U.S. Said to Find North Korea Ordered Cyberattack on Sony

Abstract: WASHINGTON — American officials have concluded that North Korea was “centrally involved” in the hacking of Sony Pictures computers, even as the studio canceled the release of a far-fetched comedy about the assassination of the North’s leader that is believed to have led to the cyberattack. Senior administration officials, who would not speak on the record about the intelligence findings, said the White House was debating whether to publicly accuse North Korea of what amounts to a cyberterrorism attack. Sony capitulated after the hackers threatened additional attacks , perhaps on theaters themselves, if the movie, “The Interview,” was released. Officials said it was not clear how the White House would respond. Some within the Obama administration argue that the government of Kim Jong-un must be confronted directly. But that raises questions of what actions the administration could credibly threaten, or how much evidence to make public without revealing details of how it determined North Korea’s culpability, including the possible penetration of the North’s computer networks. Other administration officials said a direct confrontation with the North would provide North Korea with the kind of dispute it covets. Japan, where Sony is an iconic corporate name, has argued that a public accusation could interfere with delicate diplomatic negotiations for the return of Japanese citizens kidnapped years ago. The government is “considering a range of options in weighing a potential response,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. The administration’s sudden urgency came after a new threat was delivered this week to desktop computers at Sony’s offices, warning that if “The Interview” was released on Dec. 25, “the world will be full of fear.” “Remember the 11th of September 2001,” it said. “We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.” Hours before Sony canceled the movie, the four largest theater chains in the United States — Regal Entertainment , AMC Entertainment, Cinemark and Carmike Cinemas — and several smaller chains said they would not show “The Interview” as a result of the threat. The cancellations virtually killed the movie as a theatrical enterprise, at least in the near term, one of the first known instances of a threat from another nation pre-empting the release of a movie. While intelligence officials have concluded that the cyberattack was both state-sponsored and far more destructive than any seen before on American soil, there are still differences of opinion over whether North Korea was aided by Sony insiders with knowledge of the company’s computer systems, senior administration officials said. “This is of a different nature than past attacks,” one official said. An attack that began by wiping out data on corporate computers — something that had been previously seen in South Korea and Saudi Arabia — had turned “into a threat to the safety of Americans,” the official said. But echoing a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, the official said there was no specific information that an attack was likely. It is not clear how the United States determined that Mr. Kim’s government had played a central role in the Sony attacks. North Korea’s computer network has been notoriously difficult to infiltrate. But the National Security Agency began a major effort four years ago to penetrate the country’s computer operations, including its elite cyberteam, and to establish “implants” in the country’s networks that, like a radar system, would monitor the development of malware transmitted from the country. It is hardly a foolproof system. Much of North Korea’s hacking is done from China. And while the attack on Sony used some commonly available cybertools, one intelligence official said, “this was of a sophistication that a year ago we would have said was beyond the North’s capabilities.” It is rare for the United States to publicly accuse countries suspected of involvement in cyberintrusions. The administration never publicly said who attacked White House and State Department computers over the past two months, or JPMorgan Chase’s systems last summer. Russia is suspected in the first two cases, but there is conflicting evidence in the JPMorgan case. But there is a long forensic trail involving the Sony hacking, several security researchers said. The attackers used readily available commercial tools to wipe data off Sony’s machines. They also borrowed tools and techniques that had been used in at least two previous attacks, one in Saudi Arabia two years ago — widely attributed to Iran — and another last year in South Korea aimed at banks and media companies. The Sony attacks were routed from command-and-control centers across the world, including a convention center in Singapore and Thammasat University in Thailand, the researchers said. But one of those servers, in Bolivia, had been used in limited cyberattacks on South Korean targets two years ago. That suggested that the same group or individuals might have been behind the Sony attack. The Sony malware shares remarkable similarities with that used in attacks on South Korean banks and broadcasters last year. Those intrusions, which also destroyed data belonging to their victims, are believed to have been the work of a cybercriminal gang known as Dark Seoul. Some experts say they cannot rule out the possibility that the Sony attack was the work of a Dark Seoul copycat, the security researchers said. The Sony attack also borrowed a wiping tool from an attack two years ago at Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, where hackers wiped off data on 30,000 of the company’s computers , replacing it with an image of a burning American flag . Security experts were never able to track down those hackers, though United States officials have long said they believed the attacks emanated from Iran, using tools that are now on the black market. At Sony, investigators are looking into the possibility that the attackers had inside help. Embedded in the malicious code were the names of Sony servers and administrative credentials that allowed the malware to spread across Sony’s network. “It’s clear that they already had access to Sony’s network before the attack,” said Jaime Blasco, a researcher at AlienVault, a cybersecurity consulting firm. What is remarkable in this case is that after three weeks of pressure, the attack forced one of Hollywood’s largest studios and Japan’s most famous companies to surrender. Many attacks have been aimed at stealing credit card data, like the intrusions on the Home Depot and Target networks — and others at disrupting ATMs. An American and Israeli attack known as Olympic Games that targeted Iran’s nuclear program was a rare attack on infrastructure. Sony has tried to put the best face on the situation, saying it understood that movie theaters had to be worried about the safety of their customers. But the precedent set Wednesday could be damaging. Other countries or hacking groups could try similar tactics over movies, books or television broadcasts that they find offensive. The cost of the assault was small: The attackers used readily available tools to steal data and then wipe it off Sony’s machines. Representative Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said the hackers had “created a backdoor to Sony’s systems” that they repeatedly re-entered to send threatening messages to Sony employees. The North Koreans have half-denied involvement, but have left open the possibility that the attacks were the “righteous deed of supporters and sympathizers.” But that leaves open the question of what to do about the Sony attack. The North is under some of the heaviest economic sanctions ever applied. A large-scale American cyberattack would require a presidential order, and Mr. Obama has been hesitant to use the country’s cyberarsenal for fear of retaliation.

Cyberwarfare
Sony Pictures
North Korea
Movies
The Interview


Honoring Readers Gentle and Genteel

Abstract: AT 5:30 p.m. Monday, it took two strong men to open the massive oak doors of the Italianate town house at 53 East 79th Street, just off Madison Avenue. Entering, the author Shirley Hazzard joined others in a slow approach up marble stairs to the New York Society Library, where they were to be honored for more than 40 years of library membership. “One of the lovely things about this place is the gradient of the steps,” Ms. Hazzard said. “And that you can wander the stacks without being suspected of anything nefarious.” It is hard to imagine the nefarious as one peers over the banister of the second floor to watch the group ascend the second set of stairs leading to the members’ room. They appear as froth atop a moving wave. So much carefully coiffed white hair. Even their murmurs sound like the sea. Past James Sharples the Elder’s 1797 portrait of George Washington, who borrowed books, and didn’t return one, when the library, founded in 1754, was housed in City Hall. Past Vicenza Luccardi’s marble sculpture of Hagar and Ishmael, through French doors leading into the wood-paneled, former parlor of the Goodhue family home, donated to the library in 1937, and the institution’s home since then. A bar had been set up beneath the family’s collection of rare porcelains. Nearby, librarians greeted the guests. One of the librarians, Diane Srebnick, agreed that this is one of the most civilized places in the city. “The worst thing that ever happens here,” she said, “is that somebody falls asleep.” The 40 guests mingled and shared the joy of books and august sightings. Charles Berry, chairman of the board, recalled as a young boy approaching the checkout desk behind “a very tall man with large ears” and hearing the librarian say, “Will that be all, Mr. Auden?” Another guest reported having seen Willa Cather. A woman in a sky-blue suit and Ferragamo pumps added, “Well, I used to see that naughty Truman Capote.” They all regularly see the Louises — Begley and Auchincloss. “Nouveau arrivistes,” a woman in her 90s said with a laugh, noting that Herman Melville and Walt Whitman were members. When Ms. Hazzard was asked to take the microphone and address the group, she told of seeing this place when she first moved to New York in 1952 and assuming “it was a learned academy that certainly wouldn’t allow me in.” “It wasn’t until I married Francis,” she said of her husband, Francis Steegmuller, who wrote “Apollinaire: Poet Among the Painters” there, “that he took me by the hand and said, ‘I want to show you something special.’ ” That something was this library where Ms. Hazzard, whose novels have won both the National Book Critics and National Book Awards , has been a member for 50 years and a trustee for 30. Applause. Modest acknowledgments. Then the guests began to depart, eager to get on with their favorite way to spend an evening. At home with a book.

