Goldman’s Record Year Ends With Modest Gain

Abstract: Goldman Sachs did it again. Now the question is whether the Wall Street bank can do it again and again. The company capped another record year on Tuesday with a modest gain in fourth-quarter earnings, prospering amid the financial tumult that has hurt many of its rivals. But investors are growing increasingly worried that Goldman, which raced ahead as the mortgage crisis tore through Wall Street, will fail to match its 2007 performance next year. David A. Viniar, Goldman’s chief financial officer, reinforced those concerns on Tuesday by saying he was “cautious” about the short-term outlook although bullish for the longer term. Goldman stock slumped even though the latest results topped analysts’ forecasts. For now, Goldman and its employees have much to celebrate. Helped by big one-time gains, fourth-quarter earnings increased 2.2 percent, to $3.2 billion, or $7.01 a share, handily beating the $6.61 a share expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. That put the company’s earnings for the year up 21 percent, to $11.4 billion, or $24.64 a share. The record annual showing will mean a record payday for Goldman’s employees. The company set aside $20.2 billion for bonuses this year, or $661,490 an employee. That is up 6 percent from 2006. Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive, is expected to take home about $70 million. But during the latest quarter, many of Goldman’s core businesses were battered along with those of its competitors. And while analysts applauded the company’s ability to weather the mortgage market crisis, many focused on how hard it will be to replicate these successes in 2008. “It certainly looks like Goldman Sachs is not immune to the laws of gravity,” said Brad Hintz, a securities industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, who noted that Goldman’s fixed-income and equities businesses suffered during the fourth quarter, while new investment banking deals were smaller than those that closed during the previous quarter. David A. Hendler, an analyst at CreditSights, a securities research firm, said that the firm’s bearish bets on mortgages, which buoyed its third-quarter results and cushioned the pain in the fourth quarter, carried too many risks. “They got through it this time, but we think a better posture is to not load up on the risk so you don’t have to rely on the Houdini hedge escape, which is what they did,” Mr. Hendler said. For the fourth quarter, Goldman earned $10.7 billion in net revenue, an increase of 14 percent from a year earlier and down 13 percent from the previous quarter. Compared with the period a year ago, Goldman reported a 98 percent increase in financial advisory revenue, a 26 percent decline in principal investments and a 39 percent surge in equities, which Mr. Viniar said came from Goldman’s clients’ business and its proprietary trading. But the fourth quarter paled compared with the third quarter, when profit surged 79 percent. Revenue from financial advisory fell 12 percent during the fourth quarter while overall investment banking revenue was down 8 percent compared with the third quarter. Fixed-income, currencies and commodities fell 32 percent, even though that unit was helped by an $800 million gain from the sale of Goldman’s stake in Cogentrix Energy Inc. Equities fell 17 percent, corporate and real estate investments decreased 29 percent and asset management revenues stumbled 3 percent. The latest results were helped by $1 billion in private equity gains, as well as by gains on leveraged loans the firm was able to sell at a profit. Goldman did not disclose any mortgage write-downs but said they were modest for the year and were offset by the firm’s bearish bet on the mortgage sector. Value-at-risk, a common gauge of the amount of risk a firm is taking by measuring the amount of money the firm could lose on a given day with a certain measure of confidence, skyrocketed to $151 million from $106 million for the fourth quarter of 2006. Investors are now focused on 2008. Mr. Viniar, the chief financial officer, emphasized that November was a tough month, with many clients sitting on the sidelines. He predicted that there would not be any huge leveraged buyouts in the near future but suggested strategic investments could pick up if the economy continued to grow and the markets started to recover — two big ifs. Goldman’s stock fell $7.12, or 3.4 percent, to $201.51 in New York trading on Tuesday.

Mortgages
Company Reports
Goldman Sachs Group Incorporated
Banks and Banking
Stocks and Bonds
Finances
Wall Street (NYC)


German Foreign Minister Defends Merkel’s Coalition

Abstract: BERLIN — Defying calls for his resignation, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle went on the offensive Thursday in a speech aimed at quashing dissent while warning of a drift leftward if supporters failed to rally around his Free Democrats party. In a spirited 80-minute speech punctuated by applause but also by heckling, Mr. Westerwelle sought to bolster Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition, which has been dragged down in opinion polls by the Free Democrats, her partners since October 2009. “We liberals will fight. I will fight because Germany deserves better than a left-wing majority,” Mr. Westerwelle, who is also deputy chancellor, told delegates at the party’s annual New Year’s assembly in the opera house in Stuttgart, the regional capital of Baden-Württemberg. Opinion polls show a significant rise in support for the opposition Greens and Social Democrats while the Left Party, which is socialist in outlook, retains a large following in eastern Germany and has made inroads in the western states. The Free Democrats, who won almost 15 percent in the 2009 federal elections, have since plummeted to below 5 percent in the latest opinion polls. This in turn has damaged overall support for Mrs. Merkel’s government, with her backing declining to about 37 percent, a 10 percentage point drop since her re-election in 2009. But Mr. Westerwelle, praised even by his political opponents as a gifted orator, hit back Thursday. “Public opinion is not the measure of our policies,” he said. “Our policies are measured by our ideals, our beliefs and our values.” With his eye on crucial regional elections in the coming months, which will test the popularity of the party but particularly Mrs. Merkel’s coalition, Mr. Westerwelle defended his party’s record in the government. Responding to criticism that extends to his own party members that he has failed to carve out a prominent identity and role for the Free Democrats, he told delegates that the Free Democrats remained Germany’s only genuine liberal party — in the traditional, 19th-century sense of a commitment to smaller government, a simplified tax system and reward for achievement, in contrast with the opposition parties. “Germany is doing better today than before the last national election,” he said. “There is no country in the world that has come out of the financial crisis as well as Germany. We liberals had the courage to do what was right, even if we weren’t congratulated for it every day.” However, since joining the government in 2009 after 11 years in opposition, the Free Democrats have supported more state supervision over the banks. The party has expanded the Development Ministry, which it leads, after saying in its 2009 election campaign that it wanted to abolish it or merge it with the Foreign Ministry in order to reduce bureaucracy. And it has failed to push through any major tax reforms. Analysts said one of the main reasons Mr. Westerwelle had become so unpopular was that he had been unable to fulfill the expectations of his voters, the majority of whom are middle-class professionals or entrepreneurs. “The expectations were just so high when the Free Democrats entered the government in 2009,” said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Free University in Berlin. “No wonder the disappointment among its supporters is so great. It is all very well attacking the opposition and raising the specter of a left-wing government, but what about the substance? The forthcoming regional elections will show if Mr. Westerwelle can reverse the party’s fortunes.”

Germany
Westerwelle Guido
Politics and Government
Free Democratic Party (Germany)


Reform Chief Questions United States Involvement in FIFA, Defends Sepp Blatter

Abstract: Somebody needs to tell François Carrard, the Swiss lawyer recently named to lead FIFA’s reform committee , that he should really stop being so annoyingly impartial and tell the public how he really feels. In an interview published Sunday in the Swiss newspaper Le Matin — one of his first interviews since he was named to lead the reform committee — Carrard shared his thoughts on a number of topics that have hung in the air since United States prosecutors rudely interrupted FIFA’s longstanding dance with corruption and started arresting people. Among his most notable remarks to American ears was his questioning why Americans should even be involved in FIFA at all when football, baseball and basketball are so much more popular in the United States. He said, in French, that soccer was not “a true American sport.” “There, it’s just an ethnic sport for girls in schools,” he said. Let’s see him repeat those comments to Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd or Hope Solo, or any of the other members of the United States team that just won the Women’s World Cup. Or to Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard, who helped lead the United States men’s team to the Round of 16 at last year’s World Cup. (That is the same round the Swiss men reached, by the way.) Image Sepp Blatter, right, in Switzerland this month. He is giving up the presidency of FIFA. Credit Laurent Gillieron/Keystone, via Associated Press Carrard’s words were fighting words, if fighting 77-year-old Swiss lawyers is your thing. But it’s disturbing that those comments weren’t the worst of what Carrard said to Le Matin. Even more troubling was how Carrard — the man charged by FIFA with overseeing reforms at FIFA — characterized the organization and its tainted president, Sepp Blatter , who announced in June that he would give up the presidency he has held since 1998. Carrard implied that ensuring FIFA survived the reform process was a top priority, declaring that without FIFA, “soccer would die.” As for the United States’ criminal case against the 14 soccer and marketing executives arrested in May on the eve of FIFA’s annual congress, Carrard said he was sure the matter involved only “a few rogues” on the executive committee. Blatter? Well, Carrard could almost be heard sniffling with sympathy when describing how the FIFA president has suffered as this corruption scandal has unfolded. “This man is being treated unfairly,” Carrard said of Blatter, noting that his fellow Swiss was not named as a target in the indictments. “Unfortunately, it’s always like that when somebody stays too long — the negative takes over.” (Carrard neglected to point out that “the negative” is actually accusations of a decades-long criminal conspiracy, and that “too long” includes being at the helm of global soccer at a time when at least half of FIFA’s executive committee has been tarnished by ethics or corruption charges. And is it “too long,” or just “the negative” again, when a large group of the president’s associates are hauled out of their hotel rooms in handcuffs?) Sadly, Carrard’s words do not sound like declarations of a man serious about cleaning up FIFA. They sound like words from a man out to defend FIFA. That’s too bad. Carrard had so much potential. He came to the job as the former director general of the International Olympic Committee, an executive who had helped clean up the mess of the bribery scandal involving the bidding for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Those revelations shook the I.O.C. as deeply as the recent charges are shaking FIFA today. This time, though, Carrard appears to be such an efficient investigator that he didn’t even need to investigate to come up with opinions on how FIFA operates, and who is at fault, and — most important — who is not. He said, “I do not want to judge,” but already, he has judged Blatter and his associates and the entire game of soccer in the United States. He even judged the United States justice system, criticizing Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch for holding a news conference to announce the charges when “crimes like this happen in the U.S. every day.” And then was brazen enough, or foolish enough, to go on the record about it. It’s clear that Carrard knows how to land punches. It’s just as clear that he doesn’t know much about which he speaks. Any roster full of girls on a school soccer team could tell you that. But here’s what everyone should know: There is such a thing as Swiss neutrality. Unfortunately, in this case, the investigator has already hinted at his conclusion, before he has even seen much of the evidence.

