Robert H. Bork, Conservative Jurist, Dies at 85

Abstract: Robert H. Bork , a former solicitor general, federal judge and conservative legal theorist whose 1987 nomination to the United States Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate in a historic political battle whose impact is still being felt, died on Wednesday in Arlington, Va. He was 85. His death, of complications of heart disease, was confirmed by his son Robert Jr. Judge Bork, who was senior judicial adviser this year to Mitt Romney ’s presidential campaign, played a small but crucial role in the Watergate crisis as the solicitor general under President Richard M. Nixon . He carried out orders to fire a special prosecutor in what became known as “the Saturday Night Massacre.” He also handed down notable decisions from the federal appeals court bench. But it was as a symbol of the nation’s culture wars that Judge Bork made his name. It is rare for the Senate in its constitutional “advice and consent” role to turn down a president’s Supreme Court nominee , and rarer still for that rejection to be based not on qualifications but on judicial philosophy and temperament. That turned Judge Bork’s defeat into a watershed event and his name into a verb: getting “borked” is what happens to a nominee rejected for what supporters consider political motives. The success of the anti-Bork campaign is widely seen to have shifted the tone and emphasis of Supreme Court nominations since then, giving them an often strong political cast and making it hard, many argue, for a nominee with firmly held views ever to be confirmed. Until the end of his life, Judge Bork argued that American judges, acting to please a liberal elite, have hijacked the struggle over national values by overstepping their role, especially in many of the most important decisions on civil rights and liberties, personal autonomy and regulation of business. He advocated a view of judging known as “strict constructionism,” or “originalism,” which seeks to limit constitutional values to those explicitly enunciated by the framers and to reject those that evolved in later generations. He dismissed the view that the courts had rightly come to the aid of those neglected by the majority. By contrast, he felt that majorities, through legislatures, should be empowered to make all decisions not specifically addressed in the Constitution. He most notably took issue with the Supreme Court’s assertion in the 1960s and ’70s that the Constitution implicitly recognizes a right of privacy that bars states from outlawing abortion or the use of contraceptives by married couples. That position, along with his rejection of court-mandated help to minority groups, led a coalition of liberal groups to push successfully for his Senate defeat, motivated in no small part by their sense that he cared more about abstract legal reasoning than the people affected by it. They contended that his confirmation would produce a radical shift on a closely divided Supreme Court and “turn back the clock” on civil and individual rights. Judge Bork, who was 60 at the time, was sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit , often a steppingstone to the Supreme Court, when President Ronald Reagan announced on July 1, 1987, that he was nominating him to the high court to replace Lewis Powell , a moderate justice who was retiring. Within an hour of the announcement, Senator Edward M. Kennedy , the Massachusetts Democrat, set the tone for the bruising contest to come. “Robert Bork’s America,” Mr. Kennedy said in a speech, “is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.” Judge Bork’s supporters considered every word of that attack a misrepresentation. But the fear that his confirmation would curtail settled rights, especially of blacks and women, created a national reaction. A National Outcry An array of groups focused on civil and women’s rights, labor, consumer power and the environment began an extraordinary public campaign against him, arguing that his long and extensive record exposed a range of agendas and made him unfit for the job. They made their case in full-page advertisements, mass mailings and demonstrations and ceaseless lobbying of their senators. Since there was no question of his integrity or intelligence, the campaign and subsequent hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee, run by Joseph R. Biden Jr. , a Democratic senator from Delaware at the time, focused on whether Judge Bork was “out of the mainstream.” Two Supreme Court decisions were seen as especially vulnerable to being overturned by a bench with Judge Bork on it: the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which barred states from banning abortion, and the 1978 Bakke case upholding affirmative action. During five days of testimony, much of it televised, Judge Bork declined to comment on how he would rule should those issues come up and argued further that what he had said in his life as a scholar and advocate would have little bearing on his judgments from the bench. The White House also sought to portray him as a moderate. That, and his own assertion that he would look at the law with a fresh eye, gave off the whiff of hypocrisy, which made it easier for some senators to oppose him. The American Bar Association ’s committee on judicial nominees also split, with four of the 15 members calling him “not qualified,” because of concerns over his “compassion, open-mindedness, his sensitivity to the rights of women and minority persons or groups.” Judge Bork, a bear of a man with a scraggly red beard and untamed frizz on a balding pate who had an outsize love of food and drink, handled himself poorly in front of the committee and failed to give doubters confidence. As Tom Shales, the television critic for The Washington Post , wrote of his testimony: “He looked, and talked, like a man who would throw the book at you — maybe like a man who would throw the book at the whole country.” The most contentious part of the hearings occurred under questioning from Arlen Specter , a centrist Republican from Pennsylvania and a former prosecutor. Mr. Specter, who died in October, quoted Judge Bork as having written that under the Constitution, executive power had to evolve. Why then, Mr. Specter wanted to know, shouldn’t other constitutional concepts — like individual liberty — have a chance to evolve as well? The senator accused Judge Bork of selecting evolving rights based on his own preferences rather than neutral principles. It was an accusation that stuck. So did the notion that the nominee was somehow unfeeling as a judge. This latter was amplified when, asked by a sympathetic senator, Alan K. Simpson , Republican of Wyoming , why he wanted to serve on the Supreme Court, Judge Bork replied that it would be “an intellectual feast.” The committee voted, 9 to 5, to reject his nomination and sent it to the full Senate, which also turned him down. After the defeat the White House picked Douglas Ginsburg, of the same federal appeals court in Washington, as its new nominee. But when it was discovered that he had smoked marijuana at Harvard , his nomination was withdrawn and replaced with that of Anthony M. Kennedy , a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California . In his hearings, Judge Kennedy, a mainstream, clean-cut conservative from Sacramento , made a point of distinguishing himself from Judge Bork by focusing on compassion and the need to respect Supreme Court precedents. His nomination sailed through the Senate. On the Supreme Court, he became an important centrist swing vote between liberal and conservative blocs and has consistently declined to overturn Roe v. Wade. Judge Bork inspired a fervent generation of conservative legal thinkers. As America turned more conservative and President George W. Bush chose judges with views similar to his, many of Judge Bork’s acolytes and admirers ended up on the federal bench. After his defeat, Judge Bork retired from the Circuit Court and took up positions at conservative ideological groups and law schools, writing and speaking against what he saw as the moral decline of the country at the hands of an elite, a theme he explored in a best-selling book. In an interview in The American Spectator in 2002, he repeated his view that a liberal elite had hijacked the nation. “Churchgoers aren’t very powerful, given their numbers,” he said. “And the intelligentsia is powerful, far beyond their numbers, because they control the hype of television. They control Hollywood. They control the newspapers. They control the foundations. They control the universities.” A Change in Philosophy Robert Heron Bork was born on March 1, 1927, in Pittsburgh to Harry Bork, a purchasing agent with a steel company, and the former Elizabeth Kunkle, an English teacher. He attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and recalled that he spent most of his early years “reading books and arguing with people.” After a stint in the Marines guarding supply lines in China at the end of World War II , he went to the University of Chicago . Renowned conservative scholars there like Leo Strauss advocated a return to republican principles of “virtue” and hierarchy. Mr. Bork was a New Deal enthusiast, as was his wife, Claire Davidson, a fellow undergraduate whom he married in 1952. But by the early 1950s, while he attended the University of Chicago law school and became impressed with market-oriented conservatism, both had moved permanently to the right. Mr. Bork discovered economics and became a libertarian opposed to government intervention and regulation. He began to evolve a similar theory of law, seeking what he called “neutral principles.” His major scholarly contribution, a 1978 book called “ The Antitrust Paradox ,” encouraged mergers and called for less antitrust regulation for efficiency’s sake. Students called a course he taught on the topic at Yale “protrust.” Out of law school, Mr. Bork was hired by the prestigious Chicago firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he spent eight years before taking a job teaching antitrust law at Yale in 1962. The Borks packed up their three children, Robert Jr., Charles and Ellen, and moved to New Haven , where he pursued his conservative ideas in a deeply liberal environment, campaigning for the Republican and archconservative Barry Goldwater ’s election to the presidency in 1964. He also wrote a fateful article for The New Republic in 1963 — one that played a key role in his 1987 defeat — condemning the public accommodation sections of the proposed 1964 Civil Rights Act aimed at integrating restaurants, hotels and other businesses. Mr. Bork said he had no objection to racial integration but feared that government coercion of private behavior threatened freedom. The New Republic took the rare step of writing a reply, rejecting his reasoning and pointing out that restaurateurs were not legally permitted to reject service to well-behaved whites and that the new law intended simply to extend that principle to blacks. The editors also accused Mr. Bork of taking neutral principles out the window — an accusation he would hear more than once in his life. A decade later, during his confirmation hearings for solicitor general, Mr. Bork said that he had changed his mind and that his 1963 article had been a kind of thought experiment. But during the 1987 Supreme Court nomination battle, many cited the article as evidence that he had always been out of step in a way that harmed minorities. The upheavals of the late 1960s drove Mr. Bork from libertarianism to social conservatism. Freedom — the cry of student activists — no longer stood as his supreme value. Tradition, order and hierarchy did. In a 1971 article in The Indiana Law Journal, he argued that the First Amendment’s protection of free speech had been wildly extrapolated beyond the intent of the Constitution’s framers. In a starkly narrow interpretation, he said free speech existed to perpetuate the process of self-government; therefore, he wrote, only explicitly political speech about governing was protected. Mr. Bork worked for Nixon’s re-election in 1972. He was rewarded with the nomination to solicitor general, a post he held for three and a half years and from which he advanced his beliefs on the constitutionality of the death penalty, the illegality of busing to achieve racial balance in schools and the power of the president over Congress. Mr. Bork’s role in Watergate occurred in 1973, when Nixon wanted to keep a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox , from gaining access to incriminating White House recordings and ordered him fired. The attorney general, Elliot L. Richardson, and his deputy refused and quit. Mr. Bork, as solicitor general, was next in line to carry out the president’s orders, and he did, firing Mr. Cox and his entire staff. When Jimmy Carter , a Democrat, was elected in 1976, Mr. Bork returned to Yale. But it was a hard time for him. He had grown impatient with academic theorizing, and his wife, Claire, had developed cancer , which was spreading. She died in 1980, and he returned to Washington, first in private practice. After the election of President Reagan, he was nominated to the District of Columbia circuit court. His five years on the federal bench showed a record of stark conservatism; he often denied plaintiffs the right to a court hearing, showed strong deference to the executive branch over Congress and gave wide latitude to business over government regulation. A View Made Clear One of his opinions, in Dronenburg v. Zech in 1984, dealt with the Navy’s power to fire a veteran for consensual homosexual activity. Judge Bork not only granted the Navy that power, but he also took the opportunity to make clear that a right of privacy did not exist in the Constitution. “If the revolution in sexual mores that appellant proclaims is in fact ever to arrive,” he wrote, “we think it must arrive through the moral choices of the people and their elected representatives, not through the ukase of this court.” In 1982, at an event in which he was speaking, Judge Bork met Mary Ellen Pohl, a conservative activist and former nun. They married five months later. She and his three children and two grandchildren survive him. Judge Bork laid out his objections to much of what is handed down in American courtrooms in his best-selling book “ The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law ” in 1989, describing a number of rulings as “judicial legislation” by inappropriately activist judges. He further said that he had become the symbol that liberals needed to destroy. In 1996, he published “ Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline ,” also a best seller. This book took aim at egalitarianism, individualism and other liberal ideas, saying they go against natural law. “A decline runs across our entire culture,” he wrote, and “the rot is spreading.”