New York Society Library
Libraries and Librarians
Books and Literature
New York City


Bangladesh Confronts Atrocities of Its Independence Era

Abstract: DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the last days of the bloody war that created this nation out of the eastern half of Pakistan in 1971, a gang of men abducted Dr. Alim Chowdhury, an eye surgeon and independence activist, from his home. Three days later, his battered body was found in a mass grave, his eyes gouged from his head. His killers, members of a pro-Pakistan militia, were never punished. Moulana Abdul Mannan, the man who confessed to orchestrating the killing, according to a government investigation, went on to become a cabinet minister and member of the Bangladesh Parliament. He died in 2006. Now, 40 years after Bangladesh’s independence struggle — one of the last century’s most wrenching conflicts, whose death toll may have exceeded one million people — the government here is seeking to prosecute individuals accused of atrocities like the one against Dr. Chowdhury. The effort has touched a raw political nerve here and illustrates a conundrum of international law: Can a country, particularly a young and poor one, fairly try its own citizens for crimes against humanity? Many of those accused of atrocities are not only still alive, but are also among the leading members of two of the main opposition political parties and have enjoyed long stints in power. Six men have been arrested in connection with various crimes of the era, all of them major political figures. The government hopes to try them in a tribunal of its own creation in the coming months. The Bangladesh tribunal is being closely watched, and its outcome could have wide implications. Developing countries whose governments have been accused of atrocities, from Sudan to Sri Lanka, have argued that international tribunals are selectively applied to poor nations and represent a new form of imperialism. A successful, fair and transparent trial in Bangladesh could be an important model, international justice experts say. But it will not be easy. Indeed, the whole concept of international justice rests in part on the reality that in the aftermath of a horrendous conflict, national courts are likely to be too politicized to deliver impartial justice. “From a human rights perspective, you want the national authorities whose job it is to punish these crimes to be able to do it,” said Richard Dicker, an expert in international justice at Human Rights Watch. “But that exists in tension with the overarching political imperatives.” The quest for justice is particularly problematic in Bangladesh, where politics is a deeply personalized, polarizing business, and almost all of the accused are political enemies of the current government, led by Sheik Hasina Wazed of the Awami League Party. Government officials argue that the trials are necessary and long overdue. “The victims expect that in a civilized democratic country that there must be justice for them,” said Shafique Ahmed, Bangladesh’s law minister. After decades of being derided as a basket case, in Henry Kissinger’s infamous assessment, Bangladesh is enjoying a season of stability and relative prosperity. Its current government was elected in a landslide in 2008, bringing back democracy after a spell of military-backed rule. Its economy has sprung to life, growing at about 6 percent last year. Healing the wounds of the independence era is a crucial next step, government officials say. Bangladesh’s government has pledged to hold fair trials and has sought the help of Western governments and international officials, including Stephen Rapp, the United States ambassador at large for war crimes. Speaking to reporters here in January, Mr. Rapp said that Bangladesh could become a model for how to handle international crimes in a local setting. “It’s important that these cases happen at a national level, close to the communities that were affected, close to the victims,” he said, “close to the families of the people who are accused, who can visit and watch and judge for themselves.” Some Latin American countries have held successful trials for war crimes, Mr. Dicker said, but the perils of a local tribunal were evident in the trials of Saddam Hussein and his associates in Iraq. A cellphone video that emerged of Hussein’s hanging, and the pro-Shiite taunts that accompanied it, underscored the appearance of victors’ justice. Such an outcome would only worsen the deep divisions here, opposition politicians argue. “We are now convinced that it would not be possible for this government to deliver justice impartially and fairly,” said Khaleda Zia, the leader of the Bangladesh National Party and Sheik Hasina’s archrival. One senior member of her party is among the accused. The rest are members of Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that supported union with Pakistan during the war of independence and created several militias that were accused of killing tens of thousands of people. Bangladesh was born in blood, and in many ways the cleavages opened by the war persist to this day. When Britain partitioned India, the mostly Muslim eastern part of Bengal Province was assigned to Pakistan. Other than a shared Islamic faith, the two halves of Pakistan had little in common, and more than 1,000 miles separated them. In 1970, the Awami League, East Pakistan’s biggest political party, won a majority of seats in Pakistan’s Parliament. But leaders in West Pakistan balked at letting a Bengali-led party form a government. The crisis gave way to war in 1971. The military unleashed a brutal assault on the independence movement. The death toll remains unknown, but hundreds of thousands of civilians died, untold numbers of women were raped and millions fled to India. Bangladesh won its independence in December of that year, and resolved to try those who had helped the Pakistanis. But the troubled new nation soon fell into chaos and autocracy. In 1975, the military overthrew the government, and the prime minister, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated with most of his family. Deeply impoverished and repeatedly hit by natural disasters, Bangladesh seesawed between military and civilian rule and was too busy trying to survive to delve into the past. As a result, Bangladesh has never fully reconciled the split between Pakistan loyalists and those who fought for independence. Abdur Razzaq, a senior member of Jamaat-e-Islami and a lawyer, said that it was not a crime to oppose independence. “It is 100 percent correct that they were in favor of Pakistan, that they prayed to God for a united Pakistan,” he said of the members of his party who had been accused of atrocities. “But it is 100 percent incorrect that these people were involved in war crimes.” Like many opposition leaders, he argued that the poisonous political atmosphere in Bangladesh made fair trails impossible, and he said that a process of reconciliation like the one in South Africa at the end of apartheid would be more appropriate for Bangladesh. But victims and their advocates scoff at that notion. “A decade after Nelson Mandela’s death, let’s get together and discuss whether South Africans are happy with the justice they got,” said Mizanur Rahman, who lost two uncles in the war and is now chairman of the Bangladesh Human Rights Commission. “Until and unless you put to rest this long history of impunity it will go on. It pinches your heart every moment of your existence.” Another complicating factor is the death penalty. International courts have always avoided it, and most Western countries do not permit it, which will make it tough to win support for the tribunal from the European Union and others. The war’s victims say it is necessary to execute the guilty to ensure that they are not released by future governments. “You don’t know when Khaleda Zia is in power next time, will she let them all out of prison?” Shahriar Kabir, who has fought for the war crimes trials for decades, said, referring to a former prime minister. “All this time they are crying for the human rights of the perpetrators. What about the rights of the victims?” Nuzhat Chowdhury, the daughter of Dr. Chowdhury, said that even if her father’s killer is dead, someone should be punished for the crimes of 1971. “I saw my father’s killer become a minister in this country,” said Dr. Chowdhury, who like her father is an eye surgeon. “We were afraid to call ourselves the children of Alim Chowdhury. We need justice to heal.”

War Crimes Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity


In Manhattan Bureau, a Unique Perspective on Crime

Abstract: The polished linoleum floor and sterile scent make it easy to mistake this space for a dentist’s office. The taupe walls are mostly dressed down, but for a bulletin board here and there and a headshot of Cyrus R. Vance Jr. , the Manhattan district attorney. The room is known to prosecutors as ECAB, or the Early Case Assessment Bureau, and it could be considered the epicenter of the criminal justice system in Manhattan. Nearly every arrest in the borough is processed here, so a rowdy night in the city would be reflected by a surge in paperwork. It is the intersection of cases simple and complex, predictable and quirky, providing a perspective of the city unlike any other. “On any given night, it’s kind of like got its own pulse and heartbeat of what’s going on in the city,” said Elizabeth R. Crotty, a defense lawyer who spent six years as a Manhattan assistant district attorney and served her fair share of ECAB shifts. The bureau’s sometimes dizzying pace can push the limits of human fallibility, an issue raised in two recent cases in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. In both cases, police officers were charged with falsifying complaints drafted by assistant district attorneys working in ECAB. But the officers blamed inconsistencies in the complaints on miscommunication with the prosecutors they spoke to over the phone. Prosecutors on these shifts face a delicate calculus: churning out criminal court complaints with assembly line-like speed, yet lawyerly consideration. “We have our staffing model down very well,” said Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, chief of the Manhattan district attorney’s trial division. “We can very much handle the volume that comes.” Last year, about 109,000 arrests, mostly misdemeanors, came through ECAB, also called the complaint room, in Manhattan, according to the district attorney’s office. It can be an introduction to prosecution, often the first stop for new assistants. Tucked at the end of a hallway in the Manhattan Criminal Court Building on Centre Street, the bureau is staffed in nine-hour shifts by about eight assistant district attorneys and a supervisor. There are also other assistants on call to handle specialty cases like sex crimes and child abuse, and paralegals to help with the legwork. But prosecutors stress that ECAB is a place for investigation, not simply writing complaints. Assistants must determine the proper charges to file based on the facts of a case — which are usually provided by a police officer — or whether to drop charges altogether. In felony cases, the prosecutor must start preparing for a grand jury presentation by, among other things, interviewing witnesses, getting a statement from the defendant and drafting subpoenas and search warrants. “It’s like the third ring of hell,” said Stephen C. Worth, a defense lawyer who recently represented an officer charged with falsifying a criminal court complaint. “It’s hectic. The volume of work is large. You’re dealing by phone and fax instead of by person. That all leads to errors.” Mr. Worth’s client, Officer David London, was acquitted in June of charges that he had falsified a complaint he signed that accused a man he was arresting of punching and kicking him. Although video surveillance footage seemed to indicate that the man was not striking him, Officer London blamed the error on the prosecutor who took his statement; in his trial testimony, the officer said he had told the prosecutor the man tried to punch and kick him. In another case, Patrick Pogan, who has left the police force, was convicted in April of lying on a complaint that said a man rode his bicycle into him and knocked him down. Video of the episode showed Mr. Pogan remaining on his feet and the cyclist falling to the pavement. Mr. Pogan testified that he had mistakenly told the prosecutor in ECAB that he fell down after the initial collision; he actually went down on two occasions while trying to handcuff the man, he said. But former prosecutors said police officers simply needed to tell the truth. “It starts with the police officer telling the D.A. what happened,” Ms. Crotty said. “So yeah, they can say there’s a miscommunication, but then there’s also lying.” Most seem to acknowledge that phone calls are not an ideal form of communication between the police and prosecutors. In the early days of ECAB, officers were required to go there to meet with prosecutors in person. But that was slow and led to exorbitant overtime costs. So some boroughs began using videoconferencing in the early 1990s. Today, in most cases, the officer and prosecutor speak only by telephone. Ms. Friedman-Agnifilo said it was “very, very important” to avoid miscommunication between the ECAB staff and police. “I think asking the right questions and making sure the right investigation is done is the answer as opposed to whether you’re on video or in person,” she said. For prosecutors, ECAB is the origin of some lore. Former prosecutors said unscientific trends were established there. For one, police do not make many arrests in cold and rainy weather. And sometimes there is a memorable interaction. Andrew Lankler said that in one case he handled in ECAB, a publicist accused her boyfriend of pushing her down after she caught him with another woman. But when he asked her where she was injured, the woman was evasive, Mr. Lankler said. “She’s literally on the phone with Page Six while she’s in ECAB,” Mr. Lankler said. Suspicious, he brought the boyfriend up from a holding cell to get his side of the story. The boyfriend had a black eye and scratches all over. He said the publicist did catch him with another woman and then attacked him. The woman was arrested on the spot, Mr. Lankler said.

