Ex-Société Générale Trader’s Huge Fine Is Cut to 1 Million Euros

Abstract: PARIS — Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader who nearly brought down the French bank Société Générale more than eight years ago, has had his fine reduced on appeal: By 99.98 percent, in fact. The court’s ruling was the latest legal victory for Mr. Kerviel, who in June won a wrongful dismissal suit against his former employer. That was despite the shock in global markets in January 2008, when Société Générale disclosed that Mr. Kerviel, then a junior trader on its derivatives desk, had managed to make 50 billion euros, or $56 billion, in unauthorized trades. The unwinding of those transactions resulted in a loss of €4.9 billion and brought the bank, France’s third-largest, to the brink of collapse. At the time of his conviction, he was ordered to pay that sum to the bank in restitution. But on Friday, an appeals court in Versailles, near Paris, cut Mr. Kerviel’s fine to €1 million, including damages and interest. The court did not overturn Mr. Kerviel’s criminal conviction, but it found that Société Générale itself bore most of the responsibility for the size of the losses, which the court said were worsened by the weaknesses of the bank’s internal oversight and control systems. “This is manageable,” David Koubbi, Mr. Kerviel’s lawyer, said after the ruling. “A €5 billion fine is a social death penalty, but one million is something else altogether.” Mr. Kerviel was found guilty of fraud in 2010 and, in addition to his huge fine, was sentenced to three years in prison — though he ultimately spent only five months behind bars. He has never denied falsifying documents and entering fake trades to mask his illegal dealings. But he has maintained that his bosses turned a blind eye to his activities as long as they were profitable. In its ruling on Friday, the Versailles court found that it was not “occasional negligence” by the bank, “but rather managerial choices” that allowed Mr. Kerviel to “carry out his criminal acts.” The bank’s losses were of such a magnitude, the court said, that they would not have been possible “without the eminently deficient nature of Société Générale’s control systems, which created an elevated degree of vulnerability.” The bank previously admitted to management failures and weaknesses in its risk control systems and was ultimately fined €4 million by the French Banking Commission for those lapses. A spokeswoman for Société Générale did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But Jean Veil, a lawyer for the bank, said he was “satisfied” with the court’s decision to reduce Mr. Kerviel’s fine to an amount that was within his means to pay. “The court has found a solution that is more comprehensible to the general public,” Mr. Veil said. The bank has long acknowledged that the original €4.9 billion restitution award was a symbolic sum that it did not expect would be paid. Nonetheless, Mr. Kerviel’s lawyer, Mr. Koubbi, said the former trader would continue to fight any orders to repay the bank, noting that his client still had three other civil complaints pending against his former employer. While Mr. Kerviel never had any realistic hope of paying the original fine, that the court put most of the onus on the bank is of more than academic interest for Société Générale. By affirming the bank’s responsibility, the ruling could allow French tax authorities to recoup €2.2 billion in tax breaks tied to the losses that the bank claimed in 2008. France’s budget minister, Christian Eckert, said in June that the government would seek to reclaim some or all of those tax benefits if the court overturned Mr. Kerviel’s fine.

Fines
Banking and Finance
Societe Generale
Jerome Kerviel


Opponents of Musharraf Assume Posts in Pakistan

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A stern-faced President Pervez Musharraf swore in a new cabinet on Monday that was filled with political opponents from the main opposition parties, including several who served time in prison under his military government. Six weeks after national parliamentary elections dealt a crushing blow to Mr. Musharraf’s supporters, the president has had to welcome his opponents into the government and watch as they prepare to roll back some of his most controversial measures. The swearing-in took place here in the capital as the former chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry , made his first trip outside the capital since his release from five months of house arrest to a tumultuous welcome. Mr. Chaudhry traveled to his hometown, Quetta, to speak to the bar association there, and was met by hundreds of lawyers and political party workers, crowds similar to those that followed his travels around the country last year when he was campaigning for reinstatement. Some of the 24 ministers who took the oath on Monday wore black armbands to show their opposition to Mr. Musharraf, who became the military ruler when he ousted a government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999. Most of the ministers sworn in, including two women, were from the Pakistan Peoples Party, the organization of the slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League led by Mr. Sharif. Ishaq Dar will serve as finance minister, a post he held in the 1990s before Mr. Musharraf carried out his coup. Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, who defeated a close ally of Mr. Musharraf’s in the February parliamentary elections, was selected as defense minister. Both men spent more than a year in jail under Mr. Musharraf. A senior figure in the Pakistan Peoples Party, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, is the new foreign minister.

Pakistan
Politics and Government
Chaudhry Iftikhar Muhammad
Musharraf Pervez
Elections
Appointments and Executive Changes


Beauty Brand Creates Campaign to Combat Mental Illness

Abstract: NEARLY 40,000 Americans commit suicide annually, about the same number that die from breast cancer. But while countless brands adopt pink packaging to raise awareness during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, corporate support for mental illness, the cause of most suicides, is decidedly scant. Now Philosophy, the beauty brand owned by Coty, is introducing an effort to raise a projected $10 million over the next five years to combat mental illness. The Hope & Grace Initiative will direct 1 percent of sales of products throughout the brand’s skin care and fragrance lines to mental health charities, with a special focus on issues that particularly affect women, like postpartum depression and psychological trauma linked to domestic abuse. Grants typically will be about $25,000, with preference given to community-based programs. Philosophy began donating a portion of sales from all products sold on its website on July 15, and beginning Jan. 1, it will extend the program to all online and offline purchases in the United States. The program will further expand to include all international sales in “mid-2015,” according to the brand. The initiative is named for the two most popular products from Philosophy, which date back to the introduction of the brand in 1996: Hope in a Jar moisturizer and Amazing Grace fragrance. Since its inception, the brand has printed sentiments meant to inspire and uplift on its products. “Hands of Hope are the hands that help, heal, protect and comfort,” proclaims the container for its Hands of Hope hand cream, for example. “Use your hands to give hope, and you will have hope to hold.” Jill Scalamandre, chief marketing officer of Coty’s skin care division, said addressing mental health made sense for a brand associated with mindfulness. “The DNA of the brand is really about inspiring women not only to look their best, but to feel their best,” Ms. Scalamandre said. “Philosophy is for women that are always on a journey of self-improvement, so we said, ‘Let’s look at mental health,’ and we were staggered by how big the issue is, with one in four women struggling with a mental health challenge.” The one-in-four incidence rate applies to men and women equally, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness . But women are disproportionately affected by some conditions; the National Institute of Mental Health reports that women are 60 percent more likely than men to experience an anxiety disorder. A section of the Philosophy website about the initiative includes a video featuring one woman, Kate (only first names are used), who has been found to have bipolar disorder, and another, Adrienne, with major depression and anxiety. Both stress the importance of overcoming the shame and stigma associated with mental illness to get treatment. A 30-second version of the video, meant for public service announcements, that mentions the initiative but not the brand is expected to begin running on television in January, although dates are not certain when relying on donated commercial time. The videos are by the Bindery in New York, which specializes in branded content. In mid-January, plans are underway for the singer Natasha Bedingfield to release a song tied to the effort, “Hope,” with 20 percent of the proceeds from iTunes downloads going to the initiative. On Jan. 20, Ms. Bedingfield will perform the song in a New York concert at a venue that has yet be determined, and a music video version will be released. Alison DaSilva, who tracks corporate social responsibility trends as an executive vice president at Cone Communications, a public relations and marketing agency that is part of the Omnicom Group, and that consulted with Philosophy on the initiative, said that the only current major cause-marketing effort on behalf of mental illness that she knew of is by Bloomingdale’s. For the fifth consecutive holiday season the retailer is donating a portion of proceeds from a special-edition Gund teddy bear, and from other gift items, to the Child Mind Institute, which is dedicated to childhood mental health care. “Mental health is not at all well supported by companies in the United States,” said Ms. DaSilva, who noted the cause had received more corporate support in Canada, where Bell Canada, the telecom company, has donated 67.5 million Canadian dollars for mental health initiatives since introducing its effort, “ Let’s Talk ,” in 2011. Belisa Vranich, a clinical psychologist and member of the Hope & Grace advisory board, said the stigma surrounding mental illness had kept companies away. “The stigma around mental illness is so entrenched,” said Dr. Vranich, “and even more for Americans because it’s a ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ and ‘don’t complain’ kind of society.” Joe Waters, who publishes a website about cause marketing, Selfish Giving, said companies gravitated toward more popular charities with passionate followings. “Corporate marketers are really looking for causes with an army, and that can mobilize their supporters to support a brand’s campaign,” Mr. Waters said. “And that’s why we see so many pink products in October, and why pet causes are very big, because pet owners are very supportive of the brands that support them and their pets.” But he added that partnering with less popular causes, as Wendy’s and Jockey do with adoption and foster care, and the retailer Marshalls does with domestic violence , can resonate with consumers. “Not everybody wants to do the warm, fuzzy thing where you’re handing out teddy bears to sick children,” Mr. Waters said. “Taking on issues that are less popular is disruptive, in a good way, in terms of making people notice what brands are doing.”

advertising,marketing
Mental Health
Cosmetics and Toiletries
Depression
Breast cancer