FIFA
Sepp Blatter
Corruption
Soccer
Francois Carrard
United States Soccer Federation


Blackwater’s Legacy Goes Beyond Public View

Abstract: By the time four former Blackwater security guards were sentenced this week to long prison terms for the 2007 fatal shooting of 14 civilians in Iraq, the man who sent the contractors there had long since moved on from the country and the company he made notorious. Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, a former member of the Navy SEALs and heir to a Michigan auto parts fortune, has spent the last few years searching for new missions, new fields of fire and new customers. He has worked in Abu Dhabi and now focuses his efforts on Africa, with ties to the Chinese government, which is eager for access to some of the continent’s natural resources. Mr. Prince’s current firm, Frontier Services Group, provides what it describes as “expeditionary logistics” for mining, oil and natural gas operations in Africa, and has the backing of Citic Group, a large state-owned Chinese investment company. The private security industry that Mr. Prince helped bring to worldwide attention has fallen from public view since the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the two conflicts sped the maturation of security firms from bit players on the edge of global conflicts to multinational companies that guard oil fields in Libya, analyze intelligence for United States forces in Afghanistan, help fight insurgents in parts of Africa and train American-backed militaries in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Video Iraqis reacted to the sentences given in the trial of four former Blackwater guards who opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square in 2007. Many believe the sentences are too lenient. Credit Credit Associated Press “This industry is now truly global,” said Sean McFate, author of “The Modern Mercenary,” a book on the private security industry. “That’s the legacy of Blackwater — they didn’t really make the business, but they’ve symbolized it. They’ve become the hood ornaments for an industry that was for centuries pretty much illegal, and now it’s pretty much re-emerged.” Security companies say they have taken steps toward ensuring that their guards are well trained and behave professionally. Industry officials say that one of the consequences of the 2007 shooting has been to impose more rigorous controls on contractors handling diplomatic security for the State Department, as Blackwater was doing when its security guards fired into Baghdad’s crowded Nisour Square, killing unarmed Iraqis, enraging the country. “Those sort of reckless days with contractors running around like cowboys are over,” said one senior industry executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It is 180 degrees different. There is a lot more oversight and regulation.” Others, including Ryan Crocker, the former American ambassador to Iraq, agree that there are more controls over contractors. Still, there are calls for greater transparency. Just tracking the growth of the industry as it has expanded beyond work for the United States government has proved exceptionally difficult. In Africa and the Middle East, most governments do not publicize the companies they hire, and private businesses are similarly tight-lipped. As a result, there are no solid numbers on how many armed contractors are currently working around the world, and estimates of industry revenues range from a few billion dollars to $100 billion. Video Why the case of four Blackwater guards, charged with murdering 14 Iraqis in Nisour Square on Sept. 16, 2007 (the Iraqi government had originally accused them of killing 17), took so long to reach a verdict. Credit Credit Michael Kamber for The New York Times Even determining how many private security contractors are employed by the United States government is nearly impossible because the contracts are often opaque, subcontractors do much of the work on the ground and some of the business is classified. State Department officials refused on Tuesday to provide statistics on how many contractors it uses today. The United States Central Command, which is in charge of military forces in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, reported in January that 54,700 private contractors worked for the Defense Department in its areas of responsibility. In Afghanistan alone, where about 9,800 American troops are deployed, the Pentagon is paying for almost 40,000 private contractors, more than a third of whom are American, according to the Centcom report. Only a few hundred, though, are involved directly in security, with others doing everything from serving food to conducting intelligence work. Last year, the United States also sought to hire private military contractors in Iraq to buttress the small number of American troops there to help stop the advance of the Islamic State. The contractors’ tasks would involve assisting the Iraqi military, including administrative tasks, public affairs and operational planning, according to the Pentagon. Experts believe that private security contractors are likely to remain a permanent part of the American presence overseas. “You are going to keep having contractors for security,” said Mr. Crocker, the former ambassador. “You can’t do things in Iraq or Afghanistan without them. You just can’t.” Image Nisour Square in Baghdad, where company security guards shot and killed unarmed Iraqis in September 2007. Four former guards were sentenced to prison Monday in the shootings. Credit Ali Yussef/AFP/Getty Images Ann Hagedorn, the author of “The Invisible Soldiers,” a 2014 book about security contractors, agreed that contractors would have plenty of work. “Iraq has been called the first contractors’ war,” she said. “With an increasing dependence on these companies worldwide, we could easily be going into another contingency operation that will be another contractors’ war.” Blackwater, the company Mr. Prince built into a corporate symbol of the American war in Iraq, never really recovered from the Nisour Square shootings and its many other controversies and legal woes. In addition to the prosecution of the guards in the 2007 shooting, five top Blackwater executives were indicted on weapons-related charges, the company was forced to pay millions of dollars in fines to the State Department for export law violations, and it faced costly civil lawsuits from the families of the victims of Nisour Square and the families of four guards killed in Falluja, Iraq, in 2004. Blackwater was eventually blocked from providing diplomatic security in Iraq. Meanwhile, Afghanistan banned private security companies in 2012 after years of allegations of guards killing civilians and other abuses. Foreign military and diplomatic missions were exempted, however. In response to the controversies surrounding Blackwater, Mr. Prince first renamed the company and then sold it in 2010. Now known as Academi, it has since been resold and merged, along with one of its main competitors, Triple Canopy, into the Constellis Group. The consolidated company is still a major player in security contracting for the American government and other customers, while Blackwater’s sprawling facility in Moyock, N.C., is now one of Academi’s major assets as a training center. Mr. Prince emerged from the wreckage of Blackwater relatively unscathed, never facing any criminal charges from the multiple government investigations into the company. But he was embittered by the legal scrutiny and negative publicity, all part of what he believed were unfair political attacks on him and his firm. He moved his family to Abu Dhabi in 2010, when one former colleague told The New York Times that Mr. Prince “needs a break from America.” In his 2013 memoir, “Civilian Warriors,” Mr. Prince defended the actions of Blackwater as well as the guards who fired in Nisour Square, protesting that “shifting political tectonic plates crushed my company as an act of partisan theatrics.”

Mercenaries Private Military Contractors


Some Baseball Stories Can’t Be Told in Numbers

Abstract: Jim Edmonds’s recent retirement announcement didn’t draw much notice in Chicago, even though that unfailingly stylish center fielder was a Cub in 2008. Wrigleyville never took to him. The 19 home runs that Edmonds hit and the fielding gems he contributed to a division winner could not undo the damage he caused the Cubs over eight years of distinguished service to Tony La Russa’s hated Cardinals. Speaking for the minority, I’m going to miss him. I loved the way Edmonds played center field He always seemed to have a shot at catching any ball that stayed in the park, as well as some that were leaving if they lacked proper clearance. Sure, he embellished a little, diving when it might not have been necessary, but drama was part of the package. And nobody ran on him. That left arm did not dispense laser beams, but it was uncommonly accurate, always dialed in to the right base. Edmonds was dangerous at the plate, too, though not really a good enough hitter to make the cut for Cooperstown. Still, his glove work embodied excellence at his position and served as a daily reminder of how much defense matters in baseball. Somewhere there’s a number that quantifies how good Edmonds was in the outfield, a number more esoteric than fielding percentage, putouts, assists — the usual suspects. There’s just as likely a number that will suggest he wasn’t any good at all, that other metrics like his range factor or his total zone runs or his win-probability-added don’t measure up to the immortal Willie Tasby . Numbers. They are the lifeblood of baseball, but I fear we have gone too far in our attempts to quantify everything that happens on the diamond, from a pitcher’s ground-ball frequency to a hitter’s productivity when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars. It started with “Moneyball,” Michael Lewis’s 2003 best seller chronicling how the financially ailing Oakland A’s came to rely on cold statistical analysis to shape their baseball decisions. I read it and liked it. Now I hate it, because the numbers revolution that it touched off has overtaken the game and threatens to squeeze the life from it. The other day, an occasionally reasonable radio host shouted down caller after caller, insisting that there was no such thing as a “clutch” hitter, that statistical probability could determine the best man for the job with two on and two outs in the late innings of a tight game. “That guy never had to face George Brett,” said Steve Stone, the White Sox’s television analyst and an 11-year major league pitcher. “I’m probably prejudiced, because George hit about .470 off me, but there were times when you just didn’t want to face him if you couldn’t pitch around him. Thurman Munson was the same way. Reggie Jackson may have been the straw that stirred the drink, but every pitcher I knew would rather go through a lineup full of Reggies than face Thurman Munson with the game on the line.” Stone, one of the most astute analysts in baseball, looks at numbers as part of his preparation, but he’s more reliant on what he sees and what he has learned over 38 years in the game. He had no problem with Derek Jeter’s winning his fifth Gold Glove in 2010, even if it was symbolic, a lifetime achievement award for Jeter, the 36-year-old Yankee shortstop. “I don’t need numbers to tell me Derek Jeter’s range has declined. I can see that,” Stone said. “I also see him positioning hitters so well that he only has to take three steps to get to a ball, whereas a shortstop with better range, so to speak, might need six steps. And I know Derek is going to pick up the hard two-out grounder in the eighth inning. You want the ball hit to him. He wants the ball hit to him. Not everybody is like that.” Sox fans are hoping the free-agent slugger Adam Dunn is like that; their centerpiece off-season acquisition is expected to add some left-handed thunder to a potent lineup. “The projections will say we can expect 35 to 40 homers, 110 to 120 R.B.I.’s and about a .390 on-base percentage,” Stone said. “Those are impressive numbers that have made Adam Dunn a very wealthy man. But I defy Bill James or any computer expert anywhere to tell me how Adam Dunn is going to do in the heat of a pennant race. I don’t know, the Sox don’t know, and Adam Dunn doesn’t know, because he’s never been through one. How do you measure that?” Gary Hughes, a special assistant to the Cubs’ general manager, Jim Hendry, has been scouting baseball talent for 43 years. A prospect’s “makeup” — his emotional and psychological stability, along with his self-confidence — is as much a part of the assessment process as his physical tools, and it’s an intangible. “We’re in the information business, and numbers can be helpful in terms of learning about a guy, providing there’s some context to them,” Hughes said. “But there’s no way to measure what’s inside a guy’s heart, and if you’re going to last in this business, you’d better be able to tell.” Or invent a number that does.