District Attorneys
Manhattan (NYC)
Crime and Criminals
Vance Cyrus R Jr


Traffic Violations Won’t Earn Illegal Immigrants Deportation

Abstract: Fewer illegal immigrants stopped by police for minor traffic violations would be held for deportation under changes announced Friday to a federal fingerprinting program, Department of Homeland Security officials said. The policy change on how federal agents will handle illegal immigrants arrested by state and local police for offenses like driving without a license came in the department’s response to a report by a task force on the federal program. One of the task force’s central recommendations was that the program, called Secure Communities, should avoid deportations of traffic violators. The sharply critical task force report, issued last September, argued that such deportations were inconsistent with the department’s stated priorities of removing foreigners with serious criminal records. The increase in deportations of minor offenders under Secure Communities, the task force concluded, was undermining vital ties of trust between local police and immigrant neighborhoods. In a 19-page response released Friday, Homeland Security officials forcefully reasserted their support for the program, which has been the center of fierce controversy since it began in October 2008. The program has put President Obama at odds with governors in Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, who are his political allies, and eroded support for him in Latino communities. Both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge that Latinos will be crucial voters in the presidential election. Homeland Security officials also accepted almost all of the task force’s recommendations, acknowledging that poor communications by Immigration and Customs Enforcement , the administering agency, had caused major confusion about the program’s goals and how it works. The Obama administration’s changes came after a hearing at the Supreme Court on Wednesday where government lawyers argued against an Arizona law that would expand the powers of the police to enforce immigration laws. Administration officials say Secure Communities is an example of the aggressive federal enforcement that makes action by state police unnecessary and counterproductive. In its response on Friday, the department said the program remains “the single best tool” for focusing deportation resources on immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes, pose a threat to public safety or repeatedly violate immigration law. Under the program, fingerprints of anyone booked by the police are checked against F.B.I. criminal databases — long a routine procedure — and also against databases of the Department of Homeland Security, which include immigration violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has been rapidly extending the program with the goal of reaching all 3,181 jurisdictions in the country by next year. Homeland Security officials contended that the new policy on traffic violators could bring a major change in the program’s impact. As the program spread, more local arrests resulted in immigration holds, and illegal immigrants who did not have criminal convictions found themselves facing deportation because of tickets for speeding, burned-out tail lights or driving without a license. In all but a handful of states, immigrants here illegally cannot obtain driver’s licenses. Under the refinement, when illegal immigrants are arrested solely for traffic offenses and do not have a prior criminal record, federal agents will only consider placing a hold — known as a detainer — after they are convicted. “ICE agrees that enforcement action based solely on a charge for a minor traffic offense is generally not an efficient use of government resources,” the department response says. Immigrants arrested for drunken driving would not benefit from the new policy, officials said. In practice, most traffic violators are released well before they are convicted, and now immigrants stopped by traffic police will not remain in custody to be picked up by federal agents. Detainers are only in effect as long as the immigrant is in local police custody, homeland security officials said. ICE also reported that it held more than 700 meetings last year with law enforcement agencies and immigrant advocates to explain the program. In February, ICE created a public advocate to hear concerns of immigrants facing deportation, and has stepped up training for its staff. The task force chairman, Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, praised the department’s response. “It is encouraging in that they are not defensive and they recognize the issues we raised and appear to be committed to dealing with them,” Mr. Wexler said. His group conducts research on crime for police chiefs. But dissension arose among task force members. Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration group in Washington, said that ICE had not actually accepted the task force’s key recommendation, which was that no traffic offenders should be detained under Secure Communities. Mr. Johnson said ICE would only further confuse local police by issuing immigration holds after traffic convictions. “In a traffic setting, we were very clear that ICE should just get out of the business of issuing detainers,” Mr. Johnson said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US)


Australia Takes Back the Ashes

Abstract: PERTH, Australia — Less than four months after its last defeat in the series, Australia regained the Ashes on Tuesday with a comprehensive victory in the third test against England. Resuming at 251-5 on the last day of the test, England lost only one wicket in Tuesday’s morning session, but Nathan Lyon’s dismissal of Ben Stokes for 120 soon after lunch triggered a collapse of the tail end of the order and England was all out for 353, giving Australia a 150-run win. Mitchell Johnson, the man of the match in the first two wins in Brisbane and Adelaide, took the last wicket to secure an unbeatable lead in the five-match series. “What an amazing performance,” said Michael Clarke, the Australian captain. “We got ’em back, so it’s a fantastic feeling.” Johnson finished with 4-78 and Lyon returned 3-70, and the pair wrapped up the five wickets Australia needed on the last day to end England’s three-series hold on the tiny urn. England won the series earlier this year at home. England captain Alastair Cook, who like Clarke was playing his 100th test, had to concede Australia was a superior team following wins by 318, 218 and 150 runs. “We knew what a good side they were in England and we knew how tough it is coming to Australia to play,” Cook said. “You’ve got to be at the top of your game and we haven’t been there.” The first-session defiance raised English hopes of hanging on for a draw to keep the Ashes alive, but England’s bottom of the order — including a hobbled Stuart Broad — provided little resistance after Stokes went.


NATO Acts to Renew Its Relations With Russia

Abstract: PARIS — The secretary general of NATO had lunch on Friday with the Russian ambassador to the organization, beginning the “conditional and graduated re-engagement” with Moscow that NATO foreign ministers approved earlier this month. The ambassador, Dmitry O. Rogozin, said the lunch, at an Italian restaurant near NATO’s suburban headquarters outside Brussels, was a step toward more normal relations after the brief Georgian-Russian war in August. “The most difficult thing is to make the first step,” he told reporters. “We are at the beginning of the difficult route to restore trust.” In mid-January, there will be “an informal NATO- Russia Council meeting at the level of ambassadors,” Mr. Rogozin said. The NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, made no direct comments, but a spokeswoman, Carmen Romero, said the two men had “agreed to look at ways to restart the engagement.” She said the two sides hoped to hold an informal meeting of the council at the ambassadorial level next month. NATO cut off formal ties with Moscow in the aftermath of the August war and said there would be no “business as usual” until Russia agreed to pull its troops back to their prewar positions and cancel its recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are parts of Georgia . But the beginnings of the war remain disputed, with many NATO allies believing that the Georgian leadership either began the war or fell headfirst into a Russian trap, giving Moscow a pretext to invade. Most Western European countries, dependent on Russia for oil and especially natural gas, have been eager to restart relations with Moscow despite its continued occupation of the two secessionist regions, and they overcame hesitation from the Bush administration and some Eastern European countries, which wanted Moscow to pay a stiffer price. Still, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made her last visit to a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting on Dec. 2, she agreed that the United States would not object to a gradual, phased re-engagement between NATO and Russia. “The idea of working through a kind of informal contact, with the NATO-Russia Council, is not a problem for us,” Ms. Rice said then. Mr. de Hoop Scheffer was to initiate the informal contacts with Mr. Rogozin. In an interview the next day with The New York Times, Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said, “Russia is such an important factor in geopolitical terms that there is no alternative for NATO than to engage Russia.” What mattered in the conversation with Russia, Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said then, was to try to understand “what was behind Georgia” and the short war, and whether it meant a lasting change in Russia’s attitude toward international law, sovereign borders and the “disproportionate” use of force. He said he would report back to NATO foreign ministers, probably in March, on whether to deepen contacts with Russia still further. The softer American position on contacts with Russia was seen as a trade-off with Germany, which agreed to defer a decision on the precise mechanism for future NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine — effectively, to an Obama administration. In Moscow on Friday, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said Russia had conditions, too. “Now, when our NATO colleagues talk about restoring relations,” he said, “we will insist that the restoration of ties starts with the discussion of the causes of the Caucasus crisis which our NATO partners dodged in August.” The United States ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker, said on Friday, “We signaled our unhappiness with Russia using military force to invade Georgia and change borders by force of arms, yet we also signaled a desire for a cooperative relationship with Russia.” The European Union also has renewed dialogue with Moscow.

Russia
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Georgia (Georgian Republic)
International Relations
Scheffer Jaap de Hoop


Schwarzenegger Clears Way for Football Stadium in Los Angeles

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Nearly 15 years after the Los Angeles area’s two professional football teams left for other cities, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill to clear the way for a new stadium seen as pivotal to drawing a team to the region. Ever since the Los Angeles Raiders (now in Oakland) and the Rams (St. Louis) left after the 1994 season, civic leaders, politicians and the National Football League have considered various schemes in a number of cities to woo a team here, the nation’s second-largest television market. But the latest effort, to build a 75,000-seat, $800 million “green” stadium in City of Industry, a warehouse and shopping district 15 miles east of downtown, is considered one of the more viable to come along in a long time. No taxpayer money would be used to finance it, a condition that has helped squelch other plans; the developer, the Majestic Realty Company, said it would seek private investors. Majestic Realty’s chairman, Ed Roski Jr., has a track record of sports development as a partner in the building of the Staples Center arena in downtown Los Angeles, home to two professional basketball teams and a hockey team. And the proposal, which developers said would generate 18,000 jobs and $760 million in annual revenue, managed to win over labor unions and state legislators, who passed a measure exempting the project from environmental review. That nullifies a lawsuit by residents of Walnut, an adjacent city, who said the project was not getting sufficient environmental study. Mr. Schwarzenegger signed the bill last week but promoted it Thursday in a ceremony, surrounded by hard-hatted workers, in which he called the lawsuit frivolous and praised the project as vital to the economy and declared, “It’s about time we get a football team back to Los Angeles.” Exactly which one is unclear. The N.F.L. is not expanding but has made clear it wants a team in Los Angeles. Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the league, said it was monitoring Majestic Realty’s progress but would not comment on any potential team moves. Majestic Realty officials have named seven teams that, in their view, have stadium or market problems: the San Diego Chargers, the Raiders, the Rams, the Minnesota Vikings, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Buffalo Bills and the San Francisco 49ers. Much talk here has centered on the Chargers, in part because Majestic Realty’s chairman, Mr. Roski, and the Chargers’ owner, Alex Spanos, are longtime friends and the Chargers have endured several years of tortured efforts to find a location for a new stadium. Mark D. Fabiani, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor who speaks for the Chargers on stadium matters, said Mr. Spanos and Mr. Roski had discussed the Los Angeles stadium plan. “We said it looked interesting and wished him all the luck in the world because we know how hard it is to build a stadium in California,” Mr. Fabiani said. Still, he would not rule out a move, saying that would be a business decision and not a reflection of the team’s sentiments toward San Diego fans, who have been selling out games recently. John H. Semcken III, a Majestic Realty vice president, said the company would not formally make a move for a team until after the season ended in February. Mr. Semcken said that under the most likely scenario, a team would move to Los Angeles for the 2011 season, play in a temporary home like the Rose Bowl or Los Angeles Coliseum and move into the new stadium for the 2013 season. He said that contrary to the popular notion that Los Angeles fans are apathetic or focused on other diversions, including well-attended college football games, there was demand for a new team in the city. Stadium promoters have also sought to tamp down complaints that traffic snarls might discourage any journey to the new stadium, saying it is well positioned to attract crowds not only from Los Angeles but also from Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. The biggest hurdle may be financing at a time when all manner of big projects have been dropped or stalled because of wary investors or the lack of credit.

