A Makeover at Universal Studios Hollywood Aims at Disney

Abstract: UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — Now Comcast is mouse hunting on both coasts. After pouring money into its Universal Resort in Orlando, Fla., Comcast is increasing spending at Universal Studios Hollywood, unveiling a smattering of new attractions on Tuesday that — when combined with previously announced sections devoted to Harry Potter and “Despicable Me” — will remake 70 percent of the California park by 2016. The enhancements, part of a $1.6 billion overhaul of the park and adjacent movie studio, are aimed at keeping Universal’s thrill-ride fans coming back and also to begin attracting families with young children, a lucrative audience that Universal until recently left almost entirely to nearby Disneyland. “We’re trying to significantly broaden our base,” said Larry Kurzweil, president of Universal Studios Hollywood, which drew roughly six million visitors last year. “This isn’t about adding rides. It’s about a complete transformation.” When Universal Orlando opened the Wizarding World of Harry Potter four years ago, that resort went from an also-ran to a must-visit almost overnight. Year-on-year attendance shot up 30 percent as families swarmed the snow-capped shops of Hogsmeade and rode three Potter-themed rides. To prepare for a similar surge here — a Wizarding World will open at this hilltop park in 2016 — Comcast’s NBCUniversal is adding thousands of parking spaces, spending about $100 million to improve transit and planning two 500-room hotels. But those efforts are crumbs compared to what is planned inside the gates. On Saturday, a “Despicable Me” attraction called Minion Mayhem will begin transforming riders into furry yellow Minions and taking them on a topsy-turvy excursion. Also opening is a water-themed play area called Super Silly Fun Land, a version of the seaside carnival from “Despicable Me.” “That is our first real kiddie ride,” Mr. Kurzweil said during a preopening tour, pointing to a contraption called Silly Swirly, a new brightly colored offering similar to Disney’s flying Dumbo attraction, except with exotic bugs instead of elephants. “I rode it earlier myself,” he added with a smile. The park, which will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary, said that it would also expand its “Simpsons” ride to include an entire themed village, scheduled to open next year. Also coming next year, the company said on Tuesday, will be “Fast & Furious — Supercharged,” a hybrid movie and thrill ride in which occupants of Universal’s famed back-lot trams will be encircled by 400-foot-long movie screens. “We’re going to make it feel like those trams are being pulled through the streets at speeds of over 100 miles per hour,” said Chick Russell, an executive producer for Universal Creative. To some degree, the remaking of Universal Studios Hollywood is less about stealing market share from Disney than catching up after years of underinvestment. Universal’s California outpost has occasionally added new attractions, including a “Transformers” ride in 2012 and a “King Kong” experience in 2010. But Universal’s various recent owners — General Electric, Vivendi, Seagram — were all more interested in wringing cash from the theme parks than putting any in. In contrast, the Walt Disney Company was investing heavily in its two-park Disneyland Resort 35 miles to the south in Anaheim, Calif. Disney recently spent $1 billion to expand its California Adventure park there, for instance. Comcast has discovered — to its surprise — that theme parks represent one of the few areas of stable entertainment industry growth outside of cable television. Universal parks had operating income of about $1 billion last year, up 5.3 percent from a year earlier, according to financial filings. Revenue increased 7.2 percent. Now Comcast, which bought control of NBCUniversal in 2011, also wants to grow by going after families, which have long been Disney’s bread and butter. “Our guests at this park used to start at about 11 years old and go up from there,” said Ron Meyer, vice chairman of NBCUniversal. “We now have something for everybody, even very young children, with much more on the way.” Disney, which declined to comment for this article, has repeatedly dismissed the threat of greater competition from Universal in Florida, arguing that a rising tide lifts all boats. Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has also questioned Comcast’s zeal for theme parks over the long term. “I think the jury is still out to see just how much they’re willing to invest and what kind of creativity they have to invest in,” Mr. Iger said in a November call with analysts in response to a question about competition from Comcast. Stephen B. Burke, a Comcast executive vice president and chief executive of the NBCUniversal unit, declined an interview request. In an emailed statement, he said in part, “Going forward, we plan to keep investing.” Mr. Burke, who spent over a decade at Disney, working for a time as a senior parks manager, added, “Our parks are well run and firing on all cylinders.”

Comcast
Amusement park
NBCUniversal
Universal Studios
Walt Disney
California


Videos Deepen Mystery of Iranian Scientist

Abstract: The mystery of an Iranian nuclear scientist who Iran says was kidnapped and tortured last year by American agents deepened Tuesday, as Iran publicized what it called a videotaped statement from him that proved its claim. That videotape was contradicted by a second videotape posted on the Internet in which a man who identified himself as the same scientist said he was studying happily in the United States. The rival videos that claimed to show the scientist, Shahram Amiri, 32, emerged on the eve of an expected United Nations Security Council vote on a new set of American-backed economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Iran has accused the United States of extracting information about its program from Mr. Amiri. In preparing for the vote, the Obama administration has been offering classified intelligence briefings to members of the Security Council. In these sessions, American officials have used new evidence to revise previous conclusions about whether Iran has suspended efforts to design nuclear warheads, according to foreign diplomats and some American officials. It is not clear whether information from Mr. Amiri contributed to these revised assessments. The United States government has never acknowledged Mr. Amiri’s existence, much less admitted to having any role in his disappearance. But one United States official, declining to speak on the record about an intelligence matter, said the very fact that the video released by Iran showed someone talking over an Internet connection would suggest that he was not being held under duress. “The United States doesn’t force people to defect or hold them here if they do,” the official said. “That’s ridiculous. It’s ultimately their decision.” The official added: “Does anyone really believe that someone supposedly held captive has Internet access and the ability to make and send videos? That doesn’t make any sense.” Mr. Amiri, whom Iran has described as one of the country’s top nuclear scientists, vanished during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia a year ago. He worked at Iran’s Malek Ashtar University, an institution linked to the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guards. ABC News reported on March 30 that Mr. Amiri had defected to the United States, citing current and former C.I.A. officials. But Iranian authorities said Tuesday that the video it publicized was the first document that proved Mr. Amiri had been abducted. The Foreign Ministry summoned the Swiss ambassador in Tehran to press a formal complaint, the ISNA student news agency reported. The Swiss handle American interests in Tehran because Iran and the United States severed diplomatic ties after the 1979 revolution. “In the meeting with the Swiss envoy, Iran emphasized that America is responsible for the life and well-being of Mr. Amiri,” the ISNA report said. “It stressed that his abduction was against international laws and human rights.” The report said Iranian officials also submitted other documents to the Swiss ambassador that they said proved their claim of Mr. Amiri’s abduction, and also that of a former Iranian deputy defense minister, Alireza Asgari, who disappeared during a trip to Turkey in 2007. In the Iranian video of Mr. Amiri, which was broadcast on state-run television, an announcer identified a young man, in a blurry video wearing a T-shirt and talking in Persian through a computer phone hookup, as Mr. Amiri. He said he had been kidnapped in a joint operation involving the C.I.A. and the Saudi intelligence service in Medina on June 3, 2009. He said that he was taken to a house in Saudi Arabia, that he was injected with a shot, and that when he awoke he was on a plane heading to the United States. He said he recorded the video on April 5 in Tucson, Ariz. The announcer said that he could not disclose how the video was obtained. The second video , which was released shortly afterward on YouTube, showed a young man, slightly more overweight than the man in the first video, wearing a suit in a well-decorated room, who also identified himself as Mr. Amiri. He said in Persian that he was free and safe in the United States and was working on his Ph.D. He also demanded an end to what he called faux videos about himself, saying he had no interest in politics or experience in nuclear weapons programs. “My purpose in today’s conversation is to put an end to all the rumors that have been leveled at me over the past year,” he said. “I am Iranian, and I have not taken any steps against my homeland.” The rival videos emerged as Iranian officials in Tehran denied some speculation that they would be willing to swap three American hikers, who have been in jail there since last summer, for Mr. Amiri. Ramin Mehmanparast, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in Iranian government news accounts that it was not Iran’s practice to “exchange people whose cases are still with the judiciary,” referring to the cases of the three hikers, who are accused of entering Iran illegally and spying. “The two cases are not comparable,” Mr. Mehmanparast said. “Iran will use legal channels to secure the release of Mr. Amiri.”

Iran
Nuclear Weapons
Kidnapping
Amiri Shahram


A Naughty Squirrel, and Other Puppet Mischief

Abstract: ASKED TO NAME a few highlights of the Puppets Take Long Island festival , starting tomorrow and running through Aug. 31, Liz Joyce, founder of Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater in Sag Harbor, put a performance by the Boston puppeteer Bonnie Duncan near the top of her list. “ ‘Squirrel Stole My Underpants’ is a very special show,” said Ms. Joyce. Its title should give families who plan to attend a sense of the celebration’s playful, child-friendly tone. Nearly 100 shows, all aimed at the 3-and-up demographic, will be performed, said Aimee Terzulli, director of education at the Long Island Children’s Museum in Garden City. The museum is presenting the celebration along with Goat on a Boat; performances and workshops will take place at both locations and also in Amagansett Square, where free public shows will be held Friday afternoons. Additional venues include the Southampton Center , in Southampton; the Long Island Puppet Theater in Hicksville; Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay; the Suffolk Theater in Riverhead; and Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport. Image Sarah Frechette of Puppetkabob, whose show “The Snowflake Man” will be performed at the children’s museum. Credit Puppetkabob The idea to devote the summer to puppets, Ms. Terzulli said, is the result of intergenerational enthusiasm: “Puppet shows always seem to inspire the most audience dialogue, from children and parents.” Propelling the festival is a grant of $150,000 from the New York State Council on the Arts. The funds were mostly put toward attracting the 13 performing companies, some from as far as the Czech Republic, though local companies like A Couple of Puppets from Sag Harbor will also take part. Glove, rod-and-string and shadow-style puppets will all appear on the festival’s stages; so will ventriloquism productions. An official launch day, including a premiere of “Little Inga and Mother Earth,” by the Puppeteers Cooperative, of Boston and Brooklyn, is planned for Wednesday at the museum. While there, visitors can also view an exhibition of roughly 30 puppets from the collection of Roman and Eliza Valdes, founders of the Long Island Puppet Theater. The exhibition, to run until the festival closes, includes a mock puppet workshop inspired by Mr. Valdes’s studio, where he designs and restores puppets. If that calls to mind Geppetto , the fictional woodcarver who created Pinocchio, such thoughts are not altogether off base. Most puppets are still brought to life the old-fashioned way, Ms. Joyce said. ““It’s a very traditional art form that manages to survive in this high-tech world,” she said. “It’s a folk art, in a way — most of these puppeteers are writing, directing, building, designing and performing themselves. It’s miniature theater.”

