In the Birthplace of Pizza, Pollution Rules for Ovens Spur Outrage

Abstract: SAN VITALIANO, Italy — If there is one label that Antonio Falcone, a doctor turned civic leader, does not want to be known by, it is “the anti-pizza mayor.” Yet that is how notoriety caught up with the mayor of this small town in the Neapolitan hinterland in late December when, in an effort to decrease air pollution, he issued an ordinance banning the use of wood-fired stoves not equipped with filters that reduce toxic air pollutants. The ban affects family homes with chimneys as well as businesses like bakeries, restaurants and — most controversially — wood-burning pizzerias, the gastronomic boast of an area known as the birthplace of one of Italy’s most renowned culinary exports. Outrage was guaranteed. “We’ve even been compared to China,” complained Pasquale Tufano of Ristorante La Vigna, piqued that the town’s half-dozen pizzerias had been singled out and equated with a country whose capital, Beijing, announced its first-ever toxic smog red alert last month. The mayor here was attacked on social media. There were public protests and calls for his resignation. “I became the anti-pizza mayor,” said Mr. Falcone, adding that he acted only in San Vitaliano’s best interests. “I am responsible for the health of the citizens of this town. We had to start somewhere.” In fact, Mr. Falcone was one of dozens of Italian mayors who adopted emergency measures last month after a prolonged dry spell repeatedly pushed air pollutants beyond legal limits. Rome, which has been trying to reduce car emissions to help clean the air, restricted driving to days based on the odd or even numbers at the end of license plates. Milan banned all traffic for three consecutive days, to little effect. Milan and other cities even banned fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Image “I became the anti-pizza mayor,” said Mr. Falcone, adding that the new ordinance was in San Vitaliano’s best interests. “I am responsible for the health of the citizens of this town. We had to start somewhere.” Credit Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times Italy is one of the worst countries in Europe for air quality. The country has a heavily industrialized north, poorly maintained private furnaces, growing traffic congestion, widespread use of diesel fuel and years of neglectful spending on infrastructure for freight trains and public transportation, environmentalists say. Even the geography hurts Italy, with its mountains and valleys preventing much-needed air circulation. A 2015 government study found that some 30,000 Italians died as a result of air pollution each year. As pollution levels rose this winter, and municipalities imposed bans on sources of pollution, the nation’s environment minister held an emergency meeting in Rome with representatives of Italy’s regions and municipalities. The group proposed turning down thermostats in homes and offices, reducing city speed limits, scrapping older cars, encouraging public transportation and limiting the use of chimneys. But none of the measures were legally binding, and short of a nationally integrated approach to fighting pollution — Italy currently lacks one — the responsibility falls to mayors like Mr. Falcone. The local ordinance gives pizzerias and other businesses until Feb. 29 to equip their ovens with appropriate filters. Starting March 1, inspectors will begin making their rounds. “We’re giving them time to prepare themselves. It’s a question of civility,” said Tulliano Carpino, who heads the town’s technical department. Let the inspectors come, said a defiant Giovanni Arricchiello, the owner of Il Cavallino restaurant, which is along the long strip mall along one edge of San Vitaliano. Like other local pizza makers, Mr. Arricchiello already has pollution filters on his ovens, so the ordinance should not affect them. “You can’t get a restaurant license without them,” he said of the filters, producing a folder containing a photo of his high-tech one, as well as the restaurant’s annual maintenance records. The vast majority of San Vitaliano’s pizzerias say they have the proper filters in place. Pizza ovens aside, Mr. Falcone said the main causes of San Vitaliano’s air pollution remained a mystery. Traffic can be intense, but the town, about 15 miles northeast of Naples, is quite small, he said, and there are no major industries. The town, however, abuts a highway cloverleaf, and is part of the densely populated Naples area, in a region known for illegal incineration of toxic waste by organized crime. Vincenzo Russo, the council member responsible for the environment, proposed that cheap, chemically treated pellets used in stoves and boilers might be a culprit. San Vitaliano’s leaders, he said, have also begun a study with the nearby University of Naples Federico II to determine — among other possible causes — what impact a waste-to-energy plant in Acerra, a town less than 12 miles away, might be having on its neighbor. “But the message that has gotten through is that the mayor is anti-pizza,” Mr. Russo said. When Mr. Falcone called for a meeting with representatives from neighboring cities to discuss the pollution issue, only two midlevel administrators showed up, he said. Locals say they have been wrongly singled out and are being punished because San Vitaliano is the only town in the area that has an air quality monitor, which became operational about a year ago. “Pollution is a real problem for all the area, but we’ve got the only monitor, so we got caught in the crossfire,” said Mr. Tufano, whose pizzeria, La Vigna, is equipped with filters. Image A view of San Vitaliano, about 15 miles northeast of Naples. Italy is one of the worst countries in Europe for air quality. The country has a heavily industrialized north, growing traffic congestion, widespread use of diesel fuel and years of neglectful spending on infrastructure for freight trains and public transportation. Credit Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times He said that he spent the better part of the last two weeks reassuring customers that his pizzeria had not been shut down. “I had to explain that we’ve got all our papers in order,” he said. “If anything, I told them that they should not light their chimneys.” Rains that have swept through Italy since the beginning of the year have reduced pollution levels and could help sweep the problem away, as they have in the past. “We’re the first people who enjoy pizza, but the question is bigger. There’s an anthropological disaster in play,” said Mr. Falcone, standing by his ordinance. “The important thing is to make people aware and sensitive.” But some experts and environmentalists, while supportive of the measures proposed by the Italian government, remained skeptical that they would do much good without a more concerted national effort. “We need to decarbonize our society, that’s what it comes down to, to invest in a real green economy,” said Nicola Pirrone, director of the Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research at Italy’s National Research Council. “We still don’t have a long-term strategic vision.” Pizza makers scoffed, too, in light of the rather obvious fact that polluted air moves, and complained that the ordinance would do little good if it applied only to San Vitaliano, barely a blip within the large Naples metropolitan area. “What are the other mayors doing? They’re pretending like nothing is happening,” said Antonio Mercadante, a local baker who said his ovens passed muster. He understood why the mayor had issued the ordinance, but unless other towns took measures, the baker added, “it’s just a joke.”

San Vitaliano
Air pollution
Ovens and Stoves
Pizza
Antonio Falcone
Restaurant


New Jersey Theaters Hit by Freeze in State Financing

Abstract: The audience may not recognize them, but the signs of deep recession are scattered about the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey in Madison. The set — walls, arches, topiaries — for “Twelfth Night” is made mostly of shredded paper, to save money. Notes about the production have been cut from programs, to save paper. One of this season’s shows was cut altogether. Jobs have gone unfilled, raises were halted and staff members took furloughs. And all that came before the latest bit of bad news: A few weeks ago, the theater — along with all other arts organizations in New Jersey — learned abruptly that the state had frozen its grants, as New Jersey’s government grapples with an $8 billion deficit. The freeze came after a request from Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie to halt all discretionary spending; aid to municipalities was also affected. Some $12 million for about 200 arts groups — including grants of up to $600,000 for 26 local theaters that are crucial to their financial health — is on hold. “This is so life-threatening right now,” said Bonnie J. Monte , artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater, a respected company in its 47th season. “We have no money coming in. That money has been budgeted and promised to vendors. It’s not just another cut. This is a death sentence for many, many places.” Tom Vincz, director of communications for the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, said that the freeze would be temporary, and noted that Gov. Jon S. Corzine was expected to make a budget announcement soon. “This is not a cut; this a freeze,” Mr. Vincz said. “The funding is on hold. Anyone who is concerned about the status of their funding should pay close attention between now and Christmas, when the solutions will be finalized.” But leaders of arts groups are worried that even if the money is released, they will suffer drastic cuts in next year’s budget. After all, the freeze comes after 18 months of extreme financial difficulty for regional and nonprofit theaters, not just in New Jersey but across the New York region and around the country. Along with significant drops in financing from foundations, local and state governments and corporations, some of these theaters have seen ticket sales suffer as families tighten their entertainment budgets. Theater directors have creatively tackled the hardship by offering promotions and discounts, producing plays with fewer actors and, when possible, relying on well-known, crowd-pleasing productions like “42nd Street” and “Camelot” (both recently staged at Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Conn.). A chief goal was to keep the adjustments invisible to the audience. At Hartford Stage , an award-winning nonprofit theater in Connecticut’s capital, six jobs were cut, along with several performances. On Long Island, the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor has survived the year only because of the response to an urgent appeal for donations. And in Westchester County, the nonprofit White Plains Performing Arts Center postponed its production of “Hello, Dolly!” this year because of financial constraints. In New Jersey, Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for Mr. Christie, said the governor-elect sent a letter to Governor Corzine asking him “to take a series of steps” until the new administration could assess the fiscal situation and make recommendations. Among them was the freeze on discretionary spending. Ms. Comella said that Mr. Christie, a Republican, did not get a response from Mr. Corzine, a Democrat; in addition to the arts financing, aid to municipalities has been frozen. “There are a lot of tough decisions and there will be cuts ahead,” Ms. Comella said. “Governor-elect Christie has formed a task force, and there are ongoing meetings with Treasury to get an accurate picture. At the end, the task force will put forward recommendations.” Financing for New Jersey theaters and other arts organizations had been relatively secure since 2003, when a law directed that a portion of the state’s 7 percent hotel and motel tax go to the New Jersey State Council on the Arts , in part to avoid yearly legislative wrangling. The hotel tax raised $86.3 million in 2008, up from $84.2 million the year before, and the arts groups have generally received about a quarter of it; this year, officials say the revenue is likely to be about $74 million. “There is a blanket assumption that if we stop funding the arts my property taxes will go down, and that is not the case,” said David Lee White, the associate artistic director for Passage Theater in Trenton. The Shakespeare Theater saw its $4.4 million budget drop by $300,000 this year. Ms. Monte said she was relying on $164,000 from the state this month to pay for printing, royalty rights, payroll and pension costs, among other things. “While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it is when you are operating on a down-to-the-bone budget already,” Ms. Monte said. She said the theater had delayed announcing next season’s program because Shakespeare productions require many actors and she was not yet sure what it could afford. Playwrights Theater , also in Madison, saw its budget drop to $850,000 from $1.1 million two years ago. John Pietrowski, the artistic director, said he had let some leases on a copy machine and a bulk mailing program expire, cut marketing spending by 45 percent, put on plays with small casts, reduced ticket prices and shared the production of the theater’s first two shows this season with another theater. In addition to decreases in its foundation and government support, the theater’s earned income, from ticket sales and class tuition, fell 33 percent. “We knew what we were up against,” he said. “It’s not like we’re a bunch of dolts around here. The majority of people I work with in the arts and theater are very savvy business people.” Mr. Pietrowski said he could live without the $115,000 state grant he expected this month — until March. “If it’s not coming back, that’s a whole different kettle of fish, and I can’t tell you what would happen,” he said. At the George Street Playhouse , a theater in New Brunswick that features original works, losing even $200,000 from last year’s $4.2 million budget meant sharp repercussions, said its managing director, Todd Schmidt. Employees took salary cuts of 5 percent to 10 percent, and two positions were eliminated. The playhouse is waiting for its $125,000 state grant to make ends meet, Mr. Schmidt said. Even the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, a regional powerhouse, is concerned about the situation. “This is the cherry on top of the nonprofit sundae,” Timothy J. Shields, the theater’s managing director, said of the state freeze. “This came as a complete surprise to us.” McCarter reduced its budget this year to $11.3 million, from $11.8 million in 2008. It laid off five employees, reduced travel and froze salaries. This month, the theater was expecting 85 percent of its $617,000 in grant money. Mr. Shields said that he was reluctant to back out of contracts with actors for the upcoming season, but that he was not sure where else he could cut. The center’s education program, which includes after-school classes and summer residency workshops for budding playwrights, are vulnerable. “We are sort of at our wits’ end to figure out how we can get through this to produce the kind of theater that our audiences are used to,” Mr. Shields said. “It’s extremely tough to balance the choices here that have to be made. If the state money doesn’t appear, we are looking at a scenario that is very damaging.”