Stadiums and Arenas
Football
Relocation of Business
Labor and Jobs
Politics and Government
National Football League
Los Angeles (Calif)


Crowdfunders of the Maker of Oculus Rift Denounce a Facebook Buyout

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — For many of Oculus VR’s early backers, news that the virtual reality start-up was selling to Facebook for $2 billion was a little like watching Bob Dylan star in a Super Bowl Chrysler commercial. The Southern California company got its start on Kickstarter, the crowdfunding site where enthusiastic virtual gamers helped it raise $2.4 million in exchange for a free developer’s kit or a T-shirt. Now some of those donors are crying “sellout.” They want their money back — and are happy to return the T-shirts. “I supported this because it’s something that I’ve wanted to see become a reality since I read my first William Gibson novel,” one Oculus donor wrote on Kickstarter. “Now I find out that I might as well have handed my money right to Facebook and I feel a little sick.” The extraordinary reaction of early Oculus VR backers and fans to news of the Facebook deal illustrates the tricky relationship between companies raising money on Kickstarter and the people who donate to them. The hope, among donors, is that they can help the interesting ideas of these companies get off the ground. Their donations amount to seed funding — enough money to build a prototype, perhaps. And assuming they understand what they’re doing, the donors have no expectations of gaining equity in the young company. With that largess comes a sense of community and expectations that it will deliver — or at least try really hard — on what it has promised. But when the little company hits a big payday, as Oculus VR announced on Tuesday, it is strikingly clear that community has very little say in its decision-making. With $2.4 million raised, Oculus VR was among the 20 most-funded projects on Kickstarter. And for many who pledged $300 — enough to earn a developer’s kit — it offered hope that virtual reality, a longtime goal of the gaming industry, could finally become viable. Oculus is only one of many independent Kickstarter projects, which can range from companies to books to a movie, to get picked up by a mainstream organization. “The gaming developer community is very independently spirited,” said Tripp Jones, a partner at the venture capital firm August Capital. “Oculus was their white knight, and the developer community completely bought into the company’s vision because they believed Oculus was their best hope for a new independent platform.” He added, “Now that platform is Facebook’s platform.” Adding to the unhappiness of donors, Palmer Luckey, the company’s co-founder, as recently as last month said he had no intention of selling the company. “I don’t think there’s a reasonable number that would make me say, ‘You know I was going to change the world with VR and try to change humanity forever but here’s a number,’ ” Mr. Luckey told GamesIndustry International, a gaming industry website, last month. Some game developers hoped Oculus VR could help build a new gaming platform, a small-company alternative to an industry dominated by giants like Sony and Microsoft. With developer kits in hand, they were figuring out if Oculus VR and its odd-looking visor were a part of their futures. Few thought that meant a future that also included Facebook. Markus Persson, the maker of the popular game Minecraft, criticized Facebook on his personal blog and on Twitter. Mr. Persson said he had been in talks about bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus’s game. “I just canceled that deal,” Mr. Persson wrote on Twitter . “Facebook creeps me out.” Mr. Luckey took to message boards on the site Reddit to defend the sale. He wrote that the company would be allowed to operate independently of Facebook and its advertisers, sell its virtual gaming hardware at a cheaper price, and keep the platform open to developers. “I am 100 percent certain that most people will see why this is good in the long term,” Mr. Luckey wrote on Reddit. Other Oculus VR donors were not so cynical. Ben Unsworth, president at the Canadian gaming company Globacore, was among the first to donate to Oculus’s Kickstarter campaign in exchange for a developer kit and a copy of Doom 3, a version of the popular video game. Mr. Unsworth hacked together a game called PaperDude VR, a virtual reality homage to the video game paperboy from the 1980s. In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Unsworth said he thought the Oculus sale would help the company compete against the likes of Sony and Microsoft in gaming. His only complaint was that even though he was one of Oculus VR’s earliest backers on Kickstarter, he never did get the promised copy of Doom 3. And he was one of the last to receive the Oculus VR visor. “But that probably had something to do with the fact we’re in Canada,” Mr. Unsworth said. “They didn’t think we’d complain. We’re pretty polite up here.”

Mergers and Acquisitions
Kickstarter
Facebook
Oculus
Virtual reality


Few Answers on True Owners of Art Found in Gurlitt Trove

Abstract: BERLIN — After a two-year, nearly $2 million investigation, a German government task force set up to determine ownership of an art collection amassed by a Nazi-era dealer announced Thursday that it had identified the rightful owners of just five of the works whose provenance was in doubt. The drawings and paintings were confiscated in 2012 from a Munich apartment owned by Cornelius Gurlitt — whose father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, had collected them — as part of a tax evasion investigation. The authorities kept the find a secret until November 2013, when it was revealed by a German newsmagazine . Of the more than 1,200 works in the collection, the task force identified 276 pieces that were either created by members of the Gurlitt family or were made after 1945. An additional 231 works were found to have belonged to German museums when they were removed by the Nazis as part of the “Degenerate Art” operation . The task force was able to clearly identify ownership of only five of the remaining works of art, prompting criticism from Jewish groups, among others, about the pace and intensity of the effort. German officials defended the results at a news conference here on Thursday at the end of the task force’s two-year mission, saying that important research had been conducted, and that the task force’s success should not be measured in the number of returned works. Monika Grütters, the culture minister, conceded that the work of the task force had not been completed as swiftly as initially hoped, and that the results were not those many had expected. “The results are much better than this number indicates,” Ms. Grütters said, adding that it was important to determine which works had been legally obtained. She praised the task force’s international cooperation as singular in provenance research, as well as the involvement of both art and general historians, as well as legal experts. “One lesson we have learned will stay with us, namely that speed and thoroughness are not both possible in provenance research,” Ms. Grütters said. Excluding the five works deemed worthy of restitution to the heirs of their Jewish owners, almost 500 require further research. That task will be carried out by a new agency, the German Lost Art Foundation. An additional 186 works that were found at a second home Mr. Gurlitt owned, in Salzburg, Austria, will also be scrutinized. Image Monika Grütters, the German culture minister, gave a progress report in Berlin on Thursday. Credit Markus Schreiber/Associated Press Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel, the director of the task force, said the international team — with members from Austria, France, Hungary, Israel, Poland and the United States — encountered issues of language and distance. The two-year project, funded by the federal government and the state of Bavaria, of which Munich is the capital, cost more than 1.8 million euros, or about $1.96 million. It involved establishing an initial catalog of the works and delving into their ownership histories through the task force. “A lot of energy and public funds were put into the research,” Ms. Berggreen-Merkel said. “But it is not just about the artworks, it is about the fates of the people and family that stand behind these works.” Jewish groups lamented a lack of transparency linked to Germany ’s laws protecting individual privacy, and the use of German in many official documents, despite the international nature of the project. An English translation of the 40-page final report is expected to be made available in several weeks. “The task force could have progressed much more had its leadership managed the process properly,” Ronald S. Lauder , the president of the World Jewish Congress, said in a statement. “We are concerned that the framework for further research at the German Lost Art Foundation remains totally unclear.” The report made public on Thursday did not detail what steps the new agency might take, or whether it would change its methods to speed up the process. Ms. Berggreen-Merkel told a German parliamentary committee last month, before the handoff to the new agency, that there would be “many works whose provenance will not be able to be definitively determined.” Gregory Schneider, the executive director of the Jewish Claims Conference, which appointed two researchers to the task force, said Thursday that he was also disappointed by the results, but pledged to work closely with the new foundation “to ensure success.” “There is still a chance to get this right, and we’re sure that Germany will do so going forward,” Mr. Schneider said. Cornelius Gurlitt died in May 2014 at age 81, and left the collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland. But after a cousin came forward to dispute his will, the fate of the collection became uncertain once again. Among the works whose histories have been traced, four have been restored to the families of their original owners. They include an oil painting by Max Liebermann, “Two Riders on a Beach,” that sold for $2.9 million at auction, and a portrait by Matisse , “Femme Assise,” or “Seated Woman/Woman Sitting in an Armchair,” that was given to the descendants of Paul Rosenberg . Other restored works include a Pissarro and a drawing by Carl Spitzweg. The fifth work, a drawing by Adolph von Menzel, was determined to have been looted, but it has not yet been returned. One work that will no longer be under scrutiny is a watercolor originally attributed to Chagall and found among the collection in Salzburg. Last year, the Comité Marc Chagall, which authenticates the artist’s works, determined that it was a fake.

