As Goals Decline, Calls for Change Increase

Abstract: N.H.L. general managers took a big step last week toward ending the goal drought that has afflicted their league for more than a decade, voting unanimously to push for the downsizing of overgrown goalie equipment. Now it depends on whether they actually follow through. The decision, made at the general managers’ annual meetings in Florida, came amid the usual flurry of radical proposals aimed at increasing scoring. The most extreme involved enlarging the size of the nets, which have been six feet wide and four feet high since at least 1911. The N.H.L.’s deputy commissioner, Bill Daly, hinted that such proposals could be adopted if the equipment crackdown failed. Speaking to ESPN, he called it “kind of one last try to try and do something about this, and if they’re not able to do that, they’re going to look at what else they can do — more dramatic changes.” No new equipment guidelines were announced, but they are expected for next season. The league had made efforts at halting the growth of goalie gear before, limiting the width of leg pads to 12 inches in 1998 and their length to 38 inches in 2003. It also tried to control the size of catching gloves. Nevertheless, new padding with extra ridges and protrusions continues to appear, and only rarely are goalies asked to make changes. The most recent case involved Vancouver goalie, Roberto Luongo, who was ordered this month to remove flaps that protruded from his leg pads. Other goalies have similar flaps jutting from their pads, while some have vast shoulder and chest pads, but so far no orders have been issued to remove them. Most hockey historians cite the growth of gear as the main reason for the steady drop in scoring that began in the early 1990s, when goalies started to bloat to Michelin Man proportions. As the average save percentage rose from .881 in 1990 to .906 in 1999, the average number of goals plummeted from about 7.25 a game to about 5.25. Today the average save percentage is .908, and only about 5.2 goals are scored in regulation. The new push to return goalie equipment to more reasonable proportions — if it is carried out — could represent the last chance for hockey to preserve the only thing to have survived all the tinkering the game has been subjected to over the years: the dimensions of the goal itself. “If we can’t get this right, then we have to sit down and look at the alternatives — and obviously bigger nets is one of the alternatives,” Detroit General Manager Ken Holland told The Canadian Press. “That’s something I don’t really think anybody wants to do. Our hope is to get the goalie equipment right.” Black-and-Blue Captains Two high-profile captains may return to the ice this week from injury, but one more was lost to his team. Joe Sakic, 38, was practicing and anticipated returning to the Avalanche as soon as Sunday night. He is coming off a hernia operation. Sakic, a future Hall of Famer, last played Nov. 30, and his reappearance would be a mighty jolt for a Colorado team struggling to make the playoffs. Sidney Crosby has been skating for two weeks after being out of the Pittsburgh lineup since Jan. 18 with a high ankle sprain. When he will return to the lineup is still uncertain. The Penguins have been in good hands, though. Evgeni Malkin has been on a scoring binge since Crosby was hurt. At the end of last week, Malking overtook Alex Ovechkin for the league scoring lead. In Crosby’s absence, the Penguins were vying for first place in the Eastern Conference. The news was not as good for the Red Wings. They lost Nicklas Lidstrom, a defenseman who has won the Norris Trophy five times, to a right knee injury. Lidstrom, 37, said Wednesday that he expected to miss three weeks. Don’t Count Out the Blues After skidding through January winning only 4 of 12 games, the St. Louis Blues appeared to be sinking toward the Western Conference abyss. Now, after winning four of six, they are back in the race. Stellar goaltending from Manny Legace and a rejuvenated power play have helped resurrect the Blues for the stretch run. St. Louis polished off Columbus and Chicago early last week by 5-1 scores, and the power play, dreadful for most of the season, clicked for 6 goals in 13 chances. “We’ve had those chances all year, it just hasn’t gone in for us,” Blues Coach Andy Murray told St. Louis Blues Online. “I don’t know what the difference is. We’re not doing anything different, we’re not teaching anything different. Pucks are just going in for us right now.” Gainey’s Big Week It was a busy week for Bob Gainey. Besides attending the general managers meetings and getting caught up in the frenzy ahead of the Feb. 26 trade deadline, on Wednesday he watched his Montreal Canadiens overcome a 5-0 deficit to tie the Rangers, 5-5, then win in a shootout — the biggest comeback victory in Canadiens history. And on Saturday night, Gainey received one of the greatest laurels of them all: the Canadiens retired his sweater number, 23. Gainey skated onto the ice in full uniform, drawing gasps from the capacity crowd at Bell Centre. He bore down at one point as if he was pursuing a phantom opponent before jamming down both skate blades to make a hard stop at center ice. “I learned something new tonight,” Gainey told the crowd moments later. “I learned I’m more comfortable now with a shirt and tie than in hockey equipment.” He became the 14th Canadien to have his sweater raised to the rafters. During his 16-year playing career, all with Montreal, Gainey won five Stanley Cups, one Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs’ most valuable player, and the first four Selke Trophies as the league’s best defensive forward. The ceremony came 15 months after Gainey’s daughter Laura was lost at sea; a wave swept her off the deck of a sailboat. (AP)

Hockey Ice
National Hockey League
Athletics and Sports


Cable Wars Are Killing Objectivity

Abstract: Apparently there is an ingredient in tea that causes hysteria when given to cable news anchors. How else to explain the coverage of the tax day tea parties on Wednesday, which was the day when we procrastinators finally mailed the check to the feds? The movement — if that’s what it is — was spawned by a rant on Feb. 19 from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange during a live report by the CNBC reporter — if that’s what he is — Rick Santelli, suggesting that it was time to organize a “tea party” to protest government spending on failed mortgages. The cable news networks took it from there. Fox News, after running more than 100 promos about its coverage of the event, which did a pretty effective job of marketing them at the same time, had wall-to-wall coverage on the anointed day and dispatched four of its leading hosts around the country to perform a kind of hybrid task, covering events that they also seemed to be leading. And in the increasingly politicized environment between the covered and coverers, Susan Roesgen of CNN, covering a tax protest in Chicago, could not have been more contemptuous of the people she was interviewing, shaking her finger at them and shouting them down. In a move that I’m sure freaked out her bosses, she suggested that the protests were “antigovernment, anti-CNN.” Rachel Maddow of MSNBC frantically belittled the rhetoric and motives of those involved in the tea party events, even as she spent oodles of air time on the rallies. Cable news stations have been criticized for “event-izing” all manner of minor news occurrences — President Obama’s first news conference comes to mind. But the Tax Day Tea Party was all but conceived, executed and deconstructed in the hothouse of cable news wars. It used to be that cable networks would dispatch reporters to the same event and then head back to the studio where shouters from various sides would have it out. Now, in a kind of Hearstian twist, the news media are supplying both the pictures and the war. “Bring your kids and experience history,” Glenn Beck advised on Fox News as he invited people to join him at the Alamo for a tax day protest, because, he said, “our kids are being sold into slavery.” It was a kind of al fresco Howard Beale moment, an opportunity to gather in a group and shout about very real rage — these are scary times for all working people — that is nonetheless inchoate and unnameable. The burden being placed on the American economy and future generations is a significant issue — according to fivethirtyeight.com , more than 300,000 people attended rallies in 346 cities — but the event that gave voice to those concerns was far from spontaneous. The numbers that drove the fervor are not the kind that appear on a 1040 form. Last Wednesday night from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., Fox News had an average of almost 3.4 million viewers, up more than a million compared with its average in March. MSNBC got a bump as well, with 250,000 more viewers, while CNN was only slightly up. In a sense, we seem to be returning to the days of the party press, where news outlets reflected viewpoints of specific wings of political thought. So perhaps the invocation of an event that took place in 1773 is not that far off the mark. Even if the historic message of no taxation absent representation doesn’t really scan because the current president won election decisively in a free and open election, the Tea Act that drew the scorn of colonials was, at bottom, a bailout of the East India Company, which was close to bankruptcy after huge misadventures in India. With bankers thumbing rolls of federal billions, the homage to the original Boston Tea Party was not quite a non sequitur. “The original tea party was something of a media event,” said Robert J. Allison, professor and chair of the history department at Suffolk University and author of “The Boston Tea Party.” “The papers at the time were very politicized and did a lot of campaigning during the run-up to the event.” He added: “When you think about it, they could have done worse than a bag of tea in terms of symbols. As a historian, I am charmed and fascinated that something that provoked the original revolution still has such resonance.” The tea references are not the problem. When a media company sets itself as the party of opposition, it can have unforeseen consequences. The theatrics make it hard to tell where talk of secession — the governor of Texas made a veiled threat — states’ rights and stringing up public officials transforms from hyperbole to reality. The president was likened to Hitler on various posters at rallies, and a sign in Lafayette Park read, “Stand Idle While Some Kenyan Destroys America? I Don’t Think So.” The Fox Business reporter Cody Willard got in the spirit of things covering a Boston rally by suggesting that conservatives and liberals were “both fascists who are taking my money and building up corporate America with my welfare.” You have to worry whether something that was intended to goose ratings and kick up debate could metastasize when it meets some of the baser urges of the fringe, among people who don’t come out to rallies but are sitting in a basement steeped in their own misanthropy. “Together, they will draw a line in the sand, here, where it was originally drawn, live, at the Alamo,” Mr. Beck said as Ted Nugent served up tasty guitar fills. Then Mr. Beck inveighed against Washington, the media, Democrats, Republicans, politicians — you know, everyone who was not standing there at the Alamo. It had all the earmarks of a stump speech, replete with soaring applause lines and calls to action. But let’s remember: the only thing Mr. Beck and the rest are running for is first place in the demo.

Taxation
Demonstrations and Riots
News and News Media
Cable Television
Fox News Channel
Cable News Network
CNBC
Santelli Rick
Maddow Rachel
Beck Glenn


Hurricane Sandy Alters Mayoral Campaigns in N.Y.C.

