Before the Games Begin, Shen Wei Has Moves to Make

Abstract: THIRTEEN years ago Shen Wei was a dancer, a choreographer and a founding member of the Guangdong Modern Dance Company, the first of its kind in China. He was a rising star in his nation but craved to know more about Western dance than he could learn there. In 1995 a fellowship from the Louis-Nikolais Dance Lab brought him to New York, where he has lived ever since. Now a citizen of the United States, he is returning to his native country as a principal choreographer of the opening ceremonies of the XXIX Olympiad, one of several nonresident artists invited to design and stage the three-and-a-half-hour event. Given China’s reputation for insularity, the decision by members of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games to look outside China for the ceremony’s artists is notable. “I’m surprised that they asked me to join the team,” Mr. Shen said. “I left China a long time ago.” A visual artist as well, Mr. Shen makes dances that suggest a painter’s point of view, with the stage serving as a multidimensional canvas. In one of his best-known works, “Folding,” his dancers wear long red skirts, white face paint and conical headdresses as they skim across the stage, their bodies bending, or folding, in multiple directions. In the closing moments they ascend an invisible staircase to the chants of Tibetan Buddhists. His movements combine Eastern and Western ideas, drawing from Chinese opera, martial arts, Abstract Expressionism and Western Modernism. “We’re very interested in our ceremonies in exploring the fundamentals of Chinese philosophy and aesthetics but presenting them in a very contemporary and modern way,” said Jennifer Wen Ma, the chief visual and special effects designer for the ceremonies. “Shen Wei’s work is definitely in line with what we’re trying to do.” Though the details of the ceremony are tightly under wraps, organizers have suggested that more than 10,000 people will participate. And if Mr. Shen’s concepts are an indication, there won’t be a lot of Chinese dragons. “Most of the choreographers and directors in China, they have been in China for a long time,” he said. “They don’t have the chance, like me, to see what’s on the international stage.” Mr. Shen was officially chosen to participate in the ceremonies in April 2007. Two years earlier he had been part of one of the 13 teams (chosen from 600) that were invited to give proposals to the committee for the Olympic ceremonies. From those 13 teams, 7 key people — all of them Chinese — were chosen to be part of a core creative team. Zhang Yimou, a film director, was among them, and he became the group’s executive creative director. That core committee appointed Mr. Shen, along with many other artists, to create a cohesive vision for the ceremonies. Joining Mr. Shen in that effort are Mark Fisher, a British stage designer; Eiko Ishioka, a Japanese costume designer; and artists from Australia, France and Germany as well as China. “We wanted to gather as much talent from around the world as possible,” said Ms. Ma, a member of the core creative team. “We see this as an international event, and we think it shows the strength of the country when you can reach out.” When meeting with the committee, Mr. Shen said, “I talked to them about what each of my pieces is about, my approach to body movement and how it’s different from folk dance or classical dance and Chinese opera.” Ms. Ma said that Mr. Shen’s work had a strong international appeal. “It’s definitely contemporary and cutting edge, but it’s rooted in Chinese philosophy,” she said. “His work may not be overtly Chinese in style, but in philosophy and the principles of the Chinese aesthetics, he takes a lot from that." After spending much of 2007 in China, Mr. Shen returned to New York briefly last fall to develop the choreography for his part of the program with dancers from his own company, Shen Wei Dance Arts. “Chinese dancers, they have no modern-dance training,” he said, “and they have no understanding of my technique, my movement vocabulary.” Three of his dancers accompanied him to Beijing in December to help train the group of Chinese dancers that will be featured in the production. He has been working in Beijing with those dancers ever since. In addition to his choreographic contribution, Mr. Shen is also serving as an unofficial adviser to members of the core committee, pushing them, he said, to be as forward-thinking as possible. “They have to think that this is for the international audience,” he said. “The Olympic Games, it’s happening in Beijing, but that doesn’t mean it belongs to Beijing. It belongs to everybody." Reaching out hasn’t been a smooth process for the Chinese; the Games have already been fraught with controversy. Some European leaders, like President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, have threatened to boycott the ceremony; Steven Spielberg stepped down from his role as an adviser over China’s refusal to pressure Sudan to stop the suffering in Darfur; and protests over the treatment of Tibet have met the torch relay around the globe. Returning to China has been challenging for Mr. Shen as well. “It’s a totally different country now,” he said. “The streets, the buildings and the places where I grew up, they don’t exist. I’m used to the Western system of how things work. It’s so different. It’s like the moon and the sun." The changes he noticed on his return even influenced the work he did for the ceremonies: “In America we have so much privacy. In China people bump into you; they make contact with your skin. When you’re standing in line, they’re right up against your back. It’s like you’ve known them for a thousand years.” The cultural divide can also be daunting. “You have to work in the Chinese way because we are still outsiders working in China,” Mr. Shen said of himself, Mr. Fisher, Ms. Eiko and the other artists who live outside China. “It’s big pressure for them too because they have to accept some of our comments. They have to start to think about change as well. They listen to me, maybe not 100 percent, but it helps.” Mr. Shen said he has always viewed his work as a kind of cultural exchange, and now with the Olympics he has a stage to match his vision. “For the Olympics I’m trying to push things, make things more abstract, more international, to make sure things aren’t too Chinese, not too many dragons or red lanterns or ribbon dances,” he said. “Maybe it’s their tradition, but we need to grow, and China is not that way anymore.”


Italy Starts Slowly but Salvages Tie in Opener

Abstract: CAPE TOWN — This is a World Cup of abrupt transitions. It is not just about going from high altitude to sea level. In the afternoon, you can be in Durban, wearing shorts and flip-flops and squinting as the sun glints off the surf. In the evening, you can be walking to Green Point Stadium in Cape Town in a winter jacket and gloves and seeking cover from a mix of hail and heavy rain. So it went on Monday as South Africa’s World Cup continued to raise the curtain on soccer’s traditional powers. Argentina had already played and looked good. Germany looked better than that. But after watching Italy slog through a game that will not be long remembered against Paraguay on Monday, it seemed clear that the Italians need an abrupt change of their own if they are going to be a serious threat to defend their title. It ended, as many a game has in this first round, in a tie — this one a 1-1 draw — and it ended with Italy looking like the fresher, more dangerous team. But this was still a soggy night of negative soccer: of missed connections and brutal tackles, of outstretched arms and accusing glances, of ample effort but so few true opportunities. Both goals were scored off set pieces. In the 39th minute, after a long free kick from Aureliano Torres, Paraguay defender Antolín Alcaraz outmaneuvered Italy’s captain, Fabio Cannavaro, and the star midfielder Daniele de Rossi and headed the ball into the lower right corner of the goal to give Paraguay a 1-0 lead. After halftime, De Rossi equalized off a corner kick in the 63rd minute as Paraguay’s acrobatic but relatively short goalkeeper, Justo Villar, leapt but could not quite reach the ball. De Rossi, lurking behind him, lashed out in a flash with his foot and seized the moment, which already makes this a happier first round for the Roma star than the one he had in 2006, when he was suspended for four games after a brutal foul on the American Brian McBride. Though there were two goals Monday, creativity on the run was much harder to find, in part because of Paraguay’s defensive mind-set and both teams’ defensive talent, and also because of the weather and slick field conditions, and, finally, perhaps, because of Italy’s current limitations — which were hardly helped by having the playmaker Andrea Pirlo unavailable because of an injury. “I hope to get him back for our third match; not the second, the third,” Coach Marcelo Lippi said. Lippi, the silver-haired Tuscan who coached the Italians to the 2006 title, was not about to sound defeatist. And it is true that Italy has looked unimpressive early in major competitions and still gone far. “The only thing I regret is that normally matches of this type we win, but it didn’t happen,” Lippi said. “We definitely have to make some improvements. We didn’t finish much. We created little danger in relation to the volume of play the team expressed. That’s what I can say, but Italy is here. If ever anybody had any doubt, Italy is here. We’re here physically. We’re here mentally. We’re here with our hearts. We’re here fully.” That was a clear message to the Italian news media, which has been quite a bit more pessimistic lately as Lippi has stuck by many of the men who helped Italy to its 2006 World Cup title (with a bit of help from Zinédine Zidane’s rash head butt). But Italy’s starting lineup on Monday was a true mix of young and old, with the 2006 stalwarts Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso and Mauro Camoranesi all watching from the bench. By the time the second half started, Italy was also without its long-established goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, who was replaced by Federico Marchetti at halftime. But that was nothing to do with favoring new blood, rather with the unsettling news that Buffon, one of the world’s best keepers, is dealing with back problems, which might explain why he made no effort to intervene when the free kick on which Alcaraz scored soared deep into his area. “During the warm-up, it already started,” Lippi said. “He said he wanted to go ahead, because he thought he could do it, and then very frankly after the first half he said he could not continue.” Add Buffon to the list of luminaries who are fighting injuries in South Africa, along with Pirlo, Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba and the Netherlands’ Arjen Robben. But Paraguay is not at full strength either. Its leading scorer during World Cup qualifying, Salvador Cabañas, was shot in the head in Mexico City in January. He survived but has not recovered sufficiently to play soccer again, although the team and Paraguayans in general have used his fight to recover as inspiration. With a population of a little more than six million, Paraguay is a demographic minnow in the shark tank of the World Cup, but it has proved a tenacious, dangerous, well-organized opponent for years. In this most recent World Cup cycle, it defeated Argentina and Brazil. And it came close to defeating Italy, the defending world champion. “I think the only way to do this is to have collective talent,” said its Argentine coach, Gerardo Martino. It did not hurt that Italy was hurting, too. JAPAN 1, CAMEROON 0 Japan earned its first World Cup victory on foreign soil when Keisuke Honda scored in the first half for a 1-0 victory over Cameroon in Bloemfontein. After a sloppy first 30 minutes, Japan broke the tie in the 39th when Daisuke Matsui’s curling cross from the right drifted over the heads of Cameroon defenders Nicolas Nkoulou and Stephane Mbia. The ball fell to Honda at the back post, and he neatly controlled it and sent it past goalkeeper Hamidou Souleymanou. Japan is tied with the Netherlands atop Group E. Its only previous victories in a World Cup came against Russia and Tunisia in 2002, when it was co-host of the tournament. This is its fourth World Cup. (AP)