Unilever to Buy Oil Derived From Algae From Solazyme

Abstract: In a sign of the growing mainstream acceptance of products derived from algae, Unilever, the consumer products giant, has agreed to buy large amounts of oil from Solazyme, a start-up that bioengineers algae to produce oils, proteins and complex sugars, executives said Tuesday. Unilever said it would use the oil for its personal care products, which include Dove and Brylcreem. The agreement, under which Unilever plans to buy roughly three million gallons of the algae-produced oil over 12 to 18 months starting early next year, is part of its aim to double the size of its business while reducing its overall environmental footprint. Toward that end, Unilever has said it will use only sustainable agricultural raw materials by 2020, a goal it met last year in its purchases of palm oil from sustainable sources. Image A fermentation machine producing algae used to make oil at the Solazyme plant in South San Francisco, Calif. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times For Solazyme, the agreement represents an important step as it ramps up to commercial-scale production. Originally conceived as a fuel business, Solazyme has focused on making oils for products with higher profit margins like personal care, food and petrochemicals. The Unilever oil, developed in a five-year partnership with Solazyme, will be made at a plant it built in Brazil with Bunge, a leading agribusiness and food company. When fully operational, the plant could produce roughly 30 million gallons of oil a year. “This is the first oil that was jointly developed that’s going to a product sale,” said Jonathan S. Wolfson, Solazyme’s chief executive. “We’ve laid out the path for years, and now we’re closing the first big loop about where a big chunk of this oil goes coming out of one of these plants.” Solazyme, based in South San Francisco, Calif., has developed several strains of microalgae that can produce oils, proteins and complex sugars with specific characteristics to perform a variety of functions. Though it still plans to mass-market fuel, it has entered into partnerships with established companies to help it increase manufacturing capacity for its several product lines.

Algae
Unilever
Solazyme
Jonathan S Wolfson
California
Brazil
Oil and Gasoline


Larry Speakes, Public Face of Reagan Era, Dies at 74

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Larry Speakes, who became the public face of Ronald Reagan’s presidency when a would-be assassin’s bullet gravely wounded his boss, press secretary James Brady, died Friday in his native Mississippi. He was 74. Dr. Nate Brown, the coroner for Bolivar County, Miss., said Mr. Speakes, who had Alzheimer’s disease, died at his home in Cleveland, Miss. A Southerner who started many days in his White House office by listening to Mozart for what he said was its calming influence, Mr. Speakes served as acting White House press secretary from 1981 to 1987, parrying the increasingly adversarial queries from the press along the way. His nickname among friends was “the Mississippi catfish,” a fish that stings when mishandled. He worked in the West Wing in a pre-Internet era, when the tense exchanges with reporters took place twice a day and deadlines were geared toward the morning papers and the networks’ nightly news programs. He was regarded as having a straightforward but sometimes acerbic style by journalists who bristled at the administration’s attempts to manage the news. Mr. Speakes made news himself in 1988, after he left the White House, when he published a memoir in which he said that as spokesman he had attributed two quotations to Reagan that the president did not say, and later told him about it. The revelations infuriated members of the administration, and Reagan said he did not know of the quotations until Mr. Speakes’ book, “Speaking Out,” was published. During the ensuing furor, Mr. Speakes resigned from his job as senior vice president for communications at Merrill Lynch. He later told The Washington Post that he had been “overzealous” and that he had “wronged President Reagan.” But he did not apologize. “The truth never requires apology,” he told The Post. When he was in the White House, some journalists questioned whether Mr. Speakes had the access necessary to give him credibility. At times, his job seemed less about communicating policy than handling television personalities like Sam Donaldson of ABC News, who became famous for the questions he shouted at the president from the airport tarmac or White House rope line. Mr. Speakes also fought battles inside the White House with presidential advisers as they all struggled for influence and access to Reagan. But Mr. Speakes survived in the briefing room longer than most modern presidential press secretaries, in part because of his laid-back Southern style, which often hid the ambition that is always present in political operatives who make it to the White House. Larry Melvin Speakes was born on Sept. 13, 1939, at a hospital in Cleveland, Miss., that, he wrote in “Speaking Out,” was the closest to his parents’ home in Merigold, Miss. He was the son of Harry Earl Speakes and the former Ethlyn Frances Fincher. His father was a banker in Merigold, and Mr. Speakes called himself “as middle class as you could get,” marrying his high-school sweetheart before attending the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Mr. Speakes is survived by a daughter, Sandy Speakes Huerta of Cleveland, Miss.; two sons, Scott Speakes of Cleveland and Jeremy Speakes of Clifton, Va.; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. He worked for small-town newspapers in Mississippi before starting his political career in the late 1960s as press secretary for Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi. That led to jobs at the White House and then as a spokesman for President Richard M. Nixon’s Watergate lawyer. He later worked for President Gerald R. Ford and Senator Bob Dole before getting the call from Mr. Brady to be his deputy after Mr. Reagan’s victory. After the shooting, Mr. Speakes took over Mr. Brady’s duties, though he never got the title of press secretary, out of respect for his wounded colleague. “As long as it’s important to Jim, the title is his,” he told a reporter for The New York Times in 1985. As Reagan increasingly ran into political trouble — including an arms-for-hostages deal with Iran — it was Mr. Speakes who was often called upon to deflect the attacks. Once, when a reporter asked him whether the United States would seek to invade the island nation of Grenada, Mr. Speakes said — on the advice of an official at the National Security Council — that the idea was “preposterous.” The invasion took place the next day, and Mr. Speakes later acknowledged that he had learned about the assault after it had begun. “That was the most difficult,” he recalled in 1985. “I was misled. I ended up giving incorrect information. We were left out.” In that same interview, he said, “There are 10,000 ways to say, ‘No comment,’ and I’ve used 9,999 of them.”

Larry Speakes
Obituary
US Politics
Ronald Reagan


Sudan: Hunger Increases in Conflict Zone

Abstract: More than 80 percent of people living in a conflict zone in Sudan ’s southern region are eating only one meal a day, compared with 10 percent one year ago, an American advocacy group said Thursday, citing research collected from a region where aid groups are not allowed to operate. The group, the Enough Project, warned that hunger was increasing to dangerous levels in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan, where anti-government rebels are fighting government troops. The research was conducted by an aid group that the Enough Project said did not want to be identified. Sudan forbids aid groups from operating in South Kordofan, and aid workers must sneak into the region by crossing the border with South Sudan. Thousands of families fleeing hunger and violence in the Nuba Mountains have streamed into South Sudan over the last year.