Puppet
Long Island
Long Island Children's Museum


After Pine’s Removal, Fans Miss a Tree That a President Often Didn’t

Abstract: AUGUSTA, Ga. — The gates opened Monday at the Masters and a race-walk event broke out. Once on the grounds of Augusta National Golf Club, many patrons purposefully made their way to the par-4 17th hole to ogle at or take photographs of a fairway that has healed beautifully, though a circular scar remains visible from the removal in February of a very large, distinctive beauty mark. The Eisenhower tree, a 65-foot loblolly pine so named because it needled the 34th president of the United States and an Augusta member, was a casualty of one of the several ice storms to strike the area over the winter. Its loss was so deeply felt it warranted a eulogy. Delivering it was the club chairman, Billy Payne, who described it as “difficult news to accept” and said the decision to remove the tree was made only after consulting with the nation’s leading arborists The effects of the harsh winter were obvious throughout the course during the first of three days of the official practice rounds. Several trees sported amputated limbs. Others survived intact but were as thin as 3-irons, stripped of their fullness by the winter elements. Steve Stricker was in the middle of a news conference Monday when a loud peal of thunder interrupted the proceedings. “There goes another tree,” he joked. Thunderstorms chased patrons and players alike from the course at midmorning, but before the grounds were closed, scores of mourners stopped by the spot, about 210 yards from the tee, on the left side of the fairway, to pay their respects. One woman slipped under the ropes and posed as a tree, with her arms swaying above her head, while her photograph was taken. Others took pictures of, well, nothing, because the club, other than putting down grass, has chosen not to replace one beautiful eyesore with another. “I’m surprised that there isn’t a bigger one in place there already, to tell you the truth,” Stricker said, laughing. “I’m sure over the next year or two, there will be something there.” He added, “I don’t know if any of the players are sad to see it leave.” After playing the back nine Monday, the 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir expressed sorrow. He arrived at the 17th tee, looked out at the fairway and felt a strange emptiness, as if he were a family member gazing at the empty chair at the head of the table at the first Thanksgiving dinner after the passing of the cantankerous patriarch. Image Bubba Watson, left, and his caddie during a practice Monday as they passed near the spot where the Eisenhower Tree long stood. Credit Charlie Riedel/Associated Press Weir, a short-hitting, left-handed Canadian whose draw put the tree in play every time he played the hole, said: “It’s sad to see that tree go. I pegged that tree many times.” He added, “Part of the challenge was to shape the ball around it.” Loblolly pines grow fast, as Jim Furyk, who played in his first Masters in 1996, can readily attest. “When I first started playing here, that tree was much shorter and much closer to the tee,” he said. Absently slipping into the present tense, Furyk added: “Once the tee moved farther back and that tree grew, it’s difficult. I have a very hard time hitting it over that tree with the length that I hit it. I need to kind of work it around it or up the right side of the fairway. I’ve tried to hit it high and hard over that thing and caught it. The history of it, the history of the tree will be missed, and there’s a lot of lore there. But my game definitely won’t miss it that much.” The tree routinely fielded the shots of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who belonged to Augusta National from 1948 until his death in 1969. At a governors’ meeting at the club in 1956, he campaigned to have the tree cut down but was overruled. Arnold Palmer, a four-time Masters champion, was a frequent playing partner of the president’s at Augusta. “A couple of times he told me, he said, ‘Arnie, if I could hit that tree enough to bring it down, I’d do it.’ ” Palmer laughed. “And that’s in fun,” he said. “But the tree was a hazard, no question about it.” Club officials said the tree is being held in its own morgue until Payne and the other club members decide what to do with the timber. One of the workers hired to clear the course of broken limbs and other debris, including the Eisenhower tree, after the ice storm, is a carpenter and furniture maker with a clear vision of how the tree could be reincarnated. The worker, Mitchell Florence, who lives less than a mile from the course, said, “The first thing I thought when I heard about the Eisenhower tree is: How cool would it be to use the wood to build a 14-foot conference table that the members could use?” Maybe they could sit around the table and discuss the tree’s replacement.

Golf
Masters Golf,Masters
Augusta National Golf Club
Trees
Dwight David Eisenhower


For Some, Age Is No Obstacle to Entrepreneurship

Abstract: WHEN Marvin Gay, 71, a retired accountant, and his wife, Leslie, 61, decided to open a Painting With a Twist franchise in St. Petersburg, Fla., their start-up costs were close to $70,000. To finance the business, which combines art instruction with bring-your-own wine (or soft drink) parties, the couple tapped their personal savings. “The interest rate at the time, 2009, was about zero, so we weren’t making any money on our savings,” he reasoned. “We saw it as an opportunity to take a portion and use it for something we could control — we were investing in ourselves.” A year and a half later, the couple spent roughly $60,000 to open a second studio in Tampa. “Now we’re ready for a third,” Mr. Gay said. “Call me nuts.” Well, not that crazy. Last year, according to Mr. Gay (who has been kidded for decades because his name sounds like that of the late soul singer Marvin Gaye), the two operations pulled in $750,000, up 32 percent over 2012. And after some growing pains, both studios are in the black, each drawing about 350 paying customers weekly and allowing the Gays to draw salaries for themselves. They are part of a growing cohort of retirees starting businesses. According to a study published by the Kauffman Foundation and LegalZoom, about 20 percent of all new businesses in 2013 were created by entrepreneurs ages 50 to 59, and 15 percent were 60 and over. But financing a retiree start-up can be tricky. The most common method is using personal savings, as the Gays did, said Edward Rogoff, the Lawrence N. Field Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College in New York. That can be risky and costly, given the rules governing withdrawals from retirement accounts. But retirees can also hunt down local economic development loans or even use crowdfunding sites to raise capital. Image Marvin and Leslie Gay incurred start-up costs of nearly $70,000 when they opened their first Painting With a Twist franchise. Credit Edward Linsmier for The New York Times “Generally, as a person gets old, their tolerance for risk decreases, or it should decrease,” Mr. Rogoff said. “Somebody who is 26 and starting a business can bet the ranch because if it fails, at 31, they can start another business. But somebody who is 61 or 68 who starts a business can’t bet the ranch because at 75 or older, they won’t be able to get the ranch back and start over.” There are a variety of sensible approaches, Mr. Rogoff said. A retiree might find a partner to chip in, or start small, with a website, for example, rather than a brick-and-mortar store. A Senate hearing in February, titled “In Search of a Second Act: The Challenges and Advantages of Senior Entrepreneurship,” explored issues like illegal age bias by lending organizations and the need to develop tax incentives for senior start-ups. One idea discussed was expanding initiatives like the State Employee Assistance Program to allow long-term unemployed older adults to use their unemployment benefits to start a business. “As the nation continues to struggle with unemployment near 7 percent, it makes sense to consider reforms to the unemployment insurance program that would help people get back to work,” said Senator Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine, of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. “This could be through assistance to help people start their own businesses.” In addition to dipping into personal savings accounts, another common option for older entrepreneurs is calling on the generosity of friends and family. When Bill Skees, then 56, needed capital to finance his independent bookstore Well Read New & Used Books in Hawthorne, N.J., he asked his six siblings for loans, pledging 3.5 percent interest. That was about four years ago, and with the sluggish economic recovery, he’s had to slow down his payback plan. “My family is my biggest cheerleader and has been great about it,” he said. “That’s because I do have a plan, and I kept the lines of communications open.” Mr. Skees expects that the money will be fully repaid by the end of the year. For many who want to start a business, the local bank is frequently a first stop for financing. But “most banks aren’t that keen on loans for a senior business start-up, because they are not big enough,” said Elizabeth Isele, a founder of SeniorEntrepreneurshipWorks.org, a nonprofit venture geared toward helping workers over age 50 start their own businesses. For those that do clear the gatekeepers, a solid business plan and a clean credit record are prerequisites. And a lender probably will want the borrower to be prepared to personally invest in the business. “Banks don’t like to lend money for ideas,” Professor Rogoff said. “They lend money against cash flow for existing businesses and against assets they can collect against in the future.” One resource for learning more is BusinessUSA , the federal government’s site for entrepreneurs seeking small-business loans. For those who have built up some equity in their homes, a home equity loan is a fairly easy route to gain access to cash, and interest is generally manageable. Even faster is using personal credit cards. “But however tempting that is, it’s very expensive, and it’s not tax-deductible,” Mr. Rogoff said. Another option is to seek out so-called angel investors who will back you in exchange for equity or partial ownership. The Small Business Administration’s Small Business Investment Company program can offer leads. In general, the best way to find an angel investor is for budding business owners to contact the network they developed during their careers, Mr. Rogoff said. Image Bill Skees opened his bookstore in Hawthorne, N.J., with loans from family. Credit James Estrin/The New York Times A relative newcomer in start-up financing is crowdfunding. These virtual fund-raising campaigns generally raise small sums, and donors are not repaid. With Kickstarter, entrepreneurs post videos describing a project with a target dollar amount and deadline, then start an email campaign to get the word out. When someone donates, payments are made by credit card through Amazon. When the goal is reached, Kickstarter takes 5 percent, and the business owner pays 3 to 5 percent to Amazon’s credit card service. If the business owner doesn’t raise the money by the deadline, the pledges are canceled. Another site that entrepreneurs can use is Indiegogo. Crowdlending is a variation on the theme, but in this case, people expect to get their money back. In 2012, for example, Chancey M. Lindsey-Peake, 62, a retired housekeeper and nanny, started her banana bread bakery, Banana Manna , in Greenville, S.C. Her backing: a $5,000 zero percent interest loan funded through Kiva Zip , a type of crowdfunding. She fully repaid it in January. This type of microloan is patched together by the nonprofit Kiva with loans as small as $5. The pilot program started in late 2011. So far, the nonprofit said, loans have been made in 42 states. Last year, 400 loans were exchanged through the program, up from 100 in 2012. “The plan is for the lender to get the amount they loaned back, but there’s no financial rate of return,” said Jonny Price, senior director of the Kiva Zip Program. “It’s an emotional rate of return. They get that feel-good factor they are supporting their friend, this entrepreneur in their community.” Another player in the field is Accion , which offers loans averaging $7,000 with fixed annual interest rates from 11 to 16 percent, plus closing and application costs. The S.B.A. also issues microloans up to $50,000. In general, the rates range from 8 to 13 percent. But waiting for loans from others can be frustrating. Many retirees simply use their retirement funds and accept the risks. A new twist is “rollovers as business start-ups,” or ROBS, which raise the risks a bit higher, according to some experts. With this approach, business owners use their retirement funds, like 401(k) assets, to finance or expand a business without incurring taxes or penalties. The account is rolled over into a new retirement fund. And that new retirement fund, in effect, becomes a shareholder in the start-up. It’s legitimate, according to the Internal Revenue Service , but it’s complicated. And if it is not set up perfectly, it could result in penalties and a big tax bill. For Mr. Gay, the Painting With a Twist franchisee, the laughter of customers swirling brushes and sipping wine while painting a portrait is a priceless reward of his retirement venture. But having the ability to self-finance is what gives him peace of mind. “The start-up costs for our third location will probably be $75,000 to $100,000, and we will be funding that ourselves once again,” Mr. Gay said. “We decided five years ago to invest some of our savings in a business where we could have some control and that hasn’t failed us yet.”