Senator Clinton Makes Her Run While Tiptoeing Around 2008

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 - When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently headlined a fund-raiser for the governor of New Hampshire, her aides sought to ensure that the event was held not within that state, but rather in nearby Boston, where a visit would not set off frenzied speculation about her political plans. The fund-raiser earned her crucial good will with the leading elected official in an important presidential primary state within range of the Boston media market. Yet it also reflected how Mrs. Clinton delicately goes about building a political network around the country while running for re-election in New York, steering clear of presidential stomping grounds like New Hampshire and Iowa. In the last few months, as her political opposition in New York has crumbled, Mrs. Clinton has traveled the country, trolling for money to stuff into her already stuffed campaign war chest, visiting hurricane-stricken New Orleans and supporting candidates who can, in turn, be helpful to any national ambitions she may have. And she has sharpened the tone of her attacks on Republicans, causing a stir on Monday, for example, by saying that the House of Representatives was run like a "plantation" -- a comment that drew a rebuke from the White House the next day. While such behavior is to be expected for anyone preparing to seek the presidency in 2008, Mrs. Clinton is in an altogether different situation from other prominent Democrats who have been openly gearing up for national campaigns by establishing exploratory committees and visiting crucial primary states. With her New York election just 10 months away, neither she nor her advisers want to do anything that might suggest that she has ambitions beyond the state, where Republicans once pilloried her as a carpetbagger intent on using the state as a stepping stone for national office. The October fund-raiser for the re-election campaign of Gov. John Lynch of New Hampshire was held in Boston after Mrs. Clinton's advisers suggested that locale. (Other prospective presidential candidates, like former Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, have already visited New Hampshire and Iowa, states that provide early tests of presidential strength.) In fact, Mrs. Clinton and her advisers appear to have figured out a narrow strategy of how to run for president without actually running for president -- though the Clinton camp insists that her sole concern at the moment is winning re-election in New York, and points out that she has been traveling the country helping Democrats for years. Don Fowler of South Carolina, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, suggested that Mrs. Clinton has been able to pull off this delicate balancing act -- "peeling that onion perfectly," as he put it -- largely because New York Republicans have yet to find a strong candidate to run against her in the Senate race. The one candidate that New York Republicans had pinned their hopes on, Jeanine F. Pirro, the Westchester district attorney, dropped out of the race last month after her campaign was beset by her public gaffes and lackluster fund-raising. Mr. Fowler said he doubted that Mrs. Clinton would have been willing to embark on such a busy travel schedule outside New York if Republicans had actually recruited a strong candidate to run against her. "In simple terms, she is not as tied down in New York as she would be if she had a Grade-A candidate running against her," he said. Mrs. Clinton, who had more than $13.8 million in her war chest by the end of September, is still touching her bases in New York, where she earned a reputation as a tireless campaigner in her successful 2000 Senate campaign. In the last two months, she has made at least 21 public appearances around the state -- from New York City and its suburbs to Glens Falls, Syracuse, Schenectady and the Finger Lakes region -- and has spent much of the rest of her time at work in Washington. All the while, she has not ruled out the possibility of running for president in 2008. Paul Begala, a political adviser to former President Clinton, said Mrs. Clinton had handled questions about a presidential run in the same way George W. Bush dealt with them when he ran for re-election as governor of Texas in 1998: He told voters he did not know whether he would run for president in 2000. "It's very much analogous," Mr. Begala said. "He left his options open and honestly had not made up his mind. And I am just as certain that Hillary has not made up her mind, because any smart politician is going to wait and take a look at the lay of the land." New York Republicans still hope to use the issue of Mrs. Clinton's possible national aspirations against her in the upcoming Senate campaign, arguing that New Yorkers are being shortchanged by a senator who they say is not genuinely committed to the state. "From Day 1, it's been clear that Senator Clinton's focus has been on running for president, not focusing on New York," said Ryan Moses, the executive director of the New York State Republican Party. Only about a year ago, in the wake of Senator John F. Kerry's loss to President Bush, Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton argued in private that she should not seek re-election in New York, saying that a 2006 Senate campaign would almost certainly complicate any 2008 presidential bid. Part of the concern was that Republicans would use the Senate race as an opportunity to batter Mrs. Clinton, who remains a polarizing figure to many, forcing her to spend money and demanding that she promise to serve out her entire second term if re-elected. There was also concern that the political calendar would be far too tight, even for a politician of Mrs. Clinton's considerable abilities. The Iowa caucuses, for example, are held just 14 months after Election Day 2006, meaning she would have to turn around and start running for president soon after being sworn in for another Senate term. But with New York Republicans still scrambling to find a candidate to run against her, those concerns seem to have abated. The two considered most likely Republican contenders to Mrs. Clinton this year are the former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, and Edward F. Cox, a lawyer and son-in-law of President Nixon. Now, as Mrs. Clinton travels the country, Democrats say that she is in the position to collect favors that may, in turn, benefit her down the road. Democrats around the country regard her as their party's top fund-raising attraction and most articulate representative in this period of Republican dominance. In December, for example, Mrs. Clinton attended an event in Michigan that helped raise $500,000 for Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat who is up for re-election there, with several Republicans seeking the nomination to run for that seat. Then she headlined a fund-raising event in Louisville, Ky., that brought in $600,000 for the state Democrats and drew 2,000 people, who packed a downtown convention center. In the coming weeks, Mrs. Clinton plans to travel to Washington State to attend a fund-raiser that is expected to bring in about $300,000 for another Senate colleague, Maria Cantwell, who is up for re-election this year. Mrs. Clinton is also expected to participate in a similar event for Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who is facing a challenge from Representative Katherine Harris, best known for her role as Florida's secretary of state during the 2000 presidential vote recount. By and large, Mrs. Clinton's visits around the country have drawn the kind of reaction one would expect with a person of her immense celebrity and political stature. Recently, for example, Mrs. Clinton made a trip to hurricane-battered sections of New Orleans, where she was trailed by a clutch of national reporters as she met with scores of displaced residents, many of whom spoke openly about their hope that the celebrity senator's visit would help refocus the nation's attention on their plight. But for all the enthusiasm she stirs in her travels, there are plenty of signs that she remains a divisive figure in much of the country. During her trip to Kentucky, for example, local Republicans sought to cause a political ruckus, portraying her as a New York liberal and saying that she would be a political liability for Democrats in a red state like Kentucky. Still, several Democratic strategists argue that the good will Mrs. Clinton is building in her travels with rank-and-file Democrats, as well as Democratic leaders, will only make her even tougher to beat in 2008, at least in the race for the presidential nomination. Mr. Fowler, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, said that "if she continues doing favors for everyone as magnanimously as she has, it's possible that she will shut out options for any practical opposition."

CLINTON HILLARY RODHAM
UNITED STATES POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT


Fire Kills 3 Girls in Orange County, N.Y., Fire

Abstract: HUGUENOT, N.Y. (AP) — A fire in an upstate New York house killed two young sisters and one of their friends Monday morning, the State Police said. The sisters, Julie Dorritie, 10, and Cassandra Dorritie, 12, died at their split-level wood-frame home in the Orange County community of Huguenot — about 60 miles northwest of New York City near the borders of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Devon Fahey, a 12-year-old friend of Cassandra who was spending the night, was also killed. The mother of the sisters, Carolyn Dorritie, 44, was awakened by noise upstairs in her house and was met by smoke and heat near the children’s bedrooms when she went to investigate just before 8 a.m., the police said. Unable to get to the rooms, she escaped to seek help from several highway department employees who were working nearby. They, too, were unable to get past the smoke and flames. By the time firefighters were able to enter the second-floor bedrooms, the three girls had died from smoke inhalation, said the Huguenot fire chief, Thomas Kalin. Capt. Wayne Olson of the State Police said window air conditioning units in both bedrooms may have made it harder for the children to escape. Ms. Dorritie’s 15-year-old daughter, Courtney, jumped to safety from a third-floor bedroom window. She and her mother were not injured, the police said. The cause of the fire was still under investigation, but officials believe it was accidental and started in the hallway outside the girls’ rooms. Captain Olson said a candle was burning in the hallway but it had not yet been determined if that started the fire. The children were students in the Port Jervis school district, where Carolyn Dorritie is a high school teacher. Classes were not in session Monday, but grief counselors were available to students and faculty on Monday afternoon. Crisis intervention teams were to be at all district schools on Tuesday.

New York State
Fires and Firefighters
Accidents and Safety
Deaths (Fatalities)


