Poland, Wedded to Coal, Spurns Europe on Clean Energy Targets

Abstract: BELCHATOW, Poland — They call it Poland’s biggest hole in the ground. The coal mine here is more than eight-and-a-half miles long, nearly two miles wide and as deep in parts as three football fields. Enough coal comes out of it to fuel Europe’s largest coal-fired utility plant, whose chimneys loom in the distance. “The entire world population could fit in this hole,” Tomasz Tarnowski, an administrator here, said in a bit of proud hyperbole as he led a group of reporters on a walk near a towering mound of brown coal about halfway into the mine. Poland is Europe’s coal colossus. More than 88 percent of its electricity comes from coal. Belchatow is one of its huge sources and the largest carbon emitter in Europe. (There’s no “belch” in Belchatow — it is pronounced bel-HOT-oof.) This month, a United Nations conference on climate change will be held in Poland, a location many environmental activists consider the least appropriate choice they could imagine. And while the European Union has mapped out ambitious clean-energy goals intended to reduce the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, Poland has been its fossil-fuels holdout. Within the European Union, Poland has been increasingly active in trying to block more aggressive regulations to curb climate change, in contrast to Germany, for example, which has bet its energy future on clean, renewable technologies like wind and solar. Poland has also sought to beat back proposals against hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a means of unearthing natural gas that much of the European Union — with the notable exception of Britain — warily regards as an environmental hazard. At home, Polish officials have shown little inclination to end their infatuation with coal, saying their country cannot afford to convert to alternative sources of energy quickly. As if to prove a point, the coal industry has scheduled its own climate summit meeting in Warsaw this month, running concurrently with the United Nations conference. All this is happening even as Polish citizens have taken to the streets of Krakow, protesting the city’s poor air quality. Image The coal mine in Belchatow is more than 8.5 miles long and nearly two miles wide. Credit Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times Asked for his own view on climate change, Marcin Korolec, the environmental minister, said in an interview, “I am not skeptical about climate change; I am skeptical about some European ways of how to address it.” He said that his country had made progress in reducing carbon emissions but that Europe was moving too far ahead on the issue. “This concept of leading by example is not delivering,” he said of Europe’s approach. “Leading by example, you cannot renegotiate.” Poland’s coal strategy has implications both for the Poles and for Europe more broadly. Six of the 10 European cities with the highest concentrations of particulate matter are in Poland, including Krakow, which is ranked third over all, just behind the Bulgarian cities Pernik and Plovdiv, according to European government data. Particulate matter consists of tiny airborne droplets or gas particles that come from smokestacks and tailpipes, or from burning wood or coal for home heating, and they can lead to a variety of health problems. While large cities like Krakow and Zabrze do not have levels on a par with the extreme pollution of Beijing, their levels are well past the concentrations deemed safe by health experts. But the center-right government, which came to power in 2007, has not changed its energy course. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in September that coal was a basis of the Polish economy. The main opposition party, Law and Justice, is even further to the right. It is led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who has said that carbon dioxide has no impact on climate and that any regulations on climate are written only to force Poland to buy expensive technologies. The left, which might be more open to environmentalist positions, has little voice in the matter, having been in disarray for several years after a series of corruption scandals. The coal strategy has been partly influenced by Poland’s fraught relationship with Russia, which wields its oil and natural gas reserves as a political weapon. That is one reason Poland, since its break with the former Soviet bloc three decades ago, has sought greater energy independence by relying on its own coal resources. Poland was once one of the largest exporters of coal, which has shaped its affinity for it. But at this point, its industrial economy has grown so that Poland can no longer meet its own coal needs. It is now a net importer of coal and, in an energy irony, Russia accounts for about two-thirds of those imports. Last year, Poland bought more than six million metric tons of Russian coal, according to an estimate from Euracoal, an industry trade association. In the last few years, Poland has played a more active role in the European Union, and particularly in the European Council, which comprises national leaders and prefers rule by unanimous decisions among the 28 member states. In June 2011, Poland stood alone in opposing climate targets that were to start in 2020 and continue through 2050. A top British official called the defeat “a dark day for Europe’s leading role in tackling climate change.” In March 2012, Poland effectively vetoed a similar long-term emissions reduction plan, exasperating European officials. “The E.U. can’t work like this,” Europe’s climate commissioner at the time, Connie Hedegaard, said. “We can’t move forward if the most reluctant one dictates the pace to the rest.” But Poland held firm. This has left officials in other European countries, and environmentalists, flummoxed. “The government is promoting coal and replacing old coal with new coal,” said Julia Michalak, an official at Climate Action Network Europe, an umbrella group of environmentalist organizations that is based in Brussels. “That’s the Polish strategy,” added Ms. Michalak, who is Polish. “That’s the only answer, and that’s not a long-term vision. It’s not rational.” Image Marcin Korolec, the Polish environmental minister, says his country has made progress in cuttng carbon emissions but Europe is moving too far ahead. Credit Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times Polish citizens are pushing back. Last Friday in Krakow, hundreds of people turned out to protest air pollution. Krakow sits in a valley, intensifying the pollution in a city where some apartment buildings are heated by coal. The crowd marched through the city chanting, “Why do you poison us?” and, “We want air.” Organizers of the march say the air pollution is harming the health of the local population, leading to high rates of asthma and premature deaths. City officials routinely warn parents not to let their children play outside on the days of the highest pollution. “We understand that protest is a drastic way of showing our discontent, but for years authorities haven’t done anything to solve the problem,” said Andrzej Gula, one of the rally’s organizers and a member of the informal group Krakow’s Smog Alert, which monitors air pollution. “We demand a total ban on heating homes with coal,” Mr. Gula said. “This is the only way of improving the air quality in our town. The problem is that the politicians are afraid of doing that, as it would harm the Polish mining industry.” Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, a member of Poland’s governing party who serves in the European Parliament, said she wanted to diversify Poland’s energy mix but at its own pace. “The only problem for us is to go farther and farther and quicker and quicker,” she said, “and this is what the climate policy in Brussels is.” “What we are trying to do is to influence the speed with which the European Union is pushing,” Ms. Kolarska-Bobinska said. “It’s very easy for some countries to say we want a 30, 40, 45 percent goal of renewables. Many political groups in the Parliament are asking for that. But they have to remember how diversified the countries are in Europe. Give each country the possibility to reach this target by their own way.” For now, the behemoths like Belchatow will continue to power Poland. Seen during the tour this week, the mine’s excavating rigs resembled giant Transformer toys, each with what looked like a Ferris wheel attached to one of its spindly arms. Instead of seats, the Ferris wheels had spiked scoopers that chomped up clumps of brown coal. The coal was then fed into 75 miles of conveyor belts that transported it to the nearby plant. Plumes of smoke twisted for miles in the sky from the plant’s 13 power units. Those towering chimneys would be swallowed up by this hole, Mr. Tarnowski said, gesturing toward them as he stood with a group of reporters, “just like the Eiffel Tower, almost.”

Coal
Poland
Air pollution
Greenhouse gas
Mining
Europe
Electric power
Manufacturing
Climate Change
Global Warming


German Banks Stronger, but Risks Remain, Report Says

Abstract: FRANKFURT — The Bundesbank, the German central bank, said on Thursday that the country’s banks were better off now than they were a year ago, benefiting from a strong domestic economy. But, the bank said, German institutions continue to engage in risky practices that make them vulnerable to a rise in interest rates. “Thanks to stable returns and improved capital, German banks have increased their ability to withstand risk,” Andreas Dombret, a member of the central bank’s executive board, said Thursday at a news conference. But “as before the German bank system still displays vulnerabilities and structural weaknesses.” Despite Germany’s economic growth, its banks are among Europe’s weakest. Moody’s , the ratings agency, ranks the average health of German banks below those of most other Western European countries as well as nations like Brazil, Jordan and Mexico. In its annual financial stability report , the Bundesbank warned that German banks had increased their dependence on short-term financing, a profitable but risky practice because institutions can be caught short if interest rates rise. About 30 percent of German bank debt will mature in less than a year, the bank said, well above the long-term average of 22 percent. Hypo Real Estate, a German property lender now owned by the government, nearly collapsed in 2008 because it could no longer borrow money short term at rates below what it was receiving in interest from customers with long-term loans. “As part of a renewed increase in the ‘search for yield,’ new bubbles could form in certain securities markets,” Mr. Dombret said. Banks continue to face significant losses from problem assets like investments in the American real estate market, the Bundesbank said. However, the losses will be lower than in 2009 and at the low end of expectations. The Bundesbank estimated that banks would book losses of 23 billion euros, or $30.75 billion, this year to reflect the diminished value of their holdings, down from 37 billion euros in 2009. Though new banking regulations, known as Basel III, will create a more stable system, the Bundesbank said, German banks will need to raise about 50 billion euros by 2018 to meet higher reserve requirements. Most of the burden will fall on the larger, international banks. The report did not mention banks by name, but Germany’s largest institutions are Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank as well as the landesbanks, which are owned by local governments and groups of savings banks. Though banks are more profitable this year than last, the Bundesbank signaled that a long period of muted returns is in store as banks sell riskier assets and build capital. Said Franz-Christoph Zeitler, a member of the bank’s executive board, “Fundamentally, there will be a short-term reduction in return on equity.”