Theater
New Jersey
Budgets and Budgeting
Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey
Playwrights Theater
George Street Playhouse
McCarter Theater
Christie Christopher J
Corzine Jon S
Monte Bonnie J


Finding Untainted Jurors in the Age of the Internet

Abstract: WASHINGTON — When Enron collapsed in 2001, thousands of employees at its Houston headquarters lost their jobs and savings, and the city’s economy reeled. Much of the public’s anger was directed at Jeffrey K. Skilling , the company’s former chief executive. A Houston Chronicle column about his trial on fraud charges was headlined “Your Tar and Feathers Ready? Mine Are.” A rap song appeared called “Drop the S Off Skilling.” And potential jurors in Mr. Skilling’s trial told the court that he was “a high-class crook” who “should be reduced to having to beg on the corner and live under a bridge.” The Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on whether Mr. Skilling’s conviction should be overturned because the prejudice against him in Houston was so strong and pervasive that he could not receive a fair trial. It has been two decades since the Supreme Court has considered a major change of venue case, and its jurisprudence is still rooted in decisions based on small communities dominated by a single local newspaper and perhaps a few local television news outlets. The law has been slow to adapt to a more general, more intense and yet more atomized media environment. How potential jurors become informed in the Internet era, experts in jury behavior said, cuts in two directions. It may now be harder than ever for defendants to find wholly untainted jurors in their own communities. At the same time, a change of venue in a truly high-profile case is less likely than ever to solve the problem. In a brief to the Supreme Court in the Skilling case, the federal government urged the court not to adopt an approach prompted by the proliferation of new media that would mean “no trial will be possible in the most nationally significant cases.” To a far greater extent than in recent history, Solicitor General Elena Kagan told the court, “publicity of noteworthy events and prosecutions is nationwide in scope.” “By its nature,” Ms. Kagan continued, “media coverage carried on national networks, cable stations and the Internet is not confined to the venue in which the crime is committed.” Some legal experts said that little could be done to control the intensity of news coverage in highly publicized cases. “In national cases, pretrial publicity effects may not be remedied in any imaginable way,” said Steven D. Penrod, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, “because there are not venues in which there is no prejudice.” The court’s decision about how trial courts should respond to claims of prejudicial pretrial publicity may have a lasting and widespread impact. “They don’t address this a lot,” Laurie L. Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles , said of the justices. “What does change of venue mean in the age of the Internet?” The proposed trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Manhattan presented perhaps the most extreme example of this conundrum. Had the trial proceeded there, a change of venue motion based on local news coverage and community outrage was almost inevitable, given Mr. Mohammed’s confession to planning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But would that intensity of feeling be any less anywhere else in the United States ? The trial of Timothy J. McVeigh for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City , which killed 168 people, was moved from Oklahoma City to Denver . (Mr. McVeigh was convicted and later executed.) The judge in the case, Richard P. Matsch , explained why he had granted a change of venue motion: “The entire state had become a unified community, sharing the emotional trauma of those who had been directly victimized.” Shari Seidman Diamond of Northwestern University , an authority on jury behavior, saw a parallel to Enron’s collapse. “Houston was really hurt,” she said. “It was an assault on the community. The Enron-Houston link was palpably present in the same way that there was an intensity of feeling in Oklahoma City in the McVeigh case.” Mr. Skilling’s Supreme Court case has received more attention for a second issue it presents, that of whether the law under which he was convicted is unconstitutionally vague. His is the third Supreme Court case this term considering the law, which makes it a crime to deprive another person of honest services. The touchstone case on the change of venue issue is a decision from almost 50 years ago in which the Supreme Court threw out the conviction of Wilbert Rideau for the 1961 murder of a bank teller in Lake Charles, La. The local television station broadcast Mr. Rideau’s 20-minute filmed interrogation three times over two days, reaching an estimated 20,000 to 53,000 people each time. Lake Charles’s population was about 150,000. “Any subsequent court proceedings in a community so pervasively exposed to such a spectacle could be but a hollow formality,” Justice Potter Stewart wrote for the majority in the 7-to-2 decision. Mr. Rideau, who went on to be an acclaimed prison journalist, was released after a fourth trial in 2005. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans , was equivocal last year in affirming the trial judge’s decision to keep the Skilling trial in Houston. There was, a three-judge panel of the court said, a “pervasive community bias against those who oversaw Enron’s collapse.” There was also, the panel said, “an extreme situation of inflammatory pretrial prejudice that literally saturated the community.” But it found that the prejudice had been overcome through a careful selection of jurors. In its brief to the court, the federal government also said that any threat of bias had been countered by meticulous care in jury selection. More than a dozen news organizations, including The New York Times Company , filed a brief siding with the government. The brief argued that decisions on whether to move trials should not be based solely on the volume and tenor of news coverage. It added that a decision in Mr. Skilling’s favor might prompt trial judges to cut back on public access to the courts. Mr. Skilling contends that the judge’s oral questioning of jurors in his case, lasting five hours, was too brief. Questioning of jurors for the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui , who was later convicted of conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, took two weeks. Questioning in the McVeigh trial took 18 days — after it was moved from Oklahoma City to Denver. Some social science research indicates that jurors can be unaware of biases prompted by public controversy, and are reluctant to admit to them in any event. But many judges and experts in jury behavior say it is not particularly difficult to find unbiased — indeed, profoundly uninformed — jurors. “This may come as a surprise to lawyers and judges,” the full United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote in an unsigned decision affirming the convictions of top aides of President Richard M. Nixon in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, “but it is simply a fact of life that matters which interest them may be less fascinating to the public generally.”