Gore Joins Chorus Chiding U.S. at Climate Talks

Abstract: NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Amid growing frustration with the United States over deadlocked negotiations at a United Nations conference on global warming , the European Union threatened Thursday to boycott separate talks proposed by the Bush administration in Hawaii next month. Humberto Rosa, the chief delegate from Portugal, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said the discussions next month would be meaningless if there were no deal at the conference here this week on the resort island of Bali. Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, told reporters, “No result in Bali means no Major Economies Meeting.” He was referring to the formal name of the proposed American-sponsored talks. The goal of the Bali meeting, which is being attended by delegates from 190 countries and which is scheduled to end Friday, is to reach agreement on a plan for a future deal to reduce greenhouse gases. The escalating bitterness between the European Union and the United States came as former Vice President Al Gore told delegates in a speech that “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.” Mr. Gore arrived at the conference from Norway, where he, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, received the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to alert the world to the danger of global warming. He urged delegates to agree to an open-ended deal that could be enhanced after the Bush administration leaves office and the United States policy changes. “Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now,” Mr. Gore said to loud applause. “You must anticipate that.” There appears to be broad consensus among the delegates that a new agreement on climate change should be ready by 2009, in time to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the current agreement that limits emissions by all wealthy countries except the United States, which signed the Kyoto agreement but has refused to adopt it. Gaping differences remain between countries over how to share the burden of switching from types of energy that contribute to global warming. The United States and the European Union remain at odds on many major points, including whether an agreement signed here should include numerical targets, a move that the United States and a few other countries, including Russia, oppose. The emerging economic powers, most notably China and India, also refuse to accept limits on their emissions, despite projections that they will soon become the dominant sources of the gases. “I’m very concerned about the pace of things,” Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is playing host to the meeting, said Thursday. The United Nations released fresh data on Thursday confirming what it called the planet’s continued and alarming warming. The 10 years ending in 2007 were the warmest on record, said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations agency, citing data taken since the late 1800s from a global network of weather stations, ships and buoys. “It’s very likely the warmest period for at least the last 1,000 or 1,300 years,” he told reporters. The data did not surprise scientists — every recent decade has been warmer than the previous one — but in releasing the numbers here the agency hoped to spur the 190 deadlocked governments into reaching a deal that would set a deadline for a global climate change agreement. Disagreements exist across a wide range of issues and between numerous blocs of countries but the United States has come under especially strong criticism here by countries rich and poor and by its own domestic critics. “The best we hoped for was that the U.S. would not hobble the rest of the world from moving forward,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit American organization. “Our delegation here from the States has not been able to meet that low level of expectation.” Paula Dobriansky, the head of the American delegation, said Thursday that she was committed to obtaining an “environmentally effective and economically sustainable” agreement by 2009. “We are working very hard to achieve consensus,” she told reporters. Delegates here have seen two faces of America: the cautious negotiators, who have sought to water down the more ambitious goals of the European Union; and the more activist voices, from people like Mr. Gore and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who gave a speech on the sidelines of the conference. In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg criticized both the Bush administration and Congress for not being aggressive enough in addressing global warming. “There’s a belief that the United States should not do anything until all the other governments are willing to go along and do it at the same time,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “We should be doing this regardless of whether the world is following or not.” The World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that the world’s average surface temperature had risen by 0.74 degrees Celsius, or 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit, since the start of the 20th century. To the general public that may seem a modest rise, but scientists consider it alarming in the context of historical shifts in temperature. The difference between temperatures today and an ice age is only 5 or 6 degrees Celsius (9 or 10.8 Fahrenheit), according to Mr. Jarraud of the World Meteorological Organization. Several weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nation’s leading scientific body on the topic, released its gloomy assessment of warming that is being cited by European delegates here as a clarion call. Climate change was “unequivocal,” the report concluded. “Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years,” the report said. Greenhouse gases were very likely the dominant force driving up temperatures now, it said. The panel, made up of hundreds of scientists, releases its assessment of the data and science on climate change every five years.


China's Job Market Tightens for Young Foreigners

Abstract: BEIJING — Michal Sliwinski decided to buy a one-way ticket to China in 2010 after reading a newspaper article about the Asian giant’s breakneck economic growth. He had just graduated with a political science degree in his native Poland, could not find a job and feared that his prospects at home were not going to improve soon. “I didn’t give it a second thought,” said Mr. Sliwinski, now 26 and living in Beijing. “I checked into a hostel, and I found a job in like five days and started to teach English.” Two years later, Mr. Sliwinski says he is tired of teaching English, but is having trouble securing other work. That is how he found himself among the 1,200 expatriates searching through about 60 booths at the Job Fair for Foreigners, which was held in Beijing at the end of October. The fair also has annual events in Shanghai and Guangzhou. To his disappointment, most of the companies represented were looking for English teachers. “There are probably some jobs that are really good,” Mr. Sliwinski said. “But there is huge competition among foreigners, and it is not like they will give you a job just because you are white.” There is a perception among some graduates from economically struggling Western countries that China is the new land of opportunity. But strong economic growth there might not mean good employment prospects for everyone. Foreigners, particularly those who do not have specialized technical skills or Mandarin fluency, may only be able find teaching jobs that pay less than what they might at home. Even those with quite good qualifications might have a hard time. “There is this idea that China is up-and-coming so it is the place to go,” said Adam Clark, 23, who is currently in an exchange program at Nankai University in Tianjin as part of a master’s of Chinese studies degree at the University of Edinburgh. His program also covers international business, as well as Chinese politics, culture and media; but that still might not be enough. “In reality, I think it is a lot more difficult than that,” he said. “Having two degrees — one in Mandarin and another in something else — and then only to be able to teach English is not entirely desirable.” According to the 2010 national census, there were about a million expatriates living in mainland China, although almost half of those counted were residents from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau who had moved to the mainland. Of the 593,000 “foreigners,” large numbers came from the rest of Asia: 120,000 from South Korea, 66,000 from Japan and almost 40,000 from Myanmar. Westerners made up a smaller portion, with 71,000 from the United States, almost 20,000 from Canada, 15,000 from France, 14,000 from Germany and 13,000 from Australia. According to George Xu, chief executive of eChinacities.com , a Web site that provides employment and lifestyle tips for expatriates, 65 percent of their job postings were for English-teaching positions. The others were mostly related to information technology, sales and procurement management. The site has 50,000 résumés from expatriates in a database available to recruiters. Mr. Xu said that the site had 20,000 daily visitors. “For foreigners to find a job in China, there are still many obstacles,” he said. “If you don’t speak Chinese and want to work in this country, it will be quite difficult.” For positions that do not involve teaching English, near fluency in Mandarin is no longer an added bonus, but a prerequisite. A generation or two ago, fluent English and overseas experience were considered special skills. Today, there are more qualified applicants on the market, particularly Chinese students returning with overseas university degrees, multiple languages and an international outlook. According to the Chinese Education Ministry, more than 70 percent of Chinese students who went overseas to study have returned home. There were 186,200 such returnees last year. “The competition against local graduates or Chinese with a little bit of work experience is intense,” said Andy Bentote, managing director for China at Michael Page, a recruitment agency. “The entry-level jobs or maybe second-jobber opportunities, there are just not as many of them. If you don’t speak Mandarin and you don’t have any Chinese work experience, it will be very difficult.” Outside of teaching positions, the jobs at the Beijing fair tended to be highly specialized, requiring specific technical skills and years of experience. A young recent graduate with shaky Mandarin as a second language would have a hard time trying to break out of the so-called English-teaching trap. “All of the people who came here are very nice,” said Zhu Yujiao, a recruiter with Beijing Wellintech Development, which makes software monitoring systems for manufacturers. “But they are not very suitable for our positions.” Wellintech, which had openings for international sales representatives and software engineers, hoped to find candidates with at least five years experience and a background in technology. Beijing Meidan Food was looking for people to help expand its cracker export business to Africa and Southeast Asia. Fluent Mandarin was required, as most of their staff did not speak English, a recruiter said. Himin Solar, a manufacturer in Shandong Province, had positions for designers and installers of high-end energy-efficient windows and doors. Brett Edman, who moved to Beijing in February after studying Chinese and engineering in Australia, said he approached Himin and had no luck. “I can understand if they are looking for specific things, but they didn’t seem interested in talking to me anyway,” Mr. Edman, 25, said. “Even my major is directly related to their business, so that was a bit surprising.” “I was hoping to find some companies that would be like, ‘Oh, you are looking to be here for a while. We can give you experience while you learn about China at the same time,”’ Mr. Edman said. “But those opportunities don’t seem to be there. Maybe I might have to go home and get some work experience for a while and then come back. But that is not ideal.” Max Scholl, 23, who studied environmental engineering at the University of Vermont, has been in China for 10 months teaching English at a kindergarten. His salary is 10,000 renminbi, or $1,600, a month. Most of that is sent home to pay off student loans , and he is concerned that he cannot find employment in his chosen field. “It is a little frightening, the situation I am in,” he said. Those who have taken extra time and effort to learn Chinese language and culture seem to have an easier time. Bart Bucknill arrived in China in 2009 after getting a philosophy and politics degree from the University of Sheffield in England. For two years, he taught English and also studied Chinese at Yanshan University in Hebei Province. Last year, at the Beijing job fair, he found a position as the business development manager for Zhuzhou Times New Material Technology, a manufacturer of engineering products based in Hunan Province. He was back at the fair this year — as a recruiter himself. Now 26, he says he has a higher position and more responsibility than he would have in his native Britain. “I guess I impressed them with my Chinese level and also my ability to kind of fit into a Chinese organization,” he said. “Those were my qualifications. They are soft skills, you could say, but they are very important for working in a Chinese company.” Elisa Conterio, 25, arrived in China a few weeks ago with a bachelor’s degree in Chinese language and culture from a university in Venice and a master’s degree from a university in Lyon. “It is difficult to find a job in Italy, so I decided to come to China,” she said. “I will probably stay here for one or two years and see how things are going.” While she did not find anything at the fair, she managed to secure an internship at an event-planning company she contacted before arriving in Beijing. “I was pretty surprised,” she said about her reaction to their initial salary offer of 2,500 renminbi a month. (They have since doubled it to 5,000 renminbi.) “It’s a start,” she added.