Germany
Banking and Financial Institutions
Bundesbank
Economic Conditions and Trends
Moody's Corporation


Johnny Podres, Series Star, Dies at 75

Abstract: Johnny Podres, who became a celebrated figure in the storied history of the Brooklyn Dodgers in October 1955, when he pitched them to their only World Series championship, died Sunday at a hospital in Glens Falls, N.Y. Podres, who lived nearby in Queensbury, N.Y., was 75. His death was announced by his wife, Joan, who said he was being treated for heart and kidney problems and a leg infection. Podres was hardly a star on a team with Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges and Duke Snider in the lineup and Don Newcombe and Carl Erskine on the pitching staff. He had been injured twice during the ’55 season and he had a modest record of 9-10 for a team that won the National League pennant by 13 ½ games. But at 3:43 p.m. on Oct. 4, 1955, Podres proved the man of the hour for Dodgers fans, whose unrealized quest for a World Series championship had been embodied in the refrain “Wait til next year.” Going into the 1955 season, the Dodgers had won seven pennants and had lost seven times in the World Series. They had been beaten by the Boston Red Sox in 1916, the Cleveland Indians in 1920, and, most painful of all, by the Yankees in 1941, ’47, ’49, ’52 and ’53. The powerful team that came to be known as the Boys of Summer seemed destined to fall short again in 1955, losing the first two games of the World Series to the Yankees. But Podres won Game 3 on his 23rd birthday, giving up seven hits in an 8-3 victory at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers won the next two games at home, but lost at Yankee Stadium in Game 6. In a duel of left-handers, Podres was matched against Tommy Byrne in Game 7 at the Stadium. The Dodgers had a 2-0 lead, both runs driven in by Hodges, but in the sixth inning the Yankees had runners on first and second with nobody out when Yogi Berra hit a fly ball toward the left-field line that seemed about to drop for a double. Sandy Amoros, who had just come into the game, replacing Jim Gilliam in left field, saved the day for Brooklyn. After a long run, he reached out for a one-handed catch, then made a relay to Reese, the shortstop, who threw to Hodges, doubling Gil McDougald off first base. Podres had been effective with his changeup early in the game. As the autumn shadows began to approach home plate, making it tougher for batters to see the pitches, he turned to his fastball. He stopped the Yankees the rest of the way, completing an eight-hitter by retiring them in order in the ninth inning. When Elston Howard grounded to Reese for the final out, Podres was mobbed, and Brooklyn erupted in ecstasy. “There was a hell of a party that night at the Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn,” Podres told Donald Honig in “The October Heroes.” As Podres recalled it: “Boy, the champagne! There was one guy there who kept telling me he’d been waiting for this since 1916.” Podres was named the most valuable player of the World Series. “I guarantee, there was more celebrating in Brooklyn that day than there was for the end of World War II,” Buzzie Bavasi, the Dodgers’ general manager at the time, said a half-century later. Podres was born and raised in Witherbee, N.Y., in the Adirondack region where his father mined iron ore. He grew up a Dodgers fan, listening to Red Barber’s broadcasts, signed with the Brooklyn organization out of high school and made his debut with the Dodgers in 1953. He won 9 games as a rookie, 11 in his second season, then endured a disappointing summer in ’55. He injured his shoulder and later sustained bruised ribs in an incident that, as baseball lore would have it, could happen only in Brooklyn. He was struck by the Ebbets Field batting cage while groundskeepers were moving it during a pregame workout. But then came the October of his lifetime. Podres became a leading pitcher for the Dodgers in the years that followed. He led the N.L. in earned run average, at 2.66, and shutouts, with six, in 1957, the Dodgers’ final year in Brooklyn, and was a consistent winner when they moved to Los Angeles. He had an 18-5 record in 1961 with a league-leading winning percentage of .783. He pitched in four World Series and he was an All-Star three times. Podres was traded to the Detroit Tigers in 1966, and also pitched for the San Diego Padres. He had a record of 148-116 in 15 major league seasons. He was later a pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins and the Philadelphia Phillies. In addition to his wife, Podres is survived by his sons, John Jr., of Queensbury, and Joseph, of Fort Myers, Fla.; and his brothers, Thomas, of Watervliet, N.Y., and Walter, of California. Byrne, his pitching opponent in Game 7 of the ’55 World Series, died last month at 87. For all of Podres’s achievements, his day in the sun would always be that afternoon at Yankee Stadium in October 1955. “Sometimes when I’m home doing nothing, I’ll put the video in,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer 50 years later. “I get the feeling that I’m young again. What a time that was.”

Baseball
Brooklyn Dodgers
Deaths (Obituaries)
World Series


A Whistle-Blower Who Can Name Names of Swiss Bank Account Holders

Abstract: PARIS — Hervé Falciani is a professed whistle-blower — the Edward Snowden of banking — who has been hunted by Swiss investigators, jailed by Spaniards and claims to have been kidnapped by Israeli Mossad agents eager for a glimpse of the client data he stole while working for a major financial institution in Geneva. “I am weak and alone,” Mr. Falciani said, as three round-the-clock bodyguards provided by the French government looked on with hard stares. The protection was needed, he insisted, because he faces constant risk as the sole key to decipher the encrypted data — five CD-ROMs containing a list of nearly 130,000 account holders that may be the biggest leak ever in the secretive world of Swiss banking. But as he settled into a deserted bistro for a two-hour lunch, Mr. Falciani, a former computer technician who has been on the run since 2008, seemed oddly relaxed for a fugitive. And why not? He is in high demand these days, having cast himself as a crusader against the murky world of Swiss banking and money laundering. Once dismissed by many European authorities, he and other whistle-blowers are now being courted as the region’s governments struggle to fill their coffers and to stem a populist uprising against tax evasion and corruption. “It’s an economic war,” said Mr. Falciani, an angular man of 41 with a dark goatee who sometimes dons disguises, though on a muggy summer afternoon favored an innocuous beige tie and short-sleeved dress shirt. “In Switzerland, the banks are so organized that they are able to circumvent new rules and laws to continue to enable tax evasion.” Critics, not least at his former employer HSBC, dismiss Mr. Falciani as a manipulator more dazzled by money than high ideals. The data he has leaked — some say sold — since 2008 has wreaked havoc within the banking world, as well as the moneyed and political classes of Europe. Mr. Falciani’s information formed the basis for the now famous “Lagarde list” that has roiled Greek politics with its revelations of oligarchs and politicians who avoided taxes by stashing millions in Switzerland. His data is also credited with helping Spain collect 260 million euros ($345 million) in taxes and identify more than 650 tax evaders, including the president of Banco Santander. In 2012, Mr. Falciani passed his information to American authorities. They, in turn, used the data to pursue an investigation into whether HSBC flouted controls on money laundering, eventually forcing a $1.92 billion settlement with the bank in December. More than a few rich and powerful people await his next move. Mr. Falciani asserts that only a small portion of the data has been decrypted and used. Since being released from jail this year after a Spanish judge denied a Swiss extradition request, Mr. Falciani, who is married and has a young daughter, has resurfaced in France. Authorities here have offered protection in exchange for Mr. Falciani giving testimony to local prosecutors who are investigating whether HSBC helped French clients dodge taxes. “My main objective is to help authorities develop a defense,” Mr. Falciani said. “We are under attack and losing a lot of tax money,” he said of the Swiss banking system. “If you have enemies who want to invade, laws are not enough and you need armies to build an economic defense.” Image Hervé Falciani says he faces constant risk and worries about his safety. The French government has provided three bodyguards. Credit Corentin Fohlen for The International Herald Tribune A native of Monaco who was educated in the south of France, Mr. Falciani once worked in obscurity at HSBC. In 2005, he was promoted and transferred to Geneva. The following year, he said he raised concerns to his bosses about security flaws in the Swiss computer system that could violate the privacy of depositors. Ignored by his superiors, Mr. Falciani said he started collecting the information methodically, in an effort to prove the system was vulnerable. The bank denies that he ever alerted them and believes that he amassed the information over a two-year period. Early on, Mr. Falciani said he got the brushoff from German bureaucrats who weren’t interested in his trove of data. His information was also shunned in France by the previous administration when “authorities tried to make evidence disappear and they didn’t want to know,” he said. Then the European economy slumped and governments started to take notice. In a report from the French National Assembly issued in July, the lawmaker Christian Eckert chided authorities for being slow to use Mr. Falciani’s list. According to Mr. Eckert, the information included 127,311 clients, including 6,313 from France who were suspected of tax evasion. HSBC dismisses Mr. Falciani’s information as flawed, insisting the small sample the bank has seen is filled with errors. At the time of his employment, the bank contends it had only 100,000 customers and that the stolen data affected only 15,000 clients. “To our knowledge it has always been Falciani’s intention to sell the data,” David Brügger, a bank spokesman, said in an e-mail statement. “Only faced with the prospect of extradition and extended time behind bars, Falciani decided to cooperate with the Spanish authorities. A scheme he is now repeating with France and other countries.” That theory is echoed by Georgina Mikhael, a former HSBC computer consultant who worked with Mr. Falciani in Geneva. Ms. Mikhael says she helped Mr. Falciani develop a Hong Kong-based company, Palorva, to sell data to other banks, initially believing he obtained the information through what he called “data mining” from the Internet. She said they went to Lebanon in 2008 to sell their services to four banks. She said she grew suspicious when Mr. Falciani insisted on using a false Arabic name, Ruben Al-Chidiack, for their business dealings. “He never gives something for free,” said Ms. Mikhael, who noted that after the Lebanon effort failed, Mr. Falciani tried to approach German and French intelligence services, usually carrying a knife in his bag because he feared the risks. “Always he is asking. He is not Robin Hood.” Ms. Mikhael, who is currently unemployed and lives in her native Lebanon, says that she was Mr. Falciani’s mistress, believing that he planned to divorce his wife. She is now pursuing a defamation lawsuit against him in France, stemming from his contention that he was kidnapped by Mossad secret agents in Geneva who were seeking bank information about people with Hezbollah ties, including her. Ms. Mikhael says she does not have Hezbollah ties and is Christian. Mr. Falciani disputes that he is peddling his information for cash and the claims — pressed by Ms. Mikhael — “are part of moves that people are keen to play” to harm his reputation. “’Never have I or anyone close to me asked or accepted money for information,” he said. In 2012, Swiss authorities gave Mr. Falciani safe pass to meet in Switzerland to discuss a deal to plead guilty to data theft with a suspended sentence, provided he stopped sharing the information. Mr. Falciani said he strung them along to protect his own safety, waiting for a new government in France that might take his claims more seriously. Now that the political tide has turned, Mr. Falciani wants to continue working with authorities. As the investigations play out, Mr. Falciani said he was holding down a day job, working for a European Union project as a computer researcher to develop algorithms to detect abnormal behavior. But he worries about his long-term safety, wondering whether he will live another year. He notes that his house has been broken into and that his wife was recently fired from a job at a shoe store because of his notoriety “This business represents thousands of billions of euros,” he said. “From my side, I’m frightened.”

