr. Hite nonetheless backed Monday’s decision, saying the money would yield more than $50 million a year. The announcement came at a brief, hastily called meeting of the School Reform Commission. Mr. Jordan called the process cowardly. The health care change and other benefit cuts will start in December. Mr. Jordan said a court challenge was likely.

K-12 Education
Teachers
Health Insurance
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers
Michael A Nutter
Medicine and Health
Philadelphia


Manhattan: Four Pedestrians Struck by Car

Abstract: The driver of a Honda Civic lost control of the car for an entire block just south of Union Square last evening and struck four pedestrians, one of whom was critically injured, the police said. The car was traveling south on Broadway shortly before 6 p.m. when it hit a man crossing Broadway at East 12th Street, throwing him against the windshield. The car then swerved onto the sidewalk, slamming another man against a diner window and shattering the glass over him. It then hit two women before it came to a stop at a lamppost on East 11th Street. All the victims were taken to Beth Israel Medical Center, with the man who had been thrown against the window in critical condition and the others in stable condition, the authorities said. The driver, who was not identified, said she hit the accelerator instead of the brake pedal, the police said. No charges were filed immediately, the police said, but the investigation was continuing.

Accidents and Safety
Automobiles
Manhattan (NYC)


Faith in Granola Earned Its Makers Millions

Abstract: NORWALK One morning almost five years ago, Stew Leonard Jr. found Kelly Flatley and Brendan Synnott sitting in the lobby of his mega-store in Norwalk holding a tray with their Bear Naked granola cereal, milk and a banana. After tasting it, he ordered 20 cases on the spot. It was a big break for Ms. Flatley and Mr. Synnott, 20-somethings from Darien, who had to spend the night baking enough granola to fill the order. So when Mr. Leonard heard that Ms. Flatley and Mr. Synnott had sold Bear Naked to the Kashi subsidiary of the Kellogg Company in a $122-million deal late last year that included Kellogg’s purchase of Gardenburger, he was thrilled. “Everybody was cheering for Kelly and Brendan,” he said about the friends who grew up together and who he said showed passion and willingness to work hard. “Everybody’s happy for them and what they’ve done.” In a short time, they took their business of hand-baking granola overnight at the Rowayton Market to producing more than 40,000 pounds a day, and $65 million in sales in 2007. Its stunning growth and success has been celebrated in Fairfield County, especially in Darien, where it began; Norwalk, where the company is headquartered; and Stamford, where the kitchen is. There’s the big sign on the side of their headquarters next to the Yankee Doodle Bridge in Norwalk, the playful slogan “Do you get bear naked?” and the metro-chic plastic bags with the sleek bear-claw logo. Even though nearly 90 jobs will be lost from the sale of the company and the relocation of its production facility, Ms. Flatley and Mr. Synnott seemed to have generated enough good will that the community is still cheering them. “We became really familiar faces with people, and I think that was powerful,” said Ms. Flatley, 28. She and Mr. Synnott began placing Ms. Flatley’s granola in local markets during the summer of 2002. They spent enormous time in each of those markets as well as at community and sporting events — handing out samples and talking to customers, asking what they could do better, and learning the retail ropes from store managers. “People weren’t used to products coming alive,” Ms. Flatley said. “We wanted to make ourselves accessible because we wanted to let people know that there was really a face behind the product.” Mr. Synnott, 29, a hyperkinetic former high school quarterback, said he knew it was impossible to tackle the big cereal companies on their playing field, so taking the local retail and marketing route was essential. “We had no other way of introducing our product to people,” he said. “I could never win just advertising against Kellogg’s. “For us it was about those one-on-one interactions.” And people responded. “You’d see people in the stores and they’d be like, ‘Brendan, I opened up this package and your tear notch came a little bit undone, and then I bought another package to check it out and that one did it too. Thought you’d want to know,’” Mr. Synnott recalled. “And we were always willing to listen.” That willingness, by many accounts, was critical in the company’s success, and another way it endeared itself to the community. Mr. Synnott and Ms. Flatley took advantage of the area’s business elite to learn how to expand a company, turning to friends like James Ozanne of Darien, a longtime financial services executive whose son had played grade school baseball with Mr. Synnott. “They’re gracious, and they welcome advice, and they care about people,” said Mr. Ozanne, who spent many hours schooling Mr. Synnott in the details of capital, cash flow and business planning. “You feel very proud of them because in some way you touched their lives.” But for some lives that were touched, the future is suddenly uncertain. Kellogg’s plans to close the production plant by the end of this year. Its 48 employees will receive severance packages. Of the 40 employees in the Norwalk office, Mr. Synnott and Ms. Flatley are under contract to Kellogg’s until Feb.1. The remaining employees will be given opportunities to apply for positions at Kellogg’s, but with no guarantees. They do have valuable stock options that Mr. Synnott and Ms. Flatley put in place to cushion the blow of a sale. Their plan was always to build the company and then sell it. “That’s the price of success,” said Michael Freithmuth, Stamford’s director of economic development, who noted that Mr. Synnott and Ms. Flatley were frequent contributors to community functions. “We can absorb the people and get a new business in the building,” he said “But the thing that’s hard to measure and hard to quantify for the general public is how do you replace that community contribution?” Chris Mears, 27, who grew up in Darien with Mr. Synnott and Ms. Flatley and was their first employee, said he did not view the sale in terms of a job lost. “I helped build and grow a company and had amazing business experience,” said Mr. Mears, now based in Denver as the central region sales director. “It’s something I couldn’t have bought for $100,000 getting an M.B.A. I couldn’t be more thankful.” Mr. Synott said, “It’s always fun to be a part of something that is a great ride.”

