Adroit Envoy States Case for Pakistan

Abstract: WASHINGTON — On May 4, 1999, Husain Haqqani was yanked off a Pakistani street and bundled into a car, a blanket thrown over his head. He managed to keep his cellphone hidden in his pocket, and surreptitiously dialed a friend’s number to let her know he was in trouble. That may have saved his skin, said Mr. Haqqani, now Pakistan ’s ambassador to the United States. The news of his detention made it harder for his captors, Pakistani intelligence agents, to hurt him, Mr. Haqqani said, though he was roughed up and kept in jail for two months until a court ordered his release. As the Obama administration struggles with another darkening crisis in Pakistan, Mr. Haqqani has become an influential figure in Washington — a silver-tongued interpreter in public of his country’s bewildering politics, but also a relentless, unyielding defender of Pakistan’s image and reputation. The crisis has given Mr. Haqqani, 52, access to the highest levels of the Obama administration and Congress, the latest twist in a lifetime spent navigating Pakistan’s treacherous political shoals. He speaks several times a week with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who calls him “one of the most skilled ambassadors I have ever seen.” He figures he has met with 90 members of Congress. And he is a fixture on CNN, the op-ed pages of newspapers and at research groups around Washington. But critics say Mr. Haqqani is a quick-change artist who cozies up to whoever is in power. Before he left Pakistan in 2002, after falling out with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, he had worked for both his country’s leading political figures — Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto — switching from one to the other with dispatch, depending on whose fortunes were rising. As a journalist, Mr. Haqqani cultivated sources in Mr. Musharraf’s circle. But he soon became an outspoken critic of the Musharraf government, making his life in Pakistan difficult. He aligned himself solidly with Ms. Bhutto — and after she was assassinated in 2007, with her husband, Ali Asif Zardari, now the president. Since moving to the United States, Mr. Haqqani has developed an affinity for American culture. He taught international relations at Boston University from 2004 to 2008, and he roots for the Red Sox. The American experience has only added to suspicions about him back in Pakistan. “They see him more as a U.S. envoy than a Pakistani envoy,” said Mowahid Hussain Shah, a Pakistani lawyer. “They see him as someone who is competent and bright, but slick.” Mr. Haqqani readily admits shifting his allegiances over the years. But he denies being an opportunist, saying he underwent a personal journey from being an Islamic activist in his youth to a conservative supporter of Mr. Sharif to an acolyte of the populism of the Bhutto clan. “Is changing one’s opinion opportunism?” he said. “Opportunism would be if I got commercial or financial gain from changing my opinion, and that charge has never been made of me.” Mr. Haqqani speaks in lucid, well-rounded sentences that suggest his background as a journalist and commentator. He is catnip for American journalists, offering a mix of high-minded analysis and street-corner gossip. (The New York Times put him on a retainer for several months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when he was working as a journalist, to help its correspondents better understand Pakistan.) But he can also be prickly and peremptory, using his new post to hector reporters, editors and policymakers over perceived slights or misinterpretations. His book “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military” offered a nuanced analysis of how the armed forces and Islamist groups have used one another in an effort to build influence in the country. Mr. Haqqani relishes mixing journalism with politics, which got him into trouble in 1999, when he was the spokesman for the opposition to Mr. Sharif, then prime minister. After his abduction, he faced corruption charges, which were later dropped. His ability to bounce back from adversity may be tested yet again. Mr. Haqqani’s star is now hitched to Mr. Zardari, a billionaire who has himself been dogged by suspicions of corruption and has seen his popularity plummet as Pakistan falls deeper into distress. Mr. Haqqani does his best to polish his boss’s image. Mr. Holbrooke, himself no slouch in the media-mastery department, said, “Some ambassadors’ influence is derived logically from the country they represent; Husain Haqqani’s influence is derived from his absolute mastery of the American media.” Mr. Haqqani’s ties to the Bhutto family run deep. On the day Ms. Bhutto was killed , Mr. Haqqani recalls taping interviews with television stations for 12 hours. At times, he broke down in tears on camera. Mr. Haqqani’s wife, Farahnaz Ispahani, is a member of the Pakistani Parliament and a spokeswoman for Mr. Zardari. This week, Mr. Haqqani said he arranged an early morning visit by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Holbrooke to Mr. Zardari at the Willard hotel. The reason was partly personal: Mrs. Clinton said hello to Ms. Bhutto’s 20-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whom she had last seen a decade earlier. Mr. Haqqani views himself as a mediator between old friends with a lot of baggage in their relationship. “I see my role as helping Americans understand that Pakistan is undergoing a transformation,” he said. “Then I have to persuade Americans to help Pakistan with that transformation.” The solution to Pakistan’s instability, Mr. Haqqani said, is redoubled American support for its democratically elected government. But Mr. Zardari faced deep skepticism when he tried to reassure lawmakers that Pakistan had the political will and military resources to repel a Taliban incursion that has pushed to within an hour’s drive of the capital, Islamabad. Mr. Haqqani’s belief in Pakistani democracy is hard won and heartfelt, said Teresita C. Schaffer , a former American diplomat who befriended Mr. Haqqani when they both served as ambassadors to Sri Lanka. But as an ambassador, she said, his views were bound to be rosy. “The part that he has slid over, particularly in his current job, is whether the government is competent enough to make the democratic enterprise work,” Ms. Schaffer said.

Pakistan
International Relations
Haqqani Husain
United States International Relations


Canada Produces Strain of Algae for Fuel

Abstract: MONTREAL — The sizable scientific team at Ocean Nutrition Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the world’s largest supplier of omega-3 EPA and DHA fatty acid supplements, was hardly looking for an alternative to conventional fossil fuels. In 2005, as part of a five-year research effort, the company was screening algae samples, taken from marine environments across the Atlantic provinces of Canada, for specific nutraceutical ingredients. That is when, in one of hundreds of filmy, green test tubes and flasks, it uncovered a single-celled microorganism that produces substantial quantities of triacylglycerol oil — a base for biofuel. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” said Ian Lucas, Ocean Nutrition Canada’s executive vice president of innovation and strategy. “We got extremely lucky. This certainly isn’t our core business, but we’ve been told by experts that this is the most efficient organism for the production of oil identified in the world to date.” Dozens of companies and academic laboratories are pursuing the objective Ocean Nutrition Canada did not know it had — to cultivate algae, the foundation of the marine food chain, as a source of green energy. But Ocean Nutrition Canada’s prolific grower, experts say, appears capable of producing oil at a rate 60 times greater than other types of algae being used for the generation of biofuels . In view of its discovery, the company will lead a four-year consortium, formed over the past months and funded by the federal not-for-profit foundation Sustainable Development Technology Canada, to develop its proprietary organism into a commercial-scale producer of biofuels. Canada, with its long harsh winter and short summer, would hardly seem to be the ideal place to breed algae for biofuel. “Canada doesn’t seem like the best place to be growing algae, but Canadian expertise can be applied to programs all over the world,” said Dr. John Cullen of Dalhousie University’s Oceanography Department in Halifax. Indeed, recent federal investments have placed Canada among the pioneering nations housing publicly funded research programs aimed at the sustainable production of energy from algae biomass. And Canada’s severe environment could actually turn out to be an advantage. It is widely recognized that growing algae might more easily be done in an equatorial region where the temperature is consistently warm and daylight varies little from 12 hours a day. “But there is no reason not to develop the technologies in a northern climate and deploy them more equatorially,” said Stephen O’Leary, a research officer at the National Research Council of Canada’s Institute for Marine Biosciences, also based in Halifax. Capable of converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids and oils, photosynthetic algae can typically generate 10 to 20 times more fuel per acre than agricultural commodities like corn, used to make ethanol. Moreover, algae do not require arable land and so need not compete with food crops for growth space. And as voracious consumers of carbon dioxide, photosynthetic algae have the potential to abate greenhouse gas emissions. Interest in the field of algal biofuels is escalating both in Canada’s public and private sectors. The consortium, led by Ocean Nutrition, “is finally publicizing the fact that Canada has been doing a lot of work in this space for some time and is almost at the leadership position,” said Rick Whittaker, vice president, investments and chief technology officer at Sustainable Development Technology Canada. The project has attracted multinational partners, including the military contractor Lockheed Martin and UOP, a unit of Honeywell that supplies technologies to the petroleum industry and is here focused on converting the algal oil into an alterative jet fuel. “It’s a big deal for Eastern Canada and a big deal for the country in general,” Mr. Whittaker said. “Because of this particular algae strain and our ability to process it, this can reach a global scale.” Ocean Nutrition is now capable of growing meaningful amounts of the strain — named ONC T18 B — and keeps a stockpile in cryogenic reserve. One of the species’s draws is that it produces oil by converting reduced organic compounds, not by conventional photosynthesis. Direct sunlight is not always easy to come by in Canada, and heating indoor ponds could end up consuming more energy than it produces. “Growing algae on a pond in Canada means that it’s an ice hockey rink in the winter time,” Mr. Whittaker said. “We’re interested in producing these things all year round without an issue.” The National Research Council’s Institute for Marine Biosciences is contributing expertise as a member of the consortium. “Our role in the project is to help ONC push the biology of their organism so that it becomes the fastest-growing, best oil-producing organism it can be,” Dr. O’Leary said. The aim, he said, is to enhance the physical conditions under which the algae grow. Meanwhile, the biosciences institute is involved in its own algal biofuels initiative, encompassed by the National Bioproducts Program, a joint venture with Agriculture and Agrifood Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Begun in 2008 — though researchers at the biosciences institute have been working on algal biotechnology for more than half a century — the project’s aim is photosynthetic fuel production on a large scale, mostly from algae growing in eastern Canada. A 15,000-liter, or 4,000-gallon, cultivation pilot plant at the NRC’s Marine Research Station in Ketch Harbor, outside Halifax, celebrated its grand opening in June. One of the initiative’s distinguishing features is its focus on collecting local strains of algae from specific Canadian and American sites. Organisms that are indigenous and therefore acclimatized to an area naturally lend themselves to cultivation there. And this approach mitigates the risk of importing foreign species that might upset the environmental balance if unintentionally released. “A strategy in this type of research has been to go to already established algal libraries and withdraw species known to be fast growers and good lipid producers with little consideration for where in the world they were isolated,” Dr. O’Leary said. “There hasn’t been enough focus on developing native strains for native deployment.” In assessing how best to grow algae for biofuel, NRC has joined forces with the U.S. Department of Energy in a collaboration formed under the auspices of the U.S.-Canada Clean Energy Dialogue. It has also teamed up with the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. Other partners include a number of Canadian companies that have recently entered the algal biofuels arena, like Carbon2Algae Solutions, which ultimately plans to operate algae photobioreactors that will capture carbon dioxide from facilities like the oil sands in Alberta and use it to help local algae strains thrive. At the biosciences institute, more than 100 species of algae have been collected and studied; about 40 of these have been brought into cultivation. Dr. O’Leary estimates that commercialization — producing large volumes of fuel from algae to feed into Canada’s network of distribution pipelines — is at least a decade away. But locating an algal cultivation facility at a source of industrial carbon dioxide, to produce biomass for local use, could be commercially viable within five years, he says. As for Canada’s advantage in this technological race, Mr. Whittaker says the ideal algae strain would be one that consumes a cheap feedstock, produces high levels of oil and is robust. Algae will grow even in the most uninviting of environments, and the harsh Canadian climate produces rugged plants. “The thing that would suggest that Canada is at a disadvantage,” Mr. Whittaker said, “is actually the advantage that allows all this to happen.” Or, as Dr. O’Leary put it: “If it’ll work here, it’ll work anywhere.”