Abstract: This is when the New York City mayor’s race goes off script. After months spent preparing for a race about teacher evaluations, police tactics and other municipal mainstays, City Hall hopefuls are confronting a 2013 contest that has been rewritten, perhaps permanently, by the wrath of Hurricane Sandy . Candidates are facing questions on sea gates and tidal marshes, exotic topics that were never in their briefing books. The minutiae of federal disaster relief is suddenly in the headlines. And the lopsided impact of the storm has opened up a fresh set of class and interborough tensions to navigate and, in some cases, exploit. Aware that crises can be proving grounds for leaders, the candidates are brushing up, meeting with environmental consultants and financial experts. White papers are in the works on recovery and rebuilding efforts along the city’s wounded coastline. In interviews over the past week, the four leading Democratic candidates recalled harrowing tours of the city’s damaged neighborhoods, and emotional encounters with the newly homeless. But even as they comfort storm victims and pitch in with relief efforts, they are mindful that disasters offer potent political moments, chances to telegraph their values ahead of what could be a grueling campaign. Take Bill de Blasio , the city’s public advocate, who is running for mayor with a message of change, arguing that the advances of the Bloomberg years failed to extend to all corners of the city. “Right now, there’s a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ dynamic,” he said. In the days after Hurricane Sandy hit, Mr. de Blasio, from Park Slope, Brooklyn, took light towers into powerless parts of the Rockaways, where, he said, “people felt so profoundly insecure.” “People were literally grabbing me by the arm and saying, ‘Get help to us, no one’s paying attention,’ ” he recalled. Since the storm made landfall, he has repeatedly complained of inequity in the city’s response and suggested that any plans should include as many moral questions as practical ones. “You can look at this as ‘We need sea walls,’ or you can look at this as ‘We need to retool our approach for human security, economic security, for economic equity,’ ” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s another version of the larger contrast running through this city in general, where you’ve had, especially in recent years, some neighborhoods struggling and others doing very well.” Christine C. Quinn , the City Council speaker, whose Chelsea apartment lost power for four days, has focused more on the practical challenges left by the storm. She was the first candidate to deliver a major speech on Hurricane Sandy; in it, she encouraged the use of cutting-edge technology to limit damage from future storms. In scope and details, it evoked the approach of her political ally, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg , with whom she has worked to identify herself early in the campaign. “It’s the most important infrastructure project of our time,” Ms. Quinn said. The city, she added, needed leaders who could handle the details: “elected officials who can respond and react quickly when things happen on a scale beyond what they had anticipated.” Ms. Quinn was the only major Democratic contender who lost power in the storm, but she, like all the candidates, said her concerns were minor compared with those of people who live in low-lying areas. She noted that her Labrador-hound, Justin, enjoyed living in a darkened neighborhood for a few days, even if his owners did not. “I was like, ‘Justin, come on: focus, pee and get back in the house’,” she said, laughing. As it often does with Ms. Quinn, the personal overlaps with the political. She and her wife share a beach house in Bradley Beach, N.J., which escaped serious damage thanks to view-obstructing dunes the town built after a damaging hurricane in 1992 — a useful case study as New York prepares its own preventive measures. “People used to bust a little bit on Bradley because you couldn’t see the water from the Boardwalk,” Ms. Quinn said. “But the dunes did their job. They ended up on the Boardwalk, but they held the water back.” William C. Thompson Jr. , a former city comptroller, used Mr. Bloomberg’s early response to the storm to underscore his criticism of a leader he says can be distant and Manhattan-centric. Mr. Thompson attacked Mr. Bloomberg’s initial decision to allow the New York City Marathon to go on just days after the storm — a decision the mayor reversed. Mr. Thompson also said people in damaged areas complained of neglect. “It was heartbreaking, where there were people who days and days later felt the city had abandoned them, and really felt that people weren’t listening,” he said, recalling trips to Staten Island and southern Brooklyn. Voters and storm victims alike, Mr. Thompson said, are looking for a mayor “who can represent the entire city.” Mr. Thompson plans to emphasize his background in municipal finance as a critical skill in working out how to pay for the city’s recovery costs. His campaign is preparing papers on the topic, and he said he planned to consult with Richard Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor who once helped stabilize the finances of the city’s transit system. The only Democratic candidate who is not now an elected official, Mr. Thompson used his own car to get around the city immediately after the storm. At one point, he said, running low on gas, he waited two hours at a station in Harlem, near his home. The current comptroller, John C. Liu , is also planning a populist campaign for mayor, but, in an interview, he emphasized the good deeds he saw in the days after Hurricane Sandy, “the best of the human spirit shining through,” as he put it. He said he wished there had been more attention paid to the efforts of charities, like the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation , which distributed prepaid debit cards to storm victims. “I was at many of the distribution efforts — people were in tears, tears of joy,” he said. “They didn’t believe that someone would give them assistance with no hassles.” Mr. Liu suggested that volunteers had had to make up for an inadequate response from the city. But he generally demurred on speaking about the storm in a political light. “Honestly, I have not thought of it in the prism of the campaign,” Mr. Liu said. “We’ll wait until the actual election year before we get started on that.”

Hurricane Sandy (2012)
Elections Mayors
Disasters and Emergencies
Thompson William C Jr
Quinn Christine C
Bloomberg Michael R
de Blasio Bill
Liu John C
New York City


Turkey Says Hitler Comment by President Erdogan Was ‘Distorted’

Abstract: ISTANBUL — Turkey issued a statement on Friday saying that comments by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — in which he cited Hitler in response to a question about whether a strong presidency was possible in Turkey — had been misinterpreted. Mr. Erdogan, who is pushing to imbue the largely ceremonial presidency with sweeping executive powers, told reporters late Thursday that “there are already examples in the world.” “You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany,” he said. Mr. Erdogan did not elaborate, but his comparison to Hitler drew immediate criticism because of what many view as his increasing authoritarianism. His comment also raised the question of why the leader of one of the world’s most influential countries, an American ally and member of NATO, would mention Hitler in the context of his own tenure. On Friday, the office of the presidency said, “Erdogan’s ‘Hitler’s Germany metaphor’ has been distorted by media outlets and has been used in the opposite sense.” It said Mr. Erdogan had used the example to demonstrate that an executive presidency does not depend on a federal system of government. “If the system is abused, it may lead to bad management resulting in disasters as in Hitler’s Germany,” the statement said. “The important thing is to pursue fair management that serves the nation.” Image Mr. Erdogan. The president's office said his comment was misinterpreted. Credit Pool photo by Yasin Bulbul Mr. Erdogan became Turkey’s first popularly elected president in August 2014, having dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade as prime minister. Since assuming the new post, he has aggressively campaigned to rewrite the Turkish Constitution and establish an executive system of government. His consolidation of power has had a potent effect on Turkey. Critics say Mr. Erdogan’s comments denigrating opponents as terrorists or traitors have helped polarize the country. A government crackdown on dissent — including a campaign of intimidation against the opposition news media, with a mob of his supporters attacking newspaper offices before the November election — has raised concerns domestically and abroad about Turkey’s commitment to democracy. To change the Constitution, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, which regained its parliamentary majority in November, needs support from opposition parties. Last week, Turkey’s main opposition party said it would back some changes to an outdated Constitution, which was drawn up by the military after a 1980 coup, but it does not support an all-powerful presidential system envisioned by Mr. Erdogan. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition party, that a presidential system would not lead to a dictatorship. “What is right for Turkey is to adopt the presidential system in line with the democratic spirit,” he said in a television interview this week. “This system will not evolve into dictatorship, but if we do not have this spirit, even the parliamentary system can turn into this dictatorship.” In Turkey, reaction to Mr. Erdogan’s remarks was strong on social media. Comparing the president and Hitler, one person wrote on Twitter, “The difference is that Hitler was a bit shorter.” The post later appeared to have been deleted. People also shared an animated image of Mr. Erdogan’s face changing to Hitler’s.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Adolf Hitler
Turkey
Constitution


Iraq Bombings Shatter Lull

Abstract: BAGHDAD — Three bombings in Iraq on Thursday morning killed at least 25 people, including at least 3 American soldiers, in a second day of attacks aimed also at Iraqi police officers and members of American-allied Awakening Councils . The bombs raised the casualty toll in the country to more than 60 dead and 140 wounded during a 24-hour period as bombings in the country, which had been relatively calm for much of May, resumed ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of American combat forces by the end of June. Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations’ special representative in Iraq, made a rare public comment about the violence, releasing a statement calling the bombings “reprehensible crimes that have indiscriminately targeted ordinary Iraqis.” The three American soldiers were killed Thursday morning on patrol in Baghdad’s Dora district, a neighborhood in the southern part of the city controlled by Sunni insurgents until last year. Officials gave differing accounts: Iraqi military and police officials said a suicide bomber detonated near the patrol, and a statement from the American military said the soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device. Witnesses said that around 10 a.m., several American military vehicles stopped in front of a building in Dora that serves as the headquarters for a local Awakening Council. The Awakening groups, made up of tribal members and former Sunni insurgents now allied with American and Iraqi security forces, have become a primary target of Sunni insurgent groups, who view them as traitors. As the soldiers stood outside chatting with Awakening members, a bearded man dressed in a woman’s black floor-length cloak walked from an adjacent outdoor market and detonated explosives attached to his body, the witnesses said. The force of the explosion tore the man’s body apart, witnesses said, leaving his decapitated head on the pavement. “The scene was horrible,” said Abu Mohammed, 47, who had been shopping inside the market. “People were rushing in and out of the bomb site. Those rushing in were looking for their relatives or friends, those rushing out were escaping death.” Members of the Iraqi security forces in the neighborhood said American troops might have set a pattern making them vulnerable by regularly visiting the Awakening Council building once or twice each week. The United States military confirmed three deaths, while the Iraqi Army said four American soldiers had died. The explosion also killed at least 12 civilians and wounded 25 others, said a police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. Two weeks ago, a bomb placed in the bed of a pickup truck under sacks of potatoes exploded at a produce market in the same neighborhood, killing 10 people and wounding 37. Before this month, the Dora district had been mostly free of violence over the past year after many of the neighborhood’s insurgents joined Awakening Councils. About one hour before the Dora attack, a bomb placed inside a trash container at a Baghdad police station killed at least 2 police officers and wounded 20 other people, police officials said. Among the wounded at the police station in Al Mamoon district in central Baghdad was the station’s commander, said a police officer at the scene who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. An American soldier and at least 12 Iraqi police officers were also hurt, according to the Iraqi police. Witnesses said American troops often visited the police station between 9 and 10 a.m., when the attackers struck. The United States military did not immediately confirm the wounding of the soldier. Another bomb went off Thursday in Kirkuk, a restive city north of Baghdad, when eight members of an Awakening Council group were killed when a suicide bomber detonated himself among a group of men that had gathered to receive their paychecks, the police said. Nine other Awakening Council members were wounded. “I heard an explosion, and I saw my right hand stained with blood,” said Khalef Abdullah al-Jowli, a 35-year-old Awakening Council member wounded by flying shrapnel. “My friends and relatives were lying on the ground. Some were killed. Some were wounded.” On Thursday, the group had arrived in Kirkuk from two villages south of the city to collect monthly pay that was three months late, members of the group said. They placed blame for the attack on Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni insurgency group believed to have some foreign leaders. Iraqi security personnel, they said, had failed to protect them on their trip to Kirkuk, a violent city contested by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. “These terrorists couldn’t kill us when we were in our own neighborhood, but they killed us here in Kirkuk,” said Jabbar Hassan al-Reyashi, 24, who said his brother and two cousins had been killed in the blast. “We have been humiliated for a salary of no more than $220 a month,” he said. In an attack on Wednesday evening, a car bomb exploded near a popular restaurant in western Baghdad, killing 40 people and wounding 83 others.