Jeffrey K Skilling
Supreme Court
Decisions and Verdicts
Enron
Jury


Navy Robots Test the Limits of Autonomy

Abstract: This is the second episode in a Bits video series, called Robotica, examining how robots are poised to change the way we do business and conduct our daily lives. At a naval research facility along a stretch of the Pacific Coast in San Diego, civilian engineers work alongside active-duty troops to develop and test the next generation of military robots. The engineers are members of the Unmanned Systems Group at Spawar, or Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, a research and operations arm of the Navy. Their mandate is simple: Take the soldier out of the minefield. When autonomous systems are deployed, engineers at the center say they will revolutionize the way the military fights. They envision a day when one soldier will control an entire fleet of driverless trucks, or a driverless vehicle will make a road safe for a Humvee full of troops. They could also assist in detecting and combatting chemical or biological warfare. Chris Scrapper is leading a team of engineers who envision an autonomous future. On a recent afternoon, they were tapping away at computers to analyze data from a failed run with RaDer (it stands for reconnaissance and detection expendable rover), the boxy black vehicle they’re trying to make drive on its own. It’s hard to say when autonomous technologies will be ready for use in combat, Mr. Scrapper said, adding, “It depends on the threat level.” Remote-controlled unmanned robots have been in use by the military for over a decade. The Packbot from iRobot defuses bombs; armed drones track and strike their targets; and the MK-18, an underwater torpedo-shaped vehicle, mimics a dolphin’s sonar to locate mines on the ocean floor. What these robots have in common is that there is one person directly controlling them. Mr. Scrapper and his colleagues see the future of combat as using fewer humans to control more machines. While there will always be a human operator involved, they say, that operator may be in touch with several autonomous devices at a time. Mr. Scrapper says that the technology they have developed is “mission-agnostic and platform-agnostic,” meaning that the same technology that makes a Humvee autonomous could be incorporated into a boat or a bomb-defusing robot. So while he says his engineers are not working on weaponizing autonomous robots , their technology could be used for that purpose in the future. His goal, and the one funded by the Office of Naval Research, is to make a tool that keeps troops out of harm’s way and frees them up for tasks that require human ingenuity and imagination. — Emma Cott

Robot
Research
Military vehicle
Office of Naval Research
Spawar
Driverless Cars,Self-Driving Cars
US Military


Database Tracks ‘Tigers and Flies’ Caught in Xi Jinping’s Corruption Crackdown

Abstract: Two days after taking control of the world’s most powerful political party in November 2012, Xi Jinping warned his fellow Chinese Communist Party members that their six decades of rule was in jeopardy because of what he saw as endemic corruption eating away at the party’s authority and effectiveness. Early that December, a deputy party secretary in Sichuan Province, Li Chuncheng , became the first senior official to fall under Mr. Xi’s anticorruption campaign. Many other officials followed over the next three years, both “tigers” (senior officials) and “flies” (lower-ranking cadres). In fact, so many have fallen — more than 140 tigers and thousands of flies — that it is very difficult for China scholars and journalists to keep track of them all and spot patterns in the crackdown. Staff members at ChinaFile , an online magazine run by the Asia Society, have now made that task easier. They have spent months compiling the corruption cases announced since Mr. Xi took power, and presenting them in a visual format online . The fall of a Chinese official is not easy to represent graphically. There are circles of hell that they pass through. First comes the announcement by the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection that an official is under investigation, often accompanied by an announcement of the official’s dismissal. Many officials are then expelled from the party and referred to the criminal justice system for prosecution. Last comes the trial and the nearly inevitable guilty verdict. The ChinaFile “Catching Tigers and Flies” database aims to document each phase, as well as the links between those caught up in the campaign. The eyes of journalists following China may glaze over each time Xinhua or China Central Television announces that yet another vice mayor of a regional capital has lost his or her job. But the same information viewed in aggregate, sorted by geography, chronology or sector, yields some fascinating — and newsworthy — patterns. ChinaFile’s visual tool can be sorted geographically by province, chronologically, by sector (military, politics, law, petroleum, and mining, for example), and even between tigers and flies. Here is an example of how the database can be used to illustrate, or even anchor, journalism and scholarly research. Correlation does not imply causation, but the tool uncovers an interesting pattern: Provinces where Mr. Xi served for many years have not seen as many top officials fall in corruption campaigns as neighboring provinces. In Fujian, a province racked by a widespread smuggling scandal in the 1990s, while Mr. Xi was rising in the ranks — on his way to the governorship by the end of the decade — only two senior officials have been toppled , and both only last year. In contrast, in neighboring Jiangxi Province, with a similar population, five senior officials have been toppled, the first in 2013. Immediately to the north of Fujian is wealthy Zhejiang Province. Mr. Xi, who became the country’s president in March 2013, was the top official there from 2002 to 2007. Not counting two major generals assigned to the province, only two top officials there have fallen, both for adultery and the first only at the end of 2014, two years into the anticorruption campaign, according to the ChinaFile database. Nationwide, ChinaFile tracked 146 senior officials and 1,316 lower-ranking officials who have been under investigation, expelled from the party, or tried and convicted. The database actually starts more than a year before Mr. Xi took power, but the handful of officials who fell in that year illustrates how extensive this campaign has been. Hovering above the individual stick figures on the database representing the 1,462 officials who have been tracked displays connections to other fallen cadres. The former security chief, Zhou Yongkang , expelled from the party in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison for corruption in 2015, for example, generates a spider web of links to disgraced former officials in his circle of influence.

Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Communist Party of China


Obama Administration Ends Effort to Train Syrians to Combat ISIS

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday abandoned its efforts to build up a new rebel force inside Syria to combat the Islamic State, acknowledging the failure of its $500 million campaign to train thousands of fighters and announcing that it will instead use the money to provide ammunition and some weapons for groups already engaged in the battle. Defense Department training sites across the Middle East, including ones in Turkey and Jordan, will soon suspend almost all operations, officials said, in favor of a revamped program that briefly screens Arab rebel commanders of existing Syrian units before equipping them with much-needed ammunition and, potentially, small arms. Initial airdrops of equipment could begin as early as this weekend, officials said. The decision to scuttle a central piece of President Obama’s strategy for confronting extremists in Syria was made after mounting evidence that the training mission had resulted in no more than a handful of American-coached fighters. And it comes amid Russia’s forceful entry into the Syrian conflict , a move by President Vladimir V. Putin that has highlighted the lack of progress by the United States and its coalition. Senior officials at the White House and the Pentagon admitted that the strategy to pull fighters out of Syria, teach them advanced combat skills and return them to face the Islamic State had simply not worked, in part because many of the rebel groups were more focused on fighting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. But officials said they were trying to adapt in real time by seeking to identify the leaders of “capable, indigenous forces” in Syria who would sign a pledge to fight the Islamic State group, receive some instruction on human rights, review the law of armed conflict, and leave with communications gear and some help on how to call in airstrikes. Officials said the provision of equipment to the groups would be limited at first, but could grow depending on a rebel group’s performance. Failure on the battlefield or the loss of weapons that could fall into the hands of extremists could result in a cutoff of military equipment, officials said. The American military has confirmed that some rebel groups surrendered their weapons when confronted by extremists, and it has acknowledged that accounting for American-supplied arms across the battlefield proved almost impossible in the past. The new program would be the first time the Pentagon has provided lethal aid directly to Syrian rebels, though the C.I.A. has for some time been covertly training and arming groups fighting Mr. Assad. Syria and Rebels Battle for Aleppo as Cease-Fire Collapses A drastic escalation of fighting in Aleppo has shattered a partial truce. “We need to be flexible. We need to be adaptive,” said Brett McGurk, a top adviser to Mr. Obama on the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. He added later, “Is it best to take those guys out and put them through training, or to keep them on the line fighting and give them equipment and support?” For Mr. Obama, Friday’s answer to that question was a reversal of policy that underscored a harsh reality: tens of billions of dollars spent in recent years to train security forces across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have rarely succeeded in transforming local fighters into effective, long-term armies. The president has long expressed skepticism that training Syrian rebels could resolve the political and military challenges in that country. Mr. Obama’s advisers insisted that he remained committed to a broader strategy in Syria that seeks to destroy the Islamic State even as the United States and its allies pursue a political transition that pushes Mr. Assad out of power. But Mr. Obama’s critics seized on the admission of failure in the training program to demand a new strategy. “The administration has had a weak, inadequate policy in Syria and a weak, inadequate policy against ISIS,” said Representative Mac Thornberry, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “Adjusting one program, even if it were successful, will not solve the problem.” Senator John McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the shift in strategy was doomed because the United States is unwilling to support rebels fighting against Mr. Assad as well as against the Islamic State. He called it “inexplicable that the administration acknowledges this problem yet refuses to fix it.” In a letter to the State Department, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. last week, four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — criticized the program. “The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote . “As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat.” The letter referred to a recent incident in which some of the American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their United States-provided equipment, including six pickup trucks and a portion of their ammunition, to the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front. White House and Defense Department officials said Friday that the equipment to be provided to the rebel groups would not include antitank rockets or other high-end equipment that could eventually cause serious damage if they fall into the hands of groups that commit acts of terrorism against the United States or its allies. How Syrians Are Dying Over four years of war has forced more than four million to flee the country, fueling a migrant crisis in the Middle East and Europe. “We are very careful to provide support to groups who are not involved in that type of activity,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. Pentagon officials on Friday announced what they called the “operational pause” in the training program as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter left London after meetings with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, about the continuing wars in Syria and Iraq. Officials said they held out the possibility that some training might resume. “I wasn’t happy with the early efforts” of the program, Mr. Carter said during a news conference with Mr. Fallon. “So we have devised a number of different approaches.” The changes make official what those in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the administration have been saying in the wake of revelations that the program at one point last month had only “four or five” trainees fighting in Syria — a far cry from the plan formally started in December to prepare as many as 5,400 fighters this year, and 15,000 over the next three years. “There are many, many individuals in Syria who want to fight the regime,” said Christine E. Wormuth, the under secretary of defense for policy. “We were focused on identifying individuals who wanted to fight ISIL. And that’s a pretty challenging recruiting mission.” Several dozen opposition fighters already at the training sites are likely to complete their instruction — learning to help call in allied airstrikes and operate 122-millimeter mortars — and they will be placed in opposition groups in Syria to enhance their combat effectiveness, officials said. But even as it shutters the existing program, the administration is hoping to bolster groups already fighting in Syria. In part, American attention is shifting to northeastern Syria, where officials hope to assemble a group of Sunni tribes in a “Syrian Arab Coalition” to fight alongside Syrian Kurdish forces against the Islamic State. Anti-Assad insurgents say they have never heard of a group called the Syrian Arab Coalition, though they welcome the prospect of increased support. “We have received large promises surrounding future military aid, and we really did begin to receive equipment,” a spokesman for Thuwwar al-Raqqa, a Sunni group that has worked with the Kurds, told the website Syria Direct . But many Arabs, especially in northeastern Syria, where there are large Kurdish populations, are wary of the Kurds’ project to create semiautonomous areas and have accused Kurdish militias of carrying out ethnic cleansing in the mixed area. Ahmad Abu Bakr, an activist from Raqqa who was reached in Idlib, said that he had not heard of the Syrian Arab Coalition, but that he was against any movement to cooperate with the Kurds. “For us, they are an enemy, not a friend,” he said. Even some Arabs who defected from the Syrian Army have refused to join the group, he said. Kurds were part of the campaign “because the Americans will be sending powerful weapons only if the Kurds are part of it,” he said. “The U.S. doesn’t trust anyone except the Kurds.” The new program will arm only Arab groups, not Kurdish forces, out of deference to Turkish concerns, officials said. American officials said Friday that coalition air power would support the new Syrian Arab allies on the ground, just as those planes have helped Syrian Kurdish fighters over recent months. The new program will begin in the next few days, officials said. While many details still need to be worked out, Mr. Obama endorsed the shift in strategy at two high-level meetings with his national security and foreign policy advisers last week. The administration was expected to provide classified briefings to lawmakers and their senior aides on Capitol Hill on Friday to explain the changes to the train-and-equip program. Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy , said the failure of the training mission was another example of the United States’ misunderstanding the real dynamic in a foreign country. “The opposition and their regional backers wanted the program, they just couldn’t accept ISIS as the priority and U.S. ambiguity on taking out Assad,” Mr. Tabler said. “Like in the Iraq war, you can’t expect people to fight on your behalf unless you give them what they want. We got the politics wrong yet again.”