Canada
Algae
Biofuels
Alternative and Renewable Energy
Halifax (Nova Scotia)


Nigeria Military Leaders, Faulted in Fighting Militants, Are Fired

Abstract: NIAMEY, Niger — Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari , dismissed all of his country’s top military officials on Monday, his spokesman announced, after weeks of mounting violence in which Boko Haram fighters have killed hundreds of civilians. The Nigerian military’s handling of Boko Haram’s bloody six-year uprising has been widely seen as dismal. It has been faulted not only for failing to stem the extremist group’s murderous rampages, but also for making the situation worse through widespread human rights violations. The country’s news media has been urging Mr. Buhari for weeks to get rid of the architects of what is seen in Nigeria as a failed campaign to stop the Islamist militant group. On Monday, some analysts questioned why Mr. Buhari, who took office in late May, waited so long. “The surprise for me is that it didn’t happen much earlier, given the terrible performance of the armed forces,” said Jibrin Ibrahim, a political scientist. “We thought it would be one of his first acts.” Two of the officials who were dismissed on Monday — Alex Badeh, the chief of the defense staff, and Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah, the head of the army — were cited in a recent Amnesty International report , which accused them of being responsible for war crimes committed under their command. Mr. Buhari, a former general who once ruled the country as a military dictator, also replaced his national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, on Monday. As the coordinator of Nigeria’s strategy against Boko Haram, Mr. Dasuki has been the object of particularly sharp criticism. The purge comes a week before Mr. Buhari is scheduled to visit Washington, meet with President Obama and work on strategy against Boko Haram with American officials. Relations between the American and Nigerian militaries were all but frozen under Mr. Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, with the American side denying assistance on a broad range of issues to a military that was broadly tainted by well-documented human rights violations. “This is a really big meeting, where they are going to try to be in sync with the Americans,” Paul Lubeck, a Nigeria specialist at Johns Hopkins, said of the trip to Washington. “They want help from the Americans.” Mr. Buhari immediately announced replacements for the fired officials. Most significant is the elevation of Maj. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, currently the head of the multinational anti-Boko Haram force based in Ndjamena, Chad, to be the new army chief of staff. Coordination among armies in the affected region — those of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria — has been notoriously poor, and the other three countries say Nigeria has been at fault. Now, with General Buratai, Mr. Buhari is “focusing on somebody who has skills with the different armies,” Mr. Lubeck said. Underscoring the regional threat, over last weekend Boko Haram staged attacks here in Niger, where militants struck a prison in Diffa, east of the capital, Niamey; a suicide attacker, a man in a full-face veil disguised as a woman, struck a market in Ndjamena, killing at least 15 people; and a suicide attack in northern Cameroon killed about a dozen civilians. For months, as the military announced new offensives against Boko Haram, the group captured town after town in Nigeria’s northeast, virtually unhindered. For weeks, it threatened the regional capital, Maiduguri, and it sent soldiers fleeing ahead of large-scale civilian massacres in the region’s villages. Americans and numerous analysts said the army had been hollowed out by years of corruption and poor leadership. With the approach of this spring’s presidential election and Mr. Jonathan facing defeat, his appointed army chiefs forced through a six-week delay in the vote, during which they repeatedly announced sudden and unexpected successes against Boko Haram. Army chiefs boasted that the Boko Haram problem would be virtually eliminated by Election Day. Whatever gains had been scored were fleeting, as the pace of Boko Haram’s attacks picked up full speed again with Mr. Buhari’s inauguration and his vows to crush the group. By some estimates, more than 500 people have been killed in that period, with almost daily reports of suicide bombings and massacres. Among the latest are reports of the killing of 43 people by Boko Haram late last week in remote villages in Borno State. “They are on a total rampage,” Mr. Lubeck said, “because there is no state in Nigeria.”

Nigeria
Muhammadu Buhari
Boko Haram
Appointments and Executive Changes
Terrorism


Samsung Countersues Apple Over Patents

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) — Samsung Electronics filed a patent lawsuit on Friday against Apple over the iPhone and iPad in a tit-for-tat case after Apple claimed Samsung’s smartphones and tablets “slavishly” copied its products. Apple filed a lawsuit last Friday accusing Samsung of violating patents and trademarks of its iPhone and iPad, as the popular gadgets are being threatened by the fast rise of rival devices based on Google’s free Android operating system. The legal battle could jeopardize business ties between the two technology companies. Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., relies heavily on Samsung for components like chips and LCD displays. Operating systems have emerged as the crucial battlefield for dominance of the world’s smartphone market. Android became the most popular smartphone software in the United States in the three months ending in February, ahead of the software of Apple and Research In Motion, according to a recent survey by research firm comScore. Samsung is one of the fastest-growing smartphone makers on the back of the Android boom and has emerged as Apple’s strongest competitor in the tablet market, with models in three sizes. In a statement, Samsung said on Friday that Apple’s iPhone and iPad infringed its 10 mobile technology patents and it called for Apple to stop infringing its technology and compensate the company. The suits, filed in South Korea, Japan and Germany, involved 10 claims of infringements mainly involving patents for power reduction during data transmission, 3G technology for reducing errors during data transmission and wireless data communication technology. “Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,” the statement said. Global technology companies are locked in a web of litigation as they try to defend their shares of the booming tablet and smartphone market. Strong sales of the iPhone and iPad translate into more revenue for Samsung. Apple was Samsung’s second-biggest client after Sony of Japan last year, bringing in around 6.2 trillion Korean won ($5.7 billion) in sales, and is widely expected to become Samsung’s top client this year. The battle comes ahead of Samsung’s release of a new version of its successful Galaxy S smartphone next week in Korea, a crucial product for it to meet its goal of sales of 60 million smartphones this year.

Samsung Group
Suits and Litigation
Apple Incorporated


Trump and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Pull No Punches on Trade Policy