World Cup 2010 (Soccer)
Soccer
Italy
Paraguay
Cannavaro Fabio


Recalling a Union Brother Who Is Kagan’s Brother

Abstract: The wall behind the desk on the sixth floor of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 headquarters in Manhattan is pocked by dozens of scattershot tacks, as if someone fired them out of a shotgun at the guy in the chair, which is a lot like how it can feel working there. Ten years ago, a subway car worker named Marc Kagan sat in the desk in a little office in the interior side of the hallway, a room without windows, like where you want to be in a tornado strike. He was the assistant to the former Local 100 president, Roger Toussaint. They were close friends, but they had a falling-out in 2002, and Mr. Kagan left the union job and the subway system soon after. He is remembered for his strong work ethic and otherworldly powers of organization amid dunes of paperwork. But his legacy in the transit system may expand further. As far as anyone can recall, no subway hardhat has ever had a sister go on to become a United States Supreme Court justice. “Never,” said Arthur Z. Schwartz, a lawyer with the union, who once shared this little office with the brother of Elena Kagan , who is having her confirmation hearings this week and is expected to be appointed to the high court. “But it depends where you pull people from.” The desk is his now. He and Mr. Kagan, now a Bronx schoolteacher, are still friendly, but this was a surprise. “I didn’t even know he had a sister,” Mr. Schwartz said on Tuesday. He said Mr. Kagan unfailingly visited Hunter College High School every afternoon to pick up his daughter and bring her home before returning to the office. That was Mr. Schwartz’s first clue. “When they announced her nomination and they said her family was very involved in Hunter High School, I said, ‘It’s got to be.’ Then I looked at her picture, and said, ‘That’s Marc.’ ” He pointed out a blown-up picture in the hall, of transit workers marching in protest across the Brooklyn Bridge. There, behind the head of the march, was Mr. Kagan. He has a slight beard, but the resemblance is quickly seen. On the wall behind Mr. Schwartz, a handwritten sign reads, “Important Dates Leading to Contract 2006,” as if everyone were too busy to have taken it down over the last four years. Those dates were important indeed, following the three-day transit strike of December 2005 that left New Yorkers tramping and hitchhiking and griping their way to work just before Christmas. It was quiet in the union halls on Tuesday. There was an executive board meeting going on behind one of the closed doors. A sign near the elevators reads, “Committee for a Little Less Corruption at the M.T.A. ” Mr. Schwartz praised his former colleague’s attention to detail. “We’re looking at millions of dollars, and he’s worried about this little work rule here,” he said. These are tough times for the city’s transit workers, as the system reels in subway and bus lines and lays off employees. But it was a different sort of pain that was drawing the attention of the public on Tuesday. Jim Gannon, a spokesman for the union, said he had requests from reporters to speak with a bus driver who was beaten by a drunken rider on Monday in Brooklyn. The rider had complained that the bus was not getting to his destination quickly enough. Mr. Schwartz’s office is decorated with a vintage “TWU on Strike” poster, and he himself hung a print of a piece of folk art, “ Don’t Mourn, Organize ,” by Ralph Fasanella, in 2001. He is a union man through and through. The ring tone on his cellphone plays Woody Guthrie singing “This Land is Your Land.” It runs all the way through the verse of ribbon of highway before going to voice mail. He follows the news of the nomination hearings. Somewhere, Ms. Kagan’s second day of hearings before a Senate committee was airing, but in this room, there was no television in sight.

Organized Labor
Transport Workers Union
Supreme Court
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Kagan Elena
Kagan Marc
Schwartz Arthur Z
Manhattan (NYC)


Stocks Slide on Fears of Cuts to Fed’s Bond-Buying Program

Abstract: Ben S. Bernanke’s confidence in the United States economy did not kill the worm of doubt that has been gnawing at markets. Investors sold off both stocks and bonds Wednesday afternoon after Mr. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, spoke about improvements in the economy that could allow the central bank to step back from its unusual monetary stimulus of the last few years. Markets have sold off before and then quickly recovered as they digested Mr. Bernanke’s words. Still, the steep market declines on Wednesday underscored the fears circulating through trading desks. One concern is that the economy is not strong enough to do without the Fed’s support. Another is that the Fed’s decision to ease off the gas could, in itself, cause enough turmoil in the markets that economic growth could be threatened. “There is a tremendous amount of doubt whether without Mr. Bernanke’s help, the economy can keep chugging along,” said Thomas di Galoma, one of the heads of bond trading at ED&F Man Capital Markets. The breadth of the anxiety was evident across bond markets on Wednesday. Investors did not just sell the longer-dated government bonds that the Fed has been buying; they also sold shorter maturities, pointing to predictions that interest rates are likely to rise across the board. The interest rate on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which rises as the price declines when investors sell the bonds, climbed to 2.36 percent from 2.19 percent on Tuesday, the sharpest increase this month. If rates continue to rise, it could crimp lending and eventually hurt the broader economy and stock markets. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index ended the day down 1.39 percent, or 22.88 points, to 1,628.93 — its worst performance this month. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 206.04 points, or 1.35 percent, to 15,112.19, while the Nasdaq fell 38.98 points, or 1.12 percent, to 3,443.20. Image Market declines underscored investors' concerns about the economy's ability to continue growing without the Fed's help. Credit Spencer Platt/Getty Images Many strategists said the investors who sent the markets down on Wednesday were panicking and overlooking the nuances of Mr. Bernanke’s words. Mr. Bernanke emphasized repeatedly that the Fed was not likely to pull back on the stimulus until it was clear the economy could handle it and could step right back in if there were signs of faltering. “Nobody is listening,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, a rates strategist at TD Securities. “As soon as you give the market anything to chew on, they are going to tear the limb off.” Like many economists, Mr. Bernanke said that it would ultimately be healthy for interest rates to rise from the unnaturally low levels of the last few years. “If interest rates go up for the right reasons — that is, both optimism about the economy and an accurate assessment of monetary policy — that’s a good thing; that’s not a bad thing,” he said. What the Fed is hoping to see is gradually rising interest rates alongside a continuing rally in the stock markets. But Mr. Bernanke acknowledged that he had been caught off guard by the extent of the market’s reaction to indications that the Fed may consider slowing down its asset purchases. “We were a little puzzled by that,” he said of the sharp jump in interest rates. It is the Fed’s apparent difficulty in predicting and managing the markets’ reaction that represents one of the most disconcerting threats to the economic recovery. Investors could decide that Mr. Bernanke is losing his ability to influence interest rates and continue to sell bonds despite the Fed’s efforts to calm the markets. A sudden surge in selling would most likely ripple violently through global markets. Video Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, spoke at a press conference on Wednesday. Credit Credit Photo by Doug Mills/ The New York Times “If bond traders succeed (like bond vigilantes from another era), what does that mean for the economy?” Jonathan Lewis, the chief investment officer at Samson Capital Advisors, wrote in a note to clients. Most investors consider a disorderly market plunge to be a distant possibility, but there are more widespread concerns about the economy’s ability to continue growing without the Fed’s help. The Fed has played a particularly instrumental role in supporting the recovery of the housing market by buying mortgage-backed bonds. These purchases have pushed down mortgage rates and encouraged home buying, which has lifted home prices. Since Mr. Bernanke first indicated in May that he might step back from the bond purchases, investors have sold mortgage bonds and pushed mortgage rates up. The Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday that the number of new mortgage applications fell 3.3 percent from the previous week. Steven Ricchiuto, the chief economist at Mizuho Securities, said the housing market and the broader market were more sensitive to rising interest rates than many investors have assumed. “I don’t think this economy is resistant to interest rates,” he said. It appears that the Fed is not ignoring the possible threats to the housing market. Mr. Bernanke said that when the Fed did begin slowing down its bond purchases, it would begin with government bonds, while maintaining the current level of support for mortgage-backed bonds. Even with Wednesday’s market declines, the leading American stock indexes are still up more than 10 percent for the year. The question is whether the confidence that has driven markets up will be sustainable as the date of the Fed’s exit draws nearer. “Investors have been willing to invest because they knew they had the safety net of the Fed,” said Larry Peruzzi, a trader at Cabrera Capital Markets. “Now investors are going to have to think harder about taking risks.”

US Economy
Federal Reserve
Stocks,Bonds
Ben S Bernanke
Interest rate


Changing Tastes Blamed for Slide at McDonald’s

Abstract: A week after installing a new chief executive, McDonald’s announced on Monday that sales continued to fall in February. The company said its sales in stores open at least a year fell by a startling 4 percent in the United States and by 1.7 percent globally. “Consumer needs and preferences have changed, and McDonald’s current performance reflects the urgent need to evolve with today’s consumers, reset strategic priorities and restore business momentum,” the company said in a statement . Image A McDonald's sign in a scrap metal yard in Phoenix. The company said sales in stores open at least a year fell by 4 percent in the United States last month. Credit Brian Snyder/Reuters Same-store sales have declined more than Wall Street predicted for more than a year in the United States, the company’s largest market, and it blamed “aggressive competitive activity” for the latest sharp shortfall. The company tried to attract customers in February with a marketing program called “Pay With Lovin’,” a promotion that gave some customers free food. But consumers — and McDonald’s franchisees — were lukewarm about it. Steve Easterbrook, a British national who became chief executive on March 1, held a sort of pep rally in Las Vegas last week for United States franchise holders. He laid out plans for a turnaround that includes improving the company’s food and marketing programs. Same-store sales in Europe rose slightly, while they were off more than 4 percent in the region encompassing Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The company has struggled with supply issues in Asia, after a food safety scandal hit its meat supplier in Asia and delays at West Coast ports held up shipments of potatoes.