Nets Team, With Gerald Wallace, Shaped With Heat in Mind

Abstract: The first critical move of the Nets ’ transformational summer came in the waning days of winter. It came in a curious trade, made at the N.B.A. deadline, for a player who had little chance of affecting the present but who would conceivably brighten their future. Eight months later, Gerald Wallace is still the most intriguing element in the Nets’ chemical composition, a free radical with the power to shape their still-evolving identity. Wallace is the Nets’ hustle, their strength, their grit and their versatility. He can guard three positions and anchor a small lineup. When the time comes, he will check LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Paul Pierce. He is the best hope the Nets have of becoming a respectable defensive team. If Deron Williams is the Nets’ most indispensable player, Wallace is a close second. Coach Avery Johnson said as much Monday morning, calling Wallace “1B” to Williams’ “1A.” Hours later, the point was made vividly when the Nets — without the injured Wallace — blew a 22-point lead in a painful loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The defeat was inexcusable, with or without Wallace, given the sad state of the Timberwolves. But it was noteworthy that the Nets’ own post-mortem was filled with allusions to energy and the lack thereof. Wherever he has played — in Sacramento, Charlotte or Portland — Wallace has been a boundless source of vitality. When the Nets’ stars wore down at key points of the second half Monday, they had nowhere to turn. “No excuses about Gerald Wallace being here,” Johnson said afterward, before adding, “But those are situations why we feel so strong about Wallace.” It is frightfully early to draw any conclusions after a week of N.B.A. games, and tougher still to assess the Nets, who have played just two games with an overhauled roster. But their first road game, Wednesday night in Miami, presents a fascinating gauge, especially if Wallace, who has a sprained ankle, is able to play. No one expects the Nets to challenge the Heat for the Eastern Conference crown, but they were built with the Heat in mind. Indeed, the Nets’ lineup looks specifically designed to make Miami work. The Nets are strongest at point guard (Williams) and center (Brook Lopez), the two positions where the Heat have been weakest. In Joe Johnson, the Nets have a strong, skilled shooting guard who will challenge Dwyane Wade at both ends of the court. And in Wallace, the Nets have a muscular, agile forward who can wrestle with James. None of this is a coincidence. “My thought was looking at Miami, because they were the team,” said Billy King, the Nets’ general manager, who added, “I had to build a team that I thought could compete.” The strategy was to win the battle at a given position, if possible, or to “at least neutralize the battle,” in King’s words, at the spots where Miami had a clear advantage (i.e. James). Wallace gives the Nets a shred of hope, not only against the Heat, but against the Knicks (Anthony), the Boston Celtics (Pierce) and the Indiana Pacers (Danny Granger). “You’re not going to stop those guys,” King said. “You just got to try to take things away from them and force them to do things they’re not comfortable doing.” The Nets’ future depended on re-signing Williams in July. But King had to build a case for Williams to stay, and that portfolio began with Wallace. In 11 seasons, the 30-year-old Wallace had quietly established himself as a supreme defender with a nose for the ball and a body built for contact. Folks call him Crash for a reason. That this reputation was built mostly on a series of bad teams in Charlotte, a forgotten N.B.A. outpost, masked Wallace’s value to many fans, even as he endeared himself to coaches and scouts. There were seasons when Wallace averaged 18 to 19 points, 7 to 10 rebounds and 1.5 steals a game, and a handful when he averaged at least a block. Yet the statistics were never sufficient. When Wallace finally made the All-Star team in 2010, Bobcats Coach Larry Brown dispensed with basketball terminology. “God gave him great motivation,” Brown told Sports Illustrated then. “Every drill we run, every possession we have, every practice we have — it’s always the same.” These were the intangibles the Nets were pursuing when King, who was mentored by Brown, made the deal to acquire Wallace from Portland. It was a controversial transaction, costing the Nets a lottery pick that the Trail Blazers used to select Damian Lillard, a gifted point guard. King’s rationale was that he already had a star point guard. But he had a gaping hole at small forward, a position of strength in the top tier of the Eastern Conference. And though Wallace would be a free agent, the Nets had no guarantee they could sign him outright in July. “It’s easier when they’ve been there,” King said of re-signing a player. “You get to know them, and they get to know you.” The value placed on smart, defensive-minded swingmen also came from Brown, who had a habit of acquiring them — Derrick McKey in Indiana, George Lynch in Philadelphia. The 76ers, with Brown and King at the helm, wanted to draft Wallace in 2001. The Kings snared him with the 25th pick — one spot ahead of the 76ers. Eleven years later, King has his man. Now all he needs is a cloning machine.

Basketball
Brooklyn Nets
Wallace Gerald
Williams Deron


Kuwait: Court Nullifies Elections and Restores Previous Parliament

Abstract: Kuwait ’s constitutional court further complicated the country’s chaotic political situation on Wednesday, ruling that the Parliament had been elected unconstitutionally and restoring the previous legislature. The state news agency KUNA said the court threw out the Feb. 2 vote because Kuwait’s leader, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, drew up the decree for the elections after the cabinet resigned. A caretaker cabinet was appointed before the decree was issued, but the court ruled that was insufficient and voided the election. Tensions have flared since the election gave the opposition control of the chamber. Islamists and their allies have pressured two ministers to resign. The opposition bloc insisted that it deserved more than half the seats in the 15-member cabinet because of the election results. After the old Parliament reconvenes, political analysts in Kuwait say, elections are expected to be called within 60 days.

Kuwait
Sabah Sabah al-Ahmad al-
Elections
Legislatures and Parliaments


A National Push Seeks to Separate Sake From Sushi

Abstract: FOR Americans who drink sake only at Japanese restaurants, the thought of ordering it at a bar or buying it at the supermarket may seem as out of place as using chopsticks to eat Cheerios. But now Ty Ku, a six-year-old sake brand, is hoping to change that with what it says is a first for any sake brand: nationally televised advertising. Starring CeeLo Green , the singer and record producer who also is a Ty Ku co-owner, the campaign is called “Share on,” a reference to a sake custom of pouring it for others , but not for oneself. A new commercial opens with a chef at a sushi bar handing a bottle of Ty Ku to Mr. Green, who seems about to hand the bottle to someone off to the right of the screen. A hand reaches in and, as the camera pans to the right, pulls it into another setting, where the hand turns out to belong to a woman in a bathing suit dangling her legs in a pool, Mr. Green at her side. Batonlike, the bottle is handed to other settings where Mr. Green is surrounded by beautiful women, including a nightclub. “Share with me and I’ll share with you,” Mr. Green says. “Share on.” The commercial, by Filter Creative Group , a Los Angeles marketing and advertising agency, will be introduced Wednesday on cable networks including AMC, BET and the Food Network. Direction is by Mikael Colombu , with production by Vision Film . For Ty Ku (rhymes with haiku), which has advertised only in trade publications on a limited basis, the campaign is its first aimed at consumers. Beyond indicating that it will be multimillion-dollar campaign, the brand declined to reveal specific expenditures. The commercial begins at a sushi bar because “it is the most traditional way to drink sake and what Americans are most familiar with,” said Alan Miller, a co-founder of Filter. While the primary message of the spot is the conviviality of sharing sake, Mr. Miller continued, the way that it “flows from scene to scene” is meant to demonstrate that sake is as versatile as other alcoholic beverages. Ty Ku is based in Manhattan, but its sake is brewed in Japan. Andrew Chrisomalis, the chief executive of Ty Ku, said that while the sake itself was “authentic in the most important way, we want to promote a modern approach and spin.” Americans typically encounter sake served hot in small porcelain cups, or cold in shotlike glasses, which may lend to a misperception that it packs a wallop. “When people see what looks like a shot glass, they think of something as a harsh whiskey or some other high-proof spirit,” Mr. Chrisomalis said. “But the truth is that sake is brewed much more like beer and is consumed much more like white wine.” Most Ty Ku sake varieties are 15 percent alcohol by volume, slightly more potent than most wine and slightly less potent than most fortified wines like sherry and Marsala. In the new commercial, as with most of its marketing material, the brand shows the sake served chilled and in wine glasses, and directs restaurants and bars where it is carried to do likewise. “It helps relate to you that it’s O.K. to drink four ounces at a time,” Mr. Chrisomalis said. Ty Ku has a 3.3 percent share of United States sake market, according to Nielsen data cited by the brand. In 2012, it sold about 100,000 cases, equal to what it had sold in the preceding five years combined. Ty Ku projects it will double to 200,000 cases this year. Such rosy projections are based on recent successes the brand has had with retail distribution. Mr. Green joined other owners to successfully pitch retailers including Target, Kroger and Walgreens, according to Mr. Chrisomalis. To announce a promotional partnership with Patti Stanger , who stars on “The Millionaire Matchmaker” on Bravo, a 2012 news release from the brand quotes Ms. Stanger, who also became a part owner, as saying, “The Ty Ku sake portfolio is low calorie, gluten-free, sulfite-free and tannin-free, so it fits my healthy lifestyle.” A 2010 news release announcing a similar equity and promotional partnership with Perez Hilton quotes Mr. Hilton as saying he had switched from vodka to Ty Ku “because these products are low calorie and I can enjoy without guilt!” And in an appearance on the “Rachael Ray Show” in October, Mr. Green described the brand as “healthy,” and Ms. Ray added with a laugh, “I love feeling good about the cocktail because it makes you feel even better about the second.” Alcohol Justice , an industry watchdog group, opposes alcohol brands promoting associations with weight loss and wellness. “It’s problematic because there’s a tendency to overindulge in a product when it’s considered low calorie,” said Michael J. Scippa, an Alcohol Justice spokesman. “As long as there’s still alcohol in it, they run the risk of causing health problems rather than solving them.” With varieties that retail for $17 to $65 for a bottle roughly the size of a .750-liter wine bottle, Ty Ku is poised for what Mr. Chrisomalis called the “premiumization” of the sake category. He cited as a model the way Patrón, introduced in 1989, spurred a trend for premium tequila. “We want to be the first premium sake call brand,” Mr. Chrisomalis said. “Like someone says, ‘I’ll have a Patrón’ or Jack Daniels, or Johnnie Walker, we want them to say, ‘I’ll have a Ty Ku.’ ”