Syria
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Pentagon
US Military
US Politics
Ashton Carter
Michael Fallon


'India Everywhere' in the Alps

Abstract: DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 25 - Delhi swept into Davos on Wednesday, with an extravagant public relations campaign by India intended to promote the country as the world's next economic superstar, and as a democratic alternative to China for the affections of foreign investors. There were few places one could go, on this first day of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting here, without seeing, hearing, drinking, or tasting something Indian. The organizers call the campaign "India Everywhere" and they appear to mean it literally. "The last two years, we felt there was too much about China, and India wasn't being heard," said Ajay Khanna, the chief executive of the India Brand Equity Foundation, which is orchestrating the promotion. "This year, we decided to make a major effort to give India a voice." There is little danger of India's being drowned out, with a 150-member delegation, including 3 cabinet ministers and 41 chief executives. Mr. Khanna estimated the total cost of the campaign and the travel expenses at $5 million. Never before, officials of the forum said, has a country mounted such an elaborate charm offensive at Davos. "We're going to showcase the arrival of the global Indian entrepreneur," said Nandan M. Nilekani, the chief executive of Infosys Technologies, which grew to $2 billion in sales in 2005 from $120 million in 1999 and has come to symbolize India's vaulting ambitions. The question is whether India's unspoken message -- that it is another China -- is credible. After all, China still grows faster than India, has attracted 10 times the foreign direct investment and has built a gleaming network of airports and highways that make India look ramshackle. "There are a number of areas where people gloss over India's challenges," said Jim O'Neill, the head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs, citing India's inadequate education system and barriers to foreign ownership of Indian assets as significant weaknesses. "It's starting to be tricky to find skilled workers there," Mr. O'Neill said. "India is also a very closed economy." Goldman contributed to the euphoria about India, by projecting that its economy could be 50 times its current size by 2050, which would make it the world's third largest, after China and the United States. But Mr. O'Neill said that when he ranked countries by the potential risks to their growth -- everything from inflation to corruption -- India ranked 97th in the world, behind Brazil and the Philippines. Indian entrepreneurs concede their country has problems. Social tensions from mass migration and the fragility of the current government could disrupt development. Roads and airports remain woeful, and construction projects are often snarled in bureaucracy. "If you want to make Barbie dolls, don't come to India," said Anand G. Mahindra, the head of one of India's largest conglomerates. "Because if you order one million of them, they'll probably be held up in traffic from Mumbai to the port," he said, using the post-colonial name for Bombay. Still, India is beginning to enjoy China-like growth, expanding 8.1 percent from April to June 2005. Its gross domestic product will expand by an average of 6.1 percent a year from 2005 to 2010, according to Goldman. Advertisements on buses here promote India as the world's "fastest-growing free-market democracy" -- a not-so-subtle reference to China, which has done little to relax the grip of the Communist Party over society. India, by contrast, is a clamorous democracy, with 675 million eligible voters. "Democracy is a big advantage for us," said Malvinder M. Singh, the president of Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's top drug company. "It is not the only advantage, but it is definitely one big advantage." Mr. Singh, a 33-year-old with an M.B.A. from Duke University, said India's strength in chemistry had given its pharmaceutical industry an edge over that of China. While Chinese companies focus on raw materials, he said, Ranbaxy produces generic drugs and plans to expand its proprietary products. Despite the constant comparisons to China, most Indians insist the two are not competing, and can both prosper. "I call it Chindia," joked Nikhil Meswani, the executive director of Reliance Industries. With companies like Reliance, Ranbaxy and Infosys already global competitors, experts say India's further development will hinge largely on whether the government can loosen up the labor market, build decent roads and airports, and knock down hurdles to foreign investment. India, for example, still prohibits Wal-Mart and Carrefour, Europe's largest retailer, from opening stores in the country. But this week, it announced that it would allow single-brand merchants, like Tommy Hilfiger, to open shops. "I'm sure people in the government wanted it to be done in time for Davos," said Montek S. Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the Indian Planning Commission, "but it wasn't done for Davos." India has left little else to chance in its courting of people here. It has organized daily news conferences and happy hours, as well as an art exhibit. For the gala ball, which will have an Indian theme, it is flying in chefs from 14 Taj luxury hotels to whip up Indian cuisine. In their hotel rooms on Wednesday, participants found tiny iPods with Indian music recorded on them, and Pashmina stoles, described as a "gift from the Himalayas to keep you warm in the Alps." Mr. Nilekani said he hoped the campaign would polish India's image and attract tourists, as well as some foreign investment. At a cost of $5 million, he noted, "we get a lot of bang for our buck."

INDIA
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND TRENDS


At New York City Council Hearing, Concerns About Housing Authority Practices

Abstract: One month after a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black man in a darkened public housing stairwell in Brooklyn, elected officials at a City Council hearing on Tuesday honed in on some of the New York City Housing Authority practices that they said exacerbated unsafe conditions and heightened unease among residents. Among the elected officials’ concerns, discussed at a meeting of the Committee on Public Housing, were the slow pace of repairs, the lack of funding for improvements, and the practice of New York City police officers citing residents for violations of Nycha rules , like the prohibition of lingering in a public space. While the elected officials offered a bleak assessment of the housing authority’s ability to forestall future tragedies — or even everyday inconvenience — they did take heart in the announcement on Tuesday that the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., would provide $101 million for new security measures at 15 high-crime developments. The money, which is drawn from funds forfeited by the French bank BNP Paribas for violating United States sanctions, will be devoted to upgrades like new security cameras, permanent exterior lighting and enhanced entry security. The 15 complexes where the funds will be put to use have accounted for about one-fifth of the violent crime in the housing authority’s 334 developments, including the Boulevard Houses in Brooklyn, where in June two children were stabbed , one fatally. But Ritchie Torres, chairman of the Public Housing Committee, cast the police killing of Akai Gurley , in a darkened stairwell of the Louis H. Pink Houses in Brooklyn last month, as a sign of continuing discrimination against black people. “There is not a single, solitary soul in this chamber who could look at the deplorable conditions of public housing and honestly say that we live in a city where black lives matter,” he said, noting that 90 percent of the more than 400,000 people living in public housing are black and Latino. The shooting of Mr. Gurley, 28, which the Police Department said was an accident, has drawn renewed attention to the broken windows and burned-out light bulbs that residents say are a chronic problem in public housing. In her testimony Tuesday, Shola Olatoye, the chairwoman of Nycha, said a caretaker found that no lights were out on the day of the shooting on the seventh or eighth floors of the stairwell. The next day, however, housing authority officials discovered that the two-foot-long fluorescent tube on the eighth floor, where Peter Liang, a rookie police officer, was standing when he shot Mr. Gurley, was not working. Housing authority officials said that since Mr. Gurley was shot, 143 lights have been replaced in the Pink Houses, though they had no recorded complaints about nonworking lights in the stairwell where Mr. Gurley was shot. Elected officials took issue with how the authority classified such conditions, criticizing Ms. Olatoye for the authority’s policy of treating broken lights as a routine maintenance issue, rather than an emergency. Ms. Olatoye said that it takes Nycha almost nine days on average to repair interior lights. Currently, only sparking lights or exposed wires prompt an emergency repair, though housing authority officials said at the hearing that they were reconsidering those classifications. Officials also said they were working to revamp the process by which the authority handles field reports, which are forms that officers use to report poor conditions or noncriminal violations of housing authority rules. But Councilman Torres and other elected officials said they were dismayed by the authority’s reliance on police officers, who stop and question residents for breaking housing authority rules in order to file field reports. Capt. Howard Gottesman, of the Police Department’s housing bureau, defended the practice, which is aimed at deterring prohibited behavior. “It’s conduct that may be intimidating to other residents,” he said. “Nycha is the landlord, and they should be put on notice if there’s a resident that’s conducting himself in a manner” that violates its rules. Councilman Torres said that in the absence of serious reforms to the practice, he was considering introducing legislation to ban the use of field reports for noncriminal violations, which he called “unconstitutional.” Describing the housing authority’s policy on the matter as “utterly incoherent,” he said after the hearing that the police had expanded their license to stop law-abiding residents under the guise of enforcing housing authority rules. “The N.Y.P.D. has no business playing hall monitor,” he said.

