Jews of Mumbai, a Tiny and Eclectic Group, Suddenly Reconsider Their Serene Existence

Abstract: MUMBAI, India — The peeling turquoise facade of the colonial-era Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue in the heart of the city’s financial district has long been a tourist attraction, a reminder of the centuries of Jewish influence that have helped shape Mumbai and of the acceptance Jews have enjoyed here. But after the terrorist attacks last week, Mumbai’s Jews are dismayed to find another building suddenly vying with the 124-year-old synagogue as a symbol of their presence: the charred remains of Nariman House, where gunmen killed Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, his wife, Rivka, and four other Jews. Although none of the Jews killed in the terrorists’ assault on Nariman House, the community center run by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, were Indian citizens, the attacks have badly shaken Jews in India. Mumbai has about 4,000 Jewish residents, accounting for a vast majority of India’s Jewish population. “This is the first time when a Jew has been targeted in India because he is a Jew,” said Jonathon Solomon, a Mumbai lawyer and president of the Indian Jewish Federation. “The tradition of the last thousand years has been breached.” The origins of India’s Jews remain uncertain, but according to some accounts they may have come as emissaries from the court of King Solomon. They established communities and lived peacefully with Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and, later, Muslims. The absence of anti-Semitism throughout this history has been a source of pride in India. “This is one of the few countries where Jews never faced discrimination and persecution,” said Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, a leader of the Jewish community in New Delhi. Jews played a prominent role in several coastal cities, but nowhere more so than in Mumbai. Jewish merchants from Iraq, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries arrived in the late 18th century in what was then British Bombay and quickly established themselves as leading businessmen, opening textile mills and international trading companies. Only about 200 of these so-called Baghdadi Jews remain in Mumbai, with the rest having immigrated to Israel, Britain and the United States. But their legacy endures: synagogues, libraries and schools, many of which serve Jews and non-Jews. They also financed the construction of several city landmarks, including the Flora Fountain and the Sassoon docks. Today, most of Mumbai’s Jews have roots in a group known as the Bene Israel community, which claims to be descended from seven Jewish families who were shipwrecked on India’s shore while fleeing persecution in the Galilee during the second century B.C. Over the centuries, they adopted Indian language, dress and cuisine. Since India became independent, these Jews have often played influential roles in Indian society, including in government and Bollywood. “We always felt we were Indians first and Jews second,” said Mr. Malekar, a Bene Israel Jew. That sensibility has been shattered by the siege of Nariman House. “This attack has really shaken us up,” said a Jewish educator in Mumbai who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety. “If with such ease they could finish off the whole Chabad House — the property and the people — now we have to have a fresh look at our own security.” Many Jewish institutions have remained closed this week as a security precaution. Jewish leaders said they might have to begin restricting access to synagogues and community centers. “Jewish institutions in India are soft targets,” Mr. Solomon said. “After being used to living fearless for so long we are going through a phase where we are debating with ourselves about being careful and whether we need to change our mode of existence.” Heightening anxieties is the location of many of Mumbai’s synagogues, which are now in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods. Historically, relations between the two religious groups in Mumbai have been good. “They live with us as brothers and in brotherhood we also live with them,” said Solomon Sopher, chairman and managing trustee of the Sir Jacob Sassoon and Allied Trusts, which manages several Jewish institutions, including a high school that was founded as a Jewish school but now enrolls mostly Muslims. After the terrorist assaults, some Mumbai Jews said they were increasingly apprehensive about their Muslim neighbors. Mr. Solomon said the attack convinced him of the need for India’s Jews to seek official recognition as a minority group. Such status confers privileges, including reserved places for admission to universities and for government jobs. More important, Mr. Solomon said, it would require the Indian government to protect the Jewish community from persecution. In the past, the Indian government has argued that there are too few Jews in the country to grant minority status. Many Mumbai Jews said they had limited interaction with Rabbi Holtzberg and Chabad House, whose activities were focused on Orthodox Jews visiting from abroad and encouraging greater religious observance among young Israeli backpackers. Few Jews live in the Colaba neighborhood where Nariman House is, having moved to more affluent areas in northern and western parts of the city. In addition, the Lubavitchers’ ultra-Orthodox practices are much stricter than the observance of most Mumbai Jews. But Rabbi Holtzberg did preside over Sabbath services every Friday at the Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue. He also conducted religious study classes and helped supply the city’s more religious Jews with kosher meat. Some Jews said the attacks were likely to foster closer ties within the city’s Jewish population, which in the past had been deeply divided between the Baghdadi community and the Bene Israel group, although those tensions were easing as the city’s Jewish population dwindled. Representatives from both Indian Jewish communities, as well as Chabad, mourned the Holtzbergs and the other Jewish victims from Nariman House at a memorial service on Monday. Mr. Solomon, who described himself as a secular Jew, said he would be sure to visit the Chabad House when it reopens. A new rabbi, Dov Goldberg, has already been selected. “Next time it opens, I will make it a point of going to show my solidarity with them,” Mr. Solomon said. “I suppose the same will go for many members of our community.”


A Step-by-Step Guide to Berkeley’s Many Quirks

Abstract: BERKELEY, Calif. — Tom Dalzell looks too strait-laced to be the arbiter of the eccentric. Nonetheless, almost two years ago, Mr. Dalzell, 63, set out in his khakis and comfortable shoes to walk every street, alleyway and path and document this city’s material oddities on a website he calls Quirky Berkeley . “There is a tremendous diversity of thought here,” Mr. Dalzell said. “And one of the ways we express our lack of conformity is with the quirky things we put on our houses and in our yards.” The rules are simple: no seasonal decorations, and all quirk must be viewable from the street. So far, Mr. Dalzell has walked nearly 150 miles and shot some 9,000 photos of rogue garden gnomes who moon passers-by; a four-foot-wide peace sign outside a house long occupied by Wavy Gravy of Woodstock fame and his Hog Farm commune compatriots; dozens of colorful hard hats hanging from a front yard tree; a massive wolf sculpture made from old car parts; a menagerie of animal-shaped mailboxes ; a giant metal orange that once served as a roadside refreshment stand but now sits in a wooded side yard; and a variety of wildly painted houses and sculptures. Sometimes Mr. Dalzell uses the site to riff on the city’s culture and history. Introducing items filed under “Peace,” he writes: “I make the following claim: Berkeley is the peace symbol/flag/pole capital of the world. Go ahead, prove me wrong.” Mr. Dalzell moved to Berkeley 30 years ago, after a stint working for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. He manages a labor union of gas and electric utility workers by day and moonlights as an author of slang dictionaries and a collector of idiosyncrasies. On a recent afternoon, Mr. Dalzell stood on the sidewalk outside what he considers the crown jewel of Berkeley’s quirk: a strange, bulbous structure that locals call “the fish house” built on a block of low-slung, single-family homes on the city’s south side. “As Ken Kesey would say, this is ‘bull goose loony,’ ” Mr. Dalzell said. The house is not, it turns out, modeled after a fish but rather a tiny, indestructible microcreature called a tardigrade, or water bear, which can survive deep freezing, boiling and 10 days in space. The architect Eugene Tsui — who said he was in the process of legally changing his surname to Tssui after a dream he had in China that involved Genghis Khan — designed the home for his parents, who had no idea what a tardigrade was but wanted an earthquake-proof home. In a sign of the changes underway here, Mr. Tsui now rents it to four young men and their technology start-up. Like most things in this city of close to 117,000 residents , the question of whether Berkeley is actually more bohemian in thought and yard ornamentation than, say, Denver, is the subject of heated debate. “All the assumptions about Berkeley are flat-out wrong,” Mr. Tsui said. “It is a myth that this is a liberal-minded, freethinking place; at its heart, it’s a conventional bedroom community.” Mayor Tom Bates, for one, disagrees. The large state university here has long drawn creative types, and the city’s residents have always embraced “things that are different,” the mayor said. The city was a center of the antiwar and Free Speech movements of the 1960s, and has consistently passed laws that look left-of-center to much of the country, including most recently the nation’s first tax on sweetened sodas. “One of the real joys of walking this city,” said Mr. Bates, who does not own a car, “is to come across a house or lot where someone has done something zany.” After a year of meticulously inventorying and cataloging, Mr. Dalzell has settled on a few general theories of quirk. First, quirk begets more quirk. “If one person puts up an animal mailbox, you’ll often see other animal mailboxes pop up around them,” he said, describing a kind of keeping up with the Joneses, Berkeley-style. Second, the density of quirk is thicker in the city’s traditionally lower- and middle-class flatlands than up in the hills, where the wealthier tend to live. Third, nothing (as the Buddhists say) is permanent. “Sometimes you’ll see something really interesting, only to go back a week later to find it gone,” Mr. Dalzell said. Still, there are some who view the whole Quirky Berkeley enterprise more as a testament to its creator’s kookiness than its subjects’. “We urban and architectural historians exhibit variants of this strange behavior in cities around the globe,” said Stephen O. Tobriner, a professor emeritus of architectural history at the University of California, Berkeley. Upon close inspection, he said, any urban area yields all sorts of evidence of curious human behavior — including, sometimes, an inhabitant’s desire to walk every city block. Even in the era of Google Street View, walking each mile of a city has become something of a fad. A woman finished walking every street in Berkeley in 2007. A man in his mid-90s walked over 300 miles of Sydney, Australia, before he died in 2008. It took three years for a Minneapolis woman, Francine Corcoran, to walk the 1,071 miles that make up the city. London has been walked, as has San Francisco. And while the other walkers did not set off explicitly to round up wackiness the way Mr. Dalzell did, at a walker’s pace, they no doubt saw plenty of it anyway. “When you walk a city block by block, you are forced to slow down and look at everything — you see more, you feel more, you get into the rhythm of the neighborhoods,” said William B. Helmreich, a professor of sociology at City College of New York who wrote “The New York Nobody Knows ,” a book about walking every street — some 6,000 miles — of the city’s five boroughs. “In urban areas, you often don’t feel like an individual, which makes you want to put your stamp of uniqueness on something,” Professor Helmreich said, “even if it is just the paint on your house.”