Abstract: In January, Thomas J. Donohue , the feisty chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, noted — without naming names — that there were “loud voices” this election season who talked about walling off America from talent and trade. He called that position “morally wrong and politically stupid.” In March, Mr. Donohue got a little more blunt. “Donald Trump has very little idea about what trade really is,” he told Bloomberg television. And recently, the gloves came off completely. As the presumptive Republican nominee gave a speech, threatening to rip up trade accords and put tariffs on goods from China, the chamber live-tweeted its jabs and counterpunches. “Under Trump’s trade plans, we would see higher prices, fewer jobs, and a weaker economy,” read one tweet. Under Trump's trade plans, we would see higher prices, fewer jobs, and a weaker economy https://t.co/3xcCNgiS2k pic.twitter.com/9jPtGXAOlQ — U.S. Chamber (@USChamber) June 28, 2016 Another tweet warned that the chamber’s analysis shows that Mr. Trump’s proposed tariffs “would strip us of at least 3.5 million jobs.” For the chamber, the bastion of free enterprise and free trade whose roots date back more than 100 years, Mr. Trump’s willingness to upend trade agreements, to tax goods from important countries and even invite a trade war is tantamount to rolling tanks up to its doors. The acrimonious relationship between the chamber and the presumptive Republican nominee is highly unusual: Historically, the two have been as close as peanut butter and jelly. “I’m pretty sure at this point, Trump is just dug in on immigration and trade and the chamber is just going to have to go past him, basically, try to make sure good policy gets recognized by members of the House and Senate,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the chief economist for John McCain’s presidential bid in 2008. Indeed, much of the chamber’s political push is now focused on Congress. The goal is to help Republican candidates who share its principles hold crucial congressional seats, no matter who wins the presidential race. The growing divide between Mr. Trump and myriad bulwarks of the conservative Republican Party comes as the party races toward its convention in Cleveland next week. The convention is typically the time when the party rallies behind its candidate and develops a set of common policy goals and proposals. “What are they going to do with the Republican platform? I have no idea,” said Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential run. Mr. Trump, with his swaggering, shoot-from-the-hip campaign style, has shown time and again a willingness — nay, an eagerness — to thumb his nose at the hoity-toity members of the Republican establishment, whether big donors like the Koch brothers or powerful entities like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “They’re a special interest that wants to have the deals that they want to have,” Mr. Trump said to cheers at a packed rally in Bangor, Me., the day after his trade speech. The chamber, he added, was “controlled totally by various groups of people that don’t care about you whatsoever.” Mr. Trump’s isolationist trade policies play well to individuals who perceive the Republican establishment and their ilk have gotten rich from existing trade policies while their own jobs have moved to lower-wage countries like Mexico or China. “He’s running as a populist anti-Washington-establishment candidate and there’s hardly a more important organization on the right side of Washington politics than the Chamber of Commerce,” said Richard L. Hall, a professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. “But I don’t think the Chamber of Commerce is going to sit silent when Trump is taking positions that run against some of their main themes.” Image The chamber is throwing its money behind Republican candidates in critical congressional races who share its ideology on free trade, including Senator Rob Portman of Ohio. Credit Victor J. Blue for The New York Times On its website, the chamber has started to post dire predictions of what a Trump presidency might mean. “Republican front-runner Donald Trump has promised to ‘make America great again,’” began an article posted on the chamber’s website in April. “Does a recession sound ‘great’ to you? Do 7 million lost jobs sound like ‘winning’?” The chamber is no fan of Hillary Clinton’s policies, either. The Washington Post recently published an op-ed by Mr. Donohue in which he said both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were wrong on trade . For much of its existence, the chamber acted as a trade association for American businesses, typically adopting pro-business stances on deregulation of various industries, corporate tax rates and trade agreements. That changed when Mr. Donohue took over as the chamber president in 1997. The former chief executive of the American Trucking Associations, with his shock of white hair and hard-charging demeanor, Mr. Donohue, 77, morphed the chamber into a political lobbying machine with revenue topping $200 million, according to its 2014 tax filings. The chamber says it does not get involved in presidential elections, and that is mostly true. The Center for Responsive Politics shows relatively small donations given to Republican presidential candidates over the years. In 2012, Mr. Romney was the largest recipient, taking in $36,900, according to data compiled by the center. A spokeswoman for the chamber said any donations to presidential candidates came from individuals in the chamber, rather than the chamber itself. A spokeswoman for the Center for Responsive Politics said its data typically includes donations from company executives because they have the resources to donate and usually do so for business reasons. While the vast majority of the chamber’s huge cash stockpile goes to its lobbying efforts — $124 million in 2014 — another sizable slice goes to outside advertising. In the midterm elections in 2014, the chamber spent $35 million, overwhelmingly supporting Republican candidates. So far this year, it has spent nearly $14 million, none in support of Democrats. But to Mr. Trump’s point, the chamber does not publicly describe how it makes decisions regarding what policies or politicians to support. Inside the chamber is a bit murky. Its board is a mix of small-business leaders, trade associations and executives from large corporations, including IBM, Caterpillar, Phillips 66, Dow Chemical Company and Allstate Insurance. But over all, the chamber does not make its membership public. A search of tax records for donations to the chamber shows that while it has received significant donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the foundation set up by the billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen, some of its biggest contributions have come from the types of conservative political action committees that Mr. Trump likes to target. Crossroads GPS, the PAC founded by Karl Rove, gave $5.2 million to the chamber while Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the PAC founded by the Koch brothers, gave $2 million, according to 2014 tax filings, the most recent that were available. In an email, a spokeswoman for the chamber responded to a query by noting that the chamber has a “$250 million operation that represents American businesses of all sizes from across the country.” When not tackling Mr. Trump on trade, the chamber is throwing its considerable political muscle and money behind Republican candidates in critical congressional races who share its ideology on free trade. Those candidates include Senator Rob Portman, who is fighting for re-election in the battleground state of Ohio. Before he entered the Senate, Mr. Portman was the United States trade representative for former President George W. Bush, where he supported the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Yet Republican strategists are curious how the gap between Mr. Trump and traditional conservatives over trade and other major themes will play out in the coming months. “Basically, Trump has a position on trade that no one who has ever been a nominee of any party has ever had — a 45 percent tariff on goods,” Mr. Stevens, the Romney strategist, said. “How is that going to work where you have joint efforts between the presidential campaign and the state parties with candidates who want free trade? Are you going to have half the phone bank calling for a 45 percent tariff, and the other half calling for reasonable trade policies?”

Donald Trump
Republicans
International trade
US Economy
United States Chamber of Commerce
Thomas J Donohue
2016 Presidential Election


In a Global Market for Hacking Talent, Argentines Stand Out

Abstract: BUENOS AIRES — Want to learn how to break into the computerized heart of a medical device or an electronic voting machine? Maybe a smartphone or even a car? Thanks to the legacy of military rule and a culture of breaking rules of all sorts, Argentina has become one of the best places on earth to find people who could show you how. As Silicon Valley’s talent war has gone global, particularly for those skilled at breaking into things, this Latin American nation has become a rich recruiting ground for corporations and foreign governments. Companies need hackers to help defend against online criminals and state-sponsored spies. And as the world’s critical infrastructure moves online and the threat of war moves into cyberspace, governments are desperate to acquire hackers’ tools. “Cheating the system is part of the Argentine mentality,” said Cesar Cerrudo, an Argentine security researcher who taught himself to hack as a young teenager living in Paraná, a small town in the northeastern part of the country. Mr. Cerrudo recently gained attention for successfully hacking into traffic light systems in cities across the United States. “Unless you are rich, you grow up without a computer or reading books. To access new software, you have to hack it, and you have to teach yourself everything from the ground up,” he said. Within Latin America, Brazil has become known in recent years as the world leader in Internet banking fraud . But Argentina’s hackers have a reputation for creativity. In particular, they are known for their ability to find so-called zero-day flaws, which are unpatched holes in widely used technology that can be used to spy on or even destroy adversaries’ computer networks. Technology companies like Apple, Facebook and Google have encrypted their products and services so that in many cases the only way to monitor a target’s communications is to hack directly into its device. As a result, there is a new urgency among governments in acquiring zero-day exploits. A mix of executives from around the world, government officials, contractors and — or so it was rumored — spies gathered here in October in an industrial building converted into a cultural center to watch hacking done the Argentine way at the 11th annual EkoParty , the largest hacking conference in Latin America. It is impossible to say how many hackers live in Argentina, since breaking into computers is not generally a skill that Argentines like to advertise. But EkoParty, which drew 1,600 people this year, is widely known as the best place to find them. “Argentina put itself on the map as the country to produce the best hackers,” said Sinan Eren, an executive at Avast Software , a security company based in Prague, who has been attending the conference for years. Image The hip Palermo Soho neighborhood of Buenos Aires, which has a concentration of tech start-ups. Credit Alejandro Kirchuk for The New York Times. Long before foreign companies came calling, hacking things was a life skill in Argentina, a way to get by through decades of repressive military rule and a volatile economy. Argentines have a saying, “atado con alambre,” which translates roughly as “held together with wire,” to describe the inventive nature of so many here who learned to do much with little. “Those of us who came of age under a military junta — who were told which books to read, which movies to watch, which God to worship — had to learn to move around the laws,” Norma Morandini, a senator from Córdoba province, told a crowd at the conference. “For us, hacking became a way of life.” The country still has one foot in the tech industry’s past because of stringent import rules. Amazon will not ship to your door here. BlackBerry has more market share here than Apple. A new iPhone costs $2,000 or more on MercadoLibre, an online auction site, but many iPhone owners said they had been able to persuade a friend traveling from abroad to sneak one through customs. To get their hands on the latest, greatest devices, Argentines often have to think like a hacker — or even become one. “You make do without resources, without high-end technology, with poor Wi-Fi connections,” said Sergio Berensztein, an Argentine political analyst. “We improvise creative solutions, for lack of other options, and many have applied these same procedures to the technical industry.” EkoParty began as a small gathering of Argentine hackers who exchanged their discoveries over the web. Today, hundreds of Argentine hackers, ranging from 14 to 45 years old, line up around the block to show off their skills to executives from Silicon Valley start-ups like Synack , a security company, as well as more established consulting firms like Deloitte , and a growing list of government officials and contractors looking to acquire zero-days for their arsenals. Among EkoParty’s panelists were hackers like Alfredo Ortega, a sweet-natured man from rural Patagonia and professed “cybergaucho” and was able to break into a new e-voting system in 20 minutes. Later, over tea and cookies, he demonstrated how to hide malicious code in computer chips. Mr. Ortega, who now works for Avast Software, is best known for breaking into a computer operating system thought to be invulnerable. His latest work in progress is an X-ray-emitting device that can break into systems that are not even online. “Almost anything you give him, he will break,” said Federico Kirschbaum, who started the EkoParty conference with a fellow Argentine, Francisco Amato. They are also the co-founders of the security company Infobyte. Other presenters included Juliano Rizzo, an Argentine security researcher who demonstrated a zero-day flaw onstage that some here estimated would have sold for six figures on the black market. Image A cafe in the Palermo Soho neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Argentina has become a recruiting ground for corporations and governments looking for hackers to help defend against online criminals. Credit Alejandro Kirchuk for The New York Times Mr. Rizzo is among many Argentine security researchers who got their start at Core Security , a company founded 20 years ago by six hackers. In 1996, Core started working with companies and government agencies to find security holes in their networks. Later, they created one of the first automated attack tools designed to penetrate clients’ systems by exploiting software vulnerabilities. “It was a bold proposition, especially coming from ‘some guys in Argentina,’” said Ivan Arce, one of Core’s founders. Analysts initially said the tool was unethical, but one of Core’s first customers, NASA, helped change minds. As Core grew, its founders trained the next generation of exploit coders. But those hackers now have far more lucrative options than their predecessors did back in 1996. Exploits that 20 years ago were discovered out of curiosity, or to defend against criminals, are valuable to an increasing number of governments — 40 at last count — that are developing offensive digital weapon programs. Governments have already started repurposing Argentine exploit tools as spy tools. Last December, two researchers discovered that an Iranian hacking group was using Core’s penetration testing tool against Iranian dissidents. “This started out as hobbyists sharing exploits as a game,” Mr. Arce said. “Now exploits are hoarded for profit.” Sale of a single exploit can make some hackers rich. Zerodium , a zero-day-exploit broker that sells to governments, said it paid hackers $1 million for an Apple exploit in October. In mid-November, the brokerage firm said it would pay hackers $50,000 for an attack that could take over a victim’s machine through a Safari or Internet Explorer browser, and $80,000 for a similar attack through Google’s Chrome browser. Those dollars go a long way in Buenos Aires, where a high-end apartment in Palermo Soho — a hip neighborhood with a concentration of tech start-ups — rents for $1,000 a month. But Argentina’s days as the outsourcing capital for hackers may be numbered, Mr. Eren of Avast warns, particularly as the world goes mobile and governments start zeroing in on ways to break into smartphones. “Argentina may be hitting a peak,” Mr. Eren said. “There’s new competition.” And when it comes to breaking into phone software, he said, “China is the country now making a mark.”