Herve Falciani
Tax Evasion
Whistleblower
HSBC
Switzerland
Greece
Banking and Finance
Europe


Bill Would Bar Anonymous Prepaid Cellphones

Abstract: There are reporters in New York who carry a half-dozen prepaid cellphones, loaded with minutes purchased in cash. The numbers are not registered to a real person, nor do they have to be under current law. They are peace of mind for confidential sources who have something to say but don’t want to make calls to a phone associated with a reporter or a news organization. In some lines of work, six anonymous cellphones would not be enough. Last fall, during a narcotics raid on an apartment in Astoria, the authorities found 22 prepaid cellphones, and plenty of cash to pay for them: $133,000. Among the names people in New York City have used when buying prepaid cellphones are Lady Gaga, King Kong, Sugar Love and Jesus Mom, according to investigators with the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor. Now federal legislation is being proposed in the Senate that would bring an end to the anonymity of prepaid phones, which are used by people in New York City with all kinds of reasons for not wanting to be linked to a phone number. “From my years in the phone industry, I’d say that most of the people who want the prepaid phones without giving their names are drug dealers, or guys who say, ‘I want a phone but I don’t want my wife to know about it,’ ” said Zeke James, who sells AT&T phones on the Upper West Side. “We ask for their name, but if they say they are Abe Lincoln, that’s what we put down,” said Ricardo Tavarez, a salesman at a T-Mobile shop in Washington Heights. “Out of 10 customers, two will want to know why they have to give their name for a prepaid phone. It’s better to have it if they need to contact customer service.” Under the new bill, anyone buying a prepaid phone would have to give identification, and retailers would have to keep the records for 18 months. The sponsors, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said that anonymous phones give an advantage to gangsters and terrorists. As Exhibit A, they cited the case of Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of planting a car bomb in Times Square. The authorities say he used a prepaid cellphone to buy the second-hand S.U.V. that was discovered on 45th Street, packed with stuff that was meant to explode. Because the woman who sold him the vehicle still had his phone number, investigators were able to get a list of the calls made from it, even though there was no record of who had bought it. Ultimately, the phone did lead the authorities to Mr. Shahzad: it had been used to call a number in Pakistan that he had given to United States customs officials when he was entering the country. But that was a matter of luck, Mr. Schumer maintained. “Usually, a prepaid cellphone is a dead end for law enforcement,” he said in a statement. Does anonymity have a legitimate social value? “There has to be a little bit of a safety valve for whistle-blowers and battered spouses who want to get off the grid,” said Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology , a civil liberties organization. People leave so many “digital bread crumbs,” Mr. Dempsey said, that a few gaps for privacy will not undermine law enforcement. “It’s very tantalizing to look at any one of these cases and look at the technology in isolation and think, if we could only tighten that up, we could stop terrorists,” he said. “The bad guys always used to be able to take a roll of dimes and go from pay phone to pay phone, and have perfect anonymity.” In New York, whatever pay phones survive are used, for the most part, as billboards for advertising. The prepaid cellphone is often a better deal for people who don’t have much money. “People who don’t have good credit and can’t sign a contract, or elderly people who don’t make many calls, like the prepaid,” said Valerie Bodner, the manager of a Verizon store on Broadway. Would there be any reason they would not want to give their real names? Ms. Bodner shrugged and pointed to a digital sign-in sheet at the entrance to the store for customers to get in line. “Some people don’t even want to sign in when they come here,” she said. Whether their reasons are legitimate or shady, the anonymous cellphone is no guarantee of secrecy. Not too long ago, a Bronx man registered his cellphone name as “LMAO LMAO,” Internet slang for laughing hard. He gloated on the phone about his success at outwitting the police, who were trying to catch him in the drug business. The conversation was wiretapped.

Cellular Telephones
News Sources Confidential Status of
Drug Abuse and Traffic
New York State
Wireless Communications
Whistle-Blowers


Bard College Freshmen Get Crash Course in Science

Abstract: ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — Liza Batkin, a first-year student at Bard College , is a dancer whose academic interests run to philosophy and literature. But here she was in a laboratory on a snowy day in January — while many of her peers across the country were still on winter break — inserting a piece of DNA into bacteria with a micropipette. At least she had company. In an intensive new program, she and every other freshman at Bard, a campus with a decidedly arty bent, have had to spend six hours a day over the past two and a half weeks learning about science through the prism of infectious disease. The 480 students have studied under two dozen scientists recruited from across the country for the program. Using lab equipment, computer modeling and classroom discussions, they have explored all aspects of disease, including detecting germs and managing pandemics. “There are mixed opinions, from total apathy — ‘Why am I here? This isn’t why I came to Bard’ — to total enthusiasm,” Ms. Batkin said of her classmates. “I decided to take it 100 percent seriously; otherwise I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of it. I definitely find myself becoming more critical of the science articles I read.” Called Citizen Science , the new program is the brainchild of Bard’s president, Leon Botstein , who is himself an artist — the music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Botstein has accused colleges of shirking their responsibility to create a well-rounded citizenry. “The most terrifying problem in American university education is the profound lack of scientific literacy for the people we give diplomas to who are not scientists or engineers,” he said. “The hidden Achilles’ heel is that while we’ve found ways to educate scientists in the humanities, the reverse has never really happened. Everybody knows this, but nobody wants to do anything about it.” Bard already has general-education requirements that include a semester of science, and the college has come up with some clever, though still rigorous, science courses for the nonmajor. There is one on color and light that appeals to artists, and another on acoustics for musicians. But Dr. Botstein set out last year to do more. He consulted several scientists, including his brother, David Botstein, a renowned geneticist at Princeton University, on the notion of a brief, hands-on immersion that eventually became the Citizen Science program. “I asked, ‘Can you make a real dent in the understanding of the layperson in three weeks, intensively every day?’ ” Dr. Botstein recalled. “And to a person, they all said, ‘Yes.’ ” Groups that promote American competitiveness have long warned that the United States is slipping in all areas of science. The National Academy of Sciences, in an update of its landmark 2005 report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” said last fall that the United States faced a future of economic decline if it failed to make significant investments in research in and teaching of science and mathematics. The update, subtitled “Rapidly Approaching Category 5,” noted that 16 percent of American college students received undergraduate degrees in natural sciences or engineering in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available. That compared with 47 percent in China, 38 percent in South Korea and 27 percent in France. The original report called for the creation of 25,000 undergraduate scholarships a year in math, engineering and science. The updated report said Congress had taken some steps to implement that recommendation. Jay B. Labov, a senior adviser for education and communication at the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council, said that most colleges required some science instruction, but that the course work did not always have a lab component. “Being lectured at is just fine for some students, but data shows that they retain about 10 percent of that,” Dr. Labov said. “Bard and a number of other places are recognizing that if you engage students early in their careers, you can get them hooked on science.” Still, the Bard sessions, which ended on Friday, featured several lectures, including one from David Botstein on “the fruits of the genome sequences for society,” and an open debate on vaccinations. Future programs may focus on climate change or energy. To promote learning for learning’s sake, students will receive neither course credits nor grades. “This way they are not constantly worried that ‘I’m not going to do well and that it will bring down my G.P.A.,’ ” said Brooke Jude, an assistant professor of biology and the director of Citizen Science. “I think we can motivate them for something other than an A.” Lauren Cain, 19, of Memphis, who plans to major in film and music, approached the program somewhat grudgingly. “I was pretty frustrated about losing two and a half weeks of my break,” she said. “Since I’m not a science person, I was a bit intimidated by the fact that we were going to be doing science, science, science.” But she fell under the spell of her instructor, Stephanie B. Stockwell, a microbiologist from James Madison University, and found herself fascinated by the antimicrobial substances she handled. While there is no final grade, there is a final project, and Ms. Batkin and six classmates came up with an idea that is pure Bard: a dance performance that illustrates how an influenza vaccine works. Students assumed the roles of the antigen, B cell, T cell and antibodies. “We’re using rubber bands and bubbles to show the B cell alerting the T cell that there’s a foreign invader,” Ms. Batkin said. “I’m narrating the process, but I am also the antibody at the end.”