Lessons From Russia's 'Little War'

Abstract: PARIS — There’s a good new book out on Russia’s invasion of Georgia called “A Little War That Shook the World.” It might well have been more naggingly and intriguingly titled “A Little War That Should Have Shaken the World but Didn’t,” a formulation which comes closer to reality. Still, Ronald D. Asmus, the author, makes a similar point himself: He insisted at a panel discussion of his book here last week that the Russians’ assault on Georgia in August 2008 has been largely swept under the rug by the United States, NATO and the European Union. Russian regrets? Moscow has little reason to have them so far, getting away with armed aggression meant to dissuade what Mr. Asmus described as “neighboring countries from getting too close to the West.” For diplomatic caution’s sake, Mr. Asmus, a former State Department official in the administration of President Bill Clinton, and now executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, holds out the possibility that having sent 40,000 troops into Georgia may eventually boomerang against Russia’s interests. But it’s hard to see how. At its most significant, the invasion had the double characteristic of Russia maximizing its capacity to exercise a veto over the West’s security interests, while the West, divided and without clear leadership, sought to minimize the obvious importance of the event. Mr. Asmus’s book offers the details. And clarity: “A close partner of the United States and a candidate country for NATO was invaded, and neither Washington nor the Atlantic Alliance did much to come to its assistance.” Add to that the still incomplete withdrawal of Russian invasion troops, the declarations of “independence” (or de facto Russian annexation) of the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the assertions by President Dmitri A. Medvedev, immediately following the war, enunciating a doctrine of privileged Russian interests in the countries along Russia’s frontiers. By Mr. Asmus’s account, here are the little war’s bottom lines: Russia trashed the basic post-Cold War rule that borders in Europe would never again be changed by force; and, after taking aim “not only at Georgia, but at Washington, NATO and the West,” it asserted it is prepared to use force again against its neighbors. Those conclusions are confined to Russia. But the book’s evidence documenting the Atlantic Alliance’s feebleness and feuding in the face of Russia’s threats against Georgia would seem to serve as massive encouragement to any group or country — Al Qaeda, Iran, North Korea — thinking the West’s rivalries can make it compliant. Along this line, the book’s most striking reporting involves the April 2008 NATO summit meeting in Bucharest, to which Vladimir V. Putin was invited as a kind of guest heavy, after having been told by the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, that there would be serious consequences if Russia intervened militarily in Georgia. (Hah!) Against what Mr. Asmus calls German-led opposition, the administration of President George W. Bush failed to win a Membership Action Plan (MAP), or official status as a NATO candidate, for Georgia or Ukraine, an even more difficult postulant. In this process, he describes President Nicolas Sarkozy as telling Americans that he was not afraid to offend Russia on the issue, but that he did not want to pick a fight with the Germany of Chancellor Angela Merkel. That left the United States and Germany, in Mr. Asmus’s words, splitting into “opposing, feuding” camps. He explains that a “pro-Russian lobby” had been legitimized during the Iraq war in Berlin, which made its relationship with Russia more important for many Germans than NATO membership for potentially democratic countries (and potential irritants to Russia) like Georgia and Ukraine. Mrs. Merkel held fast, co-opting France and basically heading off official MAP designations for the two applicants. In the end, Mr. Bush had backed down, a portentous novelty for America on NATO turf. Mr. Putin must have taken note in red ink. In terms of his view of Russia’s self-interest, NATO’s wobble was an invitation to a short, effective war whose memory the West has done its best to suppress. The rest of the story goes largely in his direction. As a Russian-Georgian cease-fire was being brokered by France (without any reference to Georgia’s territorial integrity), there were mumbles about sanctions within the E.U. But nothing transpired except a postponement of meetings on an E.U.-Russia strategic partnership, which resumed three months later. NATO hardly appeared more stern. Mr. Asmus was understating reality when he wrote, “Many in the West tried to step back and pretend that the Russo-Georgian war was a local conflict they were not a party to.” Ongoing events continue to prove him right. Last year, in a new burst of assertiveness, the Russian National Security Council announced that it would widen the armed forces’ preventive use of nuclear weapons beyond big wars to include regional and local conflicts where the conventionally armed “aggressors” would presumably resemble countries like Georgia. This followed a French decision to enter negotiations with the Russian Navy on selling it modern helicopter-carrying assault vessels that a Russian admiral said would have shortened his Georgian operations from hours to minutes. Yet the Georgian connection doesn’t seem to hang over the possible sale. When the panel discussion here last week about Mr. Asmus’s book got around to the ships’ implications, Jean-David Levitte, Mr. Sarkozy’s national security adviser, responded that the Russian armed forces could reach all their “near abroad” neighbors by land. In Germany, just before Christmas, an interministerial committee approved a €2.77 billion, or $3.85 billion, loan guarantee for the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, tripling its cash backing for a Russian-German venture that has been attacked as creating a European dependency on Russia as its prime energy supplier. As for the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in Paris last Friday, still pressing the Russian reset button but calling on Russia in a wider speech on European security to honor the terms of its cease-fire agreement with Georgia, rejecting the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, objecting to the idea of spheres of influence and reiterating that NATO membership is open to all qualified countries. On the evidence, and with great good will, that’s an enormous agenda with only trace amounts a year and a half after Russia’s invasion of any coherent follow-through. Mr. Asmus’s lucid book on the little 2008 war in Georgia is published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Russia
Georgia (Georgian Republic)
Abkhazia (Georgian Republic)
South Ossetia (Georgian Republic)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
European Union
United States


U.S. Curtails Snowmobiles in Yellowstone

Abstract: CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The National Park Service has approved a plan to restrict the number of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park to fewer than half last winter’s limit. Disagreement over how many snowmobiles to allow into the park has for years pitted nearby tourist communities and the State of Wyoming against the park service and environmental groups determined to reduce traffic that they say can disturb wildlife and the area’s tranquillity. On Thursday, the park announced that the new daily limits, to be in effect for the next two winters, would allow up to 318 snowmobiles and up to 78 snow coaches, vans fitted with special treads to move over the snow. Over the last five winters, the park has allowed up to 720 snowmobiles a day, though actual use has been far less. Wyoming’s Congressional delegation attacked Thursday’s announcement. The state’s senior senator, Michael B. Enzi, a third-term Republican, said that the numbers “aren’t sufficient” and that “more people should be allowed in the park, not less.” But Patricia Dowd, Yellowstone program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, called the park service’s decision a step in the right direction.

Yellowstone National Park
Snowmobiles
National Parks Monuments and Seashores
Parks and Other Recreation Areas
United States Politics and Government
Environment
National Park Service


J. Richard Hackman, an Expert in Team Dynamics, Dies at 72

Abstract: J. Richard Hackman, a Harvard psychology professor whose fieldwork sometimes took him to the cockpit of an airliner to observe the crew in a nearly five-decade quest to determine the dynamics of teamwork and effective leadership, died on Jan. 8 in Boston. He was 72. The cause was lung cancer, his wife, Judith Dozier Hackman, said. Dr. Hackman, the author or co-author of 10 books on group dynamics, was the Edgar Pierce professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard. In one of his best-known books, “Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances” (2002), he replaced the popular image of the powerful “I can do it all” team leader with that of someone who, as he wrote, had the subtle skills “to get a team established on a good trajectory, and then to make small adjustments along the way to help members succeed.” The conditions for a successful team effort — among them “a compelling direction, an enabling team structure, a supportive organizational context and expert team coaching” — “are easy to remember,” Dr. Hackman wrote. “The challenge,” he continued, “comes in developing an understanding of those conditions that is deep and nuanced enough to be useful in guiding action, and in devising strategies for creating them even in demanding or team-unfriendly organizational circumstances.” Besides tracking the interplay of pilots, co-pilots and navigators aboard civilian and military planes, Dr. Hackman observed corporate boards, sports teams, orchestra players, telephone-line repair crews, hospital workers and restaurant kitchen staff members. And in recent years, for his 2011 book, “Collaborative Intelligence,” he was allowed to observe interactions within the American intelligence, defense, law-enforcement and crisis-management community. “Although my main aspiration has been to provide guidance that will be useful to team leaders and members,” he wrote, “there are no ‘one-minute’ prescriptions here — creating, leading and serving on teams is not that simple.” Image J. Richard Hackman was the Edgar Pierce professor of social and organizational psychology at Harvard. Credit Harvard University Anita Woolley, a professor of organizational behavior and theory at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said, “The key thing about Dr. Hackman’s work is that it stands in contrast to some of the more popular models of leadership that focused very much on style or how leaders behave, versus what they do.” Rather than viewing pay as a prime motivator for good performance, she continued, “he focused on features of people’s jobs that made them more intrinsically satisfied: the freedom to determine how they conduct their work, having a variety of tasks, having knowledge of the ultimate outcomes of their work, knowing how their work affects or is received by other people.” John Richard Hackman was born in Joliet, Ill., on June 14, 1940, the only child of J. Edward and Helen Hackman. His father was an oil pipeline engineer, his mother a schoolteacher. Dr. Hackman received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., in 1962, and a doctorate in psychology from the University of Illinois in 1966. He soon joined the psychology and administrative sciences department faculties at Yale, where he taught until 1986, when he moved to the psychology and business departments at Harvard. Besides his wife, who is an associate dean at Yale, he is survived by two daughters, Julia Beth Proffitt and Laura Dianne Codeanne, and four grandchildren. In a 2011 article for The Harvard Business Review, Dr. Hackman listed “Six Common Misperceptions About Teamwork.” Among them was this: “Misperception No. 2: It’s good to mix it up. New members bring energy and fresh ideas to a team. Without them, members risk becoming complacent, inattentive to changes in the environment, and too forgiving of fellow members’ misbehavior. “Actually: The longer members stay together as an intact group, the better they do. As unreasonable as this may seem, the research evidence is unambiguous. Whether it is a basketball team or a string quartet, teams that stay together longer play together better.” After Dr. Hackman died, The Harvard Crimson wrote that for years he had “quietly devoted countless hours to improving one team in particular — the Harvard women’s basketball squad, for which he volunteered as an honorary coach.”