Public Housing
Housing Authority NYC
NYC
New York City Council
NYPD


Nadal Struggles in Rome; Djokovic Stays Unbeaten

Abstract: Rafael Nadal struggled past the 148th-ranked qualifier Paolo Lorenzi, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-0, in his opening match at the Italian Open in Rome. Nadal said he could not recall the last time he played so poorly on clay. Novak Djokovic stretched his unbeaten start this year to 33 matches with a 6-0, 6-3 win over the Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot.


OPEC Maintains Production Targets

Abstract: The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed on Tuesday to maintain its production targets, an expression of satisfaction that prices are high enough to ensure sufficient revenues but not suppress a nascent recovery. OPEC acted at a gathering in Luanda, Angola, that was generally uneventful. But signs indicated that some countries were unhappy over the slipping compliance with production goals, which is threatening to reduce oil prices. “We are calling for member compliance,” Shukri Ghanem, head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, told reporters at the end of the meeting. OPEC cut production a year ago by 4.2 million barrels a day to prop up oil prices that were in a tailspin as financial markets seized up and economic activity declined rapidly. Because OPEC producers are responsible for more than a third of the world’s supply, the strategy has largely worked. Oil prices that had tumbled to as low as $33 a barrel a year ago recovered to $80 this fall. Prices have slid to slightly more than $70 a barrel in recent weeks, in part because Nigeria and some other OPEC members have been pumping more than their production quotas, and American and European oil demand has remained weak. Oil prices settled Tuesday at $74.40 a barrel, up 68 cents. “Compliance will continue to deteriorate, as will price,” Lawrence J. Goldstein, a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, predicted. “Almost every country that can violate the quota is doing so.” OPEC’s output has been creeping up in recent months and is about 1.8 million barrels a day above the output goal of 24.8 million barrels. Nigeria, for example, has been able to increase production by about half a million barrels a day because of fewer acts of sabotage. The OPEC goal has been largely maintained by Saudi production cuts. Nevertheless Saudi Arabia, the most powerful member of OPEC with the largest reserves, appears generally content with current output and prices. The Saudi Arabian oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, was quoted on Tuesday at the meeting as characterizing current prices as “perfect, perfect.” Gasoline prices in the United States have been relatively stable, and have declined in the holiday period. The average national price for a gallon of regular gasoline on Tuesday was slightly more than $2.58, nearly 6 cents less than a month ago. OPEC says oil demand has begun to recover, although it predicts demand will remain soft through June 2010. “It is not yet clear how strong or durable the recovery might be,” OPEC said in a closing statement that also asserted that the 12-member organization stood ready to act to stabilize markets if necessary. But in recent days geopolitical events, not the world economy, have raised prices a few dollars a barrel on world markets. Nigerian rebels staged their first significant attack in several months on a pipeline used by Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell. In Iraq, insurgents sabotaged a pipeline servicing an export terminal, and Iranian troops briefly occupied a part of a border field in an act of saber rattling that some specialists speculated was a warning to the United States and an effort to increase crude prices. “It reminds you that most of the places where oil comes from are located in politically unstable places in the world,” said Addison A. Armstrong, senior director for market research at Tradition Energy, an energy broker in Stamford, Conn. “I don’t think the market is adequately pricing in the kinds of disruptions that could occur over the next year, like a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries


Massachusetts Nears a Change to Electoral Votes

Abstract: BOSTON — Ten years after George W. Bush defeated Al Gore for president despite losing the popular vote, Massachusetts is close to joining a handful of other states in passing a law that would try to prevent such a twist from happening again. The Massachusetts Senate approved a bill on Tuesday that would assign the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who won the national popular vote — regardless of whom Massachusetts voters preferred. But the legislation, which the House passed last week and Gov. Deval Patrick has suggested he would sign, is largely symbolic for now. It would go into effect once states holding at least 270 total electoral votes, the number required for winning the presidency, adopted similar laws. The five states that have already enacted such laws — Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington — account for 61 electoral votes. Massachusetts would add 12 more. Presidential candidates have won elections four times in the nation’s history despite losing the popular vote. Supporters of changing the system say they want presidential candidates to campaign nationwide, rather than focusing on a few closely contested states that have a lot of electoral votes. The New York Senate voted last month to assign electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, but the measure stalled in the Assembly. In Massachusetts, where the 28-to-9 Senate vote fell largely along party lines, Richard R. Tisei, a Republican and the Senate minority leader, said the legislation would force candidates to focus on cities, where they can get the most votes. “They’re going to spend all their time in New York City and Los Angeles,” Mr. Tisei said, “and to hell with the rest of the country.”

Presidential Elections (US)
Massachusetts
Elections
Law and Legislation
United States Politics and Government
Electoral College


Novartis Deal to Settle Women’s Bias Claims

Abstract: NEW YORK (AP) — Novartis will pay up to $152.5 million to potentially thousands of women after a jury found it discriminated against them by paying them less than men, the drug company and plaintiffs’ lawyers announced Wednesday after a deal was struck. The agreement, which requires approval by a federal judge in Manhattan, also calls for $22.5 million for company programs to eliminate discrimination. The settlement covers claims by 5,600 women at Novartis who were part of the class-action lawsuit that resulted in a six-week trial this year. A jury in May found Novartis had discriminated against women by paying them less than men, promoting fewer of them and allowing a hostile workplace. It awarded $250 million in punitive damages for the class as well as $3.3 million in compensatory damages to a dozen women. The $152.5 million will replace the jury award, eliminating the inevitable appeals that would have followed and allowing for payouts to occur as early as the first quarter of next year.

Novartis AG
Suits and Litigation
Women and Girls
Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)


German Wins Overall Title; Contador Finishes Fourth

Abstract: Tony Martin of Germany won the Tour of the Algarve in Portugal with a strong final sprint, denying Alberto Contador his third straight title at the race. It was Contador’s first competition since escaping a doping ban. Martin won the final 10-mile stage in 20:53 to claim the title with an overall time of 18 hours 48 minutes 45 seconds. Contador was fourth over all, 41 seconds behind Martin.

Tour of the Algarve (Cycling)
Martin Tony
Contador Alberto


Blackhawks Owner Reverses Team’s Old-School Legacy of Failure

Abstract: Rocky Wirtz did not have to worry much about the Chicago Blackhawks beyond posing for the team photo until his father died in 2007. He was in the family’s wine and spirits business while his father, William, derisively called Dollar Bill for his parsimony, was running the team, which his grandfather Arthur bought into in 1952. “I’d come to every game, but I could leave the lousy ones after the second period,” said Wirtz, whose team took a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup finals on Monday night with a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. “My father had a private office off the rotunda and he’d have his door shut, so I’d sneak out and he wouldn’t know,” he said. “We had some pretty tough games to watch, but I didn’t have to hang on every win or loss.” The Blackhawks’ transformation from moribund franchise to elite team is a repudiation of Bill Wirtz’s old-school, pre-free agency style of doing business, which made him increasingly unpopular with fans. He would not televise home games and stuck stubbornly to an ancient ticket policy that crimped team revenue. More important, the team became a perennial loser. Its last Stanley Cup championship came in 1961. Rocky Wirtz, who is 57, said it was useless to try to persuade his father to change his mind about anything. “I’d say, ‘Dad, we’re losing generations of fans by not televising home games,’ ” he said. “He said it wouldn’t be fair to our fans with season tickets. But we’d gotten down to 3,400 season tickets, which meant maybe 1,500 to 1,700 fans. So we weren’t televising home games for 1,700 people? Why bang your head against the wall?” Wirtz became team chairman soon after his father died and learned firsthand how bad the franchise’s finances were. He had to use $40 million in family business money to finance players’ salaries through the 2006-7 season. Fans had been abandoning the team for years; attendance was lingering close to the bottom of the league. But things have changed rapidly, partly because of Wirtz’s willingness to change his father’s hidebound ways and bring in modern marketing and business practices with the hiring of two former Cubs business executives, John McDonough and Jay Blunk. Home games are being televised to terrific ratings. Higher ticket prices are yielding more revenue. And after beating the Flyers on Monday, 2-1, the team is two victories from winning the Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks had sold out 101 straight home games at the United Center through Monday. They have pushed attendance to an N.H.L.-leading regular-season average of 21,356 a game this season, up nearly 9,000 from 2007, when the Blackhawks ranked 29th of 30 teams. Season-ticket sales have soared from the nadir of 3,400 to 14,000 — and 8,000 fans are on a waiting list. The Blackhawks have improved rapidly on the ice as well, making the playoffs last year for the first time since 2002. Now the team is in the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1992. The Blackhawks’ startling rebound has thrust them into local sports relevance at a moment when the Cubs and the White Sox are below .500 and the Bulls were eliminated by Cleveland in the first round of the N.B.A. playoffs. “Everyone’s kind of in shock,” said Rick Telander, a sports columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times. “No one knows what to think. It’s a sudden gift that hasn’t been here. I’ve never seen a transition like this from where the team was three years ago. The city is ready to embrace these guys like a major sport with major stars.” Now, Blackhawks merchandise is being sold at a ferocious pace. The Michael Jordan statue outside the United Center was outfitted last week in skates, a helmet and a Blackhawks sweater. And Rocky Wirtz is being lauded in a way his father never was. “I never anticipated this would be so big, to see how the city has banded together,” said McDonough, the team’s president. “Our fans gave us a second chance. But in many ways, I feel like we’re just getting started.” As Wirtz reaps praise for his team’s revival, he knows he is not following his father’s blueprint. If he has a role model it is another owner in Chicago: Jerry Reinsdorf, the chairman of the Bulls, who have won six N.B.A. titles during his tenure, and the White Sox, winners of the 2005 World Series. “The first person I called on the business side after Dad died was Jerry,” he said. The two know each other largely through their families’ ownership of the United Center . “Rocky tells me I’m his mentor,” Reinsdorf said, “but I can’t think of anything specific I’ve said to him. I guess over the years he saw the good things and bad things about me and discarded the bad.” Reinsdorf added, “He would never admit that he was frustrated by his father because he was always very loyal to him.” Wirtz said that Reinsdorf advised him on televising home games and changing to a more lucrative ticketing policy than his father’s, in which all seats on one level, regardless of location, sold for the same price. “Rocky reveres Jerry,” McDonough said, “and you can see that we’re all learning from him.” Reinsdorf attended his first Blackhawks game last month, a conference finals victory over San Jose, and Wirtz still sounds thrilled that Reinsdorf showed up in a United Center suite with Mayor Richard M. Daley. “Can you believe it?” Wirtz said. Reinsdorf said without any envy that Wirtz was a more popular owner than he had ever been. “He’s a rock star,” Reinsdorf said. “When they put his kisser on the replay board, they cheer and say, ‘Hey, Rocky.’ ”