Berkeley
Tom Dalzell
Walking
Collecting
California


Kept Out of the ’76 Games, Now Looking on, and Proud of China

Abstract: Inside his ruby-hued, custom-designed office in Flushing, Queens, David Peng is surrounded by the tokens of the present. There, on a shelf, rests a dog-eared copy of the New York City Building Code, bulging with notes written in Chinese on memo stickers. There, in the back, stands a drafting table, opposite a scroll blessing his company, Windstar Construction. And there, next to the tea set on his desk, is a rare memento from the past: a weathered pamphlet called “Modern Pentathlon : The Challenge of Skill and Endurance,” which is written in Chinese and features black-and-white photos of a young Olympic hopeful — Mr. Peng. It is a chapter of his life that Mr. Peng, a 55-year-old emigrant from Taiwan , hardly dwells upon anymore. But it is a story that nonetheless played out in the shadow of a moment in Olympic history in which the messy collision of sports and politics derailed the aspirations of athletes like Mr. Peng. In 1976, Mr. Peng was vying for a spot to represent Taiwan in the pentathlon, and he had traveled to San Antonio with another Taiwanese competitor to train for two months with the American team. But a few weeks before the start of the Summer Games in Montreal, after Canada bowed to pressure from Beijing, Mr. Peng learned that Taiwanese athletes would not participate. China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, demanded that Taiwan — officially known as the Republic of China — change its name in order to take part in the Games. “We were very innocent, and we didn’t know what was going on,” Mr. Peng said during an interview in Mandarin. “I felt a little disappointed that I couldn’t go.” The Games in Montreal foreshadowed the politically charged Olympic boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Games. But for Taiwanese athletes, the summer of 1976 may have been especially raw because their country had participated in the Winter Olympics a few months earlier in Innsbruck, Austria. So imagine Mr. Peng’s amazement that China is now the host of these Olympics and that Taiwanese athletes are now competing on Chinese soil. He is so riveted by the reality, in fact, that he put an extra television set in his office and asked a friend to tape the pentathlon. Mr. Peng has also cheered on all Chinese athletes, regardless of what national anthem they sing. “I never thought this was possible,” Mr. Peng said. “So much has changed in such a short period of time. I’m very proud of the Chinese people. The Chinese have always been seen as weak; now we are showing that we can be strong.” Mr. Peng grew up as the son of a carpenter in Hualien, on Taiwan’s mountainous east coast. He was a gifted swimmer and runner in high school. During a mandatory stint in the military, he was tapped to join an elite naval unit that recruited the strongest and the fittest soldiers. Mr. Peng, a versatile athlete, began training for the pentathlon, which combines cross-country running, swimming and pistol shooting — all familiar disciplines for a soldier — with epee fencing and horse-jumping. He even earned the nickname “Po Dan,” or “Breaking an Egg,” a play on his Chinese name, Yan Dan. He said it was meant to symbolize the hope that he could achieve an athletic breakthrough. Thorn Bigley, who was the director of development programs at the San Antonio pentathlon center at the time, vividly recalls Mr. Peng and the other Taiwanese athlete, Chang Chi-ming. Mr. Peng and Mr. Chang were hardly medal threats. Like most of the pentathletes from other countries who trained in San Antonio, they were weak in fencing and horse-jumping. But whatever they lacked in skills, they tried to compensate for with their determination and sportsmanship, Mr. Bigley said. “They were athletic, they worked hard, and they were like Special Forces guys — really strong,” he said. To this day, there remains a bit of confusion over Mr. Peng’s exact Olympic status, since his name was not on the official Taiwanese roster for the 1976 Games — though Mr. Chang’s was. But in an interview from her office in Taipei, Chi Cheng, a former world record-holder in track, said that Mr. Peng may well have been part of the delegation and that his story was consistent with an elite athlete hoping to go to Montreal. Mr. Bigley, meanwhile, said the San Antonio training center typically would have welcomed only international athletes who were on their way to the Olympics. “Obviously, they were representing their country,” said Mr. Bigley, now a business consultant in Golden, Colo. “It was kind of a given: They were the athletes training for that event.” After Mr. Peng returned to Taiwan having never realized his Olympic moment, he coached pentathletes for a year and edited the training pamphlet. But he quit the sport when he came to believe that his students would probably never have a chance to compete in the Olympics because of politics. “As an athlete, you train so hard, and you have a goal of competing,” he said. “But if you can’t compete, then what’s the goal?” Mr. Peng said he immigrated to the United States in 1983 with his wife and two young children. And in short order, his family forged a classic tale: He got a job in construction, then started his own company building apartments and houses. His wife got a job as a lab technician. They moved to Long Island. Today, their daughter is a doctor, while their son, a former collegiate swimmer, may one day take over the family business. Mr. Peng is not given to ruing his past. He had a hard time, at a reporter’s request, finding photos of his pentathlon days, producing two snapshots of a banquet in San Antonio. Mr. Bigley, who later looked at the photos, confirmed that they showed Mr. Peng and Mr. Chang with pentathlon coaches. There are also no signs of Mr. Peng’s athletic past in the waiting area of his office. Instead, the walls are stocked with large works of Chinese art. One thing that has clearly slowed him down, Mr. Peng acknowledged, was a habit he started after he quit the sport: smoking more than a pack of cigarettes a day. “The past is the past, so I don’t think about it much,” he said. Mr. Peng did, however, allow for one moment of reflection. It was 1986, and Mr. Peng traveled with his family that summer to Montreal. Mr. Peng wanted to see the Olympic venues where he had hoped to compete. They were deserted. The flagpoles did not have any flags. The swimming pool did not have any water. The track-and-field stadium was empty. Mr. Peng said he thought about what could have been, before putting it all behind him and returning to his life in New York.

