Marin Cilic Is on the Upswing

Abstract: There will be three newcomers at this year’s ATP World Tour Finals in London: Marin Cilic, Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori. But the only rookie with a Grand Slam title is Cilic. It came all in a rush in September at the United States Open , where Cilic swept over the final three hurdles — Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer and Nishikori — without so much as a stumble or a lost set. It did not emerge from nowhere, though. Cilic, a tall and thoughtful Croatian, broke into the top 10 back in 2010, the same year he reached the semifinals of the Australian Open. But even with his improved serving under his new coach, Goran Ivanisevic, it was still quite a surprise in the oligarchic age of Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who beat Cilic this year at the French Open and Wimbledon. The victory in New York also came with a subtext, as Cilic became the first man to have served a doping suspension before winning a Grand Slam singles title. Cilic was suspended for nine months after testing positive for the stimulant nikethamide in May 2013 at a tournament in Munich. But he convinced the authorities that he had inadvertently ingested the substance in a glucose tablet because of linguistic confusion and that there was no intent to cheat. The Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced the suspension on appeal to four months. In London, the 9th-ranked Cilic plays in a group with Berdych and Cilic’s fellow Grand Slam singles champions Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka, opening against Djokovic on Sunday. He spoke recently with Christopher Clarey of The International New York Times. Q. After all the ups and downs, what does making it to London and the final eight mean to you? A. I think it ranks in the top two achievements of my career. First one is definitely the U.S. Open victory, and the second one is this. It shows that I was playing really well throughout the season, not just for two weeks. Q. Have you spoken with your former coach, Bob Brett, since winning in New York? A. I called Bob straight after I came home from Davis Cup after the U.S. Open. I had a great relationship with Bob, and he taught me many things in my tennis and my life. He is a big part of this success. I know how much effort Bob put into it, and I felt, and he always talked about, his belief that I had this in me. It happened now with Goran, but it was also a big part from him, too. Q. Goran, who won Wimbledon, was also coached by Brett for many years. So it must be a similar philosophy, right? A. Absolutely. That’s what I felt a lot. All the things that Bob was teaching me, he was teaching Goran. And Goran knew what things I was going through, and if I had some difficulties with the things Bob was teaching me, Goran already understood. So there was no need for conversation about that. He already was introduced to the situation. Bob had spoken to him many times. It was, I think, a perfect match for me. Q. One that seems to prove again that having a former Grand Slam champ as a coach is the way to break through at a Grand Slam. A. I had a really good balance. Bob taught me many things about the game, and now I’m working with Goran who brought me these small details that helped me to take this to another level. So it’s a tricky question. I feel of course that the ex-players are going to be the best coaches but not necessarily would they be the best ones from an early age for players to teach them everything and have the patience. Q. You were born in Medjugorje, in what is now Bosnia, and you represented Bosnia as a young junior but later switched to Croatia. Why? A. It’s a little bit of a political thing. Because Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country with Serbians, Bosnians and Croatians, and I’m in a part that is called Herzegovina, which is 95 percent populated by Croatians. We all have Croatian passports, Croatian TV. We have Croatian program in our school, so I was all the time Croatian with all my tendencies to Croatia. But my first year under 14, I played for Bosnia and Herzegovina as it was a good opportunity for me to play in the Europeans. But all the time I was Croatian and there wasn’t even a hard transition. It was the normal way, let’s say. Q. Are you at peace with your suspension and how the situation is now perceived? A. Well, I still don’t feel that people really understand what actually happened, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to raise any more stuff in the media about doping, because it just triggers the alarm only by using that word. Q. Has it changed how you conduct your career? A. I’m much more careful now. At a tournament, I always carry my bottle around of water or whatever. If I don’t have it by my side, I take a new bottle. I check the sun cream with the ingredients to see what is there. Things like that become a little bit of a worry now.

Marin Cilic
Doping
US Open Tennis
Assn of Tennis Professionals


Al Gore’s Top-Secret Access for the Final ‘Sopranos’ Episode

Abstract: Who knew that tree-hugging ex-politicians loved “The Sopranos”? It turns out that Al Gore is a die-hard fan, but when the series finale loomed in early June, he and his wife, Tipper, had to be on a plane for an appearance in Istanbul. So Mr. Gore, now better known as the star of “An Inconvenient Truth” than as the former vice president of the United States, called Brad Grey, the chairman of Paramount whose studio distributed his documentary, for a favor. Mr. Grey is also an executive producer of “The Sopranos,” from his previous incarnation as a Hollywood manager. Could Mr. Gore get an advance copy of the final episode, he wanted to know? No way, said Mr. Grey. “I’ve turned down everyone who’s asked,” he recalled telling Mr. Gore. That episode was the holy grail, and he couldn’t risk it being leaked. But after a night of tossing and turning, Mr. Grey had a change of heart. On the Sunday of the finale, he had a Halliburton -made steel case, containing a copy of the episode, delivered to the tarmac where Mr. Gore’s plane sat in Chicago. The case was locked with a code (some might call it a “lockbox”). Mr. Gore could not open it until the plane was in the air, when he was instructed to call Mr. Grey’s office for the numeric code. Mr. Gore sent Mr. Grey a photo of himself trying to pry open the case, which Mr. Grey now keeps on his desk. And unlike that final episode, this story had a postscript. After the tale of Mr. Gore’s special delivery made the rounds of Hollywood political circles, the Republican candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani called Mr. Grey, a longtime friend, to complain. Why didn’t he get a special “Sopranos” delivery, too?

The Sopranos
United States
Gore Al
Documentary Films and Programs
Television
United States Politics and Government
Halliburton Co
Grey Brad
Giuliani Rudolph W


Red Sox-Yankees Rivalry Wears Suits

Abstract: Wayne, N.J. The general managers of the Yankees and the Red Sox form a striking couple, though mainly for their contrasts, which seem to capture the respective stations of their ball clubs, in addition to outside perceptions of their executive standing. Smaller in physical stature than Theo Epstein, his Boston counterpart, Brian Cashman tends to speak with an earnestness and an eagerness to explain himself fully, and with the permanently furrowed brow of a man regularly dealing with vocational stress. With careful grooming and impeccable posture, Epstein comes across as more spit-shined, with the self-assurance of a young master of his universe, and with the glint of realization that the joke is never on him. At least not since he has presided over two curse-eviscerating World Series titles in the last four years, a span in which the Yankees have failed to advance beyond one round in the postseason. “I didn’t have to clear it with Hank either,” Epstein snapped after Cashman was asked if he had sought Hank Steinbrenner’s permission to partner up with the chief architect of the Yankees’ sworn enemy for a lecture program Friday night at William Paterson University. No note of consent from the new boss was required, Cashman assured us. But who would argue that Steinbrenner doesn’t aspire to become the singular voice of the Yankees — having already replaced his once-loquacious father, George, Cashman and eventually perhaps John Sterling, Michael Kay and Bob Sheppard —and wouldn’t have preferred the lecture gig for himself? That is, if Steinbrenner wasn’t already busy writing a column for The New York Post as a celebrity commentator on the Super Bowl , which happens to be the sport George Steinbrenner was infamous for referencing back in his prime as the Yankees’ self-appointed motivational mastermind. Until Friday night, Cashman in recent months had seemed to disappear into a Yankees witness-protection program, while Hank Steinbrenner provided round-the-clock updates on everything from matters within the ownership realm to Joba Chamberlain’s role in 2008. After hearing Steinbrenner tell a reporter, “I’m not going to waste Joba as a setup guy, period,” what general manager with one year remaining on his contract would have believed it career-advantageous to play the public contrarian? Cashman acknowledged Steinbrenner’s “active role with the press,” but also said, not referring exclusively to the Chamberlain decision, “I don’t feel that I have to necessarily reinforce that position.” In other words, he didn’t make the climb from intern to general manager and survive for almost a decade by being a yes (or YES) man. Cashman and Epstein, 31 and 28 when they ascended to their current positions, have proved to be savvy beyond their years, and more than the sum of their abundant organizational resources. A crowd of almost 1,000 jammed the university’s Shay Center to hear them discuss the rivalry that is biding its time, allowing the Giants and the Patriots another week to settle their own regional hostilities. Then it’s back to the Roger Clemens and Johan Santana watches, pitchers and catchers, Yankees and Red Sox. No question, the Super Bowl in general, and this coming one in particular, dwarfs anything baseball may respond with as a national event. But for sheer soap-operatic drama from central New Jersey to northern New England, Yankees-Red Sox will not soon be supplanted, as long as both teams remain at or near the top of baseball’s revenue-generators and don’t make calamitous spending decisions. Along those fault lines, Cashman and Epstein addressed the difficulties of resisting the temptations of immediate gratification (without mentioning Santana by name) and the desire to hold to the blueprint more than make moves for the sake of keeping up with the other. Granted, Cashman said, sustaining a championship-caliber team is even more challenging than building one. Epstein agreed, admitting he consulted the Patriots after the World Series in 2004 for advice on how to meet the challenges of success. “If you don’t manage it properly, things can get away from you, even if you have the same type of talent,” Cashman would have told Epstein, if there weren’t subjects that are off-limits between the respectful rivals. “It’s a dangerous, slippery slope.” On top of the baseball world and especially the Yankees, Epstein is pretty much where Cashman was at the turn of the century, with three straight Series victories (and four in five years) before the team-first philosophy that created the core of championship players was abandoned. Cashman made his share of personnel blunders, especially in the acquisition of starting pitchers, but did he really have an alternative to overpaying and praying when the mandate from above was to win now, yesterday and tomorrow? While Hank Steinbrenner has said that he supports the developmental plan Cashman embarked on a couple of years ago after he won a power struggle with the people surrounding George Steinbrenner in Tampa, you wonder how long he will fight the urge to meet Minnesota’s steep price for Santana. And how much self-control he will exert if Epstein’s Red Sox continue to have their way. New owner. Same family. Old meddling habits? “Frankly, I wish they were doing things the way they were five years ago,” Epstein said, referring to the rash of signings that brought the Yankees many big names and no World Series titles. In Boston, the funniest joke of all.