China
Education
Colleges and Universities
Unemployment
Beijing (China)
Labor and Jobs


After Hurricanes, Louisiana’s South Cameron Still Standing

Abstract: CREOLE, La. — They waited five years for a new school at South Cameron High, five years for a weight room, lockers in the hallway and plates in the cafeteria instead of plastic trays. All that waiting seemed like forever — playing football on the road for three seasons, taking classes for a semester in a bingo hall, returning from a second hurricane to find an alligator stranded in the coaches’ office. Finally, high school was beginning to feel the way it was supposed to feel. The Federal Emergency Management Agency people showed up Oct. 14 for a ribbon cutting at the new $28 million building with two gyms and three elevators. But football season was nearly gone as six senior players walked arm in arm with their parents Thursday night before their final home game, celebration tinged with a sense of absence and departure. Everybody knew what Hurricane Katrina did in 2005 to New Orleans and southeast Louisiana. Fewer cameras and headlines recorded the pummeling that Hurricane Rita gave to sparsely populated southwest Louisiana a few weeks later. Houses were pushed into the marshes; refrigerators and freezers, too, where some old-timers who did not trust banks kept their money. Little but cement slabs remained along the 70-mile coastline of Cameron Parish, Louisiana’s largest county. Hurricane Ike drowned this rural place again in 2008, a half-century after Hurricane Audrey killed more than 400 people in 1957, when snakes hung in the trees like Spanish moss and survivors floated on their broken homes until they could be rescued. Football, as much as anything, illustrates the resiliency of the Cajuns here and the challenge of maintaining a lifestyle dependent on the bounty and vagary of nature. It is a place where shrimp can be bought straight off the boat and blue-jeaned men work in oil and gas, and egrets and brown pelicans nest along the narrow roads that serve as nature trails and evacuation routes. As recently as 1996, South Cameron High reached the state championship game. Before Rita, 70 or 80 players filled out the roster each season, stretching down the sideline like a marching band. But the high school has since lost more than half its enrollment. Its 98 students are the third fewest among Louisiana schools that play football. Only 23 players suited up Thursday as the Tarpons lost their eighth game in eight weeks without a victory. “They tell us not to use the hurricanes as an excuse, but we just don’t have the numbers,” said Brendan Trahan, 17, a senior center and defensive tackle. The new school feels oddly empty even with kindergarten through 12th grade housed in one building, so few students that everyone gets a locker on the top row. School is held four days a week, from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., to entice teachers to commute from nearby towns and to help parents save gas money. Trahan, a straight-A student, has six classmates in his advanced math class. That is six more than in physics, where it is just he and the teacher. “You set the curve in there?” Ginger Boudreaux, his math teacher, joked before Thursday’s game. “Top of my class,” Trahan said. He was in seventh grade when Rita struck, gutting the local schools, stripping metal buildings to their skeletons, scouring churches of everything but the kneelers on the pews. Trahan and his family evacuated eastward, to the other side of Baton Rouge, but he was desperate to return home, for football, for everything a kid could do outdoors with a shotgun and fishing pole. “You can go where you want; I’m going home,” he told his mother, a teacher. “It’s 5 minutes from my duck blind, 5 minutes from my deer stand, 10 minutes from anyplace I want to go fishing. And I don’t want to be anything but a Tarpon.” There was not much to return to. Stands on the visitors’ side of the field disappeared in the storm. A state runner-up trophy from 1986, dented and rusted, was fished out of the marsh. “They found one helmet 40 miles away,” Trahan said. “In a tree, I think.” South Cameron played an abbreviated 2005 season at a borrowed field, using borrowed equipment, 45 minutes north in Lake Charles. As nomadic as herdsmen, the Tarpons played home games in Lake Charles again in 2006 and in 2008 after Ike, when players bused to practice every day after class at a bingo hall. Somehow, South Cameron remained a playoff team, but all the interruption, the uncertainty, the temporary fields and temporary classrooms took their toll. Parry LaLande, the head coach for 28 years including those state runner-up seasons in 1986 and 1996, retired after the 2009 season, in part weary from the hurricanes. “I don’t mind getting beat; I just want an equal chance,” LaLande said. “Teams didn’t beat us, Rita and Ike beat us.” This season, a kind of posttraumatic stress caught up with South Cameron football. It seemed inevitable. As many as 7,000 of the 10,000 previous residents of Cameron Parish have returned, according to Tina Horn, the parish administrator. But only about half of the coastal residents are back on homesteads where many lived for generations on inherited land. Former residents feel thwarted, parish officials said, by the new requirements of building codes and flood insurance, and are unable or unwilling to pay costs that can reach $30,000 to $80,000 to elevate their homes 12 to 19 feet above sea level on pilings or mounds of dirt. Mole hills, the mounds are called here in the flat countryside. “The ones who should be back, the elderly who have lived their whole lives here, many can’t come back because they can’t afford elevators,” said Theos Duhon, the sheriff of Cameron Parish. The parish courthouse still stands as a defiant bulwark against three destructive hurricanes. The community hospital is back up and running. Fishing camps and residential homes stand high, as if on giraffe’s legs. But football is struggling to its feet. Only now does the team have a weight room for the first time in five years. “We have no muscle on our kids,” said Sethie Trosclair, South Cameron’s assistant principal. “We had meat on our line pre-Rita.” Cameron Parish’s population has shifted inland, toward slightly higher and presumably safer ground. Some, including LaLande, the former coach, favored a consolidation with nearby Grand Lake High, arguing that it would save money, allow for a broader range of classes to be taught and provide a reliable stream of athletes. “We built something down there,” LaLande said. “I hate to see everything washed away by two hurricanes. I fear it will.” The school board did not seriously consider a merger, said Stephanie Rodrigue, the superintendent of Cameron Parish. Instead, a counterargument prevailed, that a community’s lifeblood flows from its schools and churches. A loss of those means a loss of identity. And anyway, few places are entirely safe from virulent nature, whether it be earthquakes, tornadoes or hurricanes. “We can leave ahead of a hurricane; you can’t leave ahead of a tornado,” Rodrigue said. Now that South Cameron High has been rebuilt, the school is attempting to reconstruct its football team. Local competition will arrive in 2013, when Grand Lake plans to begin fielding a varsity squad. It seems inconceivable to many that football would end at South Cameron, but sustainability depends on students. There are only 10 children in second grade, 13 in third grade, 18 in fifth grade. “It’s a good, hard question,” said Steve Barnett, South Cameron’s athletic director and offensive line coach. “Our numbers are so low. We’ve got a beautiful school but no kids in it.” James Marcantel, in his first season as South Cameron’s head coach, plans to begin a junior high team that will prepare players for the varsity. A soft-spoken man, he is shepherding his players with encouragement instead of criticism. Thursday’s game against Oberlin High, a state power, did not end in victory, but not in humiliation, either. The Tarpons played relentlessly and after the 38-6 defeat, Marcantel told his team: “There’s nothing to hang your head about. They were just a better team. One day, we’ll be the better team.” Brandon Leboeuf, a seventh-grade water boy, said he hoped for a victory in one of the final two road games, “so I can pour some cold water on our coach’s head.” Leaving the field, Trahan showed where an alligator had sauntered into the gym during the flooding from Ike. “Somebody came to get their stuff, and it was waiting,” he said with a laugh. His senior season had not gone as planned, but for him, it had been the right decision to return after the hurricanes. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” Trahan said. “Except maybe a few wins.”

Louisiana
Football
Hurricane Ike
Interscholastic Athletics
Hurricanes and Tropical Storms
Creole (La)
South Cameron High School
Education (K-12)


Where Do Flies Go at Night?