Bard College
Botstein Leon
Colleges and Universities
Science and Technology


Kept in Line by an Angel When Fort Apache Wasn’t Enough

Abstract: Through the dim memories of a South Bronx childhood — as blurry as the steamed-up living room windows protected by chicken wire from the local knuckleheads and their barrage of rocks — thoughts of Christmastime in 1963 come slowly into focus. The smell of roast pork, the hard-as-nails spiced red and green candies, and the Christmas tree topped by an angel whose very presence spooked me — all of these seasonal recollections fade before one that to this day makes my heart race. Visiting the Fedco supermarket at Intervale and Fox. There, above the meat case crammed with pork chops, steaks and chicken, were toys arrayed on shelves tantalizingly close to our small outstretched arms. Big toys. The kind that made a 6-year-old lose himself with desire. There was the olive green tank that fired tan plastic shells with a whiff of talcum-powder smoke. The fire engine set with what seemed like a million pieces — most of which were lost within days. A secret agent kit, complete with a thin plastic trench coat that offered zero protection from the winter snow when I tried wearing it outside. These were real toys, not the flimsy cars and guns made in Japan from stamped tin cans that still had Japanese lettering on the inside. And to my mind, none of this could compete with Fort Apache, which was my biggest Christmas wish in 1963. Inside a box whose illustration never matched the makeshift mess I would set up were the parts of a brown plastic fort to be peopled by soldiers on the inside and Apaches on the outside. Maybe it was an omen, since that very neighborhood a few years later would become known as Fort Apache thanks to the overworked and under siege 41st Precinct station house on Simpson Street. Between there and our apartment on Beck Street was an entire holiday universe. Sparkling Christmas garlands arched over Southern Boulevard, home to Wishna’s Toy Store and Kresge’s, where Mami worked at the lunch counter. Around the corner from our house was Santini’s bodega, where they sold on credit meat as tough as leather and crackers that sometimes had tiny squirming insects that had burrowed into the boxes. But Fedco was its own magical place. From after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, any visit there prompted wonder and hyperventilation. The excitement lingered when I was home, taking the box in which the groceries were delivered, turning it upside down as a table in front of the television and having my lunch as I watched cartoons of cats and mice trying to kill each other. But that was mere prelude. The minute a commercial came on, I went into Christmas list mode. Actually, I went into shouting mode whenever I spied a particularly cool toy. “Que Santa Clo me traiga Mister Machine!” I cried in perfect Spanglish. “May Santa Claus bring me Mister Machine!” And in case he didn’t hear me at first, I repeated it twice. It was this child’s Christmas in wails. Who needed a letter to Santa? I just shouted (which, I realized a few years later, had made it easy for Mami and Papi to know what I wanted). Sure enough, when the big day came, there under the tree would be the toy I had coveted at the supermarket. It would be enough to make me giddy. But not always. Late Christmas night in 1963, I learned my cousin Hector had gotten a bike. Suddenly, Fort Apache didn’t seem so cool. Upset, I blurted out: “I hope he breaks his neck on that bike!” Mami and Papi were aghast. I knew I had crossed a line, and waited for punishment. Befitting our Catholic upbringing on this most holy of holidays, my parents made me apologize and ask for forgiveness, but not of Hector. No, absolution would come only from a higher power: the angel atop our Christmas tree. Reluctantly — and with more than a bit of fear of the stiff-winged angel looking down on me — I told the unblinking herald that I was sorry. Frankly, I do not know how sincere my apology was. What I did feel that day was terror that — as in movies about children seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary — the angel might react with a wink or a flap of wings. That childhood dread of being singled out by the almighty to witness a religious apparition lingers to this day, making me switch channels pronto when movies like “The Song of Bernadette” are shown on television. Apology done, I went back to playing with Fort Apache. Hector never broke his neck. My parents didn’t get me a bike until 1969. By then, Hector had a unicycle, but I had self-control. And my fear of otherworldly visions still keeps me in line.

Christmas
Toy
Children
Supermarkets
South Bronx
Catholic Church


Veterans Make Up Shrinking Percentage of Suicides

Abstract: Suicides among military veterans, though up slightly in recent years, account for a shrinking percentage of the nation’s total number of suicides — a result of steadily rising numbers of suicides in the general population, according to a report released on Friday by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The report , based on the most extensive data the department has ever collected on suicide, found that the number of suicides among veterans reached 22 a day in 2010, the most recent year available. That was up by 22 percent from 2007, when the daily number was 18. But it is only 10 percent higher than in 1999, according to the report. Department officials described the numbers as “relatively stable” over the decade. In the same 12-year period, the total number of suicides in the country rose steadily to an estimated 105 a day in 2010, up from 80 in 1999, a 31 percent increase. As a result, the percentage of the nation’s daily suicides committed by veterans declined to 21 percent in 2010, from 25 percent in 1999. “What’s happening with veterans is a reflection of what’s happening to America,” Jan Kemp, the national mental health director for suicide prevention at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said in an interview. “The suicide rate in America has been creeping up.” Dr. Kemp said the fact that veterans accounted for a smaller percentage of the nation’s suicides suggested that improved outreach and suicide prevention programs might have had an effect. Image Paul Sullivan Credit Paul Sakuma/Associated Press But other experts said that for a variety of reasons — including the fact that many veterans have access to health care through the department — the suicide rate for veterans should be much lower than it is. “This remains a crisis,” said Paul Sullivan, a founder of Veterans for Common Sense . The new report does not provide a suicide rate for veterans, because the department is still refining that number, Dr. Kemp said. But she acknowledged that the rate was higher than for the general population, which is 12.4 suicides per 100,000 people. Dr. Kemp said veterans tend to fall into higher-risk groups, which include: being male; living in a rural area, particularly in the West; and having access to firearms. Past reports on suicide among veterans have been based on data collected by the federal government from only about a third of the states. But because of growing concerns about veteran suicide, the department asked every state to provide data on veterans. The new report — which was previously described in The Washington Post — is based on a database built from information on more than 147,000 suicides in 21 states — a large enough number to develop accurate estimates for the entire veteran population, department officials said. Dr. Kemp added that the department now had data from 40 states and tentative agreements to receive information from the remaining 10. Among the report’s other important findings was that male veterans who commit suicide tend to be older than nonveteran male suicides, with the largest number of veterans’ suicides occurring among men between 50 and 59. Dr. Kemp said the department intended to increase outreach to that age group. At the same time, the new data suggested that veterans under 30 are committing suicide in smaller numbers than their nonveteran peers. That would seem to contradict theories that the recent wars have contributed to increased suicide among new veterans. Somewhat surprisingly, the study confirmed an estimate first reported in 2008 that 18 veterans commit suicide each day. That figure had been viewed skeptically by many experts because it was not based on detailed data. But the new, more comprehensive data resulted in the same estimate.

Suicide
Veteran
Research
Veteran Affairs
US


I.O.C. Wants New Global Antidoping Body by 2018

Abstract: The International Olympic Committee ’s executive board recommended Thursday that a restructured antidoping system with independent oversight be created in time for the Winter Olympics in 2018. Such a system would take the responsibility for testing and results management out of the hands of sports organizations, including international federations, and place it firmly under the leadership of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the I.O.C. said. In a statement released after meetings in Lausanne, Switzerland, the I.O.C.’s executive board called on sports organizations to transfer their doping control operations to the new umbrella organization and to give it financing that, at least initially, would equal what they were spending on existing antidoping efforts. Olympic leaders recommended an independent drug-testing entity at a meeting in October. WADA is forming a working group to examine the proposal and is to report to the WADA board in May. “There’s a whole series of practical issues that I think need to be addressed before you march on to deal with the principle,” David Howman, WADA’s director general, said in an interview last week. But Thursday’s I.O.C. recommendations, which were directed at the WADA working group, provided more detail and an ambitious timetable. They were announced only a month after a WADA report accused Russia of running a sophisticated doping system that involved sports officials using bribes, intimidation and false samples to evade international doping rules. Stuart Miller, the International Tennis Federation executive who heads his sport’s antidoping program, has estimated that it would take “three to five years” for a new agency to be in a position to take over antidoping efforts from the international federations. The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will begin in little more than two years. The I.O.C. also announced Thursday that it would institute independent auditing of the major funding it gives to sports organizations, including Olympic organizing committees, international federations and national Olympic committees. The bulk of such I.O.C. financing comes from television and sponsorship revenue. The move, which will require the auditing of hundreds of millions of dollars in distributions, comes in the wake of corruption scandals in federations like FIFA and the International Association of Athletics Federations that have shaken public confidence in sports administrators this year. One of the concerns about the new antidoping plan remains cost. “Governments, which are 50 percent partners of WADA, should support this reform alongside the sports movement, both logistically and financially,” the I.O.C. statement said. But Howman said it would take far more money than countries currently contribute to create an independent, global program. “You are not talking about 30 or 40 million,” Howman said of the annual budget, in dollars. He said the figure would be much more than that. Asked if $100 million would be a fairer estimate, Howman replied, “Without too much difficulty.” But he declined to offer a precise figure. The 2014 operational budget for WADA, which is currently in an oversight role but not a testing role, was about $30 million. Sebastian Coe, president of the embattled I.A.A.F., track and field’s governing body, reiterated on Thursday in an interview with the BBC that he intended to double the I.A.A.F.’s annual antidoping budget, to $8 million. Tennis’s antidoping budget, which is not public, is believed to be about $4 million. But Howman suggested that it would not be as straightforward as adding up the existing expenditures to arrive at a budget for the new antidoping entity. “You’d be talking about a centralized organization that requires housing and talking about making contracts with those who would work within it and contracts with those who will be around the world collecting the samples,” Howman said. “There is quite a lot that needs to be discussed, and I think it would be premature to put a number on it.” Howman said one of the issues was that the federations have not traditionally paid for antidoping costs at major global events. “Those who host international events like the world athletics championships or the Olympic Games, as part of their hosting contract, have to undertake the doping program,” Howman said. “So it’s never been a figure that has been put to the federations. It’s always been covered by the hosting. So those sorts of fundings would have to be taken into account as well.”

Doping
International Olympic Committee
2018 Winter Olympics
Pyeongchang
World Anti-Doping Agency
Drug test
Olympics


As Shuttle Flights Dwindle, a Series of ‘Lasts’ Begins

Abstract: The space shuttle Endeavour , carrying the last major piece of the International Space Station, is poised for launching before sunrise on Sunday, the last planned nighttime liftoff of a shuttle ever. The launching is the first of the year as the shuttle program enters its home stretch of five missions this year. The four flights after this one will be largely devoted to carrying science experiments and spare parts to the space station. The shuttles are scheduled to be retired in September. “Every launch is a little bittersweet,” Michael Moses, the shuttle launch integration manager, said at a news conference Friday. “We’re one closer to the end.” The launching is scheduled for 4:39 a.m. at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “You’ll see it all the way up the East Coast,” said Michael Leinbach, the shuttle launch director. Weather forecasts call for an 80 percent chance of favorable weather with only some concerns of high winds at the launching pad. The main cargo for the Endeavour on its 13-day mission is Node 3, a 23-foot-long, 15-foot-wide module for the space station, built under contract with the European Space Agency. It will house many of the station’s life-support systems. This is the station piece that would have been called Colbert had NASA abided by the results of a poll last year that asked the public for naming suggestions. Stephen Colbert, the host of the parody talk show “The Colbert Report,” urged his fans to vote for naming the station segment after him, and they did in large numbers. But NASA, which had said the poll results were not binding, instead bestowed the module with the name Tranquility, after Apollo 11’s landing site on the moon in 1969. The space agency did name after Mr. Colbert a piece of exercise equipment, which went to the space station last August and will be moved into the Tranquility module. If the shuttle launches on Sunday morning, most of the shuttle staff members will be able to watch the Super Bowl in the evening. If the launching is delayed by weather or a mechanical problem, they will instead probably be busy preparing for another launching attempt on Monday morning. “We’re not going to change our plan based on the Super Bowl, frankly,” Mr. Leinbach said. Shuttle officials also acknowledged the potential turmoil in NASA’s future after President Obama proposed last week to cancel Constellation, NASA’s program that was to return astronauts to the Moon. But they said that would not compromise their attention during the shuttle mission. “The team is ready to go,” Mr. Leinbach said. “We will not be distracted on the console. We will not be distracted working on the orbiters. I have no doubt about it. It’s a very, very professional team.”