Baseball
Cashman Brian
Epstein Theo
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees


The Atlantic Turns a Profit, With an Eye on the Web

Abstract: WASHINGTON — How did a 153-year-old magazine — one that first published the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and gave voice to the abolitionist and transcendentalist movements — reinvent itself for the 21st century? By pretending it was a Silicon Valley start-up that needed to kill itself to survive. The Atlantic, the intellectual’s monthly that always seemed more comfortable as an academic exercise than a business, is on track to turn a tidy profit of $1.8 million this year. That would be the first time in at least a decade that it had not lost money. Getting there took a cultural transfusion, a dose of counterintuition and a lot of digital advertising revenue. “We imagined ourselves as a venture-capital-backed start-up in Silicon Valley whose mission was to attack and disrupt The Atlantic,” said Justin B. Smith, president of the Atlantic Media Company, who arrived at the magazine’s offices in the Watergate complex in 2007 with a mission to stanch the red ink. “In essence, we brainstormed the question, ‘What would we do if the goal was to aggressively cannibalize ourselves?’ ” What that meant more than anything else was forcing one of the nation’s oldest magazines to stop thinking of itself as a printed product. Separations between the digital and print staffs in both business and editorial operations came down. The Web site’s paywall was dismantled. A cadre of young writers began filling the newsroom’s cubicles. Advertising salespeople were told it did not matter what percentage of their sales were digital and what percentage print; they just needed to hit one sales target. A robust business around Atlantic-branded conferences took off. The strategy is not a cure-all template for troubled media companies, of course. The Atlantic, a tiny enterprise compared with vast corporate magazine empires like Time Inc. and Condé Nast , has only about 100 business and editorial employees and a circulation of 470,000. A scale that small means that a few million dollars could push the company over the top — an amount that would barely register on the balance sheets of many other publishers. Since 2005, revenue at The Atlantic has almost doubled, reaching $32.2 million this year, according to figures provided by the company. About half of that is advertising revenue. But digital advertising — projected to finish the year at $6.1 million — represents almost 40 percent of the company’s overall advertising take. In the magazine business, which has resisted betting its future on digital revenue, that is a rate virtually unheard of. It did not always appear The Atlantic would get here. The magazine has long enjoyed a certain intellectual cachet. It was the kind of publication devotees knew made them well read (“Did you see that piece in The Atlantic?”), and a destination for writers that burnished a résumé like few others (“As I said in my Atlantic piece ...”). But what it enjoyed in prestige it lacked in business success. Efforts to turn even a modest profit failed, with some setbacks the result of management decisions and others the result of tragic misfortune. “I thought, ‘How hard could magazine management be?’ ” said David G. Bradley, who made The Atlantic his second magazine purchase in 1999, two years after he bought the National Journal Group from the Times Mirror Company. He paid Mortimer B. Zuckerman $10 million for the privilege. Mr. Bradley, an exceedingly polite man who carries himself with a gentility that can make it seem as if he comes from a different era, ruefully recalled in an interview that buying the magazine quickly began to look like a mistake. “Immediately it was turmoil for me,” he said, the panorama of Georgetown and the Potomac River providing the backdrop to his eighth floor corner office. The Atlantic lost $4.5 million in its first year under Mr. Bradley’s ownership, and that figure grew worse. Grappling for a solution, Mr. Bradley went through what he called his Inspector Clouseau phase, likening himself to the hapless Pink Panther detective. He tried going out on sales calls with his advertising staff, only to find that his presence in meetings was a distraction. He sank money into printing the magazine on higher quality paper, only to find that it was a waste. He raised the price of a subscription. He lowered the price of a subscription. Then, in 2003, the magazine’s celebrated editor, Michael Kelly, was killed while on assignment in Iraq . Two years later, with losses approaching $7 million a year, Mr. Bradley decided to move the magazine to Washington from Boston , its ancestral home. Mr. Bradley, ever self-effacing and independently wealthy from the public offering of a corporate research firm he founded at age 26, said he finally realized he had run out of ideas. “Atlantic had so serially failed,” he said, “that it was overwhelmingly likely the next thing we would do was fail, and the next thing we would do was fail.” He credited two moves as seminal in turning the magazine around: hiring the editor James Bennet from The New York Times in 2006 and Mr. Smith from The Week in 2007. Mr. Bennet, a former foreign correspondent with a clean-shaven bald head, a goatee and a passion so intense for The Atlantic that he can recite the founders’ 1857 mission statement from memory (“The Atlantic will be the organ of no party or clique”), began refocusing the magazine’s efforts in print and online. He and Mr. Bradley set out to assemble a team of bloggers who were known quantities and could attract a devoted following. They lured Andrew Sullivan away from Time.com in what proved to be a major coup. Today Mr. Sullivan’s blog, The Daily Dish , accounts for about a quarter of TheAtlantic.com ’s monthly unique visitors, which reached 4.8 million in October. A year earlier, traffic to the site was three million unique visitors. Another experiment, an aggregator of online opinion columns called The Atlantic Wire , exploded to nearly a million unique monthly visitors in the year since its start. For a publication as refined as The Atlantic, such a rapid refocusing toward the very uncivil world of the Web did not come without anxiety. “If what you produce is a highly polished, absolutely beautiful, totally fact-checked error-free magazine, the kind of anarchic, often raw environment of the Web was pretty scary,” Mr. Bennet said. “But it turned out our 150-year-old magazine could make that transition very naturally.” On the business end, there was an equal sense that the company needed to be run like a digital enterprise. The online marketing and sales staffs were merged with their print counterparts — a move many magazines are making just now. All sales representatives were moved to New York from Washington. Mr. Smith set out to eliminate $2 million in costs in his first year, in part by reducing the head count. Mr. Smith also hired away the publisher of Wired, Jay Lauf, who did something fairly radical for the magazine business: He told his staff they did not have to meet separate targets for print and digital ad sales. “If you do $1.8 million in digital and $200,000 in print, that’s fine.” In the last year, digital advertising revenue at The Atlantic rose almost 70 percent while print revenue climbed more than 25 percent. The Atlantic’s leaders have become something of a marvel in the publishing world. David Carey, president of Hearst Magazines, who during his time at Condé Nast led The New Yorker back from the brink, said The Atlantic’s turnaround was truly a feat. “Justin and Jay proved the cynics wrong, that the Atlantic would never work as a business,” he said. “They are terrific managers and marketers.” Another major ingredient for growth has been Atlantic-branded conferences. The company started hosting events in 2006, and they now make up more than 14 percent of its total revenue. An annual conference in Aspen , Colo., a joint project with the Aspen Institute, draws 1,200 people who pay $2,700 for a four-day pass. Profitability is a new enough concept at The Atlantic that some there seem almost giddy about it. Mr. Bradley asked his accounting department to find out which subscriber’s check officially put the company into the black. They pinpointed a woman from Livingston, Tenn., who sent in a $29.95 check for her renewal on Oct. 1. Mr. Bradley got her phone number off the check and called her to say thank you. At first she mistook him for a telemarketer and almost hung up on him, but not before he promised to pay for her subscription for the next 10 years.