Argentina
Companies
Hacker (computer security)
Computer security


F.C.C. Chief Opposes Fees for Internet Priority

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that he believed it was “unacceptable” for Internet service providers to offer faster Internet transmission to content providers willing to pay higher fees. “Any outcome, any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable,” Julius Genachowski , the F.C.C. chairman, told reporters on Thursday. His remarks came in response to press reports that Google and Verizon were nearing an agreement about broadband management that could clear the way for Verizon to consider offering such a service. The two companies declined to comment on any potential deal. Many Internet purists believe that a system that includes a sort of toll lane for faster routing of some content to Internet users violates the long-held tenet of net neutrality , which holds that no form of content is favored over another. But a federal appeals court said in April that the F.C.C. did not have the authority to regulate how Internet service providers manage their systems. The F.C.C. in recent weeks has been trying to negotiate its own agreement in a series of private meetings with a group of big Internet service and content companies, including Google and Verizon, to ensure net neutrality. But the agency canceled a session scheduled for Thursday after the reports of the Google-Verizon talks. Edward Lazarus, Mr. Genachowski’s chief of staff, who convened the meetings, said in a statement that the effort “has been productive on several fronts, but has not generated a robust framework to preserve the openness and freedom of the Internet, one that drives innovation, investment, free speech and consumer choice.” The F.C.C. is studying the possibility of reclassifying broadband service under the Communications Act. The proposed new designation would allow the agency to apply stricter regulation to broadband service and to further its efforts to expand broadband access to rural areas, particularly where it is not profitable for Internet service providers to offer connections. “All options remain on the table as we continue to seek broad input on this vital issue,” Mr. Lazarus said.

Federal Communications Commission
Net Neutrality
Computers and the Internet
Google Inc
Verizon Communications
Genachowski Julius


As PayPal Spins Off, Apple Pay Signals New Era at Cash Register

Abstract: Not a single purchase has been made with Apple’s new payment system, Apple Pay, which will allow people to pay for everyday goods with their smartphone. But the service, expected in the coming weeks, already has the technology industry scrambling to profit from a future in which apps could regularly replace cash, checks and credit cards. If doubts remained about the far-reaching implications of Apple’s entry into the market, they were almost surely cast aside on Tuesday. In a surprise announcement, the e-commerce giant eBay said it would spin off PayPal, long the dominant digital payment service — a move meant to make PayPal more nimble in a fast-changing market. “The era of digital payments is upon us,” said John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay, announcing the split to investors. It remains far from certain that Apple Pay, which uses the fingerprint reader on recent iPhones to confirm identities, will become a hit. The promise of convenient and secure mobile payments has long been hailed — by start-ups and powerful companies like Google and Verizon. That promise has remained largely unfulfilled. But the swift reaction by companies in the three weeks since Apple Pay was unveiled makes clear that how we normally pay for goods and services is ripe for transformation. Square, a prominent payment start-up, plans to allow merchants the ability to accept Apple Pay transactions in the future. Stripe, a payment processing start-up based in San Francisco, has agreed to work with Apple to help more small businesses accept Apple Pay. EBay’s announcement, meanwhile, was an abrupt about-face. This year, facing calls by the activist investor Carl C. Icahn to split the company in two, eBay’s executives vehemently argued that eBay and PayPal were more valuable together. PayPal probably has the most to lose if Apple Pay becomes successful. “It used to be the case that the Internet was kind of the Wild West,” said John Collison, co-founder and president of Stripe. “Ten years ago, people were scared of checking out on random websites. Now, consumers are no longer unfamiliar with online commerce.” Each previous form of mobile payment has run into one problem or another. Google Wallet, for example, was hamstrung by limitations on the types of phones and cellular networks with which it was compatible, leaving Google to focus its mobile commerce efforts elsewhere. Softcard, the product backed by major wireless carriers, has seen little enthusiasm for its mobile wallet for similar reasons. As a result, cash and credit cards remain the norm in physical stores. So consumers have been unconvinced that paying with a phone at the register is any faster or safer than doing so with a credit card. And online, only 11 percent of e-commerce spending happened on mobile devices in the second quarter, according to data from comScore, an Internet market research firm. The rest is made on desktop computers, largely because it is easier to enter payment information on a desktop than a smartphone. “Apple Pay is good for everyone in the payments ecosystem because ultimately, it increases the amount of transactions that are happening on mobile,” Mr. Collison said. With Apple Pay, which is expected to be available within a month, people can pay online or in person with their phone, using an iPhone’s fingerprint sensor to check out, an experience that Apple says will be faster and safer than offerings from its predecessors. Many major restaurant and retail chains, including McDonald’s, Whole Foods and Macy’s, have signed up to accept payments this way. Part of the scramble among companies comes from Apple’s reputation for upending other industries. The iPod, for instance, revolutionized how consumers buy digital music. The iPhone has changed the way people use their cellphones in their daily life. Companies large and small think Apple’s payments service could potentially have the same effect. “Apple in particular has a reputation of harnessing and mobilizing an ecosystem,” said Denée Carrington, an analyst at Forrester Research. Perhaps no company has more to lose from a new payment system than PayPal. Started in 1998 by a handful of entrepreneurs, PayPal quickly grew to become the dominant online payment company, widely recognized as a safe and easy way to send and receive money over the Internet. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, and PayPal has continued to grow. It now has more than 150 million regular users, and last year, it had revenue of $6.6 billion. “Everyone is gunning for PayPal,” Ms. Carrington said. “PayPal needs speed and flexibility to effectively defend and grow its business.” Shortly after Apple unveiled its payment product in early September, PayPal took out a series of full-page print advertisements in several major newspapers, criticizing Apple for its perceived weaknesses in software security. When a purchase is made, the iPhone wirelessly transmits a one-time code along with encrypted customer data, which the company says is more secure than swiping a traditional credit card. “We the people want our money safer than our selfies,” the advertisement read, an apparent reference to a recent episode in which some celebrities had nude photographs stolen from their Apple online storage accounts. Mr. Donahoe said multiple factors played into the decision to split eBay and PayPal, including the successful Wall Street debut of Alibaba, the huge Chinese e-commerce company. By being separate from eBay, Mr. Donahoe said, PayPal would have more agility, an attribute some analysts and tech insiders have said that PayPal has lacked for years. “PayPal hasn’t innovated in the United States in a decade, and it shows,” said Keith Rabois, a partner at Khosla Ventures and a former PayPal executive. “You’ve seen the rise of companies like Braintree, Stripe and Square” — three fast-rising payment start-ups of the last few years — “and all of them happened right under PayPal’s nose.” PayPal bought Braintree last year. And some people said PayPal, especially if standing alone, could benefit from Apple Pay’s introduction. “For one, there is no equivalent yet of Apple Pay on Android devices,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird and Company, referring to devices that run Google’s operating system. Android smartphone users, he said, could flock to PayPal, which runs on both Apple and Google operating systems. And other competitors to Apple — like Samsung or Microsoft, which manufacture millions of smartphones, or Alibaba, which has its own highly successful payment operation in China — could more heartily support PayPal in the future. In an appearance on CNBC, Mr. Donahoe said: “The way technology’s evolving, the way mobile technology’s evolving, we think you’re going to continue to see profound changes in how consumers shop and how they pay.”