For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics

Abstract: VERNON, Ala. — Fear of the politician with the unusual name and look did not end with last Tuesday’s vote in this rural red swatch where buck heads and rifles hang on the wall. This corner of the Deep South still resonates with negative feelings about the race of President-elect Barack Obama . What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say. The region’s absence from Mr. Obama’s winning formula means it “is becoming distinctly less important,” said Wayne Parent, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. “The South has moved from being the center of the political universe to being an outside player in presidential politics.” One reason for that is that the South is no longer a solid voting bloc. Along the Atlantic Coast, parts of the “suburban South,” notably Virginia and North Carolina, made history last week in breaking from their Confederate past and supporting Mr. Obama. Those states have experienced an influx of better educated and more prosperous voters in recent years, pointing them in a different political direction than states farther west, like Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and Appalachian sections of Kentucky and Tennessee. Southern counties that voted more heavily Republican this year than in 2004 tended to be poorer, less educated and whiter, a statistical analysis by The New York Times shows. Mr. Obama won in only 44 counties in the Appalachian belt, a stretch of 410 counties that runs from New York to Mississippi. Many of those counties, rural and isolated, have been less exposed to the diversity, educational achievement and economic progress experienced by more prosperous areas. The increased turnout in the South’s so-called Black Belt, or old plantation-country counties, was visible in the results, but it generally could not make up for the solid white support for Mr. McCain. Alabama, for example, experienced a heavy black turnout and voted slightly more Democratic than in 2004, but the state over all gave 60 percent of its vote to Mr. McCain. (Arkansas, however, doubled the margin of victory it gave to the Republican over 2004.) Less than a third of Southern whites voted for Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally. By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say. That could spell the end of the so-called Southern strategy, the doctrine that took shape under President Richard M. Nixon in which national elections were won by co-opting Southern whites on racial issues. And the Southernization of American politics — which reached its apogee in the 1990s when many Congressional leaders and President Bill Clinton were from the South — appears to have ended. “I think that’s absolutely over,” said Thomas Schaller, a political scientist who argued prophetically that the Democrats could win national elections without the South. The Republicans, meanwhile, have “become a Southernized party,” said Mr. Schaller, who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party,” he said, pointing out that nearly half of the current Republican House delegation is now Southern. Merle Black, an expert on the region’s politics at Emory University in Atlanta, said the Republican Party went too far in appealing to the South, alienating voters elsewhere. “They’ve maxed out on the South,” he said, which has “limited their appeal in the rest of the country.” Even the Democrats made use of the Southern strategy, as the party’s two presidents in the last 40 years, Jimmy Carter and Mr. Clinton, were Southerners whose presence on the ticket served to assuage regional anxieties. Mr. Obama has now proved it is no longer necessary to include a Southerner on the national ticket — to quiet racial fears, for example — in order to win, in the view of analysts. Several Southern states, including Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, have voted for the winner in presidential elections for decades. No more. And Mr. Obama’s race appears to have been the critical deciding factor in pushing ever greater numbers of white Southerners away from the Democrats. Here in Alabama, where Mr. McCain won 60.4 percent of the vote in his best Southern showing, he had the support of nearly 9 in 10 whites, according to exit polls, a figure comparable to other Southern states. Alabama analysts pointed to the persistence of traditional white Southern attitudes on race as the deciding factor in Mr. McCain’s strong margin. Mr. Obama won in Jefferson County, which includes the city of Birmingham, and in the Black Belt, but he made few inroads elsewhere. “Race continues to play a major role in the state,” said Glenn Feldman, a historian at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. “Alabama, unfortunately, continues to remain shackled to the bonds of yesterday.” David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, pointed out that the 18 percent share of whites that voted for Senator John Kerry in 2004 was almost cut in half for Mr. Obama. “There’s no other explanation than race,” he said. In Arkansas, which had among the nation’s largest concentration of counties increasing their support for the Republican candidate over the 2004 vote, “there’s a clear indication that racial conservatism was a component of that shift away from the Democrat,” said Jay Barth, a political scientist in the state. Race was a strong subtext in post-election conversations across the socioeconomic spectrum here in Vernon, the small, struggling seat of Lamar County on the Mississippi border. One white woman said she feared that blacks would now become more “aggressive,” while another volunteered that she was bothered by the idea of a black man “over me” in the White House. Mr. McCain won 76 percent of the county’s vote, about five percentage points more than Mr. Bush did, because “a lot more people came out, hoping to keep Obama out,” Joey Franks, a construction worker, said in the parking lot of the Shop and Save. Mr. Franks, who voted for Mr. McCain, said he believed that “over 50 percent voted against Obama for racial reasons,” adding that in his own case race mattered “a little bit. That’s in my mind.” Many people made it clear that they were deeply apprehensive about Mr. Obama, though some said they were hoping for the best. “I think any time you have someone elected president of the United States with a Muslim name, whether they are white or black, there are some very unsettling things,” George W. Newman, a director at a local bank and the former owner of a trucking business, said over lunch at Yellow Creek Fish and Steak. Don Dollar, the administrative assistant at City Hall, said bitterly that anyone not upset with Mr. Obama’s victory should seek religious forgiveness. “This is a community that’s supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks,” he said. “If they’re not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.” Customers of Bill Pennington, a barber whose downtown shop is decorated with hunting and fishing trophies, were “scared because they heard he had a Muslim background,” Mr. Pennington said over the country music on the radio. “Over and over again I heard that.” Mr. Obama remains an unknown quantity in this corner of the South, and there are deep worries about the changes he will bring. “I am concerned,” Gail McDaniel, who owns a cosmetics business, said in the parking lot of the Shop and Save. “The abortion thing bothers me. Same-sex marriage .” “I think there are going to be outbreaks from blacks,” she added. “From where I’m from, this is going to give them the right to be more aggressive.”

Southern States (US)
Presidential Election of 2008
United States Politics and Government
Race
Blacks
Rural Areas
Election Results
Democratic Party
Republican Party
Obama Barack


China Approves Sweeping Security Law, Bolstering Communist Rule

Abstract: BEIJING — The Chinese government announced Wednesday that it had enacted a new national security law , one that amounts to a sweeping command from President Xi Jinping to maintain the primacy of Communist Party rule across all aspects of society. The law is expected to bolster the power of the domestic security apparatus and the military. The law says “security” must be maintained in all fields, from culture to education to cyberspace. A draft version of the law was released in May, leading to intense discussion about its long-term impact, but the version approved Wednesday is even wider in scope — adding, for instance, that security must be defended on international seabeds, in the polar regions and even in outer space. The law is one of three that are being scrutinized by foreign leaders and corporate executives, who say Mr. Xi is moving to severely restrict the influence and actions of foreign organizations in China . The other two laws are expected to be passed soon; one would regulate foreign nongovernmental organizations and place them under the oversight of the Ministry of Public Security, and the other is a counterterrorism law. While those two laws, currently in draft form, have specific details on controlling foreign groups, the national security law is a more abstract statement of principles, aimed at exhorting all Chinese citizens and agencies to be vigilant about threats to the party. Legal scholars and analysts in China say it will probably lead to the security apparatus amassing more power, and to courts employing a broad definition of national security violations. Human rights advocates expect the same and say they are worried that defendants accused of such violations will have little legal protection. “It is as much to do with protecting the Communist Party and punishing those that criticize the leadership as addressing national security,” William Nee, a researcher at Amnesty International , said of the law. The law, which was passed Wednesday by a committee of the National People’s Congress, a pro forma legislature, also assigns oversight of national security to a central agency. Analysts say this is a reference to the National Security Commission, established and run by Mr. Xi, which is widely seen as a party rather than a government organization. Zheng Shuna, deputy director of the legislative affairs commission of the National People’s Congress, said Wednesday at a news conference in Beijing that China’s national security situation was “increasingly grim” and that “from the inside we are dealing with the double pressure of maintaining political security and social stability.” She added that both internal and external elements of national security were “more complicated than at any other time in history.” Citing articles in the law, Ms. Zheng said that the goal of maintaining national security also applied to Hong Kong and Macau but that the law would not be enacted there. Those territories are, at least in theory, governed by their own laws, and any attempt by Beijing to apply the national security law there could lead to bitter legal and political battles, especially in Hong Kong, where there has been rising resentment of heavy-handed party rule . On Wednesday, the Hong Kong government issued a statement saying that “the law shall not be applied” in the city. It said safeguarding national security would instead be guided by local legislation in accordance with Hong Kong’s mini-constitution. A summation of ideas expressed by Mr. Xi in speeches and policy statements since he took power in late 2012, the law contains the widest statutory interpretation of threats to the Communist Party since the Mao era, as well as the most expansive definition of the party’s footprint across the world. Ms. Zheng said the law’s references to safeguarding national security in space, on seabeds and at the poles were meant to give China “legal support” for its projects in those realms. The inclusion of seabeds is almost certainly the result of growing tensions over disputes involving China, the United States and Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea. Most recently, the United States has criticized China for land reclamation efforts aimed at building islands in the contested Spratly archipelago. Analysts say one purpose of the new law is to further indoctrinate ordinary Chinese with Communist Party ideology and the party’s perception of what constitutes an external threat. Joshua Rosenzweig, a lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the law’s emphasis on party primacy was noteworthy. “All these things are brought together in a way that links the idea of the nation or the state with the security of a political regime,” he said. “Everybody knows this is the understanding that the Communist Party has, but it’s rarely put this explicitly in national law. That’s just striking.”