Magazine
Atlantic Monthly
Computers and the Internet


John Hurt’s Roles Befit His Name - Nocturnalist

Abstract: Lantern-bearers led the crowd through the darkened streets of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Tuesday night to a lavish dinner after a performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music ’s Next Wave Gala. It was opening night for Samuel Beckett ’s “Krapp’s Last Tape,” a terrifically unsettling one-man show starring John Hurt , known for his craggy, melancholic appearance and portrayals of the same. But at the post-performance dinner at Skylight One Hanson, an Art Deco bank-cum-banquet hall near the theater, Mr. Hurt was upbeat, not to mention ravenous — even though he’s required to down bananas on stage as part of his performance. Would his repertory of the forlorn and troubled have been different if, say, he were named “John Smile”? we asked. His surname “is a name of destiny,” he replied. Typecasting may not trouble him, but phone-toting theatergoers do. “I don’t know why you’d keep it on vibrate; you can still hear it,” he said. “Since when is everyone a heart surgeon?” Earlier in the evening, we had mingled with a quite pregnant Maggie Gyllenhaal and Alex McCord , a former cast member of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” At one point, Ms. McCord’s husband, Simon van Kempen , grabbed an hors d’oeuvre off a passing waiter’s tray. He pretended to shove it in his wife’s mouth to stop her from speaking. Mamie Gummer , the actress and daughter of Meryl Streep, and her husband, Benjamin Walker , who starred in the musical “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” seemed more civil. Mr. Walker said he had been in many a one-man show: “In my dreams. In my bathroom.” Providing for a Billionaire Portraits of New Yorkers like David Rockefeller, William F. Buckley Jr. and Brooke Astor — then 89, and still mustering a come-hither look — graced the walls at the Hearst Tower on Wednesday night, at a photography exhibition and party for Town & Country magazine. The most prominent work was a photo of the face of Jay Fielden , the magazine’s editor. We flipped over the program. Mr. Fielden, it said, had curated the exhibit. The photos were by Harry Benson , the famed celebrity photographer. The guest list included many of the city’s financial and social heavyweights. Wilbur L. Ross Jr. , who has a net worth of $2.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, was there supporting his wife, Hilary Geary Ross , who wrote the text in a new book of Mr. Benson’s work titled “New York New York.” “It’s nice to have somebody bringing some money into the household for a change,” Mr. Ross said, laughing. We tore our gaze away from Mr. Fielden’s giant, beaming face and saw Anne Hearst propping up the bar. Is the Hearst Tower a Hearst hangout, an extension of the family’s living room? The party “happened to be at the same time as the board meetings,” Ms. Hearst clarified. We turned to the Hearst-in-law Jay McInerney . What was he up to? “I’m writing a new novel,” he said. “Until then I plan to be incredibly frivolous and nocturnal.” Us, too. The Walking Dead The same night that protesters occupied the set of “Law & Order: SVU” at Zuccotti Park, we found ourselves in what seemed like an episode of the show. At a book party on Thursday night for “Kill Switch” — a thriller by Neal Baer and Jonathan Greene , two former producers of “SVU” — nearly every guest was a TV cop or bad guy. We had seen many onscreen — when they died a gory death. “People are obsessed with death,” Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland , the author of “How We Die,” told us during the party. “They approach it like a moth approaches a flame: come right up to it, realize how dangerous it is and step back, but sometimes, of course, they are singed by it.” Guests, including the actors Mike Doyle , Eriq La Salle and Jennifer Ehle, assembled in the narrow lobby of the New York Institute of Technology on the Upper West Side. Seeing “dead” people, we were spooked. “I got my cuffs, baby; don’t worry about it,” Mariska Hargitay told us. Our chills dissipated before we remembered that she was not, in fact, Detective Olivia Benson. (It didn’t help that Capt. Donald Cragen — uh, we mean Dann Florek — was nearby.) On occasion, Ms. Hargitay said, “I find myself sort of stepping up and taking charge just because I go into automatic pilot.” “I was at a movie theater once, and this lady fainted, and people were standing around, and I started yelling to call a bus,” she said. “Sometimes I get a little confused.” But “I think I can handle emergencies pretty well: I have 13 years of training,” Ms. Hargitay added. We felt better, for a moment. “And if I can’t really do it,” she said, “I can certainly fake it.”

Brooklyn Academy of Music
Theater
New York City
Parties (Social)
Hurt John
Hargitay Mariska
Fort Greene (NYC)
Beckett Samuel
Krapp's Last Tape (Play)


Brazil Forging Economic Ties With Cuba, While Hiring Its Doctors

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — The conditions around the public health clinic in the vast slum of Jacarezinho are precisely what most Brazilian doctors prefer to avoid: dealers of crack cocaine ply their trade along dilapidated train tracks, and the odor from a crematory for stray dogs overwhelms patients and medical workers. “Of course I knew this mission wouldn’t be easy,” said Idarmis González, 45, one of the more than 4,500 Cuban doctors the Brazilian government is hiring to work in far-flung villages in the Amazon and slums in major cities. “We go where other doctors do not,” said Ms. González as she examined an infant suffering from dehydration and diarrhea. Faced with a wave of street protests in 2013 over deplorable public services, President Dilma Rousseff has made the hiring of Cuban doctors a cornerstone of her response to the turmoil, overriding the resistance of doctors’ unions to sending the Cubans, trained in a Communist country that says it has a surplus of doctors, into neglected parts of Brazil’s public health system. But the project also points to a broader ambition of Brazil’s government, which is vying to exert influence in Cuba as the authorities in Havana slowly expose the island nation’s economy to market forces . Brazilian exports to Cuba are surging, quadrupling over the past decade to more than $450 million a year. The inroads made by Brazilian companies in Cuba, relying on loans from Brazil’s national development bank and aid projects that share Brazil’s expertise in tropical agriculture, reflect a sophisticated projection of soft power in a country where Washington’s influence remains negligible. “This is Brazil playing the long strategic game in the Caribbean,” said Julia E. Sweig, director for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Cuba benefits, too. Its medical diplomacy, established decades ago with the export of doctors to developing countries, is reaping a major dividend with Brazil’s new project, worth as much as $270 million a year to Cuba’s government. The medical alliance bolsters ties between the countries, a prospect that Brazilian leaders have been vigorously cultivating since the 1990s. For Brazil, the payoff is obvious: It now ranks among Cuba’s largest trading partners, behind Venezuela and China. For Venezuela, Cuba’s top ally and the supplier of about 100,000 barrels a day of subsidized oil, ideology forms the basis for stronger ties; for Brazil the relationship is more about finding opportunities for Brazilian companies. For instance, a Brazilian soap opera produced by the Globo network, “Avenida Brasil,” now appears on Cuban state television, offering viewers a taste of life in Rio de Janeiro’s gritty suburbs. Building on Brazilian assistance programs to lift Cuban farm yields, Brazilian soybean and rice farmers are also emerging as top suppliers of food to Cuba. But Brazil’s top project in Cuba is the $900 million upgrade of the Port of Mariel by the construction giant Odebrecht, the same company that has carried out various infrastructure projects in South Florida. While Washington’s prolonged economic sanctions prevent most American companies from doing business with Cuba, Brazil’s efforts to gain a foothold in Cuba come at a time when the island’s economic relations are in a state of flux. Venezuela remains Cuba’s top benefactor, but it is unclear whether Venezuela can sustain such largess as it confronts economic troubles of its own. Venezuela and Cuba recently delayed a $700 million nickel venture, and talk of other cooperation projects has died down. At the same time, Chinese exports to Cuba have climbed sharply. Chinese tourist buses can be seen outside big hotels, Chinese-built Geely cars have become de rigueur for Cuban officials and thousands of students studying the Spanish language fill hostels and Havana’s tiny strip of Chinese-Cuban restaurants. Brazil’s profile within Cuba remains far more subtle, but the arrival of thousands of Cuban doctors, many of whom are black, has made a big splash here, shaking Brazil’s medical establishment and revealing some painful tensions over race and privilege. “These doctors from Cuba are slave doctors,” said Wellington Galvão, director of the physicians union of Alagoas in northeast Brazil, repeating an assessment of the project by critics who contend that the conditions faced by the Cubans in Brazil are degrading. Under terms of the program, which is managed in part by the Pan American Health Organization, the Cubans are not allowed to bring their families to Brazil and receive only a fraction of their monthly salary of about $4,255. The rest is paid to Cuba’s government, providing it with a new source of hard currency. Supporters of the project in Brazil retort that the description of the Cuban doctors as slaves is a sign of thinly veiled racism and class bias among the medical establishment. Ms. Rousseff herself has lashed out at what she called “prejudice” against the Cubans. Brazil ranks well below neighboring Argentina and Uruguay with just 1.8 doctors per 1,000 people, according to the World Bank, so hiring the Cubans could be seen as a savvy political move by Ms. Rousseff, who is running for re-election next year. “I’m just happy to have a doctor, period, whether he’s Cuban or not,” said Sthefani Nogueira, 21, after a gynecological exam at a public clinic in the Rio neighborhood of Realengo, performed by Israel Fernández, 47, a Cuban doctor who arrived here in October. With the project in its infancy, pitfalls could still emerge. After Venezuela began hiring Cuban doctors in 2003, hundreds of them fled their posts to request asylum in the United States. In Brazil, Latin America’s largest democracy, confusion has persisted over whether the Cuban doctors arriving here will be able to request political asylum. A spokeswoman for the Justice Ministry said that the Cubans would be able to request refugee status if they said that they were being persecuted for their political beliefs, though she said none had taken that step in 2013. Brazil’s efforts to deepen ties with Cuba have encountered other problems. Dealing a blow to Cuba’s ambitions of increasing oil production, the Brazilian oil company Petrobras halted an offshore exploration operation in Cuban waters after drilling produced disappointing results. And Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction giant, has had to wage legal battles with some Cuban-Americans in Florida over its activities in Cuba. But the doctors who return to Cuba from Brazil may carry with them the seeds of new perspectives after witnessing Brazil’s efforts to respond to the recent street protests and other forms of political dissent. “Brazil is a model for Cuba in that it has managed to develop its economy with peace and consensus,” said Roberto Veiga, the editor of a Cuban magazine funded by the German Bishops’ Conference.