PayPal
Apple
eBay
Mobile Commerce
E Commerce
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


Chronicling a Life and Honing Job Skills

Abstract: A lot of people cry over their hard-luck stories. Dominique Wright wants to write about hers. She started her first journal at 8 years old, while living with a foster mother in South Jamaica, Queens, because her own mother had turned to drugs and alcohol and could not keep her six children at that time. At 12, her father regained custody of her and a younger brother, Najee. But he was in poor health and died a few years later. Sister and brother spent their teenage years with an aunt and two cousins in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and Ms. Wright’s journal pages overflowed with boys, shopping and Sunday dinners of ham and collard greens. In her senior year at Prospect Heights High School, she became pregnant with her daughter, Aniya Cameron. Ms. Wright, now 23, still writes every day in a journal, one from Barnes & Noble with a peach-and-yellow cover. She will need another one soon, and this one will be packed away with 20 others in a cardboard box. A few have been lost in moves. She wants to turn them into a book about her life and family. “We’ve been through a lot, and for us to come so far, I think it will be a good story to put out there,” Ms. Wright said with a bright smile as she sat in the office of Year Up , an intensive career training program in the financial district. Ms. Wright completed Year Up in January after dropping out of Kingsborough Community College and working a succession of hourly wage jobs in Manhattan to support herself and her daughter. She sold popcorn and tickets at a movie theater, called taxis for a law firm and answered phones at a physical therapy office. At Year Up, Ms. Wright learned finance skills and worked as a paid apprentice for six months at Merrill Lynch as part of the program. But then there was no more work. She sent out four or five résumés a day and scoured Craigslist for leads. “At first, I was looking for a career job, but then I expanded it to retail and customer service,” she said. Ms. Wright and her daughter subsisted on $362 a month in food stamps. She borrowed from her siblings and cousins to help pay the $398 monthly rent, including utilities, for her one-bedroom apartment at the Edwin Gould Academy , a residential program in East Harlem for young adults who were once in the foster care system. She said that she had not asked for child support from Aniya’s father, but that he helped out with clothes and shoes for the child. Andres Gomez, a case manager at the Community Service Society, a nonprofit group that works with Year Up and is one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, helped Ms. Wright land another paid apprentice position in August at Citigroup, where she again prepares financial reports and compiles data. She earns $490 a week, after taxes. “She’s resilient,” Mr. Gomez said. “No matter what comes her way, she breaks down every barrier.” Mr. Gomez went with Ms. Wright to buy a refurbished Dell desktop computer and three new business suits from Macy’s with $443 from the Neediest Cases Fund. “It helped a lot,” she said. “It’s a very professional environment, so the business suits were a big boost to my wardrobe.” This fall, Ms. Wright enrolled Aniya, 4, in preschool ; she hopes to return to school herself next year for a bachelor’s degree. She spends her free time hanging out with Najee, now a postal worker in Washington Heights, and the rest of her large family. Ms. Wright knows that her luck could change come January, when her position with Citigroup ends, along with the $640-a-week paycheck. “I get worried some days because I don’t want to go back, I want to go forward,” said Ms. Wright, who is on the hunt for a job, again.

Year Up
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Labor and Jobs
Education and Schools
Careers and Professions


Women’s World Cup 2015: Cultural Victories to Go With On-the-Field Ones

Abstract: EDMONTON, Alberta — Colombia has already scored one of the greatest upsets in the history of the Women’s World Cup, defeating third-ranked France, 2-0, in group play. On Monday comes the hunt for a bigger trophy: the United States. “Our dreams are bigger than our fears,” goalkeeper Catalina Perez said. The cultural victory for Colombia in reaching the round of 16 may be more important than anything achieved on the field. Macho cultures in Latin America, even in Brazil, have long disdained women who sought out the exertion of kicking a ball. Yoreli Rincón, Colombia’s star playmaker, said in an email that she felt like “God’s mistake” as a girl because “I couldn’t understand why people looked badly on my passion to play football.” So bravo to Colombia for beginning to take women’s soccer seriously. FIFA, too, deserves some congratulations — even its beleaguered president, Sepp Blatter, who has announced he will resign. But let’s be clear. Women are still traveling in second class, lurching along on rickety tracks, around an uncertain bend. “There is such a cultural shift needed,” said Julie Foudy, a former captain of the American women’s team. “There’s no one in these countries that wakes up every day thinking, ‘The first thing on my mind is, how am I going to help the women’s game today?’ ” FIFA’s top officials are nowhere to be found at this World Cup. Mr. Blatter and his second-in-command, Jérôme Valcke, are hunkered down amid a wide racketeering scandal. Perhaps, on second thought, it is better that Mr. Blatter stays away. His brilliant idea to improve women’s soccer was tighter uniforms . His other great idea was to allow this World Cup to be played on artificial turf, even though the men have always had the comfort and true bounce of grass. Not until 2013 did FIFA finally place a woman on its executive committee. And FIFA persists with crude “gender verification regulations” to ensure that female players are of the “correct” sex. The association said it would double funding for women’s soccer between 2015 and 2018. And FIFA mandated that at least 15 percent of the financial assistance sent to the world’s 209 soccer associations be spent on women. But accounting for that money has been problematic. When the Trinidad and Tobago team arrived in the United States in October for the regional Women’s World Cup qualifying tournament, Coach Randy Waldrum sent out a financial S.O.S. via Twitter : “I need HELP! T&T sent a team here last night with $500 total. No equipment such as balls, no transportation from airport to hotel, nothing.” Image The Spanish women’s team called for the ouster of Coach Ignacio Quereda, who in 27 years has made the World Cup once. Credit Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Trinidad and Tobago’s soccer federation seems to have been run as a personal fief for years by Jack Warner, a former FIFA vice president. He has been charged by the United States Justice Department with, among other things, accepting a $10 million bribe to influence the awarding of the 2010 men’s World Cup to South Africa. According to the BBC , Mr. Warner is also being investigated for diverting as much as $750,000 sent by FIFA and the South Korean soccer federation to aid victims of the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Mr. Warner has denied any wrongdoing. (His two sons, Daryll and Daryan, have pleaded guilty in the corruption scandal.) Meanwhile, the penniless women’s national team from Haiti was left to try — unsuccessfully — to qualify for this World Cup by selling rotisserie chickens and T-shirts, holding clinics and relying on benefactors for housing and equipment at the team’s training base in South Bend, Ind. A vast majority of countries still do not wholly support women’s soccer. In China , the world’s most populous nation with 1.4 billion people, only 6,000 or 7,000 female players are registered above the age of 12. Two members of the Canadian women’s team supplement their modest soccer incomes by operating a food truck . Britain, in an act of lost-empire parochialism, will not field a women’s team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. There will be no British men’s team, either, because Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland fear losing their independent status within FIFA. But the men’s Olympic soccer tournament is an under-23 competition. For the women, it ranks second only to the World Cup. Not that the prize of Olympic medals is valued by everyone. After winning the 2011 World Cup, the Japanese women’s team flew to the 2012 London Olympics in coach while the men’s team traveled in business class. Cameroon reached the Women’s World Cup for the first time as the field for this year’s tournament was expanded to 24 teams, from 16, but the team’s coach, Enow Ngachu, somberly noted that, in Africa, “at times, they don’t allow women in football.” Some women have grown impatient with this dismissiveness. Charlyn Corral, a Mexican forward, called for the country’s longtime women’s coach, Leonardo Cuéllar, to be fired after the stagnant team finished last in its group at this World Cup. “We need new ideas,” Ms. Corral said, adding, “We need more competition, more players, to advance.” The entire Spanish women’s team signed a letter calling for the ouster of Coach Ignacio Quereda, who has been in charge for 27 years but has led the team to World Cup qualification only once. Spain exited meekly this year with two defeats and a tie. “This is a great moment for our sport, with many challenges and dreams lying ahead, which is why we feel that it is our joint responsibility to set the path we know we have to take,” the Spanish players wrote. Colombia still has no women’s league, and only three reporters are here covering the team. But a victory over the Americans might signal that “we could be the generation that really makes soccer acceptable,” Ms. Perez, the goalkeeper, said. FIFA, too, will have to work far more urgently to make that happen. “This is a billion-dollar company,” Ms. Foudy said. “There has to be something that says: ‘We are the guardians of the game. Not just the men’s game — the women’s game, too.’ ”

United States Women's National Soccer Team


Gunmen Attack a Thai Protest Leader

Abstract: BANGKOK — One of the principal leaders of the “yellow shirt” protest movement that brought the country to a political and economic standstill last year was attacked by gunmen Friday morning in Bangkok. Sondhi Limthongkul, the political activist and well-known Thai media mogul, was wounded in the brazen attack, along with his bodyguard and driver. Mr. Sondhi and the protesters he led, who wear the color yellow to symbolize their allegiance to 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, shut down Bangkok’s airports for a week last December and blockaded the Parliament, which was then governed by a party affiliated with former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. They stood down in December after that government fell in an election fraud scandal. Since then, thousands of pro-Thaskin demonstrators, wearing the color red to distinguish themselves from the yellow shirts, have taken to Bangkok’s streets, surrounding the prime minister’s office and holding demonstrations that turned violent last week. Many are farmers and small-businessmen who portray themselves as battling an entrenched, unelected but influential elite. Around dawn, as Mr. Sondhi was being driven to work, a pickup truck swerved close to his car, the police said, and sprayed it with bullets. Mr. Sondhi suffered injuries to his skull and internal bleeding, and he was rushed into surgery Friday morning, according to his doctor, Chaiwan Charoenchoktawee. He said he expected Mr. Sondhi to make a full recovery. Mr. Sondhi’s Web site showed pictures of his bullet-riddled Toyota SUV. A spokesman for Mr. Sondhi’s political group, the People’s Alliance for Democracy, said it was unclear who might have been behind the attack. “My personal belief is that this involves political issues because Sondhi has two positions — one in the P.A.D. leadership and the other in the media,” said the spokesman, Panthep Puapongpan. “We’re not sure which group it might be because there are so many groups now. “The government has to take full responsibility and I expect they will find out who’s responsible.” In last week’s demonstrations, tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters converged on central Bangkok and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. And a riot in the resort town of Pattaya led to the cancellation of an East Asian summit meeting there over the weekend. The disruption of the summit meeting — several Asian leaders had to be airlifted to safety — was a huge embarrassment to the government. The spiraling violence of the protests and a robust response by soldiers and police officers led Mr. Abhisit to declare a state of emergency on Sunday. The red shirts twice attacked Mr. Abhisit’s car. In one of those incidents, a senior aide was pulled from his vehicle and was injured. Arrest warrants have been issued for 13 protest organizers; three have been picked up and 10 are still being sought. A government spokesman said the shooting of Mr. Sondhi, who supports Mr. Abhisit, would affect the government’s deliberations on the lifting of the emergency decree. The cabinet was scheduled to discuss the matter on Friday. For their role in last year’s demonstrations, which included the occupation of government offices for several months, Mr. Sondhi and other yellow-shirt protest leaders were arrested on various charges. All were released on bail, and a rebellion charge against Mr. Sondhi was dismissed, although he still faces other lesser charges. Mr. Sondhi, 61, has opposed since 2005 Mr. Thaksin, who was deposed in a military coup in 2006. The demonstrations last year by the yellow shirts — largely led by Mr. Sondhi — crippled the regular operations of the pro-Thaksin government for months. The airport blockade preceded a Constitutional Court ruling on the election fraud scandal that removed the governing party from power, after which Parliament selected Mr. Abhisit as the prime minister.