Small business
Retirement
Entrepreneurship
Crowdfunding
Startup
Kickstarter


Study Finds a Frayed Safety Net for the Desperately Poor

Abstract: Government “safety net” programs like Social Security and food stamps have pulled growing numbers of Americans out of poverty since the mid-1990s. But even before the current recession, these programs were providing less help to the most desperately poor, mainly nonworking families with children, according to a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a private group in Washington. The recession is expected to raise poverty rates, economists agree, although the impact is being softened by the federal stimulus package adopted this year, which temporarily expanded measures like food stamps, child tax credits, unemployment benefits and housing and tuition aid. In view of the gloomy employment report last week, economists are debating whether to increase stimulus funds over all. But in a side argument, poverty experts are also asking whether elements of the package aimed at the most vulnerable Americans should be extended beyond their scheduled expiration in two years or even made permanent. The new safety-net study found that federal aid programs had helped tens of millions of Americans stay afloat in recent years, especially those with low-end jobs who benefited from rising tax credits. Going into the recession that began in late 2007, however, “the safety net was already enfeebled for jobless families,” said Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the center on budget priorities and author of the new study. “It’s a good thing we have the stimulus package,” Mr. Sherman said. “But what happens to the most vulnerable families in two years, when most of the provisions expire?” On Thursday, the Labor Department announced that unemployment had crept to 9.5 percent. The rate is far higher among blacks and Hispanics. Even after growth resumes, all signs are that the recession’s impacts will be protracted, said Harry J. Holzer, a labor economist at Georgetown University. “We’ll not only see an increase in poverty and unemployment, but those numbers are not going to improve quickly,” Mr. Holzer said. “I think it will be important to extend some of the provisions of the stimulus plan beyond 2010.” The recession and the stimulus package have brought “a new focus on the need for expanding and modernizing the social safety net,” said Sheldon Danziger, an economist and professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. Mr. Danziger said the overhaul of cash welfare since 1996, aimed at pushing single mothers into jobs, “makes sense when unemployment is 5 percent.” “But if you are out of work, the welfare system in a time of recession doesn’t have anything to offer,” he said. In a recent paper, Mr. Danziger and Maria Cancian, professor of public affairs and social work at the University of Wisconsin, argued that because of changes in the economy, in the population and in social policy, economic growth per se did less to reduce poverty than it used to. Specific efforts to raise low-end wages, support working parents with child care and tax credits and raise education levels will be vital to reducing poverty, they said. In the new study of the safety net, the center on budget priorities used a broader method for calculating poverty rates than is used by the federal government in its annual assessments, including the value of food stamps, housing subsidies and tax credits as income, but also adjusting for the local cost of housing. The study found that federal aid in 2005 had reduced the number of Americans living in poverty, under this expanded definition, by 44 percent — lifting 31 million people above the poverty line. But it also found that as aid programs were increasingly aimed at supporting work, fewer of the worst-off, jobless families were pulled out of the deepest poverty, defined as an income below half the poverty line. Douglas Besharov, an economist at the University of Maryland, said that while aid programs had undeniably reduced poverty, the 31 million number was overstated. Noting that the largest group helped was retirees receiving Social Security, Mr. Besharov said that in the expectation of benefits, some cling to larger houses or transfer assets to children, making their incomes lower than they would otherwise be. The figures for families in “deep poverty,” too, may be misleading, Mr. Besharov and others say. In surveys, it appears that some people are eking by on almost nothing. But some have off-the-books income or receive aid from housemates or relatives that is never recorded.

Poverty
Social Security (US)
United States


Korean Giants Struggle to Crack Smartphone Market

Abstract: SEOUL — Whatever shortcomings South Korea’s technology giants could be accused of, underperformance is not among them. Helped by their diverse product lines and improving global brand images, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics continued to rack up solid earnings in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, seeing operating profit swell 91 percent and 31 percent respectively in 2009. Widely perceived as imitators a decade ago, they have moved firmly into the realm of industry leadership. Samsung dominates the global markets in memory chips and flat-screen televisions and trails only Nokia in the mobile phone space. LG, meanwhile, nips at Samsung’s heels in televisions and handsets and is the world’s top producer of residential air conditioners. Both have built reputations for innovation in the application of emerging technologies like 3-D displays and organic light-emitting diodes . But despite the achievements, in recent years a crack has appeared in the success stories of Korea’s powerhouses. As the Internet-enabled, application-rich mobile handsets known as smartphones take the world by storm, the South Korean giants have remained largely on the sidelines. Samsung accounts for one-fifth of the global mobile phone market but less than 5 percent of the smartphone segment and LG even less. The companies have churned out a range of smartphone offerings, but they have so far failed to strike a chord with consumers like that of the Apple iPhone or Research in Motion’s business-ready Blackberry. “We did misread the scale and speed of the smartphone boom,” said Chang Ma, vice president of the market strategy team at LG’s Mobile Communications Company. Given the strength of some of their other business lines, neither company has cause to panic, analysts say, but their anemic smartphone performance indicates vulnerability in one of the world’s fastest-growing businesses — the smartphone market is expected to expand 55 percent this year, according to the research firm IDC, which is based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It has also prompted soul-searching. LG replaced its chief executive, Nam Yong, in September after its mobile phone division posted a record second-quarter loss. Samsung also saw profits and margins in its mobile business shrink in the second quarter. Worse, the smartphone battle is increasingly being fought on the firms’ home turf, where they once enjoyed a virtual monopoly. Since 2008, when the Korean government scrapped its requirement that mobile phones sold domestically support the indigenous Wireless Internet Platform Interoperability (W.I.P.I.) standard, foreign devices, and the iPhone in particular, have found a highly receptive local audience. The service provider KT, the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in South Korea, announced in September that it had shipped more than one million of the devices in just nine months, which it said were “transforming the Korean telecom market.” It was a performance that far surpassed what everyone had predicted. “I’m surprised with how consumers, carriers, and manufacturers in Korea hated W.I.P.I. so much and dumped it at this speed,” said C.K. Lu, a Taipei-based senior analyst with the technology research firm Gartner. So when it comes to smartphones, what have South Korea’s electronics makers gotten wrong? Company representatives acknowledge that the sheer scope of the smartphone explosion caught them off guard. But many analysts and industry watchers have pointed to South Korean mobile producers’ relative weakness in software and services. Samsung and LG devices, which run on a mix of proprietary software and increasingly the Google-developed Android or Microsoft Windows Mobile operating systems, have struggled to match the Blackberry’s e-mail functionality and the iPhone’s user-friendly interface and wealth of add-on applications. Mr. Lu said the companies had made a series of software missteps, including “betting wrongly” with investments to prime their devices for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 operating system, which has basically been rendered obsolete by the recent unveiling of Windows Phone 7. But conversely, he said he did not believe that refining their software was necessarily the best approach and said efforts to develop company-specific mobile phone platforms like Samsung’s “bada” are unlikely to bear fruit. “They should firstly focus on their expertise on high-tier hardware,” he said. “If you’re already a hardware-centric company, do you have the extra resources to invest in software? Won’t this consume your company’s resources and weaken your hardware competitiveness?” Indeed, Korea’s handset vendors seem to be concentrating on building more desirable devices, and signs have emerged that the approach is paying off. Samsung’s Android-based Galaxy S, released this year, is a svelte, “candy bar”-style phone with a radiant organic light-emitting diode display that the industry analysis firm Strategy Analytics dubbed the firm’s “first serious assault on the smartphone market.” It was designed and priced to compete directly with the iPhone. Samsung says the device has been introduced in 90 countries, and the company is projecting sales of 10 million units by the end of the year. Its handset sales increased 19 percent in the third quarter, according to the company, with its flagship smartphones “the primary drivers of continued sales growth.” LG, meanwhile, is pinning its hopes on the new Optimus One, which Mr. Ma says represents “a more affordable and accessible” alternative to the likes of the iPhone and Galaxy S. The Optimus One is powered by the latest version of Android and stacked with user-friendly touches like a choose-your-own color scheme and application recommendation service. About 200,000 units of the phone were sold in South Korea in the three weeks after its September debut. LG plans to roll the device out to 90 countries and is also confident it will move 10 million units worldwide. Only time will tell whether the companies’ new device lines represent a long-term victory — as Mr. Lu of Gartner pointed out, they not only face competition from Apple and Research In Motion at the premium end of the market but will be increasingly squeezed by emerging Chinese brands like ZTE and Huawei in the middle tier. But at the very least they have sent strong signals that they are back in the game. Samsung seems determined to challenge Apple on more fronts, recently introducing a tablet PC, the Galaxy Tab, that is clearly meant to present a compelling alternative to the Apple iPad . LG says the firm is devoting “enormous energy and resources” — including 30 percent of its research and development budget — to securing a leading position in the smartphone market, and plans to introduce a tablet of its own in early 2011. The latest products from LG and Samsung stand in clear contrast to Apple’s self-developed, closed-shop approach; LG’s Optimus is heavily weighted toward popular Google mobile services like Google Maps, while the Galaxy Tab comes with a variety of third-party applications including Facebook and the Amazon Kindle e-reader application preinstalled. Korean mobile makers seem to have realized that if they are going to take the smartphone market by storm, they will not be able to do it alone.