J Richard Hackman
Psychology
Harvard
Obituary


Trade Barriers Rise as Slump Tightens Grip

Abstract: WASHINGTON — After repeated pledges by world leaders to avoid erecting trade barriers, protectionism is on the march, provoking nasty trade disputes and undermining efforts to plot a coordinated response to the deepest global economic downturn since World War II. From a looming battle with China over tariffs on carbon-intensive goods to a spat over Mexican trucks using American roads, barriers are going up around the world. As the recession’s grip tightens, these pressures are likely to intensify, several experts said. The surge in protectionism is casting a shadow over an economic summit meeting of world leaders scheduled for London on April 2. At the last such gathering, in Washington in November, former President George W. Bush persuaded the Group of 20 members to commit to protecting free trade — whatever the pressures caused by faltering economies and lost jobs. The members include industrialized and developing nations, and the European Union. “No sooner was the G-20 statement issued than it was breached,” said Daniel M. Price, an official in the Bush administration who helped negotiate the agreement. “Instead of just talking about trade liberalization, countries need to take immediate steps to show they mean it.” Far from heeding their pledge not to erect new barriers for 12 months, many countries have raised import duties or passed stimulus measures with trade-distorting subsidies. The World Bank, in a report last week, said that since the Washington meeting, 17 members of the Group of 20 had adopted 47 measures aimed at restricting trade. Russia has raised tariffs on used cars. China has tightened import standards on food, banning Irish pork, among other things. India has banned Chinese toys. Argentina has tightened licensing requirements on auto parts, textiles and leather goods. And a dozen countries, from the United States to Australia, are subsidizing embattled automakers or car dealers. The most vivid example of that policy is the “Buy America” provision in the stimulus package , intended to ensure that only American manufacturers benefited from public-spending projects. The Obama administration persuaded Congress to water it down, and Mr. Obama has taken up Mr. Bush’s warnings about the dangers of protectionism. But pressures are building on other fronts. Last week, the energy secretary, Steven Chu, said he favored tariffs on Chinese goods if China did not sign on to mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions — underscoring how the “green economy” could be the next trade battleground. Mr. Obama signed a $40 billion spending bill that scrapped a program enabling Mexican trucks to haul cargo over long distances on American roads. Mexico retaliated by imposing duties on $2.4 billion worth of American goods — everything from pencils to toilet paper. The trucking dispute has its roots in the North American Free Trade Agreement, or Nafta, which guaranteed Mexico, Canada and the United States access to one another’s highways for cargo transport by 2000. While resistance in Congress to Mexican trucks is long-running, based in part on safety and environmental concerns, American officials worry it will cause broader frictions with Mexico. “It’s very worrisome to the Mexicans because it’s seen as protectionism,” said Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, who is working with other officials to devise a new pilot program for trucks that will satisfy critics in Congress. Mexico’s tariffs affect 90 products from 40 states, accounting for less than 2 percent of American exports. Mr. Shannon said it underscored the breadth of the trading relationship. Even without protectionism, the synchronized global downturn is likely to result in the largest annual decline in world trade in 80 years, according to the World Bank. While the bank said it was difficult to quantify the effects of the new barriers, they could aggravate that decline. “It’s very easy for this to spin out of control and move to trade wars that could be quite devastating,” said Richard Newfarmer, who wrote the report and is the bank’s special representative to the World Trade Organization. The World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, warned recently that 2009 could be a “very dangerous” year, as leaders faced rising calls for protection from economically insecure populations. He called on the World Trade Organization to monitor protectionist actions and publicize them. But not all the measures violate the body’s laws. The stimulus plans that the United States is pushing Europe to adopt can also distort trade, depending on how much they rely on subsidies. In November, the Group of 20 agreed to “refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services,” regardless of whether the measures complied with trade laws. Mr. Price, the former Bush administration official who is now a trade lawyer with the firm Sidley Austin, said the leaders should go further in London. He proposed having the W.T.O. study the impact on trade of stimulus programs, much as the International Monetary Fund has been charged with studying their economic impact. Beyond that, he said, the leaders could agree to eliminate tariffs and other barriers on “clean” products. So far, the climate debate has brought to the surface potentially divisive issues, like whether countries should impose tariffs on exports with high carbon emissions. Chinese officials said they would view such acts as a violation of World Trade Organization agreements. “A lot of people are worried that U.S. protectionism is going to take a green face,” said Trevor Houser, an expert in energy and climate issues at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Some trade skeptics caution against making too much of the link between the economic crisis and protectionism. Lori Wallach, director of the global trade division at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, noted that many countries had not raised tariffs to the highest levels permissible under trade laws. With so much else on the agenda in London, it is not clear how much time the Group of 20 will be able to devote to trade. Mr. Price expressed disappointment that after a preparatory meeting of finance ministers last week in Britain, the Group of 20 did not issue a stronger statement about protecting trade. Given Mr. Obama’s ambiguous positions on trade during the campaign — he favored renegotiating Nafta — economists praise him for holding the fort against protectionism so far. But as stimulus programs begin to take hold, they could encourage consumers to buy more imported goods, further fanning antitrade sentiment. “The U.S. is in such great danger of backing away from free trade,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard. “The next two years could be a disaster for free trade.”

Protectionism (Trade)
International Trade and World Market
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Recession and Depression
International Relations


European Central Bank Makes a Surprise Rate Cut

Abstract: FRANKFURT — In an unexpectedly swift reaction to economic warning signals, the European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low on Thursday, moving to head off what some economists fear could be a long period of stagnation like the one that has afflicted Japan. The cut in the E.C.B.'s main rate to 0.25 percent from 0.5 percent took many analysts by surprise, and seemed intended to reinforce a vow last year by Mario Draghi, the bank’s president, to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro zone. The central bank was reacting to a sudden drop in euro zone inflation, which fell to an annual rate of 0.7 percent in October, well below the bank’s official target of about 2 percent. The decline raised the specter of deflation, a sustained fall in prices that can destroy the profits of companies and the jobs they provide. Mr. Draghi insisted that the E.C.B. was not expecting such a catastrophic situation. “If we mean by deflation a self-fulfilling fall in prices across a very large category of goods, and across a very significant number of countries, we don’t see that,” he said at a news conference. “I don’t think it is similar to Japan.” But by moving sooner than expected, Mr. Draghi and the other 22 members of the E.C.B. Governing Council answered critics who have said they are too divisive and reluctant to stimulate the economy as forcefully as the United States Federal Reserve or the Bank of England, neither of which are accountable to a group of individual countries that often have differing economic agendas. Within the sometimes fractious 17-nation euro currency union, the E.C.B. is the closest thing the euro zone has to a central policy-making agency, and Mr. Draghi has shown a willingness to have it play that role, limited though its powers may be. The rate cut was the first since May and the fifth since Mr. Draghi became the E.C.B.'s president in 2011. “It was really important to challenge that perception that the E.C.B. is indifferent,” said Richard Barwell, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland who was one of the few to predict a rate cut. “Within their remit, they are willing to do whatever it takes to save the euro.” At the same time, some economists questioned how much the cut would achieve in the absence of any fiscal stimulus from euro zone governments. Countries like Italy and Spain cannot afford to increase government spending, while Germany, which can, is not willing to. That is one reason the euro zone economy is stuck in economic limbo, no longer in recession but barely growing. “In the end it comes down to the E.C.B.,” said Zsolt Darvas, a senior fellow at Bruegel , a research organization in Brussels. “But the E.C.B.'s powers are limited.” Predictably, the rate cut won praise from countries with weak economies — and drew criticism from Germany, which has a historical aversion to inflation and fears that looser money will lead to profligacy among the euro zone’s more financially troubled members. Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, said in a Twitter message that the rate cut provided “welcome support for the ongoing recovery in the euro zone by limiting the risk of deflation.” But a German banking group expressed dismay. “Unprecedented low interest rates substantially devalue savings in Germany and the euro area and increase the danger of bubbles,” the Association of German Public Banks said in a statement. The view in Germany and among some economists is that there is no threat of deflation. This group sees slowing inflation merely as a sign that wages are falling in countries like Spain and Greece, where labor costs had become too high for companies to compete in the international marketplace. Image Given those arguments against a rate cut now, Mr. Draghi showed on Thursday that he was willing to overrule German objections. It is likely that Jens Weidmann, president of the German central bank, was among members of the E.C.B. Governing Council who, according to Mr. Draghi, wanted to wait for more information before taking action. Mr. Draghi did not identify the dissenters, though, and the German central bank, the Bundesbank, declined to comment. European stocks were mixed on the news, with exchanges in Paris and Frankfurt initially up more than 1 percent and then falling flat, while the euro fell more than 1 percent against the dollar. A cheaper euro makes European products less expensive abroad. Mr. Draghi denied that the E.C.B. was deliberately trying to drive down the euro. The fall in the euro also reflected strong economic data from the United States, where the government said the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the third quarter, significantly better than economists had expected and the fastest pace this year. Troubled by persistently slow growth and only gradual improvement in the labor market in the United States, the Federal Reserve has kept up its stimulus efforts more intently and for longer than many observers had expected as recently as this summer. The Fed has a dual mandate, promoting employment growth as well as price stability. The E.C.B.'s prime mandate is to defend price stability, which also means intervening if inflation is too low. But most analysts had expected the E.C.B. to wait until December to act, once there was more economic data available. “Deflationary risks and the stronger euro seem to have motivated the E.C.B.'s move,” Carsten Brzeski, an analyst at ING Bank, said in a note to clients. “It is obvious that the E.C.B. under President Draghi has become much more proactive than under any of his predecessors.” The E.C.B. decision carries some risks. If the economy gets worse, the decision to cut to 0.25 percent leaves the bank with little additional room to maneuver. Mr. Draghi repeated assurances on Thursday that rates would stay low for an extended period of time. The central bank will also keep supplying banks with cheap loans through mid-2015, he said, but he did not announce a new round of long-term three-year loans. That is another contrast to the active stimulus tools at the disposal of the United States Fed and the British central bank. On Thursday, the Bank of England said it would continue its program of economic stimulus at 375 billion pounds, or about $600 billion. And unlike the E.C.B., the British bank on Thursday kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged, at a record low of 0.5 percent, amid signs that the country’s economic recovery was gaining speed and consumer confidence was improving. Some economists have argued that falling inflation in the euro zone, coming after five years of recession or very slow growth, means that the currency bloc faces an acute risk of deflation. While lower prices might seem like a good thing for consumers, in fact deflation is considered even more dangerous than runaway inflation. When prices fall, consumers and businesses delay purchases because they expect goods to become even cheaper. Corporate profits decline, and companies are forced to pay their workers less. A spiral begins that is difficult to brake. Deflation could be particularly destructive in Europe, where governments, banks and private households are still struggling with excess debt. When companies and individuals earn less, they have trouble repaying their debts, which remain the same. There was still no sign from Mr. Draghi that the E.C.B. is considering the huge purchases of government bonds that the Fed and the Bank of England have used to stimulate growth after interest rates were already close to zero. Although the euro zone emerged from recession earlier this year, recent economic indicators have sent conflicting signals about the strength of the recovery. Few economists expect a strong rebound, but some have been more pessimistic than others, warning of long-term stagnation if the E.C.B. does not do more to stimulate lending and growth. “Will the rate cut help? I don’t think so,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., said in an email. “Euroland’s economy is being strangled by a credit crunch. The real story is that the depression in Euroland is putting severe disinflationary pressure on prices. The forecast is for the downward pressure to get worse before it gets better.” Nelson Schwartz contributed reporting from New York, and David Jolly from Paris.