Thailand
Demonstrations and Riots
People's Alliance for Democracy


General Motors Lobbies for Relief on Bailout Taxes

Abstract: DETROIT — General Motors , which is borrowing $13.4 billion from the federal government to remain solvent, is pressing Congress to waive a tax liability of as much as $7 billion related to the overhaul plan that it is completing this month, people with knowledge of the discussions said on Sunday. The tax bill, which could be enough to force the company into bankruptcy, would be a consequence of the terms that the Treasury Department required as part of the rescue package approved last month by the Bush administration. In accepting the loans, G.M. pledged to persuade its creditors to swap a large chunk of the automaker’s debt for equity in the company. The equity-for-debt exchange is aimed at ensuring G.M.’s viability in the future, but under corporate tax law, the swap would amount to debt forgiveness and count as income for G.M. The resulting tax bill could take G.M.’s cash level below the minimum needed for daily operations. G.M. is lobbying Congress to reduce or eliminate the tax liability, said people with knowledge of the effort, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. The Detroit News first revealed the lobbying effort on Friday. The House last week passed an $819 billion package that includes help for American auto companies, and the Senate could take up the bill as early as this week. G.M. has raised the tax issue with key members of the Michigan Congressional delegation, including Senator Debbie Stabenow and Representative John D. Dingell, Democrats who have been outspoken advocates for aid to the Detroit automakers. G.M. has until Feb. 17, when it is scheduled to receive the final $4 billion of its loan package, to submit a recovery plan to the Treasury. It must show progress in its restructuring by March 31 or risk having its loans recalled.

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (2008)


Medieval Festival in Rebellious Catalonia Takes on Modern Meaning

Abstract: BERGA, Spain — The Patum, a spectacular festival here that dates to medieval times, plays out the struggle between good and evil — represented by costumes and statues of angels, fire-wielding demons and dragons, and Christian knights fighting Turks and Moors — amid raucous celebrations over five days. But here in the heartland of Catalonia, the festival has also come to symbolize the far more modern political and social struggles of Spain — between right and left, church and state, the Spanish government in Madrid and Catalan secessionists. Catalonia’s independence drive has imbued the Patum, like so many other cultural symbols and expressions here, with ever greater nationalist significance for Catalans. On Sunday, the far-left mayor of Berga, Montserrat Venturós, 30, watched the climax of the Patum from the town hall’s balcony. Other separatist politicians sat alongside her, but no representatives from the Catholic Church or the Spanish military were present, apparently for the first time in the festival’s history. The mayor did not invite them. She also did not attend the Catholic Mass that traditionally opens the final, frenzied day of celebrations. The Patum is the only surviving festival of its kind in Catalonia, a distinction recognized by Unesco, which designated it in 2005 as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. But even if its street performances date to the 14th century, and its oldest official document is from 1621, the Patum continues to evolve. Like many such festivals, the Patum has religious origins, celebrated during the Catholic Feast of Corpus Christi, but it also has strong pagan elements. In medieval times, the Patum’s dancing followed a drum beat, whose “pa-tum” sound probably gave the festival its name. A band was later added, and on Sunday one of the dances was even performed to music adapted from a Bruce Springsteen song. The mayor justified the decision to reduce the Patum’s links to the church in the context of a secular society with weakening ties to Catholicism. “That things have always been done a certain way doesn’t mean you should never adapt to how we live and feel, in a secular country,” she said in an interview. “In the 21st century, I see no need for the church to keep the same role in this feast.” Ms. Venturós’s defiance has reached beyond the Patum. In April, she refused to appear in court after being charged with flying the Estelada, a flag that has become an emblem for Catalan secessionists, on the town hall during elections. “I’m not going to stand in a politicized trial, shaped by the politicians in Madrid, when I’m now helping build a new country,” Ms. Venturós said. “I’m here to respond to the will of my own people.” Image Pro-independence flags on the municipal building in Berga. After elections in May last year, Berga and its roughly 16,000 inhabitants became the most important Catalan town hall run by the CUP, a radical party that has punched above its weight in Catalan politics recently and is playing a pivotal role in the secession drive. Credit Samuel Aranda for The New York Times Ramon Minoves Pujols, a town hall councilor from the conservative Convergence party, said the mayor should have gone to Mass on Sunday to represent the city, even if she did not agree with Mass. “It’s just a lack of respect,” he said. Mr. Minoves Pujols wore a suit and tie, like most others from his party, in contrast to the sleeveless tops and T-shirts chosen by the mayor and her colleagues from the Popular Unity Candidacy, known by its Catalan acronym, CUP. These colleagues included Francesc Ribera, a musician turned politician better known as Titot, whose band, Brams, became popular in the 1990s. “When I first started singing, the independence movement was residual in Catalonia, but now that independence really drives us forward, it’s normal to make it a more important part of our feast,” he said. Marc Majà, the local priest, said after celebrating Sunday Mass that he was sad to see his church sidelined from the Patum for the first time. “The fact is that the roots of the Patum are religious, so it makes every sense to continue to invite each other,” he said. “But I’m not here to promote a new conflict between church and state when we have so many more serious problems to deal with.” Santi Vila, Catalonia’s regional cultural minister, who was visiting on Sunday from Barcelona, the Catalan capital, said, “If there was not such a strong patriotic feeling here, I think the Patum probably wouldn’t have resisted to all the political regimes and changes over so many centuries.” In fact, the Patum has “increasingly become a source of pride and integration in our town,” said Pere Gendrau, a journalist who carried one of the 12-foot-high statues during the Patum. Carriers used to be paid to lift the giant statues, he noted, but “people now fight for this honor.” After municipal elections in May last year, Berga and its roughly 16,000 inhabitants became the most important Catalan town hall run by the CUP, a radical party that has punched above its weight in Catalan politics recently and is playing a pivotal role in the secession drive. After forcing the replacement of Artur Mas as Catalonia’s regional president in January, CUP lawmakers are threatening to scuttle a regional budget deal if other separatist parties do not accelerate the secessionist plan. The budget dispute could force Catalonia to hold repeat elections. The Patum lasts five days, officially culminating on Sunday, but it stretched into the early hours of Monday. During a final collective frenzy, the town’s asymmetric square, overflowing with thousands of dancing revelers, was invaded by masked demons, known as Plens. The demons used the cover of darkness to spread across the crowd and set off firecrackers attached to their costumes, turning the square into a hellish ball of fire and smoke. (About 900 firecrackers and 100 flares were used.) Monitoring the earlier stages of the Patum from the top of the town hall, Joaquim Mas, an official in charge of the logistics and pyrotechnics of the festival, said that he was delighted to see the Estelada hanging from balconies, as well as wrapped around the neck of the eagle and dragon statues. He added that he was equally pleased that he did not see any priest on the balcony. “This has always been a great occasion for Berga and Catalonia, but I really feel everything has just got perfect this year,” Mr. Mas said. He added that he was also looking forward to the final inferno re-creation, but partly for more practical reasons. “All good things need to come to an end — and I’ve not slept for four nights,” he said.

Festival
Catalonia
Berga
Spain
Catholic Church
Separation of church and state
Convergence and Union Party Spain