Olympic Games
Pentathlon
Taiwan
China
Beijing (China)
Queens (NYC)
Peng David


Oil Tax Forces Greeks to Fight Winter With Fire

Abstract: ATHENS — Even in the leafy northern stretches of this city, home to luxury apartment buildings, mansions with swimming pools and tennis clubs, the smell of wood smoke lingers everywhere at night. In her fourth-floor apartment here, Valy Pantelemidou, 37, a speech therapist, is, like many other Greeks, trying to save money on heating oil by using her fireplace to stay warm. Unemployment is at a record high of 26.8 percent in Greece, and many people have had their salaries and pensions cut, but those are not the main reasons so few residents here can afford heating oil. In the fall, the Greek government raised the taxes on heating oil by 450 percent. Overnight, the price of heating a small apartment for the winter shot up to about $1,900 from $1,300. “At the beginning of autumn, it was the biggest topic with all my friends: How are we going to heat our places?” said Ms. Pantelemidou, who has had to lower her fees to keep clients. “Now, when I am out walking the dog, I see people with bags picking up sticks. In this neighborhood, really.” In raising the taxes, government officials hoped not just to increase revenue but also to equalize taxes on heating oil and diesel, to cut down on the illegal practice of selling cheaper heating oil as diesel fuel. But the effort, which many Greeks dismiss as a cruel stupidity, appears to have backfired in more than one way. For one thing, the government seems to be losing money on the measure. Many Greeks, like Ms. Pantelemidou, are simply not buying any heating oil this year. Sales in the last quarter of 2012 plunged 70 percent from a year earlier, according to official figures. So while the government has collected more than $63 million in new tax revenue, it appears to have lost far more — about $190 million, according to an association of Greek oil suppliers — in revenue from sales taxes on the oil. Meanwhile, many Greeks are suffering from the cold. In one recent survey by Epaminondas Panas, who leads the statistics department at the Athens University of Economics and Business, nearly 80 percent of respondents in northern Greece said they could not afford to heat their homes properly. The return to wood burning is also taking a toll on the environment. Illegal logging in national parks is on the rise, and there are reports of late-night thefts of trees and limbs from city parks in Athens, including the disappearance of the olive tree planted where Plato is said to have gone to study in the shade. Image Workers cutting and stacking firewood for sale in Halandri, north of Athens. Demand has caused an increase in illegal logging, and trees have been reported stolen from parks in Athens. Credit Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York Times At the same time, the smoke from the burning of wood — and often just about anything else that will catch fire — has caused spikes in air pollution that worry health officials. On some nights, the smog is clearly visible above Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, and in Athens, where particulate matter has been measured at three times the normal levels. “Places that in 2008 wouldn’t even think about using their fireplaces for heating, now they are obliged to do so,” said Stefanos Sabatakakis, a health supervisor with the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention . He said the rise in pollution could cause eye irritation and headaches in the short term and far more serious problems in the long term. The air is particularly bad for asthma sufferers. The agency has asked that anyone who is lighting living-room fires just for the aesthetics give them up. It has also uploaded information on its Web site about what not to burn — anything that is painted or lacquered, for instance. But in these times, Mr. Sabatakakis acknowledged, people are not that picky. Government officials say it is too early to judge the new tax. The winter is not yet over. It has not been particularly cold, they say, and many people may have stocked up on fuel oil last season. In the north of Greece, temperatures often dip to freezing at night, while in Athens they are more likely to stay in the low 40s. “This is a very complex environment,” said Harry Theoharis, the secretary general of the Ministry of Finance , adding that many factors were affecting people’s behavior. “It is not easy to isolate and say: ‘O.K., this tax, this is the effect it had.’ ” He said there were no clear indications yet that the tax had discouraged illicit sales of heating oil as diesel, though he had detected a slight change in buying patterns that might indicate some change. It is impossible not to notice the stacks of wood for sale all over Athens this year. Not far from Ms. Pantelemidou’s place is a wood lot run by Valantis Topalis, 44, who used to own an interior design company. He started selling wood last year, eager to have a business that was not reliant on people paying their bills. Last year, he made some money. But this year, he said, everybody is selling wood — some of it stolen from national parks — and business is not so good. Even in this wealthy area, a lot of the customers come in for only 20 euros, or $27, worth of wood on colder days. “The worst part is not the lack of money,” Mr. Topalis said of his life today. “The worst part today is the mood that people are in.” Those who can afford to, like Ms. Pantelemidou, are using a combination of their fireplaces and electric heaters, unsure what this will do to their electric bills. But that is likely to bring some unpleasant surprises, as the government recently announced an increase in the cost of electricity that, depending on consumption, could be as much as 20 percent. Image Yiorgos Tsouvalakis feeding his wood stove in Nikaia, an Athens suburb, after Greece raised taxes on heating oil by 450 percent. One of the goals was to tax heating oil more like diesel fuel. Credit Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York Times Still, oil suppliers are glum about their prospects. Elias Bekkas, who provides oil to 65 buildings around the city, said that many of his clients had not ordered any oil, and that some who had could not pay the bill. Last winter, he said, his company sold a little more than a million gallons. This season, it has sold only about 65,000 gallons, and he doubted the total would get to 225,000. Tenant meetings to decide whether to buy oil, he said, have gotten ugly. A year ago, two buildings covered the costs for people who could not pay. But this year there is only bickering. “There is anger, bitterness between neighbors who can afford oil and those that cannot,” Mr. Bekkas said. “That is what Greece is like now.” Hes said he had detected a third class of people as well this winter. “There are those who are just making a political statement,” he said. “They are just angry about the taxes.” Ms. Pantelemidou, like many others in newer buildings, has a fireplace that was designed largely for decorative purposes. It hardly heats her living room, let alone the rest of her apartment. She has pulled a chair close to it so she can stay warm. In a working-class area of town, Aggeliki and Christos Makris are also making do without heating oil. They bought their three-bedroom apartment in 2009, when they had a combined income of $63,400 for a family of five. Since then, the salary of Mrs. Makris, 45, who works as a cleaner for the government has been cut to about $1,100 a month from $1,750 a month. Mr. Makris, 42, who runs heavy machinery at a mining company, lost all of his overtime. They are behind on their taxes and, after mortgage payments, living on less than $340 a week. To cut down on the electric bill, Mrs. Makris has even reduced the ironing she does. Paying for heating oil was out of the question. This year, Mr. Makris went north to his village to cut firewood himself. He said no one in his building wanted to buy heating oil. “The super did not even bother to ask,” said Mr. Makris. “We are all in debt.” The Makrises said they were at least lucky that they had made a good choice in upgrading the fireplace when they bought the apartment. It burns efficiently and warms much of their living space. Mr. Makris said it was far worse for the pensioners he saw, who really need central heating and do not have the strength, the energy or the money to get good firewood. Instead, they pick up scraps of wood left on the street, whether it is painted or not. “There is an old man I see at the market, and every week there is less and less in his grocery bag,” he said. “I cannot blame him, no matter what garbage he burns.”

Greece
Trees
Oil and Gasoline
Heater
Sales Tax
Excise Tax


Shane Larkin and Durand Scott Spark Miami From the Backcourt

Abstract: AUSTIN, Tex. — The drill immediately stokes their competitive fire. When Miami Coach Jim Larranaga calls out “five minutes of 3s” at practice, his players respond with an energy and alacrity reflected in Larranaga’s tone. The Hurricanes have five minutes to make as many 3-point shots as possible. The prize: a freedom to launch a 3-ball whenever and wherever they have an open look in a game. A lot of teams employ the goal-oriented drill in various forms, but guards Shane Larkin and Durand Scott pushed to the point where practice totals would be posted in the locker room. “My assistants kept telling me in meetings, ‘Coach, we’ve got to keep score, because Shane and Durand won’t go very hard unless there’s something to win,’ ” Larranaga said. That basic instinct has evolved into a killer chemistry between Larkin and Scott, whose styles seem to blend into any situation. Larkin, the son of the former major league baseball star Barry Larkin, is a sophomore who transferred to Miami from DePaul and took over Scott’s position at point guard. Scott, a heralded high school player from the Bronx, is a senior who did not hesitate to defer to the underclassman. “I’m a basketball player,” Scott said. “It doesn’t matter what position I play. I can play all of them. Whatever it takes to win.” That attitude was on display Friday in the No. 2 Hurricanes’ 78-49 victory over Pacific in an East Region opener. Larkin scored 10 points in the first half on 2-of-6 shooting, but recognized how Scott was beginning to create a flow of his own. In the second half, Scott scored 18 of his team-high 21 points, feasting on passes from Larkin and at one point drilling three 3-pointers in a row. “He’s a selfless point guard,” Scott said. “We always go into it together fired up. I know if I just run the floor and if I get open, he’ll find me. I was just able to knock the shots down.” Scott is not considered the Hurricanes’ primary 3-point threat, but he made 5 of 8 against Pacific. He also made five against North Carolina State in the semifinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. Before that, he had hit four 3-pointers only once in a game this season. “He’s hot right now,” Larkin said. “I’m going to do the best I can to find him and get him easy shots.” That was not the case early in the season, when Scott would often hesitate with pump fakes and moves to his right after taking passes from Larkin. “I don’t think Durand believed in his shot as much then as he does now,” Larkin said. “He’s been known as a slasher, but he’s been working on his shot. He’s gotten more confident in his jumper, and that’s made us an even more dangerous team because people can’t just play him as a slasher; now they have to play him as a shooter as well.” Larkin did not score in the second half against Pacific, attempting only two more shots, but he finished with nine assists. “He’s like a little brother to me,” said Scott, who is two years older. “But it’s funny how I’ve learned so much from him. I just feed off him. He’s a very emotional player. I try to get him hyped just like he tries to get me hyped. We just do the best we can, especially on the defensive end, and try to win ballgames.” The Hurricanes’ game Sunday against No. 7 seed Illinois (23-12) has the potential to turn into an extended version of Miami’s 3-point drill. The Illini fired 31 shots from 3-point range, making only 8, in their opening 57-49 victory over Colorado. “Everybody was saying we peaked at the wrong time, and it lit a fire under us and really motivated us to come out and play great on the offensive end,” Larkin said. “Defensively, we’ve stepped on people early, and when we’ve done that, we’ve gotten off to good starts.” In Miami’s 3-point drill, Larkin has made a personal-best 75 shots and Scott 68, but those totals are not the team’s best. Trey McKinney Jones once hit 81. “We just come out focused every single game,” Larkin said. “It’s March Madness. Crazy things happen. We just have to come out with a lot of intensity and try to step on their throats early and give them no hope.”

College basketball
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness
University of Miami
University of Illinois
Shane Larkin
Durand Scott


Pakistani Lawmakers Choose Next President

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s lawmakers on Tuesday elected Mamnoon Hussain, a little-known industrialist and loyalist of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as the country’s 12th president, state television announced. Mr. Hussain’s victory followed a vote in the national and regional legislatures earlier in the day that had been devoid of tension because Mr. Hussain, a businessman from Karachi, had been widely expected to win. Pakistan’s presidency is a largely ceremonial position. But the stark challenges facing the entire political leadership were underscored early Tuesday when Taliban fighters staged an audacious jailbreak in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan that freed 250 prisoners, including at least 30 militants. As the voting got under way, strict security measures were in place for the National Assembly, the Senate and four provincial assemblies, where, under Pakistan’s electoral laws, lawmakers choose the president. Mr. Hussain will succeed President Asif Ali Zardari, a contentious figure who is expected to step down in September at the end of a tumultuous five-year term. Mr. Zardari spent much of his presidency engaged in rolling battles with the country’s judiciary and military leaders, all the while struggling to shake off longstanding corruption accusations. His Pakistan People's Party boycotted the election on Tuesday to protest a Supreme Court ruling that approved a government decision to move up the election, to July 30 from Aug. 6. Mr. Sharif moved up the election to facilitate voting by lawmakers who wished to make a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia toward the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Image Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, left, with Mamnoon Hussain, the newly-elected president, on Tuesday at the parliament house in Islamabad. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Zardari’s authority largely came from being the widower of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was assassinated in 2007. In recent years, he defused some of the public antipathy about his presidency by maintaining a low public profile. Mr. Zardari also changed the presidency by instigating constitutional reforms that drained his office of power and, ultimately, should make it more difficult for the military to seize power. He confounded his many critics, who regularly predicated his political demise, through adroit maneuvering. And he survived intense pressure from the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, which aggressively pursued Mr. Zardari and his party through the courts. While Mr. Zardari owed some of his power to his family background, Mr. Hussain’s main qualification seems to be his low-key profile. He served briefly as the governor of Sindh Province in 1999, when Gen. Pervez Musharraf toppled Mr. Sharif’s previous government in a bloodless coup. Mr. Hussain remained a steadfast ally of Mr. Sharif in those days, defying pressure and intimidation from the military. His forays into electoral politics were less successful. Mr. Hussain contested the 2002 general election but failed to win a seat by a wide margin. Since then he has had a low public profile and concentrates on his interests in the textile industry. Political analysts say the presidency may be his reward for his unflinching loyalty to the Sharif family. In choosing Mr. Hussain, Mr. Sharif may also have had ethnic considerations in mind. Mr. Hussain was born in the Indian city of Agra in 1940. His family migrated to Pakistan after its partition from India in 1947, where it established a textile business. “I belong to Karachi,” Mr. Hussain has been quoted as saying by local news outlets. “If elected, I’ll try to resolve Sindh’s issues and restore peace in Karachi. Development and progress will begin from Sindh.”