European Central Bank
Interest rate
Inflation
Deflation
Europe


Ireland: Suspect in Terrorism Case Faces Extradition to U.S.

Abstract: The United States government has petitioned the Irish High Court to extradite an Algerian man living in Ireland on terrorism charges relating to a plot to assassinate a Swedish artist, officials said Thursday. The United States alleges that the man, Ali Charaf Damache, planned to set up terrorist training camps and kill several Europeans, including a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, whose sketch of the Prophet Muhammad’s head on a dog, published in 2007, had enraged the Islamic world. On Wednesday, Mr. Damache pleaded guilty in the Waterford Circuit Court to making a menacing phone call to an American peace activist, a charge for which he was arrested and detained in 2010. The judge sentenced him to time served and released him, but Mr. Damache was immediately rearrested on the American extradition warrant. Mr. Damache arrived in Ireland in 2000 and married an Irish woman in 2002. The relationship ended in 2008 and he then married an American citizen, Jamie Paulin Ramirez. Ms. Ramirez has pleaded guilty in the United States to charges of conspiring with Colleen LaRose, also known as Jihad Jane, to support and train terrorists.

Ireland
US
Extradition
Ali Charaf Damache
Assassination
Lars Vilks


Mighty Wolverines Back on Top of Their Game

Abstract: ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The University of Michigan men’s hockey team has 35 N.C.A.A. tournament appearances, 24 Frozen Four berths and nine national championships — all records. That is why the past three seasons were particularly difficult for the Wolverines, who barely missed the postseason each year. And that is also why, with the Wolverines (24-7-5) back in the N.C.A.A. tournament this month, they are setting their sights high. “Expectations are always high at Michigan,” said the junior forward Tyler Motte, a fourth-round draft pick of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013. “That’s why you come here. You want to find success both on the ice and in the classroom and be part of that winning tradition. It’s been a big goal of ours to make it back to the tournament, but that’s not our only goal. We know we are capable of more.” Image The Wolverines’ Kyle Connor, right, a freshman, has 35 goals and 34 assists. Credit Aaron Lavinsky/Star Tribune, via Associated Press Michigan certainly has the lineup for it. The Wolverines average 4.8 goals per game, led by the freshman Kyle Connor, who has 35 goals and 34 assists. Drafted 17th over all by the Winnipeg Jets last June, Connor is No. 1 in Division I in goals and points and, with Motte and the junior captain J. T. Compher, forms the most potent line in college hockey. Motte is second in goals, with 31, and Compher is second in points with 60, including his Division I-leading 46 assists. “They clicked right away,” said Coach Red Berenson, who is in his 32nd season behind the bench here. “J. T. and Tyler played together a lot with the U.S. National Team Development Program before they got here, and I always felt that if nothing else worked, if I put J. T. and Tyler together, they’d get the job done. “They’re the engine that drives the bus. It’s second-effort hockey at its best. Tyler blocks more shots than just about our whole team put together. He pays the price every night, as does J. T., who does a lot of the heavy lifting. They’re both really good players, and with Kyle, they’ve just become much more offensive.” All three are finalists for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, given to the best player in college hockey, but Connor, who was named the Big Ten player of the year, has taken the lead. Image Coach Red Berenson, who is in his 32nd season at Michigan. Credit Paul Sancya/Associated Press “You knew before he even got on campus that he was going to be an impact player,” Berenson said. “He was the player of the year in the U.S.H.L., led the league in scoring, and he did everything at a very high level. He came here with high expectations and he lived up to them. “He’s paying attention, and he’s working hard and growing into a more complete player, and he’s being rewarded. He knows how to get open, and he gets his shot off as quick as anybody can, and he’s accurate. He’s a pure goal scorer. There’s no other way to say it.” Compher, a second-round draft pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 2013, added, “Kyle is so dynamic and so fast that Tyler and I had to elevate our game to be able to play with him, and we all do a great job of creating opportunities for each other.” Berenson is confident in the Wolverines’ ability to put the puck in the net, but with the team giving up an average of three goals per game, it is his players’ ability to keep the puck out of their own net that has his attention. “I always say that you can’t outscore your mistakes,” he said, “and this year they’re trying really hard to prove me wrong.” For the players, it comes down to puck possession. “Our defensive game is going to be crucial if we want to win,” Connor said. “The more aggressive we are on the backcheck, the more turnovers we’ll force, the more we control the puck and are able to make our own opportunities. They can’t score if they don’t have the puck.” After earning the Big Ten championship with a 5-3 victory over Minnesota last Saturday, the Wolverines turned their focus to an N.C.A.A. tournament game against Notre Dame on Friday. It is an opportunity three years in the making. “I think they just need to continue to play hard and play on the right side of the puck,” Berenson said. “Of course, there’s the defensive side of things, and we’ve gone over our goals-against and our penalty killing and face-offs and all the little things that have to fall into place. But I think this team has what it takes to move forward, and it’s our job to make sure they know that the bar moves higher every week from here on.” He added: “They came to Michigan to play in big games. It’s time to play.”

NCAA Men's Ice Hockey
Ice hockey
University of Michigan


Values Validate a First-Ballot Good Guy

Abstract: Dale Murphy is trailing by 10 runs with two out and the bases empty in the bottom of the ninth inning. He is not going to win, but there is honor in fighting till the end. This is Murphy’s 15th and final year on the ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame . He has never collected more than 23.2 percent of the votes, and never less than 8.5 percent. Last year, he got 14.5 percent, far short of the 75 percent needed for election. His farewell on the ballot coincides with the arrival of several candidates linked to steroids. There was a time when Murphy was considered the best player in baseball. He was most valuable player of the National League in 1982 and 1983 for the Atlanta Braves , a Gold Glove center fielder with power and speed who never missed a game. But he was essentially finished by his 36th birthday. “We’ve always kind of felt like, if he would have taken some shortcuts, maybe he would have had a longer peak,” Murphy’s oldest son, Chad, said. “But that was never part of how he wanted to play the game.” Every off-season, when the Baseball Writers’ Association of America sends Hall of Fame ballots to voters, each candidate also receives one. This year, Murphy’s daughter, Madison, took a picture of the ballot and posted it to her Twitter account. It was the start of a family project for Murphy; his wife, Nancy; and their eight children. Chad wrote an open letter to B.B.W.A.A. members. Madison endorsed her father’s candidacy with an essay on The Hall of Very Good blog. His son Tyson drew a touching cartoon that has circulated widely online, and another son, Taylor, started a petition at change.org . Murphy, now a part-time Braves broadcaster who will coach for the United States in the World Baseball Classic next spring, has never been a self-promoter. But he has helped with the campaign, sharing the petition on his Twitter feed , @DaleMurphy3, where he thanks his supporters often. He is too nice to turn down interviews. Murphy advocates a more inclusive Hall of Fame — “Lee Smith? I mean, what the heck?” — and would love to see bigger celebrations every year in Cooperstown. He believes he deserves a place there and has been puzzled by his low vote totals, which started out higher than Bert Blyleven’s but dipped instead of climbed. He knows his best years are well in the distance. But he is speaking out now, when his only realistic hope lies with a veterans committee, because the timing feels right. The ballot lists integrity, sportsmanship and character among the factors for voters to consider. Chad Murphy says that if voters apply the clause to keep some players out, they should also use it to let others in. “If you look at my dad’s record, there’s a lot of stuff on there that essentially doesn’t count,” he said, then listed honors his father received for charity work. “The Lou Gehrig Award, the Roberto Clemente Award, Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year — those are pretty good measures of someone’s character. “And there’s a lot of stuff on there that you can’t really measure: the way he touched people’s lives, especially in the South in the ’80s, and the way he carried himself, not just his personal morality.” Murphy hit .265 with 398 career home runs, leading the majors in total bases in the 1980s while finishing second in home runs (to Mike Schmidt) and runs batted in (to Eddie Murray). He drifted to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1990 before retiring with the Colorado Rockies in 1993. Murphy has mostly lived in Utah since then, except for three years in Boston supervising a Mormon mission. Thirty-three players have spent the 15 years on the ballot without being elected by the writers. It is impressive company — Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Luis Tiant — and Murphy has lasted longer than many of his peers, like David Cone, Orel Hershiser and Lou Whitaker. But if offense had not exploded as it did in his retirement, Murphy might have had a better chance. As steroid users enhanced their records, they seemingly diminished those from the previous era. Murphy says they should not be in the Hall of Fame. “You can argue that they weren’t testing back then, but none of this stuff was done in public,” Murphy said. “Everybody knew it was against the law or against the rules of the game. That’s why it was done in secret.” Some of the children who idolized Murphy did not follow his example. Alex Rodriguez used to wear No. 3 because Murphy wore it for the Braves, whom Rodriguez watched on TBS while growing up in Miami. But Rodriguez, like many others, turned to steroids. Murphy, 56, is trying his luck with a new generation. His foundation, I Won’t Cheat , works with schools, camps and youth leagues on character education. Every player in the Little League World Series wears a uniform patch bearing the slogan. It is a powerful statement from a player who does not need a bronze plaque for validation. Murphy belongs to a class of contemporaries, like Don Mattingly and Fernando Valenzuela, who had a long-lasting effect despite a relatively short performance peak. His values are his legacy. “There’s a message to kids,” Murphy said. “Whatever you do in life, do it the right way.”