Holocaust and Nazis
Arts and Antiquities Looting
Cornelius Gurlitt
World War II
Germany
Hildebrand Gurlitt
Ronald S Lauder


Consortium Wins Control of ABN Amro

Abstract: The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Banco Santander and Fortis won control of ABN Amro Holding, the biggest Dutch bank, after its shareholders backed a buyout bid valued at 71.9 billion euros ($101 billion). About 86 percent of investors in ABN Amro, based in Amsterdam, agreed to the takeover, the bidding banks said yesterday. They will make another announcement by Friday on whether all conditions of the offer were met. The group trumped London-based Barclays , which abandoned a competing bid valued at 63.2 billion euros last Friday. The three banks have promised to cut 19,000 jobs and achieve 4.3 billion euros in cost savings and revenue gains by 2010 to make the acquisition pay off. “The pressure is on these guys,” said Colin Morton, a fund manager at Rensburg Sheppards, based in Leeds, England. “They’ve got it, they wanted it, they paid a big price for it. The market will be looking over the next 12 to 18 months for them to deliver on the deal.” The group is paying about three times ABN Amro’s book value, higher than the multiple of 2.35 that JPMorgan Chase paid in its $58 billion acquisition of Bank One in 2004. The acquisition of ABN Amro would be the largest financial services takeover, exceeding the $69.9 billion combination of Citicorp and the Travelers Group in 1998. The breakup plan assigns ABN Amro’s Brazilian and Italian units to Banco Santander, Spain’s biggest bank. With its slice of the acquisition valued at 19.9 billion euros, Santander will expand into Italy and double its market share in Brazil. Fortis, the largest Belgian financial services company, will pay 24 billion euros for the Dutch consumer banking arm and ABN Amro’s asset management and private banking units. Royal Bank is paying 16 billion euros for ABN Amro’s Asian and investment banking operations.

ABN AMRO Holding NV
Royal Bank of Scotland Plc
Barclays Plc
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


Tentative Deal to Avert Strike at Produce Market in Hunts Point

Abstract: The Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market reached a tentative contract agreement on Saturday with more than 1,200 workers, averting a potential strike that could have disrupted the region’s supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. The three-year agreement would give workers a raise of $20 a week the first year, $22 the second year and $24 the third year. The increases represented a compromise between the union’s earlier push for a raise of $25 a week each year, and the merchants’ counteroffer of $16 in the first year and $22 thereafter. Another sticking point had been the merchants’ demand that more workers begin contributing $20 a week to their health plan; employees hired in the past three years already make such contributions. Under the tentative agreement, the health care contributions would be extended to some higher paid workers such as supervisors and salespeople. The workers will vote on the agreement on Wednesday, according to their union, Teamsters Local 202, which announced the tentative deal. Daniel Kane Jr., president of Teamsters Local 202, said the union’s bargaining committee recommended that the agreement be approved. “We’re not too far from our demands, so we feel confident that it will be ratified by the rank and file,” said Mr. Kane, who noted that “it’s the largest wages and benefits package we’ve received in the last 20 years.” If union workers were to reject the agreement, there could still be a strike, Mr. Kane said. Robert Leonard, a spokesman for the market, said that its merchants were happy that both sides were able to come together. “At the end of the day, discussions resulted in a fair package, which goes a long way towards addressing the issues raised by management and labor,” he said. Union workers had been prepared to carry out the first strike at the Hunts Point market in nearly 30 years after contract negotiations stalled in recent days. They had initially planned to strike as early as Friday morning, but union leaders said that, at the request of a federal mediator, they had agreed to postpone any action until at least Sunday. The market, made up of about 40 independent merchants but run as a cooperative, is the region’s largest supplier of fresh produce to wholesale and retail businesses, including grocers, bodegas and produce stands. While warehouse workers and drivers typically earn $38,000 to $53,000 a year, a smaller number of supervisors and others can earn more than $75,000, Mr. Kane said. The two sides had already reached an agreement that calls for the market to increase its own contributions to workers’ health insurance and pension plans. “We were boosted by the support of our elected officials and everyday New Yorkers,” Mr. Kane said. “It’s getting harder and harder to get by in this city. People really rallied around these workers demanding a wage that their families can live on.”

Hunts Point Market
Labor Unions
Strikes Labor
Hunts Point Bronx


Alex Rodriguez Homers, and Ivan Nova Helps Yankees Edge Orioles

Abstract: The math confronting the Yankees on Monday was simple. They arrived at Yankee Stadium two weeks from the trade deadline, eight and a half games back in the American League East, and hosting first-place Baltimore for four games. If the Yankees were going to get into or out of the playoff race for good, there was no time like the present. “That’s where we’re at,” catcher Brian McCann said after the Yankees took a first step in the right direction with a 2-1 victory over the Orioles. “A little over two months of baseball left and we’ve got to start winning.” The Yankees were buoyed by a confluence of rare events: Ivan Nova escaping trouble at every turn, Alex Rodriguez hitting his first home run in a month, and Aroldis Chapman drawing oohs and aahs, shattering a bat and throwing fastballs that registered at 105 miles per hour. Those events helped prop up an offense that has scored just 10 runs in four games since the All-Star break, and pushed the decisive marker across when Carlos Beltran sharply executed a hit-and-run single in the third inning that sent Brett Gardner to third, from where he scored on a sacrifice fly by McCann on the next at-bat. Before the game, Manager Joe Girardi did his best to avoid putting too much weight on this series, waving away a question about whether the Yankees needed to sweep it, or at least win three of four to consider themselves contenders. “I’m worried about winning tonight,” Girardi said. “I don’t ever put numbers on things, because I think it can put limitations on what you do. So we need to win tonight, and then we’ll worry about tomorrow.” With the Yankees’ other struggling slugger, Mark Teixeira, out at least until Wednesday after being hit by a pitch on the foot Saturday, Rodriguez drove a 94-m.p.h. fastball from Kevin Gausman deep to left. Before afternoon showers came and wiped out batting practice, Rodriguez had worked on a drill that the former hitting coach Kevin Long favored. A hitting screen was placed across home plate, bisecting it. Rodriguez then choked up on the bat as balls were tossed to him, refining a technique that would prevent him from getting jammed. The work, brief as it was, seemed to have had a desired effect. “Mechanics have been a humongous struggle for me all year,” Rodriguez said. “It’s been hard for me to get the ball in the air consistently.” He added: “I’ve been really bad this year. I’ve been working my butt off, and I haven’t been able to figure it out. The last five or six days, working hard with Alan and Marcus, I’m getting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” Alan Cockrell and Marcus Thames are the Yankees hitting coaches. There was nothing pedestrian about Rodriguez’s home run, his ninth this season, which brought his career total to 696. Rodriguez admired its flight into the bleachers, a worthy way for him to mark the end of a drought that had lasted one month, since he homered against Minnesota’s Ricky Nolasco on June 18. It had also been some time since Rodriguez had celebrated a home run at Yankee Stadium, his last one coming more than three months ago, on April 17, against Seattle’s Hisashi Iwakuma. Nova, who shut out the Orioles for six innings last month before collapsing in the seventh, had his share of unsteady moments. He escaped the first inning when Pedro Alvarez popped out with the bases loaded. Center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury had to run down two hard-hit balls by Matt Wieters and Ryan Flaherty, and third baseman Chase Headley neatly gloved a smash by Jonathan Schoop. Yet other than allowing a leadoff homer by Schoop in the third, Nova was unscathed. Once he gained better command of his sinker and curveball, keeping them down, he retired the final seven batters he faced. It was hard to ask for more against the team that leads baseball with 142 home runs, even if the Orioles were without first baseman Chris Davis, who was ill. “The big thing when you face a club like this is you have to make your pitches, because if you don’t, a lot of them are going to leave the ballpark,” Girardi said before the game. “And you can’t give them extra outs. You can recover from a solo home run. It’s hard to recover from two and three-run home runs.” Nova, who is 7-5 with a 4.92 E.R.A., did not look like the same pitcher who two weeks ago appeared to be trying to save his spot in the rotation. “He was wildly effective, a little bit,” Orioles Manager Buck Showalter said. “He’s got a lot of two-seam movement, he’s one of the top ground-ball throwers in baseball. You look out there at the E.R.A. and stuff — you wouldn’t think that watching him tonight.” The Yankees, like the Orioles, had bountiful opportunities early: Beltran rocketed a double to the right-center gap and Starlin Castro sliced one into the right-field corner, but neither scored. After Schoop’s home run tied the score, McCann brought Gardner sliding home on a fly ball that center fielder Adam Jones caught but skipped too late on the throw. It gave the Yankees a lead and a chance to look forward to the next day. “That’s all we can do at this point because of all the noise around,” Girardi said. “I think you just have to focus on tomorrow.”

Baseball
Yankees
Orioles
Alex Rodriguez
Ivan Nova


Jeep Cherokees to Be Recalled to Upgrade Airbag Software

Abstract: Chrysler will recall more than 228,000 vehicles because their airbags could unexpectedly inflate without a crash. The company will upgrade software governing side-curtain and seat-mounted side airbags in Jeep Cherokees from the 2014-15 model years, including more than 168,000 vehicles in the United States. Chrysler engineers initiated an investigation after getting reports of “a small number of inadvertent deployments involving drivers who executed extreme maneuvers.” In these cases, the airbag systems, sensing potential rollovers, automatically activated. The action follows a much larger recall for inadvertent airbag deployments announced on Saturday by regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That recall covers about 2.1 million vehicles made by Chrysler, Toyota and Honda with airbags that might suddenly deploy.