United States Defense and Military Forces


Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Former U.N. Secretary General, Dies at 93

Abstract: Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian diplomat who led the United Nations in a chaotic 1990s tenure that began with hopes for peace after the Cold War, but failed to cope with genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia and ended in angry recriminations with Washington, died on Tuesday in an Egyptian hospital. He was 93. His death was confirmed by the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Ban later made a brief appearance before reporters at the United Nations, calling Mr. Boutros-Ghali “a memorable leader who rendered invaluable services to world peace and international order.” The website of Al Ahram, Egypt’s state-owned newspaper, said Mr. Boutros-Ghali died in a hospital in Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo, where he had been admitted a few days earlier with a broken leg. He and his wife, Leia Maria Boutros-Ghali, had no children, Egyptian diplomats said. A generation before violent protests boiled over in Cairo in 2011, Mr. Boutros-Ghali was a keystone of Egypt’s old-guard diplomacy, a senior minister to President Hosni Mubarak and to his slain predecessor, Anwar el-Sadat. He seemed to meet the tests of character and experience when, in 1992, he became the sixth secretary general of the United Nations, the first African and the first Arab to hold the post. The scion of a politically active Coptic Christian family, he accompanied Mr. Sadat on his historic olive-branch mission to Jerusalem in 1977, then played a pivotal role in the Camp David accords. He was at the White House when Mr. Sadat, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Jimmy Carter signed the 1979 treaty ending a 31-year state of war between Egypt and Israel, a breakthrough in the history of the Middle East conflict. Video Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former U.N. secretary general, died at the age of 93. His tenure was defined by tragedies in Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia as well as friction with the Clinton administration. Credit Credit Mike Segar/Reuters There were doubts among diplomats about Mr. Boutros-Ghali. Was he, at 69, too old for a five-year term? Could an Egyptian Arab who had favored a Palestinian state be evenhanded in the Middle East? He went out of his way to reassure Israel, and Arab and African endorsements helped overcome the first President George Bush’s misgivings. Strong-willed and independent, Mr. Boutros-Ghali took the helm determined to subdue aggression and pursue peace after the fall of Soviet Communism and a relaxation of East-West tensions that had long hamstrung the United Nations. He also resolved to attack the organization’s bloated bureaucracy and chronic money problems. But he faced daunting tasks. Civil wars in Somalia and the secessionist states of Yugoslavia had already begun. Murderous conflicts between Hutus and Tutsis were hurtling toward genocide in Rwanda. And 60,000 United Nations peacekeepers were already thinly posted in a dozen trouble spots, including Cambodia, El Salvador, Angola and Mozambique. Mr. Boutros-Ghali’s relations with the incoming Clinton administration were soured almost from the start in 1993 by foreign policy differences, political infighting and frictions between him and Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine K. Albright, who was Washington’s representative at the United Nations before succeeding Mr. Christopher at the State Department. In his memoir, “Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga” (1999), Mr. Boutros-Ghali said the Americans had told him where not to travel, whom to avoid meeting and what to say and not say in speeches, and also to avoid ruffling President Bill Clinton, whom he regarded as thin-skinned and indecisive, and to stay away from Congress and soft-pedal talk of America’s $1.3 billion debt to the United Nations . Video Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations praised the former secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, calling him a respected statesman and scholar. Even more than money, the United Nations needed American support for peacekeeping operations. But Mr. Boutros-Ghali said he had often been rebuffed when he tried to see the president and other officials to discuss what he called an “utterly confused” American foreign policy. Mr. Clinton had taken office trumpeting enthusiasm for multinational humanitarian and peacekeeping operations. But a disaster in Somalia shocked the administration into a policy reversal, and it shied away from future interventions, especially in Africa. American troops had entered Somalia in 1992 as part of a United Nations mission to feed starving victims of internal chaos. But when 18 Army Rangers were slain by warlord forces in 1993, and America saw searing images of a dead helicopter pilot dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, the United States withdrew its forces and retreated from risky United Nations missions, humanitarian or military. Thus America, like most other member states, tragically refrained from assisting a small, overwhelmed force of United Nations peacekeepers when Rwanda descended into genocidal slaughter and rape in 1994. Estimates varied widely, but the Rwandan government said 1.17 million people had been killed in 100 days. Mr. Clinton apologized years later for America’s inaction. Mr. Boutros-Ghali’s frustration over the Clinton administration’s pattern of voting for tough Security Council resolutions, and then refusing to support the actions on the ground, had its paradigm in the civil war that raged from 1992 to 1995 in the former Yugoslavia, a conflict precipitated by the secession of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia and fueled by a tinderbox of ethnic, religious and regional differences. Image Mr. Boutros-Ghali in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in 1992. Credit Vince Amalvy/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Massacres, rapes, displacement of populations and other atrocities ensued, many in “ethnic cleansing” campaigns against Muslims. The Security Council deplored the violence, but its peacekeepers in Bosnia — Mr. Boutros-Ghali wanted 35,000, but got 8,000 — were wholly inadequate to subdue the fighting. Aside from some airstrikes against Serbs, which the peacekeepers opposed even after Serb forces slaughtered unarmed Muslims at Srebrenica and other cities, the United States also did not substantively intervene militarily, although the Bosnian conflict was eventually mediated by the Clinton administration. While he had said early on that he would not seek a second term as secretary general, Mr. Boutros-Ghali ran again. Late in 1996, the Security Council voted overwhelmingly to give him another term. But Ms. Albright, in her last days as the American delegate, cast a decisive veto as one of the five permanent Council members. Mr. Boutros-Ghali thus became the only secretary general denied a second term. The Clinton administration insisted that its decision arose from policy differences with Mr. Boutros-Ghali, not personal animosity or politics. White House officials called him an ineffective reformer whose mere presence was impeding efforts to get Congress to pay America’s debt to the United Nations. But Mr. Boutros-Ghali regarded the veto as an assault on his record and integrity. In “Unvanquished,” he portrayed himself as a dedicated civil servant hounded out of office by Mr. Clinton for election-year political gain. Image Mr. Boutros-Ghali placed flowers next to a shed containing the remains of civilians massacred in 1994 in Rwanda. Credit C. Dufka/United Nations, via European Pressphoto Agency He said the president had done so to undermine an accusation by Senator Bob Dole, the Republican presidential nominee, that the administration had effectively put the United Nations in charge of the American military by giving the secretary general veto power over airstrikes against Serbs in Bosnia. The General Assembly gave the departing secretary general a standing ovation as it ushered in his successor, Kofi Annan of Ghana. But a frustrated Mr. Boutros-Ghali, in a farewell rebuke, chided member states for failing to deal with disasters in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. “The concept of peacekeeping was turned on its head,” he said, “and worsened by the serious gap between mandates and resources.” Boutros Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo on Nov. 14, 1922. His father had been finance minister, and his grandfather, a prime minister under the British, was assassinated in 1910. Like his family, he represented the cosmopolitan class in Egypt between the wars that was immortalized in Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet” novels. Indeed, some said he was the model for Nessim Hosnani, the Coptic financier of that tale. Image Mr. Boutros-Ghali with incoming U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in 1996. Credit Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times He earned a law degree from Cairo University in 1946 and a doctorate in international law from the University of Paris in 1949. He was a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University in 1954-55. For many years he was a professor at Cairo University, led its political science department and lectured around the world in Arabic, French and English. In 1977, when Mr. Sadat decided to go to Jerusalem, his foreign minister, Ismail Fahmy, resigned in protest, as did another cabinet member, the minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed Riad, reflecting opposition to the overture in Egypt’s dominant Muslim majority and in the Arab world. In Mr. Riad’s place for the trip, Mr. Sadat named Mr. Boutros-Ghali. He had never held office but was known to support peaceful coexistence with Israel, and Mr. Sadat regarded his Coptic origins, reputation for fairness and marriage to an Alexandrian Jew, Leia Nadler, as potential assets in Jerusalem. The three-day visit went well for Mr. Sadat, but not for Mr. Boutros-Ghali. A lean, slightly built man with glasses and an intense expression, he often looked awkward and ill prepared in the glare of klieg lights, addressing world news media in the unfamiliar role of government spokesman — a remarkable flop for a confident, fastidiously groomed, well-organized scholar with cool manners and a self-effacing wit. But he was back to normal for the 1978 Camp David talks. While Mr. Sadat was the prime mover on the Egyptian side, observers said Mr. Boutros-Ghali argued cogently if unsuccessfully for a Palestinian state and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the negotiations secured peace and Mr. Sadat’s primary objective: the return of the Sinai Peninsula, seized by Israel in the 1967 war. In his memoir of the period, “Egypt’s Road to Jerusalem” (1997), Mr. Boutros-Ghali said he had often been frustrated at being excluded from Mr. Sadat’s inner circle and critical policy decisions and had disagreed with many of them. He said he had warned Mr. Sadat about Egypt’s growing isolation in the third world over the rapprochement with Israel, but eventually became convinced that retrieving the Sinai was worth it. Mr. Boutros-Ghali joined the Mubarak government after Mr. Sadat’s assassination in 1981, focusing on foreign affairs. Besides pressing Israel to withdraw from occupied territories, he helped settle political and ecological disputes in Africa and in 1990 helped negotiate the release of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s imprisoned black leader. When Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru decided to retire as secretary general in 1991, Mr. Boutros-Ghali broke tradition and campaigned for the job. Three Europeans, an Asian and a Latin American had held it, and it seemed Africa’s turn. Secretaries general are invariably compromise candidates, all but unknown to the world until their elections, and African and Arab support proved critical for Mr. Boutros-Ghali. After his term, he was secretary general of La Francophonie, an organization of French-speaking countries, from 1997 to 2002. He then served three years as chairman of South Centre, which conducts research for developing nations.