Abstract: Q. Where do flies go at night? In summer in Australia, flies are everywhere in the daytime but seem to disappear at night. A. Most species of flies, with mosquitoes one notable exception, are indeed just daytime fliers, said David A. Grimaldi, a curator in the division of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. They require polarized light to guide them visually. “As the day turns to dusk, flies take refuge under leaves and branches, on twigs and tree trunks, on the stems of tall grass and other plants,” Dr. Grimaldi said. “They typically will not overnight on the ground. “Light/dark cycles are the primary determinant in flight times of flies,” Dr. Grimaldi said, “affected a bit by temperature.” Certain types of biting midges, including mosquitoes and sand flies, are crepuscular feeders, preferring dawn and dusk, while others prefer night, he said. Black flies and no-see-ums, which are closely related to mosquitoes, are active only during the day or twilight periods. The kinds of flies that most people think of as flies, including houseflies and bluebottle flies, are truly day fliers, Dr. Grimaldi said. Some, like the fruit fly Drosophila (the name means “dew lover”), prefer cool, damp mornings and evenings. C. CLAIBORNE RAY

American Museum of Natural History
Insects
Science and Technology


Tennis Channel Executive Rants After Losing a Court Ruling

Abstract: Ken Solomon, the chief executive of Tennis Channel, thought until late last month that he was on his way to winning a big and lengthy legal battle — one that would greatly enhance the channel’s business. He believed that Comcast would soon make Tennis Channel as widely available on its cable systems as Golf Channel and NBC Sports Network, which it owns. But last month, a three-judge panel of a federal appellate court ruled that Comcast had not discriminated against Tennis Channel by giving it far less distribution than Golf Channel and NBC Sports Network, and was not obliged to expand its availability. Solomon was in Paris for the French Open when the decision was handed down. Hours later, frustrated at the dramatic reversal in the case, he sent his staff an angry, meandering e-mail that was punctuated with the language of sexual assault. Solomon likened the judges’ decision — and, apparently the difficulty of dealing with Comcast — to “being raped by a brutal captor, finally winning in a long and painful public court trial,” and, “on appeal years later from a pre-decided Mad Hatter of a court asking you, the victim, to produce video to prove that it ever happened.” The e-mail was published by Deadspin. The ruling, Solomon wrote, was “a travesty of justice, wholly wrong and unfair, and just plain hard to believe.” His vituperative response went far beyond the polite statement issued by the channel, which expressed respectful disagreement. Image Ken Solomon, the chief executive of Tennis Channel, in 2010. Credit Fred Mullane/Camerawork USA. Solomon has raised millions of dollars for President Obama’s presidential campaigns as one of his top bundlers of contributions and has reportedly been considered for an ambassadorship. He was not available for an interview on Wednesday. In a statement, he said: “I regret several ill-chosen, excessively colorful and inappropriate words in a private e-mail to colleagues a few weeks ago reflecting my disappointment with a legal decision. The e-mail dealt with an issue that we are obviously passionate about, but the words do not accurately reflect my thoughts about the case or those involved, and I am very sorry that I used them.” Vince Wladika, a consultant to Tennis Channel, said: “It was a brain meltdown that occurred late at night in Paris. Maybe a little too much red wine. This is nothing that ever reflects what Ken Solomon stands for, and I’m sure he is beyond embarrassed about it.” Solomon’s optimism about the case had been fueled by Tennis Channel’s successful advancement of the discrimination argument at various levels of the Federal Communications Commission. By a 3-2 vote, the commissioners had ruled for the network. But last month, Comcast got the ruling it wanted from the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which stayed the F.C.C.’s decision. In his e-mail, Solomon wrote that “three Lone Ranger judges walked in the court with a mission ... looking for one thing, to teach the FCC a lesson.” And, he wrote, “Tonto-Comcast, who spends more than Exxon and Boeing in DC on lobbyists and God knows what else. They bought this unholy decision, one way or another.” A Comcast spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment. The importance of getting broad distribution on Comcast is important to Tennis Channel, as it is for most networks. With more subscribers, a network reaps more monthly fees and can generate more advertising revenue. Golf Channel and NBC Sports Network are available to more than 20 million Comcast customers; Tennis Channel is available to the few million who pay extra for a sports tier. Tennis Channel, with 35 million subscribers, is owned by a group of investors that includes private equity firms, the United States Tennis Association and the former players Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi.

Tennis
Ken Solomon
Golf Channel
Deadspin


2 Friars’ Mission: Reviving a Brooklyn Church in a Religious ‘Dead Zone’

Abstract: The two Franciscan friars, complete with floor-length robes, stood behind the bar outside the 100-year-old church taking cash and slinging cans of Coors and Lime-A-Ritas in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Drinks in hand, over 200 people, many wearing black chokers, macramé bikini tops and denim overall shorts, crowded into the pews on a recent Thursday night, the pop of beer cans punctuating their arrival. But they were not waiting for a sermon — they were waiting for Josiah Wise, who goes by the name serpentwithfeet, an R&B singer whose songs have heavy gospel overtones . This was not a typical church meeting, but the San Damiano Mission is no longer a typical church. On the brink of closing the church, the Diocese of Brooklyn called in the friars, Nicholas Spano, a deacon, and the Rev. Raphael Zwolenkiewicz, who are reintroducing Catholicism to the neighborhood in unconventional ways. “We’re not here to be an invisible presence, but something very tangible,” Father Zwolenkiewicz, 65, said. “Whether it’s services in the church or out in front of the church just hanging out, or even on the corner, we’ll be in our vestments and saying hello to people as they walk by.” Image The San Damiano Mission is not a typical church. On a recent Thursday night, it became a concert space. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times On the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, where Sunday Mass often takes a back seat to brunch and shopping, the church had seen its membership dwindle. “That area in Brooklyn, like many other areas in the Brooklyn Diocese, is undergoing a dynamic change in demographics,” the Rev. Msgr. Joseph Grimaldi, the Brooklyn vicar for the diocese, said last month. “Williamsburg is one of the largest areas that many millennials have settled in, and a good number of them are baptized Catholics, but have not really practiced their faith.” “With 30 people, you can’t sustain a church,” Father Grimaldi said, “but in this case we came up with a novel approach.” The friars, members of the First Order of St. Francis, took over the former Holy Family Slovak Church on Nassau Avenue in 2015. First, they changed its name to the San Damiano Mission. Image Josiah Wise, an R&B singer who goes by the name serpentwithfeet, performing at San Damiano Mission. Credit Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Then they looked around. Masses were still being celebrated when most of the neighborhood was asleep, and the oak doors were chained and padlocked much of the time. “All of our images said, ‘We’re gone and closed,’” Mr. Spano, 35, said. They replaced the oak doors with glass ones. “There’s a lot of foot traffic here Wednesday through Sunday between 10:30 p.m. and 4 a.m.,” Mr. Spano said. “To have the church not look its best at that time doesn’t help us.” On a good Sunday, as many as 50 people now attend Mass. It is not a huge number, “but it is a difference,” he said. Image Mr. Spano, left, and Father Zwolenkiewicz at a vigil. On the brink of closing the church, the Diocese of Brooklyn called in the friars, who are reintroducing Catholicism to the neighborhood. Credit Christopher Lee for The New York Times St. Francis of Assisi was called upon by God to “rebuild my church for it is in ruin,” Father Zwolenkiewicz said. “So it’s the same idea that we were invited to come here and to reach out to the neighborhood and people who are here, to rejuvenate and to restore part of this community.” Mr. Spano developed proposals to turn the church into an arts hub and a focal point for the community. The friars wear their robes in public and can often be found running errands and grabbing their morning coffee in the neighborhood. Many are surprised to see the friars, they said, and some even mistake them for actors from a nearby film and television studio. They frequently attend the concerts put on by the Lot Radio station, which operates out of a converted shipping container across the street. The groups have joined forces to raise money to restore a $226,000 pipe organ for the church by holding shows inside the mission, like the one featuring serpentwithfeet. Image Anna Walsh, 29, a member of the parish, during a vigil. Credit Christopher Lee for The New York Times Sabrina Tamar, 27, has lived near the mission for 10 years. “Most people weren’t aware of this at first, but there’s definitely a sense of community I feel hasn’t been in this neighborhood in a while,” she said before taking her seat at the concert. “It’s wonderful. The friars are so tolerant and welcoming.” Other residents agreed. “The friars know religion is a dead zone in this neighborhood, so if you want people to participate, you have to not preach,” one resident, Nikki Cohen, 30, said. She said she discovered the church through the radio station and the concert series. “This is a social place,” she said, “a community place you can come and hang out.” For Aaron Sutula, the church beckoned. Mr. Sutula, 34, attends church only on Christmas. But he said he walked by one night and the mission was empty, but its lights were on, so he stepped inside and lit a candle. “My grandfather had just died the year before,” Mr. Sutula said. “They don’t have real candles because it’s New York City, so you just hit a button and it turns on the light. But it was nice.” The friars have also paired with a Lutheran church to offer some services to homeless people, including making showers and barbers available every other Monday at the mission. At a recent Sunday Mass, only about 25 people were in the pews. On this particular Sunday, a party at the Lot Radio the night before had kept some parishioners home from services, Mr. Spano said. Toward the end of the Mass, Mr. Spano made several announcements, including an update on the pipe organ. They hope to have it back by Easter, he said, though once the organ is reinstalled, the fog machine used for concerts will have to go.