South Korea
Cellular Telephones
Smartphones
Samsung Group
LG DISPLAY Company Ltd
Telephones and Telecommunications


Boy, 14, Fatally Stabs Schoolmate in Bronx, Police Say

Abstract: A 14-year-old Bronx boy who may have been teased and robbed by a 14-year-old schoolmate stabbed him to death on Wednesday afternoon outside the school they attended, the police said. The boys were students at Intermediate School 117 (Joseph H. Wade) in the Mount Hope neighborhood. The stabbing took place around 3 p.m. in front of the school building at the end of the school day, the police said. The wounded boy, Timothy Crump, who was stabbed three times in the torso, was taken to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, where he died. A black-handled knife was recovered at the scene, the police said. The police arrested the schoolmate, who was identified as Noel Estevez of the Highbridge section of the Bronx. He was charged as an adult Wednesday night with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Several boys who said they saw the attack said that the victim confronted the boy who had the knife as he was leaving school, punching him and kneeing him in the nose. The suspect pulled out a knife and stabbed Timothy as teachers and school safety officers ran over to stop the fight, they said. “It was scary,” said Muhammed Ceesay, 12. Investigators said the suspect may have been teased by and, at an earlier date, robbed by the boy who was fatally stabbed. But as of Wednesday evening, what specifically precipitated the stabbing was not known. Marisol Perez, 43, a neighbor of Noel’s, said Timothy was part of a group of boys who had picked on him. “They used to hit him, bother him, tell him he’s a bum, that he didn’t have nowhere to live,” she said. Ms. Perez said that Noel had been released from the hospital a few days ago and had told her that he dreaded returning to school. “He knew something was going to happen to him,” she said. Ms. Perez said Noel told her that he had been bullied when he returned to school on Tuesday and that he was feeling very depressed. On Wednesday afternoon, Ms. Perez said, she received a call from her daughter, who said something had happened to Noel. She ran downstairs and saw about half a dozen boys banging on his door. Ms. Perez said she called the police after the boys told her that Noel had stabbed one of their friends and that they were planning to kill him. At the apartment where the victim lived on Aldus Street in Foxhurst, no one answered the door on Wednesday night. Tyrone Rivers, a neighbor who said he was friends with Timothy’s mother, said the boy often played basketball and football with other neighborhood children in a playground across the street. “He’s not a troublemaker,” Mr. Rivers said. “Everyone is in shock.” Carmen Fariña, the New York City schools chancellor, offered condolences to the family of the boy who was killed and said grief counselors would be sent to the school on Thursday. “We are devastated to lose one of our children like this,” she said in a statement.

Murders
Bronx
Noel Estevez
Timothy Crump


El Niño No Longer, García Still Blows Hot and Cold

Abstract: JERSEY CITY — Sergio García has spent some time in and around the metropolitan area the past two days, showing why he is a player to watch. Whether that happens on the golf course at the Barclays or at appearances around Manhattan will depend largely on the time of day and the interests of individual spectators, but either way the viewing promises to be worthwhile. It probably is best to begin with golf, since the start of the PGA Tour playoffs for the FedEx Cup is what brought García, 29, to town. And Tuesday, on the crowded practice range at Liberty National, he was doing what he does best and, he said, what he loves most. Regardless of what might be swirling around in García’s fast-paced life, his golf swing is a constant. An uncommon fusion of disparate elements — speed and grace, power and balance, artistry and athleticism — it is much the same as it was when he was growing up in Spain, learning from his father, Victor, and idolizing the great Spanish champion Seve Ballesteros. Unencumbered by expectation or pressure, García swung with controlled abandon Tuesday. In between jokes with his manager, Carlos Rodriguez, he painted all manner of shots against the horizon, pulling out varying flights and trajectories from his palette and carving the ball whichever way he wanted. At times, this was the way García had been working the ball inside the ropes at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C., on Sunday, when he built a three-stroke lead at the Wyndham Championship. Then, on the 11th hole, he hit a shot he thought was going to be his best of the day, maybe of the tournament, and it turned out wrong. The picture that had been clearing up got cloudy, and García promptly fell out of the lead when he bogeyed Nos. 11 and 12. “That bogey on No. 11 was the one that rattled me the most,” he said. “I thought I hit a great shot with a 6-iron. I never thought that I would hit it long — 192 yards into the wind and a little uphill? I wanted to get it all the way back to the pin and unfortunately it went long.” When he gave the account, García was relaxing during a promotional appearance in Manhattan. “It was one of those days when I was — I just couldn’t get comfortable after getting off to a good start and building a lead,” he said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to hold on to it.” Garcia’s placidity was a sign of some progress in the continuing battle García wages against his perfectionism, beating himself up on and off the golf course. There is a constant balance to be struck between blaming defeats on bad luck — as he used to do, most recently two years ago after losing the British Open at Carnoustie — or on himself, as he did last year after making bogeys on two of the final three holes to lose the P.G.A. Championship. Although the three-stroke lead he let get away at the Wyndham was not in a major, it stopped what could have been a major injection of confidence. But García did not seem to allow it to eat at him. Take the way he arrived in New York on Monday, less than 18 hours after the loss. García glided into the site of his promotional appearance, sweeping through the door and onto the polished marble floors. He was the alpha male, the suave Spaniard for whom three young female associates from a public relations firm lined up to receive kisses on each cheek. Earlier, some of the event’s organizers had done some unnecessary fretting about what García’s mood would be after Sunday’s difficult loss. But García, showing a beard and a big smile, was as much at home greeting children from a local chapter of the P.G.A.’s First Tee program as he was with a driver in his hands and a fairway in front of him. No longer is he El Niño, the nickname that defined him from the time he burst on to the scene as an amazingly talented amateur — he made 21 of 28 cuts on the PGA European Tour as an amateur — until a couple of years ago. The bull logo he tried on the side of his golf ball was replaced in favor of a simple S. At a wiry 5 feet 10 inches and 160 pounds, he is more matador than bull. García is emerging from a difficult personal period, during which he split with his girlfriend Morgan-Leigh Norman, the daughter of the golfer Greg Norman. He does not deny that the decline in his play this year was tied to the March breakup. “Everybody goes through these things,” he said. “I’m definitely much better now. It was tough when Morgan and I broke up. For the first couple months, it was difficult and I couldn’t get my head into golf. I was playing by routine, not by feel. My head was not into it. It made me struggle a little bit and lose some of my confidence.” Asked where his game was on a scale of 1 to 10, García thought for about 20 seconds. “I think, probably, I wouldn’t say it’s more than a 6,” he said. “Compared to last year, the middle and back part of the year, maybe five and a half or something like that.” But he remembers what it felt like to come so close last year, losing in playoffs at the Barclays and the Tour Championship. Now he will try to take his game from the range to the course, and maybe build a little confidence over the next few days. “You never know,” he said. “Golf is about confidence. I just have to stay positive, and keep working. It might get better.”