A Magic Zone in Midtown Manhattan

Abstract: EVEN if the scores of magicians visiting here for New York’s first magic convention in nine years were to disappear in a puff of smoke, there would still be plenty happening on the local magic scene this weekend. Saturdays typically find conjurers getting together to talk shop and share tricks. They gather at magic stores and at a Midtown Manhattan pizza restaurant, Cafe Rustico II, the site for an informal weekly meeting that began decades ago and continues as a proving ground and social club. For those serious about mastering magic, the Rustico’s group can be an important resource. Newcomers may first have to show that their interest is genuine, but for an art based on secrecy, most of the magicians are generous about helping anyone who wanders in and wants to learn to amaze. “It’s like the medieval guild system in action, where apprentices learn from masters,” said Jack Diamond, a former mathematics professor who is a regular there. And so, on a recent Saturday he huddled over a deck of cards at Rustico’s with his own mentor, Wesley James, who retired from a 25-year career as a full-time performer. Sol Stone, too, was there, at a table in the back covered not with plates and pizza crusts but with cards, coins, rings and other tools of legerdemain. At 88, Mr. Stone has attended these sessions regularly since 1945. Many of the participants have been friends for decades. Although most earn their living through other means — Mr. Stone is a retired psychologist — the group has fostered professionals like Steve Cohen, who attended in the 1980s when he was a teenager and the group met at a deli. “It forced me to practice, because you wanted to be able to show something you’d been working on,” said Mr. Cohen, who now stars each weekend in his show “Chamber Magic” at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Some magicians circulate among the scenes at Rustico’s and two of the city’s major magic stores, all in a Midtown magic zone, within a few blocks of Herald Square. At Tannen’s , the oldest local shop, aficionados pop in for magic jam sessions. At Fantasma Magic , Simon Lovell, an irreverent English card whiz, often hangs out before heading to his Saturday evening show at the SoHo Playhouse. On another Saturday, a customer at Fantasma was learning a trick from Steve Dane, who works there. “I have a dozen cards with different outcomes for the future,” Mr. Dane said. “The cards read, ‘You will meet a mysterious stranger’ or ‘You will be very happy’ or ‘You will take an exciting trip’ or ‘You will make a lot of money.’ ” Mr. Dane showed the customer how, inevitably, the spectator picks the card that says, “You will make passionate love to a clown.” When the spectator looks up after reading the card, the magician is wearing a clown nose. Fantasma is also the organizer of this weekend’s convention, Magic on Manhattan . In addition to talks, there will be a roster of top-flight acts, including several rarely seen locally, in two shows open to the public at the Hotel Pennsylvania. Liu Chen, a Taiwanese sensation, will perform, as will the quick-change specialists David & Dania. The event honors the master magician John Calvert, who turns 100 in August. Several of the Rustico’s regulars acknowledged that the group had shrunk in recent years and that fewer young magicians attended. They suspect this was partly because of the Internet, where online magic groups and sources proliferate. But the Internet didn’t prevent Alex Stone, 35, from sitting down with Mr. James at Rustico’s. “The age of close-up analog miracles has sort of come back,” said Mr. Stone, who is not related to Sol. “With so much of our daily experience mediated by technology, I think there is something refreshing and alluring about being mystified with a deck of cards, or a coin or a thimble, something very unassuming, which happens directly in front of you.” Jerry Deutsch, a gregarious regular, spotted a family with two young children having lunch at Rustico’s and approached their table. “What’s on your finger?” he asked Avery Logan, 7. Mr. Deutsch gave the boy’s finger a squeeze, and it squeaked. He repeated the trick for Avery’s sister, Savannah, 4. “Are you strong?” he said to Savannah, displaying a quarter in his hand. “Can you squeeze my hand, very hard?” Savannah gripped his hand. “Look what you did,” Mr. Deutsch said. “You are very strong!” He opened his hand to reveal that the quarter was now bent. Savannah giggled. “I did it!” she exclaimed. As Mr. Deutsch continued to entertain the children, Sol Stone performed tricks for their parents, Jim and Leigh Logan, who were visiting from Maryland. They remarked that he looked younger than 88. “Magic keeps you young,” Mr. Stone replied. “I still come down about 45 weeks a year. This is my recreation. I’ve been at it for 81 years.” A woman leaving Rustico’s with a friend was curious about the nature of the gathering. “We are intrigued,” she said. “You all work in the same area? You belong to a club?” Mr. Stone replied: “Did anybody show you any magic? That’s what we do here, we’re all interested in magic. Don’t leave without seeing something.” He stood up with a pair of dice and said, “If you’ve ever played board games or gambled with dice, you may have noticed that the opposite sides of the die add up to seven.” He showed various combinations to illustrate this. Then, holding a die firmly between his thumb and forefinger, he showed the side with one spot and said, “If I rub the one, it becomes a six.” Magically, it did. “Bravo,” the woman who had inquired said. Mr. Stone continued making the spots change, at one point “borrowing” a spot from the woman’s sleeve to change a four to a five and back again. “So now you know what we do here on Saturday,” he said. “That’s exasperating,” she responded, “that magicians never explain!”

Magic and Magicians
Manhattan (NYC)
Cafe Rustico II


Aqueduct Racing Officials Faulted in Horse Deaths

Abstract: More than half of the 21 racehorses who had fatal breakdowns at Aqueduct Racetrack earlier this year might have been saved had racing authorities more closely monitored their health and the liberal use of prescription drugs to keep them racing, according to an investigation ordered by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. Both racing officials and regulatory veterinarians, who were supposed to protect the horses, often ignored signs that they were ailing and allowed them to race for purses inflated with money from the track’s adjacent gambling casino, according to people with direct knowledge of the investigation’s report. The investigation found that veterinarians and officials of the New York Racing Association often cared more about filling races that generate revenue for trainers, owners and the racetracks than about whether horses were fit to compete. Mr. Cuomo, who took control of racing in the state this summer, is expected to announce a series of overhauls on Friday in Albany that will restrict the use of potent anti-inflammatory drugs known as corticosteroids, as well as clenbuterol, a widely abused bronchodilator that can build muscle if used improperly. “At the New York Racing Association, concern for the health of the horses finished a distant second to economics,” Howard B. Glaser, Mr. Cuomo’s director of state operations, said in an interview. “Our reforms, which will go in effect immediately, will put horses’ health and rider safety first.” The Aqueduct findings come as racing wrestles with a drug culture that many of its most experienced officials recognize is diminishing the sport. Congressional hearings have been held, and racing’s governing body has issued new regulations and is contemplating even more sweeping action. Some are calling for an outright ban on drugs in the sport. A New York Times investigation found that 24 horses a week die at America’s racetracks, a rate greater than in countries where drug use is severely restricted. The governor’s task force was formed in March to investigate the sudden rise of horse fatalities in the early part of the year at Aqueduct. Those fatalities coincided with the opening of the Resorts World casino there, which greatly expanded the size of the purses. Even as the number of fatalities spiked at Aqueduct, racing officials did not respond or try to examine the conditions that might be contributing to the deaths, according to the people with knowledge of the report. The 100-page report, which is to be made public on Friday, portrays a culture in which veterinarians concerned about the fitness of horses were challenged and often overruled by nonmedical people responsible for producing full fields for races. Some racetrack veterinarians, the panel found, were improperly trained to recognize ailing horses. Dan Silver, a spokesman for NYRA, said that no one at the agency had received a copy of the report and declined to comment. At the forefront of the governor’s overhaul is a plan to give regulatory veterinarians at the state’s three racetracks — whose job is to make sure the horses who race are healthy — more independence from racetrack officials, allowing them to more easily report misconduct and prevent sore horses from racing. New York will also hire a state equine medical director to ensure that safety is the foremost concern at Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga. Mr. Cuomo, who took control of racing in New York after decades of scandal, bankruptcy proceedings and a previous state financial bailout, is expected to name a new racing association board in the coming weeks. The four-person panel included two veterinarians, Dr. Scott Palmer, an equine surgeon, and Dr. Mary Scollay, the equine medical director for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. The Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey and Alan Foreman, a lawyer and the chairman of the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, were the other members. Other recommendations reflect the panel’s concern that corticosteroids were being used too close to race time, and that clenbuterol was being overused. The panel is expected to recommend that one of the strongest corticosteroids, Depo-Medrol, not be given to a horse within 15 days of a race. In April, The Times found numerous instances of corticosteroids being injected in horses in the days leading to their fatal races, according to veterinarian records. For example, a generic version of the drug was among the 17 injections given to Coronado Heights, a 4-year-old thoroughbred found to have early degenerative joint disease , in the week before his fatal race. Under the plan, less potent corticosteroids could not be injected into joints within seven days of a race and short-acting corticosteroids could not be given within five days of a race. Current rules prohibit the use of corticosteroids only within 48 hours of a race. These proposals are intended to reduce the pharmacological effect of the drugs on horses that might be racing while injured. Regulatory veterinarians have long expressed concern that pain medicine and anti-inflammatory drugs make it more difficult to spot problems during pre-race inspections. Investigators became concerned about clenbuterol when they found that some horses were getting it almost continually from their private veterinarians. Clenbuterol is approved only for the short-term treatment of respiratory disease , and is very effective. But when used in large amounts over a lengthy period, it builds muscle and can also cause health problems or death. Under current rules, clenbuterol has to be withdrawn four days before racing. That will now become 21 days. Several other states, including California , have already taken steps to restrict the drug’s use. Only veterinarians can legally prescribe medicine for horses, yet veterinarians often let trainers, who are paid to win races, make medical decisions, including which drugs to use. These veterinarians also have a powerful financial incentive to prescribe drugs. They are both doctor and drugstore, so the more drugs they prescribe, the more money they make. Selling and administering drugs accounts for most of their income.