Nicholas Spano
Raphael Zwolenkiewicz
church,churches
Catholic Church
Greenpoint Brooklyn
Williamsburg Brooklyn
The arts


Livedoor Founder Is Charged With Securities Violations

Abstract: TOKYO, Feb. 13 - Takafumi Horie, the founder of an Internet company whose brash tactics challenged Japan's business establishment, was charged Monday with violating securities law by spreading false information to inflate a subsidiary's stock price. The formal filing of charges by Tokyo prosecutors marked the latest chapter in the downfall of Mr. Horie, 33, who seemed to personify the bare-knuckles, individualistic brand of capitalism that many here say Japan needs. In a statement on Monday, Tokyo prosecutors said they had charged Mr. Horie and three other former executives of his company, Livedoor, with inflating the sales and profit figures of a subsidiary, Livedoor Marketing, to push up its stock price. Prosecutors also said that Mr. Horie and the others had issued press releases containing false information about the subsidiary, which was called ValueClick Japan until Livedoor took it over two years ago. If found guilty, Mr. Horie faces up to five years in prison or a fine of five million yen ($42,300). "The key to Livedoor's rapid growth was actually criminal activities that damaged the fairness of securities trading," the statement said. "This case is just the tip of the iceberg," it continued. "We will continue a thorough investigation to bring everything to light." Though prosecutors did not elaborate Monday, the major Japanese news media, who are routinely briefed by prosecutors, said the authorities were preparing new charges against Mr. Horie for reportedly inflating the profits of the parent company, Livedoor, as well. Mr. Horie resigned as chief executive of Livedoor after his arrest on Jan. 23. Since then he has been in jail, insisting, during interrogations running as long as eight hours a day, that he was unaware of any wrongdoing and vowing to have his say in court, according to Japanese news media reports. He reportedly spends his free time in a tiny cell reading an encyclopedia. Since Tokyo prosecutors raided Livedoor's luxurious central Tokyo offices last month, Mr. Horie's business empire has started coming apart at the seams. Livedoor's share price has plunged 90 percent, to 61 yen (52 cents), since then, wiping out more than $5 billion in market value. Business partners have canceled alliances, employees have begun jumping ship and, according to media reports, Mr. Horie's girlfriend, a television star, has canceled plans to become engaged. The T-shirt-clad entrepreneur built the company over the last decade, turning a college project into one of Japan's most popular Internet portals and acquiring dozens of smaller Internet companies. Along the way, though, he stepped on many influential toes, especially last year, when he tried a hostile takeover of a powerful media company, Fuji Television. After the raid, some outraged followers posted messages on Mr. Horie's blog saying he was singled out for political reasons. Others expressed bitter disappointment for believing in a man now accused of criminal misdeeds.

LIVEDOOR
JAPAN
HORIE TAKAFUMI
SUSPENSIONS DISMISSALS AND RESIGNATIONS
FRAUDS AND SWINDLING
FINES (PENALTIES)
SECURITIES AND COMMODITIES VIOLATIONS
FALSIFICATION OF DATA
ETHICS
COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET


U.N. Officials Turn Focus to Sudan’s South

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS — As the fighting in Darfur diminishes after years of conflict, senior United Nations officials say they are focused increasingly on the deteriorating situation in another part of Sudan : the south. The shift in alarm has been building for months, but was reinforced late Wednesday when Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, the departing commander of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, told reporters that the war in Darfur was essentially over. “As of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “Militarily, there is not much. What you have is security issues more now. Banditry, localized issues, people trying to resolve issues over water and land at a local level. But real war as such, I think we are over that.” Senior United Nations officials said that while General Agwai was basically correct, they did not want to play down the dire consequences some three million displaced people face in Darfur. Still, they noted, the escalating skirmishes in the south could reignite the civil war there, which in years past proved far more deadly than the conflict in Darfur. “Whether it is characterized as a war or not, the reality is that threats against civilians do remain” in Darfur, said Edmond Mulet, the assistant secretary general for peacekeeping. Though the level of fighting has diminished there, he said, an additional 140,000 people have sought refuge in camps since January. “It is still far from peaceful,” he said. Factors contributing to the diminished fighting include a splintering of opposition groups and reduced outside support, officials said. Most current deaths in Darfur come from criminal activity, United Nations officials said, while hundreds of people have been killed in recent months in clashes in the south. The peace agreement between Khartoum and southern rebels signed in 2005 ended more than 20 years of fighting that killed some two million people. Since then, fighting has renewed along the possible border between north and south, an area rich in oil, as the 2011 deadline approaches for a referendum on southern independence. The Obama administration has been publicly divided over how to characterize the Darfur conflict. Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, has continued to call the conflict in Darfur genocide, and officials said she upbraided Rodolphe Adada, the departing civilian head of the peacekeeping forces, after he described Darfur as a “low-intensity conflict” this year. Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said in a statement, “While the nature of the violence in Darfur may have changed, the crisis over all remains serious and unresolved.” Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration , a retired Air Force officer who is President Obama’s special envoy for Sudan, has described the situation in Darfur as the “remnants of genocide.” He issued a statement Thursday saying he was focused on “ensuring that any government-backed militias are disarmed, displaced persons can ultimately return to their homes, and the people of Darfur who have suffered so much can live in peace and security.” Mr. Adada resigned after sustained criticism that he was too soft on the Khartoum government. General Agwai is rotating out, to be succeeded by another officer. Some United Nations officials and Darfur activists called it self-serving of the departing peacekeeping leaders to describe the conflict as settled. “It undermines international urgency in resolving these problems if people are led to believe that the war in Darfur is over,” said John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, an anti-genocide campaign. The United Nations has long been criticized for failing to fulfill its mandate for some 26,000 peacekeepers in Darfur. It currently has 18,462 uniformed troops there, and predicts a 95 percent deployment by the end of the year, said Nick Birnback, the spokesman for peacekeeping operations.

War Crimes Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity


No Cleanup for Bay in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract: Brazil will not fulfill its commitment to clean up Rio de Janeiro’s sewage-filled Guanabara Bay, where the Olympic sailing events are to be held, by the 2016 Olympics, state environmental officials acknowledged in a letter.

Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
2016 Summer Olympics


Obama to Visit Estonia to Reassure Baltic Allies Over Russia

Abstract: KEFLAVIK, Iceland — With concerns rising about Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, President Obama will use a visit to neighboring Estonia on Wednesday to reassure fretful allies that the United States and Europe are serious about defending them from a newly aggressive Russia. Just over a year after Mr. Obama told Baltic leaders at the White House that NATO’s commitment to their security was “rock-solid,” his visit to Estonia is an effort to reinforce that message, while telegraphing to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he should refrain from further meddling in the region. On the eve of a NATO summit meeting in Wales where members are expected to endorse a rapid-reaction force capable of deploying quickly to Eastern Europe — their most concrete response yet to Russia’s stealth military intervention in Ukraine — Mr. Obama is seeking to solidify assurances to the alliance’s new front line, including nations with large Russian-speaking populations, that no member is too small to be protected. The president said last week that his stop in Estonia was intended “to let the Estonians know that we mean what we say with respect to our treaty obligations.” It will include a meeting with President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who has been outspoken about calling for a firmer Western response to Mr. Putin, as well as Latvia’s president, Andris Berzins, and the president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite. Mr. Obama “wants to send the signal that these three Baltic states are as central and important to the way we look at European security and defense as any other NATO member, that there’s no difference between Estonia or Great Britain when it comes to the security of Estonia or Great Britain,” said Ivo H. Daalder, a former ambassador to NATO who is now the head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In sessions with the Baltic presidents, a speech to students, young professionals and civil society and political leaders, and a visit to American and Estonian troops here, Mr. Obama will also demonstrate to the world, and Russia in particular, that the former Soviet republics are wrapped securely within NATO’s protective embrace. “The other message that’s being sent is to Vladimir Putin, to say, ‘Don’t even think about it, because these guys are part of this alliance.’ ” Mr. Daalder said. Taavi Roivas, the Estonian prime minister, with whom Mr. Obama will meet on Wednesday, said the American president’s very presence — far afield from the Wales summit meeting, which was the original purpose of his European trip — would be an important signal in light of Russia’s recent moves. “I’m definitely confident that President Obama brings a clear message on the American side,” Mr. Roivas said in an interview. “It’s really important for us that he comes, so others see the U.S. commitment in the region.” Even before this week’s expected agreement on a rapid-response force, Mr. Roivas said NATO was moving in the “right direction,” bringing more air policing over the Baltics and more exercises in Estonia. “I have rock-solid confidence in NATO’s Article 5,” he said, referring to the principle of collective defense that undergirds the alliance. At the same time, the trip is a chance for Mr. Obama to showcase the kind of financial commitment he is seeking from other NATO members as the alliance grapples with an eroded defense capability because of shrinking military budgets. The United States is responsible for 75 percent of NATO military spending, and only a handful of European countries meet the alliance’s target of having military budgets of 2 percent of gross domestic product. Estonia is the only one of the Baltic States to meet that goal. Mr. Obama’s visit underscores the degree to which Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine have “brought us closer together,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former American ambassador to NATO and State Department official during George W. Bush’s administration, who now teaches international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. The United States quickly recognized the Baltic States’ independence in 1991, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has had strong ties with them for three decades. “We always kept faith with them, and they have always remembered that it was the U.S. that stood up for them,” Mr. Burns said. “The American president has huge credibility in Tallinn and in Riga, and it’s a great opportunity for President Obama to, in the most clear way, say that when we took you in in 2002, we meant it, and now that there’s a crisis, I’m here.” Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, and Riga the capital of Latvia. But leaders in the Baltic States and elsewhere in Europe are also looking to Mr. Obama and to NATO for concrete assurances that the commitment to defending them will be lasting, and are eager to hear a longer-term strategy toward Russia to address the challenges it is posing to the postwar order. “They’re concerned this is temporary, that we have so many things going on — we’re already being pulled away from Ukraine because of Iraq and Syria, can they count on our commitment and our engagement for the long term?” said Heather A. Conley, a State Department official under Mr. Bush who now directs the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington. “A speech will get you a little bit,” Ms. Conley added, “but it’s the physical, it’s the U.S. soldier that’s in Estonia, it’s the F-16 that’s flying over Baltic air space, it’s the Marine presence, that really will make the difference.”