Brazil
Cuba
Doctor
Dilma Rousseff
Economy
Medicine and Health
International relations


Letters to the Editor

Abstract: Animal Behavior Nature’s Alarm Bells TO THE EDITOR: Re “ Sentinels of the Forest ” (May 19): Once while napping along the Porcupine River, hundreds of miles from civilization deep inside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I was awakened by an annoying burst of squawks from a flock of crows. It turned out they were announcing the arrival of a grizzly bear. I looked over at my wife, who had meant to stay awake and on guard, asleep beside me. Thanks to the crows, we were able to climb into our raft and enter the flow of the mighty river, undisturbed by the bear. One would hope the human quest to better hear and understand nature’s living alarm bells will succeed before it’s too late. Tom Martinez Brooklyn Oncology Making Cancer Extinct TO THE EDITOR: Re “ Turning Nature Against Cancer ” (Raw Data, May 19): George Johnson correctly observes that immunotherapy for cancer relies on “Darwinian principles,” but the essential importance of evolutionary biology for understanding and treating cancer extends far beyond this. Cancer in an individual should be thought of as an “invasive species” disrupting an ecosystem, a population of cells with extraordinary genetic diversity, possessing the ability to eventually adapt to nearly every therapy oncologists apply. The goal, in Darwinian terms, should be to reduce the genomic diversity in the cancer cell population by strategically targeting the key pathways of growth and survival which have allowed it to develop. Genomic sequencing of tumors, circulating tumor cells and cell-free DNA is providing us with the necessary information to do so. Targeting these pathways with combinations of non-cross-resistant drugs to overcome the adaptive potential of the population may produce a population “bottleneck” with low diversity — the key requirements for driving a species to extinction. While this may seem a daunting task, we may have confidence in the human species in this regard — no force of nature, other than an extraterrestrial asteroid, has driven more species to extinction than mankind. Surely we can apply this unique skill to conquering cancer. M. William Audeh, M.D. Los Angeles The writer is a medical oncologist with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the U.C.L.A. School of Medicine. Breast Cancer More Information, Please TO THE EDITOR: “ Study Suggests Dense Breast Tissue Isn’t Always a Cancer Risk Requiring Extra Tests ,” (May 19) confirms our nonprofit’s core belief: that discussions with health care providers about a woman’s breast screening protocol must take into account her breast tissue composition along with any other risk factors. State legislation to standardize the communication of dense breast tissue to women, advocated predominantly by those for whom that knowledge came too late, is a first step in educating women about this critically important breast health information. Women can now take this information to the examining room and discuss its impact on the reliability of their mammography screening results. Women can truly take control of their breast health only when the strongest predictor of the failure of mammography to detect breast cancer — dense breast tissue — is disclosed to them as part of their mammography report. Nancy Cappello Woodbury, Conn. The writer is the founder of Are You Dense, an advocacy group.

Bear
Cancer
Breast cancer
Mammography
Birds
Evolution


Nairobi Demolition Starts as Death Toll Rises in Collapse

Abstract: NAIROBI, Kenya — As emergency workers retrieved four bodies from a building that collapsed a week ago, raising the death toll to 41, hundreds of Nairobi residents were evicted Friday from nearby buildings that are being torn down to prevent other disasters. The demolitions began even as rescuers continued digging through debris from the collapsed seven-story building, which fell during a period of heavy rain. Four survivors were rescued Thursday but one later died. A pregnant woman among the four people who were rescued also lost her baby. At least 70 people remain missing. As rescue work continued in the rain on Friday, hopes dimmed of finding more survivors. Image In the same neighborhood, this building was deemed not as vulnerable to collapse as others and will not be torn down. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press After eight buildings collapsed in the country last year, killing 15 people, an audit of Kenya’s buildings found that 58 percent in Nairobi were unfit for habitation. Following this building collapse, authorities are taking action by tearing down condemned buildings. But residents evicted from buildings in the Huruma neighborhood complained they were not given enough time to find alternative housing. “Since our neighbors’ building collapsed we were given less than a week’s notice to leave which is not enough,” Anna Kaloki said. “Sometimes the government does things without considering the people, and we are not the ones who have done wrong we are just tenants,” she said. “The people who constructed these substandard buildings should be forced to get us alternative accommodation and we should not pay for it.”

Nairobi
Demolition
Buildings
Accidents and Safety


At Long Last, a Kentucky Derby Only About the Horses

Abstract: LOUISVILLE, Ky. — This is an altogether different Kentucky Derby . It hasn’t been hijacked by bombastic owners. There has been no need to manufacture story lines. No, for the first time since I have been coming here, the horses are the genuine stars and there is a sense that the 141st running of America’s signature race is going to be one for the ages. Much of it has to do with the two colts trained by Bob Baffert, American Pharoah and Dortmund. All week, horsemen and -women have been trekking to his barn as if it were the Louvre to take a look at what they consider to be the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo of a deep and talented crop of 3-year-olds. These are hard boots who know that even the great horses lose, and who declare it often, but they have fallen like schoolboys for American Pharoah, the 5-2 morning-line favorite. The loquacious D. Wayne Lukas, 79, a trainer who has won four of these things, usually is the first to tamp down high hopes by grumbling, “Don’t bronze him yet.” But Lukas has predicted American Pharoah will sweep the Triple Crown . “He’s special,” Lukas, who will saddle Mr. Z, said. Image American Pharoah was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has won four of his five races. Credit Rob Carr/Getty Images American Pharoah was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has won four of his five races in effortless fashion. But it is the way the colt has floated like a cloud around this racetrack each morning that has burnished him with an aura of invincibility. “He is a notch above everybody — he glides along so easily, like there isn’t any effort,” said Elliott Walden, president and chief executive of WinStar Farm, which is an owner of Carpe Diem. His colt has also won four of his five starts, and $1.5 million in purses. Like American Pharoah, Carpe Diem has decimated the fields he has faced. Unlike the favorite, Carpe Diem is a son of Giant’s Causeway and bred to go the mile and a quarter. “In any of the last 10 years, we would be the favorite,” Walden said. Instead, Carpe Diem is the third betting choice at a generous 8-1. A Sports Fan’s Guide to a Delicious Saturday A fan’s guide on what to watch and what to eat and drink on the biggest sports Saturday in years. Even more perplexing is how the strapping and accomplished colt Dortmund (3-1) has been totally eclipsed by his stablemate. At 6 for 6, he is one of two undefeated horses in the field. His sire, Big Brown , captured the 2008 Derby, and Dortmund has won on this track before, blitzing 11 rivals by nearly eight lengths in November in a mile race. Better, Dortmund is the only contender who has been challenged in the stretch when the race was on the line — twice — by a colt here named Firing Line. “We know that Dortmund is probably more battle-tested,” Baffert conceded. “He’s been in a fight.” Gary Stevens, 52, rides Firing Line. He first rode in the Derby in 1986, and has won it three times — with Winning Colors in 1988, Thunder Gulch in 1995 and Silver Charm in 1997. After Firing Line lost those head-to-head duels with Dortmund, he was shipped to New Mexico for the Sunland Derby, which he won by 14 lengths. Stevens likes his colt — a lot. He also understands why Firing Line is 12-1. “This is the best bunch of horses assembled for this race since I’ve been coming here,” he said. “What’s even better is most of them haven’t seen each other before.” Image At 6 for 6, Dortmund is one of two undefeated horses in the field. Credit Charlie Riedel/Associated Press He’s right. There are others, too, who cannot be thrown out. Materiality (12-1) is 3 for 3 and bested a tough Florida Derby field. Frosted (15-1) won the Wood Memorial by two lengths. Mubtaahij (20-1) is here from Dubai, where he ran away with four of his five starts on the dirt. “I am very impressed by what I see, and I probably picked one of the worst years to try to come to the Derby from another country,” Mubtaahij’s South African trainer, Mike de Kock, said. “There’s some very serious horses. There’s not only American Pharoah, there’s some proper horses there, so, you know, a healthy respect for them, there’s no doubt.” Between the star power of American Pharoah and the depth and talent of his challengers, even the most practical horsemen and cynical horseplayers are finding it hard to shake the feeling that something magical is about to happen along this year’s Triple Crown trail. “Some Derbys, horses that win, no one thought they could,” John Moynihan, a longtime bloodstock agent, said. “That isn’t going to happen this year. I don’t know if it will be American Pharoah, but a very good horse is going to win. And hopefully, when we get done with the Triple Crown, there’s going to be three or four horses that are considered warriors.” It would be thrilling, of course, if this year’s winner was fast and strong enough to become just the 12th Triple Crown champion and the first since Affirmed in 1978. It would be great if like Silver Charm, Real Quiet, Charismatic, War Emblem, Funny Cide, Smarty Jones, Big Brown and California Chrome, the winner got to the Belmont Stakes with a chance at history. What’s nice now, however, is that horses are front and center for the right reasons in an industry in which that is not often the case. Let’s get them around the track safely on Saturday and perhaps see most of them again two weeks from now in Baltimore.

Kentucky Derby
Horse
Bob Baffert
Elliott Walden
Gary Stevens
Horse racing
Horse Jockeys and Trainers


Aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Begin to Eye the Exits

Abstract: As New York City mayors go, Michael R. Bloomberg has enjoyed an unusual degree of fidelity among the ranks. His inner circle, mostly unchanged after a decade in office, has avoided the churning disputes and abrupt exits that typically plague political administrations. But even three-term tenures must come to a close, and City Hall is now starting to experience a phenomenon rarely seen in the loyal pastures of Bloombergland: the exodus. In recent weeks, Mr. Bloomberg has lost his counsel, his chief procurement officer and his leading legislative aide, among other officials. Last Monday, he announced the departure of Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner since the start of the Bloomberg administration. Other key figures are said to be pondering their next, potentially lucrative steps. For a mayor who prides himself on hiring the best, a migration of City Hall talent can be worrying. Mr. Bloomberg has made no secret of the fact that he wishes to make maximum use of his remaining 18 months in office, squeezing in ambitious programs and cementing his legacy — a task that would be made more difficult with a missing or distracted staff. “The saying goes, at City Hall, you don’t want to be the last guy to turn out the lights,” said George Arzt, who served as press secretary during the final days of Mayor Edward I. Koch’s administration. “You have one eye on your next job and one eye on doing your job at City Hall.” Micah Lasher, who had served as Mr. Bloomberg’s chief lobbyist in Albany, left in April to help run a group that promotes the mayor’s education policies. Marla G. Simpson, the chief procurement officer, left in March. In February, Anthony Crowell, the mayor’s counselor, decamped to New York Law School, and he will be joined there by Carole Post, the city’s chief technology officer, who left in April. Mr. Bloomberg has survived the loss of top aides in the past. But hiring top-quality replacements, particularly from outside government, may be impossible when the job will barely last a year, according to several former and current city officials. Randy M. Mastro , a former deputy mayor for operations under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, put it bluntly: “I don’t think you’re going to see nationwide searches,” he said. Instead, City Hall is now likely to turn to in-house talent to fill openings. “Because you’re promoting from within, there’s a tendency for a lame-duck administration to become stale,” Mr. Arzt said. “There’s no new thinking. It’s a continuation of the existing programs.” Already, the administration has faced some criticism for replacing Mr. Benepe, the parks chief, with Veronica M. White, a longtime public servant who has overseen antipoverty initiatives for the mayor, but has little experience running parks. Henry Stern, an outspoken former parks commissioner, issued a skeptical assessment of the mayor’s choice, comparing Ms. White’s lack of relevant expertise to that of Cathleen P. Black, Mr. Bloomberg’s short-lived pick to run the city school system. But Ms. White has many champions, including another former parks commissioner, Gordon Davis, who say she is well-prepared for her new role. In public, Mr. Bloomberg has sounded an unruffled note about the departures. “There’s turnover all the time,” the mayor said at the news conference where he announced Mr. Benepe’s exit. “Look, the bottom line is if you’re going to have great people, then you should expect somebody to come along and try to take them away. And in fact, if they don’t, it’s sort of an insult.” “We have a plan for everybody, what happens if they decide to go on, or if, unfortunately, they have an accident or something,” Mr. Bloomberg added. “That’s exactly what good management is all about.” Mr. Benepe, who described his decision to leave as “wrenching,” said he spoke with Mr. Bloomberg earlier this year after he was offered his new job, a position focusing on urban park development at a national conservation group. “There was an understanding that this position was attractive,” he said. “Timing-wise, I would have loved to have stayed till next December, but this is when the job was open.” “You’d like to fantasize you can stay in a particular job like this forever, but that’s not the reality,” Mr. Benepe added. There is one such fantasy, however, that could encourage some staff members to hold out until the end. While previous mayors could offer a letter of recommendation at best, Mr. Bloomberg controls a Fortune 500 corporation and a multibillion-dollar charity, the Bloomberg Family Foundation, both of which could be the source of long-term, high-paying employment for some valued aides. “He certainly will be more successful than any typical end-of-termer in keeping people,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City . “Everybody knows that with Bloomberg, there’s life after the mayoralty.” Many believe that only a few slots will ultimately be available at the foundation, and Patricia E. Harris, the first deputy mayor and chief executive of the charity, is expected to play gatekeeper. Some commissioners are gauging the strength of their relationship with Ms. Harris as a guide to whether they could be considered for a position. “This is going to be like the list for Noah’s Ark,” said one person who deals frequently with City Hall and was granted anonymity to avoid straining any relationships. “The fact is, there are only two giraffes and only two elephants. There are a lot of giraffes and elephants who are going to be disappointed.” There are some key members of Mr. Bloomberg’s inner circle who do not need to worry about lining up another job, because of their own personal wealth, or because they are of retirement age. Among those expected to stay are Amanda M. Burden, the influential director of the New York City Planning Department, and Robert Steel, the deputy mayor for economic development, who are leading several of Mr. Bloomberg’s more significant third-term initiatives, including the redevelopment of office buildings around Grand Central Terminal. Other powerful staff members, including Thomas A. Farley, the health commissioner; Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner; and Salvatore J. Cassano, the head of the Fire Department, are also likely to remain, aides said. Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner, who is overseeing the rollout of the city’s ambitious bicycle-sharing program, is expected to stay, barring an invitation to take a powerful job in Washington, colleagues said. Many commissioners are said to relish their work under Mr. Bloomberg, who allows his cabinet members an unusual degree of autonomy. Mr. Benepe described his own job as “enchanting.” “You never want to leave, you want to stay on forever,” he said. “It’s kind of like Peter Pan. It’s either leaving the nursery, or leaving Never-Never Land. Sometimes you have to grow up and realize you can’t always have an office in Central Park.”

New York City
Bloomberg Michael R
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
Politics and Government


Growth of Jets’ Edwards Can Be Seen on His Face

Abstract: CORTLAND, N.Y. — Braylon Edwards has turned his beard into a person. Over the past week alone, The Beard traveled here to Jets training camp, conducted interviews and considered making T-shirts. Edwards started growing his new friend months ago, and it now juts some six glorious inches from his chin. The Beard represents Edwards’s most obvious growth since the Jets traded for him last season. It also underscores his continuing revival, away, Edwards hopes, from the perceptions that have plagued him, toward potential again fulfilled. “He has a sense of renewal,” his mother , Malesa Plater, said. “He came from a team that was always looking for a savior to a team that knows how to win. No one would understand what he’s been through unless you’ve been drowning.” Inside a Manhattan lounge last month, Edwards, 27, sipped white wine and explained how the Jets, the N.F.L.’s boldest team, in its biggest market, returned serenity to his life. He gushed about his year-old son, Braylon Jr., about the improved relationship with his offensive coordinator, about his mother’s recent wedding vow renewal, attended by Edwards and The Beard. Plater remains her son’s closest confidante, his best friend, their bond such that they can communicate without words. She saw in her son this off-season something that had vanished — a level of happiness last evident in his senior year at Michigan. “This is all I ever needed,” Edwards said. “And all I never had.” Never had, he means, in Cleveland, with the organization that selected him with the third overall pick in 2005. Edwards glanced at the roster immediately after the Browns drafted him. He did not recognize many names. Edwards arrived at his first news conference clad in a tailored Italian suit, head high, driving a Bentley coupe. Instantly, he said, this left the wrong impression. Here was a Michigan man about to play professionally in Ohio, a young, rich, outspoken athlete driving a car that cost as much as a house. Blue-collar Cleveland, Plater said, never forgot that, despite the $1 million worth of scholarships she said her son endowed. She described him as “the most hated man” there. Edwards added: “There’s nothing going on in Cleveland. There’s no real estate. There’s no social life, no social networking. All the people who have something going on leave Cleveland. So Cleveland has nothing, and I came in there with a New York-type of essence. So what? That was the attitude I came in with. Like, this is who I am. They didn’t like the flash.” Edwards made the Pro Bowl in his third season , with 16 touchdowns and 1,289 receiving yards. But he was criticized in 2006 for arriving late to a team meeting after chartering a helicopter to attend a college football game. In 2008, after catching passes from four quarterbacks during the season, he told his mother he might retire when his contract expired. That would have been after this season. Each year, it seemed, brought new coaches, or new coordinators, but expectations never changed. He felt burdened by the constant shuffling, the upheaval, the idea that he could, that he should, fix all of it. Edwards felt, “I’d be stuck in a less than mediocre team, organization, system, forever.” The low point came in a 23-20 overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals last Oct. 4, when Edwards went without a catch for the first time in his career. On the ride home, Plater had never seen him so depressed. He looked tired, beaten, miserable. Everybody, even his neighbors, Edwards said, could see that. “My career is over,” he told Plater. “I’m going to be stuck here for the rest of my career.” Later that night, or early the next morning, Edwards got into an altercation at a nightclub. The man he is accused of punching, Edward Givens, was a friend of LeBron James, who claimed Edwards was jealous of his success. That week, Cleveland traded Edwards to the Jets, unloading an athletically gifted receiver less than two years removed from the Pro Bowl and still in the middle of his prime. Edwards said he thought his story existed in the gulf between perception and reality. Perception, in his words: flashy, talkative, selfish, arrogant and, worst of all, prone to dropped passes, a statistic his mother said was “created because of him.” Reality, also in his words: pretty much the opposite. This subject remains complicated, more gray than black and white. He said he expected the kind of scrutiny he has faced, but admitted that it bothered him. He said he wanted to change perception but worried that by addressing those notions, he gave merit to them. He said that last year, he changed at least some perceptions. And he said that he would probably be seen as another petulant wide receiver until the Jets won the Super Bowl . With the Jets, Edwards landed in an offensive system he already knew, in a city he already loved. The perfect timing, he said, the perfect fit. But Cleveland left Edwards guarded. He admitted initial hesitation in developing a relationship with the offensive coordinator, Brian Schottenheimer. Too many previous coaches, he said, too many broken relationships. Schottenheimer allowed the relationship to grow slowly. At least until Edwards criticized the play-calling after the Jets lost to Indianapolis in the A.F.C. championship game (Edwards said he was misunderstood). Regardless, Schottenheimer said “the comments, quite honestly, blindsided me.” Rather than fire back, Schottenheimer requested a meeting and told Edwards he wanted to improve their rapport. The two had lunch several times this spring, and recently, Schottenheimer said Edwards “came to me” and “said he never had this type of relationship with a coordinator before.” This spring, Edwards learned both outside receiver positions. He drew Coach Rex Ryan’s attention when he repeatedly beat the All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis during minicamp practices. The Jets traded for another No. 1-caliber receiver , Santonio Holmes, in the off-season. In his first meeting with Schottenheimer, Holmes said he thought Edwards had the talent to be the top receiver in the N.F.L. Henry Ellard, their position coach , said Edwards should reach the top five, at least, this season. Tight end Dustin Keller said he thought that no receiver blocked better last season, and that no teammate worked harder this spring, than Edwards, who bench-pressed as much as offensive linemen. Still, questions linger. Can Edwards catch consistently? Will he be content with pedestrian statistics on a winning team? Edwards insisted that he expected a “huge” season, but clarified that huge could mean 700 receiving yards, 5 touchdowns and that elusive Super Bowl ring. Ellard noticed an increased consistency from Edwards, built over this off-season. “He reminds me of Torry Holt,” Ellard said. “Both have the gift of grab. Braylon has shown he can make the dramatic catch, the spectacular catch. This year, he will be more consistent. People forget how young he is.” Plater said Edwards turned down photo shoots, magazine covers and marketing opportunities over the past year to focus on his football resurgence. She said they rarely, if ever, discussed Cleveland anymore. Ryan found Edwards at once unselfish and self-aware, even if he never read or heard that. In this case, no news was good news. Growth was evident, especially all over his face. The Beard could not be reached for comment.