Chicago Blackhawks
Hockey Ice
Wirtz Rocky


Virginia: Victim in Naval Base Shooting Is Identified

Abstract: The Navy on Wednesday identified the sailor killed this week in a shooting at a Norfolk, Va., naval base as Petty Officer Second Class Mark A. Mayo, a member of the base’s security force. Petty Officer Mayo, 24, of Hagerstown, Md., was killed Monday by a civilian who had disarmed a sailor during a struggle aboard a destroyer docked at Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval base. Petty Officer Mayo had put himself between the sailor and the civilian when he was fatally shot. Security personnel then killed the suspect, whose name has not been released.

Murders
Military Bases
Naval Station Norfolk
Mark A Mayo
US Military
Norfolk VA


Kerry Sees Syrian Retaliation Against Rivals in Talks

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The State Department accused the Syrian government on Wednesday of retaliating against the Syrian opposition’s representatives to the Geneva peace talks by arresting their family members. There have been two rounds of unproductive talks in Geneva between the Syrian opposition and a delegation from the Syrian government, which is led by President Bashar al-Assad. Secretary of State John Kerry has blamed the Assad government for the deadlock in the talks and said that it had undermined them by putting opposition delegates on a terrorist list and seizing their assets. On Wednesday, the State Department asserted that the Syrian government had also been detaining some of the delegates’ relatives. “The United States is outraged by reports that the Assad regime has arrested family members of the Syrian Opposition Coalition delegation to the Geneva II peace talks, designated delegates as terrorists and seized delegates’ assets,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We call on the regime to immediately and unconditionally release all those unfairly arrested, including Mahmoud Sabra, brother of Geneva delegation member Mohammed Sabra,” she added. According to a statement issued last week by the Syrian opposition, Mohammed Sabra said his brother had been detained at a checkpoint in the town of Jaramana. Image Palestinians from the Yarmouk camp, on the outskirts of Damascus, waited for food aid in the city in a Jan. 31 photograph released Wednesday by the United Nations. An agency official visiting the camp this week said he was shaken by the deprivation there. Credit United Nation Relief and Works Agency In Syria on Wednesday, government forces killed scores of rebels in an ambush east of Damascus, opposition activists and the government said, dealing a major blow to efforts by rebels to open a supply line to a besieged area. The exact toll remained unclear, with the government claiming it had killed more than 175 rebels, many of them non-Syrian jihadists, and an opposition activist in the area saying more than 40 fighters were killed, with dozens more unaccounted for. For months, government forces have been besieging a number of rebel-held areas near Damascus, causing fuel and food shortages intended to weaken the rebels. The strategy appears to be working, although human rights organizations and the United Nations have criticized the use of such tactics because they harm civilians. The Syrian state news agency, SANA, said government forces had relied on intelligence information to track the movement of rebels and ambush them, killing more than 175 fighters from the Nusra Front, Syria’s Qaeda affiliate, including citizens of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. SANA and pro-government activists also published images of dozens of bodies strewn about a dirt road. A video released by Lebanon’s Al Manar TV appeared to support the government’s claim of huge casualties, showing a long line of people said to be rebel fighters walking along a distant road that then blows up, apparently because it had been lined with explosives. While most of the people fall to the ground, immobile, a few try to flee amid the sound of automatic gunfire before another large explosion hits the area. Al Manar is run by Hezbollah, an ally of Mr. Assad’s that has sent many of its own fighters to confront the rebels in Syria. An opposition activist who gave only his first name, Rafi, said via Skype from an eastern suburb of Damascus that 70 fighters from the Nusra Front and other rebel brigades had set out to try to open a supply line to a besieged area east of Damascus when mines embedded in the road near the village of Otaybeh exploded and government forces fired on them with machine guns.

Syria
Arab Spring
Al Nusra Front
Free Syrian Army
US Foreign Policy
Bashar al-Assad
John Kerry
Geneva


Amid Senate Chaos, Hope Fades for Bill to Increase New York’s Jobless Benefits

Abstract: A campaign to increase New York’s unemployment benefits for the first time in a decade has been sidetracked by the political stalemate in Albany — possibly for the rest of the recession . Despite having the support of the governor, labor leaders and advocates for the unemployed, a bill to raise weekly jobless benefits on July 1 and close the gap in the state’s unemployment trust fund was not addressed by state lawmakers before their regular session ended this week. The maximum benefit, which had been $405 a week for about 10 years until the federal economic stimulus program temporarily added $25 a week, is significantly smaller than those available to residents of New Jersey and Connecticut. New Jersey’s maximum is $584 a week; Connecticut’s is $576. Negotiations to make the bill more palatable to employers continued through the weekend, giving its supporters hope that Gov. David A. Paterson would present a compromise that could be enacted. But with party leaders distracted by the battle for control of the State Senate, no progress was made. The issue was not among those taken up by the Assembly in the final hours of the session that ended early Tuesday, nor was it on the governor’s list of measures to be considered by the Senate in special sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Assembly is not currently scheduled to convene until January. The lack of action left advocates worried about the fate of the growing ranks of unemployed New Yorkers. “Meanwhile, the unemployment rate keeps going up, and more and more people are losing their jobs,” said James Parrott, chief economist for the Fiscal Policy Institute , a research group that focuses on tax, budget and economic issues. “New York doesn’t look good compared to its neighboring states.” Last week, the state’s Labor Department said that more New Yorkers were out of work than at any time in more than 30 years. For May, the state’s unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent and the city’s hit 9 percent. For certain groups, the situation is much bleaker, Mr. Parrott said. He said that the official unemployment data showed that more than 23 percent of all black men in New York City were either unemployed, working less than full time or had become too discouraged about their prospects to look for work. With many economists forecasting that the national recession will end by late summer, the recovery could begin before additional relief arrived for New York’s unemployed. The rapid rise in unemployment has also strained the state’s trust fund that provides the weekly benefits. The fund has been borrowing from the federal government to cover a shortfall this year. To fill the gap, which is projected to grow through next year, the bill before the State Legislature would have increased the amount of a worker’s annual pay that is taxed. Only the first $8,500 is currently taxed to finance the unemployment insurance system, a much lower limit than those in New Jersey and some other states. The bill called for annual increases in benefits, starting next Wednesday, July 1, that would raise the maximum weekly benefit to $625 and adjust it for inflation each year after that. Along the way, it would have also gradually raised the payroll tax that goes into the unemployment trust fund. But representatives of employers, led by the Business Council of New York State , have opposed the bill, arguing that the automatic annual increases would make the payroll tax too onerous for some businesses. Last week, the Business Council called the legislation a “job-killing proposal” that would raise the tax by almost 15 percent in a year. The governor’s office had signaled that it would create a revised bill that both sides could support, but hopes for a compromise before July 1 faded as the chaos in the Senate dragged on. “It’s a big problem that we’ve fallen so short in terms of not doing this,” said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project , which advocates for the unemployed. “What was nice about this legislation was it got the benefits out during the recession and it had a plan for paying back the fund over several years. It was a smart approach.”