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

International Space Cooperation and Ventures


Fraud Trial Begins in Kabul Bank Scandal

Abstract: KABUL, Afghanistan — A major step toward resolving the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from Kabul Bank began last week with the trial of nearly two dozen people, including the bank’s former chairman and former chief executive, who are accused of being the main architects of a colossal fraud. The scandal at Kabul Bank, Afghanistan’s largest private financial institution, has laid bare the crony capitalism and corruption that has thrived here in the past decade. The bank was forced into receivership in 2010 under the weight of nearly $900 million in bad loans and missing funds. With this long-stalled trial, the government is trying to demonstrate to Afghans and international donors that it is able to hold powerful people accountable in corruption cases. International donors, including the United States, the European Union and others, had demanded that the Afghan government take a series of steps to combat corruption in the aftermath of the collapse of Kabul Bank. One of the most important was to prosecute those who had perpetrated the fraud. For a year, the International Monetary Fund suspended Afghanistan’s program largely because of the government’s lack of progress in bringing to justice the people behind the bank debacle. Now with the trial under way, donors privately say they are cautiously optimistic. And, as important, Afghans are watching as local television stations have begun to broadcast reports of the trial proceedings. “The Afghans are working it through their legal system, which is what the international community has encouraged them to do,” said a senior American official, who asked not to be quoted by name because of the delicacy of the case. “And we will be watching for the result, as will the Afghans themselves.” Another Western official said: “This is absolutely one of the two or three big-picture issues in Afghanistan today, along with the security and civilian transition. If this process is not credible, it puts into question a lot of the international commitments made to Afghanistan going forward.” The three judges hearing the case listened intently on Saturday as two of the defendants made their opening statements. The judges then peppered them with questions about the bank’s practices, the system for transferring money and their failure to detect the fraud. Ten more defendants facing a variety of charges will present their cases in the coming days, including former Kabul Bank officials and officials at the Central Bank, who prosecutors say should have known about the malfeasance and should have tried to stop it. The trial opened on Wednesday, and the judges heard from five defendants, including the former bank chairman, Shirkhan Farnood, and the former chief executive officer, Khalilullah Frozi, who are accused of having engineered the fraud. At that hearing, the two, who are now at each other’s throats over who bears more responsibility for the bank’s collapse, lobbed insults and accusations at each other. Mr. Frozi, who also appeared at Saturday’s session, spoke loudly and loomed over the judges’ desk as he tried to make his points. After Saturday’s nearly five-hour session, the chief judge, Shams Rahman Shams, said the case was not a simple one. “In fact,” he said, “this is a very complicated case and a world issue, and resolving this case cannot be completed in one or two days.” When asked by local reporters if he was feeling any pressure related to the case, Judge Shams said: “The trial is going very well, it is transparent. We have not received instructions from any institution nor have we have accepted any orders, nor will we accept orders from any organizations.” The case had appeared to be stalled for months as different government anticorruption commissions gathered information and the attorney general’s office questioned people, seemingly overwhelmed by the case’s complexity and the political connections of many of those involved. The logjam was broken in April when President Hamid Karzai announced the appointment of a special prosecutor and a special judicial tribunal to handle the case. Mr. Karzai was forced to act because of the case’s importance to international donors and because he appeared to want to demonstrate to Afghans that his government was willing to clamp down on corruption even when it involved people with close ties to the highest levels of government. The bank’s former leaders, Mr. Farnood and Mr. Frozi, had close ties to the presidential palace and gave shares in the bank to the president’s brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and the vice president’s brother, Hassan Fahim. The tribunal began to gather evidence four months ago after the Afghan attorney general’s office announced its intention to file charges against nearly two dozen people. Initially, the attorney general named 21 people , but last week 22 defendants were scheduled to appear in court, Judge Shams said. Judge Shams said four or five had fled Afghanistan and would be represented by court-appointed lawyers. Investigators have yet to complete the painstaking job of tracing where millions of dollars went. The case involves a combination of an elaborate Ponzi scheme , sloppily executed loans that were often made with little regard for the value of the real estate, assets or businesses being financed and outright gifts and perquisites that amounted to millions of dollars, according to officials close to the case. News of the bank’s troubles began to leak out in August 2010 as it became clear that the amount of cash in the bank was hundreds of millions of dollars less than what depositors had put in. The Central Bank then replaced Mr. Farnood and Mr. Frozi with Massoud Ghazi, who testified on Saturday that when he arrived on Aug. 31, 2010, there was a deficit of $842 million: depositors had put $1.3 billion in the bank but only $448 million was on hand. Subsequent accounting checks found that more money was missing, said officials familiar with an audit and a recovery of assets report done by Kroll Associates, a forensic accounting firm. One of the most important questions is whether those accused of being the architects of the fraud will be found guilty under the money-laundering law, which would allow the government to obtain internationally recognized confiscation orders. Of the roughly $900 million that was either stolen or given out in bad loans, a large portion is believed to have been squirreled away in foreign bank accounts and could be recouped if the Afghan government has confiscation orders, said Western officials familiar with Afghan law and international financial regulations.

Kabul Bank
Frauds and Swindling
Afghanistan


Volume Turned Up High, Larcher de Brito Wins at U.S. Open

Abstract: The cacophony came from Court 16, a chorus of guttural grunts from Michelle Larcher de Brito that provided the soundtrack for her first-round match Monday at the United States Open. The sounds overpowered announcements and cheers that came from nearby courts. They drowned out the noise from airplanes flying overhead. They caused spectators to turn to one another in ear-splitting amazement. Larcher de Brito topped Mathilde Johansson of France, 1-6, 7-5, 6-1, leaving the crowd a lasting audible impression. Here she was, all of 16, thin and petite, yet loud and proud. Those noises — high-volume part grunt, part shriek, part wheeze — could not have come from her. Could they? Indeed. Of all the celebrated past and present decibel champions on the WTA Tour, a group that includes Maria Sharapova, Monica Seles and the Williams sisters, Larcher de Brito, 5 feet 5 inches, consistently ranks among the loudest. With the match under way, an experiment needed to be conducted. How far could one walk from Court 16 and still hear Larcher de Brito’s shriek show? From the walkway behind the court, past the ice cream stand and nearly to a nearby men’s room, a full 75 steps later, her grunts still resonated, albeit softly, down the corridor. And that was walking in the noisiest direction, away from the quiet of the practice courts on the other side of Court 16. Larcher de Brito was criticized this year at the French Open , labeled by the opponents she gave sore eardrums as an excessive grunter, a noisy nuisance. One opponent, Aravane Rezai, complained to the chair umpire during their match , citing a little-known rule covered under “deliberate hindrance” that allows umpires to award points to the opponents of players who distract by yelling. Rezai also criticized Larcher de Brito’s lack of sportsmanship. Critics speculated that Nick Bollettieri, her former coach, had trained her in the art of overdone grunting, which he denied. Larcher de Brito’s playing style became a subplot at the French, more soap opera than symphony. “I don’t really want to change anything,” she told reporters afterward. It came as no surprise, then, that she was sent to the outer edge of the National Tennis Center, way out to Court 16, banished to the boondocks for her match against Johansson. Larcher de Brito’s style did not help her, at least not early. Johansson played at the opposite end of the decibel spectrum, moving and hitting in near silence. The ball moved back and forth with similar velocity but opposite in noise level, screeching from one end, silence from the other. Johansson cruised in the first set. Larcher de Brito never lowered the volume, wheezing and grunting and shrieking her way back into the match. She won the second set, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and bouncing with each grunt, and she finished off Johansson in the third. “I knew that she was very loud,” Johansson said. “But that wasn’t the problem today.” Larcher de Brito, who is Portuguese, moved to the United States with her family at age 9 to attend Bollettieri’s tennis academy in Florida. Members of that family, including her father and current coach, Antonio, sat in the stands, next to fans who were there to hear as much as to see her work. The comeback victory means that Larcher de Brito will give fans another earful during a second-round match. On Monday, she lived to grunt, shriek and wheeze another day.

United States Open (Tennis)
Larcher de Brito Michelle
Noise
Ears and Hearing


Woman Fatally Struck After Refusing a Ride, the Police Say

Abstract: A 21-year-old Long Island woman who chose to walk home instead of drive with a friend she thought was drunk was killed on Saturday morning after the friend ran into her, the police said. The accident happened shortly after 4 a.m. on Nesconset Highway in Setauket, the Suffolk County Police Department said. The victim, Krystal Berkowitz, of Stony Brook, had gotten out of her friend’s S.U.V. and started to walk because she was concerned that the friend was intoxicated, the police said. Investigators said that the driver, Lawrence Pagano, of Coram, hit Ms. Berkowitz with his Jeep Liberty while trying to pull over to the side of the road to talk to her. The police said that Ms. Berkowitz was pronounced dead at the scene. Mr. Pagano, 23, called 9-1-1 and tried to assist Ms. Berkowitz while waiting for officers to arrive, the police said. He was later arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated. The police said he would be held overnight at a police station until an arraignment scheduled for Sunday. It was not immediately known if Mr. Pagano had an attorney.