China
Xi Jinping
Communist Party of China
Human Rights
National People's Congress China
Chinese National Security Commission
Ministry of Public Security China
Amnesty International
Foreign Aid


U.S. Cites 175 Arrests of Traffickers in Drug Ring

Abstract: MEXICO CITY — American officials announced what they called a significant blow to one of Mexico ’s largest and most ruthless drug cartels on Wednesday with the arrests of 175 people in the United States and Italy suspected of helping the group traffic drugs and launder profits. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said the arrests took place on Tuesday and Wednesday after 15 months of investigation into the so-called Gulf Cartel, which traffics in cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana and plays a major role in the escalating level of violence in Mexico. The suspects were rounded up throughout the United States as part of a crackdown on the drug gang’s transportation routes and distribution network. Working with authorities in Italy, 10 suspects were taken into custody in that country on charges related to trafficking drugs through New York. American authorities also unsealed indictments for three leaders of the cartel, Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and Jorge Eduardo Costilla-Sánchez, all of whom are believed to be on the run in Mexico. Together with earlier arrests as part of the same operation, authorities said they had taken in more than 500 suspects and seized more than 16 tons of cocaine and more than $60 million in currency. The Gulf Cartel, which uses former Mexican soldiers as its hit men, is one of two major groups responsible for trafficking Colombian cocaine to the United States. “We successfully completed a hard-hitting, coordinated and massive assault on the powerful and extremely violent Gulf Cartel,” said Michele M. Leonhart, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration , according to news agency reports. Still, authorities acknowledged that the roundup would not amount to a knockout blow, as the cartel remains strong in Mexico and has a vast network of allies around the world. The arrests came as Mexican authorities sought to establish a link between drug gangs and the two grenades that were thrown into crowds in Morelia, President Felipe Calderón’s home in Michoacán State, on Monday night as thousands of revelers took part in Independence Day celebrations. Mr. Calderón traveled to the town on Wednesday to announce a military response to the attack, which killed seven people and injured more than 100, including flag-waving women and children taking part in the so-called shout, or “grito,” for independence. Authorities prepared a composite sketch of one of the suspects, provided by witnesses who saw him, dressed all in black, lob the first grenade in the crowd. The American ambassador to Mexico, Antonio O. Garza, said in a statement on Wednesday that the “narco-terrorists” who carried out the attack had gone way too far. “They have crossed a line from recklessly endangering civilians in their attacks on law enforcement officials and rival gangs, to deliberately targeting innocent men, women and children,” he said. Mr. Calderón has sent soldiers and federal police officers to drug hot spots throughout the country since taking office nearly two years ago, a move that has delivered mixed results. While there have been huge drug seizures and arrests of some kingpins, there has also been violent retaliation by the heavily armed traffickers, who have been killing law enforcement officers and many noncombatants as well. As the attack in Morelia showed, the possibility of violence exists everywhere: on dance floors; at intersections; in the town square. With increasing frequency, child-size chalk outlines are drawn on the asphalt at the latest homicide scene. Raids are carried out at baptism parties, at fancy restaurants, at bingo halls. By late August, 2,682 people had been killed in the drug war this year, including elderly bystanders, schoolchildren and pregnant women, according to a tally by a newspaper, El Universal.

Mexico
Cartels
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Drug Enforcement Administration
Mukasey Michael B


F.D.A. Warns Procter on Hand Sanitizer Advertising

Abstract: Procter & Gamble was ordered yesterday to stop advertising that its Vicks foaming sanitizer for hands prevents the spread of viruses that cause colds. The Food and Drug Administration is not aware of enough evidence to show the product is safe and effective for such use, according to a warning letter posted on the agency’s Web site. The regulators ordered P.& G. to correct the violations or face legal action, seizure or an injunction. The F.D.A. is reviewing health claims for over-the-counter antiseptics made by P.& G., Johnson & Johnson and other companies. While the active ingredient in the Vicks product, triclosan, is covered under F.D.A. regulations for certain antiseptic uses, that does not include P.& G.’s directions that users should leave the sanitizer on their hands, without rinsing with water, according to the letter. “We believe we’re within the F.D.A. guidelines, and we’re going to work with the F.D.A. to clear up any misunderstandings,” said David Bernens, a spokesman for P.& G.

Advertising and Marketing
Colds
Procter & Gamble Co
Bloomberg Business News
Johnson & Johnson Inc


At PennyMac, Dueling Jobs and Big Paydays

Abstract: ALTHOUGH it carries something of a dubious pedigree, the PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust has generated pretty good profits for investors since it went public in 2009. Overseen by former executives at Countrywide Financial, ground zero for the subprime mortgage mess, PennyMac has generated a total return of 32 percent to shareholders over that time. Its current annual payout rate of 9 percent is generous among other mortgage real estate investment trusts. But while shareholders have been banking these returns, Stanford L. Kurland, PennyMac’s C.E.O. and chairman, has reaped even greater riches from the REIT. He has done so through a couple of private companies: a mortgage servicing unit and an investment adviser that externally manages the REIT. These companies are units of PennyMac Financial Services, which not only earns lucrative fees from the REIT but also uses the REIT to generate business opportunities that it keeps for itself, financial statements show. Mr. Kurland owns 11.5 percent of the financial services company. In other words, PennyMac Financial Services, of which Mr. Kurland is also C.E.O., is generating significant profits from a REIT on whose board he serves and to whose shareholders he owes a fiduciary duty. “We recognize that conflict has the potential to arise in our businesses,” Mr. Kurland said in a statement. “However, each and every related-party transaction is reviewed by the related-party committee of each independent board and is subject to securities disclosure rules for related party transactions.” First, a little history. Mr. Kurland enjoyed a long and prosperous career at Countrywide Financial, joining the company in 1979, just 10 years after Angelo R. Mozilo and David Loeb founded it. From 2004 through most of 2006, Mr. Kurland was president of Countrywide as it churned out some of the stinkiest loans ever created. Mr. Kurland’s second act began in 2008 and 2009, during the financial crisis. In 2009, he founded the PennyMac REIT, receiving financing from BlackRock, the money management giant, and Highfields Capital, an investment firm in Boston. Since its public stock offering that year, PennyMac has raised $1.13 billion in equity. The year before founding the REIT, Mr. Kurland established a separate loan servicing company and investment adviser that provides it with management services. Rather than folding these companies into the REIT, he owned them with BlackRock and Highfields Capital . Externally managed REITs, like PennyMac, are unusual today because they create the potential for conflicts if the same people run both entities. (Another such REIT, CommonWealth, was featured in this column two weeks ago.) IT was unclear until recently how lucrative the relationship with the PennyMac REIT was for Mr. Kurland’s side companies. But an I.P.O. statement filed earlier this year by PennyMac Financial Services, the previously private company that contains the REIT’s investment adviser, lifts the curtain on the arrangement. PennyMac REIT, the document says, paid Financial Services and its subsidiaries $96.7 million in fees last year, up from $8.5 million in 2010 and $23.4 million in 2011. That’s an 11-fold increase in just two years. In 2012 alone, the REIT accounted for more than one-third of Financial Services’ net revenue. As for the potential conflicts, the PennyMac Financial Services offering statement notes that Mr. Kurland and others in the upper echelons of the company “may have conflicts in allocating their time and services between our operations” and those of the REIT. In addition, the public filing states that the overlapping objectives of the REIT and the financial services company could present problems. PennyMac Financial Services might participate in some of the REIT’s investments, the document notes, without negotiating at arm’s length. This could result in potential conflicts, the filing adds, “between our interests in the investments” and those of the REIT. Image Stanford L. Kurland, the chief executive of the PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, owns 11.5 percent of the company that externally manages it. Credit J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times An example: PennyMac Financial Services buys most of its mortgage loans from the REIT at its cost plus 0.03 percent. Then it sells them at a profit, with any luck. Last year, the financial services company generated $118 million on loans it had sold. To the degree that these gains were on loans that originated at the REIT, those were profits that the REIT could have received. These possible conflicts were described differently for the REIT’s shareholders in a February investor presentation . There, the PennyMac REIT characterized its relationship with Financial Services as “synergistic.” It’s hard to quantify what these potential conflicts might cost the REIT’s shareholders. But one way to look at the situation is to compare the overall returns at PennyMac Financial Services with those of the REIT. Consider return on equity at both companies. In the first quarter of this year, that figure was roughly 78 percent at the financial services concern. At the REIT, it was 18 percent. For all of 2012, returns on equity were 67 percent at PennyMac Financial Services, versus 16 percent at the REIT. On May 8, PennyMac Financial Services went public at $18 a share. Some 11 million shares were offered for sale, bringing the total shares outstanding to 74.2 million. After the offering, Mr. Kurland owned 11.5 percent, BlackRock owned 29 percent and Highfields 27 percent. The stock closed on Friday at $20 a share, giving PennyMac Financial Services a market value of $1.48 billion. That values Mr. Kurland’s stake at $172 million. By contrast, over at the REIT, Mr. Kurland owns approximately 335,000 shares, or about half of 1 percent of its stock outstanding. Given this ownership imbalance, which company do you think will get more of Mr. Kurland’s attention? His dueling jobs at the PennyMac entities also mean different paychecks for him. For his work at the REIT last year, Mr. Kurland was paid $1.87 million in stock. At PennyMac Financial Services, however, he received $2.634 million in total 2012 compensation. So far, shareholders of the PennyMac REIT don’t seem perturbed by the potential conflicts in Mr. Kurland’s roles. And Mr. Kurland said that the companies have “disclosed potential areas of conflict to investors and put in place practices and structures that address them if they arise.” To eliminate any perception of conflict, Mr. Kurland could have rolled up the ancillary companies into the REIT itself. But that was not done. As such, Mr. Kurland’s returns on his investment are far higher than those generated by the PennyMac REIT shareholders. According to financial statements, during 2009 and 2010, Mr. Kurland, BlackRock and Highfields contributed $97 million of capital into the company that became PennyMac Financial Services. Thanks to the new stock issue, that investment has grown to $1.2 billion, a more than 12-fold return. For shareholders in the REIT, by contrast, their total return of 32 percent since the I.P.O. has been a good gain. But it’s certainly not the jackpot that Mr. Kurland has just hit.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust
PennyMac Financial Services
Stanford L Kurland
REIT
Stocks,Bonds
Conflict of interest