Pakistan: Mob Kills and Burns Man Suspected of Desecrating the Koran

Abstract: Thousands of people dragged a Pakistani man accused of desecrating the Koran from a police station in central Pakistan , beat him to death and then set his body on fire, a police official said Wednesday. The episode highlighted the highly charged nature of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, under which anyone found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran can be sentenced to death. A senior police officer, Mohammed Azhar Gujar, said the killing took place Tuesday in Bahawalpur, a city in a deeply conservative part of central Pakistan. Officer Gujar said the victim, who appeared to be mentally unstable, was arrested after residents said he threw pages of the Koran into the street.

Pakistan
Koran
Murders and Attempted Murders
Demonstrations Protests and Riots


Connecticut Fines and Sues Insurer of Hole-in-One Prizes

Abstract: LAST September, when Lou Montello made a hole in one at the Marine Corps League’s golf tournament in Stamford and won $20,000, he called his wife, Rosemarie, from the course. “Guess what, Sweetheart? You’re going to get that bracelet you wanted,” he told her. But a week later, before he could buy the $5,000 piece of jewelry, Mr. Montello got a call from the apologetic organizer of the charity tournament, who told him he would not be getting his money. That, state officials say, is because Kevin Kolenda, the Norwalk man who owns the company that sold hole-in-one insurance to the tournament, refused to pay the $20,000 to Mr. Montello, as well as an additional $20,000 that was to go to the Marine Corps League in the event of a hole in one. The league, a nonprofit organization, had planned to use the money to help Marines overseas and those who return home with injuries. Lux Bond & Green, the West Hartford-based jewelry store chain, said the same thing happened in 2007 with the par-3 16th hole it sponsored at the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship in Cromwell. Bo Van Pelt, a professional golfer, aced the hole and won $20,000 in jewelry from the Italian designer Roberto Coin. Lux Bond & Green made good on the prize but was unable to collect on its insurance policy with Mr. Kolenda. Now, the Connecticut Insurance Department has fined Mr. Kolenda $5.9 million for failing to pay claims on coverage he sold on prizes at golf tournaments, other sporting events and advertising promotions. Thomas R. Sullivan, the state insurance commissioner, had accused Mr. Kolenda of operating without a license and engaging in unfair business practices and appealed for those “who have been duped by Mr. Kolenda and his sham organizations” to contact him. Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Marine Corps League chapter in Stamford, has also filed a lawsuit against Mr. Kolenda and his firm, Hole-In-Won Worldwide. “If Hole-In-Won’s illegality is allowed to stand, the losers will be wounded warriors whom the Marine Corps League sought to benefit through its golf tournament,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “Hole-in-Won made the worst possible choice in victims by scamming the Marines. The company betrayed its promise and dropped the ball when a hole in one happened.” Mr. Kolenda, who continues to operate Hole-in-Won Worldwide, said Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Blumenthal are “bullying a mom-and-pop business” that has been operating for 25 years with hundreds of satisfied customers. He said he had paid out a million dollars in prize money. Mr. Kolenda said Lux Bond & Green did not pay him until two days after the tournament while the Marine Corps League did not pay him at all. League officials said Mr. Kolenda told them they did not have to pay until after the tournament and when they sent him a check for $350 to pay for the insurance, he refused to accept it. Mr. Kolenda also said there is no state law that says he has to be licensed to sell hole-in-one insurance. Seven years ago, the State Insurance Department ordered Mr. Kolenda to stop selling the insurance and fined him $9,000. A department spokeswoman, Dawn McDaniel, said her agency thought Mr. Kolenda had been complying until it received the most recent complaints, from Lux Bond & Green and the Marine Corps League. During the seven years since it fined him, the Insurance Department said, Mr. Kolenda has negotiated at least 41 similar contracts in the state. He has also been the subject of similar complaints and fines in other states, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina and Washington State among them. Mike Loughran, the Marine Corps League member who organized the tournament, said he hired Mr. Kolenda because he had seen that his firm was used in other tournaments in which he had played. “It takes a real special person to rip off troops in a time of war,” said Mr. Loughran, a retired Stamford police detective. The experience was not as troubling for Lux Bond & Green, which had used Mr. Kolenda for years to insure the prizes it offers on two of the par-3 holes in the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands. The company said Mr. Kolenda kept asking for more information but then did not respond to its request for the money. “It didn’t affect our financial condition, but you never want to lose that kind of money,” said Dave Bonney, Lux Bond & Green’s chief financial officer. “Hopefully we’ll be able to collect someday.” Mr. Montello, meanwhile, is not blaming the Marine Corps League, but he still hopes to get his money and buy that bracelet for his wife. “I know all these guys. What are you going to do?” he said. “You let them do the best they can. I’m sure they can come up with a solution.”

Insurance
Golf
Stamford (Conn)
Frauds and Swindling


A Low-Tech Mosquito Deterrent

Abstract: Over the Fourth of July holiday, my wife and I joined some friends for a barbecue in their backyard. The guests were lively and the space was lovely — grassy and open but shady and surrounded by lots of shrubs and trees. In other words, it was perfect for mosquitoes — and indeed, closer inspection showed that they were thriving in all that greenery. But our friends had come up with a solution that saved us from having to deal with bug repellents or, worse, bites and itches. On a low table, they set up a small electric fan, perhaps 12 inches high, that swept back and forth, sending a gentle breeze across the grassy area where people were sitting. That was it. No citronella candles, no bug zappers, no DEET, nothing expensive or high-tech. Yet amazingly, it worked. As far as I could tell, no mosquitoes flew into the vicinity of the simulated wind; nobody was bitten. As we left, I asked our hosts about the fan idea; they credited a mutual friend at the barbecue. He, in turn, paid tribute to a friend of his : Frank Swift, president of Swift Food Equipment Inc. in Philadelphia. So I reached out to Mr. Swift, who replied by e-mail. “The solution came from trying to think like a bug,” he explained, “and realizing I don’t like flying into a 15 m.p.h. wind.” Outsmarting bugs with a fan may be a poorly known strategy. But the method, it turns out, is endorsed by the American Mosquito Control Association, a nonprofit group based in Mount Laurel, N.J., that publishes a journal bearing its name. Image Credit Tim Bower “Mosquitoes are relatively weak fliers,” it says on its Web site , “so placing a large fan on your deck can provide a low-tech solution.” The group says mosquitoes fly slowly — from roughly 1 to 1.5 miles per hour, depending on the species. Scientists have identified another factor. The breeze from a fan disperses the human emanations that allow female mosquitoes to zero in on us. (The guys are innocent! Honest! Females need the stolen blood for egg making.) Humans exhale lots of carbon dioxide — the most widely recognized of the many likely mosquito attractants, including body heat and odors. When a female mosquito senses the invisible gas, she typically flies a zigzag path within the plume to track down its source. In a wetland swarming with mosquitoes, entomologists from Michigan State University did an experiment that demonstrated not only the attractive power of a carbon dioxide trap but the effectiveness of plume disruption. “Fan-generated wind strongly reduced the mosquito catches,” the scientists wrote in The Journal of Medical Entomology. “We recommend that fan-generated wind should be pursued as a practical means of protecting humans or pets from mosquitoes in the backyard setting.” The recommendation has penetrated the blogosphere — a bit. “Sit near an electric fan while you are outside,” eHow.com advises . “An oscillating fan works best, but a regular box fan will do. Mosquitoes aren’t strong enough to fly through the wind.” In my experience, that kind of homey advice is lost amid all the ads and pitches for mosquito repellents and traps, which can cost hundreds of dollars. As for other popular remedies, the mosquito control association says repellent-infused mosquito coils provide only “some protection” at best, and it dismisses the candles with a shrug, saying their mild repellent action offers no significant advantage over other candles that give off lots of smoke. By contrast, the simple fan seems like a sure thing. In the world of journalism, we call this news you can use.