Procter & Gamble to Streamline Offerings, Dropping Up to 100 Brands

Abstract: After years of expansion into areas like pet food and beauty products, Procter & Gamble announced on Friday that it would cut as many as 100 brands from its arsenal to focus on others, like Tide, that made the company a powerhouse over the decades. The move is part of a strategy to improve the company’s financial performance by doubling down on about 80 brands that generate 95 percent of the profits and 90 percent of sales, according to A. G. Lafley, the firm’s chief executive. The company, and the industry at large, have faced pressure as consumers continue to spend less than they did before the financial crisis. “This new streamlined P.&G. should continue to grow faster and more sustainably, and reliably create more value,” he said in a telephone call with reporters and analysts to discuss the firm’s fourth-quarter results. “Importantly, this will be a much simpler, much less complex company of leading brands that’s easier to manage and operate.” While Mr. Lafley did not say which of the estimated 100 brands would either be discontinued or sold off, he said that taken together they had aggregate sales declines of 3 percent a year over the last three years. The cuts would leave about 70 to 80 more lucrative products remaining. Image A. G. Lafley, chief of P.&G. Credit Al Behrman/Associated Press Ali Dibadj, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, speculated that Procter & Gamble would probably keep mainstay products like Pampers, Gillette and Tide. But he speculated that lesser-known brands like Zooth, a children’s oral care brand, the beauty brand Graham Webb and the Southeast Asian laundry detergent Trojan could be cut. But Mr. Dibadj said that Procter & Gamble might not just be considering sales. “It’s not just big or small,” he said. “A strategic fit is also going to be important.” Mr. Dibadj speculated that Procter & Gamble could also choose to divest itself of brands that did not necessarily fit in with its traditional baby and family products, like the battery maker Duracell or the Braun line of small electronic appliances. Beauty, too, has been a trouble spot for the company. Excluding certain currency adjustments and one-time events, the company reported that sales in the unit declined 3 percent in the fourth quarter, in contrast to the corporate average for beauty products of 2 percent growth, according to Nik Modi, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. While Olay, Pantene and Cover Girl were on Mr. Dibadj’s list of companies Procter & Gamble was likely to keep, he speculated that the company might divest itself of a number of other beauty lines, including Naomi Campbell’s line of perfumes and colognes and the hair care line Frederic Fekkai. “It’s not just by chance that P.&G.'s beauty business has underperformed for such a long period of time,” Mr. Modi said. “Maybe they just don’t have what it takes to be in the beauty business.” Mr. Modi said that part of Procter & Gamble’s challenge was that it relied on a global strategy, whereas beauty is a more “nuanced” business. “Women in China want something different than women in the U.S.,” Mr. Modi said. “That changes the way you actually manufacture, go to market, how you advertise the product.” Image Procter & Gamble said that reducing its brands would allow it to concentrate on mainstays like Tide detergent. Credit Mario Anzuoni/Reuters Consumers are still spending less five years after the financial crisis, and Procter & Gamble, like other manufacturers, have been under pressure to improve sales and cut costs. Last year, it also faced pressure from one of its main investors, the hedge fund manager William A. Ackman, who helped push the board to oust the previous chief executive, Robert A. McDonald. Mr. Lafley, who served as chief executive and president from 2000 to 2009, appears determined to streamline the company’s core operations. In April, Procter & Gamble agreed to sell its pet food brands Iams and Eukanuba to the candy maker Mars for $2.9 billion. Procter & Gamble has already been focusing on some of its core products to try to bolster sales. Taking cues from the success of single-use dishwasher detergents, for example, Procter & Gamble has been pushing the same idea with Tide Pods, individually wrapped doses of detergent. On Friday, the company reported that overall net sales fell 1 percent to $20 billion in the quarter ending June 30, while cost savings helped increase profit by 38 percent, to $2.6 billion. “We could have and should have done better,” Mr. Lafley said. For the year, net income rose to $11.6 billion, up from $11.3 billion the same period a year ago. That translates to $4.01 a share, an increase from $3.86 a share last year. Shares of Procter & Gamble rose 3 percent on Friday to close at $79.65.

Procter & Gamble
Mergers and Acquisitions
Soap Detergent and Cleansers


From Prince Andrew, Critical Words for U.S. on Iraq

Abstract: While Prince Andrew declares himself a fan of the United States — and his cellphone ring tone comes from the American TV drama “24” — the man who is fourth in line to the British throne has some critical words for America’s Iraq policy and thinks that Washington should have listened to advice from London. In a rare Buckingham Palace interview ahead of his departure Tuesday for a 10-day U.S. trip to support British business, the prince described the United States as Britain ’s No. 1 ally but conceded that relations were in a trough. There are, he added, “occasions when people in the U.K. would wish that those in responsible positions in the U.S. might listen and learn from our experiences.” The prince has a full-time role as a trade envoy for Britain but for 22 years he was in the Royal Navy, serving as a helicopter pilot during the Falklands conflict, and Iraq is a preoccupation. Because of its imperial history, Britain has experienced much of what the United States is going through, Prince Andrew said. “If you are looking at colonialism, if you are looking at operations on an international scale, if you are looking at understanding each other’s culture, understanding how to operate in a military insurgency campaign — we have been through them all,” he said. “We’ve won some, lost some, drawn some. The fact is there is quite a lot of experience over here which is valid and should be listened to.” Prince Andrew’s view that post-invasion chaos in Iraq could have been avoided if President Bush’s administration had listened more is widely shared in Britain. Geoff Hoon, the former British defense secretary, has said that British views on Iraq were ignored in the decisions to outlaw the Baath Party and dissolve the Iraqi military. The fallout from Iraq has fueled, the prince argues, “healthy skepticism” toward what is said in Washington, and a feeling of “why didn’t anyone listen to what was said and the advice that was given.” After all, British views had been sought — “it’s not as if we had been forcing that across the Atlantic.” The prince, 47, says it was an adjustment to go from a life in the navy to being a figurehead for business as special representative for international trade and investment, the role he took on in 2001. His office has reminders of his former life, including paintings of 19th-century naval scenes. “I was the glamorous one dressed in a uniform who flew his helicopter and I was there to defend, to be an instrument of Her Majesty’s government whenever and wherever they so chose. And I thought it was frightfully glamorous,” he said. He added, “When you then come out and go into the business world, actually you realize that the real people who are actually making the United Kingdom what it is are the people who are doing business.” The Falklands War in 1982 was a formative experience and one that, he says, changed him “out of all recognition” and left “a different view of life.” Since then he has been to Argentina, visited the country’s navy and found himself at a memorial to the Belgrano, an Argentine warship sunk by the British that resulted in the loss of 368 lives. Prince Andrew says he was very fortunate to marry Sarah Ferguson; they divorced in 1996 after their 10-year marriage “didn’t go quite according to plan.” The prince speaks warmly of his ex-wife and praises her success in the United States, where her weight-loss campaigning and other activities are reported to have cleared her substantial debts. “We have managed to work together to bring our children up in a way that few others have been able to do and I am extremely grateful to be able to do that,” he said. Though periodically portrayed by the British tabloids as a playboy, Prince Andrew is regarded as the most affable of the queen’s children. The only faint signs of irritation in the interview last week appeared when asked about his travel expenses, which have been criticized by the British media. They are, he says, a “little tiny spot in the ocean by comparison to many people.” The trauma that followed the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales, underlined the need for the British royal family to modernize, and Prince Andrew’s transformation into a trade envoy seems part of that process. His role involves helping small British businesses make the right contacts, meeting influential trade partners, sometimes lobbying on specific contracts and selling the merits of his country as a location for investment. Britain, he says, is “probably the most open free market economy in the world.” That is a message he will carry to Florida, California, Georgia and New York. Since he does not close deals, it is difficult to quantify the value of his work. But Sir Digby Jones, the British minister for trade promotion who will accompany him, describes the prince as very effective. “He gets in to see people because he is the son of the queen. The U.K. would be foolish not to use this.” Ironically, it falls to a member of the royal family to dispel the image of Britain as an old-fashioned, class-ridden, society. British businesses are, Prince Andrew says, “a good deal more discreet — they’re not as brash as perhaps U.S. companies are — so you might not see the outward vestiges of entrepreneurialism that is actually going on here.”

Iraq
Royal Family
United States Armament and Defense
Great Britain


Obama, in Nebraska and Louisiana, Aims to Kick Off Discussions on Future

Abstract: OMAHA — Lisa Martin woke up in the middle of the night last winter, the mother of a newborn son nursing anxieties about his future. So at 4 a.m., she sat down and typed out a letter to President Obama expressing her fears and sent it by email to the White House. A year later, almost to the day, an 18-car motorcade pulled up in front of Ms. Martin’s house in a suburb of this Nebraska city on Wednesday to deliver a personal response from the president. The future is bright, he told her and by extension the country, but that requires the nation to follow his policy prescriptions. “I want everybody to remember, America’s been through big changes before,” Mr. Obama told a crowd of 8,000 at a stadium here after visiting Ms. Martin’s home. “And each time, we overcame our fears and we overcame our challenges. Each time, we made change work for us. And each time, we emerged stronger and better than we were before. That’s what we do as Americans.” The president used Ms. Martin’s letter of distress on Wednesday to make a political point and reinforce the message he tried to deliver in his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night. In picking this red-state city as the first stop of his postspeech tour, he landed just across the river from Iowa, where Republicans seeking to win the first vote in the election to succeed him have been promising to fix a nation they say Mr. Obama broke, or at least failed to fix. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said the “geographic circumstance” was “an appealing side benefit of the trip,” and his boss used it to engage his critics. Mr. Obama mocked what he called their negative language and their simplistic, jingoistic promises. Image President Obama departed the White House on Wednesday for a two-day trip to Nebraska and Louisiana. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times “I don’t know if the TV ads drift over here, but they’re kind of depressing,” he said at Baxter Arena at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. “I liked talking about hope and all the good stuff that was going on. And then you look at some of these ads, and it’s some doom and some gloom.” Mr. Obama said Republicans were trying to scare Americans with such talk. “It’s not what I see every day,” he said. “That’s not what I see in communities and neighborhoods all across this country.” He went on to chide the Republicans for promising to “solve challenges just by looking meaner and talking tougher or carpet bombing wherever we want.” “That’s just hot air,” he added. “It’s bluster. It’s not serious. It’s not serious.” “There’s another word for it that starts with a B,” he said, and then paused as the crowd laughed. “It’s baloney,” he added with a grin. Nebraska is not friendly territory for Mr. Obama, a state where, as he put it, he “got whupped” in 2012. Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, initially said he would not meet the president at the airport because he was busy, but after being criticized, he reversed course and greeted Mr. Obama on the tarmac of Offutt Air Force Base. Aides said the president wanted to come here and to Louisiana, his next stop, to talk with people who do not agree with him, much as he did at his town-hall-style meeting on guns that was broadcast on CNN last week. He will hold another town-hall-type meeting in Baton Rouge on Thursday and answer questions on Twitter. Video Jonathan Weisman of The Times analyzes key moments from the president’s last annual address to Congress. Credit Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times But in his carefully scripted visit here to Nebraska, Mr. Obama ran into few people who disagreed with him, instead addressing a raucous crowd of supporters who cheered him on, some of them holding up letters that spelled OBAMAHA. While he came here during his 2008 campaign and stopped once on the way to Iowa after taking office, this was his first speech in Nebraska. Unimpressed with the State of the Union address, Republicans dismissed Mr. Obama’s postspeech tour as an exercise in political flackery. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, greeted the president with an op-ed article in The Omaha World-Herald assailing an administration attempt to regulate streams and ponds by unilaterally stretching the definitions of the Clean Water Act. “It’s another example of Washington bureaucrats sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong,” Mr. Ryan wrote. He promised that the House would vote to overturn the rule, which it indeed did later Wednesday, while acknowledging that Mr. Obama would veto the bill. “But it will force him to be up front with the American people about his administration’s power grabs and will set the stage for correcting these abuses in 2017,” Mr. Ryan wrote. He added, “When the president visits to offer his ideas, remember what he’s taking away from Nebraskans.” Ms. Martin, a high school English teacher who lives in Papillion, a bedroom community outside Omaha, wrote to the president on Jan. 28, 2015, shortly after her son, Cooper, was born. She wrote that she had woken up at 4 a.m. and had a “sinking feeling of dread and sadness” about Cooper’s future, given the damage to the environment. “Will my son be able to thrive on this planet?” she asked in the emailed letter, released by the White House on Wednesday . “Will he be able to experience the small things, such as winter in Nebraska, where he has snow days and sledding? Where he comes home to me cooking homemade hot cocoa for him, like I did? Sadly, I think the answer is no.” Mr. Obama’s motorcade arrived Wednesday afternoon at her home, decorated with a sign saying, “Bless this house with love and laughter.” Waiting were Ms. Martin, her husband, Jeff, and some friends and family. Ms. Martin’s toddler son looked perplexed by the throng of reporters jammed inside the house with microphones. “Look at these things,” Mr. Obama told the little boy. Sharing the lessons of his own experience, the president offered a tongue-in-cheek caution: “If you can’t say anything that they might quote you on. ..., ” without finishing the thought. The president seemed in a loose, relaxed mood with his last State of the Union speech behind him. At the university, a supporter in the audience said he should have another term in office. “I can’t do that because of the Constitution,” Mr. Obama responded. “And I can’t do that because Michelle would kill me.” Much of his speech repeated his State of the Union address, sometimes word for word. But he offered a popular culture reference, noting that his favorite movie of last year was “The Martian,” starring Matt Damon as an astronaut left behind on Mars who had to find a way to survive. He noted that Mr. Damon’s character said he had to “science the heck out of this,” although “heck” was not the word actually used. “That’s the American spirit, right?” the president said. “O.K., let’s solve the problem.”