Aqueduct Racetrack
New York Racing Association
Doping
Andrew Cuomo
Horse Jockeys and Trainers
Horse racing


With Tablet Market Maturing, Apple Introduces New iPads

Abstract: CUPERTINO, Calif. — Maturity is an asset in so many things. But it’s a bit of a dirty word to tech companies when describing consumer appetite for their products. Yet it is a maturing market that Apple may be coping with as it tries to reignite sales of its iPad tablet computing devices. On Thursday, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, unveiled the next generation of Apple iPads, the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3. The new devices have fingerprint sensors that could make shopping online as easy as swiping a button. And in the case of the more expensive iPad Air 2, it is also faster, has a better camera, and is thinner than last year’s version. So thin, in fact, that Mr. Cook said it was skinnier than a pencil. To make his point, Apple produced a video where a laser beam shaved off bits of a pencil to make it as slender as the new tablet. “It’s unbelievably gorgeous and look how thin it is. Can you even see it?” Mr. Cook said, holding the new iPad in front of an audience of journalists and Apple employees at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. But it is not clear that making the iPad Air 2 the Twiggy of tablet devices will be enough to reinvigorate Apple’s iPad sales, which have slumped recently. Analysts speculate that the new iPads, which will be available on Oct. 24, will contribute to modest sales growth. What the new iPads will not do is bring back the incredible, triple-percent growth in sales that the iPad achieved in its first few years, starting in 2010. “That was just crazy growth,” said Ben Bajarin, a consumer technology analyst for Creative Strategies. “The iPad has normalized because it’s mature. It’s not going to go back to 180 percent growth, but it is still growing.” Now about that svelte look: Apple said the iPad Air 2 was 18 percent thinner and 40 percent faster than the last one, a surprising change — and a bit of an engineering feat — because Apple made the previous version thinner and faster just last year. The iPad Air 2 also has a display designed to reduce reflections. The tablet has 10 hours of battery life, same as the previous version. It has a starting price of $500. The iPad Mini 3 starts at $400 — but it is not thinner than the last version. Apple has added a gold color option to both models. The fingerprint sensor in both tablets is called Touch ID. The technology is used to log into the iPad in place of a typed passcode. It can also be used to make in-app purchases with Apple’s new mobile payments system, Apple Pay, which will be available Monday. The iOS 8.1 system, the next update for the software system that runs Apple’s mobile devices, will also be available Monday. Apple has made big changes to its iPads more quickly than it has with other Apple products, like the iPhone, which has typically been redesigned every two years. Why the difference? For one, an iPad gives Apple’s engineers more physical space to tinker around. And from a business standpoint, Apple has to do more with the iPad to maintain healthy sales. In the second quarter, Apple’s iPad sales declined 9.3 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to the industry analysis firm IDC . And the worldwide market for tablet sales is starting to cool. While shipments of tablets exploded from 18 million in 2010 to 207 million last year, they are expected to increase just 11 percent this year, according to another research firm, Gartner. Last year, shipments had increased 55 percent. Image Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief, with a new iMac. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times But the iPad is still Apple’s second-biggest moneymaker, accounting for about 10 percent of its profit. That is a long way from the iPhone, which accounts for about 70 percent of its profit, but still important. So what should Apple do? J.P. Gownder, a technology analyst for Forrester, said an iPad with a much larger screen, which is rumored to be in development, would have the best chance to goose iPad sales to growth, though the new iPads would at least convince people with older iPads to buy new ones. However, Mr. Gownder said the fingerprint sensors and reflection reduction on the iPad Air 2 would be valuable to businesses. Field workers and technicians could make good use of the anti-reflection feature and big corporations could use fingerprint sensors for security, he said. Apple also made price cuts to some of its older iPads. The cheapest iPad is now the original iPad Mini, which costs $250, a reduction of $100. That move will be important for persuading people who were on the fence about buying an iPad, said Creative Strategies’ Mr. Bajarin. Shares of Apple fell 1.3 percent Thursday to close at $96.26. Also at the event on the company’s campus, Apple released its new Macintosh operating system, OS X Yosemite. The software system, which is a free download, has a new design with new icons and more vibrant colors. A useful feature is called Continuity, which makes it easier to juggle content across different Apple devices. For example, a user can be making a presentation on a Mac, and then swipe up from the corner of an iPad to resume working on the same presentation. In addition, the company said WatchKit, a tool kit for software makers to use in developing apps for its coming smartwatch, would be released next month. The Apple Watch, which Apple demonstrated last month, is still on track for a release early next year, according to Mr. Cook. In other product lines, Apple released a new iMac, a desktop computer with a high-resolution, 27-inch screen. Apple said the display has seven times more pixels than a high-definition television. It costs $2,500. And the company released a new upgrade for its Mac Mini, the smaller desktop computer, with a faster processor. It costs $500 and it is faster than the previous version. But it is not thinner.


Rowling Wins Lawsuit Against Potter Lexicon

Abstract: For seven years, a Harry Potter fanatic worked on a guidebook to J. K. Rowling ’s best-selling series, but in the end, a federal judge ruled on Monday, his book was too close to the work he admired. “Plaintiffs have shown that the lexicon copies a sufficient quantity of the Harry Potter series to support a finding of substantial similarity between the Lexicon and Rowling’s novels,” Judge Robert P. Patterson Jr. of Federal District Court in Manhattan wrote in his 68-page ruling blocking publication of a Harry Potter Lexicon written by Steven Jan Vander Ark. The decision, which came nearly five months after a four-day trial, was a victory for Ms. Rowling and Warner Brothers Entertainment, the company that produces the Harry Potter movies. They had sued to block a Michigan-based publisher from producing the lexicon. Judge Patterson awarded the plaintiffs $6,750 in damages. “I took no pleasure at all in bringing legal action and am delighted that this issue has been resolved favorably,” Ms. Rowling said in a statement. “I went to court to uphold the right of authors everywhere to protect their own original work. The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own.” Despite Ms. Rowling’s criticism of his book and a legal defeat, Mr. Vander Ark said he remained a fan and would welcome an opportunity to sit down and chat with Ms. Rowling. “I have been a huge fan of the Harry Potter series and Ms. Rowling for 10 years; that’s not going to change,” Mr. Vander Ark said by telephone on Monday from his home in Brighton, England. “We had a disagreement about the definition of a particular book. It was a legal disagreement. I would rather that it wasn’t personal.” Mr. Vander Ark, 50, who bears a striking resemblance to Harry Potter, said he wished he could come to a resolution with Ms. Rowling that would allow him to go forward with the lexicon, which he said was written in response to the demand of fans of his Web site, also called the Harry Potter Lexicon. For now, however, Mr. Vander Ark has his sights on his next Harry Potter project: his book “In Search of Harry Potter” is scheduled to be released next month. It is a memoir of his travels to locations similar to the ones described in the Rowling books. The book, Mr. Vander Ark said, should not land him back in Wizengamot — the wizards’ high court of law depicted in the Harry Potter series. “It’s a travel memoir,” he said. “It’s not in any way the kind of a thing which should raise any red flags.” Mr. Vander Ark was a librarian and teacher at Byron Center Christian School in Byron Center, Mich., but now makes a living as a writer. The lawsuit filed last year against the company trying to publish Mr. Vander Ark’s lexicon, RDR Books, which is based in Muskegon, Mich., argued that the encyclopedia copied Ms. Rowling’s material, while adding little or no new information and insight. The trial played out like a novel, complete with catharsis and fury. The opening day saw Ms. Rowling lash out at Mr. Vander Ark’s work. “I believe that this book constitutes the wholesale theft of 17 years of my hard work,” she testified, going on to denounce the book as plagiarism and a waste of money. The following day Mr. Vander Ark sobbed on the stand as he said that Ms. Rowling’s attacks on his work had ostracized him from the “Harry Potter community.” Despite the criticism, Mr. Vander Ark showed his fascination for Ms. Rowling during the trial. When told in court that Ms. Rowling had explained the etymology of “Alohomora,” an unlocking spell, as coming from a West African dialect, Mr. Vander Ark responded: “That’s exciting stuff for someone like me. Did she happen to mention which dialect?” Lawyers for RDR found a ray of hope in the judge’s decision. “We have a decision that’s a very useful guide to show people what they can do in the future as far as creating companion guides,” said Anthony T. Falzone, one of the defense lawyers. David S. Hammer, another RDR lawyer, said RDR might appeal. Mr. Vander Ark said he would move on to the next phase of his life as an author, without the aid of the magical quill that the reporter Rita Skeeter relies on. “If I had a Quick-Quotes Quill, I wouldn’t tell you, because that would mean I was a wizard,” Mr. Vander Ark said. “And that would be a secret.”