After Assassination Attempt, Guinea’s Junta Leader Leaves Country for Treatment

Abstract: DAKAR, Senegal — Guinea ’s military ruler was flown to a hospital in Morocco on Friday after surviving what was apparently an assassination attempt by one of his closest aides, opening up a power vacuum in his volatile country. The ruler, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara , whose government has been the object of international sanctions following the massacre of unarmed demonstrators in September, was shot Thursday in a confrontation with the commander of the presidential guard, Lt. Abubakar Toumba Diakité, according to the communications minister, Idrissa Cherif. Lieutenant Diakité has been named by Human Rights Watch as having been present and in command during the killing of the demonstrators. Mr. Cherif said Friday morning that Lieutenant Diakité was still being sought, though some of his supporters “have been apprehended.” Amid conflicting reports about the seriousness of Captain Camara’s injuries, an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty hung over the capital, Conakry, on Friday, according to residents there. Soldiers and police officers were on patrol in many neighborhoods. Captain Camara’s absence left Guinea, an impoverished country of 10 million that is nonetheless rich in natural resources, without a clear leader, at least temporarily. Oury Bah, vice president of the United Democratic Forces of Guinea, an opposition party, said that Captain Camara’s subordinates were huddled in a meeting somewhere in the capital, though the leader’s second in command, Defense Minister Sekouba Konaté, was out of the country. Government sources could not be reached to confirm the meeting or Mr. Konaté’s absence, but Reuters reported that Mr. Konaté returned to the capital on Friday. The shooting of Captain Camara occurred as United Nations investigators were in Guinea looking into the massacre, in which at least 157 people are thought to have been killed and dozens of women raped. The International Criminal Court has also begun a preliminary investigation, and a ranking member of the opposition — one of the few still left in Guinea — said Friday that it was widely believed in the capital that Lieutenant Diakité was angry at being blamed for the killings. Mr. Cherif, in a brief interview, confirmed that Captain Camara had left the country for medical treatment. Mr. Cherif played down the seriousness of Captain Camara’s wounds, though he was unable to say when he would return to Guinea. “Our president has left for Morocco for a check-up,” he said. “He is walking, and he is eating,” Mr. Cherif said. “This morning he met with his ministers.” However, late Friday the president of nearby Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré, who has tried to mediate for Captain Camara with opposition leaders, was quoted in press reports as saying that his condition was “difficult but not desperate.” Guinea suffered for decades under a pair of dictatorial rulers who did little to develop it. The demonstration in September, which was brutally suppressed by Captain Camara’s forces, was widely seen as an indication of the exasperation of citizens with the increasingly authoritarian strongman leader. He seized power last December after the death of the longtime dictator Lansana Conté. After the massacre, Captain Camara dug in his heels as international condemnation poured in, and he seemed set to extend his rule indefinitely, aided by the loyalty of a substantial segment of the military. The assassination attempt, which took place at one of the capital’s military encampments, revealed, however, divisions in the country’s extensive security forces. “Everything suggests that the military camps are divided and fragmented,” Mr. Bah said. Mr. Bah said there were few people out on the streets Friday afternoon. Mr. Cherif insisted that everything was under control. Others, however, suggested that the calm was deceptive. “There’s a great deal of fear,” said Lama Bangoura, vice president of the New Democratic Forces, another opposition party. “For the moment, we are watching, and waiting,” Mr. Bangoura said, adding, “I’ve just seen two trucks with soldiers pass by.”

Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations


These Foods Aren’t Genetically Modified but They Are ‘Edited’

Abstract: In a few years, you could be eating the next generation of genetically altered foods — potatoes that do not turn brown or soybeans with a healthier mix of fatty acids. And you may have no idea that something is different, because there may be no mention on the labeling even after a law passed by Congress last year to disclose genetically modified ingredients takes effect. A new generation of crops known as gene-edited rather than genetically modified is coming to the market. Created through new tools that snip and tweak DNA at precise locations, they, at least for now, largely fall outside of current regulations . Unlike older methods of engineering genes, these techniques, like Crispr , so far have generally not been used to add genes from other organisms into the plants. The federal Agriculture Department has asked companies to advise it of their plans. But once the companies submit data to show the agency that the gene edits do not introduce foreign genes from plant pests into the crops, the agency is giving businesses the green light. Hundreds of acres of gene-edited crops have already been grown in several states, unencumbered by oversight or regulations. And a few people have eaten them already. “This is not Frankenfood,” said André Choulika, chief executive of Cellectis , one of the companies developing gene-edited crops. In October, Cellectis hosted a dinner at Benoit New York, the Alain Ducasse Manhattan restaurant, and served dishes made from its gene-edited soybeans and potatoes. Guests included professors, journalists and celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris, the actor. “I don’t even know what gene editing is,” Mr. Harris said. “I thought we were supposed to wear jeans.” Calyxt , a subsidiary of Cellectis doing the gene-edited food, is also developing new versions of wheat including one with greater resistance to fungal diseases, another lower in carbohydrates and higher in dietary fibers. Image A dinner at a Manhattan restaurant featured dishes made from gene-edited vegetables. Credit Ramon Martinez/Cellectis Group Other companies also developing gene-edited crops including DuPont Pioneer, which has used the technology for a new variety of waxy corn, used most commonly not for food but for starch in adhesives. Scientists at Pennsylvania State University have used Crispr to create mushrooms that do not turn brown as quickly. The current regulations were written for the earlier generation of genetically modified organisms, where scientists used bacteria and viruses — typically from plant pests — to drop a payload of new genes into the nuclei of the plant cells where they merge with the plant’s DNA. That worked, but scientists could not control where the new genes would be inserted, and that led to worries of potentially dangerous genetic disruptions or crossbreeding with non-G.M.O. crops. Companies like Calyxt have portrayed gene editing more like moving the cursor in a word processor to a particular location and making a small change to the text. Federal agencies have not yet said how they intend to regulate gene-edited foods, and the incoming Trump administration, while criticizing overregulation in general, has not weighed in. Other parts of the world are also considering whether to regulate gene-edited foods and how to do so. In Europe, where many countries have banned the cultivation of G.M.O.s, the European Commission has created a scientific panel to study the issue, with debate resuming this year. Dr. Choulika said the inspiration for the October gathering was a dinner more than two centuries earlier, by Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a French scientist who was enthralled with potatoes brought to Europe from South America. But many Europeans scorned the potato. France even outlawed the growing of potatoes in 1748. Largely because of Parmentier’s work, potatoes were declared to be safely edible in 1772, and the ban was lifted. Still, few wanted to eat them. In 1778, Parmentier organized the first in a series of lavish dinners for the high society of Paris, serving dishes all made with potatoes. Potatoes became a fixture in French cuisine. With farmers harvesting the first substantial plantings of the Cellectis gene-edited potatoes and soybeans last year, Dr. Choulika thought of throwing a modern version of Parmentier’s gathering. “This is the first dinner on Earth with gene-edited foods,” Dr. Choulika said to the diners. “Things that you eat today, millions of people are going to eat during the 21st century, and this will not stop.” Image Menu from a dinner hosted by Cellectis to highlight its new gene-edited crops. Food is a side business for Cellectis, which focuses on pharmaceuticals. After some collaborations with big companies like Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer, Cellectis started Calyxt, to explore opportunities for using gene editing for foods. Dr. Choulika said he considered G.M.O.s safe , but that the gene-editing techniques like those used by Calyxt would be more acceptable to consumers. Often in G.M.O.s, the inserted genes came from unrelated species, like the bacterial genes that were added to cotton so that it would exude a toxin to repel bollworms, a mixing of species known as transgenesis. “There’s not this blockage of transgenesis that freaks out people for no reason,” he said. “I think it is a question of perception.” Instead of using bacteria and viruses to burrow into a cell, gene-editing techniques — Calyxt uses one called Talen — create molecules that act as a template to match a specific segment of DNA and then make a cut there. For the Calyxt soybeans, for example, the only change was to turn off two genes. “There is nothing taken out or added to the plant,” Dr. Choulika said. “It’s what nature would have produced.” Those edits change the mix of fatty acids and perhaps make for a better cooking oil. “Better than olive oil,” Dr. Choulika said. At the dinner, the soybeans were transformed into a several dishes including soy blinis, mini tofu and soy burgers, and soybean hummus. Carole Pourchet, director of the Lab, the research and development arm of Mr. Ducasse’s food enterprise, said the gene-edited soy cooked like normal soy, but that the potatoes were a little drier, leading to the idea to confit them to retain moisture. The potatoes showed up in mashed potatoes, potato pie and blinis. “The dinner was maybe potatoes cooked 10 ways,” said Richard C. Mulligan, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School who was one of the guests. Dr. Choulika worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Mulligan’s laboratory two decades ago. Federico Tripodi, chief executive of the Calyxt subsidiary, said the company hoped the soybeans would be used in cooking oil for commercial and industrial use by 2018. How Square Watermelons Get Their Shape, and Other G.M.O. Misconceptions No, these watermelons were not genetically modified. And neither were those funny looking white strawberries. The potatoes, edited to remain fresher longer and not produce carcinogens when fried, could be grown and sold in 2019. A second potato that is slower to turn brown just got word from the U.S.D.A. that it, too, is not subject to regulation. Gene editing is not being used only with plants. A Minnesota company, Recombinetics, is editing the genes of farm animals — for example, creating cattle without horns . Critics warned that the industry was repeating the same mistakes of G.M.O.s. “We’ve never been against any of this technology,” said Michael K. Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumers Union. “We don’t say it’s inherently bad or these crops are inherently dangers. It’s just they raise safety issues, and there should be required safety assessments.” While the gene-editing templates match a specific sequence, it is possible that the same sequence occurs elsewhere in the genome or they will match similar sequences, and the DNA will be sliced in those places, too, with unknown consequences. “They make it sound very exact,” Dr. Hansen said. “It will have off-target effects.” Dr. Hansen said unregulated gene-edited crops could also create trade havoc if traces of them accidentally mixed into exports to countries that prohibited them. Daniel Voytas, chief science officer of Calyxt who was one of the inventors of the Talen gene-editing technology, said the company had not checked the entire genomes of their plants, but did look for unintended changes within sections that were similar to the parts they were editing. “We didn’t find any,” he said. Dr. Voytas said it would not be “a huge amount of work” to sequence the entire genome and that all of the data they presented was available on the U.S.D.A.’s website. A U.S.D.A. advisory board in November unanimously recommended that standards for organic foods exclude gene-edited crops even if they were grown without chemical fertilizers and abided by the other strictures of organic farming. Dr. Mulligan of Harvard said he was not sure that people would see much difference between gene-edited and genetically modified. “The objection that people have is a more visceral and vague objection to messing with DNA,” he said. “It’s hard to see that the public would see the difference.” He admitted that he was more excited by the chef. “The good thing with this is Ducasse is such a culinary artist,” Dr. Mulligan said. “He is really well known for being able to take anything and make it taste good.” For Mr. Harris, the dinner provided a whirlwind introduction to biotechnology — “realities that I thought were theoreticals,” he said.