High Seeds Are Ousted in Dubai

Abstract: Eighth-seeded Venus Williams, second-seeded Petra Kvitova and fourth-seeded Ana Ivanovic made early exits at the Dubai Tennis Championships in the United Arab Emirates. Williams, the defending champion, lost by 6-4, 6-2 to 11th-seeded Lucie Safarova. Kvitova fell, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, to 13th-seeded Carla Suárez Navarro. Ivanovic lost to Karolina Pliskova, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. Image Eighth-seeded Venus Williams lost to 11th-seeded Lucie Safarova, 6-4, 6-2, at the Dubai Tennis Championships on Wednesday. Credit Francois Nel/Getty Images

Tennis
Venus Williams
Ana Ivanovic
Petra Kvitova


In Richmond, Va., Health Cuts With Little Effect on Care

Abstract: RICHMOND, Va. At the heart of the health care debate is the question of whether it’s possible to cut medical costs without harming patients. What has happened here in Richmond helps to answer that question. Since 1996, the Richmond area has lost more than 600 of its hospital beds, mostly because of state regulations on capacity. Several hospitals have closed, and others have shrunk. In 1996, the region had 4.8 hospital beds for every 1,000 residents. Today, it has about three. Hospital care has been, in a word, rationed. Neither the House health reform bill nor the Senate version would impose any such reductions on the nation’s hospitals. But the basic idea behind the bills’ cost-control measures is similar. They would try to slow the growth of medical treatments, be it through new rules for Medicare , a Cadillac tax on the costliest insurance plans or other measures. So take a glimpse at what our future may look like: The quality of care in Richmond is better than in most American metropolitan areas, according to various measures, and it continues to improve. Medicare data , for example, shows that Richmond hospitals do a better-than-average job of treating heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia . When I recently asked patients in Richmond whether they felt as if their care had been rationed, they found the question bizarre. “I feel like there’s nothing cheap about the care,” Janet Binns, a retired school district employee, said. After her elderly father fell down one morning, she e-mailed a doctor and was on the phone with him in minutes. Yet when it comes to health care costs, Richmond’s rationing has made a clear difference. In 1992, it spent somewhat less than average, per capita, on Medicare — 126th lowest out of 305 metropolitan areas nationwide. Since then, though, costs have risen at a significantly slower pace than they have elsewhere. As a result, Richmond had the 39th lowest costs in 2006. Of course, Richmond is no medical panacea. Some of its hospitals do poorly on Medicare’s metrics, and I’m sure some patients there feel that they are not getting care they need — just as is the case in every other part of the country. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Richmond has gotten rid of 15 percent of its hospital beds, and its health care still looks a lot like the rest of the country’s, only cheaper and a bit better.  Peter Bernard — the chief executive of Bon Secours, the second-largest health care system in Richmond — has spent the last two decades running hospitals. In 1987, when he became the chief operating officer of a South Dakota hospital, the state had a law similar to Virginia ’s current one on capacity. If a hospital wanted to build a new wing or buy a new machine, it had to apply for something called a certificate of need from the state and show that the community needed the new service. But South Dakota scrapped that program in 1988, and Mr. Bernard quickly went on an expansion binge. “When it went away, I busted every franchise my competitor had,” he told me. He started an open-heart program. He started a neonatal intensive care unit. He built what he called a “big, huge” obstetrics practice. Suddenly, southeastern South Dakota had vastly more medical capacity than just a few years earlier. In other industries, all that new capacity might have led to a glut, in which workers and equipment sat idle. But health care is different. Doctors and patients tend to believe that more care is better , and patients often don’t pay much extra for any additional care. So new doctors, nurses and equipment generally stay busy. Dr. John Wennberg of the Dartmouth Medical School refers to this phenomenon as supply-sensitive care. Dr. Marlon Priest, the chief medical officer of Bon Secours, puts it this way: “If you build 100 beds, they’ll get used.” Mr. Bernard said he would be happy to do precisely that in Richmond — to expand, much as he did in South Dakota. His overriding goal is to make his hospitals as successful as possible, not to reform American medicine. Today, though, he can’t succeed simply by expanding. Virginia requires him to get permission. It is one of 37 states with a certificate-of-need program, and unlike some, Virginia’s is more than a mere formality. If a hospital even wants to move, it needs permission to remain as big as it was (which is a big reason hospital capacity has shrunk in recent years). Major hospitals usually win approval for the certificates they request, but the process itself is often enough to discourage them from applying. It’s even more discouraging to individual doctors who are thinking of buying, say, their own M.R.I. machine. That seems to be why Richmond is dominated by a small number of group practices. Three orthopedic groups provide essentially all the orthopedic care. One pulmonologist group provides much of the lung care. Richmond doesn’t seem to have many of the entrepreneurial doctors, common in some other places, who are extremely aggressive about doing procedures or tests. “There aren’t a lot of people who are on the fringe doing things that are not medically acceptable,” Dr. Marc Katz, a cardiac surgeon, says. Nobody in Richmond thinks that the certificate of need is a silver bullet. Some say the area emphasizes primary care, which holds down costs. Others named Virginia’s $2 million cap on malpractice awards . Dr. Sheldon Retchin, head of the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, pointed out that his hospitals self-insure for malpractice — which gives them more incentive to reduce the costly medical errors that lead to lawsuits. But there is little question that constraints on supply matter. Intriguingly, doctors and hospital executives told me that they thought Virginia regulators had become more lax about handing out certificates in recent years. One executive speculated that cost growth had probably picked up in recent years as a result. So after my visit, I asked the Dartmouth researchers who analyze Medicare spending if they had any data more recent than the 2006 numbers I already had. They did. And the latest numbers showed that spending growth had indeed accelerated. In 2007, Richmond had the 69th lowest Medicare spending, compared with 39th the previous year. Build the capacity, and it will get used. During the long fight over health reform, skeptics have often suggested that there really is no way to cut spending without hurting people. Insurance companies and labor unions say a Cadillac tax will discourage necessary care. Congressional Republicans have criticized the proposed Medicare oversight commission as an agent of rationing. These concerns are understandable, too. Intuitively, cutting health spending seems as if it should damage health. Yet we now have abundant evidence that it does not have to. That’s the lesson of Richmond. It’s also the lesson of those model hospital systems , like the Cleveland Clinic , that get excellent results with relatively low costs. More care is not always better care. Sometimes, in fact, it’s worse. Just consider the recent research showing that radiation from CT scans will eventually kill thousands of patients a year. Changing our more-is-always-better health system will not be easy. It will require difficult, uncertain decisions. But the alternative to those decisions is the system we have now — one that features unacceptably spotty care, a Medicare program on the path to insolvency and insurance premiums high enough to eat up workers’ pay increases. We can do better than that. It looks as if we are about to try.

Health Insurance
Reform
Medicine and Health
Virginia
Medicare
Legislation


China to Shift $20 Billion as Capital for Policy Bank

Abstract: The China Investment Corporation, the country’s $200 billion wealth fund, will inject $20 billion into China Development Bank, as the government nears the end of a decade-long reorganization of the banking industry. China Investment signed an agreement on Monday in Beijing with the so-called policy bank, which finances the nation’s public works projects, the central bank said on its Web site. The money “will increase the bank’s capital adequacy ratio significantly,” the statement said. The capital injection will help the government’s plan to reorganize China Development. China Investment, Asia’s biggest state-owned investment company, was created in September after surging trade surpluses helped push the nation’s currency reserves to a record $1.46 trillion. China Investment, modeled on Temasek Holdings of Singapore, aims to help diversify the world’s largest foreign currency holdings. In May, it invested $3 billion for a 9.4 percent stake in a private equity firm, the Blackstone Group. In December, China Investment invested more than $5 billion in Morgan Stanley, after the firm wrote down $9.4 billion of mortgage-related debt. Monday’s announcement may mean that the Agricultural Bank of China will receive $47 billion from China Investment. Li Yong, China’s vice finance minister, said last month that the two banks would receive a combined $67 billion. Agricultural Bank, saddled with $100 billion of bad loans, will be the last of the country’s four biggest state-owned lenders to be bailed out by the government, paving the way for the company to sell shares. It may receive regulatory approval for its overhaul plan soon, the central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said last week. China has spent about $500 billion recapitalizing its largest banks in the last decade. The government is reorganizing government-owned lenders and policy banks and pushing them to sell shares to the public so that international accounting, disclosure and capital adequacy rules can improve their competitiveness.