Phil Martens of Novelis, on Consistent Leadership

Abstract: This interview with Phil Martens , the chief executive of Novelis, the aluminum producer based in Atlanta, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant . Q. Were you in leadership roles early on? A. When I grew up, two things always drove me. The process of creating something was always thrilling, even though I made a lot of mistakes along the way. We built a treehouse in a willow tree by just smacking plywood onto the limbs and then realized that wouldn’t work. My dad said, “What you’ve got to do is put a foundation and structure on it.” And I said, “Oh, just like a house.” He said, “Yeah, just like a house.” The second thing is that I always enjoyed pulling people together to do something. I was the guy making the calls and creating the enthusiasm. My mother always encouraged me not to be afraid of being involved and that if you want to do something, you’d better go make it happen, because if you wait for it to come to you, it will never happen. It’s important when you’re young to have a parent who teaches you how to have social confidence and not be afraid to pick up the phone and call friends. You learn how to handle “no” and you learn how to handle “yes.” What were some early lessons for you as a manager? I learned that you have to have stable decision-making criteria so that people look at you and say, “I know you’re going to look for the same things in this type of situation every time.” You have to learn how to be very consistent and transparent. You can’t sit down with one person and say, “We’ll make it this way for you because I like you,” and then make it another way for somebody else. Because those two people will talk and word gets out that you’re really not consistent. If you don’t have a compass for true north — and you don’t stick to that — people are going to come at you from many different angles to get you to do something. The other thing I learned is this issue of trust, and that you can’t get anywhere being a micromanager. You have to learn how to let go and let others make mistakes as long as they’re not catastrophic. The most important thing I can do is create a safe highway to operate in, and define clearly what the bumpers are — whether it’s code of conduct or how we make decisions. As long as people are within the boundaries of that highway, then let them go as fast as they can. But if they hit a bumper, pull them in and remind them what the bumper is and why it’s there. You joined Novelis four and a half years ago with a mandate to turn it around. It’s a big global company with 11,000 employees. What was your playbook? Image Phil Martens says that if you’re inconsistent as a leader, “people are going to come at you from many different angles to get you to do something.” Credit Earl Wilson/The New York Times I am a firm believer of the 100-day theory, because that sets your trajectory. Very quickly, you have to decide where you’re going to go. Otherwise, the organization will decide for you and you will become part of whatever existed before you and whatever will exist after you. In the first 100 days, I traveled the world and visited the plants. And it’s not just the questions you ask, but it’s also what you observe. What are the signs like? How clean is the place? How do people conduct themselves? Is the format of the paperwork different in each country? A lot of nonverbal cues are important to me. The second thing is that you have to spend time with the leadership team and ask them their points of view and really listen. Are they really engaged or are they just telling you, because you’re the new boss, that they really like what you stand for? You have to look many levels below to understand what they’re really saying. I set up an executive offsite meeting, and I picked Zurich because Switzerland is the most neutral country in the world. You have to set the tone that things are going to change, that I am going to make decisions, and that we’re going to move from a fragmented, regional company to a globally integrated company. At a second leadership conference in Miami, there was still some discord in the group, and I wanted to make it clear that we were going to have uniform approach. I had shirts made up that said “One Novelis,” and I told everybody at the end of the day: “On the way out, there are tables out there with new shirts. If you want to come in to the meeting tomorrow, you have to have it on. If not, you can go find something else.” And then we went out the next day and we had the picture taken of the group. We stood in a very defined triangle, very precise, because I wanted to create the image of order, and that we are together. How do you hire, say, somebody who might report directly to you? In the first five or 10 minutes, I look for a level of achievement and competency and independence in how they make decisions. Are they able to start and finish a project? Work through adversity? Do they understand where they fit in on an executive team? I want to get to a point where I’m satisfied that this is truly a person of character: they do what they say, they’re honest and they hold themselves accountable. Then I’ll talk about Novelis and what I’m trying to do here, to see if they have emotional energy. They’re smart people, and they’ve satisfied the character test, but now I want to see if we can get more energy in the room from the two of us than when we started. And if I can get through all of those, then I want to know what they want to know from me. I don’t want them to ask me why I took this job. I want them to say: “Where were you born? Who are you?” In about 40 minutes, you get to a point where you know whether they’ve got the character, the interest, the energy, and whether they’re really interested in who you are because they’re going to be working with you. But the amount of people who clear those hurdles is small.

Management
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Novelis
Phil Martens


McIlroy and Kaymer Readjust After Life at the Top

Abstract: PITTSFORD, N.Y. — A few cracks sprouted in the moving wall of people following Martin Kaymer and Rory McIlroy in the second round of the P.G.A. Championship. Kaymer and McIlroy, former No. 1-ranked players and P.G.A. champions, had the bad luck to be playing in the morning, in the worst weather. But they had the good fortune to be on the Oak Hill Country Club course at the same time as the noted fan magnet Phil Mickelson, who siphoned enough spectators to create gaps in their gallery, affording Kaymer and McIlroy more room to breathe. Each knows how claustrophobic a few hundred acres can feel when great expectations take root and bloom. Kaymer, 28, of Germany, won the P.G.A. Championship in 2010 on his way to becoming the top-ranked player on the PGA European Tour with four victories. He ascended to No. 1 the following February and remained there for six weeks. McIlroy, 24, of Northern Ireland, the defending champion, held the No. 1 ranking for the better part of a year before being supplanted by Tiger Woods in March and then slipping to No. 3 last month, behind Woods and Mickelson. Kaymer, who had not made a cut in this event since beating Bubba Watson in a playoff at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits in 2010, carded his second consecutive two-under 68 on Friday and is among four players tied for ninth at four-under 136, heading into the weekend. It was Kaymer’s fifth round in a row in the 60s; he finished 67-69-69 last week at the Bridgestone Invitational to tie for ninth. “It was just a matter of time before the puzzle falls together,” he said, adding: “I’m not surprised. I’m just happy where I am.” McIlroy was ecstatic to be where he was — at par 140. He appeared poised to miss his second cut in two majors when he played his sixth to ninth holes (Nos. 15-18) in four over to stand at four over for the tournament. After he birdied four of his final eight holes for a 71, the relief in his voice was palpable. “All of a sudden, I’m somewhat back in the tournament,” McIlroy said. “I get off to a fast start tomorrow and I’m right there. So it’s giving me a nice bit of momentum going into tomorrow.” In separate interviews, McIlroy and Kaymer spoke about being blindsided by the expectations that came with the No. 1 ranking. Image Rory McIlroy, center, and Martin Kaymer, right, previous P.G.A. champions, on the 10th hole during the second round. Credit Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press “I don’t think you can really prepare for it at all,” McIlroy said. He added: “You can’t really manage anyone else’s — you just have to manage your own expectations. I guess I’ve learned to maybe not listen as much or not read as much or not look as much. Just sort of wrap yourself in your own little world or your own little bubble.” Kaymer’s opinion is that McIlroy has shouldered all the demands and pressures beautifully considering he was only 22 when he took over the No. 1 ranking from Luke Donald in March 2012. “I think Rory did brilliant,” Kaymer said. “He’s still very young. He’s a good kid, and I don’t see any problem.” Kaymer added: “Being No. 1 in the world is very, very difficult. It’s maybe easier if you’re in the spotlight your entire life — if cameras are around you since you are 3, 4, 5 years old.” At that age, Kaymer was kicking around a soccer ball in his hometown, Düsseldorf. He did not take up golf until he was 10. His athleticism and abilities led the South African Ernie Els in 2007 to predict Kaymer was destined for greatness. Kaymer’s P.G.A. Championship title was his first victory in the United States, following five wins in Europe. His ascension to No. 1 in the first few months of 2011 was a clear case of his stature overshooting his self-belief. “To be honest with you, when I became No. 1, it was a surprise,” Kaymer said. “I did not think I was playing like the best player on the planet. I didn’t feel like the best player.” He added: “So for me it was a big surprise, the expectations, the pressure that comes from outside and the expectations from yourself all of the sudden. The expectations from yourself comes from the people, from the media, from the friends and from the fans. So it’s a little of a strange situation that you need to get used to.” Kaymer has done his best to wall himself off from the outside world, the better to shore up weaknesses in his game. He did not listen to the criticism or the praise and did not panic when his ranking dipped to a three-year low of 36th in the world this month. He worked on becoming a complete player, figuring the rest would take care of itself. He said: “It’s about the feeling about what you have. If other people see yourself as being No. 1 but you don’t see yourself as being No. 1, how can you play like one? That’s not possible. Therefore I became a better player. I’m able to hit every shot I want. I was not able to do that when I came on tour. Now I don’t have any trouble drawing the ball, fading the ball, and that’s nice.”

Rory McIlroy
Martin Kaymer
PGA Championship
Golf


Union and Tom Brady’s Lawyers Threaten to Challenge Suspension in Court

Abstract: FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tom Brady’s lawyers demanded that N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell recuse himself from Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension for his role in a deflated-football scandal and threatened to go to court unless the suspension was overturned. Laying out the grounds for a challenge to the penalty and setting the stage for a potential battle in federal court, the N.F.L. Players Association said in a letter released Friday that Goodell could not hear the appeal because he would be called as a witness. “The NFLPA believes that neither Commissioner Goodell nor anyone with close ties to the NFL can serve as arbitrator in Mr. Brady’s appeal,” the letter said. “If the Commissioner does not appoint such a neutral arbitrator, the NFLPA and Mr. Brady will seek recusal and pursue all available relief to obtain an arbitrator who is not evidently partial,” it added. Brady, a quarterback and a three-time Super Bowl most valuable player, was suspended for four games, and the New England Patriots were fined $1 million and docked two draft picks after a league investigator, Ted Wells, found that the Patriots had used illegally inflated footballs in the A.F.C. title game. The team has denied doing anything wrong. The Patriots and Donald Yee, Brady’s agent, did not respond to requests for comment. In their letter, Brady’s lawyers gave three arguments for dropping the suspension: ■ The evidence collected in the Wells report does not prove that Brady violated any N.F.L. rules. ■ The punishment is more harsh than penalties given for previous, similar violations. ■ Under the league’s collective bargaining agreement, only Goodell can punish a player for conduct detrimental to the league. The penalties were meted out by Troy Vincent, an N.F.L. executive vice president. Brady appealed the suspension Thursday. Goodell later announced that he would hear the appeal personally, which the collective bargaining agreement gives him the right to do. Writing to Vincent, the union said it intended “to call both you and Commissioner Goodell as essential witnesses.” The team has not said whether it will appeal its penalties, which include losing a first-round draft pick next year and a fourth-round pick in 2017. The deadline to appeal is May 21.