Retail Stores and Trade
Kellogg Company
Bear Naked
Leonard Stew Jr


A Review of ‘Other Desert Cities’ at the John W. Engeman Theater

Abstract: It is often bad news for a family when one of its members decides to write a memoir, since the focus is likely to be a miserable childhood or a calamitous event the others would rather forget. The Wyeth family at the center of Jon Robin Baitz’s crackling “Other Desert Cities,” now at the John W. Engeman Theater at Northport , faces that unwelcome situation. The adult daughter, Brooke, has returned home on Christmas Eve 2004 to announce that she has written a book, soon to be published, about her older brother, who committed suicide years ago after a tragic episode related to his radical left-wing activism. Her parents, Lyman and Polly, upstanding Republicans and longtime friends of Ron and Nancy (Reagan, that is), are horrified. Her younger brother, who produces a vacuous but popular television show, prefers to avoid strife in favor of seeking happiness or at least comfort and calm. Her aunt, Silda Grauman, an aging hippie who lives with Brooke’s parents, reveals more than a little glee over the developments. For the Engeman, presenting a contemporary drama — even one that has many funny moments and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, as is the case here — is a departure from its usual fare of tried-and-true musicals and plays. Taking the risk, Richard T. Dolce, the director and also the theater’s producing artistic director, has succeeded in shaping a production that is both well acted and in some ways more engrossing than the 2011 Broadway incarnation (which sometimes failed to hold my interest, though others did not respond the same way). He has found a clear — though still artfully nuanced — path through a sticky domestic mire. Thanks to an excellent performance by Joy Franz as Polly, the steely matriarch is the fascinating fulcrum of the play. She is both bitterly forthright in her opposition to her daughter’s project and endlessly amusing in expressing herself about anything that catches her attention: “This water needs vodka for flavor,” she mutters (at 8 in the morning). Speaking disapprovingly of Brooke’s ex-husband, she calls him “too old and too British,” which she sees as the same thing. “They’re all so old, the Brits, even the children,” she adds. Polly is very smart, but not exactly the warm and nurturing mother most children want. You can see where Brooke, who is not all that sympathetic either, got her manipulative, headstrong habits. Brooke has arrived at her parents’ house, an upscale retreat in the desert resort city of Palm Springs, Calif., to ask for their blessing on her book, though she seems intent on going ahead with it no matter what they say. Despite her adamant stand, Brooke — who lives in Sag Harbor, as it happens — is supposed to be a bruised young woman, suffering from depression and filled with rage. Nancy Lemenager, who plays Brooke, is a bit too perky for the role, though she is able to break through on occasion to show moments of weakness. Image Ms. Lemenager, left, is Brooke, the adult daughter, and Ms. Franz is Polly, her mother. Credit Michael DeCristofaro She does this best in the scenes in which Brooke interacts privately with her father, with whom she has a warmer relationship. Phillip Clark is engaging as Lyman, a former movie star who turned to politics. Mr. Clark looks and acts the part, smooth and soothing, until Lyman can no longer suppress his disappointment and anger at his daughter’s betrayal. Brooke’s younger brother and her aunt are more peripheral to the action. Christopher Bolan makes a strong impression, however, as Trip Wyeth, whose reality TV show is set in a fake courtroom (like “Judge Judy”) and often involves family disputes — perhaps one cleverly coincidental twist too many in Mr. Baitz’s zippy script. Joan Porter is less successful as Silda, a brittle recovering alcoholic who has her own agenda. In a role that won a Tony for Judith Light, Ms. Porter barely registers. When she does, it is as little more than a would-be standup comedian. The production, however, is sturdy enough not to be derailed, and may even benefit from a more streamlined view of the family dynamic. This is a play in which production values matter, partly because appearances are important to most of the characters. Shopping bags from Neiman Marcus and other pricey stores are part of the scenery. Fortunately, Jonathan Collins has designed a glossy living room for the Wyeths, in which every element is uniformly muted, top-quality and color-coordinated, even the Christmas tree that bears only carefully spaced silver and gold balls. Tricia Barsamian has costumed the characters in equally apt casual-chic clothing, including Silda’s, which is said to come from Loehmann’s. And Mark Adam Rampmeyer, the hair and makeup artist, has made them look as polished as their surroundings.