State of the Union,SOTU,State of the Union 2015


New York TV Station Takes Chance on Liquor Ads

Abstract: ALMOST six years after NBC ended an experiment to bring the first liquor commercials onto national broadcast network television, the flagship station it owns, WNBC-TV in New York, has started running such spots. The decision is a small but significant sign of changing attitudes toward advertising of products that many consider contentious. From 1948 until 1996, no TV station or network accepted liquor ads although distilled spirits were advertised in newspapers, magazines and billboards. Today, hundreds of television stations and networks carry commercials for distilled spirits. But the four biggest broadcast networks, including NBC, do not. They remain skittish about critics who contend that opening television — still the most powerful advertising medium — to the marketers of distilled spirits will more readily expose those pitches to children and teenagers. “Liquor is becoming more popular among young people, particularly young women,” said George A. Hacker, director for the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group that has long sought to curb the promotion of distilled spirits. “That is a troublesome result of expanding the advertising of liquor to television,” Mr. Hacker said. “It seems to be paying off really well.” The commercials on WNBC, Channel 4, began appearing last Friday, without fanfare. Plans call for the spots to run through the new year on news, talk and sports programs. The spots are being sponsored by the Bacardi North America division of Bacardi & Company and feature brands like Bacardi rum and Grey Goose vodka. The spots are running under guidelines recently adopted by WNBC that include limiting the appearance of such commercials to shows scheduled after 11 p.m. and requiring the sponsors to include messages about drinking responsibly. “The idea here was to take a responsible attitude and do it appropriately,” said Frank Comerford, president and general manager at WNBC, “to be very targeted to an audience 21 and over and have social responsibility messages.” As an example of wanting “to not run things that are in danger of annoying people,” Mr. Comerford said, the spots will not appear in local station breaks on Channel 4 during the NBC show “Saturday Night Live.” • Although the percentage of WNBC viewers for the show who are 21 or older “is in the high 90’s,” he added, the number who are under the legal drinking age led him and Bacardi North America to steer clear. NBC, part of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric, still does not accept liquor commercials. The network says the decision by WNBC was made by the station, and Mr. Comerford agreed. All three of the other big national networks — ABC , owned by Walt Disney; CBS , part of the CBS Corporation; and Fox , a unit of the News Corporation — have policies against carrying spots for distilled spirits. WNBC is the only one of the 10 local stations owned by NBC Universal, as part of a newly renamed division, NBC Local Media, that is accepting liquor commercials; the others are in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, among other cities. None of the local stations owned by ABC, CBS and Fox run liquor spots, meaning that WNBC is — at least for now — the only one. About two dozen national cable networks carry spots for distilled spirits, including all those owned by NBC Universal like Bravo, Sci Fi and USA. Cable networks like CNN and ESPN recently began accepting liquor commercials. Around 700 local broadcast stations that are not owned by ABC, CBS, Fox or NBC also carry liquor spots, compared with about 400 in 2003, along with hundreds of local cable systems. “Almost no viewer can tell the difference between broadcast and cable,” Mr. Comerford said, noting that liquor commercials appeared during coverage of the Major League Baseball playoffs on a cable network, TBS. In addition to the 11 p.m. newscast, the spots are appearing during a late-night sports show produced by WNBC, “Mike’d Up,” as well as on local station breaks during NBC shows like “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” “The viewing audiences for these shows are 90, 95 percent or more 21 and above,” said John Esposito, president and chief executive at Bacardi North America in Miami. “We want to make sure we didn’t cross any lines.” To that end, Mr. Esposito said, he agreed to the stipulations from WNBC limiting when the spots could run and requiring that they all include messages about drinking responsibly. The 11 p.m. rule is stricter than that on most of the cable networks used by Bacardi; they run liquor spots after 10 p.m. • The first commercial WNBC is running is devoted to drinking responsibly and ends with the Bacardi rum logo. It was created by Y&R, part of the Young & Rubicam Brands unit of the WPP Group. Coming soon will be a “happy holidays” spot, featuring four varieties of Bacardi rum, also from Y&R, which ends with an announcer declaring, “Hey, enjoy responsibly,” and a spot for Grey Goose, by @radical.media, also with a responsibility ending. From 1948 to 1996, the makers of distilled spirits adhered to a voluntary ban on television advertising as administered by an industry trade association, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. They avoided television as an acknowledgment that millions of Americans were uncomfortable with seeing ads for so-called hard liquor on TV although stations and networks have long carried spots for other types of alcoholic beverages like beer and wine. The trade association dropped the voluntary ban in November 1996, five months after a big member, Seagram, ran a commercial for Crown Royal Canadian whiskey on an ABC station in Corpus Christi, Tex. Liquor ads subsequently poured onto other local stations, followed by local cable systems in 1998 and cable networks. The NBC experiment began in December 2001 when the unit of the liquor giant Diageo that sold Smirnoff vodka ran a commercial during “Saturday Night Live.” The plan called for spots promoting responsible drinking to run for four months, only after 9 p.m., to be followed by product commercials. But a widespread outcry against the experiment, from Congress, federal regulators and the American Medical Association, led NBC to cut it short in March 2002. Mr. Comerford, it turns out, worked on those plans at NBC in 2001 with Mr. Esposito, who was then president at Schieffelin & Somerset, a joint venture of Diageo and LVMH. The failure to proceed years ago was disappointing, Mr. Esposito said, but since then “I think the world has evolved.” One indication of that came in some responses from Mr. Hacker — a vociferous opponent of the NBC plans — to the WNBC effort. He said the decision to not run the spots during “Saturday Night Live” was “commendable.” “And they’ve tightened the requirement since the last time,” Mr. Hacker said, especially by moving the starting time to 11 p.m. from 9 p.m. “The message here is that maybe 11 o’clock ought to be the rule for all alcoholic beverages on television,” he added, “to do everything possible to avoid young people in the audience.” Mr. Hacker said he believed that the decision by WNBC was “a test of the potential response” to running liquor spots on all the local stations owned by NBC. On that point, a spokeswoman for NBC, Liz Fischer, said: “These decisions would be made by the individual stations. It would be up to them to decide if it was appropriate in their markets.”

Television
Wnbc-TV
Alcoholic Beverages
Advertising and Marketing


‘S.N.L.’ Hires Black Female Cast Member

Abstract: “Saturday Night Live” concluded its search for a black female cast member on Monday when it hired Sasheer Zamata, a young sketch comedian who has been performing in the New York area for the last four years. The selection of Ms. Zamata came at the conclusion of what amounted to a midseason talent search by “S.N.L.,” which had been criticized for what was described as a glaring omission in the show’s cast. Ms. Zamata will be what the show calls a “featured player,” the conventional post for new cast members. She is scheduled to make her first appearance on Jan. 18, the next new edition of the show. (It will be hosted by the singer Drake.) The news of Ms. Zamata’s hiring was first posted by the Deadline Hollywood website. Ms. Zamata, who is 27, is from Indianapolis and attended the University of Virginia. She came to New York in 2009 and began working with the improvisational group Upright Citizens Brigade. She has performed stand-up comedy in New York and around the country and has also appeared in online videos for sites like College Humor. She has appeared in sketches on the Comedy Central series “Inside Amy Schumer” and “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” on FX. The addition of Ms. Zamata will bring the current cast of “S.N.L.” to 17 players, seven of them women.

Saturday Night Live
Sasheer Zamata
Comedy
Upright Citizens Brigade
TV
Black People,African-Americans
Women and Girls