Yale-Peking University Program Canceled

Abstract: Peking University program with Yale is canceled A program that allowed Yale University undergraduates to study at Peking University for credit has been canceled, The Yale Daily News reported last week. The student newspaper called the move “an abrupt end” to a partnership that began in 2006 and was reaffirmed as recently as December. Yale said in a statement that the reason was “lower than anticipated enrollments,” with only four students scheduled to participate in the program this autumn, although expenses were covered in the students’ regular tuition. The program was not without controversy. In 2007, a Yale biology professor teaching at the Beijing campus sent a widely circulated e-mail blaming Chinese faculty and administrators for tolerating widespread plagiarism. According to The Yale Daily News, the partnership was the only program in which Peking University allowed its students to live with foreign students. Peking University students will still be allowed to take Yale summer courses. Yale, which has been looking into other programs in Asia, has recently come under fire for a planned joint venture with the National University of Singapore. Some Yale faculty members had reservations about limits on political freedoms in Singapore. — JOYCE LAU Move to establish university in West Bank is criticized The Ariel University Center is scheduled to reopen this summer as the first university in the West Bank, once it receives final accreditation as a full-fledged university, according to the Israeli media. The Judea and Samaria Council for Higher Education voted this month to fully accredit the institution in the settlement town of Ariel. The creation of the first new Israeli university in 40 years and the first one outside the so-called green line, would give Ariel access to national university funding. The Israeli Defense Force is expected to approve the accreditation in the coming weeks. The presidents of Israel’s seven established universities wrote a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking him to stop the accreditation before the decision was announced, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. They said they feared it would take funding from other schools. The presidents wrote that the move would deal a “fatal blow to the higher education system in general, and the universities in particular,” according to Haaretz. Zahava Gal-On, a member of the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, and leader of the Meretz party, worried that the accreditation would “bring about academic boycotts of Israel,” according to Haaretz. Of the school’s 13,000 students, about 500 are Arab Israeli, according to The Jerusalem Post. — CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE Shanghai school lowers standard for male applicants The Shanghai International Studies University has lowered the bar of entry for male applicants to some language programs, according to news reports. The school, known for its foreign language training, will admit male applicants with lower scores than their female counterparts for programs in Hebrew, Arabic, Ukrainian, Korean and Russian, The Shanghai Daily reported this month. “Many firms or organizations are in great need of male workers with a good command of foreign languages to work overseas,” said Wang Binhua, an official with the university’s admissions department who was quoted in the article. The article cited some of the university’s explanations: That men made up less than 20 percent of the student body and that “in some Arabic-speaking countries, people are more accustomed to do business with men instead of women.” The new rules were approved by the Ministry of Education. China has had some reports of girls doing better in school than boys. — CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE U.S. test scores improving, but not as much as others American students’ test scores have improved, but the gain is not significant enough compared with some other nations, according to a report presented at a conference last week at Harvard University. The report, released this month by Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, said that improvements in the United States were “middling, not stellar.” Of 49 countries tracked in the study, 24 improved at a faster rate than the United States. Eight places, including Hong Kong and Germany, improved at about twice the rate of the United States. “Almost every country in the world now realizes the importance of high quality schools,” Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University, one of the authors, said in an e-mail. “Thus, we see many countries where learning has increased.” Math, science and reading tests were analyzed over a 14-year period, from 1995 to 2009. Students at the time of testing were in the fourth and eighth grades. — ZAKIYYAH WAHAB

Education
China
Beijing (China)
United States
Yale University


Roles of Clintons at Convention Start to Clear

Abstract: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton asked the question herself, on the last night of the primaries in June: “What does Hillary want?” That is still a bit of a mystery, particularly as she and Senator Barack Obama negotiate the delicate question of her role at the Democratic convention in Denver and in the campaign beyond. But at least the convention role of one important person, former President Bill Clinton , has been settled with the decision Thursday that he would be speaking at the convention. Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said Thursday that they were working to resolve matters. Mr. Obama said: “As is true in all conventions, we’re still working out the mechanics of the four days. Our staffs are in communication, my staff with Senator Clinton’s staff. But I don’t anticipate any problems.” In a public peace offering Thursday, the Obama campaign allowed a draft of the party platform to note that Mrs. Clinton was “the first woman in American history to win presidential primaries in our nation.” It added that the party was “proud that we have put 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling,” which, of course, was her own formulation of her popular vote total. This is already a somewhat fraught period for both Mrs. Clinton and her husband since the convention will officially mark the changing of the guard in the Democratic Party , the moment when yet another Democratic nominee will try to do what only one, Mr. Clinton, has managed to do in a generation: be elected. Both Clintons are sensitive to the process of shaping their legacies. At stake are not just their convention roles but also how history will treat them, and how she is positioned for the future. But the surfacing of a video in which Mrs. Clinton suggests that her supporters need a “catharsis” after the roller-coaster primary season and that they may place her name in nomination would seem to add complexity to the negotiations. The video was taken at a July 31 cocktail reception near Palo Alto, Calif., for supporters of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. In response to questions, as various cameras are visible, Mrs. Clinton says that the best way to unify the party is “to have a strategy so that my delegates feel like they’ve had a role and that their legitimacy has been validated.” She adds: “It’s as old as Greek drama. There’s a catharsis. Everybody comes, and they want to yell and scream and have their opportunity, and I think that’s all to the good.” While the video of Mrs. Clinton plays on cable television and the Internet, a new video of her husband, in an interview with ABC News, is also playing on a seemingly endless loop. The striking moment comes when he is not quite able to say that Mr. Obama is qualified to be president. But Mr. Clinton was offered an invitation to speak on Aug. 27, three senior Democratic officials said, before the address by the party’s vice-presidential nominee. The Obama campaign extended the offer on Thursday to Mr. Clinton, who accepted it. Mr. Obama has already given Mrs. Clinton a speaking role at the convention, on Aug. 26. So what else does she want? As Al Gore learned in 2000, having one Clinton, let alone two, hover over you as you campaign for the presidency can be trying. The Gore campaign had hoped to choreograph Mr. Clinton out of the picture at its convention, in Los Angeles, giving him the prime-time speaking slot Monday and then staging a symbolic “passing of the torch” to Mr. Gore the next day in Michigan. But Mr. Clinton started to steal the limelight on the prior Thursday, in a lengthy public confessional in which he said that voters should not hold Mr. Gore accountable for Mr. Clinton’s personal failings. The president then arrived in Los Angeles on Friday and was the toast of the town for three days leading up to his convention speech. He dominated the torch moment in Michigan and much of the news afterward. Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who has worked at the top levels of several campaigns in such negotiations, said that, generally, defeated candidates want to nail down things like how they will be used in the fall campaign and whether the nominee will pay for a separate plane and staff. They usually want to know how big a “show” they will get, Mr. Devine said. Once the video spread across the blogosphere, many commented that Mrs. Clinton was still angling to become Mr. Obama’s running mate. But some who know her say this is not the case. One Democratic loyalist with connections to the Clintons said that if Mrs. Clinton wanted to send Mr. Obama a message, she would not have relied on a chat on a random front porch in a video that took several days to become public. Either way, she does have leverage. Polling shows that Mrs. Clinton remains as popular among Democrats these days as Mr. Obama, despite his having campaigned for two months as the party nominee. Her goal now, she says in the video, is this: “We do not want any Democrat in the hall or in the stadium or at home walking away saying, ‘I’m just not satisfied, I’m not happy.’ That’s what I’m trying to avoid.” But Mrs. Clinton seems to give a green light to her supporters to make whatever mischief they might: “I’ve made it very clear that I’m supporting Senator Obama,” she says, “and we’re working cooperatively on a lot of different matters. But delegates can decide to do this on their own; they don’t need permission.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Conventions and Conferences
Democratic Party
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Clinton Bill


Formula One Coming To United States in 2012

Abstract: Formula One will have a Grand Prix race in the United States next year for the first time since 2007. The race, on June 17 in Austin, Tex., was the only addition to a record 21-race calendar for 2012.


A Review of the Pass in Rosemont

Abstract: The mounted, tusked boar’s head on the wall immediately sets the Pass, Matthew Ridgway’s restaurant, apart. The table near the entrance with artisanal products for sale — honey, olive oil and what looked to be house-canned produce — takes it a step farther from the mainstream. The Pass, named for the place in a professional kitchen where the dishes are approved by the chef before being taken to diners, leaves behind the mundane and the factory-made in favor of carefully considered ingredients, whimsical and delicious dishes at remarkably low prices, and excellent service. Order coffee at the Pass, and not only can you get it French-pressed, but your cup is heated, no longer functioning as chilling device and motivation to call for the check and vacate the table. It reminded me of an experiment that found that holding a hot cup and not a cold one made participants more likely to rate others more positively. Image Recent offerings at the Pass included a colonial French hoagie with pork pâté. Credit Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times Note to restaurateurs: Everything matters. And except for a couple of omissions, the Pass nails it. I appreciated the heft and idiosyncrasies of the flea-market silverware at each setting, the honeyed browns of the unclothed tables, even the green of the walls and bookshelves, all vestiges of the restaurant’s past life as the quirky, much-beloved Café at Rosemont. And I appreciated the small — make that very small — fixed-price menu, which changes weekly, even though I wished for one more main dish so a party of four could each have something different. After each of three visits, I also left fairly desperate for a generous portion of greens. (In a phone conversation after my visits, Mr. Ridgway said that greens went on and off the menu, based on both seasonal availability and his wish not to be repetitive.) I am halfway inclined to indulge Mr. Ridgway and overlook the salad deficit: After nearly 20 years at stoves in Philadelphia, Paris, Taiwan and New York, he returned to his native Bucks County, Pa., and turned to charcuterie as a way to escape high-pressure kitchens. But then, success found him — Café Boulud began buying his bacon, duck prosciutto and terrines, and other restaurants followed. He began searching for a place to house his charcuterie — now for sale in a counter along one wall, but in fairly short supply on my visits — that could also function as a French roadhouse-type restaurant. He found it in Rosemont, near Stockton, and opened the Pass in May. Image Dishes include sautéed Muscovy duckbreast with salsify. Credit Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times Now, to the food. In three visits — two with one menu, one with another — everything was almost always excellent, with deep flavor the denominator. Of the appetizers, the pumpkin flan was a pleasure of soft custard beneath a thick layer of puréed tofu with miso; a warm dashi-miso broth was poured over it at tableside. Cured Nantucket Bay scallops, delicately accented with Moroccan flavors and lime-olive oil, were its ephemeral rival. A table favorite, which carried a $3 supplement, was the chopped steak of grass-fed brisket with mushroom Diablo (with dried espelette pepper, capers, gherkins and sherry vinegar); it had layers of umami. Game liver mousse with Marsala gelée seemed a juxtaposition of earth and clouds, and was beautiful to see against a white bowl, with a tumble of pea tendrils as foil. Even the soft scrambled eggs with saffron potato hash and migas (toast) met my mounting expectations. The succulent roast quail, too, was a treat, topped with two leek vinaigrettes. Main courses held the high standard, with romaine ravioli and wine-braised sweetbreads a dish I will remember for a very long time. Pork cannelloni was second, with chicken pot au feu its equal. Skate wing stuffed with confit guinea hen and malt fries with chicken jus showed Mr. Ridgway’s expertise in both flavor and sausage-making. Warm Spanish mackerel lox was in last place, but still solid. Desserts were delicious and served in reasonable portions. Table favorites were a buttermilk hangop (like a thin custard) with caramel sauce; a somewhat similar-textured vanilla concrete (a milkshake) with praline; snow eggs with lime curd and candied citrus (a crustless Key Lime pie); and a smooth mascarpone and pear trifle with ladyfingers and cocoa. There were only a few missteps. The delicious baked quince in a thick and frothy sauce of maple, whiskey and yogurt would have topped every other dessert had the quince been fully tender and cut into bite-size pieces. And two details: Mr. Ridgway’s food deserves cloth napkins, and the room was cold. So bring your own napkin. Dress in layers. Go to the Pass. Eat very, very well. Cozy up to that hot cup of coffee. And have a salad when you get home.