Theater
John W. Engeman Theater
Northport NY
Joy Franz
Joan Porter
Long Island
Phillip Clark
Christopher Bolan
Jon Robin Baitz


The White Wines of Channing Daughters

Abstract: Channing Daughters, in Bridgehampton, specializes in venturesome whites with complex scents and flavors that shift as the wines are being drunk. Take the winery’s versatile 2008 Mosaico ($29), composed of pinot grigio, chardonnay , sauvignon blanc, muscat ottonel, tocai Friulano and gewürztraminer. These grapes were farmed, harvested, pressed and fermented together on the estate. The result is a perfumed, savory dry mélange for casual sipping. It displays its swirling accents best when slightly cool. James Christopher Tracy, the winemaker, assembled his dry 2008 Meditazione ($40) from sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, tocai Friulano, muscat ottonel and pinot grigio. Their proportions differ from those in Mosaico, as does the barrel treatment of the wine. This bold, gold-colored blend is inspired by so-called vino da meditazione — meditation wine — in Italy. It should be drunk after meals, and cool, so that its flavors can best be experienced alone, not influenced by food. The latest vintage is eccentric, mesmerizing and provocative. Austere, smoky and spicy, it is redolent of sherry and pencil shavings and tastes of apricots, baked apple, tangerine peel and honey. Mr. Tracy’s dry 2008 Cuvée Tropical ($18) is a succulent pleasure. The recipe is 92 percent chardonnay and 8 percent muscat ottonel; purchased North Fork fruit was used. The wine’s winsome muscat scent and flavor are heightened by the musqué clone of chardonnay. Soft and piquant, it is redolent of figs. New releases include a flavor-drenched red, 2008 Rosso Fresco ($18), also made from bought North Fork fruit. It consists of merlot , syrah, petit verdot and dornfelder, a grape native to Germany. The wine is smooth and a bit pleasingly funky, and tastes somewhat like dark cherries. It is intended for casual drinking. About 10 minutes’ chilling adds to its bounce.


Pakistan: Polio Workers Attacked

Abstract: Gunmen riding a motorcycle shot and killed a police officer protecting polio workers during a United Nations-backed vaccination campaign in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, the police said. The attack took place as dozens of polio workers were going door to door to vaccinate children in Gullu Dheri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Officer Izhar Shah said, adding, “The anti-polio drive in that village has been suspended.” Some Islamic militants oppose the vaccination campaign, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the United States and claiming that the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile. Pakistan is one of the few remaining places where polio is still rampant. Suspicion of vaccination campaigns has increased since the C.I.A. used a hepatitis vaccination campaign to try to collect blood samples from Osama bin Laden’s family in 2011 to confirm his location.