Pakistan
Election
Mamnoon Hussain
Nawaz Sharif
Asif Ali Zardari


For Debate Partners, an Unusual Pairing

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — In the pantheon of strange political bedfellows, CNN and the Tea Party could go down as one of the oddest pairings since James Carville and Mary Matalin. CNN , the 24/7 cable news pioneer long derided by conservatives as a mouthpiece of the political left, and Tea Party activists, who pride themselves on bucking the establishment, came together here Monday evening for a presidential debate — an unusual display of cooperation between the news media and some of its most hostile critics. Each stands to benefit from reaching the other’s following, raising questions about whether the arrangement was a shrewd political transaction masquerading as public service. Sal Russo, a co-founder of the Tea Party Express , said he expected the partnership to help dispel misperceptions about the Tea Party as a fringe movement. “The fact that they’re broadcasting and partnering with us shows that they understand it’s a broad-based political movement and that it isn’t fractured and narrow,” Mr. Russo said. CNN, which has sought to establish itself as an island of cable news centrism between MSNBC on the left and Fox News on the right, went to great lengths to make the event as authentically Tea Party as possible. The network planned the debate for Sept. 12, a symbolic date for Tea Party activists. The venue CNN selected, the Florida State Fairgrounds, was chosen for its grass-roots appeal and its ability to easily accommodate thousands of Tea Party spectators. And the partner it sought out, the Tea Party Express, used its ties to hundreds of Tea Party groups across the country to recruit attendees. “After the 2010 elections, it was undeniable that the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party was a force, and that it was likely to help determine the outcome of the nomination,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. “We decided that it makes sense for one of the debates to have a Tea Party connection, and that we were the right network to do it.” Networks regularly partner with established political organizations to host debates during primary season. Fox News, CNBC and ABC News, for example, are all sponsoring debates later this year with state Republican groups in several states. Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Tim Pawlenty presidential campaign until Mr. Pawlenty dropped out last month, said news organizations partnered with political entities to make sure that candidates showed up for debates — and to make sure that viewers tuned in. “There are so many debates; the networks look for ways to partner with groups that would help the debate stand out,” Mr. Conant said. But the CNN debate on Monday was the first event hosted jointly by a major news organization and a Tea Party group. And their partnership left some questioning whether the network had gone too far in reaching for centrist credibility. “Is there really a need for another national cable news channel devoted to promoting far-right elements within the Republican Party?” the liberal media watchdog group FAIR said Monday in an e-mail alert to its members in which it labeled the Tea Party “a controversial political group.” CNN, which said it maintained complete control over what would be asked during the debate and which candidates could participate, coordinated with Tea Party activists from across the country to solicit questions. It arranged for live satellite feeds for Tea Party activists to ask questions from gatherings in Arizona, Virginia and Ohio. And the Tea Party Express identified almost 1,000 people from 31 states and the District of Columbia to sit in the audience. Even the graphics on the video screens behind the stage flashed flags that are often seen at Tea Party rallies. Here in Tampa, there were signs the network was sensitive to perceptions that it was being too cozy with Tea Party activists. During a tour of the debate hall, Mr. Feist referred to the gatherings in Arizona, Virginia and Ohio, saying, “We’ll have watch parties.” He was swiftly corrected by CNN’s special events producer, Kate Lunger, who interjected, “Well, we won’t have watch parties.” CNN is not the first network to be associated with the Tea Party. Rick Santelli, a reporter for CNBC, is credited with galvanizing the movement in early 2009 with his “Chicago Tea Party” rant that attacked government bailouts. Fox News swiftly gravitated to the Tea Party movement, broadcasting whole shows from several rallies and even taking out an advertisement lambasting its competitors for missing one such event that year. (The competitors had, in fact, covered it.) When CNN has covered Tea Party rallies in the past, it was met more than once by hostile crowds. During a Capitol Hill demonstration in September 2009, protesters shouted “Tell the Truth!” at the correspondent Lisa Desjardins before breaking into a chant for Glenn Beck, the former Fox News host. Since then, CNN has moved aggressively to cover the Tea Party as a political phenomenon; last year it showed an hourlong documentary about the movement, and earlier this year it hired a Tea Party leader and radio host as a contributor.

News and News Media
Tea Party Movement
Debates (Political)
United States Politics and Government
CNN


Preet Bharara Says He Will Stay On as U.S. Attorney Under Trump

Abstract: Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan who has built a reputation as a fierce prosecutor of public corruption cases, said on Wednesday that he intended to remain in office under President-elect Donald J. Trump’s administration. Mr. Bharara, who was appointed to the position in 2009 by President Obama, made the announcement after meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower. Mr. Bharara, 48, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said Mr. Trump had asked to see him to discuss “whether or not I’d be prepared to stay on as the United States attorney to do the work as we have done it, independently, without fear or favor for the last seven years.” “We had a good meeting,” Mr. Bharara continued. “I said I would absolutely consider staying on. I agreed to stay on.” Mr. Bharara said that he had already talked to Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who is Mr. Trump’s choice for attorney general. “He also asked that I stay on, and so I expect that I will be continuing,” Mr. Bharara said. Mr. Bharara, who before becoming the United States attorney served as chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, did not elaborate on how the meeting was arranged. But Mr. Schumer, in a statement issued after Mr. Bharara made his announcement, said, “President-elect Trump called me last week and asked me what I thought about Preet Bharara continuing his role as U.S. attorney.” “I told him I thought Preet was great,” Mr. Schumer added, “and I would be all for keeping him on the job and fully support it. I am glad they met, and am glad Preet is staying on.” Mr. Trump also asked Mr. Schumer how best to reach Mr. Bharara, and the senator provided Mr. Trump with Mr. Bharara’s direct line, said a person who was briefed on the call and spoke on the condition of anonymity. United States attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and typically offer their resignations after a new president takes office. Mr. Trump did not immediately issue a statement about his decision, but Mr. Bharara, in his comments, said that Mr. Trump had asked to meet with him “presumably because he’s a New Yorker and is aware of the great work that our office has done.” Mr. Bharara has shown a record of independence as a prosecutor, as well as a willingness to take on powerful figures in state government, Democrats included. Last year, his office won the convictions of Sheldon Silver , the former speaker of the State Assembly and a Democrat, and of Dean G. Skelos , the former State Senate majority leader and a Republican. His office also investigated Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s shutting down of an anticorruption panel known as the Moreland Commission (no charges were brought against Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat). And the office recently charged two former advisers to Mr. Cuomo in a bribery and bid-rigging case. “Preet has shown as a prosecutor that he is willing to take on the political establishment,” said Arlo Devlin-Brown, a former chief of Mr. Bharara’s corruption unit who is now a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling. “He’s also shown he can win. There is no question that these are qualities that the president-elect admires.” Mr. Bharara’s tenure of more than seven years as the United States attorney in Manhattan has been exceeded in the past 100 years by only two of his predecessors: Mary Jo White and Robert M. Morgenthau. Mr. Bharara’s office is currently prosecuting Ahmad Khan Rahami, a New Jersey man accused of setting off a bomb in the Chelsea section of Manhattan that injured more than 30 people (he has pleaded not guilty ). Other cases being prosecuted by the office involve charges of insider trading against William T. Walters, a Las Vegas sports gambler who has also pleaded not guilty, and an alleged kickback scheme by a former executive at Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

US Attorney
Preet Bharara
Donald Trump
Manhattan
US Politics


Driver’s Death Linked to Crash

Abstract: The family of the former Formula One test driver María de Villota said her death Friday was linked to the injuries she received in a crash last year. De Villota sustained head and facial injuries, including the loss of her right eye, while testing a car in England. ■ Brad Keselowski, Nascar’s defending Sprint Cup champion, snapped a 37-race winless streak by chasing down Kasey Kahne in the closing laps at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. (AP)