Murphy Dale
Atlanta Braves
Halls of Fame
Baseball
Baseball Hall of Fame
Awards Decorations and Honors


Orioles Reliever Is Suspect in Shooting, Police Say

Abstract: Baltimore Orioles reliever Alfredo Simon is the main suspect in a fatal New Year’s Eve shooting in the Dominican Republic, the police said. Simon, 29, is suspected of killing Michel Castillo Almonte, 25, and wounding his 17-year-old brother during a celebration in Luperon. Maj. Pablo Cuevas said he thought Simon was hiding in his native Santiago but would surrender Monday. Felipe Alou Jr., a Dominican representative for the Orioles, said he spoke with Simon on Saturday and the player said he was in the area when the violence occurred but insisted he was not involved in the shootings. Simon went 4-2 with a 4.93 earned run average and 17 saves last season.

Simon Alfredo
Baltimore Orioles
Murders and Attempted Murders
Dominican Republic
Baseball


Far Right Party’s Ad Campaign Draws Criticism in Switzerland

Abstract: LUGANO, SWITZERLAND — There’s nothing cute about the three cartoon rats gnawing on a slab of Swiss cheese depicted on posters that began appearing on the streets of this lakeside town in the canton of Ticino two weeks ago. That’s because this particular breed of rodent is not content to chew on house wiring. It’s a foreign, criminal rat known to repatriate financial assets, and to steal jobs from the Swiss. At least that is according to their creator, Pierre Rusconi of the Swiss People’s Party, who commissioned the ad campaign to drum up support for his far-right party well in advance of canton and national elections in 2011. The three rats represent “issues that are felt very strongly in the Canton Ticino,” said Mr. Rusconi, whose party garnered 5 percent in the last cantonal election but is the largest in the Swiss Federal Assembly. The rodents, he said, personify growing frustration here with crimes committed by immigrants, as well as widespread discontent with the high local taxes and with the periodic crackdowns on tax evasion issued by the Italian finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, that have led to the repatriation of significant sums to Italy . Mr. Rusconi said in an interview in his office in Lugano, “For every few million francs to leave Switzerland, some jobs are put at risk.” But it was one rat in particular, representing the 45,000 mostly Italian border workers employed in the canton, that drew the loudest criticisms to the campaign, “bailaratt,” a reference to the Italian version of the saying “while the cat’s away, the mice will play.” A front-page article in Corriere della Sera, the Milan daily, described the campaign as “racist, if not terribly original,” comparing it to a 1903 cartoon in an American magazine that shows Uncle Sam watching a group of rats swimming to shore. They have been unloaded from a crate that reads, “Direct from the slums of Europe.” “A hundred years have passed,” the article noted, and “we Italians still have to put up with the same old filth.” Marco Zacchera, a conservative member of the Italian lower-house majority and the mayor of Verbania, a Piedmont town of 31,000 of which 3,800 are employed in Switzerland, described the campaign as unjust. “I can understand protesting against clandestine immigrants or illegal workers, but these are people who pay their taxes down to last franc,” he said in an interview in his office in Verbania’s City Hall. This month, Mr. Zacchera raised his objections to the campaign during a session of the Italian Parliament. The Swiss government responded through its ambassador in Rome, who condemned the “defamatory and offensive campaign.” In a communiqué, its ambassador, Bernardino Regazzoni, deplored the diffusion of the “xenophobic message,” adding that with their work, Italian border workers contributed to the “wellbeing and progress” of Switzerland. Across Europe, tens of thousands of people live in one country but work in another. In 2002, Switzerland established labor accords with the European Union, opening up access to their respective labor markets; the agreement was carried out in phases. The accords have never gone down well in Ticino, which has long resented the influx of foreign labor. A 2009 referendum to continue the labor agreement was supported by nearly 60 percent of Swiss voters, but in Ticino, 66 percent voted to reject it. The global financial crisis has accentuated tensions here, especially since border workers began moving from jobs in sectors like construction, factory work or domestic help to jobs in areas that the Swiss hold sacred, like banking. Lugano is Switzerland’s third-largest banking center, after Zurich and Geneva. In the past, Mr. Rusconi said, “you had to beg Swiss graduates” to work in advanced service sectors like banking, insurance or financial services. “Now you have qualified people speaking four languages who are unemployed” because of competition from equally qualified Italians, who work for less money because exchange rates favor the Swiss currency. Claudio Pozzetti, a representative of the Italian trade union C.G.I.L. for border workers said this claim was untrue. “And we have to fork out unemployment insurance to these young Swiss, so the damage is twice as great,” Mr. Rusconi said. Opening up the labor market “created enormous problems for the middle class” here, said Giuliano Bignasca, founder and president of the Lega dei Ticinesi, or Ticino League, the second-largest party in the Ticino Grand Council, the canton government. “The fault of our generation is that we taught our children to be lawyers and bankers instead of teaching them skills like carpentry.” Mr. Bignasca’s party suffered a minor setback on Tuesday when a campaign his party promoted to incorporate bank secrecy into the Swiss Constitution failed because it did not raise enough signatures to hold a referendum. The rat campaign plays to middle-class fears, he said. According to the Ticino statistics office, based in Bellinzona, border workers employed in financial services rose from 320 in 2003 to 510 in 2010, a small fraction of those working in service sectors, which went from 15,000 to 25,500 during the same period). Local polls would seem to side with the campaigners. According to one on the Ticinonline Web site, a privately owned news site that claims to be the most visited of its kind in Italian-speaking Switzerland, 56 percent of those who answered agreed that the bailairatt campaign struck a chord, and 57 percent agreed with its message. The campaign also opened a Pandora’s box of issues tied to taxation and other bilateral accords. It drew attention to the fact that the migration of workers to Switzerland has created a “critical situation” for Italian companies along the border, which have had a shrinking labor pool to draw on, often losing the most skilled workers to better paying jobs across the Alps, according to Michele Graglia, president of the Industrialists Union for the Province of Varese, which borders Switzerland. Union officials also say that Italian workers have acted as a sort of labor valve for Swiss companies without receiving the same benefits as their Swiss counterparts. “They’re hired when companies need them, and then they’re the first to be fired when there’s a crisis,” said Mr. Pozzetti, the trade union representative. “They’re the first to pay.” The recent campaign has upset border workers, who say they are contributing to the Swiss economy. “I used to feel good about working in Switzerland,” said Valeria De Lumé, 22, an ice cream salesclerk who drives to Lugano every day from her home in Como. “Now when people ask where I’m from, I’m afraid to say Italian because I never know what other people are going to think.”

Switzerland
Lugano (Switzerland)
Politics and Government
Migrant and Foreign Workers
Italy