Car Crash
Driving Under the Influence DUI
Long Island


Graft Inquiry in Namibia Finds Clues in China

Abstract: BEIJING — To the likely consternation of diplomats in both Beijing and faraway Windhoek, a newly minted initiative by Namibia ’s government to root out official corruption has snared an early catch: three people who, Namibian prosecutors charge, helped win a lucrative contract for a Chinese company recently headed by the son of Hu Jintao , China ’s president. The charges against the three, including one Chinese national, have yet to be heard in court. There is no public evidence that President Hu’s 38-year-old son, Hu Haifeng, or other high officials of the company, Nuctech Company Limited , knew of the Namibian dealings. But mere reports of the charges have already prompted Chinese government censors to block Internet surfers from searching for news about the younger Mr. Hu, Namibia or Nuctech, according to the California-based Internet site China Digital Times . Separately, the office of Namibia’s prosecutor general, Martha Imalwa, said she had traveled to Beijing to request that Mr. Hu be interviewed in the case as a witness, but not as a suspect. Until last year, Mr. Hu was president of Nuctech, a Beijing-based maker of advanced security scanners used in airports, customs warehouses and other traffic points. He has since been elevated to Communist Party secretary of Tsinghua Holdings, the state-controlled firm that runs Nuctech and about 30 other businesses. Namibia prosecutors accuse Nuctech’s Africa representative, 39-year-old Yang Fan, and two Namibians of joining in a bribery scheme that secured a $55.3 million contract in May 2008 to install Nuctech scanners at customs inspection points across Namibia. Most of the cost was to be borne by a so-called soft loan — usually a loan at below market rates or with other favorable terms — that China’s government granted Namibia on the condition that it purchase scanners from Nuctech. Namibia’s government paid about $12.8 million to Nuctech in February. But prosecutors allege that most of that money was quickly transferred to a Namibian company listed as a Nuctech consultant, and then split among Mr. Yang and the two Namibian defendants. The case came to light because of a new money-laundering law that requires Namibian banks to routinely report large money transfers to investigators. Prosecutors said that the three defendants in the Nuctech case appear to have spent much of the money on what officials called an enormous spending spree. Nuctech has offered to send officials to Namibia to aid in the investigation, but has not commented publicly. The three defendants were to appear in court in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, on Wednesday for a bail hearing. Nuctech was created in 1997 as an offshoot of Tsinghua University , a Beijing campus with a heavy emphasis on technology where both President Hu and, later, his son were engineering graduates. The company has risen rapidly to become one of the world’s top providers of security scanning equipment, supplying about 50 nations, including the United States. In late 2006, the company won a contract to install advanced scanners at all 147 of China’s airports to detect potentially dangerous liquids. While the company’s products have won praise from users in places as diverse as Australia and Norway, Nuctech’s business practices have come under increasing scrutiny abroad. The European Union is investigating whether the company has used soft loan deals from the Chinese government to effectively lower its prices and undercut competitors. South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper reported that Nuctech’s agent in a $380 million scanner sale there was a company implicated in corrupt contracts involving the nation’s scandal-plagued Parliament. In the Philippines, legislators charged that the government’s customs agency overpaid in 2006 and 2007 when it reached a $150 million no-bid agreement, also financed by a soft loan, to install Nuctech scanners at transit points there. Namibian critics also contend that their government grossly overpaid for the scanning equipment and that much of the excess payments ended up in private hands, including those of some Namibian politicians. Namibia’s inquiry into the deal is ongoing.

Namibia
China
Hu Jintao
Ethics
International Relations
International Trade and World Market


Review: ‘Wired to Create’ Shows the Science of a Messy Process

Abstract: Recently, I found myself with a book contract and a deadline to produce 80,000 words, so I turned to some author friends for advice. Their answers were nearly always the same: Don’t do what I did. These critically acclaimed, award-winning writers had produced their best-sellers via creative processes that most described as disorganized and nonlinear. Careful plans had crumbled as they had encountered unexpected turns in their research and thinking. After reading “Wired to Create,” by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, I’m inclined to think that these writers took the right path. Research into the nature of creativity has exploded the past 50 years, and scientists are finding that it’s rarely a well-defined, step-by-step process. Picasso drew 45 numbered sketches, each in multiple versions, while working on his famous painting “Guernica.” Some of the figures in the finished painting appeared as they had in the first or second version of a sketch, but others continued to be revised even on the final canvas. Picasso’s process was “more chaotic than controlled, more spontaneous than linear,” Mr. Kaufman and Ms. Gregoire write. (Read an excerpt .) Dr. Kaufman is a cognitive psychologist, the scientific director of the Imagination Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Gregoire is a Huffington Post writer whose article “ 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently ” served as the genesis of this book. Together, they have created a satisfying overview of creativity research that is likely to provide nuggets of wisdom to even the most seasoned creative spirit. Readers looking for tips on how to increase creativity will find plenty here. Some of the most tested — go for a walk, take a shower, let your mind wander — are not revolutionary. The book contains too many platitudes — “Inspiration favors the prepared mind” — oversimplified lists and seemingly arbitrary rules of thumb, and these flaws could have made it another forgettable tome in the vast library on creativity. Instead, “Wired to Create” rises above these shortcomings by emphasizing the complexities and contradictions that distinguish creative people. “Insightful problem solving can’t be boiled down to any single way of thinking,” the authors say. Creative people have messy processes, and often messy minds, full of contradictions. Image Credit Patricia Wall/The New York Times Contrary to the well-worn notion that creativity resides in the right side of the brain, research shows that creativity is a product of the whole brain, relying especially on what the authors call the “imagination network” — circuits devoted to tasks like making personal meaning, creating mental simulations and taking perspective. While creative people run the gamut of personalities, Dr. Kaufman’s research has shown that openness to experience is more highly correlated to creative output than I.Q., divergent thinking or any other personality trait. This openness often yields a drive for exploration, which “may be the single most important personal factor predicting creative achievement,” the authors write. These are people energized and motivated by the possibility of discovering new information: “It’s the thrill of the knowledge chase that most excites them.” Once the idea is found, alas, the creative process begins to resemble something more like grinding execution. It’s still creative, but it requires more focus and less daydreaming — one reason highly creative people tend to exhibit mindfulness and mental wandering. “Creativity is a process that reflects our fundamentally chaotic and multifaceted nature,” the authors write. “It is both deliberate and uncontrollable, mindful and mindless, work and play.” On Jan. 2, the novelist George R.R. Martin announced that he had missed his (already delayed) deadline for “The Winds of Winter,” the highly anticipated sixth book in his best-selling fantasy series “Game of Thrones.” The sixth season of the HBO series will proceed without a completed version of the book it’s based on. “I tried, I promise you. I failed,” the author told fans on his blog . “Truth be told, sometimes the writing goes well and sometimes it doesn’t.” Perhaps Mr. Martin has adopted the mind-set that the author Denise Shekerjian identified among the 40 MacArthur grant recipients she interviewed for her 1990 book, “Uncommon Genius: How Great Ideas Are Born.” Ms. Shekerjian called it “staying loose,” a way of embracing the uncertainty inherent in the creative process, “often without regard for practicality or efficiency.” The magic moment of epiphany, Ms. Shekerjian wrote, often follows an extended period of uncertainty. Sometimes, the writing just doesn’t go well — and then suddenly it does. According to Dr. Kaufman and Ms. Gregoire, the ability to tolerate and embrace the discomfort of this process is a hallmark of creative people. “Those murky, ambiguous places, as highly imaginative people well know, are quite often where the creative magic happens.”