Football
Tom Brady
Roger Goodell
National Football League Players Assn
Fines
NFL
Super Bowl
Super Bowl 2015
Ted Wells
Patriots


Feminism of the Future Relies on Men

Abstract: In 1965, my mother was the only female engineering student in her class in Germany. There were no ladies’ toilets except in the basement, where the cleaners had their lockers, and her professor urged her to find a husband quickly so she wouldn’t fail the exams. Feminism in those days was pretty clear-cut: It was about women closing ranks to battle blatant sexism, get an education and go to work. It was, as my mother said recently, “about women pushing into the world of men.” The feminism of the future is shaping up to be about pulling men into women’s universe — as involved dads, equal partners at home and ambassadors for gender equality from the cabinet office to the boardroom. In the early 21st century, women in the developed world find themselves in a peculiar place. With boys failing in school and working-class men losing their jobs to the economic crisis, pundits predict not just The Death of Macho (Foreign Policy, September 2009) but The End of Men (The Atlantic, July/August 2010). Reality is more nuanced. Women earn more doctorates, but less money. They are overtaking men in the work force, but still do most housework. They make the consumer decisions but run only 3 percent of Fortune 500 companies. “In theory, we now have equal rights,” sighed one senior female executive at a French multinational, who tellingly requested anonymity for fear of riling the men at her company. “In practice, we still have babies.” In the Western world, motherhood remains the barrier to gender equality. Until they have children, young women now earn nearly the same as men and climb the career ladder at a similar pace. With the babies often come career breaks, part-time work and a rushed two-shift existence that means sacrificing informal networks like the after hours beer-and-bonding experience often crucial at promotion time. So far, the instinct of politicians, companies and women themselves has generally been to sharpen their focus on, well, women. Many Western countries protect female jobs during maternity leave, and several offer mothers a right to cut back their hours. In the corporate world, (female) human resource officers lobby for flexible work time, and (female) diversity officers organize female mentoring programs. Female executive networks where the ladies can bond are booming. At countless women’s conferences, women debate with women about women and bond some more. At best, those initiatives are good for tips and morale. At worst, they trap women in their role as primary carers. What they’re not doing is getting more women into leadership positions. “We’ve got to wake up,” said Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, chief executive of 20-first, a gender management consultancy. “We’ve got to start focusing on the guys.” The only thing that can level the playing field at work is a level playing field at home. And that requires a major shift in public policy and corporate culture. In the few countries where fathers take paternity leave on a significant scale, that leave is highly paid and not transferable to the mother. Predictably, the Nordics have led the way. Iceland, which comes closest to reaching gender equality according to the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index, has gone furthest, reserving three months — a full third — of its leave for fathers. Nine in 10 Icelandic men take time off with their babies. A lawmaker, Drifa Hjartardottir, described the 2000 law as “one of the biggest and most important steps taken towards gender equality since women’s right to vote.” It took a male prime minister to sell the legislation to the country, and it took male leaders in Sweden and Norway to pass similar laws. It was a man who championed Norway’s boardroom quota obliging companies to fill at least 40 percent of the seats with women. Would a female Spanish prime minister have been able to appoint a cabinet that is 50 percent female in 2004? Unlikely, thinks Celia de Anca, of IE Business School in Madrid. “When you want to change a culture,” she said, “it’s easier for a representative of that culture to sell the change.” Basically, guys are the more effective feminists because other guys are more likely to listen to them. That’s also true in business. Role models of female leaders matter, Ms. de Anca said. But male role models who take time off with their children, leave the office at a decent time, promote women and spread the word with male colleagues matter perhaps even more. The message is filtering through. In France, for example, the Institut d’Études Politiques is making gender studies part of the core curriculum for all students from 2011. Deloitte France is starting an initiative this month to educate men on staff about gender diversity. A handful of companies, including the nuclear giant Areva (run by a woman) have put men in charge of gender. Jean-Michel Monnot, head of the European diversity program at the food service company Sodexo, says his gender is his greatest asset in convincing male colleagues of the business case for promoting women: “You need to speak the language of the guys.” Few men are overtly sexist these days, he said. But they don’t think twice about scheduling late meetings. Some who give the promotion to the guy instead of the recent mother think of themselves as considerate. Mr. Monnot, who until 2007 managed 60 production sites, speaks from experience. It took a man and fellow sports fan to bring home the issue to him when he explained at the bar counter one day why he liked a good gender mix in his teams. It improved the atmosphere, gave rise to new ideas and was more in line with Sodexo’s clients. “Until then, I didn’t think there was a problem, and I certainly didn’t think of myself as the problem,” Mr. Monnot said. Now he travels his company’s sites encouraging managers to shut their offices at 7 p.m. and recent fathers to go part-time “to set an example.” Giving the next generation strong father figures would not only help explode the glass ceiling, it might also be the best hope for those failing boys in school who lack male role models. Men have a lot to gain from the rise of women, said Joanne Dreyfus, an audit associate at Deloitte in Paris, pointing out that at the moment three-quarters of those taking advantage of the company’s flex-time scheme are women. Put another way: The last frontier of women’s liberation may well be men’s liberation.

Women and Girls
Careers and Professions
Men and Boys


How to Jointly Own a Home and Still Be Friends

Abstract: REAL estates prices have fallen almost everywhere. Interest rates have declined. It would seem a good time — at least for those who resisted the temptations of easy credit in the last few years — to buy a vacation home. But lenders have toughened the rules on mortgages, making second-home purchases that much harder. One option is teaming up with friends or relatives. The arrangement can prove a boon to the pocketbook as well as the relationship but — as with any financial arrangement — only if ground rules are established before the first check is written. The first issue everyone should agree on, according to real estate agents and buyers, is that owners should think of using a house not as a way to make a quick profit but for its intended purpose — as a getaway. Even then, there is much to negotiate. Daniel Shoemaker and his wife, Elizabeth, along with two other couples decided to buy a beach house in Ocean City, N.J., four years ago. All three families had wanted their own place, with a view, prime location, rides and the boardwalk nearby and walking distance to major attractions. But, individually, that was out of reach. So the Shoemakers, who live near Allentown, Pa., and the others, who live near Philadelphia, went in together on an $870,000 three-bedroom three-bath home. “Everyone said we’d be choking each other within a year,” Mr. Shoemaker said. “There is give and take. Even when you know someone really well, it takes more adjustment than you think and more compromise than you expect. You’re thrust into an environment that you have to talk to each other and make compromises all the time — almost weekly — whereas before you just saw each other a few times a year. You get more skilled at politics, more sensitive to other people.” Save for arguments early on (how to decorate, when to toss old bedspreads, whether phone service should be disconnected in the off-season), everything has gone smoothly, Mr. Shoemaker said. One reason for the relative harmony is because many issues were hashed out ahead of time. The families agreed to keep the house for at least five years, rather than flip it, unless someone lost a job or ran into financial hardship; to split the costs three ways; that one person would pay the bills (and get an annual $500 credit in return); and the home would be rented from early June until the end of September, with most weeks at $3,350. Each owner could use the house every third week in the off-season free, but during peak times, they would have to rent it — but at a 20 percent discount. If joint ownership arrangements go well, investors can have a larger and better home than they could afford on their own. Though their time at the home is limited, many people with a vacation hideaway say they do not spend all that much time there — regardless of whether they own it solo or with friends. Lawyers, real estate agents and mortgage experts say most people who buy vacation or investment property with someone else tend to do it with a relative. Arrangements generally turn out well, but there can be horror stories: one homeowner dies, and that person’s portion of the investment goes to a co-owner rather than to the deceased owner’s relatives; someone loses his stake in a $1 million home when a co-owner is sued; an owner loses his portion of the home when a co-owner defaults on the mortgage. The best way around many issues is to buy the property within a limited liability corporation, or L.L.C., many lawyers say. This legal entity is relatively inexpensive to set up and maintain while protecting owners’ individual assets, the lawyers say. In case of lawsuit, only the property itself is at risk. Garrett Sutton, a lawyer and an author of “Real Estate Loopholes: Secrets of Successful Real Estate Investing” (Warner Business Books, 2003), recommends having an exit strategy from the beginning. “Not that many people do it at the start because they are optimistic,” Mr. Sutton said. “They think things will be fine. Initially, people frequently don’t want to deal with these issues. But then, if things go sour and families start to argue and there is bad blood, it’s very difficult to get a sell agreement signed.” Russell Hanf, a lawyer who lives in St. Helens, Ore., bought a vacation property in Rocky Point, Mexico, with law school friends. The $450,000 two-bedroom two-bath oceanfront condominium with a balcony should be finished by the end of the year. Each of the three partners has already paid the $60,000 first installment. The friends have nothing in writing now but plan to do so before the unit is finished. The document will include how much time each person can spend there, what happens when someone wants to sell, when the property will be rented and how expenses will be split. “If you buy property with friends, you better do it with money you can afford to lose,” Mr. Hanf said. “You don’t want to put all your eggs into a basket with friends in case it doesn’t turn out well.” Buyers need to know — and abide by — their limits, said Neil Garfinkle, a Manhattan lawyer with offices in Long Island and California. “When you buy a place to live, there is emotional baggage,” Mr. Garfinkle said. “I very strongly suggest that when you buy for investment, you set guidelines out such as ‘I will spend this amount. After that, I’ll walk away.’ When you buy a vacation property, those rules apply even more.” Donald Vaughan, a real estate lawyer in Boston, said difficulties can arise after a few generations, when ownership is divided among children and grandchildren who may not be as close — either emotionally or geographically — as the original owners. The situation can lead to problems over how much money the property costs or how time is divided there. Scott Yonehiro, a mortgage planner and senior board member at First Security Lending in Burbank, Calif., warned that resentment can build if one partner thinks another has invested less physically or financially. “Remember that if emotions are left unchecked within a business agreement, very few people can enrage a person like a close family member or friend,” Mr. Yonehiro said. Dean Trevelino and Genna Keller, longtime business partners, with their families bought a lot in Alys Beach, a new hurricane-resistant development of family villas and courtyard homes in Florida’s Panhandle in 2006. The two families, both from Atlanta, are building a 2,500-square-foot three-bedroom three-bath home with a plunge pool in the courtyard. It should be complete next month and is large enough to accommodate both families simultaneously. Mr. Trevelino and Ms. Keller, who own a public relations firm, plan to stay there five to six times a year as well as use it for business purposes and rental income. Though the Trevelinos own a vacation home in the mountains of Georgia, they like Alys Beach as well. “This leverages both of our resources,” Mr. Trevelino said, “without having us burden ourselves financially.”