Restaurant
New Jersey
Rosemont NJ
Matthew Ridgway


Heat Survive in Overtime and Extend Holiday Streak

Abstract: No team is better on Christmas than the Miami Heat. And even in an ugly game, their best players, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, delivered when it mattered most. Bosh scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, Wade added 19 points, and the Heat survived some shaky moments to beat the visiting New Orleans Pelicans, 94-88, in overtime on Friday — spoiling Anthony Davis’s dazzling debut as part of the N.B.A.’s holiday lineup. With their seventh straight win on Christmas, the Heat improved to a league-best 10-2 on the holiday. “Just an ugly game by both teams, but in this league, you’ve got to win the pretty ones and the ugly ones,” said Wade, who has received the most All-Star votes among Eastern Conference guards this season. “It wasn’t going right for us — Chris had it going to keep us afloat — but at the end, I think it just came down to getting some great stops, and we got some timely buckets.” Bosh and Wade combined to score 13 of Miami’s 16 points in overtime. “When the pressure is highest, that’s when they show the most courage,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. Hassan Whiteside had 17 rebounds for Miami, which improved to 9-1 against teams from the Western Conference. The Heat are only 8-10 against Eastern Conference opponents. Davis was stellar in his Christmas debut, leading the Pelicans with 29 points and 15 rebounds and adding 4 assists, 4 steals and 3 blocks. But he missed a contested jump shot on New Orleans’s final possession of regulation, and the Heat took control in the extra period. Ryan Anderson scored 18 points for the Pelicans, including a tip-in with 1 minute 45 seconds left in regulation that gave New Orleans its first lead, and Eric Gordon finished with 16. Gordon’s 4-point play with 31 seconds left in overtime cut the Pelicans’ deficit to 4, but they got no closer. Miami committed 18 turnovers, but New Orleans scored off only one of them. The Heat outrebounded the Pelicans, 57-45, and Bosh had 21 of his points after halftime. “Christmas Day against one of the best in the league,” Bosh said. “I’m going to rise to the occasion.” ROCKETS 88, SPURS 84 James Harden had 20 points, and Houston slowed down soaring San Antonio with a home victory. The improved Houston defense held the Spurs to a season low in points to end their seven-game winning streak, their longest of the season. Houston mounted an 8-2 run to take a 78-71 lead with about five minutes left. Tim Duncan made a hook shot after that, but Harden hit a 3-pointer. A layup by Duncan came next before Harden brought the crowd to its feet with an off-balance 3-pointer from the corner that made the score 84-75. Soon after that, the Spurs resorted to intentionally fouling Dwight Howard on two straight possessions. He missed all four free throws, and a basket by LaMarcus Aldridge made the score 86-81. Kawhi Leonard made a 3-pointer after two free throws by Houston to allow San Antonio to cut the lead to 4, but he missed a shot a few seconds later, and Houston held on for the victory. BULLS 105, THUNDER 96 Jimmy Butler scored 23 points, and Pau Gasol added 21 points and 13 rebounds as Chicago stopped a three-game losing streak with a victory at Oklahoma City. Derrick Rose finished with 19 points for the Bulls, and Taj Gibson had 13 points and 10 rebounds. Kevin Durant had 29 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists for Oklahoma City, and Russell Westbrook added 26 points, 8 assists and 7 rebounds. The Thunder had won three straight and nine of 10. Oklahoma City shot 38.5 percent from the field, its third-worst mark of the season.

Basketball
Chris Bosh
Miami Heat
New Orleans Pelicans


Mobile Phones Offer Indian Women a Better Life

Abstract: NEW DELHI — In the months after Garima Gupta’s wedding, she cherished one of her presents above all — the mobile phone given to her by an older brother. The young woman’s move from the prosperous town of Karnal in the northern state of Haryana to her husband’s family in a small village outside Agra, in neighboring Uttar Pradesh, had meant, as it does for many Indian women, dramatic changes. Part of the sharp dividing line between the past and her present life was leaving behind her first name as well as her family name, as is common practice in northern India . Kumud Mittal became Garima Gupta, the name chosen for her by her mother-in-law. “My in-laws were not unkind,” the 22-year-old said recently. “But I was just 19, and I had never been outside of Karnal, away from my family, my friends. Their calls and advice made me feel less lonely in a new world.” In India, researchers are just beginning to study the effects that the explosive growth in the mobile phone market has had on women’s lives. For women like Ms. Gupta, access to a mobile phone can break the pattern of marital isolation. At the Barefoot College, a school in the northwestern state of Rajasthan that provides professional training for rural women, the mobile phone allows even illiterate entrepreneurs to compete in the marketplace. In the state of Gujarat, the mobile phone is central to an innovative scheme that allows rural health care workers to compile information about pregnant women and then text message reminders for checkups and vaccinations. Ms. Gupta discovered that having access to her own phone had raised her status among her sisters-in-law, who have to share their husbands’ phones. Her mobile phone also provided a crucial connection to her own family, especially since her husband’s village had no working land lines and, despite her own family’s prosperity, Ms. Gupta had little formal schooling and could not read or write. Without the phone, her married life would have begun in extreme isolation. Access to a mobile phone can enhance women’s welfare in other ways. In a recent report, Dayoung Lee, a student researcher at Stanford University in California, noted that “mobile phones significantly decrease tolerance for wife beating and husbands’ control issues, and increase women’s autonomy in mobility and economic independence.” Access to outside support and the knowledge that others may intervene serve as a check on domestic violence. Mobile phone penetration in India is much higher than for land lines, with around 700 million subscribers, according to the most conservative estimates. (In contrast, India had about 97 million regular Internet users at the end of 2011.) The easy availability and relative affordability of the mobile phone are attractive features — and it sidesteps the barrier of illiteracy in a way that the Internet cannot. According to Indian government figures, only 65.5 percent of Indian women are literate, compared with 82 percent of men. However, there is also a gender gap in mobile phone access. According to research conducted by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation, only 28 percent of Indian women own a mobile phone, compared with 40 percent of men. An additional 20 percent of women have access to mobile phones through family members or friends. What holds down the numbers is that many rural women lack the necessary proof of identity and address required of mobile phone users. In some cases, mobile phone connections are bought by men for the women in their household, who do have such proof, in the form of utility bills, driver’s licenses or other documents. Money also determines the availability of mobile phones. In a study of female beauticians, food preparers and fish vendors in Mumbai, Aneela Babar, Judith Shaw and Marika Vicziany found a direct link between income and mobile phone use. Most of the beauticians, who earned the highest wages, owned phones. The fish vendors, who earned the least, could not afford a phone, even though they believed that having one could help them in their business. The study found that in low-income families, there was typically one mobile phone in the possession of the male head of household, with the women enjoying little or no access. On occasion, mobile phones have become symbolic of a new — and to some conservative sections of Indian society, threatening — independence among women. An incident in 2010, in which a village council in Uttar Pradesh banned young, unmarried women from using mobile phones, drew much media interest. The village of Lank had experienced several elopements, and the council feared that mobile phones made it easier for men and women to communicate privately. The ban, however, applied only to women, not to young men. In February, the Indian minister for rural development, Jairam Ramesh, ran into trouble when asked about the shortage of toilets for women — a situation that has affected girls’ ability to attend school and women’s access to work outside the home. Mr. Ramesh insisted that what women wanted these days was more phones, not toilets. “Sanitation is the much more difficult issue,” he said. “Now we are talking of behavioral changes, and women demand mobile phones. They are not demanding toilets.” His remark was widely reported as an awkward gaffe and led to many headlines about phones versus toilets. But Mr. Ramesh may have been on to something, if he had indeed noticed the rising demand among women in rural India for mobile phones. Toilets are crucial, so much so that the bride’s family will now often turn down prospective grooms who cannot provide a bathroom of their own. Now the one technological object that promises to be even more life-altering for the average Indian woman may be the mobile phone.

India
Cellular Telephones
Domestic Violence
Women and Girls