Golfer Erik Compton’s Life After Two Heart Transplants

Abstract: NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Erik Compton’s journey from death’s door to a featured threesome on the PGA Tour has taken three years. His travails resembled an electrocardiogram printout. Ups like his second successful heart transplant . Downs like his failure to get through local United States Open qualifying. Ups like the birth of his and wife Barbara’s first child. Downs like the constant fatigue he battles. All the joy and sadness seemed like a blur to Compton, 31, on Wednesday, when he sat behind a microphone at the AT&T National, smiling, giving a thumbs-up and talking about his victory last weekend in Mexico on the Nationwide Tour, the one he has been seeking since being cleared to play golf again three years ago. “Well, I mean, it means the world,” he said. “You know, I made a call four months after my transplant to just about everybody in the country in golf, and said that I was going to make a comeback, and there were very few people that were willing to take a chance on me. “And just to be able to make it to the tour,” he continued. “Obviously I’ve played on sponsor invites, but to be able to play next year with a card and that nobody can take that away from me, the people that have seen what I went through, my wife, my parents, my friends, you know, I would not be here if it wasn’t for them. I mean, they’ve all supported me.” The people who have supported Compton through this ordeal since his second heart transplant are not looking for credit, but Compton gives it to them anyway, starting with Michael Hanzman, a judge on the Florida 11th Circuit Court. Shortly after Compton had his second transplant surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami on May 20, 2008, Hanzman reached out to his friend. “Basically helped me get a house, a car, and believed that I would get a Tour card,” Compton said. “Never asked for anything back. Who does that? So now it’s like I get chills thinking about it. These people all invested in me and all trusted that I would be here, and now I’m doing it. So it’s just awesome.” Charlie DeLucca, the president and executive director of the First Tee of Miami and the golf director and driving force behind the Melreese Golf Course in Miami, was on the line Wednesday talking about Compton, one of his favorite longtime students. Even before Compton began his walk to remember at El Bosque Golf Club in Guanajuato, Mexico — a winning total of 17-under-par that featured 22 birdies, 8 of them in a final round of 65, for a two-stroke win — DeLucca said he had a premonition, telling his secretary, “Erik is going to win in Mexico. I know he is.” DeLucca was following the tournament on his office computer. When it started to become clear that Compton was going to win, that he was going to jump into second place on the money list and into a commanding position to earn PGA Tour playing privileges as one of the top 25 Nationwide Tour money winners in a season that ends in October, DeLucca started to get emotional. “What went through my mind?” he said, his voice cracking. “What went through my mind was, ‘He just made his life.’ You know, after everything that’s happened to him, all the stuff he’s been through, he never once gave up. And I’ll tell you something, he’s going to win on the PGA Tour, too. He’s beaten those guys before.” That was a reference to Compton’s days as a junior player and his college days at the University of Georgia, where he was a redshirt on the 1999 team that won the national title, and a two-time all-conference and all-American the following two years on a team that included Bubba Watson. Compton also played against current tour winners Matt Kuchar, Luke Donald, Adam Scott, Jonathan Byrd and Charles Howell. Back then, Compton was playing with his first transplanted heart, installed when he was 12. That heart failed in 2008, and he had another transplant. He feels comfortable enough now to joke, “I’m used to all the attention now — everybody knows I’m the guy with two hearts.” Now, only the PGA Tour remains to be conquered. In 28 previous starts on the big tour, Compton made 17 cuts. Trying too hard in the gym and on the course, he was worn out. Now, Compton hits balls 20 to 25 minutes before his tee times and never after play. He must pace himself, accepting that he must play slow to avoid fatigue. But he is where he has always wanted to be. At 1:06 Thursday, he will be on the first tee at Aronomink Golf Club, alongside the 2010 PGA Tour player of the year Jim Furyk and Hunter Mahan. “I have a new life, and I have a bright future,” he said. “And it’s just — I mean, it’s just crazy. I can’t even explain it.”

Golf
Transplants
Heart
Compton Erik
Professional Golfers Assn


Tennessee Woman Accused in a Trail of Death

Abstract: KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Few people here know that the ashes of David Leath, still in the cardboard box from the crematorium, are kept on a shelf above the clean towels in the Suburban Barber Shop where he cut hair at the middle chair for almost 40 years. But almost everyone has an opinion on how he ended up there. Mr. Leath, 57, was found dead of a gunshot wound in his own bed in 2003. His wife, Raynella Dossett Leath, said it was a suicide, but she was ultimately charged with murder. Her dramatic trial last year gripped the city, but it ended in a hung jury. Last week, she went on trial again. The trail of death in the case, however, does not begin and end with a beloved barber, but winds its way up to the highest levels of law enforcement in this city. There was a fatal car crash, a love child, a missing will and, strangest of all, the 1992 death, officially by cattle stampede, of the Knox County prosecutor, Ed Dossett, who happened to be Ms. Dossett Leath’s first husband at the time. During the investigation of Mr. Leath’s death, prosecutors became convinced that the death of Mr. Dossett was also a homicide, and they have charged Ms. Dossett Leath, 61, in that case as well. That trial will begin in August. In the meantime, Ms. Dossett Leath has become a notorious figure around town. Seventy percent of potential jurors responding to a court questionnaire for the second trial said she was probably guilty, according to a defense attorney. Every quirk in her behavior has been parsed by Knoxville residents for motive, even the fact that she had Mr. Leath’s body cremated the day after he died. His body contained unprescribed sedatives and painkillers, according to an autopsy conducted hours earlier. Mr. Leath’s friends say he was opposed to cremation and owned a plot in the cemetery where his parents are buried. On a recent morning at the Suburban Barber Shop, Mr. Leath’s former partner, Hoyt Vanosdale, told how Ms. Dossett Leath had asked him to deliver a package to Cynthia Wilkerson, Mr. Leath’s daughter from a previous marriage, who now cuts hair at her father’s old station. Mr. Vanosdale said she did not tell him that the small, heavy box contained Mr. Leath’s ashes. “Isn’t that kind of creepy?” he asked. For years, Raynella Dossett Leath enjoyed an elevated — some say protected — status in Knoxville. She was a respected nurse, married to the county prosecutor (in Tennessee, they are called district attorneys general). The couple, who married in 1970, lived with their three children on the Dossett family farm just west of town. In 1992, Mr. Dossett was found dead in their corral. His wife said he had been trampled by cattle, and the death was ruled an agricultural accident. Mr. Dossett had been in the late stages of terminal cancer, and Ms. Dossett Leath told the authorities that she had helped him out to the barn to feed the cattle at his request. Randall E. Pedigo, the medical examiner at the time, said the notion of a domestic cattle stampede raised suspicions, but about insurance fraud not murder. “There was a lot of talk and speculation at the time that it was to make it look like an accidental death to collect double indemnity,” said Mr. Pedigo, who lost his medical license after being convicted of sedating and sexually molesting minors in 1995. “Some people even speculated that it might have been Ed Dossett’s idea.” Mr. Pedigo said that prosecutors in Mr. Dossett’s office resisted his performing an autopsy, that he felt pressured to rule the death an accident and that he had a “policy” of erring on the side of the family in cases where a judgment call was required. He persuaded Ms. Dossett that the insurance company would need an autopsy, and she consented. Mr. Pedigo said he found traumatic injuries consistent with trampling and a hoof print in the middle of the bib of Mr. Dossett’s overalls. But when the current medical examiner, Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, reviewed the file as part of the Leath investigation, she found that those injuries were not life threatening. Instead, Dr. Mileusnic-Polchan said, Mr. Dossett’s morphine level was “so extraordinarily high it is unlikely that any human could function in an ambulatory manner or continue to live.” In 2006, Ms. Dossett Leath was indicted in his death, charged with administering an overdose of morphine. Six months after Mr. Dossett’s death, his widow married his friend and neighbor, David Leath. Friends say the couple was happy — at least at first. He built her a greenhouse; she bought him a custom truck with a matching horse trailer. Two years later, Ms. Dossett Leath’s 11-year-old son was killed in an auto accident; her 15-year-old daughter was the driver. Not long after that, according to court records and newspaper accounts, Ms. Dossett Leath learned that her dead husband might have had another son, with a woman who worked in his office. In the midst of a divorce, the woman told her husband, Steve Walker, that one of their two sons was actually fathered by Mr. Dossett, and he told Ms. Dossett Leath. Ms. Dossett Leath soon lured Mr. Walker to a barn on her farm, telling him she had found some papers related to the child. Once there, she opened fire on him, according to his account, and chased him across the hayfields until she ran out of ammunition. According to Mr. Walker’s statement to the police, she said she would kill him and the child’s mother and raise the child herself. Ms. Dossett Leath was charged with attempted murder, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and did six years of “diversion,” a form of probation. Then, the charge was expunged. Friends say it was only months after Ms. Dossett Leath completed her sentence that Mr. Leath was found dead. He had signed deeds and a will, now missing, ensuring that Ms. Dossett Leath would inherit all the couple’s property. At the trial, her defense lawyers argued that the victim killed himself, offering evidence that he was depressed and that his health was declining. But a firearms expert for the prosecution said that of three shots fired from the gun that day, it had been the second one that killed Mr. Leath. Ms. Dossett Leath’s lawyer, James A. H. Bell, said that his client had loved her husband and that there was no way she would have killed him. “If you believe Miss Raynella murdered him,” Mr. Bell said, “you have to believe she is nothing but a serpent of Satan.” Only one juror declined to convict her in the first trial.

Leath Raynella Dossett
Murders and Attempted Murders
Knoxville (Tenn)
Autopsies
Leath David
Dossett Ed


Yen Strengthens Again, in Challenge for Abe

Abstract: TOKYO — Less than one month after the yen weakened to more than 100 to the dollar, celebrated as a milestone for this export-loving economy, the Japanese currency briefly slipped back Tuesday to the wrong side of that symbolic threshold. The yen at one point strengthened to as much as 99 per dollar Tuesday, crossing the 100-yen mark against the United States currency for the first time since early May, before slipping back. In the six months from mid-November to mid-May the yen had weakened by about 25 percent, sending Japanese stocks on a bull run. But shares traded in Tokyo have lost 15 percent of their value since May 23, when the euphoric rally suddenly gave way to nerve-racking market swings. The Nikkei 225 share index closed up 2.05 percent at 13,533.76 points on Tuesday. That came after the index fell 3.7 percent Monday, the fourth rout in eight days. It is still too early to tell whether the recent southward turn in Japanese stock markets is a temporary correction, or whether it is the end of the road for a spectacular rally that seemed to foreshadow a resurgence of the Japanese economy after years of deflation and disappointing growth. But the market retreat reflects a growing anxiety among investors about the program of bold monetary stimulus, fiscal spending and economic overhauls instituted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and intended to help Japan break out of its economic stupor. “Until May 23, all attention was on how far the market could rise,” Norihiro Fujito, a senior investment strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, wrote in a research note published Monday. “But within a week, everyone is talking about how far it could fall.” The wild market gyrations, Mr. Fujito said, threatened to make predictions by even the most seasoned of market experts almost meaningless. “Turning to analysts who said just a week ago that stocks might rise to 18,000, or 20,000, is hardly an effective mood-stabilizing move,” he said. At times like these, investors might be wise simply to “wait and see.” Other immediate factors have propelled recent market moves, analysts say, including comments from United States Federal Reserve officials that seemed to suggest a tightening of monetary policy later this year; a rise in long-term interest rates in both the United States and Japan; profit-taking by overseas hedge funds and other foreign investors that had piled an excess of almost 10 trillion yen into Japanese equities since late last year; and high-frequency trading that has magnified market swings. But there has also been an increasingly cold-eyed analysis of the potential pitfalls of Mr. Abe’s economic push. Japan’s central bank has seemingly been caught unaware by volatility in long-term interest rates, brought about by its pump-priming and large-scale purchases of government bonds. The government pushed through a sizable budget last month, but in the eyes of many investors, that is more of the same from a country that has long poured money into public projects, staving off a deeper decline but with little to show toward long-term, sustainable economic growth. Government officials stress that there have been no fundamental changes to Japan’s economic outlook for a gradual recovery. Data released last week showed a rebound in industrial production, thanks to brisk exports, and economists expect consumer spending to pick up soon. Still, much will depend on a platform of structural overhauls that Mr. Abe intends to outline Wednesday and make final next week — what he calls the “third arrow” of his economic program, which includes previously announced monetary and fiscal policy changes. The structural measures are expected to focus on increasing private-sector investment, fostering entrepreneurship, deregulating the country’s rigid labor market and bringing Japan into cross-border free-trade agreements that will in turn open up more markets to foreign competition. The bold monetary and fiscal policies Mr. Abe has announced so far are simply “a means to an end,” Mikio Mizobata, a senior economist at the Daiwa Institute of Research, said in a report published Monday. “His third arrow is the most important.”