Estonia
Russia
Ukraine
NATO
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
Dalia Grybauskaite
Vladimir Putin
Barack Obama
US Foreign Policy


ESP Report Sets Off Debate on Data Analysis

Abstract: They should have seen it coming. In recent weeks, editors at a respected psychology journal have been taking heat from fellow scientists for deciding to accept a research report that claims to show the existence of extrasensory perception. The report, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , is not likely to change many minds. And the scientific critiques of the research methods and data analysis of its author, Daryl J. Bem (and the peer reviewers who urged that his paper be accepted), are not winning over many hearts. Yet the episode has inflamed one of the longest-running debates in science. For decades, some statisticians have argued that the standard technique used to analyze data in much of social science and medicine overstates many study findings — often by a lot. As a result, these experts say, the literature is littered with positive findings that do not pan out: “effective” therapies that are no better than a placebo; slight biases that do not affect behavior; brain-imaging correlations that are meaningless. By incorporating statistical techniques that are now widely used in other sciences — genetics , economic modeling, even wildlife monitoring — social scientists can correct for such problems, saving themselves (and, ahem, science reporters) time, effort and embarrassment. “I was delighted that this ESP paper was accepted in a mainstream science journal, because it brought this whole subject up again,” said James Berger, a statistician at Duke University . “I was on a mini-crusade about this 20 years ago and realized that I could devote my entire life to it and never make a dent in the problem.” The statistical approach that has dominated the social sciences for almost a century is called significance testing. The idea is straightforward. A finding from any well-designed study — say, a correlation between a personality trait and the risk of depression — is considered “significant” if its probability of occurring by chance is less than 5 percent. This arbitrary cutoff makes sense when the effect being studied is a large one — for example, when measuring the so-called Stroop effect. This effect predicts that naming the color of a word is faster and more accurate when the word and color match (“red” in red letters) than when they do not (“red” in blue letters), and is very strong in almost everyone. “But if the true effect of what you are measuring is small,” said Andrew Gelman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University , “then by necessity anything you discover is going to be an overestimate” of that effect. Consider the following experiment. Suppose there was reason to believe that a coin was slightly weighted toward heads. In a test, the coin comes up heads 527 times out of 1,000. Is this significant evidence that the coin is weighted? Classical analysis says yes. With a fair coin, the chances of getting 527 or more heads in 1,000 flips is less than 1 in 20, or 5 percent, the conventional cutoff. To put it another way: the experiment finds evidence of a weighted coin “with 95 percent confidence.” Yet many statisticians do not buy it. One in 20 is the probability of getting any number of heads above 526 in 1,000 throws. That is, it is the sum of the probability of flipping 527, the probability of flipping 528, 529 and so on. But the experiment did not find all of the numbers in that range; it found just one — 527. It is thus more accurate, these experts say, to calculate the probability of getting that one number — 527 — if the coin is weighted, and compare it with the probability of getting the same number if the coin is fair. Statisticians can show that this ratio cannot be higher than about 4 to 1, according to Paul Speckman, a statistician, who, with Jeff Rouder, a psychologist, provided the example. Both are at the University of Missouri and said that the simple experiment represented a rough demonstration of how classical analysis differs from an alternative approach, which emphasizes the importance of comparing the odds of a study finding to something that is known. The point here, said Dr. Rouder, is that 4-to-1 odds “just aren’t that convincing; it’s not strong evidence.” And yet classical significance testing “has been saying for at least 80 years that this is strong evidence,” Dr. Speckman said in an e-mail. The critics have been crying foul for half that time. In the 1960s, a team of statisticians led by Leonard Savage at the University of Michigan showed that the classical approach could overstate the significance of the finding by a factor of 10 or more. By that time, a growing number of statisticians were developing methods based on the ideas of the 18th-century English mathematician Thomas Bayes . Bayes devised a way to update the probability for a hypothesis as new evidence comes in. So in evaluating the strength of a given finding, Bayesian (pronounced BAYZ-ee-un) analysis incorporates known probabilities, if available, from outside the study. It might be called the “Yeah, right” effect. If a study finds that kumquats reduce the risk of heart disease by 90 percent, that a treatment cures alcohol addiction in a week, that sensitive parents are twice as likely to give birth to a girl as to a boy, the Bayesian response matches that of the native skeptic: Yeah, right. The study findings are weighed against what is observable out in the world. In at least one area of medicine — diagnostic screening tests — researchers already use known probabilities to evaluate new findings. For instance, a new lie-detection test may be 90 percent accurate, correctly flagging 9 out of 10 liars. But if it is given to a population of 100 people already known to include 10 liars, the test is a lot less impressive. It correctly identifies 9 of the 10 liars and misses one; but it incorrectly identifies 9 of the other 90 as lying. Dividing the so-called true positives (9) by the total number of people the test flagged (18) gives an accuracy rate of 50 percent. The “false positives” and “false negatives” depend on the known rates in the population. In the same way, experts argue, statistical analysis must find ways to expose and counterbalance all the many factors that can lead to falsely positive results — among them human nature, in its ambitious hope to discover something, and the effects of industry money, which biases researchers to report positive findings for products. And, of course, the unwritten rule that failed studies — the ones that find no effects — are far less likely to be published than positive ones. What are the odds, for instance, that the journal would have published Dr. Bem’s study if it had come to the ho-hum conclusion that ESP still does not exist?


‘Urban Adult’ Station to Join New York Airwaves

Abstract: A new entrant to New York’s evolving black radio market will arrive over the Fourth of July weekend, with a focus on adult women. WFAS, at 103.9 FM, an adult contemporary station that broadcasts from Westchester County in New York, will change to an “urban adult” format and relocate to the Bronx under the brand Radio 103.9, the station’s owner, Cumulus Media, announced on Thursday. The format will change — or “flip” in radio jargon — over the holiday and the station will officially take on its new identity on July 7, Cumulus said in an announcement. The station will feature shows with popular black hosts like Tom Joyner and D.L. Hughley. The new station will compete with WBLS (107.5 FM), which two years ago absorbed its chief competitor at the time, WRKS, known as Kiss FM (98.7 FM). But Cumulus believes it has a competitive angle by programming its station primarily for grown-up women. “Women ages 35-44 who enjoy urban format music and stars from the last few decades through today are underserved in the Big Apple and we’re changing that now with an urban radio renaissance,” Kim Bryant, a Cumulus executive, said in a statement. The greater New York radio market reaches 16 million listeners, 17 percent of them African-American, according to Nielsen. Cumulus says that by relocating its transmitter to the Bronx it will reach 80 percent of that potential audience. The announcement of WFAS’s new format comes a week after one of the most high-profile changes in New York’s black radio market, when Angie Martinez , the longtime personality at the hip-hop station Hot 97 (WQHT, 97.1 FM), owned by Emmis Communications, left Hot 97 for its biggest rival, Power 105.1 (WWPR, 105.1 FM), owned by Clear Channel.

Radio
Bronx
Cumulus Media
Tom Joyner
Angie Martinez
Urban area
D L Hughley


Paterson in Washington, Determined to Stay in Race

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Arnold Schwarzenegger bounded over to David A. Paterson and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “How are you holding up?” the governor of California asked the governor of New York in a basement hotel ballroom here, sounding like a friend offering condolences to someone who had just suffered a loss. “Me?” Mr. Paterson said with a self-assured pitch in his voice. “I’m the Teflon governor.” One day after defiantly declaring that he would run for governor despite having little support from his party and a diminutive campaign account, Mr. Paterson arrived in the nation’s capital on Sunday for two days of meetings with the nation’s governors and President Obama . His appearance here, a few hours after a campaign stop at a diner outside Buffalo, suggested that the governor was as determined as ever to let his detractors know that he would not be forced from the race. In the first extended encounter between the governor and the president since September, when word leaked out that the White House had asked the governor not to seek a second term, Mr. Paterson and his wife attended a dinner with other governors and Mr. Obama on Sunday evening. Asked before the dinner if he believed that the encounter would feel somewhat awkward given that he had just kicked off a campaign that the White House had expressed deep reservations about, Mr. Paterson seemed at ease and offered support for the president. “I don’t feel any discomfort,” he said, sounding hoarse from delivering campaign speeches on Long Island, in Rochester and in Buffalo over the weekend. Drawing a parallel between the political struggles that he and Mr. Obama have each faced as first-term chief executives, Mr. Paterson said he empathized with the president. “In your second year of office, unfortunately, your opponents try to make you own some problems caused by them years ago,” Mr. Paterson said. “And I think the president needs to know we’re all behind him.” During his first day on the campaign trail, Mr. Paterson said, he found voters supportive and sympathetic. “They tell me to stand strong,” he said in a brief interview at a Marriott hotel in downtown Washington, where he attended meetings on Sunday, accompanied by a coterie of aides and security personnel. “When I’ve been most effective as governor is when I’ve been direct, honest and to the point. And so I think I’ve got to reinvigorate myself with that passion.” Mr. Paterson’s campaign kickoff speech on Saturday from his boyhood hometown on Long Island offered both a rebuke to his opponents and a frank assessment of how far his political fortunes had fallen since he became governor two years ago. Acknowledging that there were many people encouraging him to quit the race, he drew comparisons to his childhood and young adult life, when he was told that there were many things he would never be able to accomplish as a legally blind person. “I was very pleased by how it was received,” Mr. Paterson said of his overall campaign message. Indeed, the size of the turnout at the governor’s events upstate this weekend seemed to surprise his staff members. At the Buffalo event, the campaign arranged for a site that held 50 people, said Richard Fife, Mr. Paterson’s campaign manager. About 200 showed up, he said. Still, the lack of support from the Democratic Party establishment was clear on Sunday. No members of Congress attended his event outside Buffalo, nor did the mayor of Buffalo, Byron W. Brown, a Democrat who is frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for statewide office. Mr. Fife said he expected high-profile endorsements to roll in soon, beginning next weekend with an event in Harlem that will feature, among other Democratic leaders, David N. Dinkins, the former New York mayor. “We will keep building supporters as we go,” said Mr. Fife, declining to name others who have signed on to endorse the governor.