Genetically modified foods GMOs
Agriculture Department
Cellectis
Genetic engineering
Alain Ducasse


North Korean Prisons Hold 200,000, Rights Group Says

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — New satellite images and firsthand accounts from former political prisoners and former jailers in North Korea have confirmed the enormous scale and bleak conditions of the penal system in the secretive North, according to a report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International . Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok, North Korea, said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch the executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that the North’s network of political prisons is estimated to hold 200,000 inmates. “North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades, the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world.” The report says that almost all of the human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the past 60 years “are ignored.” After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, Amnesty International became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing.” North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees. Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.” Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was caught on her first escape attempt. She was convicted and jailed for four months. “They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with The International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.” A recent State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture” as well as virtual starvation rations. In various accounts, escaped inmates have reported eating earthworms and rats to get enough protein to survive. Jeong Kyoung-il, a former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, said that deaths in the prison occurred almost daily. But the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light. “Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

Human Rights and Human Rights Violations


OPEC Seeks Ways to Stabilize Declining Oil Prices

Abstract: With the economy in the throes of a global recession, oil producers are facing their toughest business prospects in 25 years. Oil demand is expected to decline this year and next, the first drop since the energy shocks of the early 1980s. As economic growth slows down sharply, oil prices have collapsed from their summer peaks in record time. The stunning speed of the downturn has made for a sudden nightmare for producers, who face shrinking revenue next year. Oil has lost $100 a barrel, or 70 percent of its value, since July and many analysts forecast further declines as the global economy worsens. OPEC is meeting Wednesday in the coastal city of Oran, Algeria, to discuss ways to stem the drop in prices. Chakib Khelil, the organization’s president and the Algerian oil minister, suggested last week that producers would approve “a severe production cut to stabilize the oil market.” Many analysts expect the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s oil, to cut its production by about 1.5 million barrels a day, or 5 percent. In recent days, calls for a sizable cut have been mounting. Iran, which has been a vocal supporter of aggressive action by the cartel, would like OPEC to reduce its output by an additional two million barrels a day, according to the country’s oil minister. Russia, which is not part of OPEC, is also sending a large delegation to Algeria and could join the oil cartel in reducing its production. Some OPEC officials hint they would also like to see Russia formally join the group. “We have to act — we see a very sizable reduction,” OPEC’s secretary general, Abdalla Salem el-Badri, told reporters on his arrival on Monday in Oran. The problem is that OPEC’s actions so far have had little impact on the market. OPEC members have already met three times since September, and agreed to trim their output by two million barrels a day. But the price of oil has dropped by 30 percent since October, the last time OPEC promised to cut production. With demand falling rapidly, there are few reasons to expect the drop in prices to slow down. Concerns about the economy pushed oil futures down $1.77, to $44.51 a barrel on Monday. Earlier this month, they touched a low of $40 a barrel, down from July’s record, when the price was above $145 a barrel. With stagnating growth next year, global consumption could fall by 1.3 million barrels a day, or 1.5 percent, in 2009, according to Deutsche Bank. Many analysts, including specialists at Goldman Sachs who predicted $200-a-barrel oil this summer, now say oil prices may fall below $30 next year if the slowdown spreads to China. The meeting in Algeria this week will also feature Russia’s proposal to reduce its own output. Russian officials have been cozying up to the oil cartel in recent months as the drop in prices has stung the country’s petroleum-dependent economy. Last week, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signaled that his country wanted closer cooperation with OPEC, and did not rule out joining the group. The 20-member Russian delegation to Algeria will be headed by Igor Setchin, Russia’s deputy prime minister for energy, and will include the top managers of the country’s five biggest oil companies. “We expect concrete support from them,” said Mr. Khelil, the OPEC president. “We always wanted them to join OPEC.” But Russia’s proposal is unlikely to have a big effect on the market. Some analysts see the move as simply window-dressing — Russian production will drop anyway this year, they say, because of the government’s own restrictive policies, inadequate investments and hefty export taxes. Part of the problem for OPEC is that producers simply cannot reduce their production fast enough to match the drop in consumption. OPEC has found it much easier to remain united within its ranks when prices rise than when they fall. To prevent their revenue from falling too quickly, some producers have failed to trim their production as much as they promised. Estimates of how much OPEC is pumping currently vary; the cartel does not disclose production numbers. The consulting firm Petrologistics, which tracks the movement of oil tankers, believes producers reduced their output by about one million barrels a day in November. Platts, an authoritative energy publication, estimated that OPEC’s production dropped by 880,000 barrels a day in November, or half what the cartel last pledged. There is also some uncertainty about how much oil is being produced by Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer. The kingdom reduced its output by 500,000 barrels a day, to 8.9 million barrels, according to the survey by Platts. That would mean Saudi Arabia is pumping 400,000 barrels a day more than its official quota. But while the market doubts OPEC’s determination, the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, indicated last week that the kingdom was pumping 8.5 million barrels a day in November, a drop of 1.2 million barrels a day from its August peak production level. The disclosure helped oil prices rise slightly last week. According to the Middle East Economic Survey, most producers have drawn budgets for 2009 that assume prices will be above $50 a barrel. Even Saudi Arabia has recently said that it considered $75 a barrel to be a “fair price.” Members of the cartel know they cannot get there anytime soon. The best the group can do is set the stage for a recovery in prices when the global economy eventually improves. “There is going to be a lot of pressure on the OPEC minister to defend prices,” said Geoff Porter, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in New York. “OPEC has to strike the balance between an aggressive cut, which will slow down the price fall,” he said, “but it can’t be so aggressive that it erodes their credibility if the members do not comply. They can’t push too hard and have their members not respond.”

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries


The Walk Is Fun, Raising the Money Isn’t

Abstract: WALKING was something I knew I could do. I run four to five miles a day, so why not put those muscles to further use in a fund-raising walk? But what cause should it be? The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Light the Night (two miles), in honor of a friend’s daughter who survived leukemia last year? Or the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes (7.5 miles) because another friend works there? The decision was made for me when I received a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer last spring, and my sister suggested that we do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer (39 miles over two days). That is how most people choose among the fund-raising walks, runs, marathons, relays and triathlons. “Almost everybody at a relay or a walk is there for a personal reason,” said Reuel E. Johnson, a vice president at the American Cancer Society , which sponsors Relay for Life in 4,500 places and 120 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walks. In these, he said, “There’s almost 100 percent odds you know someone close who’s experienced cancer.” If the decision is that straightforward for the walkers, it is less obvious for the event organizers. Should the walk be three miles or 39? Should participants raise $100 or $1,000, or nothing at all? People have been moving their feet for health causes at least since the March of Dimes inaugurated its Walk America to fight birth defects in the early 1970s. The concept really got going in the mid-1980s, with the first AIDS walks, the Cancer Society’s relay and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation’s Race for the Cure. While no one compiles comprehensive data, USA Track and Field, the governing body for track competitions, sanctions 5,000 events each year to raise funds to combat diseases. Moreover, a single “walk” can be in hundreds of locations at different times. The most popular distance seems to be three miles (five kilometers) because, sponsors say, that is long enough to show commitment without scaring couch potatoes. “We try to make our walk more of a family experience,” Andrew Buroker, chairman of the American Heart Association, said of its Heart Walks (three miles). Besides, organizations usually want to include survivors of their disease, and they may not be able to walk far. Some organizers want the challenge of a longer walk. “A 5K walk is over before you know it,” said Craig Miller, president of MZA Events, which produces or helps produce a dozen six-mile (10-kilometer) AIDS walks every year. If six miles shows commitment, how about 100? The Leukemia Society, besides its short Light the Night walks, sponsors about 170 Team in Training events each year, including marathons, triathlons and 100-mile bike rides. Participants undergo a four-to five-month training regimen. “It is a kind of niche market,” said Gregory Elfers, the society’s senior vice president for revenue generation. “It has to be someone who has the wherewithal to do the training and make the time commitment.” That’s why the Avon appealed to me, for the challenge of walking 39 miles. In fact, I did it twice. What didn’t appeal, however, was the other part — the fund-raising. There are two schools of thought about this. Avon says the goal is to raise a significant sum of money, which goes along with the significant distance. So I had to raise $1,800 per walk, and hated every second of it. At the other extreme, Mr. Miller’s AIDS walks and the American Lung Association’s asthma walk have no minimum or registration fee. The Komen walk requires a fee of $15 to $25 (the amount is up to the local affiliate), while the Heart Walk and Relay for Life suggest but do not require $100 donations. “If you tell people that they have to raise $75, that’s what they’ll raise,” said Karen Wertheimer, chief development officer for the Lung Association. “If you don’t tell people $75, and you encourage them to raise as much as they can, they raise a lot more.” In fact, walks with high minimums tend to bring in a lot more money per walker than the low-minimum events. Some organizers with low minimums, though, say that dollars are not the only goal. They say that they keep the financial requirement small and the distance short to enable more people to join in. Whatever the specifics, Robert Evans, a board member of the Giving Institute, a trade association for fund-raising consulting firms, is skeptical of walking. “These are very difficult events to organize,” he said. “They’re people-intensive, and the results are unpredictable.” While his institute recommends that no more than 12 percent of donations go to expenses, the walks soak up twice that percentage. The rest of the proceeds go to research, patient services and public education. Walk organizers say that other fund-raising approaches can be just as inefficient. Direct mail has a notoriously low response rate of less than 5 percent. Galas have to cover room rental and other expenses. For me, walking for dollars is over. While I exceeded the Avon fund-raising requirement both times, I cannot harass my friends and family to donate any longer. If only walking could lead directly to better medical care. If with each step a dollar would fly to a research lab or a mammography center, then I would gladly walk for any disease.