Japanese yen
Japan
Shinzo Abe
Economy
Stocks,Bonds
Nikkei 225


China Vows to Replace ‘Poisonous’ Running Tracks at Schools

Abstract: BEIJING — Chinese officials have pledged to replace school running tracks made of industrial waste that have reportedly sickened thousands of children, the latest public health scandal in a country already troubled by environmental hazards including air pollution and soil contamination. The Ministry of Education said late Wednesday that it would coordinate with environmental protection and quality inspection authorities to inspect synthetic rubber tracks in schools across China during the summer break. Substandard running tracks — called “poisonous tracks” by the news media — are to be removed. Anyone who has cut corners in the construction of school sports facilities, the ministry said, will be “severely punished.’’ And it promised stricter oversight over the construction of such tracks. A day earlier, CCTV, the state broadcaster, aired an investigative report that said manufacturers of running track rubber, many based in neighboring Hebei Province, used substandard materials and violated safety rules. The announcement also followed months of news reports from Beijing, Shanghai and several provinces about schoolchildren experiencing nosebleeds, skin rashes, dizziness and headaches after being exposed to the tracks. “We were very angry when the problem was discovered,” said Wang Baoquan, a resident of Beijing who kept his 10-year-old daughter at home for four days this month as a health precaution. In a telephone interview, Mr. Wang said his daughter had not become sick, but many of her schoolmates had developed coughs, skin problems and nosebleeds. Last week, his daughter’s school, the Baiyunlu campus of the Beijing No. 2 Experimental Elementary School, removed running tracks that had been renovated last summer, Mr. Wang said, adding that he and many other parents took their children for checkups after health problems broke out in May. “We guessed earlier that the school’s running tracks had some problems,” he said. “When we went to parents’ meetings, we would sometimes smell a very odd odor from the running tracks. But the school did nothing but pour something on the tracks’ surface.” The CCTV report, which said some tracks were made using recycled tires, cables and wires, provoked angry comments online. Some criticized government officials and school administrators for their lack of supervision. “What kind of country would treat children’s health and lives as a joke?” a user identified as SoftLipa_cen wrote on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging service similar to Twitter. Image Children left a Beijing school where the track had been covered up on Thursday. Credit Ng Han Guan/Associated Press Others cited a broader problem with safety. “Toxic running tracks, problematic vaccines, toxic milk,” a person identified as AACamille wrote of the safety problems in China. “Is there anything scarier?” In April, in another well-publicized case of hazardous materials threatening children’s health, dozens of students at a school in Jiangsu Province reportedly built on a toxic waste site developed illnesses, including leukemia. Last month, China announced plans to make 90 percent of its polluted arable land safe to use by 2020, two years after a national survey that found around 20 percent of the country’s arable land was contaminated. Many schools subcontract the construction of running tracks to outside companies, usually to the lowest bidder, Cao Qingxin, an expert on waste rubber at the China Rubber Industry Association, said in an interview. He estimated that 2 percent of scrap tires, or around 100,000 tons a year, are recycled to make running tracks in China. Many manufacturers cut costs, he said, by using substandard glues and other materials. The CCTV report noted that the running tracks at the Bird’s Nest in Beijing, the stadium built for the 2008 Olympics, cost 1,000 renminbi, or about $150, per square meter. At one of the primary schools in Beijing plagued by “poisonous tracks,” the cost was 119 renminbi, or $18. The poor quality control has disappointed parents like Shen Yang. Ms. Shen said her 4-year-old daughter has had a runny nose, coughs and stomachaches since May, two months after her Beijing kindergarten renovated its running tracks. “My understanding is that products on supermarket shelves are safe no matter who produces them because they’re checked for quality,’’ she said. “It should be the same for running tracks, because schools need to make sure they’re safe. But they failed to do this, and I just don’t understand it.” Ms. Shen was among 260 parents who signed a petition in April to demand that the tracks be replaced. The work finally started on Thursday, she said. Asked if the Education Ministry’s announcement had brought any relief, Mr. Wang said: “It takes time to clean up things like these and it requires action from different agencies. I doubt we’ll see any real effects soon. For me, my priority is to guarantee my child safety and a good environment to grow up in.”


How to Get Five Planets Into a Single Photograph

Abstract: Greg Hogan, an amateur astronomer from Kathleen, Ga., woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday with two of his sons and went to a nearby wilderness area known as Oaky Woods to capture this image of five planets as they danced across the dawn sky. The rare celestial performance is set to repeat every morning until late February, creating stellar photo ops for early morning risers. One of the trickiest aspects of getting the shot is simply knowing where to look for the headliners amid the countless bright orbs above. Before his trip, Mr. Hogan used a software program called Stellarium to help him pinpoint the planets’ locations. When he got to the park he used a mobile app called Sky Guide to home in on Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He said it was challenging to fit Mercury into the shot because the planet was so low on the horizon, and within an hour it vanished in the sunlight. For this picture, he used a Canon 7D with an 8 mm fisheye lens with 10 second exposure (attempts to capture the faraway planets with the limited capacity of one’s cellphone seems to have thwarted a number of Instagrammers ). Though it was about 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside, he said he and his boys, 8 and 5, enjoyed the adventure. “I loved sharing this moment with my sons,” he wrote in an email. “They braved the early morning cold to share that moment with their dad.”

Photography
Mercury Planet
Mars
Saturn
Jupiter
Venus
Space
Instagram


Hawaii: Third Observatory to Be Shut on Mauna Kea

Abstract: The University of Hawaii announced Wednesday that a third observatory would be taken from Mauna Kea — a move that fulfills the governor’s request to remove 25 percent of telescopes from a mountain that is considered sacred by many Native Hawaiians. Gov. David Ige made the request in May amid protests against the building of a giant $1.4 billion telescope near the mountain’s summit. He said 25 percent of the 13 telescopes already on the mountain must come down before the new Thirty Meter Telescope is ready for operation. Its construction has been stalled since April, when protesters blocked crews from the site. The nonprofit company building it has not indicated when it will resume construction, but the facility is still expected to be operational by 2024, a spokeswoman said. The university said the latest telescope marked for decommissioning would be the Ukirt Observatory, formerly known as the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. It was first targeted for removal in 2009. Kealoha Pisciotta, a longtime critic of the Thirty Meter Telescope, said decommissioning could be just as destructive as building a telescope.

Mauna Kea
Telescopes Observatories
Hawaii
University of Hawaii


Somalia: Militants Said to Be Hit by U.S. Drone Strike

Abstract: A senior commander and other members of the Islamist extremist group the Shabab have been killed in an American drone strike in southwestern Somalia, Somali and American officials and a militant commander said Thursday. The attack on Wednesday night near the town of Baardheere was planned by American and African Union forces, said an American official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Details were sketchy, but one of those killed was a Shabab commander, a Somali intelligence official said. A Shabab official confirmed the attack but gave no details. Shabab fighters have carried out attacks in Somalia, as well as in Kenya and Uganda, countries that have sent troops to Somalia as part of the African Union force protecting Somalia’s weak government.

Somalia
Targeted Killings
Al Shabab
Drones
Terrorism


Belle Zeck, 87, Prosecutor at Nuremberg, Dies

Abstract: Belle Mayer Zeck, a lawyer who began her career as one of the few women to serve as prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials, died on March 18 at her home in Suffern, N.Y. She was 87. Her death was announced by her son, John Zeck. Ms. Zeck was part of a team that prosecuted officials of the German industrial company I. G. Farben for war crimes, including plunder and the use of slave labor. The trial, in 1947 and 1948, resulted in the conviction of 13 of 23 defendants. Ms. Zeck had joined the legal team in 1946, when she was recruited from her job in Washington at the general counsel's office of the United States Treasury. After the case ended, she married a fellow Nuremberg prosecutor, William A. Zeck, and returned with him to Suffern, her home town, to practice law. She also became involved in politics, running for the New York State Assembly as a Democrat in 1960 and serving on the party's New York platform committee four years later. In 1970, she was elected president of the Rockland County Bar Association. The daughter of immigrants from Hungary, she was born Rosalyn Mayer in 1919 in Port Henry, N.Y. Because she disliked her first name as a child, she had her parents change it to Belle. She graduated from Syracuse University and Fordham Law School. Ms. Zeck is survived by her daughter, Deborah Zeck Thorne of Nyack, N.Y.; her son, John, of Littleton, Colo.; and four grandchildren. Her husband, who was a State Supreme Court justice, died in 2002.

ZECK BELLE MAYER
SLAVERY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
FREEDOM AND HUMAN RIGHTS
DEATHS (OBITUARIES)