Unauthorized Colonies Dot New Delhi, Seeking Legal Status

Abstract: NEW DELHI — New Ashok Nagar is a typical crosscut of Indian urban chaos: Dust rises off battered, narrow lanes, tangles of telephone and electricity lines hang between poorly constructed, mismatched brick buildings. Sewage overflows from uncovered channels. And people are in the streets, in the doorways, everywhere. What is also fairly typical about New Ashok Nagar is that it is not supposed to exist. The district, on the eastern edge of New Delhi, is an “unauthorized colony,” with an estimated 200,000 residents despite its lack of government approvals or full city services. Across New Delhi, as many as 5 million of the city’s 17 million residents live in unauthorized colonies, whether in slums, middle-class areas or even a few illegally constructed enclaves of the rich. Now Sheila Dixit, the chief minister of Delhi, the state that includes the national capital, New Delhi, has promised what amounts to an election-year urban amnesty program. She has pledged that scores of unauthorized colonies, including New Ashok Nagar, will be granted legal status — which could lead to new or improved sewer lines, electrical and water connections, and better roads — a change that could move residents closer to modern standards of living. Possibly. “We are on the list of authorized colonies,” said S. P. Tyagi, who has lived in New Ashok Nagar since 1984 and seen the difference between political promises that are made and those that are delivered. “But it is not clear if it will happen or not. There are some doubts.” India is often demarcated along lines of caste or class. But many of India’s rapidly growing cities are also delineated by the legal status of where people live. For years, as migrants have poured into Indian cities in search of work and opportunity, illegal settlements, often slums, have sprung up in the absence of available, affordable low-income or even middle-class housing. Many of these settlements have grown into bustling districts more populous than many American cities, yet lacking amenities and legal protections, and residents face the perpetual threat of eviction. This month, government bulldozers flattened a small slum in New Delhi known as Sonia Gandhi Camp, named after the president of the governing Indian National Congress Party. At the edge of a road called Tamil Sangam Marg, not far from one of the city’s wealthiest districts, about 50 migrant families had lived there for two decades. Many had voting cards or government ration cards that listed their address as Sonia Gandhi Camp. One city agency had even built a public toilet, though the encampment remained illegal. “They asked us to stand in front of our homes,” said one man, who gave only his given name, Ramesh. He said residents were told the land was needed for a road project. “We showed them our papers and cards. But they did not listen. They started on one side and demolished everything.” An elderly woman, Rama Devi, could not contain her anger as she stood in the rubble. “They have left us on the road,” she said. “I wish they would go to hell.” Rapid Growth Creates Cities Within Cities in India 8 Photos View Slide Show › Image Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times This blend of demolition and rampant illegal construction is part of the rough, pell-mell process of an Indian megalopolis coming into being. New Delhi is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, adding 200,000 new residents every year, according to city officials. Yet much of the land in the city is controlled by the Delhi Development Authority, an agency under the national government that has been criticized for failing to develop enough housing, especially for the poor and the middle class. “What happens to the people who come?” asked R. K. Srivastava, the secretary of urban development in the Delhi state government, who is critical of the national development agency. “There is no housing stock. These people are forced to live in shanties, unauthorized colonies and, shall I say, subhuman facilities.” In the 1970s, the Delhi Development Agency took control of New Ashok Nagar, which was then farmland. The agency never took physical possession of the land, even as it doled out compensation to farmers, and residents say that some farmers simply resold the same plots to people looking to live in the capital. “I knew this was an unauthorized colony, but I did not have the money to buy in an authorized colony,” said Mr. Tyagi, the longtime resident. A public school English teacher, he bought a plot of about 1,000 square feet for 8,000 rupees, or $148. “At that time, even 8,000 rupees were too much for me,” he said. Mr. Tyagi estimates that when he arrived in 1984, perhaps 5,000 people lived in the colony. “We used to live without electricity,” he said. “We made our own arrangements with candles or kerosene lights. For water, we built our own hand pumps.” To fend off the occasional demolition notices, residents began dabbling in politics. As the populations rapidly grew in colonies like New Ashok Nagar, local lawmakers realized that these colonies represented troves of potential voters and found ways to divert funds to provide rudimentary electrical connections, roads and other services. Tapan Kumar Chowdhury, 62, a retiree now working as an activist in the colony, said legalized status would be likely to improve sanitation and local health standards through installation of a true sewage system. But he remained skeptical about whether the election-year promises would be carried out, noting that politicians preferred to keep colonies vulnerable so that residents remained more beholden to them for even incremental improvements. “They have a vested interest in keeping us illegal and unauthorized,” he said, “so they can use us as a vote bank.” Or as a real bank. Merchants like Vinod Kaushik, who runs a small pharmacy, said petty officials routinely demanded bribes to allow new construction projects. Others said that the police routinely required payoffs, too. Mr. Srivastava, the state urban development secretary, agreed that even those colonies like New Ashok Nagar that were listed to become authorized still had to navigate loopholes, like providing layout plans for official approval. Doing this would mean that every lane and building must meet city specifications, though code violations are common. He characterized the requirements as somewhat unrealistic but said the process was established under a 2007 national law. He said state officials were planning to seek the “relaxation” of certain code requirements, which could help illegal colonies like New Ashok Nagar pass muster but would also leave them with substandard housing. “Where will the poor man go?” he asked. “That is the problem.” Partha Mukhopadhyay, an urban affairs specialist at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, said politicians had made promises that were not fulfilled, but that this time the process seemed much farther down the bureaucratic track, a reason for cautious optimism. “Usually, it is promised and not delivered,” he said. “It is possible that this time they might actually go through with the regularization process.”

New Delhi
Squatting
Sheila Dixit
New Ashok Nagar New Delhi India
India


Troubled Firm to Close 2 Funds Worth $4 Billion

Abstract: D.B. Zwirn, a New York hedge fund that has been plagued by accounting irregularities, is closing two of its largest funds after investors demanded the firm return $2 billion. The investors will not get their money any time soon, however. D.B. Zwirn invests in illiquid assets like loans to companies around the world, including some in China. In a letter sent to investors on Thursday, Daniel B. Zwirn, the firm’s founder, said it would take two to four years “or longer” to sell the assets in an orderly fashion. His firm, which oversees $5 billion, is closing funds worth about $4 billion. The troubles at D.B. Zwirn did not come as a surprise. In late 2006, the firm uncovered improper money transfers between its funds and improper charges to clients. Later, Mr. Zwirn, in a letter to investors, called the episode “completely unacceptable to us and deeply embarrassing.” The firm paid clients back, with interest. But investors were shaken, and the Securities and Exchange Commission initiated an investigation. “They stole from their clients,” said one investor who did due diligence on the fund but decided against investing. “I don’t know how you give money to a fund after that.” Yet D.B. Zwirn delivered steady returns — 1 to 2 percent a month — without much volatility, making the firm a magnet for new money. It doubled in size from 2004 to 2006 and returned 11 percent in its onshore fund and 7 percent in its offshore fund in 2007. But investors say the fund did not invest enough in risk management and financial controls required to handle such a big fund, particularly one with investments that are difficult to value. In a letter to investors on Thursday, Mr. Zwirn attributed the closing of the funds to the fact that the accounting problems led to a “delay in the completion of the audited financial statements for 2006.” Potential and actual investors disagreed. They said the reason that it took so long for D.B. Zwirn to close the funds was that the firm required clients to invest in its funds for at least three years before they could withdraw money. It also required investors to give 120 days notice for withdrawals. Investors seeking to pull out money have their funds placed in separate accounts to be liquidated when and if the loans are paid off, a process that could take years. “It is the most complex lock-up period I have ever seen,” said the investor who contemplated investing in the fund last year. News that the fund was shutting down was first reported by The Financial Times. For all the turmoil at his firm, Mr. Zwirn has an impressive resume. In 1993 he received a computer science degree — cum laude — from the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering and a bachelor of science in economics with a self-designed triple concentration — accounting, finance and corporate control — from the university’s Wharton School. In 1998 he received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He worked at several prestigious financial institutions, including Lazard Freres and Madison Dearborn, before moving to MSD Capital, the private investment group for Michael Dell. In October 2001, Mr. Zwirn joined Highbridge Capital Management, the big hedge fund group now majority-owned by JPMorgan Chase. He struck out on his own in 2004. The accounting problems were not D.B. Zwirn’s only hiccup. In 2005 it hired David Becker, a trader who had been fired from Citigroup for allegedly inflating the size of his commodities book by $20 million to bulk up his bonus. A year later, Mr. Becker pleaded guilty to conspiracy to falsify bank records and commit wire fraud related to the Citigroup allegations (he was fired from the firm the same week). At the time he was fired, D.B. Zwirn said a background check had not raised any red flags. Several high-ranking employees have left the firm, including the chief financial officer, chief operating officer and general counsel. Mr. Zwirn, however, sounded at optimistic note this week. At the end of his letter, he thanked his investors for “our years of partnership.” “It is our sincere hope to continue that partnership with many of our current investors in the future,” he said.