Rowling J K
Decisions and Verdicts
Writing and Writers
Patterson Robert P Jr
Books and Literature
Suits and Litigation
Warner Brothers


Yes, Red Wine Holds Answer. Check Dosage.

Abstract: Can you have your cake and eat it? Is there a free lunch after all, red wine included? Researchers at the Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging report that a natural substance found in red wine, known as resveratrol, offsets the bad effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and significantly extends their lifespan. Their report, published electronically yesterday in Nature, implies that very large daily doses of resveratrol could offset the unhealthy, high-calorie diet thought to underlie the rising toll of obesity in the United States and elsewhere, if people respond to the drug as mice do. Resveratrol is found in the skin of grapes and in red wine and is conjectured to be a partial explanation for the French paradox, the puzzling fact that people in France enjoy a high-fat diet yet suffer less heart disease than Americans. The researchers fed one group of mice a diet in which 60 percent of calories came from fat. The diet started when the mice, all males, were a year old, which is middle-aged in mouse terms. As expected, the mice soon developed signs of impending diabetes , with grossly enlarged livers, and started to die much sooner than mice fed a standard diet. Another group of mice was fed the identical high-fat diet but with a large daily dose of resveratrol (far larger than a human could get from drinking wine). The resveratrol did not stop them from putting on weight and growing as tubby as the other fat-eating mice. But it averted the high levels of glucose and insulin in the bloodstream, which are warning signs of diabetes, and it kept the mice’s livers at normal size. Even more striking, the substance sharply extended the mice’s lifetimes. Those fed resveratrol along with the high- fat diet died many months later than the mice on high fat alone, and at the same rate as mice on a standard healthy diet. They had all the pleasures of gluttony but paid none of the price. Scientists have long known that a moderate intake of alcohol, and red wine in particular, is associated with a lowered risk of heart disease and other benefits. More recently, scientists began to suspect resveratrol had particularly powerful effects and began investigating its role in lifespan. The researchers, led by David Sinclair and Joseph Baur at the Harvard Medical School and by Rafael de Cabo at the National Institute on Aging, also tried to estimate the effect of resveratrol on the mice’s physical quality of life. They gauged how well the mice could walk along a rotating rod before falling off, a test of their motor skills. The mice on resveratrol did better as they grew older, ending up with much the same staying power on the rod as mice fed a normal diet. The researchers hope their findings will have relevance to people too. Their study shows, they conclude, that orally taken drugs “at doses achievable in humans can safely reduce many of the negative consequences of excess caloric intake, with an overall improvement in health and survival.” Several experts said that people wondering if they should take resveratrol should wait until more results were in, particularly from safety tests in humans. Another caution is that the theory about why resveratrol works is still unproved. “It’s a pretty exciting area, but these are early days,” said Dr. Ronald Kahn, president of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. Information about resveratrol’s effects on human metabolism should be available a year or so, Dr. Kahn said, adding, “Have another glass of pinot noir — that’s as far as I’d take it right now.” The mice were fed a hefty dose of resveratrol, 24 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Red wine has about 1.5 to 3 milligrams of resveratrol per liter, so a 150-lb person would need to drink 750 to 1,500 bottles of red wine a day to get such a dose. Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, which helped support the study, also said that people should wait for the results of safety testing. Substances that are safe and beneficial in small doses, like vitamins , sometimes prove to be harmful when taken in high doses, Dr. Hodes said. One person who is not following this prudent advice, however, is Dr. Sinclair, the chief author of the study. He has long been taking resveratrol, though at a dose of only five milligrams per kilogram. Mice given that amount in a second feeding trial have shown similar, but less pronounced, results as those on the 24-milligram-a-day dose, he said. Dr. Sinclair has had a physician check his metabolism, because many resveratrol preparations contain possibly hazardous impurities, but so far no ill effects have come to light. His wife, his parents, and “half my lab” are also taking resveratrol, he said. Dr. Sinclair declined to name his source of resveratrol. Many companies sell the substance, along with claims that rivals’ preparations are inactive. One such company, Longevinex, sells an extract of red wine and knotweed that contains an unspecified amount of resveratrol. But each capsule is equivalent to “5 to 15 5-ounce glasses of the best red wine,” the company’s Web site asserts. Dr. Sinclair is the founder of a company, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, that has developed several chemicals intended to mimic the role of resveratrol but at much lower doses. Sirtris has begun clinical trials of one of these compounds, an improved version of resveratrol, with the aim of seeing if it helps control glucose levels in people with diabetes. “We believe you cannot reach therapeutic levels in man with ordinary resveratrol,” said Dr. Christoph Westphal, the company’s chief executive. Behind the resveratrol test is a considerable degree of scientific theory, some of it well established and some yet to be proved. Dr. Sinclair’s initial interest in resveratrol had nothing to do with red wine. It derived from work by Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who in 1995 found a gene that controlled the longevity of yeast, a single-celled fungus. Dr. Guarente and Dr. Sinclair, who had come from Australia to work as a postdoctoral student in Dr. Guarente’s laboratory, discovered the mechanism by which the gene makes yeast cells live longer. The gene is known as Sir-2 in yeast, sir standing for silent information regulator, and its equivalent in mice and humans is called SIRT-1. Dr. Guarente then found that the gene’s protein needed a common metabolite to activate it, and he developed the theory that the gene, by sensing the level of metabolic activity, mediates a phenomenon of great interest to researchers in aging, the greater life span caused by caloric restriction. Researchers have known since 1935 that mice fed a calorically restricted diet — one with all necessary vitamins and nutrients but 40 percent fewer calories — live up to 50 percent longer than mice on ordinary diets. This low-calorie-provoked increase in longevity occurs in many organisms and seems to be an ancient survival strategy. When food is plentiful, live in the fast lane and breed prolifically. When famine strikes, switch resources to body maintenance and live longer so as to ride out the famine. Most people find it impossible to keep to a diet with 40 percent fewer calories than usual. So if caloric restriction really does make people as well as mice live longer — which is plausible but not yet proved — it would be desirable to have some drug that activated the SIRT-1 gene’s protein, tricking it into thinking that days of famine lay ahead. In 2003 Dr. Sinclair, by then in his own laboratory, devised a way to test a large number of chemicals for their ability to mimic caloric restriction in people by activating SIRT-1. The champion was resveratrol, already well known for its possible health benefits. Critics point out that resveratrol is a powerful chemical that acts in many different ways in cells. The new experiment, they say, does not prove that resveratrol negated the effects of a high-calorie diet by activating SIRT-1. Indeed, they are not convinced that resveratrol activates SIRT-1 at all. “It hasn’t really been clearly shown, the way a biochemist would want to see it, that resveratrol can activate sirtuin,” said Matt Kaeberlein, a former student of Dr. Guarente’s who does research at the University of Washington in Seattle. Sirtuin is the protein produced by the SIRT-1 gene. Dr. Sinclair said experiments at Sirtris had essentially wrapped up this point. But they have not yet been published, so under the rules of scientific debate he cannot use them to support his position. In his Nature article he therefore has to concede that “Whether resveratrol acts directly or indirectly through Sir-2 in vivo is currently a subject of debate.” Given that caloric restriction forces a trade-off between fertility and lifespan, resveratrol might be expected to reduce fertility in mice. Dr. Sinclair said he saw no such infertility in his experiment, but he said that might be because the mice were not on a low-calorie diet. If resveratrol does act by prodding the sirtuins into action, then there will be much interest in the new class of sirtuin activators now being tested by Sirtris. Dr. Westphal, the company’s chief executive, has no practical interest in the longevity-promoting effects of sirtuins and caloric restriction. For the Food and Drug Administration, if for no one else, aging is not a disease and death is not an end-point. The F.D.A. will approve only drugs that treat diseases in measurable ways, so Dr. Westphal hopes to show that his sirtuin activators will improve the indicators of specific diseases, starting with diabetes. “We think that if we can harness the benefits of caloric restriction, we wouldn’t simply have ways of making people live longer, but an entirely new therapeutic strategy to address the diseases of aging,” Dr. Guarente said.