Sake
Alcohol
advertising,marketing
Cee Lo Green


Microsoft Tries to Woo Mobile Developers With Windows 8

Abstract: Microsoft has a knack for comebacks. History suggests that the company is rarely first with a technology, but it is persistent — and it often prevails. The track record is lengthy: personal computer operating systems, point-and-click graphical computing, productivity software, data center software, the Internet browser and even video game consoles and software. This week, the company is trying to begin another come-from-behind campaign — this time, in touch-screen tablet computing, with its Windows 8 operating system. Products using the new software are not expected until next year. But the crucial effort to woo software developers to write apps for Windows 8 starts Tuesday at a four-day conference in Anaheim, Calif. Microsoft will give away an early “preview” version of Windows 8 and thousands of tablets, made by Samsung, to developers at the conference, according to two industry consultants who have been told about the plans but would talk about them only if they were not named. For Microsoft, the stakes are high. Its Windows business remains huge and immensely profitable, but the franchise is showing its age, with revenue and profits slipping in the year that ended in July. “Microsoft has got to make this work,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm. Tablets, as well as smartphones, look to be the computing devices of the future. Sales forecasts of personal computers have been scaled back in recent months, as consumers and business people have increasingly chosen tablets. Apple rules the tablet market with its iPad , while others have stumbled. Last month, Hewlett-Packard killed its TouchPad tablet, which used H.P.’s WebOS software. Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, has struggled to find buyers for its tablet, the PlayBook. Tablets running Google’s Android software have had little success so far, and ones using Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system have had even less. “Windows 8 is Microsoft’s effort to get back in the game,” said Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner, a research firm. Microsoft has offered glimpses of Windows 8 at a few industry conferences in recent months. The new design, Microsoft executives say, represents an ambitious rethinking of the operating system, including the chips used and the user experience. Windows 8 on a PC can be ready for use in less than 10 seconds. The look of Windows 8 borrows from Windows Phone software, the company’s new smartphone operating system, which was introduced last fall. It has large, tilelike icons that represent applications like e-mail or Facebook. Windows 8 is intended to run on both ARM chips, which now power most tablets and smartphones, and Intel microprocessors. Microsoft executives say Windows 8 has been designed so that tablet, notebook and desktop computers run equally well and share most features. For example, they speak of a “touch first” philosophy, meaning the touch features of Windows 8 work smoothly on tablets and on notebook and desktop PCs. Taps and finger swipes on a screen, Microsoft executives say, will become a routine way to open, close and browse applications, even on machines that have keyboards. Touch screens, they suggest, could help revive excitement in the PC category. Windows 8 also reflects Microsoft’s increasing commitment to open Web standards, like HTML 5, a new technology that makes it possible for developers to write applications with rich interactive features without using proprietary software controlled by individual companies. In the past, Microsoft had followed a more closed, proprietary path. Microsoft signaled its new approach in March with the release of Internet Explorer 9, a Web browser that was tailored for HTML 5. But the browser also includes software features that can take advantage of the underlying Windows operating system for faster performance. The goal, Microsoft executives say, is to reduce the skills that developers will need to write applications for Windows 8, which will run smoothly on both tablets and PCs. “Windows 8 will provide a unique industry opportunity across hardware architectures for developers,” said Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows division. Web developers have been impressed with Microsoft’s new approach. “Microsoft is opening things up for Web developers,” said Emily P. Lewis, a 37-year-old Web applications designer in Albuquerque. “They had no choice. What I do isn’t a Windows thing or an Apple thing.” Microsoft, analysts note, has also made tools that so its millions of loyal developers of business software will not find their skills made obsolete by Windows 8. Microsoft, they say, is betting that its traditional developer community will be a ballast in the future and not an anchor. That approach is in contrast to Apple, which often forces developers to rewrite their applications for its new products, like the iPad, favoring innovation over stability.

Software
Windows (Operating System)
Microsoft Corporation
Mobile Applications


No. 1 No More: Memphis Falls to Tennessee

Abstract: MEMPHIS — In the week leading up to No. 2 Tennessee’s game at No. 1 Memphis, Volunteers Coach Bruce Pearl did everything he could to play down the matchup. He insisted that Tennessee’s coming games with Vanderbilt and Kentucky were more important and said that the Volunteers could still earn a No. 1 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament if they lost. But Pearl’s true feelings, and bluster, came out a few hours before tip-off Saturday, when he told a group of Tennessee boosters, “We’re 40 minutes away from being No. 1.” And what a 40 minutes it was. No. 2 Tennessee defeated No. 1 Memphis, 66-62, handing the Tigers, the only undefeated team remaining in college basketball, their first loss of the season. The Volunteers prevailed in a taut, end-to-end battle that may be considered one of the best college basketball games of the season. Before it even started, the game was considered the biggest sporting event in the history of Memphis, and it drew Peyton Manning and Justin Timberlake to the FedEx Forum. It somehow managed to live up to the hype. “It was a great night for college basketball and the state of Tennessee,” Pearl said. The victory put the Volunteers (25-2) in position to earn the No. 1 ranking for the first time in team history and made them a favorite to earn a No. 1 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Memphis (26-1) still has a strong case for a No. 1 seed, thanks to victories against Arizona, Georgetown and Gonzaga. But the Tigers no longer can chase perfection; the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers remain the last team to run an entire season and postseason without losing. Their 47-game home winning streak also ended. The Tigers will have to live with twinges of regret. Robert Dozier missed a wide-open shot in the lane with about 40 seconds remaining that would have given Memphis a 3-point lead. Dozier and his fellow Memphis big man, Joey Dorsey, both grabbed the rebound and were called for traveling, capping a disastrous possession that ultimately doomed Memphis. “He just missed it,” Memphis Coach John Calipari said of Dozier’s squandered lay-in. “I feel bad for Robert.” Tennessee capitalized on the Dozier mistakes. Tyler Smith hit a tough 10-foot fadeaway jump shot in the lane for a 62-61 lead. Smith wagged his tongue in approval of his own good work, as the shot capped his team-high 16-point game. With possession of the ball and the shot clock off, the best shot that Memphis could manage was a runner in the lane by Antonio Anderson with 9 seconds remaining. Anderson missed badly, about a foot to the left of the rim. Tennessee then sealed the game when the second-half star J. P. Prince converted both ends of a one-and-one, the first shot dancing around the rim before falling through. Prince scored all 13 of his points in the second half. Prince helped the Volunteers take control of the game early in the second half with a flurry of baskets around the hoop. A Memphis native, Prince chose to attend Arizona out of high school before transferring to Tennessee. Prince said his inspired performance came in part because Calipari twice referred to him as P. J. instead of J. P. in the news media this week. “Coach Cal was taking some shots,” said Prince, who was recruited by Memphis. “He was saying my name like he’d not sat in my house and said my name correctly before. I took that a little personally. That got me fired up.” The best part of the game for the Volunteers was that they thrived despite an off night from their best player, Chris Lofton. He shot 2 for 11 from the field and finished with 7 points, less than half his average. Memphis point guard Derrick Rose led all scorers with 23 points and was clearly the best player on the floor. But his failure to touch the ball on the possession when Anderson missed with 9 seconds left will be second-guessed for a while. The high-level game will have college basketball fans hoping for a rematch in the Final Four. The crisp, high-octane style resembled an N.B.A. game as did the teams’ collection of skilled athletes. The sublime game helped usher college basketball into the spotlight after spending the winter lurking in the shadows the Super Bowl and the baseball steroids scandal. The scene itself was surreal, right down to the presence of a television crew from “Entertainment Tonight.” Among the celebrities in the crowd of 18,389 were Priscilla Presley, James Blake and Lindsay Davenport. And they all left knowing that there would be a new No. 1 in college basketball next week. And it is likely that Pearl will not be playing down the significance of this victory anymore. “It was what a No. 1 vs. No. 2 game should be,” Calipari said.

University of Tennessee
Basketball
College Athletics
University of Memphis


Richard Threlkeld, Award-Winning Journalist, Dies at 74

Abstract: Richard Threlkeld, who in his 33 years as a correspondent for CBS and ABC News covered wars, presidential campaigns, assassinations and the collapse of the Soviet Union, died Friday morning in a car accident on Long Island. He was 74. Mr. Threlkeld’s car collided with a propane tanker on a highway in Amagansett, N.Y., the police in East Hampton, where he lived, said. Mr. Threlkeld was alone in his car, the police said, and the driver of the truck was not injured. “Richard Threlkeld had the kind of name and kind of looks that could have made him a reporter in the movies, but unlike a reporter in the movies, he could write his own scripts,” Lesley Stahl, with whom he was co-anchor of “CBS Morning News” from 1977 to 1979, said in a statement. “In fact, he was one of our best writers and reporters.” Mr. Threlkeld did two stints at CBS — from 1965 to 1982, and again from 1989 to 1998 — and the intervening seven years at ABC. Over those three decades, he covered seven presidential campaigns, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the American invasions of Panama and Grenada, the Patricia Hearst kidnapping and trial, the war in Lebanon and the Middle East peace process. On April 29, 1975, after covering the Vietnam War, Mr. Threlkeld was aboard one of the last helicopters to lift off from the American embassy as Saigon fell to the Communists. He was in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989 and in Moscow as the Soviet Union crumbled in the 1990s. From that experience, he wrote a book, “Dispatches from the Former Evil Empire” (2001). Mr. Threlkeld was among the first correspondents doing features for CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” which first went on the air in 1979. Three years later, Roone Arledge, then the chairman of ABC News, hired him as a correspondent for “World News Tonight.” There he began doing a regular feature, “Status Reports,” offering analysis of the week’s most important story. For seven of those reports, in 1982 and ’83, he received the prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton. In 1984, he won an Overseas Press Club award for his reporting on Lebanon and Grenada. Born on Nov. 30, 1937, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and reared in Barrington, Ill., Mr. Threlkeld graduated from Ripon College in Wisconsin in 1960 with a degree in political science and history. A year later he received a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Before joining CBS, he worked at WMT-TV in Cedar Rapids, and WHAS-TV in Louisville, Ky. He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Betsy Aaron, a former CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN correspondent; a brother, Robert; two children, Susan Paulukonis and Julia Threlkeld; and two grandchildren. When Mr. Threlkeld left CBS to join ABC, Charles Kuralt, the anchor of “Sunday Morning,” told The New York Times: “We didn’t want Richard Threlkeld to leave without saying that we think he has given us something more than 108 good stories. He has given us a demonstration that the news on television does not have to be cramped and constricted. It can be expansive and exalting if you make a little time on the air and then ask a good man to fill it.”