Hedge Funds
D B Zwirn
Frauds and Swindling
Stocks and Bonds


Giants Seat Licenses Priced From $1,000 to $20,000

Abstract: The Giants laid out on Thursday the prices for personal seat licenses in the team’s new stadium, a roster of one-time fees that start at $1,000 each for 26,179 upper-deck seats and rise to $20,000 apiece for 4,162 lower-level field seats. Between the highest and lowest prices that fans must pay for the rights to keep their season tickets are fees that range from $4,000 each for 10,905 mezzanine seats above each end zone to $12,500 each for 3,052 mezzanine club seats overlooking the sidelines. The Giants are selling licenses to every seat in the $1.6 billion stadium they are building with the Jets, and will generate about $367 million if they sell all 78,448 licenses. After taxes, about half the revenue will go to paying the Giants’ stadium debt. The stadium is scheduled to open in East Rutherford, N.J., in 2010. Even before the Giants released their pricing plan, which has 10 options, fans were resigned that they had to buy licenses, which guarantee the right to buy and control their season tickets — or lose their places in the new building. John Moss, of Roseland, N.J., learned that he would be paying $5,000 each for his four front-row, end-zone seats at the new stadium. “It’s difficult to afford,” he said, “but I’m better off than the guy at the 40-yard line in the 27th row who’s paying $20,000.” It would cost $80,000 for four seat licenses and $28,000 a year to buy the tickets in the field level behind the Giants’ bench, which will become an elite Coach’s Club in the new stadium. “For people like me, these tickets are part of my family heritage,” said one fan with seats in that section, who did not want to be named for fear of possible retribution by the Giants. “And because of my parents’ efforts, we have excellent seats, so it’s a kick in the stomach to be presented with a plan like this that we can’t afford.” John Mara, the team’s president and co-owner, said fans had written and called him, some unhappy about the seat licenses. One sentiment has been that his late father, Wellington, would never have sold them. “Believe me, I’ve felt that, but my father wasn’t faced with this kind of debt on a new building,” Mara said on a conference call with reporters. The team is giving existing season-ticket holders four preferences for where they wish to be in the new stadium, including where they now sit. Mara knows that people who cannot afford the more expensive licenses will move to cheaper perches or leave entirely. “If that happens, it will make me sad, but I think we’ve provided enough options for people who want to stay there,” Mara said. The advent of seat licenses will also usher in higher ticket prices. Tickets for Giants’ home games next season range from $85 to $115 a game. In 2010, they will start at $85 (for the upper level seats above the end zones), increase to $95, $105, $120, $140 and $160, and then make the leap to $400 and $500 each for the 7,085 mezzanine club seats. The Coach’s Club, with its $700-a-game seats, will feature a restaurant (with free food), bars (the alcohol is not gratis) and TV sets in an area behind the seats. It will also have a glassed-off area where fans will be able to watch reporters grill players and coaches after games. Meanwhile, the Jets have been assessing the results of a fan survey about licenses. A spokesman, Bruce Speight, said the team would announce its plan in late August. The Giants’ plan, the 13th seat license plan offered by an N.F.L. team since 1993, differs widely from one advanced recently by the Dallas Cowboys for their new stadium that is to open in 2009. The Cowboys are selling licenses for 80 percent of the stadium’s seats, mostly for $2,000 to $5,000 each, but club-seat licenses are going for $16,000 to $150,000 each. Giants season-ticket holders will receive brochures and applications starting later this month. Mara said no seat assignments would be completed and no licenses sold until every season-ticket holder had gotten the information.

New York Giants
Stadiums and Arenas
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


Seahawks’ Russell Wilson Shows He Belongs Near Head of Rookie Class

Abstract: CHICAGO — Russell Wilson walked to the microphone shortly after Seattle’s 23-17 overtime win dressed in a sharp gray suit, crisp white shirt and dark tie. His trademark eye black was washed from his face. “That was a blast,” he said. In a season of dazzling rookie quarterbacks, Wilson reminded viewers Sunday that he, too, must be reckoned with. He led two clutch touchdown drives — one late in the fourth quarter and another in overtime — as the Seahawks snatched a victory from the Bears at Soldier Field and knocked them into a tie for the N.F.C. North lead with the Green Bay Packers, who hold the tiebreaker over Chicago. “It was extraordinary, exquisite poise,” Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll said of Wilson. “There were so many plays where he had to do something special.” The defenses ruled this game for nearly four quarters on an unseasonably balmy, 60-degree December afternoon off Lake Michigan. The Bears led by 14-10 when Wilson and the Seahawks took over at their 3-yard line with 3 minutes 40 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Seahawks’ ensuing drive covered 12 plays and included a fourth-down conversion, two key runs by Wilson and a fumble recovery — by Wilson. The fumble happened in Seattle territory when Charles Tillman poked the ball free from Marshawn Lynch along the sideline before Wilson dived on it. Wilson capped the drive with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Golden Tate with 24 seconds remaining, giving Seattle a 17-14 lead. “I went to the huddle that last drive right before we went into overtime and said, ‘Guys, this is what the season comes down to right here and right now,’ ” Wilson said. The Bears’ Jay Cutler answered with a drive of his own. Cutler, who finished 17 of 26 for 233 yards and 2 touchdowns, completed a 56-yard prayer of a pass to Brandon Marshall to set up Robbie Gould’s 46-yard field goal to tie the game, 17-17, as time expired in regulation. Seattle won the coin toss in overtime and Wilson continued to gash the Bears, one of the league’s top defenses, with his arm and his legs. He rushed three times for 28 yards and helped Seattle convert three third downs on a 12-play, 80-yard march. It was over, and so was the game, when Wilson connected with Sidney Rice, who slithered into the end zone for a 13-yard score ahead of a hard hit from Major Wright that jarred the ball loose. Rice lay on the ground for several minutes before leaving the field without assistance. An official review confirmed the touchdown, and Seattle moved to 7-5 and within a game and a half of San Francisco for first place in the N.F.C. West. Wilson finished the game 23 of 37 for 293 yards and 2 touchdown passes. He also rushed for 71 yards. Wilson was drafted by the Seahawks in the third round last spring and won the starting job. Indianapolis’s Andrew Luck and Washington’s Robert Griffin III have had flashier rookie seasons, but the Seahawks said Wilson belonged in the same class. “He’s now beaten Cutler, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady,” cornerback Richard Sherman said. “These are things you got to think about, but he might get overlooked because of where we are and the team he’s on.” After the game, receivers talked glowingly about the e-mails and texts Wilson sends them at the beginning of every week to help them prepare for defenses. Tate recalled a text he received from Wilson on Monday that he said was “like a novel.” “We communicate with him and he communicates with us,” Tate said. “He does everything perfect. I almost think he’s a perfect person.”

Football
Wilson Russell
Seattle Seahawks
Chicago Bears


Russia Joins Afghan Drug Raid

Abstract: MOSCOW — Russian counternarcotics agents took part in an operation to eradicate several drug laboratories in Afghanistan this week, joining Afghan and American antidrug forces in what officials here said Friday marked an advance in relations between Moscow and Washington. The operation, in which four opium refining laboratories and over 2,000 pounds of high-quality heroin were destroyed, was the first to include Russian agents. It also indicated a tentative willingness among Russian officials to become more deeply involved in Afghanistan two decades after American-backed Afghan fighters defeated the Soviet military there. “This is a major success for cooperative actions,” Viktor P. Ivanov, Russia ’s top drug enforcement official, told journalists in Moscow. “This shows that there are real actions being taken amid the reset in relations between Russia and the United States.” Although Russia has a large stake in the outcome of the war in Afghanistan, the country has not participated in the NATO-led military coalition there and has seemed ambivalent about the American effort in its backyard. Officials in Russia and the United States have called Afghanistan an important arena for cooperation, but they have often clashed over the conduct of the war. Russian officials have granted permission for nonlethal cargo destined for Afghanistan to be transported across Russian territory, but they have also pushed the authorities in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan to close an American military base there that acts as a crucial supply hub for the war. So far, the base remains open . At the same time, Russia has strong interests in a stable and cooperative Afghanistan. A Taliban resurgence and the return of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan could bolster Islamic extremism in Central Asia and southern Russia, where the authorities continue to battle a potent Islamic insurgency in Chechnya and the surrounding region. The issue of Afghan heroin, which is derived from opium, is particularly vexing. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of heroin, much of which seeps into neighboring Central Asian countries and then into Russia, where it finds a ready market of over a million users. Almost 90 percent of Russia’s heroin comes from Afghanistan, according to government statistics. Injected drugs kill thousands annually and are the main driver of Russia’s H.I.V. epidemic, which is growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world. While Russia has struggled to bring heroin use under control domestically, officials have criticized the United States for not doing enough to halt the production of the drug in Afghanistan. Some here have even suggested that the United States was abetting the drug trade in an effort to weaken Russia. Mr. Ivanov, who is also a close adviser to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, has been pressing his counterparts in Washington to increase efforts to eradicate poppy fields in Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s opium production, estimated at almost 4,000 tons in the last year, has been a major source of financing for the Taliban. But the Obama administration has scaled back eradication programs, which were employed in the Bush era, out of fears that farmers would turn to the Taliban for assistance. Russia and the United States created a counternarcotics working group last year in part to reconcile these disagreements, and this week’s raid on the heroin factories appears to be a step in that direction. Of about 70 people taking part in the raid early Thursday morning, only four were agents of Russia’s Federal Counter Narcotics Service. The others were from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the Afghan drug police. Senior D.E.A. officials said that the multinational task force, acting on intelligence, located a major clandestine heroin laboratory in the Zerasari village of Achin District, in Nangarhar Province near the Pakistani border. After they arrived, the agents discovered three additional labs hidden by vegetation. All four sites had been abandoned at the time of the operation, but officials said the evidence collected there confirmed that all were actively producing heroin and morphine. The agents seized about 2,000 pounds of heroin and about 345 pounds of opium, as well as other chemicals and equipment. The D.E.A. said the heroin was worth $55.9 million. “Just in terms of disruption this was a very important operation, but it was also part of a larger strategy to attack the drug flows,” said Eric Rubin, the deputy chief of mission at the United States Embassy in Moscow. “The goal is to identify, disrupt and deny material support to terrorism, and very specifically to the Taliban elements that are supporting this drug trade.”