U.S. Delays Final Call on Keystone XL Pipeline

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The State Department will delay its decision on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline until it has a clearer idea of how legal challenges to the pipeline’s route through Nebraska will be settled, State Department officials said Friday. Both supporters and opponents of the pipeline criticized the delay as a political ploy aimed at punting the final call on the divisive project until after the midterm elections in November. The 1,700-mile pipeline, which would carry crude oil from the Alberta oil sands in Canada to Gulf Coast refineries, has emerged as an issue in the battle for control of the Senate. Vulnerable Democratic incumbents from oil-rich states, like Senators Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, who is chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, and Mark Begich of Alaska, have urged President Obama to approve the pipeline. But approving the pipeline before the election could staunch the flow of money from liberal donors and fund-raisers who oppose the project, like Tom Steyer, a California billionaire. Mr. Steyer, who has personally asked Mr. Obama to reject the pipeline, is positioned to play a major role in influencing the midterms: He has pledged to spend $100 million to support candidates who back strong policies to fight climate change. Delaying the pipeline decision until after the election could help Democrats on both sides of the issue. Supporters could court voters by calling for its approval, while liberals who oppose the pipeline could still enjoy financial support from donors like Mr. Steyer. “We’re seeing politics trumping policy making,” said Cindy Schild, a senior manager at the American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil companies’ interests in Washington. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said in a statement Friday that “at a time of high unemployment in the Obama economy, it’s a shame that the administration has delayed the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline for years.” “Here’s the single greatest shovel-ready project in America — one that could create thousands of jobs right away — but the president simply isn’t interested,” Mr. McConnell said. “Apparently radical activists carry more weight than Americans desperate to get back on the job.” Yet Bill McKibben, the environmental activist who heads the group 350.org, also criticized the delay. “It’s as if our leaders simply don’t understand that climate change is happening in real time — that it would require strong, fast action to do anything about it,” Mr. McKibben said in a statement . He said sarcastically that “the El Niño scheduled for later this spring be pushed back to after the midterms.” Mr. Steyer said he was cheered by the delay. “The State Department and president are going to take the time to do the review that’s necessary,” he said in an interview. “The fact that they want to do a more specific and thorough analysis is good news.” The pipeline has been under review at the State Department since 2008 and became a political issue during the 2012 presidential campaign. Activists say its construction could devastate the environment, but several State Department reviews have concluded that the pipeline would be safe. In January, the State Department released an 11-volume environmental impact statement concluding that the pipeline was unlikely to significantly increase the rate of carbon pollution in the atmosphere. Even if the pipeline was canceled, it said, the oil sands crude was likely to be extracted and brought to market by other means, such as rail, and then processed and burned. That analysis kicked off a 90-day review process, during which Secretary of State John Kerry, who must determine whether the project is in the national interest, sought comment from eight other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security. If any of those agencies disagrees with Mr. Kerry’s assessment, the final decision will go to Mr. Obama. That interagency review was to be completed in two weeks, but Friday’s decision indefinitely delays that deadline. State Department officials said Friday that the review process could not be completed until the agencies were more certain about the fate of the pipeline’s route through Nebraska. In February, a Nebraska district court blocked the governor’s decision to allow the pipeline to pass through the state. The decision has been appealed to the State Supreme Court, and a ruling there is unlikely to come before the end of the year. “The Nebraska Supreme Court decision could lead to changes in the pipeline route, and it’s important to have that information and better understand that route, because it could have implications for environmental, socioeconomic and cultural impacts of the pipeline,” a State Department official said Friday in a conference call with reporters that was conducted on the condition that the official not be named. The official added, “Our goal is to do this as expeditiously as possible in a way that suits the national interest.” A new Nebraska route could be plotted if TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, submits a new permit application to the state, but that process could take months or even years. “We are extremely disappointed and frustrated with yet another delay,” Russ Girling, the president and chief executive of TransCanada, said in a statement. “After more than 2,000 days, five exhaustive environmental reviews and over 17,000 pages of scientific data, Keystone XL continues to languish.”

Keystone Pipeline
US Politics
Oil and Gasoline
Canada
Nebraska
State Department
Barack Obama
John Kerry
Tom Steyer


Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam

Abstract: Caution: Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible. For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups, analysts and researchers, stems mainly from the increasing visual richness of online communications and entertainment — video clips and movies, social networks and multiplayer games. Moving images, far more than words or sounds, are hefty rivers of digital bits as they traverse the Internet’s pipes and gateways, requiring, in industry parlance, more bandwidth. Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google , consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000. In a widely cited report published last November, a research firm projected that user demand for the Internet could outpace network capacity by 2011. The title of a debate scheduled next month at a technology conference in Boston sums up the angst: “The End of the Internet?” But the Internet traffic surge represents more a looming challenge than an impending catastrophe. Even those most concerned are not predicting a lights-out Internet crash. An individual user, they say, would experience Internet clogging in the form of sluggish download speeds and frustration with data-heavy services that become much less useful or enjoyable. “The Internet doesn’t collapse, but there would be a growing class of stuff you just can’t do online,” said Johna Till Johnson, president of Nemertes Research, which predicted the bandwidth squeeze by 2011, anticipating that demand will grow by 100 percent or more a year. Others are less worried — at least in the short term. Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota, estimates that digital traffic on the global network is growing about 50 percent a year, in line with a recent analysis by Cisco Systems , the big network equipment maker. That sounds like a daunting rate of growth. Yet the technology for handling Internet traffic is advancing at an impressive pace as well. The router computers for relaying data get faster, fiber optic transmission gets better and software for juggling data packets gets smarter. “The 50 percent growth is high. It’s huge, but it basically corresponds to the improvements that technology is giving us,” said Professor Odlyzko, a former AT&T Labs researcher. Demand is not likely to overwhelm the Internet, he said. The question of the problem’s severity is more than a technical one, since it will affect the shape and cost of the nation’s policy on broadband infrastructure, a matter that is expected to attract political attention after a new administration takes over in Washington. While experts debate the immediacy of the challenge, they agree that it points to a larger issue. In the Internet era, they say, high-speed networks are increasingly the economic and scientific petri dishes of innovation, spawning new businesses, markets and jobs. If American investment lags behind, they warn, the nation risks losing competitiveness to countries that are making the move to higher-speed Internet access a priority. “The long-term issue is where innovation happens,” Professor Odlyzko said. “Where will the next Google, YouTube, eBay or Amazon come from?” The Internet, though a global network, is in many ways surprisingly local. It is a vast amalgam of smaller networks, all linked together. The worries about digital traffic congestion are not really about the Internet’s main trunk lines, the equivalent of network superhighways. Instead, the problem is close to home — the capacity of neighborhood switches, routers and pipes into a house. The cost of stringing high-speed optical fiber to a home, analysts estimate, can be $1,000 or more. That is why Internet access speeds vary so much country by country. They depend on local patterns of corporate investment and government subsidy. Frederick J. Baker, a research fellow at Cisco, was attending a professional conference last month in Taiwan where Internet access is more than twice as fast and costs far less than his premium “high speed” service in California. “When I mention my own service, people here shake their heads in disbelief,” said Mr. Baker, who is a board member of the Internet Society, a nonprofit organization that helps guide Internet standards and policy. In the United States, the investment required to cope with rising Internet traffic will need to be made at several levels, not just cable and telecommunications carriers. Tim Pozar, an engineer and a co-owner of the Internet services company UnitedLayer in San Francisco, said a number of forces were combining: the surge in bandwidth-hungry video applications on Web sites, the need to handle traffic from more Internet-enabled devices like cellphones, and shortages of electrical power for data centers in places like San Francisco. “We’re running out of horsepower to accommodate the demand,” said Mr. Pozar, whose company’s data centers support Web sites for customers ranging from museums to social networks. “And upgrades needed in data centers are going to be a lot more expensive than in the past, now that all the excess capacity left over after the dot-com bubble burst has been gobbled up.” The pace of future demand is the big uncertainty surrounding the Internet traffic challenge, and how fast people will adopt emerging technologies is notoriously difficult to foresee. In the aftermath of the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000, there was a glut of capacity — so-called dark fiber, strung around the world and then left dormant. Now demand is catching up with that supply. In its prediction of more than 100 percent annual growth, Nemertes, a telecommunications research firm, assumes brisk use of new innovations like high-end videoconferencing, known as telepresence, which corporations are beginning to embrace as an alternative to costly, time-consuming travel. If this technology becomes a consumer product in the next few years, as some analysts predict, Internet traffic could spike even more sharply. Slick video chats are something that William Bentley, a 13-year-old New Yorker, would like to see. He is fairly representative of the next generation of digital consumer: He has made and posted his own YouTube videos, subscribes to YouTube channels, enjoys multiplayer games like World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament, and downloads music and videos. Asked what he would want next from the Internet, he replied, “It would be nice to have everybody always right there — just click and you could see them clearly and talk to them.” That sort of service is certainly going to require more bandwidth and more investment, with higher costs across the spectrum of the Internet ecosystem that includes cable and telecommunications carriers, Internet companies, media Web sites and even consumers. AT&T, for one, said last week that it would spend $1 billion this year — double its 2006 expenditures — to expand its overseas infrastructure. But even if investment lags behind, there will be no Internet blackout. Indeed, the Internet has survived predictions of collapse in the past, most notably by Robert M. Metcalfe, a networking pioneer and entrepreneur, who in a 1995 magazine column warned of a “catastrophic collapse” of the Internet in 1996. There were service problems, but nothing like Mr. Metcalfe predicted, and on stage at a conference in 1997 he ate his words. “The Internet has proven to be wonderfully resilient,” said Mr. Metcalfe, who is now a venture capitalist. “But the Internet is vulnerable today. It’s not that it will collapse, but that opportunities will be lost.”