With Tagline, MSNBC Embraces a Political Identity

Abstract: MSNBC, once the also-ran but now the No. 2 cable news channel, has a new tagline that embraces its progressive political identity. The tagline, “Lean Forward,” will be publicly announced Tuesday, opening a planned two-year advertising campaign intended to raise awareness of the channel among viewers, advertisers and distributors. The tagline “defines us and defines our competition,” said Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, his implication being that the Fox News Channel, which is No. 1 in cable news and a home for conservatives, is leaning backward. Fox’s best-known tagline is “Fair and Balanced.” Some of the new MSNBC ads include shots of President Obama on his election night; others, directed by the filmmaker Spike Lee, showcase hosts like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow preparing for their nightly programs; and still others feature quotes like “the future belongs to the fearless.” The multimillion-dollar campaign is a long time coming for the 14-year-old MSNBC, and particularly for Mr. Griffin, who has complained for years about not having more money to market the channel. With “Lean Forward,” MSNBC is following other cable channels that have found success by building easy-to-identify brands — like Bravo, TBS, HBO or, Mr. Griffin freely acknowledges, Fox News. “When you’re clear about who you are, you actually make money,” said Sharon Otterman, the chief marketing officer for MSNBC, who started work there one year ago. MSNBC’s brand was unclear for its first full decade. A creation of NBC News and Microsoft in 1996, the channel bounced from one programming idea to another before Mr. Olbermann, the host of “Countdown,” and Chris Matthews, the host of “Hardball,” seized on antiwar, anti-Republican sentiments in the latter part of the Bush administration. The channel identified itself as “The Place for Politics” — a catchphrase that it will continue to use alongside “Lean Forward” — and added liberal hosts like Ms. Maddow and Ed Schultz, and a lively morning show, “Morning Joe.”  The campaign is a coming-out of sorts. At an event Monday at Rockefeller Center, where the new ads were screened for employees, Mr. Griffin said the campaign encapsulated “the next era” of MSNBC. A marching band from East New York punctuated his points. MSNBC has been encroaching on CNN for years, and last year it beat that channel among 25- to 54-year-old viewers in prime time. This year, for the first time, it is on track to beat CNN in both prime time and the entire day. Even so, awareness of MSNBC remains far below that of CNN or Fox, according to the company’s recent research, which found that only 51 percent of respondents said they were very or somewhat familiar with the channel. Ninety-five percent said they were familiar with CNN, and 90 percent with Fox. Sixty-four percent said they were familiar with HLN, the sister channel to CNN. Ms. Otterman’s lesson from that research: “All we have to do is tell our story to more people.” She added in an interview, “It’s not that the look is changing. It’s not that the programming is changing. It’s that we’re going out and telling people about it now.” The resulting ads are not day-and-date promotions for specific programs; rather, they are emotional set pieces about the national debate that moves America forward. The MSNBC brand “is about ideas and change and making the country a better place,” Mr. Griffin said. “It’s an umbrella that’s pretty wide, but that does have a progressive sensibility,” he continued. “We’re confident. We’re strong. Let’s not live in the past, let’s not live by fear.” Two 60-second television commercials that introduce the message are patriotic and poignant. One begins with a child learning how to walk and intersperses scenes of war, rescues in the wake of Hurricane Katrina , a peace protest and the moon landing. “When we understand the world around us, we lose our fear and we move ahead,” the narrator says. The other 60-second commercial says, “Starting today, may the ideas that advance our country, no matter who or where they come from, win.” The remaining commercials feature individual hosts like Mr. Olbermann, who is shown in his office writing one of his trademark commentaries, and Lawrence O’Donnell, the new 10 p.m. host, who is overheard saying, “We deserve answers, so we don’t ask the same questions tomorrow.”  Starting next Tuesday, the commercials will be shown on MSNBC, but more important, they will also be shown on NBC Universal’s other channels, and on outside channels as well. In addition, ads will appear at train stations, bus shelters and phone kiosks in the Northeast; in newspapers, including The New York Times; and on Slate, The Daily Beast and other Web sites. Mr. Obama is shown only briefly in the two 60-second commercials. He is both seen and heard in a video about the ad campaign that was screened for MSNBC employees on Monday, coincidentally summing up the channel’s progressive message. “We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward,” the president was shown saying in a June speech at Carnegie Mellon University. “And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward.”

MSNBC
Advertising and Marketing
News and News Media
Cable Television


James Van Doren Dies at 72; Created Vans Canvas Shoes

Abstract: James Van Doren, who designed the tenacious shoe that became a mainstay of California skateboard culture — and touched off a national fad after Sean Penn wore a black-and-white-checked pair in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” — died on Oct. 12 at his home in Fullerton, Calif. He was 72. The cause was cancer, said his wife, Char. With his brother Paul and two others, Mr. Van Doren started the Van Doren Rubber Company in 1966. Based in Anaheim, Calif., it made rubber-soled canvas leisure shoes. Not long afterward, the company developed an especially high-grip shoe, conceived as a boat shoe, that would hold the wearer firmly to a pitching deck. Mr. Van Doren collaborated with a chemist to develop the rubber recipe used in the sole. A mechanical engineer by training, he also devised its characteristic tread pattern : diamonds interrupted by a band of tiny six-pointed stars at the ball of the foot. Together, rubber and tread made the sole clingy. What the company had not foreseen was that in Southern California, pitching decks were also found on skateboards. Embraced by West Coast skateboarders in the 1970s and afterward, the shoes helped their wearers avoid the fate of Icarus as they performed aerial moves that put the feet well above the head. The shoes — and the company — became known in popular parlance simply as Vans. Then came “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” A comedy released in 1982, it starred Mr. Penn as the resolutely dissolute Jeff Spicoli. On his feet was a pair of checkerboard Vans slip-ons. James Van Doren was born in Weymouth, Mass., on March 20, 1939. In high school and afterward, while studying engineering at Northeastern University, he worked for a rubber and shoe-manufacturing concern in Massachusetts. When the company moved to California in the 1960s, Mr. Van Doren and his brother Paul moved with it before leaving to start Van Doren Rubber. Paul ran the company until 1976, when he was succeeded by James. As president, James Van Doren expanded production facilities and extended the product line to include athletic shoes of many kinds. But foreign competition and the waning of the “Fast Times” fad caused the company to seek bankruptcy protection in 1984. Paul Van Doren was brought in to replace his brother; in 1988 Van Doren Rubber was sold to McCown De Leeuw & Company, a private equity firm. Today, Vans, which also makes shoes for surfers and BMX riders, is based in Cypress, Calif. It is owned by the VF Corporation , a North Carolina apparel company whose brands include Wrangler and Lee jeans. Mr. Van Doren’s first marriage, to Kathleen Ann Belcher, ended in divorce. Besides his wife, Char, he is survived by two brothers, Paul and Robert; a sister, Bernice Chute; three sons from his first marriage, James Jr., Mark and Eric; and five grandchildren.

Shoes and Boots
Deaths (Obituaries)
Van Doren James


Italy Orders Seizure of $2.4 Billion in Siena Bank Inquiry

Abstract: FRANKFURT — Italian officials on Tuesday broadened their investigation into whether the Japanese investment bank Nomura had helped hide losses at the troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena by ordering the police to seize assets worth $2.35 billion. They also named Nomura’s former top European executive, Sadeq Sayeed, as a suspect. Mr. Sayeed, who retired in 2010, denied any wrongdoing and said he had not learned of the accusations until asked about them by reporters on Tuesday. Another senior Nomura executive, Raffaele Ricci, is also a target of the inquiry, prosecutors said. Mr. Ricci could not be reached for comment. The unusual move to seize such a large sum, and go after prominent bankers, underlined the importance of the case in Italy and Europe, where it has contributed to anxiety about the country’s ability to rebuild its economy and survive the financial crisis. By intensifying the pressure on Nomura, Italian prosecutors are signaling that they are not letting up in their efforts to find out who bears criminal responsibility for transactions that left Monte dei Paschi in need of a $5.25 billion bailout by the Italian government. The bank, founded more than five centuries ago, is the oldest in the world and the third-largest bank in Italy. It has served a traditional role as benefactor to Siena, a small Tuscan city. A foundation that was the bank’s main shareholder used its share of profits to help pay for services like day care, ambulances and even the Palio, the bareback horse race that is the picturesque city’s trademark. But the scandal surrounding the bank has reverberated well beyond the medieval streets of Siena and its roughly 55,000 residents. The bank’s problems, and the questions of who was to blame, played a role in the election campaign this year that left Italy so factionalized that a new national government has still not been formed. The lack of a strong government in Italy remains a risk to the euro zone. Furthermore, the country’s struggling banks are unable to provide enough credit to support an economic recovery that Italy badly needs. Nomura has been sued by the new management of Monte dei Paschi for helping to design transactions that may have allowed previous managers at the bank to hide losses from regulators and shareholders. In a statement, Nomura said that no assets had been seized yet. “We will take all appropriate steps to protect our position and will vigorously contest any suggestions of wrongdoing in this matter,” the bank said, declining to elaborate further. The Siena prosecutor’s office said in a statement that most of the assets to be seized were collateral that Monte dei Paschi had posted with the Italian unit of Nomura in return for a loan. The operation was carried out by the Italian financial police in Siena, Rome, Milan and Bologna, as well as in the southern Italian city of Catanzaro, prosecutors said. In addition, the authorities ordered the freezing of assets in accounts of three former executives of Monte dei Paschi who are also under investigation: Giuseppe Mussari, former chairman of the bank; Antonio Vigni, a former chief executive; and Gianluca Baldassarri, the former chief financial officer. Mr. Baldassarri has been under arrest since February. Prosecutors said they suspect Mr. Mussari, Mr. Vigni and Mr. Baldassarri had obstructed the functions of regulators and misrepresented corporate assets, as well as other possible misdeeds. No formal charges have been filed against any of the people under investigation. Speaking by telephone from London on Tuesday, Mr. Sayeed said, “I completely and absolutely and vigorously deny any allegations,” which he said had “no basis in fact.” Mr. Sayeed said he would not comment on individual transactions, but added that all transactions were carefully vetted and proper while he was head of Nomura in Europe. Before he retired in 2010 as head of Nomura in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Mr. Sayeed, 59, was credited with engineering the Japanese bank’s acquisition of the European assets of Lehman Brothers. The deal greatly expanded Nomura’s reach in Europe, but eventually proved costly. Mr. Ricci, the other executive named in a statement by the Siena prosecutor Tuesday, has worked as a top executive in Nomura’s business involving bonds and other fixed-income products. Nomura would not comment on Mr. Ricci’s current status with the bank. The complex transactions enabled Monte dei Paschi to transfer risk to the other banks, generating both profit and losses. But while Monte dei Paschi recorded the gains, it did not disclose all the losses. The questionable transactions came to light after Fabrizio Viola, Monte dei Paschi’s new chief executive, in October found an exchange of letters with Nomura hidden in a safe. The bank consequently started a review of its financial portfolio, which led to a revision of its 2012 final results . Monte dei Paschi’s problems began in 2008, when it acquired a regional lender, Banca Antonveneta, for $11.7 billion, a sum that analysts at the time regarded as excessive. Short of cash, Monte dei Paschi then tried to raise money without compromising its capital base and concealed certain features of the transaction, according to the Bank of Italy, the country’s central bank. The Siena magistrates are now looking into allegations of bribery related to the Antonveneta deal.