Threlkeld Richard
News and News Media
Deaths (Obituaries)
ABC News
CBS Corporation
Traffic Accidents and Safety


Hollywood Acts Warily at Comic-Con, Fearing Bad Publicity

Abstract: SAN DIEGO — Peter Jackson arrived at the Comic-Con fan convention here on Saturday and wowed the crowd with 13 minutes of highly anticipated footage from the first of his two ultraexpensive “Hobbit” movies. But he also played it safe — very safe — by not so much as mentioning, much less demonstrating, the filmmaking wizardry at the heart of the project. That left big questions about the movie industry’s future unanswered and added to a theme of this year’s Comic-Con: Hollywood has come to fear this place. Mr. Jackson is shooting his two “Hobbit” movies, the first of which is to arrive in theaters in December, at an unusually fast 48 frames a second, twice the standard rate. The result can startle — colors appear brighter, images sharper and motion smoother — and Mr. Jackson, the Oscar-winning director of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, thinks the technique can transform moviegoing. “We have to provide a cinematic experience that brings people back to theaters,” he told reporters. But an estimated 6,500 fans did not have that experience when they gathered in Comic-Con’s cavernous Hall H moments earlier to see the new footage. A large number of them had camped through the night. (Ian McKellen, who portrayed the wizard Gandalf, was struck by the fans’ youth. “It is astonishing that most people at the presentation just now have never seen ‘The Lord of the Rings’ in theaters,” he observed at a news conference.) With devotion like that, one might think that Comic-Con would be a relatively low-risk place for Mr. Jackson and his studio backers, led by Warner Brothers , to take 48-frame-projection for a test drive. This is a crowd that has been starved for a successor to “Avatar,” a movie that was supposed to herald a transformed moviegoing experience that has so far not arrived. Still, Mr. Jackson, one of Hollywood’s boldest directors, made the unexpectedly timid decision to present “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” in a standard format here — it was not even in 3-D — because he feared an online outcry that could hurt box-office results. It is no small worry. “Unexpected Journey” and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” due next year, together carry an estimated $800 million in production and global marketing costs. “I didn’t want to repeat the Cinema-Con experience,” Mr. Jackson explained. At that convention, held in April for movie theater owners, his high-speed presentation of “Unexpected Journey” footage received a sharply mixed reaction. “Hall H is not the place” where he wanted fans to experience it, he said. Mr. Jackson was far from the only one holding back in San Diego this year. Three of Hollywood’s six major movie studios — Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox — decided not to come at all rather than risk showing footage for distant movies with still-unfinished special effects. On Saturday, the director Zack Snyder, there to promote his new Superman movie, “Man of Steel,” set for release next June, showed a trailer with no overt villain. When fans asked about the bad guy, Mr. Snyder hemmed, hawed and decided to treat that bit of news like a state secret: everyone in the movie will be “relatable,” he offered. “Trust me” seemed to be Mr. Snyder’s message; he described his movie and its components as “awesome” 10 or 12 times. But the brief atmospheric footage that he presented was not so much awesome as adequate. The clips hinted at the sort of moody, gritty superhero revisionism that has been standard since Christopher Nolan, a producer of “Man of Steel,” directed “Batman Begins” in 2005. Entertainment companies come to Comic-Con with the goal of igniting controlled brush fires on the Web — a burst of positive Twitter, blog and Facebook chatter that spreads to the mainstream and creates new fans. But the Comic-Con crowd is a discerning one and frequently refuses to cooperate. This can create difficult (sometimes impossible) messes for studio marketers to mop up. This year, there were examples of each. Disney earned a positive reaction to an intense train sequence from its coming “Lone Ranger” remake, squelching concerns (for now) about the global appeal of a Western. In the opposite direction, “The Host,” a new movie project from Stephenie Meyer, the author of the “Twilight” books, was greeted with puzzled expressions and tepid applause. That sent a publicist for its distributor, Open Road Films, scrambling to point a reporter toward positive reactions from bloggers. Despite showcasing “The Hobbit” in a conventional way, Warner Brothers put considerable effort into the convention. The studio and one of its major suppliers, Legendary Pictures, dressed up a two-and-a-half-hour presentation with a collection of huge, wraparound screens that flashed logos and moving imagery behind and around the stage. But the net effect was to seemingly shrink the separate screens on which the movies actually appeared. Superman was not nearly as super as the big Legendary logo that flashed behind Thomas Tull, that company’s chief executive, as he took the unusual step of introducing his company’s movies, rather than sitting back in the reserved seats and applauding the talent. The Warner presentation, described onstage as the convention’s “juggernaut” panel, was impressive. It tumbled through snippets of a giant monsters-and-robots movie, “Pacific Rim,” from Guillermo del Toro; dropped a bombshell by introducing plans for a new “Godzilla”; and had a surprise appearance by Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis to promote “The Campaign.” (Mr. Ferrell showed up in a Will Ferrell mask.) Still, Mr. del Toro’s clips, though shaking and shuddering with 25-story-tall robots, barely showed tooth or claw of the apocalyptic monsters the robots were supposed to be fighting. Asked about the creatures, he said they would be the best of the best, nine or so horrible beasts selected from what he said was an “American Idol”-like audition line of about 40 created for the film. “Everything will be there,” he assured the fans. It was as if the movies had become a little too big for Comic-Con and its screens. But trust us, said the filmmakers. They’re going to be “awesome.”

Comic-Con (Convention)
The Hobbit (Movie)
Jackson Peter
Warner Brothers
Movies
Hobbit The (Movie)


One Step From World Cup Final, Argentina Channels Di Stéfano

Abstract: When Alfredo Di Stéfano died at 88 on Monday , one of the last ties to a golden age of Latin American soccer was cut. The 1940s belonged to Argentine soccer. And for the first half of the decade, Argentine soccer was dominated by one of the greatest teams to have graced a field. Now mostly forgotten outside the continent, River Plate played precision total football. Little wonder the team became known as la Máquina (the Machine). When Di Stéfano, who started at River Plate before becoming Real Madrid’s most famous player, was asked who the five greatest players were, he came up with La Máquina’s five forwards: Juan Carlos Muñoz, José Manuel Moreno, Ángel Labruna, Adolfo Pedernera and Félix Loustau. Moreno was not only the team’s best player but also its most charismatic. He might have surpassed Diego Maradona as a player had he looked after himself. But the call of the tango hall and beautiful women proved too distracting. Moreno was unapologetic: “Yes, I like the night life. So what? I never missed a training session.Don’t come telling me to drink milk: The time I drank milk, I played badly.” It was with Moreno that Di Stéfano played when he joined River Plate. Early on, Di Stéfano was known as el Alemán (the German) for his size and blond hair, though the nickname Saeta Rubia (Blond Arrow) eventually stuck. Even though the best soccer was being played in Argentina, the relationship between club and player remained feudal. Strikes in 1948 paved the way for an exodus of Argentina’s best players to an unsanctioned pirate league in Colombia. Years later, Di Stéfano remained irate. “They exploited us in an intolerable way,” he said. “Signing for a club meant submitting to its discretion for an unlimited time.” It was in Spain that Di Stéfano would make his mark. He paved the way for generations of Latin Americans to make their names in Europe. His greatness lay not just in his skill but also in his speed. “In every era, one can apply Einstein’s theory of relativity to its best players,” said Oscar Barnade. of the Argentine newspaper Clarín. “There’s nothing faster than light. At the end of the 1940s, during a time of much slower-paced soccer, Di Stéfano revolutionized the attack of River. “Speed and precision in ball control; physical and mental speed. He ran the length and breadth of the pitch. There was no one like him.” Pelé, Johan Cruyff and Maradona all followed suit and confirmed the theory that the greatest players have had speed in addition to talent. In Lionel Messi, Argentina has found its new messiah. Like Di Stéfano, he plies his trade outside the continent of his birth, but he remains in the best tradition of Latin American football. It is now Messi’s World Cup for the taking, though Argentina’s dream of meeting (and beating) Brazil in the final will not be. Argentina may be in mourning for one of its greatest players, but Brazil will not mourn this World Cup team after a 7-1 demolition by a professional but unspectacular German team. For the Brazilian writer Nelson Rodrigues, Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat highlighted a sense of inferiority about the country’s place in the world. Not this time, though. This World Cup humiliation reflects what this tournament has failed to achieve for the country; it has merely managed to paper over the cracks in Brazilian society. The defeat may be the wake-up call the country needs. For Messi, however, history awaits. If he leads Argentina into the final against Germany, he will take his place alongside Di Stéfano as the greatest the continent has to offer.