Heroin
Afghanistan
Russia
United States
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Opium


Nationals Trade Reliever

Abstract: The Washington Nationals accommodated reliever Drew Storen, trading him to the Toronto Blue Jays for outfielder Ben Revere. Storen, 28, had sought a deal. He lost his closer role in late July when the Nationals acquired Jonathan Papelbon from Philadelphia. Storen had converted 29 of 30 save chances with a 1.73 E.R.A. when Papelbon was acquired. ■ The Yankees acquired reliever Kirby Yates from the Cleveland Indians for $78,000. Yates, a 28-year-old right-hander, was 1-2 with one save and a 5.27 E.R.A. in 57 relief appearances for Tampa Bay in 2014 and 2015. Last season, in 201/3 innings, he gave up 10 home runs. Cleveland had acquired him for cash on Nov. 25. (AP) ■ Kelly Johnson and the Braves finalized a $2 million, one-year contract that returns Johnson, a utility player, to Atlanta for a third stint. Johnson, 33, started the 2015 season with the Braves and was dealt to the Mets. He hit .265 with 14 homers and 47 R.B.I. in 111 games. (AP)

Baseball
Drew Storen
Ben Revere
Washington Nationals
Blue Jays


Croatia Beat Spain, 2-1, but the Notable Score Came From the Orchestra

Abstract: PARIS — On a Tuesday night, as on many other occasions, the Philharmonie de Paris, a concert hall that seats 2,400, resonated with long, flowing melodies and intricate musical compositions of unbuttoned exuberance. This time, however, an ecstatic audience cheered and burst into applause, and even booed, in tune not only with the players onstage, but also with the 22 other ones who ran up and down the field on a giant screen set up behind them. Every tackle and pass intertwined with serene pizzicati, rhythmic spiccato and even the droning noise of electric guitars. In the performance — a joint initiative of Tatane , a sports collective, and the Philharmonie de Paris — students from the Regional Conservatoire of Paris provided the audience with an eclectic musical backdrop to Croatia’s victory against Spain in the European Championships group stage. The Philharmonie de Paris, on the northeastern edge of the city, has hosted many concerts of the talented young musicians since it was inaugurated by François Hollande in January of last year. The Fête de la Musique, an annual music celebration held on June 21 in France since 1981, made the perfect occasion to enchant ears with Dvorak as the ball on the field was being lightly exchanged between players. The music abruptly changed to the easily recognizable beat of “Eye of the Tiger” when things on the field started to heat up. The audience heard the names of Mendelssohn and Brahms, but also those of Morata, Kalinic and Perisic, the players who scored in the match. The warm notes of the Spanish composer Albéniz accompanied La Roja’s players as they took over the Croatian half. People who attended the concert-game had not been exactly sure what to expect before the show. “I think it’s weird, it doesn’t mingle well,” said Léa Sánchez, a 20-year-old French-Spanish woman who wore a Spain jersey and attended with her sister and grandmother, Alissia Gonzáles, who was coming to the Philharmonie de Paris for the first time. Video When Spain moved with the ball, students from the Regional Conservatoire of Paris played the Spanish composer Albeniz. While the city handed out 2,000 free invitations to attract an audience that was not familiar with classical concerts, most of the attendees consisted of smart-looking Parisians, some of whom sipped white wine at the bar before kickoff. The wrapped-in-flags kind of supporters that public viewings of games at the Euros regularly attract were not exactly present. But the Philharmonie de Paris, with its futuristic waves of steel and concrete, can be intimidating. “I had a hard time finding people who like both music and soccer,” said Pastor Peppe, a 48-year-old Spaniard living in France. “I was expecting more flags,” he added. The venue on Tuesday was something like a gigantic movie theater, a stadium and a concert hall, with hundreds of people who sat on the floor and others in the seats above them. Some seized the opportunity to enjoy a festive moment without the hurdles of actually having attended the game. “I would not take my children into a stadium,” said Vianney Foucault, a 33-year-old computer engineer and father of two. Foucault said he was tear-gassed at the French Cup final between Paris St.-Germain and Marseille at Stade de France a few weeks ago. After intermission — halftime in the match in Bordeaux — the orchestra of more than 40 musicians spanned a wide register and carried listeners through the Colombian pop singer Shakira, the French composer Georges Delerue’s drawling melodies, Bernard Herrmann’s nerve-racking compositions and even Eminem’s “8 Mile.” The game ended with a standing audience that cheered and sang along to Queen’s “We Are the Champions” as the Croatian players, who had surprised Spain, 2-1, took each other in their arms onscreen.

Music
Classical music
Soccer
Philharmonie de Paris
Euro 2016 UEFA European Championship
Croatia
France
Paris France


Russian Voters Feeling Lost Without Translation

Abstract: WHEN Inna Stavitsky ran for City Council from Brighton Beach in 2001, she found herself operating an unpaid sideline in translation. “I had to translate all the fliers into Russian by myself and print up thousands of copies,” Ms. Stavitsky recalled the other day. “Instructions on how to vote, how to use the machines. Who has the right to vote? Who doesn’t? Can you ask for an interpreter?” Ms. Stavitsky, who works as a property manager for a nonprofit group that serves the elderly, did not win the election. But she has followed with great interest the fate of a state bill that would require the city to translate absentee ballots, voter registration cards and other electoral paperwork into Russian. Such material is currently rendered in Chinese, Spanish and Korean, a policy that has long puzzled the city’s Russian-Americans. They note that according to the 2000 census, more than twice as many New Yorkers speak Russian at home as speak Korean. Recently, however, the proposed legislation hit a roadblock. State Senator Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, its sponsor, said the Senate leadership prevented the bill from reaching the floor during the last legislative session. The issue was reported in The Jewish Week, a community newspaper. A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg said he had not taken a position on the bill. John Ravitz, executive director of the city’s Board of Elections, called legislators, however, to express what Valerie Vasquez Rivera, a board spokeswoman, described as “concern over the logistics of the bill.” Under federal law, the board is required to provide translations in Spanish and some Asian languages in parts of the city where those languages are widely spoken. Adding new translations, Ms. Rivera said, would open the floodgates to demands from speakers of other tongues. “We can’t start printing one language on the ballot and not expect speakers of other languages to ask for the same right,” she said. On Tuesday evening on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, each former Soviet republic seemed to have colonized a bench with ex-citizens. Isaac Stukalov, a Ukrainian-American sitting with friends, offered his opinion on the matter. The language barrier was a problem, he acknowledged. “But,” Mr. Stukalov said, “the problem really is that people do not want to vote. Laziness is No. 1.”

Voter Registration and Requirements
Brighton Beach (NYC)


Syria Misses New Deadline as It Works to Purge Arms

Abstract: GENEVA — Syria missed a revised deadline on Sunday for completing the export or destruction of chemicals in its weapons arsenal, but the government of the war-ravaged country may be only days away from finishing the job, according to international experts overseeing the process. The Syrian government had agreed to complete the export or destruction of about 1,200 tons of chemical agents by April 27 after missing a February deadline, but by Sunday, it had shipped out or destroyed 92.5 percent of the arsenal, said Sigrid Kaag, the coordinator of the joint mission by the United Nations and the watchdog agency the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Syria had made significant progress but must “take the final step very soon” to purge the remaining 7.5 percent of the arsenal, Ms. Kaag told reporters in Damascus, according to a report on the United Nations news service website . It was unclear from the report what chemical, or chemicals, were in the remainder. If Syria completes the process, it would be regarded as a critical step toward demonstrating its commitment to eradicating its entire chemical weapons program by the end of June, as the government had agreed in a deal negotiated by the United States and Russia, which was prompted by outrage over the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb. The United Nations news service report said Ms. Kaag had emphasized that “every effort must be made” to ensure that Syria’s entire chemical arsenal is destroyed by June 30. Syria has destroyed some of its less-dangerous chemical agents by itself, but it is shipping most of them outside the country to be destroyed by a specially adapted American vessel, the Cape Ray, and at specialized facilities in Europe and the United States. The slow rate of shipments in the first two months of the year raised concerns that Syria might renege on its commitments, but deliveries accelerated in March and April. And although the revised deadline passed on Sunday without completion, the watchdog agency said it believed that the government was in a position to finish delivering chemicals to the Syrian port of Latakia for shipment abroad within days. Syria has completed removing chemical weapons from 11 of the 12 sites where it had stored them, and the volume of chemicals remaining could be moved in “one large consignment or two regular consignments,” said Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the agency based in The Hague. Disarmament experts say the pace at which Syria has dismantled its chemical weapons program has few parallels, if any. “It’s been a unique operation, quick under the circumstances,” Ralf Trapp, a chemical weapons expert, said in an interview in which he alluded to the security challenges faced in moving the dangerous cargo in a civil war. “Frankly, many people wouldn’t have expected it would be achievable six months ago.” That achievement, however, is now overshadowed by reports that Syrian forces have attacked targets with bombs filled with chlorine gas. The government denied those reports. As a common industrial chemical, chlorine is not on the list of agents prohibited by the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty signed by Syria last year, and the country was not under any obligation to include it in the inventory it was required to deliver to the watchdog agency. Disarmament experts say, however, that the use of any chemical for military purposes violates the convention. Syria also has to complete the destruction of 12 production facilities used in its chemical weapons program, an issue that will be considered at a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ executive council on Tuesday. Syria said it had sealed and thus neutralized the facilities, including seven underground bunkers that it argues would be costly to destroy, but the United States and other Western countries say that the measures taken could be reversed and that the convention requires the destruction of the facilities.