Books
Scott Barry Kaufman
Carolyn Gregoire
Creativity
Writer
Wired to Create


Defective Takata Airbag Grows Into Global Problem for Manufacturer

Abstract: SIBU, Malaysia — Law Suk Leh, late in her pregnancy, was driving in the industrial outskirts of this steamy riverside city when her 2003 Honda City collided with a turning car. Her airbag’s inflater ruptured on the July evening, spraying metal shrapnel into her neck. Ms. Law, 43, bled to death before reaching the hospital, according to the local police. Doctors performed an emergency operation to deliver Ms. Law’s baby, a girl. But she died two days later. Honda publicly linked the July death to the inflater last Thursday, making it the first fatality outside of the United States tied to faulty airbags made by Takata, a Japanese auto supplier. “The cause of death for this incident is rupture of the inflater,” said a Honda spokesman in Malaysia. Ms. Law’s identity was confirmed by the police. What began as a largely American problem for Takata is taking on ever-wider proportions, confronting drivers and regulators in multiple countries with differing legal systems and attitudes toward automobile safety. Until the report of Ms. Law’s death, the previous four fatalities were in the United States. But faulty inflaters, made at North American plants, also ended up in overseas cars. Ms. Law’s Honda was manufactured in Thailand. The spokesman for Honda Malaysia, Jordhatt Johan, said the car was part of a recall in June, although it was limited to passenger airbags. Honda announced a recall last week covering driver airbags. In the United States, the urgency over the faulty airbags, which has prompted 14.3 million recalls globally, has risen along with the death toll and the injuries. On Tuesday, federal regulators urged automakers to recall cars nationwide that contain driver’s-side airbags made by Takata. Takata is expected to face scrutiny on Thursday over its faulty airbags at a Senate hearing on auto safety. Hiroshi Shimizu, the company’s senior vice president for quality assurance in Japan, is set to testify before lawmakers, along with auto executives and safety regulators. “The problem is that nobody knows how far it’s going to go — how many millions more vehicles,” said Koji Endo, an expert on the Japanese automobile industry at Advanced Research Japan. The fallout has been limited on Takata’s home turf in Japan. Few incidents of ruptured airbags have been reported by auto regulators. And lawyers aren’t clamoring for class-action suits, as in the United States. Takata’s response has also been muted, with its chairman remaining largely mum on the issue in recent months. While the company has apologized broadly to customers affected by the recalls, the only hint that it was bracing for more potential problems came during Takata’s recent financial results in early November. Takata, which forecast a wider loss for the year, said it “was not possible to predict further costs” related to the recalls. “Takata takes very seriously the allegations made against the company,” Alby Berman, a Takata spokesman at its North American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., said in a statement. “Our chairman is ensuring that we fully cooperate with the government investigation. He is engaged and committed to leading the company through this process.” The scope of the regulatory problem in Japan has been relatively limited so far. Between 2009 and 2013, authorities made a series of recalls, in the low thousands, for faulty Takata airbags. The first big recall took place in April 2013, covering 700,000 cars made by Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda. All told, regulators in Japan have now recalled 2.3 million cars over malfunctioning airbags. Video In the course of reporting, The Times obtained video showing the potentially dangerous consequences of mishandling Takata’s airbags. Millions of vehicles with the airbags have been recalled worldwide. Just four incidents of ruptured airbags have been reported by Japanese regulators, with no deaths or injuries noted in their recall announcements. They all follow a similar script to a fender-bender involving a Honda in western Japan this spring. When the 2003 Honda Fit subcompact struck a parked car, the passenger’s-side airbag ruptured, sending heated metal shards into the instrument panel. The heat and force were enough to crack the plastic panel and set it on fire. As more problems have come to light in the United States, Masato Sahashi, an official at the division of the Transport Ministry that oversees safety recalls, said the ministry had been urging carmakers to search for possible inflater problems in a range of vehicle models beyond those already identified for recalls. “We’re continuing to direct auto manufacturers to proceed quickly with examinations related to airbag abnormalities,” he said. Some experts say defects are often underreported in Japan, because the country’s legal system discourages owners of faulty cars from seeking redress from manufacturers. American-style class-action lawsuits were introduced just two years ago, but only for contract disputes, such as battles between condominium buyers and developers. If people injured by faulty products want to sue, they must do so individually, meaning they cannot share legal costs with other plaintiffs. “There was a big debate about whether to include damage claims in class actions, but the idea was rejected,” said Masato Nakamura, a lawyer who is part of a committee at Japan’s national bar association that advocates for more consumer-friendly laws. “The opposition came from industry groups. They said it would be bad for businesses, and politicians usually buy that argument.” The potential rewards of suing in Japan are small, too, since courts as a rule do not award punitive damages. So while American personal injury lawyers scour the United States for anyone who might have been hurt by a product suspected of being hazardous, there is little incentive to do the same in Japan. Safety regulators direct complaints first to industry-funded arbitration panels, whose proceedings and outcomes are not made public. “People think they can’t win, so why bother?” Mr. Nakamura said. “The whole process is designed to keep things quiet and away from the courts.” Takata Airbag Recalls: Affected Vehicles This list of affected vehicles was compiled from information automakers provided to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Takata has had safety problems before, and it has found a sympathetic ally in Japanese regulators. In 1996, seven Japanese automakers, along with General Motors and Chrysler, recalled a total of 8.8 million vehicles in the United States, after American safety authorities raised concerns that Takata-made seatbelt buckles could jam or fail to latch. At the time, the recall was the largest in automotive history. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said at the time that at least 90 injuries had been linked to the belts, albeit no deaths. But Takata, backed by Japanese government officials, initially pushed back against the concerns. Officials in Tokyo were particularly emphatic in their defense of Takata, arguing that similar seatbelt problems were rare in Japan. They also suggested that American drivers were experiencing trouble because they kept their vehicles dirtier than their fastidious Japanese counterparts. Takata executives in Tokyo have done little to publicly address the latest recall crisis. The chief executive, Shigehisa Takada, whose grandfather founded the company as a textile manufacturer in 1933, has avoided public appearances since the annual shareholder meeting in June. At the meeting, he apologized to investors for the mounting recall problems, which have weighed on the share price. Since then, his public messages have been limited to written statements. He also stayed away from an analyst meeting this month. “Takata has been very conservative and reluctant to provide information,” said Mr. Endo at Advanced Research Japan. “It’s kind of a one-man company. No one inside the company can criticize the owner.” The affair has dredged up uncomfortable memories of another Japanese safety crisis, at Toyota in 2009 and 2010. The companies share similarities, from origins in the textile industry to the enduring influence of the families that created them. Even their names are similarly derived, as slight variations on those of their founders. Five years ago, Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s president, was widely criticized for his initial reluctance to address a furor over suspected cases of unintended acceleration in Toyota cars. The malfunctions, also linked to driver deaths, were reported mostly in the United States, and Mr. Toyoda was accused of being out of touch with his company’s sprawling global business. It took Mr. Toyoda’s late but impassioned testimony in Congress and appearances on American television for him to begin taking a public role in the recall crisis. At the hearing on Thursday, senators are expected to pressure automakers to replace the faulty airbags as quickly as possible. They will also probably grill Mr. Shimizu, the quality assurance executive at Takata, about when the company became aware of safety problems with its airbags, and when it alerted automakers to potential issues. The New York Times reported this month that Takata found signs of defects with its airbags during secret tests it conducted in 2004, four years earlier than originally believed. Takata has disputed the report. “It’s obviously in Takata’s interest to cooperate,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who is a member of the Senate committee overseeing the hearing, said in a recent interview. “And what I have not understood,” he added, “is essentially, what caused these explosions?”

Automobile safety
Takata
Malaysia
Fatalities,casualties
Legislation


Sharks Battle Jet Lag and Visit Favored Chiefs in Super Rugby Final

Abstract: WELLINGTON — There will be a first-time champion, regardless of who lifts the Super Rugby trophy aloft Saturday. But should the Sharks of South Africa triumph over the Chiefs from New Zealand, they will have overcome huge odds to earn their place atop the podium after a brutal three weeks on the road. While the Chiefs, who will be host to the final in Hamilton, New Zealand, have enjoyed a bye week and the comforts of home since the end of the regular season, the Sharks have been criss-crossing the Indian Ocean — and defeating teams ranked higher than they — to earn their spot in Super Rugby’s showpiece. They have booked approximately 36,800 kilometers, or 23,000 miles, countless flights and bus trips and several time zones after claiming the last of the six finals spots. They defeated the Australian conference winners, the Queensland Reds in Brisbane, and the South African table-topping Stormers in Cape Town, to earn the right to get back on a plane and head to New Zealand to face the Chiefs. No Super Rugby team has ever endured that to make a final — let alone win the trophy. It is a brutal schedule, even for professional athletes. “It would be amazing,” said the Sharks’ New Zealand-born coach, John Plumtree, after his team’s victory against the Stormers. “Flying there, flying back here then back again. Nobody’s ever done it. Who can do it? “If we don’t do this, someone will eventually. If we can get up physically for this game, anything can happen.” Aside from the time taken up by the travel, which reduces the amount of training the team can do, the players can also suffer from disrupted sleep patterns and fatigue, a drop in eye-hand coordination, a lack of concentration and a possible decrease in appetite, resulting in low energy levels. They also may experience an increase in nerves because they have been unable to complete the buildup to their usual standards. “I know personally the jet lag when traveling there is terrible; I have to take sleeping tablets most nights for a week, Plumtree said. “But the players are younger and they get over it quicker; it’s not ideal but we will try to prepare smartly and get these boys back up; we’re representing South Africa now.” Experts say it takes a day for every hour of time difference to overcome the effects of jet lag. The Sharks players must be in La La Land, given how many different time zones they have operated in three weeks. While supplements, sleeping pills and a carefully managed timetable will help to alleviate some of the symptoms for the South Africans, it will be the battle between mind and body that ultimately decides the contest Saturday. As the strength and conditioning coach of the Hurricanes, David Gray, explained: “There is something there, but you just try and ignore it and say: ‘Let’s just get on with it and do the job’ and see what happens. “Certainly it wouldn’t be ideal. But you’d think having a final they should be able to get themselves up for it. But I’d imagine it will be harder than just flying straight from South Africa to New Zealand.” The Sharks, who have been runners-up three times, are gunning for their first Super Rugby title and to become the first team since the Crusaders in 1999 to finish outside the top two in the regular season and win the championship. They have certainly played well enough in their past two matches to suggest it will not just be a case of the Chiefs’ turning up and taking the silverware. But the Chiefs will have some empathy for what their South African opponents are going through. The only previous time the New Zealanders have reached the final, in 2009, they flew to South Africa to play the Bulls and were thrashed 61-17. Only two teams — the Crusaders and Bulls — have ever managed to win the final away from their home stadiums. But only once has the winner triumphed outside its own country when the Crusaders defeated the Brumbies in Canberra to win the 2000 title. In 1998 and 1999 they defeated fellow New Zealand teams, while the Bulls defeated the Sharks in Durban in 2007. So the odds do appear to be stacked heavily in the Chiefs’ favor. But as the Sharks have shown over the past two weekends, opponents would be foolish to write them off. The South Africans have been aided by the return of Patrick Lambie from injury, and whether he plays flyhalf or fullback, he will be a useful counterattacking weapon alongside Frederic Michalak and J.P. Pietersen. Up front, a Springbok-stacked pack, spearheaded by the impressive Bismarck du Plessis, will provide a stern test for the Chiefs forwards. If the Chiefs can win the battle of the breakdown, the All Blacks stars Aaron Cruden and Sonny Bill Williams — in his final game of Super Rugby — will have the perfect platform from which to attack. And if that happens, the Sharks could find themselves chasing shadows.