Paterson David A
Elections
Governors (US)
Obama Barack
United States Politics and Government


Malcolm W. Browne, Covered Vietnam War, Dies at 81

Abstract: Malcolm W. Browne, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter whose four-decade career included covering the Vietnam War — and taking one of the most memorable photos of the conflict — and a lively second act as a science writer who explained chemical weapons and described the rise of synthetic body parts, died on Monday in Hanover, N.H. He was 81. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, Le Lieu Browne. Mr. Browne, who lived in Thetford Center, Vt., and Manhattan, spent most of his career writing for The New York Times, which sent him to Argentina, Vietnam, Bosnia, Pakistan and wherever else his curiosity called him after he became a science writer in the late 1970s. “My life is terrific,” Mr. Browne said in a 1993 interview. “It affords the greatest possible variety of experience. That, after all, is why I became a journalist.” But his career path was something of an accident. Mr. Browne had been working as a chemist in New York in the 1950s (among his tasks: finding a substitute for chicle, then the main ingredient in chewing gum) when he was drafted to go to Korea in 1956. He drove a tank for a time, but the Army later assigned him to write for Stars and Stripes, a decision he said was their idea, not his. After he was discharged, Mr. Browne found a job in Baltimore with The Associated Press. Less than a year later, in 1961, The A.P. made him their Saigon bureau chief. Mr. Browne was among several reporters who became skeptical of the American effort to prop up the Saigon government. Neil Sheehan, who joined The Times after serving as Saigon bureau chief for United Press International, said Tuesday that Mr. Browne was a “fierce competitor” but also a friend. Mr. Browne often wore a gold belt buckle and carried a money belt so he would have cash “to get out of a tight situation.” “But,” Mr. Sheehan added, “I don’t think he ever had to use it.” While reporters in Vietnam often clashed with American officials, Mr. Browne later singled out Henry Cabot Lodge, who arrived in 1963 as the United States ambassador to South Vietnam, as “more honest than most of the U.S. officials that I had known.” It was Mr. Lodge who told Mr. Browne that he had played an important role in elevating awareness of the problems in Vietnam to the highest levels at the White House through a photograph he took in 1963. When a Buddhist monk set himself on fire in public that year in protest of the government of South Vietnam, Mr. Browne was there, and he captured the stunning moment in a photograph. Several papers, including The Times, chose not to run the disturbing image, but Mr. Lodge told him he had seen a copy of it on President John F. Kennedy’s desk. In 1964, while working for The A.P., Mr. Browne shared the Pulitzer for international reporting with David Halberstam , who was covering the war for The Times. Mr. Browne returned to the United States and later joined The Times, which eventually sent him back to Vietnam. He continued to find that the sources he had developed on the front lines refuted the Saigon government’s optimistic accounts. “A South Vietnamese military spokesman said at a briefing in Saigon yesterday afternoon that sizable elements of airborne soldiers, supported by tanks, had entered Quangtri city early yesterday morning,” he wrote in a 1972 report. “But authoritative sources at the front said that was not true.” Mr. Browne also worked for The Times in South America, Europe, South Asia and elsewhere before he began writing about science. He had studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. His assignments ranged widely: the dangers posed by toxic debris from the crash of the space shuttle Challenger; an effort to build a robotic flying pterosaur ; an effort to rid Antarctica of garbage accumulating there. He left The Times in the 1980s to work at Discover magazine but returned a few years later and continued writing about science. Malcolm Wilde Browne was born in Manhattan on April 17, 1931. His mother was a pacifist Quaker, and Mr. Browne attended Quaker schools through college. His grandfather’s first cousin was the writer Oscar Wilde and Mr. Browne, like Wilde, was something of a wit. His autobiography, “Muddy Boots and Red Socks,” takes its title from the socks he started wearing while serving in Korea as a break from the Army’s olive drab. Besides his wife, whom he met in 1961 when she was working in the information ministry for the Saigon government and married in 1966, his survivors include a daughter, Wendy Sanderson; a son, Timothy; a brother, Timothy; a sister, Miriam Poole; and two grandchildren. Two previous marriages ended in divorce. In 2000, after retiring to Vermont, Mr. Browne wrote an essay for The Times on the dual nature of his journalistic career. “After a time, a news writer may begin to sense a kind of sameness in most of the events that pass as news,” he wrote. “When that happens a lucky few of us discover that in science, almost alone among human endeavors, there is always something new under the sun.”

Vietnam War
Browne Malcolm W
Photography
Deaths (Obituaries)
News and News Media


UConn Snaps Stanford’s 82-Game Home Win Streak

Abstract: STANFORD, Calif. — For the viewing public, this was a matchup between the nation’s top-ranked teams. For Connecticut, there was also the small matter of revenge. Two years ago, almost to the day, Stanford ended Connecticut’s winning streak at 90 games. On Saturday, the No. 2 Huskies returned the favor, with their 61-35 victory at Maples Pavilion making them the first visitor to win on Stanford’s court since 2007, a span of 82 games. Ultimately, the game was even more lopsided than the score indicated. Connecticut (11-0) held No. 1 Stanford (11-1) to 19.3 percent shooting, including 14.3 percent from 3-point range. Many of Stanford’s shots seemed driven by desperation, with the Cardinal unable to penetrate, and even those shots that Stanford got off cleanly were often off target. The Huskies racked up 15 points off turnovers, compared with Stanford’s 4, and the Cardinal had only three assists. “Connecticut came in here on a mission,” Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer said. “Mission accomplished.” During the first half, Connecticut smothered the Cardinal as the Huskies contested almost every shot and forced Stanford into a frantic series of poor decisions and awkward attempts. In the rare moments in which the Cardinal had a numbers advantage in transition, they frequently paused to reset rather than attack the basket, allowing the defense to recover. The sophomore forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis led Connecticut with 19 points, and the junior center Stefanie Dolson had 10 points and 14 rebounds while playing a prime role in limiting Stanford’s Chiney Ogwumike. Although Ogwumike, a preseason all-American, led the Cardinal with 18 points, she did so on 6-of-22 shooting. “Chiney is a little quicker than me,” Dolson said, “but I was able to keep her in front of me and make her take hard shots — shots she didn’t want to take.” The rest of Stanford’s starters combined to score 8 points. “You’re not going to be a very good team, like Connecticut is, when you have two starters who don’t even score,” VanDerveer said. Bria Hartley and Kelly Faris each contributed 10 points for Connecticut. In building a 31-13 halftime lead, Connecticut limited the Cardinal to five field goals on 15.2 percent shooting. Stanford reacted to Connecticut’s relentless pressure with tentative play. For a span of nearly six minutes in the first half, Connecticut held Stanford scoreless and extended its lead to 22-7, from 10-7. At that point, the game was effectively over. When Ogwumike hit a jumper in the paint to end the run, the home crowd erupted more in relief than with any sort of joy. “That Connecticut team was the standard,” Ogwumike said after the game. “Now we’ve experienced the standard.” This was the fourth time that Connecticut and Stanford had squared off as the nation’s top-ranked teams; the previous three meetings occurred between April 5, 2009, and April 6, 2010. The Huskies won those games, two of them in Final Fours. “When we played them two years ago, it was a national event,” Huskies Coach Geno Auriemma said. “This time, I don’t think it was. I didn’t get so excited about us winning 90, so I’m not going to get too worked up over them winning 82 in a row at home.” It was the Cardinal’s worst defeat at home since a 96-51 loss to Long Beach State in 1983. BAYLOR 106, SE LOUISIANA 41 Jordan Madden scored all 13 of her points in the first half and third-ranked Baylor thumped visiting Southeastern Louisiana. The Lady Bears (10-1) have won 46 consecutive games at home, now the longest active streak in women’s college basketball. Brandi Simmons had 12 points to lead Southeastern Louisiana (7-4). (AP) NOTRE DAME 74, PURDUE 47 Kayla McBride scored 18 points and Skylar Diggins shook off early foul trouble to finish with 16 points to help No. 5 Notre Dame (10-1) rout visiting Purdue. Courtney Moses led the Boilermakers (11-2) with 13 points. (AP) MARYLAND 72, HARTFORD 40 Alyssa Thomas had 22 points and 11 rebounds, helping No. 9 Maryland (10-2) cruise to a victory over visiting Hartford (9-4) in the championship game of the Terrapin Classic. Daphne Elliott had 9 points for Hartford in the first meeting between the teams since December 1997. (AP) OKLA. 79, CAL ST. NORTHRIDGE 57 Aaryn Ellenberg scored 24 points to lift No. 18 Oklahoma (10-2) over Cal State Northridge at home (6-5). Janae Sharpe and Jianni Jackson scored 12 points each for the Matadors. (AP) S. CAROLINA 66, W. CAROLINA 44 Tiffany Mitchell scored 12 points to lead No. 19 South Carolina (12-2) to a win over visiting Western Carolina. Ieasia Walker had 9 points for South Carolina (12-2). Makensey Campbell and Lindsay Simpson scored 9 points each for the Catamounts (3-9). (AP) COLORADO 84, NEW MEXICO 39 Lexy Kresl scored 20 points to lead No. 23 Colorado (11-0) over visiting New Mexico. Antiesha Brown led New Mexico (8-5) with 10 points. (AP)

Basketball (College)
Stanford University
University of Connecticut
Mosqueda-Lewis Kaleena
Dolson Stefanie