Computers and the Internet
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
Telephones and Telecommunications
Computer and Video Games
Fiber Optics
YouTube.com
Google Inc
Cisco Systems Inc


Court Grants Stay in O’Bannon Case

Abstract: An appellate court granted a stay on Friday of a federal judge’s ruling last year that N.C.A.A. rules preventing athletes from making money from college sports broadcasts and video games violated antitrust law. The stay, in the so-called O’Bannon case, is at least a temporary reprieve for the N.C.A.A. and its decades-old rules barring payments to athletes. Without it, the association would have faced a new reality on Saturday in which colleges theoretically could have offered recruits unregulated money, or the association could have set a cap on such compensation. There is no timetable for a ruling from the appellate court, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but the judges specifically noted that the stay was not an indication of how they might ultimately decide the case. The N.C.A.A.’s chief legal officer, Donald Remy, said in a statement that the organization was “pleased” with the court’s decision and noted that the N.C.A.A. would not change any of its bylaws to comply with last year’s ruling. Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer representing a class of current and former basketball and football players against the N.C.A.A. and its member institutions, had hoped for a different outcome, one that would have allowed colleges to compensate players immediately. “I’m disappointed,” he said. “I would have liked to see a decision. Now we’ll wait some more.” The sides argued the case in March in front of the Ninth Circuit, with the N.C.A.A. contending that a ruling for the players would professionalize its amateur athletes and hurt its business model. The association requested the stay this month. “It’s hard to imagine a situation where they grant the stay and then affirm the ruling,” Hausfeld said in a recent interview, although on Friday he added, “A decision is still coming, and this is not the end.” Indeed, the stay could mean the court is trying to reach consensus or work through complicated issues. “If anything, the stay is a recognition of the complexity of the case and unscrambling the egg if the schools are allowed to offer the money,” said Gabe Feldman, the director of the sports law program at the Tulane University Law School. Had the court not acted at all, Judge Claudia Wilken’s injunction would have gone into effect Saturday, marking a new era for college sports. She found that the N.C.A.A. could no longer restrict colleges from offering athletes compensation for the commercial use of their names and likenesses. Instead, she ruled that universities could offer players trust funds to be tapped after their playing careers and that the N.C.A.A. could cap those payments at $5,000 per year. With the injunction looming, college administrators were forced to plan for the change. Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten, said Friday at his conference’s media days that the N.C.A.A. board of governors and the Division I Council had been meeting all week in anticipation of a ruling “to talk about the changes that may be necessary.” If the court reverses last year’s decision, it would halt a period of great momentum toward more rights and financial recognition for college athletes. Those athletes ostensibly pursue sports as part of their education and, some argue, ought to be compensated for labors that can be highly lucrative for their colleges and conferences. “Whatever happens, happens,” said Tommy Armstrong Jr., a junior quarterback at the University of Nebraska. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t get paid, I’m not saying we should, but at the end of the day it’s in the court’s hands.” Last year, a National Labor Relations Board regional director found that Northwestern football players were employees who could unionize under federal labor law, a decision that has been appealed to the full board. The five most powerful conferences voted this year to allow colleges to offer athletes the full cost of attendance, an amount typically several thousand dollars more than previous scholarship limits. A setback in the O’Bannon case, named for Ed O’Bannon, the lead plaintiff and a former U.C.L.A. basketball star, would most likely also slow a separate proposed class action filed by the sports lawyer Jeffrey Kessler. Experts see the Kessler-led case as a far bigger threat to the college sports status quo because it seeks to establish a free market for top college athletes. A class certification hearing is scheduled for October. Both Hausfeld and the N.C.A.A.’s president, Mark Emmert, have said they plan to appeal O’Bannon’s case to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Friday’s stay did nothing to alter that trajectory, said Matthew Mitten, director of the National Sports Law Institute. “It’s such an important issue, I think it’s eventually headed to the Supreme Court,” he said.

College Sports
NCAA
Competition law
Ed O'Bannon


More Complaints Than Proposed Solutions at Trial Over Police Searches

Abstract: The judge overseeing the trial examining the constitutionality of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practices had a novel idea for how to reduce illegal police stops. “What did you think of a body-worn camera?” the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, asked the lawyers assembled before her. It was the last question the judge asked during the trial, which ran from March to May. “I’m intrigued by it,” she explained, observing how helpful it would be if police officers recorded what transpired during stops, which are frustratingly difficult to reconstruct in the courtroom months or years after the fact. The topic of body cameras seemed to come out of nowhere; the technology had been mentioned in passing by one witness, but none of the lawyers had suggested that it be employed. A ruling in the case is expected soon. Both civil rights lawyers and some city officials say privately they anticipate that Judge Scheindlin will rule against the Police Department, finding a pattern of constitutional violations. But there is far less consensus about what she might do about it. Indeed, as the trial ended, it seemed that Judge Scheindlin was casting about for ideas on how she might fix the problem, should she rule that the police were systematically violating people’s rights during the street stops. Her interest in body cameras also underscored an unusual fact about the litigation: the civil rights lawyers who brought the lawsuit, Floyd v. City of New York, were certain of an underlying problem, but less precise about offering solutions. They urged Judge Scheindlin to require greater supervision of officers, but did not say much about what the supervision might look like. They have asked for a monitor to be put in place to ensure that the Police Department is in compliance with the Constitution, but have said little about the precise role the monitor might have. They also want the judge to establish a “joint remedial process,” in which an official would solicit input from police officers, academics and grass-roots organizations in black and Hispanic communities “on appropriate remedial measures from a wide array of stakeholders on the stop-question-frisk issue.” They have also asked for a change in the way police officers are evaluated, because, they say, the current system pressures officers to conduct stops for the sake of appearing productive. But the plaintiffs’ lawyers have not specified what they want the Police Department to do to guard against unconstitutional stops. In essence, they have asked that Judge Scheindlin appoint experts to instruct her on how best to reform the department. That decision not to delve into specifics “may be an indication of how hard the problem is,” said Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University. But it may also be strategic. “You may think to yourself, ‘she’s smarter than I am and will come up with a solution,’ ” he said. The approach contrasts with the proposals that another group of civil rights lawyers raised during a smaller stop-and-frisk case, also before Judge Scheindlin. In the smaller case, which deals with stops made outside certain buildings in the Bronx, the New York Civil Liberties Union proposed several fixes, including changes to training videos that officers are shown, requiring commanders to review the circumstance of all stops and, in some cases, speaking to the officers about what occurred. But the civil rights lawyers in the Floyd case, the broadest legal challenge to police street stops in New York, say their job is to prove that certain police practices are unconstitutional. “What we’ve done is identify a problem,” one of the lawyers, Jonathan Moore, said. The remedies are “best left to someone with expertise in the area.” As to specific changes, another lawyer, Sunita Patel of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said specific changes should be decided in “a process involving experts in police practices.” Those experts, Ms. Patel said, would consult with the department to “find out what would actually work.” At one point during closing arguments in May, Judge Scheindlin seemed to hint that she was strongly considering the appointment of a monitor, who would be given some degree of oversight. Depending on the case and the role that the court envisions for them, monitors’ roles can vary. “Sometimes they’re problem solvers, sometimes they’re mediators, and sometimes they’re more contentious,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. The city has objected vehemently to the possibility of a monitor. “It’s hugely burdensome, expensive, and will likely get in the way of policing,” a city lawyer, Heidi Grossman, said at trial. “Officers may well be so overburdened with additional reporting and documentation requirements that they will not be able to carry out their jobs.” But Judge Scheindlin told Ms. Grossman that these objections might be unwarranted. “Some of the things you fear happening may be related to your vision of the word ‘monitoring’ and the role,” she said. “If it’s a narrower role, some of those list of horribles you just gave may not be a problem.” During summations, the plaintiffs did offer a detailed blueprint for one change: improving the paperwork. Shortly before the trial began, the department began ordering officers to staple a written narrative of each street stop to the existing check-box form that had long been used by officers to record street stops. But Mr. Moore told Judge Scheindlin that stapling the two forms together was “cumbersome and clunky and a recipe for disaster.” He described what a new form ought to look like and proposed that a copy of it be issued to each person stopped. Shortly afterward, Judge Scheindlin raised the body camera proposal.

Search and seizure
Police
NYPD
Shira A Scheindlin


Coram: Man Killed in Motorcycle Crash

Abstract: A Shirley resident was killed on Saturday evening when his motorcycle crashed into a gas truck and burst into flames, the Suffolk County police said. The man, Thomas Bush, 37, of Tallwood Drive, was driving a 2007 Triumph motorcycle south on Route 112 when he lost control of the vehicle just before 9 p.m. and skidded into the opposite lane, the police said. The bike and driver crashed into a Kenworth tractor-trailer carrying 12,000 gallons of gasoline. The motorcycle became wedged under the truck and caught fire. The truck driver was able to escape from the cab without serious injury, the police said. The Coram Fire Department extinguished the flames before the gas truck ignited, the police said. Mr. Bush was pronounced dead at the scene.