Small Stakes for Panthers’ G.M. After Stint Amid Real Loss

Abstract: Almost 15 years after breaking in as a coach with the Lowell Lock Monsters of the American Hockey League, Tom Rowe embraced a new challenge last week as general manager of the Florida Panthers. But that responsibility will probably pale in comparison with the job he took four years ago with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv of the Kontinental League, rebuilding a franchise while helping a city heal. “It really just seems like the other day,” said Rowe, a former N.H.L. player and scout. “To this day, it’s probably my coaching highlight.” On Sept. 7, 2011, a plane carrying almost the entire Yaroslavl club crashed shortly after takeoff in Minsk, Belarus. Forty-four people died, including many of the coaches and almost all of the players. Among the dead was Yaroslavl’s coach, the longtime N.H.L. player Brad McCrimmon, a close friend of Rowe’s. Rowe, then an assistant with the Carolina Hurricanes, said part of his motivation in going to Yaroslavl, a city about 160 miles northeast of Moscow, was to continue McCrimmon’s legacy. “He wanted to go there for one year with the hopes of being a National Hockey League head coach,” Rowe said of McCrimmon. “He would have gotten that opportunity. His way of running the team left a lasting impression on the front office. “He’s the one who set the standard. I knew Brad real well, and I knew what kind of guy he was. He and I probably coached the same way.” A year after the crash, Lokomotiv returned to the K.H.L. for the 2012-13 season with Rowe at the helm and the former N.H.L. players Nikolai Borschevsky and Dmitri Yushkevich as his assistants. Together they led a mix of longtime professional journeymen and players developed in Yaroslavl’s junior ranks. “Definitely our first home game was a big deal,” said Mark Flood, a Canadian defenseman who played for Yaroslav after a stint with the Winnipeg Jets. “The fans were going crazy. There were people who were emotional and happy, all kinds of emotions.” Flood added: “It was more than a coaching responsibility for Tom. The city and the organization and the league was still in mourning over the loss of the whole team. It was a big job for him and one that I think he took a lot of pride in, to rebuild the team into a contender.” After Lokomotiv opened the season with three straight wins and victories in nine of their first 11 games, Russia began to rally around the team. The more Lokomotiv won, the more the team was celebrated by local and opposing fans alike. “We had fans everywhere,” said Curtis Sanford, a former N.H.L. goaltender who played three seasons in Yaroslavl. “Every stop throughout the season, we’d get an awful lot of fan support from not only our fans but also our opposition’s fans. They weren’t there to cheer for us, but they were there to accept us and welcome Lokomotiv back into the league. Not that it ever left.” Marathon K.H.L. road trips, which involved crossing as many as seven time zones, were not just about winning over opposing fans. They also provided opportunities to honor the dead, with visits to the hometowns and graves of the victims. Leading that delicate balance between honoring the dead and winning hockey games was Rowe. A Massachusetts native unfamiliar with the local language and customs, he fully embraced the challenge of addressing the emotional needs of players and fans. “We wanted to win as many hockey games as possible, but I had to really be aware of a player if he was going through a tough day,” Rowe said. “You didn’t know if he was just having a bad day or if he was having a bad day because he was thinking of his buddy. “My wife and I were walking down the street in Yaroslavl, and we had two fans come up to us. One gentleman came up to me and gave me a big hug. He was crying. He was saying, ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming over to help our team.’” With 24 regulation wins, two overtime wins, eight shootout wins and 18 regulation losses, Lokomotiv finished second in the Tarasov Division in 2012-13. The team lost to Severstal in the first round of the playoffs but captured the imaginations of Russian fans. That success did not continue the following season. Rowe was fired after Yaroslavl lost five of its first six games. He accepted a coaching job the following season with Florida’s A.H.L. affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage. In a rise that few, including Rowe, expected, he is now at the forefront of one of the N.H.L.’s most exciting clubs. Formerly the team’s associate general manager, Rowe was promoted Monday and is now the centerpiece of a front-office collaborative that will include Dale Tallon, the Panthers’ president for hockey operations, and Bill Torrey, a Panthers adviser and an architect of the Islanders dynasty of the early 1980s. Rowe now directs a club that finished atop the Atlantic Division in 2015-16 with a franchise-record 103 points. Yet the people of Yaroslavl are never far from his thoughts. “When something happens in the office or somewhere in life and you think it’s the end of the world, a lot of times I’ll reflect back on things that happened in Russia,” Rowe said. “Just put it in perspective. You can’t let it consume every decision that you make. I think I learned a lot as a person over there.”

Coaches
Ice hockey
Florida Panthers
Tom Rowe
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl


Ex-Officer of Stanford Financial Denies Charges

Abstract: HOUSTON (Reuters) — The Stanford Financial Group ’s former chief investment officer formally denied civil fraud charges related to an alleged $8 billion fraud scheme, according to a court filing. The former executive, Laura Pendergest-Holt, denied the charges late Thursday in a filing in United States District Court in Dallas. Ms. Pendergest-Holt, along with R. Allen Stanford , the firm’s founder and chairman, and James M. Davis, its former chief financial officer, are accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The S.E.C. charged that the fraud involved high-yield certificates of deposit issued by a Stanford affiliate, the Stanford International Bank in Antigua. Ms. Pendergest-Holt also faces one criminal count of obstruction. The Justice Department said she concealed her role in and familiarity with the Antigua bank’s investment when S.E.C. investigators questioned her in February. Mr. Stanford also has denied wrongdoing. Mr. Davis has been cooperating with government investigators and his lawyer said last month that his client planned to enter plea talks with the government.

Stanford Financial Group
Pendergest-Holt Laura
Stanford Robert Allen
Frauds and Swindling
Securities and Commodities Violations


Belarus Leader Pardons American Lawyer at Center of Dispute

Abstract: MOSCOW — The Belarussian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko , on Tuesday pardoned an American lawyer at the center of a 16-month dispute between Belarus and the United States, in a push to fully restore relations between the two countries. During a meeting with members of the United States Congress, Mr. Lukashenko agreed to free Emanuel E. Zeltser , who was serving a three-year sentence for industrial espionage and forgery. American diplomats protested Mr. Zeltser’s mysterious arrest and closed trial, and they pressed for his release on humanitarian grounds, saying he had fallen gravely ill in prison. “I am glad about my freedom,” Mr. Zeltser told The Associated Press by telephone on leaving the prison clinic in the eastern town of Mogilyov. He was met by American officials and was to travel with them to the United States Embassy in Minsk, the capital, The A.P. reported. During the morning meeting, Mr. Lukashenko cast the pardon as a conciliatory gesture, and he appealed to the United States delegation to respond by lifting three-year-old economic sanctions against Belarus. Mr. Lukashenko “could not have been more accommodating” toward his American visitors, something that has not been true in the past, said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, a member of the delegation. Senator Cardin said the United States would lift the sanctions when Belarus showed progress in political reforms and human rights. President George W. Bush imposed sanctions after the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus, when the police cracked down harshly on antigovernment demonstrators. Belarus responded by expelling the American ambassador and recalling its own envoy from Washington. The pardon comes as Belarus, once Moscow’s most loyal post-Soviet ally, tacks sharply to the West. For almost a year, Mr. Lukashenko has been making moves to accommodate Western criticism, like granting amnesty to a series of political prisoners. This spring, Belarus was invited to join the European Union’s Eastern Partnership, and it received an additional International Monetary Fund loan of $1 billion, increasing its total pledge to $3.4 billion. Tension has been rising meanwhile between Belarus and Moscow, after top Russian officials criticized Mr. Lukashenko’s economic policies and imposed a painful ban on imports of Belarussian dairy products. Belarus responded last month by boycotting a long-planned ceremony to introduce a joint military force between Russia and its closest allies. Mr. Lukashenko’s overtures on Tuesday fit squarely into that pattern, said a Western diplomat with knowledge of the meeting. “I do suspect a good deal of what the president said today was directed as much to Moscow as it was to Washington or Minsk,” the diplomat said. The decision brings an end to a bizarre legal case. Mr. Zeltser and his personal assistant, Vladlena Funk, were arrested at the Minsk airport on an airplane belonging to a Russian oligarch, Boris A. Berezovsky. Mr. Berezovsky has accused Mr. Zeltser of using a forged will to steal the assets of his former partner, but he said he had no involvement in the arrest.

Belarus
Zeltser Emanuel E
Lukashenko Aleksandr G
United States International Relations
United States
Prisons and Prisoners
Political Prisoners


Home Builder Toll Brothers Posts $27 Million Profit

Abstract: The luxury home builder Toll Brothers beat Wall Street expectations and reported its first quarterly profit in three years on Wednesday, helped by tax gains and lower write-downs on land values. Orders fell 16 percent, but analysts had forecast a decline of as much as 30 percent. The company also did a good job of holding down administrative costs, said Mike Gaiden, an analyst at Morningstar. Toll reported a profit of $27.3 million, or 16 cents a share, for its third quarter, compared with a loss of $472.3 million, or $2.93 a share, a year earlier. Analysts were expecting a loss of 14 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Sales in the period, which ended July 31, fell to $454.2 million from $461.4 million, but exceeded analysts’ forecasts. Still, the company sounded cautious. “Recent economic and political news continues to dampen our customers’ confidence,” Robert Toll, the chairman, said. Toll took $12.5 million in write-downs on land that lost value, far less than analysts had expected and down from $115 million a year earlier, Mr. Gaiden said. “When things normalize, this company is in a very good position to deliver sound profitability,” he added. Impairments fell because Toll identified and marked down its weakest assets early, Mr. Gaiden said. Toll Brothers is known among home builders for its eagerness to buy land, unlike other builders who minimize that risk by buying options on the land instead. In July, the company said it was starting an investment fund, called Gibraltar Capital, to buy real estate assets like loan portfolios and land for development. “We are opportunistically looking to take advantage of the unfortunate disarray that exists in the market,” Mr. Toll said during a conference call with analysts. Shares of Toll Brothers, which is based in Horsham, Pa., rose 94 cents, or 5.8 percent, to close at $17.13 on Wednesday.

Toll Brothers Inc
Company Reports
Stocks and Bonds