Polio
Murders
Pakistan
Attacks on Police
Vaccines Immunization


Dwyane Wade Shows Knicks What They’re Missing

Abstract: MIAMI — Weary of discussing the future, determined to focus on the present, the Knicks kept trying to change the subject on Wednesday. But every conversation eventually drifted back to the same subject, to Dwyane Wade. By next July, the Knicks will have an elaborate campaign of videos, fancy dinners and celebrity guests lined up to woo Wade out of South Beach. Signing him away from the Miami Heat will surely be a challenge, but not nearly as difficult as dealing with him on the court. Wade, the N.B.A.’s scoring champion last season, was typically brilliant Wednesday night and led the Heat to a season-opening 115-93 rout of the Knicks. No one needed any reminder of what Wade can do for a team, or how badly the Knicks need a player of his caliber. It was all spelled out over four quarters. Wade carved up the Knicks’ defense with penetration and passing, finishing with 26 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds. Two teammates also hit the 20-point mark: Jermaine O’Neal (22) and Michael Beasley (21). “Dwyane Wade is Dwyane Wade,” Knicks Coach Mike D’Antoni sighed. The only encouraging sign for the Knicks was a breakout performance by Danilo Gallinari, their 2008 lottery pick , who had a career-high 22 points off the bench. Playing his first regular-season game since having back surgery last spring, Gallinari started slowly and struggled everywhere but behind the 3-point arc. He dazzled late in the game and finished 7 of 14 from the field. His seven 3-pointers were also a career best. David Lee had 22 points and 9 rebounds for the Knicks. Al Harrington scored 15 points, but went 5 for 14 from the field. The game was close until the final minutes of the second quarter, when a series of Knicks miscues allowed the Heat to pull away. O’Neal and Wade scored on consecutive fast-break dunks, after a Chris Duhon turnover and a blown dunk by Harrington, and O’Neal followed with another dunk to make it a 10-point game. Miami kept up the pace after halftime, opening the third quarter with a 17-2 run that blew the game open. The lead was 23 points by the middle of the third and 31 points by the final minute of the quarter. “It’s something that we’ve been talking about in the preseason — you can’t get down when teams go on runs,” Duhon said. “We let what happened in the last two minutes of the first half still affect us. It just carried over and we weren’t able to overcome it.” Quentin Richardson, the former Knick, helped fuel the surge with a 3-pointer, which he celebrated with a playful stare at the Knicks bench. Miami did most of the damage in the paint. Beasley and Wade scored on consecutive layups, and Wade twice found O’Neal for uncontested dunks. After spending much of the preseason talking about defense, the Knicks played little of it. Miami made 56.6 percent of its field goals and scored 42 points in the paint. The Knicks’ offense was not much better. Nate Robinson missed all eight of his shots. Wilson Chandler went 7 for 18. Only Lee consistently found the basket, going 9 for 13. But he scored just 7 points after halftime. “It’s discouraging,” Harrington said, “because we feel like we’ve gotten better. And we did get better. I just think that offensively we allowed our offense to affect our defense tonight.” Before the Knicks faced Wade, they had to deal with the specter of Wade. The team is holding salary-cap space next summer for Wade or LeBron James, and the anticipation has overshadowed discussion of the new season. “This will be one of the last times I address this,” D’Antoni, sounding unusually testy, said at the morning shootaround, “because it’s not important, it’s not what we think about and it’s not what the team thinks about. You guys can buzz all you want, because you have to fill up airwaves, but it has nothing to do with anything.” D’Antoni added, “We’re ready to go now and we’re in the present tense.” By the end of the night, the present was not a pleasant topic either. REBOUNDS Chris Mullin, who is often rumored as a potential front-office addition for the Knicks, spoke at length with the team president Donnie Walsh before the game. Mullin said he was “happily and healthily taking a sabbatical” and had not considered his next career move. He said his conversation with Walsh was purely social. Mullin was fired last spring by the Golden State Warriors. He was in town Wednesday to attend the jersey retirement of Tim Hardaway, his former teammate with the Warriors. Darko Milicic bruised his left knee early in the fourth quarter and limped off the court. The injury is not considered serious.