Philanthropy
Walking
Cancer
American Cancer Society
Leukemia


In Silicon Valley, Venture Capitalists Turn Cautious

Abstract: MENLO PARK, Calif. — Venture capitalists make their fortunes, or lose them, on the strength of their predictions. As they hunt for barely hatched ideas and nurture them with money and advice, they are hoping that the new idea grows into the next Google. On Sand Hill Road, the wide boulevard here where investors study ideas in offices tucked behind palm trees and redwoods, the recession has tempered their optimism with caution. Conversations with some of the leading venture capitalists about the types of companies that will receive some of the estimated $31 billion venture capital firms raised in 2008 offer a glimpse at the future of technology. WEB 2.0 HEYDAY IS OVER Venture capitalists once poured money into Web sites that were free to users and that made money selling advertisements. If the site involved social networking, so much the better. But as growth in ad spending online cools and social networking becomes commonplace, the days of trying to be the next YouTube, Facebook or Yelp are over, said Jeremy Liew, managing director at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “In 2005, Yelp could say, ‘I’m going to unseat Citysearch,’ ” Mr. Liew said. “Today, someone has to say, ‘I’ll be more viral and user-generated than Yelp.’ The evolutionary niche that got opened up got filled.” Even Accel, an early investor in Facebook, might have turned that company away if it approached the firm today, said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, an Accel partner. For Web sites that do not already have large audiences, “your business model may be just as plausible as it was 18 months ago, but we’re all more cautious about giving you a slug of money,” she said. Instead, investors are looking for sites that make money in ways other than selling ads, like selling subscriptions or virtual goods. Selling 50-cent costumes for online avatars might not seem to be much of a revenue model, but pennies add up. ENTERPRISE IS BACK Though investors are shifting their focus from the consumer to businesses, they are still reluctant to back makers of expensive software that manages data for companies. “Big-ticket enterprise ideas that take $50 million to $100 million to get to market are going to be few and far between,” said Dana Stalder, a general partner at Matrix Partners. Instead, venture capitalists will invest in open-source software, Web-based software, Internet-based cloud computing and virtualization software that lets companies use less hardware to run applications. “Oracle, Microsoft and all of that will shift to the cloud. It will be a transformational mega-shift in technology,” Mr. Stalder said. THE YEAR OF MOBILE? The iPhone and Apple App Store caught on with consumers in 2008, but investors are not convinced that selling ads or content like applications on mobile phones can make much money for them. More skeptical venture capitalists are sticking with what they know makes money in telecommunications, like carriers and makers of phones and accessories. “Pure mobile content is overinvested, but hardware is underhyped,” said David Weiden, a partner at Khosla Ventures. Revenue from the iPhone and BlackBerry exceeds that of the entire mobile content market, he said. Battery Ventures is focusing on carriers, said Roger Lee, a general partner. His firm invested in MetroPCS, which went public in 2007, and last year put money into Pocket Communications, a wireless carrier in Texas that is expanding to the Northeast. CLEAN TECH GETS REALISTIC Venture capitalists are still chasing clean technology. Through September, $3 billion was invested in technologies that create alternative energy and conserve power, up from $1.9 billion the year before, according to the National Venture Capital Association. But big, expensive projects like building factories to manufacture solar panels or biofuels are falling out of favor. “The economic arguments for those businesses literally went upside down in a year,” said Paul Holland, the general partner in charge of the clean tech practice at Foundation Capital. Instead, some venture capitalists are looking at technologies that monitor energy demand, like software that tracks and regulates a building’s energy use. PERSONALIZED HEALTH CARE Venture capitalists say one sector of the economy that technology has not yet transformed is personalized health care. Jennifer Fonstad, a managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is looking at companies that use information about a person’s genetic code to offer predictive medical advice or preventive health services or devices. Internet companies that help patients, banks and insurance companies manage health savings accounts or help people find assisted-living homes for aging parents are other likely recipients of investors’ largess. “Cisco was founded two weeks before a stock market crash. Oracle was founded during the Reagan recession,” Mr. Holland said. “In bad times, that’s when the best opportunities come up.”

Computers and the Internet
Venture Capital
Software
Silicon Valley (Calif)
Wireless Communications
Enterprise Computing
Handheld Computers
Energy Efficiency


Sidney Crosby Takes M.V.P. Honors

Abstract: Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby won his second Hart Trophy as the N.H.L.’s most valuable player at the league’s postseason awards ceremony Tuesday in Las Vegas. Tuukka Rask of Boston won the Vezina Trophy as best goalkeeper, and his teammate Patrice Bergeron won his second Selke Trophy as the best defensive forward. Duncan Keith of Chicago won his second Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman. Patrick Roy of Colorado won the Adams Award for top coach, and Nathan MacKinnon of the Avalanche, 18, became the youngest player to win the Calder Trophy as the N.H.L.’s rookie of the year. ■ Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick will be off the ice for up to three months after having wrist surgery. Quick was injured during the Kings’ second-round series victory over the Anaheim Ducks but kept playing while Los Angeles won its second Stanley Cup title in three years

Ice hockey
Awards
NHL
Sidney Crosby
Duncan Keith
Patrice Bergeron
Tuukka Rask
Patrick Roy
Nathan MacKinnon
Jonathan Quick


In Detailed Account, Blackmail Emerges as Motive for Killing in China

Abstract: BEIJING — Gu Kailai, the wife of one of China ’s most ambitious leaders, plotted with allies, including the local police chief, to protect her son from what she saw as the blackmail demands of the British business associate she confessed in court to killing, according to accounts of the trial that emerged on Friday, including one from the state-run Xinhua news agency. Prosecutors presented evidence at the trial on Thursday that the Briton, Neil Heywood, had demanded tens of millions of dollars from Ms. Gu’s son, locked him up in a residence in England and sent an e-mail threatening to “destroy” him. In response, prosecutors said, Ms. Gu sought help from the local police chief, who refused to go along with her plan to get rid of Mr. Heywood and secretly recorded her confession to him on the day after she poisoned Mr. Heywood. The tale was designed to give a rare glimpse into the darkest corners of a Chinese ruling family and its foreign ties. While it was impossible to confirm details independently, the prosecution’s case portrayed a dramatic struggle between Ms. Gu, 53; her Oxford- and Harvard-educated son, Bo Guagua, 24; and Mr. Heywood, 41, a longtime friend and business associate whose body was found in November in a hotel in Chongqing, the fog-wreathed central China metropolis governed for more than four years by Ms. Gu’s husband, Bo Xilai , a Politburo member. Ms. Gu and a family aide, Zhang Xiaojun, stood trial on Thursday in Hefei , Anhui Province. No verdict was delivered, but a court official said the defendants did not object to the charges. The details of the court arguments that emerged Friday were not included in a terse statement issued the previous day by officials. An account of the trial was posted on Friday morning on renren.com , a social networking Web site, by Zhao Xiangcha, a university student in Anhui who said he had been in the courtroom. He said he had written it from memory after the seven-hour trial adjourned. Most of the account, which was deleted from his renren.com page around noon, was confirmed in telephone interviews with Li Xiaolin, a lawyer for Mr. Zhang, and another lawyer in the courtroom. Late Friday, Xinhua published an account with many of the same details. In her statement to the court at the end of the trial, Ms. Gu confessed to murdering Mr. Heywood, the accounts said. “The case has been like a huge stone weighing on me for more than half a year,” Xinhua quoted her as telling the court. “What a nightmare.” Many legal experts say the trial was political theater and little more than a forum to present an official narrative of the crime. The defense was not able to cross-examine witnesses, and the session left many questions unanswered. For starters, it failed to address the towering issue of what Bo Xilai knew of the crime and whether he had a role in its execution or cover-up. Bo Guagua, the son, declined to comment for this article. Mr. Heywood’s mother said before the trial that the case was rooted in palace intrigue and asked not to be disturbed this week by posting a note on the front door of her home in London. Mr. Heywood’s wife, who is Chinese, could not be reached for comment. People at the trial said the defense lawyers argued that the poison might not have been enough to kill Mr. Heywood, and that he probably died from drinking too much alcohol that night. The lawyers also said that Ms. Gu suffered from manic depression and mild schizophrenia and was not in full control of her actions. According to the courtroom accounts, Mr. Heywood, a longtime resident of China, met Bo Guagua in England in 2003, while Xinhua reported it was in 2005. Mr. Heywood hoped his relationship with the Bo family would help further his business ambitions in China. (Western news reports have said Mr. Heywood met the Bo family in the 1990s in China.) Mr. Heywood was introduced to Xu Ming, a young billionaire and friend of the Bo family, in the northeast city of Dalian, where Bo Xilai had been mayor, and to a “princeling” executive at a state-owned enterprise surnamed Zhang. The businessmen later entered into real estate ventures that included a property deal in France and projects in Chongqing. Prosecutors said that the Chinese ventures failed because of political interference. Mr. Heywood then demanded from Bo Guagua 14 million pounds, about $22 million, which was 10 percent of the money Mr. Heywood had expected to earn if the ventures had succeeded, according to Mr. Li, the lawyer. He added that the prosecutors said Mr. Heywood sent threatening e-mails last year to the younger Mr. Bo; in one, Mr. Heywood wrote in English that he would “destroy” Mr. Bo. Mr. Heywood then locked Mr. Bo up in a home in England, according to Mr. Zhao’s account of the prosecutors’ case. Mr. Bo called his mother and told her about the abduction. In Chongqing, Ms. Gu asked Wang Lijun, the police chief, for help, but Mr. Wang said he could do nothing. It then occurred to Ms. Gu that she needed to get rid of Mr. Heywood to protect her son, whom she called “little rabbit” in e-mails, prosecutors said. According to Xinhua, Ms. Gu said: “The few days last November, when I learned my son’s life was at death’s door, my mind indeed collapsed.” In an earlier confession, prosecutors said, she had asserted, “I would fight with my life to stop Neil Heywood’s madness.” Ms. Gu, called “big rabbit” by her son, spoke with Mr. Wang about trying to frame Mr. Heywood as a drug dealer; on a visit to Chongqing, Mr. Heywood would then be shot dead by Mr. Wang during an attempted arrest. Mr. Wang helped in the plotting, but then refused to take part. Ms. Gu came up with a new plan and obtained a poison used for dogs or rats. Seven people who helped her procure it were arrested after the scandal broke. On Nov. 10, Zhang Xiaojun, 32, a retired soldier who was once a personal assistant to Ms. Gu’s father, an army general, flew to Beijing to invite Mr. Heywood to Chongqing. The prosecutors said Mr. Zhang was unaware of Ms. Gu’s intent to kill Mr. Heywood. Ms. Gu told Mr. Wang, the police chief, about her scheme on the afternoon of Nov. 13. Then she had dinner with Mr. Heywood. After dinner, Ms. Gu asked a driver to buy a bottle of Royal Salute whisky. She prepared vials of the poison and handed them to Mr. Zhang. He now knew about the plan and was initially unwilling to take part but acquiesced because of his history with the Gu family, prosecutors said. Around 11 p.m., they drove to the secluded Nanshan Lijing Resort, where Mr. Heywood was staying in Room 1605 of a villa. Ms. Gu went into the room alone and drank whisky with Mr. Heywood. He vomited and became woozy. Mr. Zhang came in and handed Ms. Gu the vials of poison. They put Mr. Heywood in bed. When he asked for water, Ms. Gu poured the poison into his mouth. She then spread drugs around the scene, prosecutors said. Ms. Gu and her associates left at 11:38 p.m. The next day, Ms. Gu told Mr. Wang about the murder. He secretly recorded the conversation. Hotel workers discovered Mr. Heywood’s body on Nov. 15. The police arrived, and Mr. Wang directed the investigation. To cover up Ms. Gu’s crime, he and several other officers managed to take away blood samples and other evidence for about a day, presumably to tamper with it. In January, however, Mr. Wang had a falling-out with the elder Mr. Bo, who then demoted him. Mr. Wang drove to the American Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6 and told diplomats there about the killing during an overnight stay. He left the next day, and Chinese security officials escorted him to Beijing. Prosecutors said he gave his secret recording to the authorities. Mr. Wang remains in detention and is expected to go on trial soon. On Friday evening, a court official in Hefei announced that four senior police officers tried that day for aiding Ms. Gu — Guo Weiguo, Li Yang, Wang Pengfei and Wang Zhi — had confessed to helping cover up the murder. Mr. Bo was dismissed as Chongqing party chief and suspended from the Politburo after Mr. Wang turned on him. He is being investigated for “serious disciplinary violations.” His name was barely mentioned at the trial.