Alfredo Di Stefano
2014 World Cup
Argentina
River Plate Soccer Team
Soccer


As Civil War Ends in Sri Lanka, New Divisions Arise in New York

Abstract: With the end of more than 25 years of civil war in Sri Lanka this week, the Sri Lankan diaspora on Staten Island that was able to enjoy the taste of home together without ethnic conflict is suddenly faced with divisions within their immigrant community. For years, whether they were of Sinhalese origin, like the owner of the Lak Bojun restaurant on Victory Boulevard, or part of the Tamil minority, like a doctor who has long relished the curries there, they counted each other as friends — and never talked politics. For Sanjeewa Wickremaratne, 40, the restaurateur, who served a dozen years as a captain in the Sri Lankan Army before coming to Staten Island in 2000, the news that the ethnic Tamil separatist rebels had been defeated was simply cause for jubilation. “It’s really joyful because, to be frank, everybody was suffering for the last three decades,” he said on Monday afternoon, when his restaurant was empty. “It’s peace for everybody.” He dismissed the history of oppression that drove many Tamils from the country or into the ranks of the guerrillas, saying: “There was no ethnic problem. No race issue, nothing at all. Only a terrorism problem.” But the restaurant’s longtime customer, Dr. Anantham Harin, had to disagree. His home was burned and his father killed by Sinhalese extremists in the riots and massacres of 1983, he said. And from the safety of the United States, he watched a tiny guerrilla band recruit Tamils from refugee camps “because they had lost their homes and their hope.” “I’m glad now the troubles are over, but how they achieved this settlement, that’s what’s working me,” Dr. Harin, 64, said at Richmond University Hospital, where he is a neonatalogist. “Genocide, mass killing and lying and lying — that’s a thing that lies heavy on the heart. This is not a thing to celebrate.” Dr. Harin and others in the older generation of immigrants said the sight of victory parties among Sinhalese in Sri Lanka and in other cities, including Los Angeles, is exacerbating the raw feelings among younger Tamils in the diaspora, which is more politicized in Canada, Britain and Europe than in the United States. Nimmi Gowrinathan, a young American-born Tamil whose parents fled Sri Lanka in the late 1970s, echoed such concerns. Though as the director of South Asia programs for Operation USA she could never support the tactics of the Tamil Tigers , which have included hundreds of suicide bombings and assassinations, she said: “The feeling people have is a psychological defeat. There’s no avenue for change for a marginalized population.” The terrorism extremes that emerged in Sri Lanka reached New York in 2006 when a sting operation netted four men from Sri Lanka who tried to buy shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles and other weapons for the Tamil Tigers. They are awaiting sentencing in federal court in Brooklyn on terrorism charges after pleading guilty to the plot. Few Tamils in the United States condoned such tactics. And as so often happens in New York’s immigrant communities, the ties among Sri Lankans have kept ethnic conflicts in check. The Sri Lankan immigrant community — estimated at about 5,000 in New York City and 9,000 in New York State, New Jersey and Connecticut — has for 30 years, for example, held joint Tamil-Sinhalese New Year’s celebrations in April. They have played joint cricket games at August picnics sponsored by the Sri Lanka Association of New York, which has carefully rotated its presidency between the Sinhalese and other Sri Lankan ethnic groups, including Burghers and Tamils, as well as Sri Lankan Muslims, according to a past president, Pushpa R. Jagoda. “We are so happy that there is peace in the country,” said Mrs. Jagoda, a Sinhalese who directs a Montessori school in New Rochelle. “We just hope people can move on and help the refugees and help the families that suffered from this terrible war that has been lingering on in our little island.” The task now is to find a way to talk together about the politics of peace, said Ahilan Kadirgamar, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, which has been critical of the Tamil separatists and the government. “That’s the challenge in the future — how to help constructively now that the war is over,” he said. “The process of reconciliation not only has to happen in Sri Lanka, but also in the diaspora.” But for now, Dr. Harin will continue to refrain from talking politics at his favorite restaurant. “I’ve known Sanjay for many years,” he said, using a nickname for the restaurateur. “I take my friends there. I value his friendship and I know he’s a good, decent man.” And, he added, recalling rice curries, fried fish and Sri Lankan desserts, “He’s a very good cook.”

Sri Lanka
Civil War and Guerrilla Warfare
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Immigration and Emigration
New York City
Sinhalese (Ethnic Group)


Obama to Unveil Tougher Environmental Plan With His Legacy in Mind

Abstract: WASHINGTON — In the strongest action ever taken in the United States to combat climate change, President Obama will unveil on Monday a set of environmental regulations devised to sharply cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s power plants and ultimately transform America’s electricity industry. The rules are the final, tougher versions of proposed regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2012 and 2014 . If they withstand the expected legal challenges, the regulations will set in motion sweeping policy changes that could shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants, freeze construction of new coal plants and create a boom in the production of wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources. As the president came to see the fight against climate change as central to his legacy, as important as the Affordable Care Act, he moved to strengthen the energy proposals, advisers said. The health law became the dominant political issue of the 2010 congressional elections and faced dozens of legislative assaults before surviving two Supreme Court challenges largely intact. “Climate change is not a problem for another generation, not anymore,” Mr. Obama said in a video posted on Facebook at midnight Saturday. He called the new rules “the biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken to combat climate change.” The most aggressive of the regulations requires the nation’s existing power plants to cut emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, an increase from the 30 percent target proposed in the draft regulation. That new rule also demands that power plants use more renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power. While the proposed rule would have allowed states to lower emissions by transitioning from plants fired by coal to plants fired by natural gas, which produces about half the carbon pollution of coal, the final rule is intended to push electric utilities to invest more quickly in renewable sources, raising to 28 percent from 22 percent the share of generating capacity that would come from such sources. In its final version, the rule retains the same basic structure as the draft proposal: It assigns each state a target for reducing its carbon pollution from power plants, but allows states to create their own custom plans for doing so. States have to submit an initial version of their plans by 2016 and final versions by 2018. But over all, the final rule is even stronger than earlier drafts and can be seen as an effort by Mr. Obama to stake out an uncompromising position on the issue during his final months in office. The anticipated final climate change regulations have already set off what is expected to be broad legal, legislative and political backlash as dozens of states, major corporations and industry groups prepare to file lawsuits challenging them. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, has started an unusual pre-emptive campaign against the rules, asking governors to refuse to comply. Attorneys general from more than a dozen states are preparing legal challenges against the plan. Experts estimate that as many as 25 states will join in a suit against the rules and that the disputes will end up before the Supreme Court. Leading the legal charge are states like Wyoming and West Virginia with economies that depend heavily on coal mining or cheap coal-fired electricity. Emissions from coal-fired power plants are the nation’s single largest source of carbon pollution, and lawmakers who oppose the rules have denounced them as a “war on coal.” “Once the E.P.A. finalizes this regulation, West Virginia will go to court, and we will challenge it,” Patrick Morrisey, the attorney general of West Virginia, said in an interview with a radio station in the state on Friday. “We think this regulation is terrible for the consumers of the state of West Virginia. It’s going to lead to reduced jobs, higher electricity rates, and really will put stress on the reliability of the power grid. The worst part of this proposal is that it’s flatly illegal under the Clean Air Act and the Constitution, and we intend to challenge it vigorously.” Although Obama administration officials have repeatedly said states will have flexibility to design their own plans, the final rules are explicitly meant to encourage the use of interstate cap-and-trade systems, in which states place a cap on carbon pollution and then create a market for buying permits or credits to pollute. The idea is that forcing companies to pay to pollute will drive them to cleaner sources of energy. Mr. Obama tried but failed to push through a cap-and-trade bill in his first term, and since then, the term has become politically toxic: Republicans have attacked the idea as “cap and tax.” But if the climate change regulations withstand legal challenges, many states could still end up putting cap-and-trade systems into effect. Officials familiar with the final rules said that in many cases, the easiest and cheapest way for states to comply would be by adopting cap-and-trade systems. The rules take into account the fact that some states may refuse to submit plans, and on Monday, the administration will also unveil a template for a plan to be imposed on such states. That plan will include the option of allowing a state to join an interstate cap-and-trade system. The rules will also offer financial benefits for states that choose to take part in cap-and-trade systems. The final rules will extend until 2022 the timeline for states and electric utilities to comply, two years later than originally proposed . But states that begin to take actions to cut carbon pollution as early as 2020 will be rewarded with carbon reduction credits — essentially, pollution permits that can be sold for cash in a cap-and-trade market. Climate scientists warn that rising greenhouse gas emissions are rapidly moving the planet toward a global atmospheric temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the point past which the world will be locked into a future of rising sea levels, more devastating storms and droughts, and shortages of food and water. Mr. Obama’s new rules alone will not be enough to stave off that future. But experts say that if the rules are combined with similar action from the world’s other major economies, as well as additional action by the next American president, emissions could level off enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Mr. Obama intends to use the new rules to push other countries to commit to deep reductions in their own carbon emissions before a United Nations summit meeting in Paris in December, when a global accord to fight climate change is expected to be signed. Mr. Obama’s pledge that the United States would enact the climate change rules was at the heart of a pact that he made last year with President Xi Jinping of China, committing their nations, the world’s two largest carbon polluters, to substantially cut emissions. “It’s the linchpin of the administration’s domestic effort and international effort on climate change,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development , a research organization. “It raises the diplomatic stakes in the run-up to Paris. He can take it on the road and use it as leverage with other big economies — China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia.” While opponents of the rules have estimated that compliance will cost billions of dollars, raise residential electricity rates and slow the American economy, the administration argues that the rules will save the average American family $85 annually in electricity costs and bring additional health benefits by reducing emissions of pollutants that cause asthma and lung disease. The rules will be announced at a White House ceremony on Monday and signed by Gina McCarthy, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator. While the ceremony is scheduled to take place on the White House’s South Lawn, officials said it might be moved indoors to the East Room after forecasters predicted that the weather would be too hot.