Wines
Medicine and Health
Alcoholic Beverages
Diet and Nutrition


Scotland Rejects Independence From United Kingdom

Abstract: EDINBURGH — Voters in Scotland rejected independence from Britain in a referendum that had threatened to break up the 307-year union between them, according to projections by the BBC and Sky News early Friday. Before dawn after a night of counting that showed a steady trend in favor of maintaining the union, Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy head of the pro-independence Scottish National Party, effectively conceded defeat for the “yes” campaign that had pressed for secession. “Like thousands of others across the country I’ve put my heart and soul into this campaign and there is a real sense of disappointment that we’ve fallen narrowly short of securing a yes vote,” Ms. Sturgeon told BBC television. With 26 of 32 voting districts reporting, there were 1,397,077 votes, or 54.2 percent, against independence, and 1,176,952, or 45.7 percent, in favor. At that point the tally seemed wider than opinion surveys had suggested but it gave pro-independence campaigners a strong platform to press for greater powers and autonomy for Scotland promised by British political leaders during the campaign. The outcome was a deep disappointment to the vocal, enthusiastic pro-independence movement led by the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, who had seen an opportunity to turn a centuries-old nationalist dream into reality, and forced the three main British parties into panicked promises to grant substantial new power to the Scottish Parliament. Image A lone supporter of Scottish independence in Edinburgh. 1 / 15 The decision spared Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain a shattering defeat that would have raised questions about his ability to continue in office and diminished his nation’s standing in the world. But while the result preserved a union molded in 1707, it left Mr. Cameron facing a backlash among some of his Conservative Party lawmakers. They were angered by the promises of greater Scottish autonomy that he and other party leaders made just days before the vote, when it appeared that the independence campaign might win. Some lawmakers called for similar autonomy for England itself, and even the creation of a separate English Parliament. The outcome headed off the huge economic, political and military imponderables that would have flowed from a vote for independence. But it also presaged a looser, more federal United Kingdom. And it was unlikely to deter Scottish nationalists from trying again. The passion of the campaign also left Scots divided, and Mr. Salmond was expected to call later on Friday for reconciliation after a vibrant exercise in democracy that had episodes of harshness and even intimidation. President Obama had made little secret of his desire that the United Kingdom remain intact. Indeed, Britain had long prided itself on a so-called special relationship with the United States, and Britain’s allies had been concerned by, among other things, Mr. Salmond’s vow to evict Britain’s nuclear submarine bases from Scotland, threatening London’s role in Western defenses. As the vote approached, the margin between the two camps narrowed to a few percentage points, and at one point, the “yes” campaign seemed to have the momentum. That was enough to alarm Britain’s political leaders from the three main parties in the Westminster Parliament in London. In a rare show of unity, they promised to extend significant new powers of taxation to Scotland, while maintaining a formula for public spending that many English voters saw as favoring Scots with a higher per-capita contribution. Voters remained divided to the very end.

Scotland
Great Britain
Alex Salmond
Referendum
David Cameron
Scottish National Party
Conservative Party


In Court Ruling, Noriega Is Cleared for Extradition to France

Abstract: MEXICO CITY, Aug. 24 — A federal judge in Miami paved the way Friday for Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian general ousted by the American military in 1989, to face money laundering charges in France once his prison term in the United States ends next month. Judge William M. Hoeveler of United States District Court rejected arguments by Mr. Noriega’s lawyers that his status as a prisoner of war in the United States required the Bush administration to return him to Panama. Mr. Noriega may still appeal the ruling, which will keep him in United States custody for some weeks or months. Frank Rubino, Mr. Noriega’s lawyer, said he would decide in the next week whether to challenge the ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit or with the United Nations. Mr. Noriega was convicted in absentia in France in 1999 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for laundering more than $3 million in drug proceeds. France has agreed to hold a new trial if he is extradited. He also faces legal problems in Panama, where he was convicted in absentia of embezzlement and corruption, and for ordering the killing of political opponents. Although he faces up to 60 years in prison for those charges, Panamanian law allows older convicts to serve prison time at home. Mr. Noriega’s lawyers in Panama have expressed confidence they can beat the charges there and keep him out of jail. Mr. Hoeveler, who presided over Mr. Noriega’s criminal trial in Miami, ruled that his status did not prevent him from future prosecution. “This court never intended for the proclamation of defendant as a P.O.W. to shield him from all future prosecutions for serious crimes he is alleged to have committed,” Mr. Hoeveler said in his 12-page ruling. “That being said, even the most vile offender is entitled to the same protections as those owed to a law-abiding soldier once they have been declared a P.O.W. It appears that the extradition proceedings should proceed uninterrupted.” Mr. Noriega, who says he is 72, served 15 years for drug trafficking and racketeering, half of a 30-year sentence, because of automatic parole and good behavior. As a result of his prisoner-of-war status, Mr. Noriega served his time in a medium-security prison, where he was housed separately from other inmates. He had access to a telephone and more regular visiting hours and even received a small salary, as required by the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. It was the first Bush administration that ordered an invasion in 1989 to oust Mr. Noriega, who was once an asset of the Central Intelligence Agency and Drug Enforcement Administration but was later found to have accepted payments to allow cocaine bound for the United States to pass through Panama. The current administration has said it would prefer to send Mr. Noriega to France. The official explanation is that once he is sent to Panama, he cannot be extradited to any other country. But officials say privately that there is fear that Mr. Noriega may see no jail time in Panama, where some of his former allies still hold positions of power.

Noriega Manuel
Decisions and Verdicts
Prisons and Prisoners
Extradition
Embezzlement


Suicide Bombers Kill 33 Iraqi Recruits

Abstract: BAGHDAD — After the explosions and fireballs consumed dozens of fellow Iraqi Army recruits in Baquba on Tuesday, a dazed Fawad Hamid found himself on a stretcher at a hospital, his chest perforated by ball bearings from explosive belts worn by the two teenage attackers. He glimpsed a hospital orderly, who grasped a human head. “Who knows whose head this is?” the orderly asked. Mr. Hamid had already lost his father to an insurgent’s bullet, and his home to an insurgent’s bomb. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Hamid, a 26-year-old father of three, drove to an Iraqi Army recruiting center in Baquba. He arrived just as the two suicide bombers blew themselves up, sending iron ball bearings tearing through scores of young recruits like Mr. Hamid, killing 33 people and wounding 69. It was the bloodiest attack in three months in Diyala, perhaps the most dangerous province in Iraq , and it seemed calculated to intimidate Iraqi soldiers preparing to begin the fourth major offensive since last year to drive Sunni Arab guerrillas from the province’s lush palm groves. The fireball “ate everything,” Mr. Hamid said, as he moaned from the pain of shrapnel in his chest. “I have lost everything and my life is nothing, and that’s what made me go to join the army to earn a living for my family, who would otherwise starve in the land of oil and thieves.” For all the statistics showing improved security in Iraq, many parts of the country remain astoundingly violent, places where bullet-ridden bodies turn up every day and bombs destroy lives and families in an instant. Nowhere is that more true than in Diyala, where Sunni Arab extremists have found refuge in the verdant river valley northeast of the provincial capital of Baquba. But in the aftermath of Tuesday morning’s attack, which struck more than 200 recruits at the Saad military base just east of Baquba, the wounded recruits and other survivors trained their fury at more than one culprit. The recruitment event had been advertised well in advance, but there was no security to prevent a bomber from entering the compound. “Our sons were killed because they want us to live with integrity, and because they want to earn a living for us,” said the mother of one dead recruit. “The military killed my son! Why don’t security forces protect us? How do they let all these young men outside become easy targets for the suicide bombers?” Abu Ahmed, the father of another victim, cried and demanded that the commanders of the base be prosecuted. “They knew the risks, but they did nothing about it,” he said. “Dozens of men are killed every day without any tough response from the government.” Hours after the attacks, a Diyala security official admitted that the recruitment was badly planned. The commanders of the camp, the official said, “didn’t take any precautions to protect the volunteers who died in this massacre.” That was a widely held view among recruits wounded in the attacks, which came less than a minute apart. “There was no checkpoint or any kind of security,” said Taher Ghani, wounded in his back and lower legs. “You could cross the main gate without anybody asking you where you were going.” Mr. Ghani, who called the recruitment a “golden opportunity” to advance himself, described the aftermath: “Human flesh and blood flew in every direction in front of my eyes, and I fainted. One of my friends was killed, and the other is still missing. “I just want to know who did this to us,” he added. “We are young and we want to live in peace, and we don’t want to steal or become criminals. We just want to live for at least for a few minutes in peace. We are fed up with life in the land of death and blood.” One doctor at a Baquba hospital said two severed heads were found that appeared to be those of the bombers. He said wounds suffered by the recruits showed that the suicide belts “contained metal balls intended to cause serious damage and increase the casualties.” Eighteen of the wounded recruits “have serious injuries in the head and chest, with a possibility of losing some of them in the next few hours,” he said. Iraqi officials have announced an imminent military operation in Diyala, one that may prove more difficult than other recent Iraqi campaigns. In operations in Basra, Amara and the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, the Iraqi troops faced Shiite militias, and all three operations essentially ended in truces that allowed militia fighters to melt away. In the northern city of Mosul, United States Army Rangers and other American Special Operations forces, highly skilled in urban combat, have killed or captured scores of the city’s most tenacious guerrillas in unpublicized operations this year that have made it far easier for Iraqi troops to move through the city, which nonetheless remains dangerous and unstable. On Tuesday in Mosul, two bombings killed 12 Iraqis and wounded at least 17. In Diyala, the Iraqi troops will face Sunni Arab guerrillas who have withstood three American-led military operations since last year to drive them from the province’s thick groves and grasslands. On Tuesday, an American soldier in Diyala was killed by a bomb “rigged into a house,” the American military reported. The soldier was the 23rd American service member to die in the province this year. The operation in Diyala “is going to be a fight,” Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said during a briefing on Monday. “It’s going to be a tough fight.”