Japan: Jets Scrambled Near Okinawa

Abstract: Japanese fighter jets scrambled on Wednesday after a Chinese military plane flew through international airspace near Okinawa, Japan’s defense minister said. The Chinese early-warning plane flew between Okinawa and the smaller island of Miyako toward the Pacific and then passed between the islands again to return to China, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters. He said it was the first time that a Chinese military plane had flown between the islands, though Chinese warships frequently sail between them to reach the Pacific. The episode comes amid a lingering dispute between the two countries over islands they both claim, and amid what appears to be a semiofficial campaign in China to question Japan’s rule of Okinawa, part of an island chain that had paid monetary tribute to imperial China.

Japan
China
Military aircraft
Ryukyu Islands
Military
International relations


Booz Allen to Sell Part of Its Government Unit to Carlyle

Abstract: Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm, said on Friday that it would sell a majority stake in its government practice to the private equity firm Carlyle Group for $2.54 billion. The sale is part of a broader split of Booz Allen’s commercial and government consulting groups. Booz Allen has a hand in sensitive projects, including helping NASA build the International Space Station. Simultaneous with Carlyle’s investment, Booz Allen’s commercial business will become a stand-alone company, which will be owned and operated by its officers. The transaction is likely to rekindle questions about Carlyle’s power and influence in Washington, an issue that the firm has sought to put to rest in the last several years. It asked members of the bin Laden family to divest themselves of their interests in the firm and took former President George H. W. Bush and a former prime minister of Britain, John Major, off its payroll. Carlyle also reduced its holdings in the aerospace and defense industries, from a peak of about 20 percent of its overall portfolio in the 1990s to about 6 percent today, according to the firm. The transaction must meet shareholder and regulatory approvals, and is expected to close by the end of the year. Booz Allen is a private company that is owned by its partners.

Booz Allen Hamilton
Carlyle Group
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Consultants
Politics and Government