Barack Obama
Climate Change
Global Warming
Greenhouse gas
EPA
Coal
Renewable energy
Regulation and Deregulation
US Politics


Giannoulias Campaign Trying to Control Message

Abstract: Alexi Giannoulias ’s campaign for the United States Senate has something rare in politics: advance notice that a disaster is about to strike, and time to prepare for it. The fate of Mr. Giannoulias’s candidacy may hang on how his campaign handles the challenge. Federal bank regulators have set an April 24 deadline by which Broadway Bank — his family business turned political millstone — must raise $85 million in new capital or risk liquidation by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Inside Mr. Giannoulias’s political headquarters on LaSalle Street downtown, surrounded by the sturdy edifices of major banks, the staff looks at April 24 as the deadline in their effort to seize control of a narrative that endangers Mr. Giannoulias’s bid for national office. The campaign has conducted focus-group studies to look at advertisements designed to inoculate Mr. Giannoulias, a 34-year-old Democrat, against the political fallout if the bank collapses, and has discussed the possibility of an emotive speech by him to clear the decks. Grappling with Broadway Bank as a factor in the campaign has been nothing short of “surreal,” said Eric Adelstein, Mr. Giannoulias’s chief media consultant. Not only does the bank face an all-but-certain collapse, the candidate’s conduct while working at Broadway has come into question, from recent disclosures in The Chicago Tribune about the bank’s loans to felons and an article by the Chicago News Cooperative about its push into aggressive lending that paved the way for the bank’s current troubles. Campaign staff members still regard the issue as manageable. They view the coming days as a chance to change the focus of the campaign. “We’ll take on the bank now,” said Kathleen Strand, the campaign’s communications director. Then, addressing Mr. Giannoulias’s Republican opponent, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, Ms. Strand added: “We’re on the way to this happening, where people are going to say: ‘What are you about, Mark Kirk? What are you going to bring to the table in the United States Senate?’ ” The effort to reshape the campaign has started with a push to explore ways that Mr. Giannoulias might burnish his image if Broadway Bank collapses. In mid-March, the campaign conducted 12 hours of focus groups — six groups of swing voters, over three days, at sites both in suburban Chicago and downstate — testing the impact of the bank’s troubles on voters’ views of the candidate. In an edited video clip of the focus groups that was shown to the Chicago News Cooperative, a moderator asked participants about their impressions of Broadway Bank as it related to Mr. Giannoulias. The strong majority of the people who saw the video played down the relevance of the issue. “This is where I think there is a little bit of a disconnect between all the geniuses and the voters,” Mr. Adelstein said. As part of the planning for the focus groups, Mr. Adelstein made a test campaign commercial in which Mr. Giannoulias stares into the camera lens and tries to relate the plight of his family’s bank to the larger context of the country’s economic struggles. While the campaign has decided not to take to the air with that kind of ad yet, “the key take-away from that is we are ready, we have our plan,” Ms. Strand said. The campaign is also giving serious consideration to a speech Mr. Giannoulias could deliver about the bank, taking the cue from Barack Obama’s Philadelphia speech two years ago in which Mr. Obama, then a presidential candidate, addressed the incendiary remarks on race by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Mr. Giannoulias’s advisers indicate they would use such a speech only if needed, and only if they thought it would resolve the bank issue in the campaign. Some outsiders think that tactic would be risky. “It has to put the period to this issue,” said Delmarie Cobb, a Democratic strategist who was hired to do damage control for Senator Roland W. Burris last year. “If there are still more questions left after the speech than were answered, if new questions emerge, you’re in trouble.” The campaign has tried to avoid raising the bank issue since a March 3 news media blitz in which Mr. Giannoulias sought to address questions about his role at Broadway Bank. And it has tried to take control of the message war in recent weeks by hammering Mr. Kirk over a statement he made at a Republican dinner, his pledge to “lead the effort” to repeal the recent health care overhaul legislation if elected to the Senate. But the effort to change the subject ran aground when an April 2 article in the Tribune reported that the bank had lent $20 million to two crime figures involved in illegal gambling and prostitution. “Take that story out of the picture, we have had a pretty good couple of weeks in the press mostly built around the health care angle,” said Mike Rendina, Mr. Giannoulias’s campaign manager who assumed his duties on March 1 after running the failed gubernatorial primary bid of Dan Hynes, the Illinois comptroller. “It wasn’t like we were quiet for two weeks and then the story hit again,” Mr. Rendina continued. “There has been a real back-and-forth on other issues that we think is eventually where things are going to end up. But we’ll see what happens.” Campaign officials know they do not have much time. Even after the Broadway Bank deadline passes, the expected start of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich’s trial in June will again highlight the topic of political corruption in Illinois’s Democratic establishment. With all this in mind, the campaign has put considerable heft behind its communications operation. Ms. Strand had previously done opposition research on Mr. Kirk for the Chicago arm of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Besides Mr. Adelstein, a well-regarded political media consultant, other advisers include Pete Giangreco of the Chicago-based firm The Strategy Group, who served as Mr. Obama’s top direct-mail consultant during the 2008 presidential primaries. But the campaign’s budding effort to depict Mr. Giannoulias as just another small-business person caught up in the economic downturn will most likely face unrelenting attack from Republicans. “It’s difficult to see how in the wake of the Blagojevich scandal and the corruption we’ve seen from the Democrats’ Chicago political machine, voters would elect the first mob banker to the U.S. Senate,” said Brian Walsh, communications director for the National Republican Senate Committee. “Giannoulias’s questionable lending practices and association with unsavory underworld figures will be central to this campaign because they go directly to the questions of judgment and leadership.” Even Democratic stalwarts in Chicago doubt that Mr. Giannoulias’s handlers can make the Broadway Bank issue go away. “If the bank fails, there is no way the issue can be put to rest,” said Dan Rose, a veteran Democratic political consultant. “It will live on perennially in commercials and on the Internet as long as the opponent wishes.” The campaign workers still believe, however, that they can succeed by comparing the bank’s troubles to those of many other struggling family businesses. “Here is a family business,” Mr. Adelstein said of Broadway Bank, adding that members of Mr. Giannoulias’s campaign staff are experiencing the pressures a business is going through. He said that even though they are not at the bank, “We sort of feel it,” he said. “It is pretty tangible. It is not an abstraction.” Ms. Strand thinks the attention of voters and candidates soon will turn elsewhere. “This is President Obama’s Senate seat,” she said, “so we’re going to be dealing with what we’d all expect in a local and statewide level, but we’re also going to be dealing with national attention. We already are.”

Giannoulias Alexi
Chicago (Ill)
Elections


As Messi Changes, Suárez Could Fit Right In

Abstract: LONDON — Even before the games were played out in Brazil, the reality of where many South American players’ priorities lie was being settled in Europe. Luis Suárez, supposedly barred from going anywhere near a stadium for four months after biting an opponent during the World Cup, is on his way to Barcelona. The deal is done. Liverpool had no option but to sell the star player for about 75 million pounds, or $128 million. Suárez’s wages will add another $17 million or so each season to that investment, and two players, Cesc Fàbregas (to Chelsea) and Alexis Sánchez (to Arsenal) have been sold to accommodate that outlay. Suárez posted his fond farewell to Liverpool fans on the club’s website. “It is with a heavy heart that I leave Liverpool,” he wrote. “Both me and my family have fallen in love with this club and the city. But most of all I have fallen in love with the incredible fans. You have always supported me and we, as a family, will never forget it, we will always be Liverpool supporters.” Take some of that as sincere. The main reason Suárez is joining his fifth club in eight years is family. He left Uruguay for Europe in the first place because the family of his then-sweetheart (and now his wife), Sofía Balbi, had moved to Barcelona. Now, he had a chance not only to move closer to her parents, but at the same time join one of the world’s iconic clubs. While media speculation was centered on Real Madrid making Suárez its next target, Barça held the family card. And Suárez wielded the ultimate power in the modern game — player power. The question now is: Where does Suárez fit into Barcelona’s team? An attacking line of Lionel Messi, Neymar and Suárez is either the ultimate triumvirate, or a miasma of conflicting interests on a team that, every critic says, desperately needs defenders. The answer will come on the field starting in November, if FIFA’s ban is upheld. The punishment will in all probability be challenged all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. Barcelona, in the meantime, will offer counseling to curb his inclination to bite opposing players. He has done that three times now, which has flawed his ability to strike audacious goals from seemingly impossible angles, year after year, in the Dutch and English leagues. Where to fit him in? Messi’s role is changing. His own transition into a family man came with the birth of his first son a year ago. His body has started to rebel against the workload that he took upon himself to score a goal a game while running mile after mile with a smile on his face and the ball under his command. Even as he has taken Argentina to the World Cup final, the critics are asking where the “old” Messi is. Where are the mesmerizing runs, the coruscating dribbles as he risks injuries from malevolent opponents when he tricks them one after the other? Messi, I was assured by Barcelona’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, is not for sale at any price. He is Barça’s soul. Any player, be they the wonderfully promising Neymar or the now-maligned but supertalented Suárez, will fall in line with Messi’s pivotal role at the club. However, the dependence — the overdependence — that Barcelona has on Messi is being challenged and changed. The club’s new coach, the former Barcelona player Luis Enrique, faces the task of integrating and balancing out the talents the club is acquiring for him. We haven’t yet seen Enrique’s work there, but based on his record it will be dynamic, single-minded and more direct than the tiki-taka system that was seen to be running out of steam. Suárez, playing in Sánchez’s place, will galvanize the attack because the Uruguayan has more self-confidence and more spirit to chase apparently lost causes and turn them into goals. I can see Messi doing what he has done at the World Cup, adding stealth to his repertoire, dropping deeper, exercising more patience. As Xavi Hernández and even Andrés Iniesta fade, Messi might become the play-maker, conserving his bursts of thrilling runs as he instead prompts Neymar and Suárez to run until it hurts. It sounds ridiculous that Messi is an elder statesman at 27. But remember, he has been at Barça since he was 13, and his record already is saturated with more goals and more thrilling runs than most great players achieve in a lifetime. How does this relate to the World Cup? For Messi, leading Argentina was a mission, in a sense chasing a lost childhood. For Suárez (with Uruguay) and Sánchez (with Chile), it was a brief interlude. The chance to represent their countries close to home passed fleetingly. The fans had yearned 36 years for the tournament to return to South America since it was last held there, in Argentina in 1978. The exhilaration lasted one exciting round, then paled. It was too many games, too much asked of players who already were tired because of their European club commitments. Suárez epitomized that. He was injured before the tournament, yet he rushed back to score twice against England, and in his only other game something snapped inside him. By the time his ban began, the Barcelona deal was already made public after Suárez’s father-in-law broadcast that the family was about to be reunited. Player power — or family power.