Iraq
Bombs and Explosives
Armament Defense and Military Forces
United States Armament and Defense


Sangria and Sandy

Abstract: When Rashida Jackson told her landlord that she wanted to open a wine bar in Rockaway Beach, Queens, he told her she was crazy. “He said, ‘No one drinks wine in Rockaway,’ ” Ms. Jackson said. And yet. On Tuesday night, after the sun finally set, sunbaked locals made their way to the spacious pebbled garden behind Sayra’s Wine Bar , which Ms. Jackson, 35, and Patrick Flibotte, 34, a sculptor, opened on June 21, after months spent reclaiming the space from the ravages of Hurricane Sandy. Ms. Jackson grew up in the neighborhood; Mr. Flibotte, who designed the interior, plans to marry her sister Angela in the garden in September. Between now and then, the owners plan to serve inexpensive small plates (nothing more than $11), wine and beer, with live jazz on Thursday nights, acoustic rock on Fridays and movies on Saturdays. The night before — a Monday! — refugees from the heat wave had stayed until 3 a.m. A pink surfboard in the garden was available for anyone to borrow, and the owners and staff members kept their eyes peeled for encroaching raccoons. “They’re a problem here,” Mr. Flibotte said. The restaurant’s name, which is pronounced sir-RAH, is an acronym for the Jackson sisters’ names (Somalia, Angela, Yolanda, Rashida, Sonnie), and the big guy at the bar, wearing the Hawaiian shirt festooned with religious messages, is their father. AT THE PICNIC TABLES Who drinks wine in Rockaway? Barbara Hart, 52, for one. “We kind of have this unofficial Rockaway Adventure Club, but then we made it the Rockaway Adventure Culinary Club, and we said, ‘Let’s try out all the new food places in Rockaway,’ ” she said, sitting down to a glass of white sangria with two other club members, Bethanne DeMatteis, 50, and Joan Maranga, 48. Image Bethanne DeMatteis, left, Joan Maranga and Barbara Hart at Sayra’s in Rockaway Beach. Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times “But we also drink, too,” Ms. DeMatteis clarified. It was the year’s first outing, and, as in years past, they had set off by bicycle from their homes in Belle Harbor, but because the boardwalk was still out, returned home and made the trip by car. WHY THEY CAME It was once a known fact that people from Belle Harbor don’t forage in this scruffier part of Rockaway Beach, near Beach 91st Street. But since Rockaway Taco opened three blocks away, that has changed, Ms. Hart said. “There wasn’t any reason to come before,” she said. “It’s only been in the last couple years that people have come from Manhattan and set up this kind of place, and we’ve actually had places to go to. So we’re all very excited about it. When I walked in, the first thing I said was, ‘I’m glad that someone is willing to take a chance here,’ ” after the hurricane. ON THE PLATES It was too hot to eat much, Ms. DeMatteis said. So they shared barbecue pulled pork sliders ($9) and a cheese plate ($11). WHAT THEY TALKED ABOUT The good (their children), the bad (Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who they said has not done as much to rescue the shoreline as Gov. Chris Christie next door) and the perpetually worrisome (their children, again). “We’re very upset with Cuomo that he hasn’t given us a boardwalk,” Ms. Hart said. Which led to: “A lot of times our children take bicycles out at night, and without a boardwalk, you worry,” Ms. Maranga said. “It’s an issue,” Ms. Hart said. Which led back to: “You always see pictures of Christie down at the beach, with the people. We haven’t heard from Cuomo.” “It’s frustrating to see how the Jersey Shore is revitalized and back on their feet,” Ms. DeMatteis said. “There’s no presence here. We’re the stepchild of the city and the state. My grandparents grew up in Belle Harbor, so I’ve heard the stories. It goes back generations.”

Wine bar
Rockaway Beach Queens
Sayra's Wine Bar Queens NY
bars,nightclubs


Avian Flu Wanes in Asian Nations It First Hit Hard

Abstract: Correction Appended Even as it crops up in the far corners of Europe and Africa, the virulent bird flu that raised fears of a human pandemic has been largely snuffed out in the parts of Southeast Asia where it claimed its first and most numerous victims. Health officials are pleased and excited. "In Thailand and Vietnam, we've had the most fabulous success stories," said Dr. David Nabarro, chief pandemic flu coordinator for the United Nations. Vietnam, which has had almost half of the human cases of A(H5N1) flu in the world, has not seen a single case in humans or a single outbreak in poultry this year. Thailand, the second-hardest-hit nation until Indonesia recently passed it,has not had a human case this year or one in poultry in six months. Encouraging signs have also come from China, though they are harder to interpret. These are the second positive signals that officials have seen recently in their struggle to prevent avian flu from igniting a human pandemic. Confounding expectations, birds making the spring migration north from Africa have not carried the virus into Europe. Dr. Nabarro and other officials warn that it would be highly premature to declare any sort of victory. The virus has moved rapidly across continents and is still rampaging in Myanmar, Indonesia and other countries nearby. It could still hitchhike back in the illegal trade in chicks, fighting cocks or tropical pets, or in migrating birds. But this sudden success in the former epicenter of the epidemic is proof that aggressive measures like killing infected chickens, inoculating healthy ones, protecting domestic flocks and educating farmers can work, even in very poor countries. Dr. Nabarro said he was "cautious in interpreting these shifts in patterns" because too little is known about how the disease spreads. Other officials agreed. "To say the disease is 'wiped out' there is probably too strong, too positive," said Dr. Wantanee Kalpravidh, chief of flu surveillance in Southeast Asia for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, which fights animal diseases. The governments of Thailand and Vietnam "believe they got rid of it," she said, "but they also believe that it might be coming back at any time." Very different tactics led to success in the two countries. While Vietnam began vaccinating all its 220 million chickens last summer, Thailand did not because it has a large poultry export industry, and other nations would have banned its birds indefinitely. (Vaccines can mask the virus instead of killing it.) Instead, Thailand culled wide areas around infected flocks, compensated farmers generously and deputized a volunteer in every village to report sick chickens. It vaccinates fighting cocks, which can be worth thousands of dollars, and even issues them passports with their vaccination records so they can travel, Dr. Nabarro said. Government inspectors sample birds everywhere; in February, Thailand reported that samples from 57,000 birds had come back negative. According to Dr. Klaus Stöhr, a flu specialist at the World Health Organization, Thailand and Vietnam also delivered the antiviral drug Tamiflu to even the smallest regional hospitals and told doctors to treat all flu patients even before laboratory diagnoses could be made. Dr. Nabarro particularly praised the leaders of the two countries for ordering high-level officials — deputy prime ministers — to fight the disease, and for making sure that enough cash to entice farmers to hand over their birds for culling flowed down official channels without being siphoned off. Hints suggest that the disease is also being beaten back in China, the country where it is assumed to have begun. International officials tend to greet official public health reports from China skeptically, in part because it concealed the outbreak of the SARS virus there for months. It did not officially report any bird cases for years, even though many scientists contend the virus incubated there between its first appearance in humans in Hong Kong in 1997 and the current human outbreak, which began in Vietnam in 2003. Some top Chinese officials have blamed the reluctance of local officials to report bad news to Beijing. Dr. Nabarro said he recently met a vice premier "who made it clear that they are absolutely determined to get the fullest possible cooperation from provincial authorities." China's reported human cases have remained low: 8 last year and 10 this year. Perhaps more important, its poultry cases — which lead to human cases and increase the risk of a mutant pandemic strain — seem to be dropping. According to the World Health Organization, China said it had outbreaks in 16 provinces in 2004. In 2005, it reported outbreaks in only 12 provinces, but one in November was so large that 2.5 million birds were culled to contain it. After that, the Agriculture Ministry announced that it would vaccinate every domestic bird in China, which raises and consumes 14 billion chickens, ducks and geese each year. The official news agency reported about the same time that a fake flu vaccine, possibly with live virus in it, might have spread the disease. Dr. Stöhr, who is in charge of W.H.O. flu vaccine efforts, said he was told by Chinese agriculture officials that the country was now producing 46 billion doses of poultry vaccine a year, and was supplying vaccines to Vietnam. China's most recent monthly reports describe much smaller outbreaks than were previously common: findings of a few dead wild birds and culls of 126,000 birds in one spot and 16,000 in another, for example. "We are hopeful that China has turned the corner," Dr. Nabarro said. In Cambodia and Laos, which separate Thailand and Vietnam, the situation is vague. Laos has reported no human cases and last reported poultry outbreaks two years ago. Cambodia's reported human cases dropped to two this year, from four last year. No poultry outbreaks were reported, but surveillance is so spotty that some must have occurred and gone unnoticed, Dr. Kalpravidh said, because the country's six human victims were infected by poultry. Cambodia was slow to compensate farmers for their birds because of problems with corruption in a previous cash-for-guns program. Health specialists generally agree that there is little clear chance of infected birds landing in the United States. Where the Southeast Asian governments have taken action, however, the risk of the virus returning is ever present, Dr. Nabarro said. For example, he said, it probably exists in Vietnam in Muscovy ducks, which can harbor the virus but do not get sick, and it has turned up in isolated birds in open-air markets near the Chinese border. (Single birds do not constitute an outbreak.) Since Chinese farmers can get three times as much for a chicken in Vietnam as they can at home, the temptation to smuggle persists. "Tomorrow, the whole thing could change again," Dr. Nabarro said. "We need to be on the alert at all times." 5 Cases Confirmed in Indonesia JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 13 (Reuters) — Local tests have confirmed that three Indonesians who died in the past week had avian flu, a Health Ministry official said Saturday. Authorities have sent blood and swab samples of the three people — all from one family — to a World Health Organization-affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong. Local tests are not considered definitive. A toddler and a 25-year-old man from the same North Sumatra family also tested positive for bird flu, but they are still alive, said Nyoman Kandun, a director general at the Health Ministry. He did not say whether they had had any contact with sick fowl, the usual mode of transmission of the virus to humans.

Avian Influenza
Medicine and Health
Viruses


Liverpool and Inter Tested Early

Abstract: Liverpool needed an 88th-minute strike from Luis Suárez to avoid extra time with visiting Hearts in the Europa League. The 1-1 draw put the Reds through to the group stage, 2-1, on aggregate. It was tougher for Inter, which was reduced to 10 men by a 33rd-minute red card for goalkeeper Luca Castellazzi and had to rally twice to finish 2-2 with Romania’s Vaslui for a 4-2 aggregate win. The American Mix Diskerud scored in the 87th minute for Rosenborg in the Norwegian team’s 2-1 victory over Poland’s Legia Warsaw. Countryman Terrence Boyd helped Rapid Vienna advance, scoring in the 85th minute in the team’s 3-0 victory over Greece’s PAOK. ¶ Liverpool sent Andy Carroll on a season-long loan to West Ham, just 19 months after signing him for a club-record fee of $56 million. ¶ The United States women’s team will play two exhibitions against Germany in October: Oct. 20 in Bridgeview, Ill., and three days later in East Hartford, Conn.