Gu Kailai
Heywood Neil
Bo Guagua
Bo Xilai
Wang Lijun
Murders and Attempted Murders
China
Extortion and Blackmail


Obama Returning to Capital to Seek Fiscal Deal

Abstract: KAILUA, Hawaii — President Obama is planning to cut his Christmas vacation short and return to Washington to make a last-ditch push for a compromise on a tax and spending dispute that remains stubbornly unresolved. The White House said Tuesday that the president would leave Wednesday night. His family, however, will stay behind in Hawaii. Meanwhile, both chambers of Congress will come back from their holiday hiatus on Thursday and return to work. While there are growing signs that some members of both parties are prepared to accept a deal that raises taxes on people at the highest income levels, there is considerable distance between Republicans and Democrats and no guarantee that an agreement could pass. The president and Congress left Washington late last week after House Republicans rejected a plan that would have left tax rates in place for all but those with incomes above $1 million. Mr. Obama has since called for a less ambitious approach to avoid the “fiscal cliff” on Jan. 1, when a series of automatic budget cuts and tax increases will go into effect if Congress and the White House cannot come up with another course of action. The White House has been seeking a resolution through talks with Senate Democrats, who control the chamber and have gained the tacit support of some Republican colleagues. But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has given no indication that his members would not seek to block a deal that includes tax increases. The main obstacle remains the Republican-led House, where a bloc of conservatives has ruled out any tax increases whatsoever. Over the last four days, Mr. Obama has had a placid and uneventful vacation of golfing, hiking and exercising on a military base here on the island of Oahu, where he was raised and usually spends the holidays. But Tuesday was likely to be his last day of solitude for a while. With a fiscal deal still out of reach, the president can ill afford the public relations problems that would arise from being on vacation while the country heads uncertainly toward a deadline that could have a serious impact on the financial markets and the economy. On Tuesday, the Obamas had a quiet morning of opening presents and singing Christmas carols at their vacation house here on the southeastern tip of Oahu. Mr. Obama hit the gym around 10 a.m. Then in the afternoon, he and Michelle Obama made the five-minute trip down the road to the Marine Corps base where he thanked service members and their families and posed for pictures. “So many of you make sacrifices day in and day out on behalf of our freedom,” he told a mess hall filled with several hundred people. “Not only do those in uniform make sacrifices, but I think everybody here understands the sacrifices that families make each and every day as well.”

Obama Barack
United States Politics and Government
Federal Taxes (US)
Democratic Party
Republican Party
Federal Budget (US)


Syria Talks Proceed Despite Assassination of Russian Diplomat in Turkey

Abstract: MOSCOW — Russia and Turkey vowed on Tuesday not to let the assassination of a top Russian diplomat by an off-duty Turkish police officer derail their work or their fight against terrorism. Along with Iran, they pledged to expand a fragile cease-fire deal involving Syria’s government and the opposition. A team of 18 Russian investigators landed in Ankara to look into the killing of the envoy, Ambassador Andrey G. Karlov, whose body was to be returned to Russia on the same plane in which the investigators arrived. In Moscow, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, placed flowers next to a portrait of Mr. Karlov, who was fatally shot on Monday at a photography exhibition at an art center in Ankara, the capital. “Turkish people are mourning this loss as much as Russia and the people of Russia,” Mr. Cavusoglu told Mr. Lavrov at the ceremony. Mr. Lavrov said that Russia was “grateful to our Turkish colleagues” for their condolences and for their rapid response to the killing. “This tragedy is making all of us combat terrorism in a more resolute way and is making our meeting today ever more relevant,” Mr. Lavrov said. The assassination of Mr. Karlov — which appeared to be the first killing of a top Russian diplomat since before World War II — elicited widespread worry that relations between Russia and Turkey might deteriorate. But most analysts played down those fears, saying the attack was unlikely to derail the reconciliation between the countries that has been underway over the past year. At the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a makeshift plaque was unveiled to honor Mr. Karlov, who became a diplomat in 1976 for what was then the Soviet Union, and who was fluent in Korean, having served in posts in both North Korea and South Korea. He was named ambassador to Turkey in 2013. Turkish officials said on Tuesday that the street of the Russian Embassy in Ankara would be renamed to honor Mr. Karlov. Marina Karlova, the ambassador’s widow, held red carnations and cried as she watched Turkish soldiers carrying her husband’s coffin, draped in a Russian flag, into a plane to be returned home. Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, is to lead a funeral service for the diplomat at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Video President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said the fatal shooting of Russia’s ambassador in front of stunned onlookers at a photo exhibit in Ankara was aimed specifically at derailing closer ties between Turkey and Russia. Credit Credit Reuters The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry S. Peskov, said of the killing, “This is advantageous to those who wish to drive a wedge between Russia and Turkey, to hamper normalization of relations between Russia and Turkey — both in a bilateral sense and in terms of relations that allow to intensify and unite efforts on the way to political settlement in Syria.” The attack is, however, an embarrassment for the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and it has prompted questions about how the gunman, identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, was able to enter the exhibition — “Across Russia, From Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, Through the Eyes of Travelers” — and shoot Mr. Karlov in front of a horrified crowd. The gunman was fatally shot by police officers. The Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported that six people had been detained in the investigation, including the attacker’s mother, father and sister in the western city of Aydin, and his roommate in Ankara. According to a preliminary forensic report, the gunman fired 11 rounds, nine of which hit the ambassador, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported. The gunman had checked into a hotel just behind the art center and planned the assassination there, Hurriyet said. After the shooting, the gunman stood over the body of the ambassador and shouted, “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria!” According to the Dogan News Agency, the assailant’s uncle, also detained after the attack, used to be the principal in a network of schools that were shut down over alleged ties to the cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the United States and is a major opponent of Mr. Erdogan’s government. Mr. Gulen, through a representative, has denied any role in the assassination. Murat Yetkin, in a column for Hurriyet, said the fact that the gunman was killed — rather than captured — would hinder the investigation. “If it was possible to capture him intact or wounded, but he was killed instead in a gunfight, this is like a sabotage,” Mr. Yetkin wrote. Officials in the Cankaya section of Ankara said that the Contemporary Arts Center, which is owned by the municipality, was protected by five private security guards and had cameras on every floor, as well as scanning machines. “It has been determined that on the day of this hateful attack, the security guard warned the assailant for not passing through X-ray machine, and the assailant then showed his official police ID,” the municipality said. A Russian deputy foreign minister, Oleg Syromolotov, told the Interfax news agency that Russian citizens should “think twice” before going to Turkey, where terrorist attacks occur “almost on a daily basis.” The United States closed normal operations at its embassy in Ankara on Tuesday, and at its consulates in Istanbul and Adana, after a person approached the embassy and discharged a firearm at 3:50 a.m., the embassy said. The person was taken into police custody, and no one was injured.

Assassination
Politics
Andrey Karlov
Ankara
Moscow
Syria