Fatal Workplace Injuries Declined 17% in 2009

Abstract: The total number of fatal workplace injuries fell by 17 percent last year, to 4,340, down from 5,214 in 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday. The bureau said that the 2009 total was the smallest since its census of fatal occupational injuries began in 1992 and that the drop far outstripped the 6 percent decline in total hours worked. The agency noted, however, that the numbers were preliminary and could be revised upward, suggesting that budget constraints at state agencies might have delayed the collecting of information and the reporting of workplace deaths. Some union officials reacted with skepticism to the report. “It’s very surprising that there’s such a big drop,” said Bill Kojola, an expert in the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s occupational safety department. “I wouldn’t trust these numbers at the present time. It seemed that the state partners that report fatalities have been delayed because they’re strapped for cash.” The B.L.S. noted that in the previous two years’ reports on workplace fatalities, it eventually added an average of 156 deaths a year to the preliminary total. According to the bureau, highway incidents were the most frequent cause of fatal workplace injuries, accounting for 882 deaths, more than 20 percent of the total. Falls were the second most frequent cause, totaling 617, followed by homicides (521) and being struck by an object (414). Responding to the report, the Labor Secretary, Hilda L. Solis, said in a statement: “A single worker hurt or killed on the job is one too many. While a decrease in the number of fatal work injuries is encouraging, we cannot — and will not — relent from our continued strong enforcement of workplace safety laws.” The fatality rate was highest for Hispanic workers, 3.7 per 100,000 full-time-equivalent workers. That compared with 3.4 for white workers and 3.0 for African-American workers, the B.L.S. said. The totals were 3,059 fatalities for white workers, 668 for Hispanics, and 407 for blacks. Fatal injuries in construction fell by 16 percent last year, largely paralleling a 17 percent decline in hours worked in that industry. Farming, forestry, fishing and hunting was the industrial sector with the highest fatality rate, 26 per 100,000 workers. That compared with 12.7 for mining, 12.1 for transportation and warehousing, 9.7 for construction and 1.1 for finance, insurance and real estate.

Labor and Jobs
Deaths (Fatalities)
Bureau of Labor Statistics


With a Cuckoo’s Journey From China, a Mystery Is Solved, and Cheers Go Up

Abstract: BEIJING — When Flappy McFlapperson and Skybomb Bolt sprang into the sky for their annual migration from wetlands near Beijing, nobody was sure where the two cuckoos were going. They and three other cuckoos had been tagged with sensors to follow them from northern China. But to where? “These birds are not known to be great fliers,” said Terry Townshend , a British amateur bird watcher living in the Chinese capital who helped organize the Beijing Cuckoo Project to track the birds. “Migration is incredibly perilous for birds, and many perish on these journeys.” The answer to the mystery — unfolding in passages recorded by satellite for more than five months — has been a humbling revelation even to many experts. The birds’ journeys have so far covered thousands of miles, across a total of a dozen countries and an ocean. The “common cuckoo,” as the species is called, turns out to be capable of exhilarating odysseys. “It’s impossible not to feel an emotional response,” said Chris Hewson , an ecologist with the British Trust for Ornithology in Thetford, England, who has helped run the tracking project. “There’s something special about feeling connected to one small bird flying across the ocean or desert.” But to follow a cuckoo, you must first seduce it. The common cuckoo is by reputation a cynical freeloader. Mothers outsource parenting by laying their eggs in the nests of smaller birds, and the birds live on grubs, caterpillars and similar soft morsels. British and Chinese bird groups decided to study two cuckoo subspecies found near Beijing, because their winter getaways were a puzzle. In an online poll for the project, nearly half the respondents guessed they went somewhere in Southeast Asia. “We really didn’t know for sure,” said Yu Fang, a coffee importer, a prominent member of the Beijing bird-watching community and a volunteer on the project. “We knew that the cuckoos breed around here. But where do they go over winter? I guessed it was India,” Mr. Yu said. “I’ve been bird-watching in India, and they are often spotted there. I thought that’s where they stopped.” To tag the birds, the team set up soft, barely visible nets in May to safely catch the birds . A stuffed female cuckoo was attached to a tree or bush, and a recording of the bird’s come-hither mating call was played out. They responded lustily. “The male cuckoos just can’t resist. They come in from a long way,” said Mr. Townshend, who works as a consultant on a variety of environmental projects. Unexpectedly, female cuckoos also came to the party, seemingly jealous about an apparent rival in their patch, he said. After excluding birds too light to safely carry the sensors, the team attached solar-powered tags weighing 0.16 ounce to the backs of five birds, each weighing around 3.5 ounces, and freed them into the wild, where satellites followed the signals from their tags. Such technology has revolutionized the study of migratory birds since the 1990s. “Tracking technology has ushered in a new age of exploration,” Mr. Hewson said. But the project was also intended to raise awareness of wild birds and their needs, especially in China, where expanding cities, pollution and commercial capture with huge nets threaten the creatures. Schools in Beijing for local and foreign children gave the birds their names. As well as Flappy and Skybomb, there was Hope, Zigui and Meng Zhi Juan, a poetic Chinese phrase meaning “dream bird.” The wait began. As blazing summer arrived, time approached for the birds to begin their migration. But not all could. Cuckoos often have brief lives. The trackers ran out of contact with Hope after she flew north to Russia, possibly dying or losing her tag. And Zigui’s signal stopped near Beijing, where he probably perished. Then in early August, Flappy struck south, followed weeks later by Skybomb and then Meng Zhi Juan. Each day, Mr. Townshend checked the satellite data to see whether any other birds were on the move. Their journeys, chronicled on Twitter , drew in more and more fans, including me. By mid-September, Skybomb and Flappy were in India. That more or less ruled out the idea that they were headed to Southeast Asia, and they appeared likely to head west. But by which route? The first answer came in late October. Skybomb struck out boldly from central India and, without stopping, headed across the northern Indian Ocean, apparently aiming to reach Africa in one lunge. It was a breathtaking gamble for one of these small birds. “When Skybomb set out across the ocean, it was like, Whoa! He’s going for it,” Mr. Townshend said. Skybomb had fattened on grubs, but Africa was thousands of miles away without the prospect of a stop or meal in between. “It was a real celebratory moment,” Mr. Townshend said. “But fingers were crossed that he was going to make it across the ocean.” There was an implacable logic in the cuckoos’ seeming folly, said Mr. Hewson, who had guessed that they would go to Africa. They stopped over in India when rains had still left plenty of food there and waited for the monsoon winds to make a drastic turnaround, so the birds could fly onward with the help of the breeze. Cuckoos that summer in Europe also head to Africa to avoid the winter. Skybomb plowed on. Flying at roughly 2,600 feet above the sea, he held to an astonishingly straight path, apparently calibrating for shifts in the wind and conditions. By the second day, he was halfway across. After a third day, the east coast of Africa, and food and rest, beckoned. For much of the flight, tailwinds helped Skybomb. But as land approached, crosswinds and then a front-on headwind struck. It was a moderate breeze, but maybe enough to exhaust a cuckoo after days without stopping. On Oct. 31, Mr. Townshend announced on Twitter that Skybomb “is in Africa!” Sixty-four days after he had begun his migration, the cuckoo had reached the coast of Somalia about an hour after dusk. He had flown nonstop for 2,300 miles from central India. “What a bird!” Mr. Townshend declared. But even then, Skybomb was not done. Right away, he flew for another 190 miles until he reached an area where recent rains would have brought a proliferation of caterpillars and grubs to eat. Somehow, he knew where to follow the rain. The other birds began their long flights later than Skybomb. Flappy took a more cautious path, crossing the Arabian Sea from India to Oman. That made for a shorter flight over water, but also meant she hit land in northern Africa, farther from the lusher terrain to the south. By Friday, Meng Zhi Juan had jumped to just a few miles from the Indian coast and appeared poised to follow Skybomb’s swoop across the ocean to Somalia or thereabouts. The birds appear likely to edge south in Africa, following the rains. If they survive, they are expected to arrive back in Beijing in May. Mr. Townshend and his colleagues hope to follow more cuckoos next year, if they attract enough donations to pay for the tags and satellite services. More knowledge will help protect the areas where the birds need to stop. “They’re birds that are shared by China, India, Myanmar, Somalia and wherever else they go,” Mr. Townshend said. “With that comes a shared responsibility to protect them.”

Birds
China
Beijing
Animal Migration
India
Africa