Remains Offer U.S. a Path Back Into Myanmar

Abstract: MYITKYINA, Myanmar — In the fog-swathed mountains north of here toward the border with China, more than 700 American airmen, flying cumbersome cargo planes loaded with war supplies, perished in the last stages of World War II . Now, as relations improve between the United States and Myanmar, then known as Burma, the Pentagon is seeking permission from the Burmese to recover the remains of the lost Americans scattered over some of the toughest terrain in Southeast Asia. The spots where the planes crashed are so well hidden that even on a bus journey along part of the Ledo Road that American forces hacked through the jungle, residents pointed to the horizon, saying, “Over there,” or “Far from here,” when asked for exact locations of the crash sites. Historically, the United States has tried to repair relations with former enemies by requesting permission to recover the remains of Americans listed as missing in action or prisoners of war. That practice allows two opposing militaries to meet over humanitarian issues, rather than security matters, and offers Americans an opportunity to enter previously forbidden territory that over time may become more welcoming. Some of the first official postwar contacts with Vietnam developed a decade after the end of the fighting when the American and Vietnamese militaries began tentative cooperation that gradually strengthened as the search for missing American soldiers progressed. The Pentagon had reached out to North Korea for help in recovering the remains of American soldiers missing in action from the Korean War, but that plan was canceled last month after North Korea announced its intention to launch the rocket that broke apart after takeoff Friday. A deputy assistant secretary of defense, Robert Newberry, visited Myanmar in February to start negotiations for operations that would allow American military officials and forensic experts to excavate crash sites, and carry any remains discovered back to the United States. Efforts in 2003 and 2004 yielded only modest results and stirred some anger. On two separate missions, American teams began the search for remains at crash sites around Myitkyina, but made little headway before Myanmar’s political climate soured and they had to leave, said Johnie E. Webb Jr., deputy to the commander of the Joint P.O.W./M.I.A. Accounting Command of the Department of Defense in Hawaii. The headquarters for renewed operations could well be here again in Myitkyina, the town that American forces led by Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell captured after mastering some of the most grueling territory of the war in the summer of 1944, Mr. Webb said. The fight to take Myitkyina, now a bustling commercial center with growing Chinese influence, was undertaken, in large part, to help the American airmen who had to fly far to the north to evade Japanese artillery clustered around the town. But the more northern route took the planes over the Himalayas — or “The Hump,” as it was known during the war. With only rudimentary navigation equipment in the C-47 cargo planes, the pilots essentially flew by the seat of their pants. An estimated 180 American aircraft and about 730 airmen were lost, Mr. Webb said. The cargo planes, with crews of two or three, ferried supplies from allied bases in India to China, where General Stilwell was trying to persuade an obstinate Gen. Chiang Kai-shek to fight the Japanese rather than the Communist forces of Mao Zedong. American bombers, with crews of 9 to 11 men, sent on missions against the Japanese also crashed into the jungle. Howa Zau Gam, 84, a member of the Kachin ethnic group in Myanmar, fought alongside the Americans against the Japanese. In an interview at his home in Myitkyina, he said he would be happy to assist in a renewed recovery effort. “It is my duty to help because the Americans liberated us from the Japanese and the British colonials,” he said, in the flawless English that he used as a young man when he gathered intelligence and interpreted for the American ground forces. A certificate on Mr. Howa’s living room wall, signed by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, noted that he had been among 400 Kachin rangers who had fought 700 Japanese soldiers in a 12-hour battle. The Japanese, according to the citation, were supported by artillery, but the Kachin killed 281 of the enemy, losing only seven of their own fighters. The attempts in 2003 and 2004 at finding the remains of some of the downed airmen were fraught with problems, Mr. Howa said. Wrecked planes were found at three or four sites, but the local workers who had guided the Americans there were underpaid by a Burmese middleman and became disgruntled, hindering the efficiency and success of the operations, Mr. Howa said. In one instance, the Americans were led astray by the guides and sifted sand around a wrecked plane that had already been examined at the end of the war, he said. In all, the remains of seven Americans were returned to their relatives after the 2004 operation, Mr. Webb said. The chances of identifying many more through recovered bones, teeth or gear are quite good, he said. The soil in Myanmar is not as acidic as it is in Vietnam, where forensic specialists sometimes struggled to identify the fragments they found, Mr. Webb said. Even so, more than 900 sets of remains of missing American service members from the Vietnam War have been returned to their families, he said. The intense tropical heat in northern Myanmar is not necessarily an obstacle. In Papua New Guinea, where American servicemen died in mountainous, humid jungles, remains unearthed by Pentagon teams were quite well preserved, Mr. Webb said. An unofficial effort to recover remains , led by an American, Clayton Kuhles, has unearthed six crash sites of American planes around Myitkyina, Mr. Kuhles said in a telephone interview. Mr. Kuhles, who worked with Kachin guides, porters and interpreters, said that he believed there were remains of American fliers at the locations, and that he was in touch with the Pentagon about further exploration. Although the previous decade’s searches for American remains were supposed to pave the way to better relations with Myanmar, that did not turn out to be the case. In an effort to honor the American servicemen who died in the ground battles in northern Myanmar, a Burmese sculptor cast a statue of an American soldier with a Kachin guide at the request of American veterans of the war, Mr. Howa said. The intention was to place it in Myitkyina, where several memorials to Japanese fighters have been erected with the permission of Myanmar’s authorities. But in 2004, during an especially fraught period in the diplomatic relationship between Myanmar and the United States, the statue was deemed unsuitable for public display. The sculptor had to flee the country, fearing persecution from Myanmar’s army, Mr. Howa said. The life-size statue is now sequestered behind the walls of the American Embassy in Yangon, waiting for the kind of reconciliation between the United States and Myanmar that would allow it to be unveiled in public in Myitkyina.


Manchester City Beats Aston Villa

Abstract: Carlos Tévez aided Manchester City’s flickering Premier League title defense by scoring in a 1-0 win at Aston Villa on Monday. Second-place City stayed 12 points behind Manchester United with 10 games left.

Soccer
Aston Villa Soccer Team
Manchester City Soccer Team
Jay DeMerit