Motorcycles Motor Bikes and Motorscooters


How Aerin Lauder, Cosmetics Scion, Spends Her Sundays

Abstract: Aerin Lauder is a granddaughter of Estée Lauder , who started her cosmetics company in 1946 with a mere four products. Ms. Lauder, 45, spent 25 years working for the family business before introducing Aerin , her own beauty, home and luxury lifestyle label, in 2012. “Beauty is my heritage, but my passion is home, so I love spending time there,” Ms. Lauder said of her Sundays. She lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side with her husband of 20 years, Eric Zinterhofer, 44, an investment banker, and their sons, Jack, 16, who attends boarding school, and Will, 15. EASY TO RISE I’m a horrible sleeper. I fall asleep but wake up at 2 a.m. I used to get up and do things, which is a no-no. Now I get a glass of water or try some liquid melatonin. During the week I’m up at 6:30. On the weekends the dogs wake me at 7 or 7:30. DOGMA If Eric has worked a lot that week, I’ll make the coffee and feed Biscuit and Schatzi, our Brittanys; and Disco, our dachshund. Eric was the one that wanted them, but I’m the one who takes care of them. I love them so it’s fine. If he’s been traveling, I let him sleep. If my week has been crazy, he lets me sleep. Image “Beauty is my heritage," Ms. Lauder said. Credit Cassandra Giraldo for The New York Times DRESSING DOWN Sunday is about relaxing and wearing anything comfortable. I love wearing a J. Crew shirt and jeans, which is a treat because I never wear these kinds of clothes during the week. For work I need to get more dressed up, like a Prada skirt and Michael Kors sweater. Right now I love this Veronica Beard jacket. It’s like a raincoat with a fur collar. LEASH LIFE By 8 I’m out with the two Brittanys, which I like to do alone. I walk the dachshund separately because he has short legs and is slower. BOLD YOUNG CHEF By 10:30-ish my younger son is up and making breakfast. Two months ago he decided to make this egg-and-cheese concoction with spicy hot sauce in this really weird pot he saw on YouTube that’s impossible to clean. We also get smoked salmon, bagels and lobster salad from Sable’s . Image Ms. Lauder at Bergdorf Goodman. Credit Cassandra Giraldo for The New York Times SUGAR FIX Doughnuts and chocolate croissants are also allowed. And sugar cereals. I love cereals. We must have 10 to 15 boxes. But if I’m being honest, I have Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms hidden behind the healthier ones. GLOSSIES I usually stop at State News on 72nd and Third and buy international magazines like Japanese, Spanish and British Vogue. INSPIRATION I love going to museums, especially the Met , because there’s always room for discovery, or the Neue Galerie . It’s a great jewel box. Sitting on beautiful velvet banquettes, looking out onto the park from the Café Sabarsky makes you feel like you’re very far away. They also have a wonderful gift shop. I’m a very visual person, and I love opening beautiful books on art or design and looking through them. Image Ms. Lauder at cafe inside the Neue Galerie. Credit Cassandra Giraldo for The New York Times COUNTER INTELLIGENCE Bergdorf Goodman isn’t far from my apartment, so I’ll window shop on Madison Avenue and end up there. I love to investigate our beauty counter and the home section to see how my line is doing. As a child I’d go with my grandmother to visit her counters, and she would teach me what to look for and how to talk to customers. PRIVATE TIME When I return home, my husband and son are usually watching a sports game or Will is working on a term paper. I read emails, look at websites that interest me, see what’s on Instagram, clean out my desk, open packages, check my iPhone and Blackberry — which I’m still addicted to, so I use both. I also speak to Jack. FAMILY TIME I make dinner with food I’ve bought at Whole Foods, and we all eat together. It’s how we start and end our day as a family. SOFT LANDING Eric and I are in bed by 10-ish. I’ll read the magazines I bought that day. Maybe I’ll watch TV and start getting into sleep mode by 10:30. By 11, the lights are out.

Aerin Lauder
Estee Lauder
Family business
Cosmetics and Toiletries


Chinese Nationalism as Leadership Change Looms

Abstract: BEIJING — As an English-speaking talk show host on China Central Television, Yang Rui likes to think of himself as a bridge between East and West. He has a soft spot for tweed newsboy caps and Sherlock Holmes-style pipes and takes pride in his communications degree from Cardiff University in Wales. He may exult in China ’s growing might, but made sure his son attended college in the United States. His program on the state-run CCTV, “Dialogue,” often includes both foreign and Chinese guests. “I have to remind myself that I’m not representing myself,” he once remarked. “I’m representing the image of a country.” But this week Mr. Yang revealed another side of his persona in a torrent of microblog messages that derided some foreigners as “trash” and accused Western men of seducing local women in an effort to spy on China. “The Ministry of Public Security must clean out foreign trash, arrest foreign thugs and protect innocent girls,” he wrote to his 820,000 followers. “Behead the snakeheads, the unemployed Americans and Europeans who come to China to make money, traffic in people and mislead the public by encouraging them to emigrate.” Mr. Yang’s comments aggravated what many residents from abroad say is an increasingly palpable rush of antiforeign hostility that often quietly coexists, paradoxically, alongside effusive admiration for the West. Two ugly situations involving foreigners have helped stoke the antipathy. In one, a Russian-born cellist with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra was captured on video using boorish language to attack a fellow train passenger who objected to him putting his bare feet on her seat. Despite a videotaped apology, he was fired this past week. The more serious case involved a drunken British tourist apparently sexually assaulting a Chinese woman on a Beijing street. The video, also posted on the Internet, showed a group of passers-by pummeling the man into unconsciousness. In the days that followed, the police in Beijing announced a 100-day campaign to rid the country of foreigners who are living or working in China illegally. The initiative, promoted through banners and articles in the state news media, encourages citizens to report those suspected of violating the law to the authorities. Whether coincidental or not, the campaign dovetails with a fusillade of attacks in the state news media. Xinhua , the state-run news agency, ran an editorial at the top of its home page last week that accused other governments of using reporters from their countries to “tactically control” China’s image in the overseas news media. On Friday, People’s Daily , the ruling Communist Party mouthpiece and a political weather vane, described Western efforts to export democracy and human rights to China as a new form of colonialism. “They are evil acts that would harm society,” the article said. Analysts suggest the rising nationalist sentiment may be related to a spate of events that have unnerved the Chinese leadership, including territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a sharply slowing domestic economy and the political turmoil prompted by the downfall of the populist up-and-comer Bo Xilai. Mr. Bo, accused of corruption and violating party discipline, is in detention and awaiting his fate, as is his wife, Gu Kailai , who is implicated in the death of a British businessman. The backdrop for these uncertainties is the once-a-decade change in leadership scheduled for later this year. While the party has in the past stirred the nationalist caldron during times of uncertainty, some analysts said they thought that following that script today could prove harmful to China when it is trying to burnish its soft power. “It doesn’t help the party’s image to be retaliating against foreigners during the leadership transition,” said Bo Zhiyue, a Chinese political analyst at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore. “I find the whole campaign puzzling.” The upshot has been a host of inconveniences for those with foreign passports. In recent weeks, scores of scholars and tourists have had their visa applications rejected by Chinese embassies around the world. In Beijing, foreign journalists are on tenterhooks, wondering whether the expulsion this month of an American correspondent for Al Jazeera is a taste of things to come. (Mr. Yang, the CCTV host, for one, has called for a crackdown on journalists who “demonize” China. He also cheered the departure of the Jazeera reporter, Melissa Chan, with a word that could be charitably translated as “shrew.” Mr. Yang did not respond to requests for comment.) On Friday night, a phalanx of three dozen officers made the rounds of Sanlitun, a neighborhood popular with foreigners. After checking passports at a Mexican restaurant, the officers could be seen leading away an African patron. Western culture has also taken something of a hit. A joint Chinese-American jazz training program scheduled for June was canceled over “visa issues.” Last weekend, the police cited a missing permit when they forced the sudden cancellation of the musical “Oklahoma!” — which was largely cast with non-Chinese and partly financed by the United States Embassy. Desperate organizers found a new location but at substantial cost. The Philadelphia Orchestra, which performs next week at the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, has been dismayed to find many of its Chinese corporate sponsors inexplicably backing out at the last minute. “We’re used to periodic crackdowns, but the atmosphere for foreigners seems to be more hysterical than in the past,” said Jeremiah Jenne, an American researcher and history professor in Beijing who maintains the blog Granite Studio . “This time feels different, because people are being encouraged to dial in and report their neighbors.” In addition to the consternation and hand-wringing, foreign residents have expressed bewilderment over the rapid shift in public sentiment. It is a seesawing of emotion that can veer from the worshipful to the venomously resentful. Those conflicting impulses have deep roots. When the British statesman Earl Macartney arrived in China in the late 18th century seeking trading concessions, he was politely rebuffed by the Qianlong emperor, who thought China was sufficiently wealthy and cultured. In the century that followed, as coastal China was carved up by foreign powers, educated Chinese began wondering whether their civilization might be inherently inferior to that of the West. In the first half of the 20th century, the tensions between those advocating Chinese self-reliance and those seeking modernization through opening up to the West were a frequent source of strife. Mao Zedong and his Communist Revolution sought to put an end to any lingering self-doubt by banishing most foreign residents — and Western notions of human rights and electoral democracy. The next three decades, which brought famine, political upheaval and economic stagnation, turned out to be disastrous for liberal thinkers. Hong Huang, an entrepreneur who was one of the few Chinese to study in the United States during the peak of xenophobia in the 1970s, says many Chinese were confused by the sudden change in official attitude that followed the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. Once branded as enemies of the people, foreigners were placed on a pedestal in the 1980s, when Beijing was eager to court Western expertise and capital. In those days, she recalled, foreigners used special currency to shop at well-stocked Friendship Stores and stayed in hotels that were off limits to Chinese. “The government made people feel like second-class citizens in their own country and inadvertently created these feelings of massive insecurity,” said Ms. Hong, whose mother taught English to Mao and whose stepfather was foreign minister. “When you have this kind of insecurity, it doesn’t take much for people to turn uncontrollably emotional.” More recently, many Chinese have come to feel maligned by the West despite the marked contrast between the robust growth in China, even if at a slower pace, and the economic frailties of Europe and the United States. But apart from the enviable achievements, there is a simmering sense among educated Chinese that something is missing. The self-doubts are fed by corruption, censorship and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. Even with their weakened economies, Western countries — with their rule of law and sense of security — still have an enduring appeal when contrasted to the vagaries of authoritarian rule. Dai Qing, a dissident writer who often criticizes the Communist Party, said those long-buried frustrations were awakened when ordinary Chinese saw official favoritism toward foreigners, but felt their own government was unresponsive. “If a Japanese tourist has his bicycle stolen, an entire city department will work around the clock to retrieve it,” she said. “They would never do that for a Chinese person.”

China
China Central Television
Communist Party of China
Yang Rui
News and News Media
Economic Conditions and Trends
International Relations