For Paul and Janna Ryan, a Union Across Political Lines

Abstract: Their union was not necessarily one that friends and family saw coming. She was from a prominent Democratic family and dabbled in liberal causes during her college years at Wellesley, even once taking a road trip to Washington to march for women’s rights. And he, an up-and-coming Republican congressman, had worked after-school jobs to help support his family as a teenager and was known for his deeply conservative views. So, on the surface, it was surprising when Janna Little, a socially popular lobbyist on Capitol Hill, and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin , who had been dating aerobics instructors at his gym, hit it off after he asked for an introduction. They met at a party, started dating and were married in the winter of 2000. “That was a big deal at the time,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma , a Republican who is a longtime friend of the Little family, elected from the largely rural district where Janna Little Ryan grew up. “But certain values transcend politics.” Now Mrs. Ryan, 43, is one of the public faces of the Republican ticket, married to a candidate whose selection has electrified conservatives while alarming others with his views on abortion and his zeal for cutting spending on social welfare programs. It is an unconventional path for a woman from Democratic Party royalty in Oklahoma, one who gave up her career as a Washington lobbyist to become a wife and mother in Janesville, Wis., as her husband built his career as the ideological leader of his party in Congress. Friends say Mrs. Ryan chose her political life’s path with a sense of purpose, and they describe her as being a “practical conservative” these days, even if she might once have been more of a Democrat. As a former Wellesley roommate, Rachel Clark, said of their college days: “I think it’s fair to say that we were all on the more liberal side of things back then. And as often happens, people’s views change and evolve over time.” As she adopts a more public role, she has seemed uncomfortable in the spotlight. At the rally where Mitt Romney named Mr. Ryan as his running mate, Mrs. Ryan was given the opportunity to speak after Ann Romney , but she declined the invitation, shaking her head slightly, an unusually spontaneous moment for such a scripted event. She is not, however, someone who has shied away from asserting herself. Mrs. Ryan is a lawyer and a tax specialist who, before her marriage, worked for prestigious government affairs and accounting firms as a lobbyist, representing some of the biggest names in a range of industries, including Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Novartis and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Her public face now, though, is representative of what she has been for the past dozen years: a mother raising the couple’s three children in their Georgian-style brick house. Upon marriage, the Ryans decided to settle in Janesville instead of in Washington so that their children might have the same sort of upbringing that they had once enjoyed. Mrs. Ryan’s life changed greatly, as she traded her high-octane career for a quieter existence behind her husband’s rising profile. “There was no debate, question or concern about her quitting her job and going to Janesville because that’s what she wanted to do,” said Leslie Belcher, who was a bridesmaid in Mrs. Ryan’s wedding. “She’s the stabilizing force in the family.” Mr. Cole said that Mrs. Ryan brought “the characteristics of a fine lawyer” to the relationship, being a problem solver and dealmaker who is mainly interested in finding common ground. “This is not a Matalin-Carville relationship,” Mr. Cole said, referring to the political commentators Mary Matalin and James Carville , a married couple on opposite sides of the political spectrum. “It was never a matter of partisan warfare. Paul is more ideological, and Janna is a more practical conservative. She is very pragmatic in her thinking.” And although she has not been in the spotlight until now, national politics is not something new for Mrs. Ryan, who is a first cousin of Representative Dan Boren, an Oklahoma Democrat and the son of a former senator and governor, David L. Boren. Mrs. Ryan went east to study at Wellesley, following in the footsteps of her mother, Prudence Little, who, according to her obituary, was a founding member of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. Mrs. Ryan’s father, Dan Little, who is also a lawyer, practices in Madill, Okla., where Mrs. Ryan and her two sisters grew up. Mrs. Ryan’s mother struggled with cancer for the last 35 years of her life, first battling advanced melanoma , then breast cancer , then ovarian cancer and a recurrence of the melanoma she thought she had beat. She died two years ago. Mrs. Ryan was always open about how she dealt with her mother’s long illness, even discussing how she coped in a Spanish class, said Joy Renjilian-Burgy, a professor. Mrs. Ryan’s professors described her as being interested in social justice and the broader world around her. She belonged to Wellesley’s art and music society and spent the spring of 1990 studying in Córdoba, Spain , to sharpen her Spanish and explore other parts of Europe . “I didn’t get the sense that she was a political activist,” said Professor Renjilian-Burgy, who wrote Mrs. Ryan’s recommendation to study abroad. But when it came to topics like the history and treatment of indigenous peoples around the world, Professor Renjilian-Burgy said, “she was very sensitive to these issues.” After graduating from George Washington University Law School and working on Capitol Hill for a family friend, Representative Bill Brewster, Democrat of Oklahoma, Mrs. Ryan gained a reputation for being smart and social. Mr. Ryan, only recently elected to Congress, had been admiring her from afar, said A. Mark Neuman, a mutual friend who set the couple up at Mrs. Ryan’s 30th birthday party. Mr. Neuman agreed to get them together, he said, because he thought the two would be a good match, both “sophisticated people who share small-town Middle American values.” So what made Mrs. Ryan click with Mr. Ryan, who in college developed a passion for libertarian thinking? They both enjoy fishing and hunting and had both grown up treasuring their moments in nature, she in the Great Plains and he in the Midwest. Friends say they also found each other intellectually lively. “I think they both probably knew fairly quickly that they’d met their match in each other,” said Ms. Clark, her Wellesley roommate. “They’re both committed to family and public service, and they’re both extraordinarily nice people.” One phrase that is used with some frequency when friends describe Mrs. Ryan is “down to earth.” Although the Ryans are affluent by any measure, with assets that were valued last year at between $2 million and $7.8 million, much of which is in Mrs. Ryan’s trust, the family is not known for displays of wealth. Ms. Clark said that Mrs. Ryan “has always been well liked” and described her as — yes, again — “down to earth.” Beyond that, though, Ms. Clark said she could put a finger on the personality trait that has propelled Mrs. Ryan through life. “She has a confidence and strength that allows her to think deeply and think for herself,” Ms. Clark said, “while being respectful and gracious toward others who may disagree.”

Janna Ryan
Paul D Ryan Jr
2012 Presidential Election
Republicans
US Politics
Mitt Romney
House of Representatives


Possible Trading Errors Affect Kraft Shares

Abstract: The Nasdaq canceled some trades in the Kraft Foods Group on Wednesday after its shares posted an unusual price spike when the market opened. Shares of Kraft opened at $45.55 and surged 29 percent in the first minute to $58.54. The exchange says it is looking into “potentially erroneous transactions” and will cancel all trades that were made above $47.82 in the one minute after 9:30 a.m. The issue comes only days after Kraft Foods and a former Kraft snack business, Mondelez International, began trading as two separate companies. There have been several prominent trading errors recently with the increasingly complicated electronic systems that run stock trading. Those systems have shown signs of strain as more traders and investment firms use powerful computers to execute trades in fractions of a second. Shares of Kraft, which is based in Northfield, Ill., fell 55 cents, or 1.21 percent, on Wednesday, to $44.87.

Stocks and Bonds
Kraft Foods Group Inc.
Nasdaq Stock Market
High-Frequency and Flash Trading


Snowden Among Nominees for a European Human Rights Prize

Abstract: PARIS — The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought , considered Europe’s top human rights award, has been bestowed on luminaries like Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. This year, in a slap against Washington, the award could go to Edward J. Snowden, known as either the N.S.A. whistle-blower or a traitor, depending on one’s perspective. The European Parliament, the European Union’s only directly elected body, nominated Mr. Snowden for the prize late Monday. The others in contention include Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl who was 14 when the Taliban shot her in October but survived to become a potent voice in the struggle for education rights for women; Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon and Kremlin critic who is imprisoned in Russia; and Erdem Gunduz, who helped inspire the mass protests against the Turkish government’s perceived authoritarianism this year in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The nomination of Mr. Snowden is the latest in a series of rebukes from European lawmakers upset with the Obama administration’s foreign policies, including its surveillance program. More recently, the British Parliament refused to authorize the country’s participation in a military strike against Syria for a gas attack that killed more than 1,400 civilians. Only France, which does not require legislative approval of military actions, backed President Obama’s call to punish Syria for using chemical weapons. While hardly as momentous as the Syria vote, the nomination of Mr. Snowden carries great symbolic weight. It glaringly illustrates the chasm the leaks have opened between the United States and its allies, not only European countries but also Brazil, Mexico and other nations that have been spied on by the National Security Agency. In late June, after reports in Der Spiegel magazine that Washington was spying on the European Union and that the N.S.A. had tapped its offices in Washington, Brussels and the United Nations and gained access to internal computer networks, there was an angry outcry from European politicians. Mr. Snowden, 30, who has received temporary asylum in Russia, has been charged in the United States with espionage and theft, after his leaks of N.S.A. materials showing the extent of American spying at home and abroad. But the leftist and Green party members of the European Parliament who nominated him for the award praised him for his courage. Mr. Snowden “deserves to be honored for shedding light on the systematic infringements of civil liberties by U.S. and European secret services,” Daniel Cohn-Bendit of France and Rebecca Harms of Germany, the leaders of the Parliament’s Green members, said in a statement. “Snowden has risked his freedom to help us protect ours.” In an online New York Times opinion article on Sunday, Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, wrote that Mr. Snowden had exposed a gap between members of the younger “WikiLeaks generation,” who regard him as a role model, and older commentators in the traditional news media, who believe he needs to be brought to justice. Mr. Ludlow cited a recent poll showing that 70 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 believed that Mr. Snowden “did a good thing.” The winner of the prize will be announced in October, and the awards ceremony will be held in Strasbourg, France, in December. Last year, two convicted Iranians — Nasrin Sotoudeh, a lawyer who represents opposition activists and is now in prison, and Jafar Panahi, a filmmaker who has been released on bail but was banned from making films or leaving the country — were joint recipients of the prize.

European Parliament
Edward Snowden
Awards
Malala Yousafzai
Mikhail B Khodorkovsky
Human Rights
NSA