Soccer
Barcelona Soccer Team
Liverpool Soccer Team
Luis Suarez
Lionel Messi


Robert Kiley, Mass Transit Chief in Boston, London and New York, Dies at 80

Abstract: Robert Kiley, who oversaw the revival of long-neglected subway and bus lines that carry millions of commuters daily in Boston, New York and London, died on Tuesday at his home in Chilmark, Mass. He was 80. The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, his family said. In Boston, Mr. Kiley expanded rail service; in London, he was the city’s first commissioner of transport. But in his three decades as a transit overseer, he may have left his greatest legacy in New York, where he served for more than seven years — longer than in the other two cities — and ran the nation’s biggest mass transit and regional commuter rail system. As Gov. Mario M. Cuomo’s chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority beginning in 1983, Mr. Kiley introduced the MetroCard to replace the subway token, imposed a zero-tolerance policy against fare-beaters and graffiti vandals, and approved the merger of the transit police force with the city’s Police Department. He also lured William J. Bratton from Boston, initially as chief of the Transit Police. Mr. Bratton later became the city’s police commissioner. Inheriting a windfall $8.5 billion capital program wangled from the State Legislature by his predecessor at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Richard Ravitch, Mr. Kiley presided over the replacement of hundreds of decrepit subway cars and buses, modernized stations, and improved on-time performance in a system that had been woefully neglected. Annual subway ridership, which in 1982 had dipped below one billion for the first time since 1917, rebounded by 1994 to the highest weekday average in two decades, 1.08 billion. Mr. Ravitch, a native New Yorker, had been a vigorous advocate for mass transit, equally adept at wooing labor leaders, legislators and opinion makers in a campaign to generate the billions of dollars required to begin reversing the system’s decline. Mr. Kiley, a Minnesota native who arrived in New York by way of Boston, was more of a nuts-and-bolts manager, and he took longer to acclimate himself to the idiosyncrasies of local politics. “It’s kind of like following after Lou Gehrig,” Ralph L. Stanley, the federal urban mass transit administrator, said of the transition. Mr. Kiley managed to win another $8 billion infusion for the authority’s capital program, recruited competent managers, and wrought concessions from organized labor, which incongruously represented most transit supervisors as well as rank-and-file workers. Mr. Kiley was a former Central Intelligence Agency operative and public policy expert who became a transit professional in 1975 by a fluke. Michael S. Dukakis, the newly elected governor of Massachusetts, asked him to recommend a chief executive for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. When Mr. Kiley’s two candidates rejected the job, the governor gave it to him. “I said, ‘But I don’t know anything about transportation,’ and he said, ‘Too bad, you’re it,’” Mr. Kiley recalled. Robert Raymond Kiley was born on Sept. 16, 1935, in Minneapolis, the son of Raymond Kiley, who managed a Woolworth store and became a national executive of the chain, and the former Georgianna Smith. Image Robert Kiley, right, with Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, on the London Underground in 2000. Mr. Kiley oversaw mass transit systems in Boston, New York and London. Credit Ian Nicholson/Agence France-Presse He graduated in 1957 from the University of Notre Dame, where he majored in business. He passed up admission to Harvard Law School to work for the National Student Association, becoming its president in 1959. Mr. Kiley began doing graduate work in international relations at Harvard but dropped out after 16 months in 1963 to work for the C.I.A., at first covertly funneling assistance to student groups around the globe. His cover was blown in 1967 when Ramparts magazine revealed that the National Student Association itself had been receiving as much as $400,000 a year from the agency to support its international programs. (Mr. Kiley was among 12 past presidents who declared that the funds had not compromised the association’s principles or programs.) Before leaving the C.I.A. in 1970, he was manager of intelligence operations and executive assistant to the director, Richard Helms. In 1974, Mayor Kevin H. White of Boston named him deputy mayor, a role in which he focused on public safety during the city’s vitriolic protests over court-ordered busing. He said his priority was “to make certain that children weren’t killed as a result of Boston’s massive inattention to the inevitability of school desegregation.” None were. In 1974, his wife and two children died in a car crash on the New England Thruway in the Bronx. He is survived by his second wife, the former Rona Shuman, an advocate for human rights and international education; their sons, David and Benjamin; his sister, Kathleen K. Goloven; and a granddaughter. Mr. Kiley ran the Boston transit agency from 1975 to 1979. In addition to expanding rail service, he reduced political patronage and union perks. When Mr. White decided against seeking a fifth term in 1983, Mr. Kiley ran in a nonpartisan election to succeed him but dropped out of the primary when public opinion polls ranked him sixth in a field of nine. After leaving New York’s top transit job in 1991, he was named by Mr. Cuomo to the Financial Control Board, which oversees New York City’s fiscal affairs, and served as president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group, before being recruited by Mayor Ken Livingstone to move to London, with an unprecedented base pay of $360,000. But he immediately became embroiled in a dispute with Prime Minister Tony Blair over his Labour Party’s plan to transfer tracks, signals and stations to three privately owned companies while leaving operation of the trains to the publicly run London Underground. Mr. Kiley bluntly pronounced the arrangement “fatally flawed.” Mr. Livingstone later said that Mr. Kiley’s opposition to the public-private partnership had been vindicated. Mr. Kiley probably had as much effect on London motorists as on mass transit riders. He imposed Mr. Livingstone’s congestion pricing plan, an electronic system that charges drivers a hefty fee to enter the city center on weekdays. It was credited with reducing traffic and generating revenue to pay for other transportation projects. Despite the quarrel with Mr. Blair, Mr. Kiley kept his job in London for five years. He was, he said, a former C.I.A. agent working for an unreconstructed Trotskyite. (Mr. Livingstone was a democratic socialist.) “You are the most important American to come to Britain since Dwight Eisenhower,” a gushing British diplomat told Mr. Kiley . In a profile, The New Yorker characterized him as “the cool American, intent on his job, unfazed by the spotlight, the consummate grown-up.”

Obituary
Public Transit
Subway
Boston
London
Robert R Kiley
NYC


6 Die in Egypt as Islamist Opposition Tries to Re-energize Movement

Abstract: CAIRO — At least six people were killed in political violence in Egypt on Friday in the buildup to a much-anticipated day of protests on Sunday calling for a rollback of the recent military takeover. The violence flared across the country as the new government installed on July 3 by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi struggles to consolidate its control of the streets. Its Islamist opponents, meanwhile, are seeking to re-energize their protest movement against the takeover. Four civilians were killed in Cairo, the official news media reported, as marches called by the Islamist supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, tried to converge on Tahrir Square, the trampled roundabout at the center of the 2011 revolution against President Hosni Mubarak. There were conflicting accounts of how they had died. Interior Ministry officials described all four as Islamist opponents of the government who had been killed in clashes with other civilians, but some people said they had died as a result of tear gas and live ammunition fired by security forces in their attempts to hold back the marches. Two soldiers were killed in an assault on an army convoy near the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, the state news media reported, and security officials attributed the attack to Islamist militants. Among the dozens of Egyptians injured in clashes on Friday around the country was the liberal activist Khaled Dawoud, who was pulled from his car in downtown Cairo, stabbed in the chest and rushed to a hospital. He was reported to be in stable condition. Mr. Dawoud was the spokesman for a political coalition opposing Mr. Morsi, but he resigned in August to protest the coalition’s support for a bloody crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters , including the killing of more than a thousand in mass shootings by security forces. Mr. Dawoud has since been pilloried by both sides of the conflict, but initial reports on Friday indicated that his stabbing was the work of Islamist protesters. The fighting seemed to stop by the 7 p.m. curfew in effect here and in much of Egypt on Fridays, the customary day for street protests after worshipers gather for midday prayers. The clashes appeared to be a warm-up of sorts for Sunday, when the Islamist-dominated coalition against the takeover has called for a bigger day of protests centered on Tahrir Square. The protests would coincide with the holiday celebrating the 40th anniversary of Egypt’s 1973 war on Israel, an occasion that is customarily a day of tributes to the military. Egyptian state television and radio have been calling on civilian supporters of the military-backed government to turn out to defend it, potentially setting the stage for more clashes. None of Friday’s marches reached Tahrir Square because security forces had sealed it off, just as they have sealed off major gathering places around the capital every Friday since mid-August. But the decision to march on the square appeared to suggest an attempt to re-escalate the protests and risk new confrontations. Since the August crackdown, street protests against the takeover have continued, but their intensity has waned, and most have veered away from direct conflict with security forces. The symbolic heart of the 2011 revolution, Tahrir Square became the center of protest against Mr. Morsi, and remained a stronghold of his opponents. In the last few weeks, the new government has tried to begin emptying the perennial protest camps there and reopening the square. Success with that effort could signal that the new government was restoring some sense of stability.

Arab Spring
Egypt
Military
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt
Mohamed Morsi
Tahrir Square


February Sales Rose 4.8% at McDonald’s

Abstract: OAK BROOK, Ill. (AP) — The McDonald’s Corporation , the fast-food chain, said on Monday that sales at restaurants open at least a year climbed 4.8 percent in February on strong overseas growth and a small rise in United States sales. The 4.8 percent increase follows a 2.6 percent rise in January after sales declined in November and December. McDonald’s domestic performance also improved, edging up 0.6 percent after a 0.7 percent decline in January. Results in the United States were helped by strong demand for the chain’s breakfast dollar menu, McCafe drinks and a Chicken McNugget promotion centered around the Winter Olympics. Results in Europe rose 5.4 percent, while Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa’s performance climbed 10.5 percent. McDonald’s reported strong performances in Australia, Britain, China, France and Japan. Sales at restaurants open at least a year are a key indicator of performance because they measure growth at existing locations rather than newly opened ones. Systemwide sales, which includes sales at restaurants run by the company and franchisees, increased 11.2 percent in February. In January, McDonald’s, based in Oak Brook, Ill., said that its fourth-quarter profit climbed, helped by its dollar menu. But yearly sales dropped for the first time in at least a quarter-century.