Italy
Siena
Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Nomura Holdings
Deutsche Bank
Search and seizure
Banking and Finance
Lawsuits
Fraud


U.S. and Israel Look to Limit Impact of U.N. Vote on Palestinian Authority

Abstract: WASHINGTON — After failing to head off a vote in the United Nations on Thursday that would upgrade the Palestinian Authority ’s status, the United States and Israel are looking ahead to how they can contain the damage from the approval of a resolution that even some European allies have signaled they will support. The draft resolution calls on the United Nations General Assembly to upgrade the Palestinian Authority to a nonmember observer state. It is virtually certain to pass, despite the opposition of the United States and a handful of other nations. On Wednesday, two senior American diplomats — William J. Burns, the deputy secretary of state, and David Hale, the special envoy to the Middle East — met at a hotel in New York with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to register American concerns. “No one should be under any illusion that this resolution is going to produce the results that the Palestinians claim to seek, namely to have their own state living in peace next to Israel,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said Wednesday. “We thought it was important to make our case one more time.” A major concern for the Americans is that the Palestinians might use their new status to try to join the International Criminal Court . That prospect particularly worries the Israelis, who fear that the Palestinians might press for an investigation of their practices in the occupied territories. Another worry is that the Palestinians might use the vote to seek membership in specialized agencies of the United Nations, a move that could have consequences for the financing of the international organizations as well as the Palestinian Authority itself. Congress cut off financing to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011 after it accepted Palestine as a member. The United States is a major contributor to many of these agencies and plays an active role on their governing boards. “To my knowledge, there’s no legislative impact that is triggered in the same way that there was with regard to Unesco,” Ms. Nuland said on Monday. “However, as you know, we also have money pending in the Congress for the Palestinian Authority, money that they need to support their regular endeavors and to support administration of the territories. So, obviously, if they take this step, it’s going to complicate the way the Congress looks at the Palestinians.” Anticipating approval of the resolution, Western diplomats have pushed for a Palestinian commitment not to seek membership in the International Criminal Court and United Nations specialized agencies after the vote. Another step would be an affirmation by the Palestinians that the road to statehood was through the peace process. And a third could be a Palestinian commitment to open negotiations with the Israelis. Such assurances do not appear to have been provided. Israeli officials, aware that a harsh reaction would only isolate their country further, have begun playing down the significance of the draft resolution, and have toned down threats of countermeasures if it is approved. Israel’s response will be “proportionate” to how the Palestinians act after the vote, said an Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev. The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, said there would be no automatic response from Israel. “We’re going to see where the Palestinians take this,” he said. “If they use it to continue confronting Israel and other U.N. bodies, there will be a firm response. If not, then there won’t.” As the vote approached, a handful of European nations moved away from the American camp — a trend that accelerated after the cease-fire agreement between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel over Gaza, which was widely viewed as a victory for Hamas over its rival, the Palestinian Authority. France and Spain have said they will vote for the resolution. Britain has signaled it would be prepared to support the measure if the Palestinians provided assurances that they would not join the International Criminal Court, among other steps. Germany has said that it will vote against the resolution, as, of course, will Israel. The vote is scheduled to take place on the anniversary of the General Assembly vote in 1947 to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. Only the Security Council, in which the United States holds a veto, can approve formal, voting membership. Some Middle East experts said the administration’s determination to vote against the Palestinian Authority’s motion was self-defeating, since it would accelerate the weakening of the authority as a voice for the Palestinian people and as a partner in peace negotiations. A better strategy, said Robert Malley, the Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group, would be for the United States and Israel simply to “shrug their shoulders,” recognizing it as a desperate bid for political legitimacy, not a threat to Israel or to the prospects for a peace agreement. “He really, politically, has no choice,” Mr. Malley said of Mr. Abbas, during a panel at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This is less an act of confrontation than an act of survival.”

Israel
Palestinians
Palestinian Authority
United Nations
International Criminal Court
Hale David
Burns William J
General Assembly (UN)
United States International Relations


South Korea Cracks Down on Match-Fixing Epidemic

Abstract: SEOUL — The South Korean government on Tuesday announced “no-mercy” measures, including harsh prison terms and life-time bans from sports, to fight match-fixing scandals that have already tainted some of the nation’s most popular professional leagues and have threatened to implicate more. South Korea, which will host the 2018 Winter Olympics, has been rocked by a snowballing match-rigging scandal since last spring. It started last May when prosecutors began hauling in professional soccer players on suspicion that they had manipulated game outcomes in return for bribes from middlemen, often their retired colleagues, who worked for criminal rings running illegal Internet gambling sites. So far, nearly 80 active and retired soccer players and brokers have been indicted in or convicted of match-fixing. In the worst crisis to hit the K-League in its 29-year history, about 50 players were banned from the sport for life. One coach was indicted for blackmailing a player to share his match-fixing profit with him. Another player committed suicide. But the scandal did not end there. Pursuing tips from brokers who confessed to reaching out to athletes in other sports, prosecutors have expanded their investigation. And what they have found so far was enough to bear out a widespread suspicion that match-fixing had become endemic in South Korea. “We believe the recent turn of events has created a state of emergency that threatens to shake the foundation of sports,” Choe Kwang-shik, minister of culture, sports and tourism, said during a news conference Tuesday. In early February, prosecutors announced that they were investigating 15 professional volleyball players, including two women, as well as five brokers, on charges of rigging matches. The Korean Volleyball Federation banned four players for life, including three from the Kepco 45 club. Another team, Sangmu Shinhyup, which is filled by athletes doing their mandatory military service and is run by the Defense Ministry, pulled out of the season after one of its players was implicated. Also this month, prosecutors in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, arrested a motorboat racer. The 36-year-old racer was charged with taking cash from a gambling broker in exchange for sending him cellphone text messages predicting the results of a coming race. Now the investigators are zeroing in on the country’s most popular professional league, baseball, after a broker confessed that he had contacted some athletes there. Meanwhile, the Korean Basketball League said that after an internal investigation, it had determined the league was clean. An early sign of match-fixing spreading in South Korea came in 2010, when four professional “e-sport” players, who play online computer games for prize money, were given suspended prison terms for fixing their matches. The professional “e-league” games are watched by thousands of fans gathered at e-sports arenas fitted with large screens. There are cable channels dedicated to these matches. In South Korea, which has one of the world’s fastest and most widespread Internet networks, online gaming has become a popular pastime, making gaming addiction a serious social problem. So, apparently, is illicit online gambling. Sports Toto, overseen by the government, is the only legal sports gambling service in the country. But according to the government-run Korea Institute of Criminology, there were about 1,000 illicit sports gambling sites in operation on the Internet last year, their spread helped in part by an economic slump that the institute said was driving people to seek quick and easy money. Unlike Sports Toto, the illegal sites allow gamblers to bet unlimited amounts of money. But they are hard to crack down on because their owners keep their server computers overseas and frequently shut down their operations and open new sites. They also let people place odds on seemingly minor plays, like the number of first-inning walks yielded by a starting pitcher. That system makes it easier to fix the wager, prosecutors said. They were investigating at least two pitchers. The value of illegal online sport gambling is estimated at 3.5 trillion won, or $3.1 billion, according to the South Korean police. The anti-match-fixing measures unveiled by the government on Tuesday targeted the illicit gambling Web sites. Last week, a new law went into effect, punishing anyone using such a Web site with a heavy fine and as much as five years in prison. The government also promised stern punishments for players and clubs implicated in match-fixing, including expulsion from their leagues. It also introduced undercover “supervisors” to find signs of match-fixing. As an incentive, it promised a cash reward for whistle-blowing players and leniency for those who confess to the crime. The government also decided to double the minimum annual salary for all pro-league athletes to 24 million won, in the expectation that the added pay will reduce the temptation for the lowest-paid players to take bribes. Allegations of corruption and physical abuse have dogged South Korean sports for years, with parents of young athletes often reporting demands for “cash donations” from coaches and injuries inflicted by senior teammates or coaches.

South Korea
Gambling
Athletics and Sports
Corruption (Institutional)


So Many Foreclosures, So Little Logic

Abstract: LAST week, the stock market tumbled on news that housing foreclosures and delinquencies rose again in the first quarter. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said that among the 34 million loans it tracks, foreclosures in progress rose 22 percent, to 844,389. That figure was 73 percent higher than in the same period last year. But the comptroller’s office also said that amid the gloom, there was promising data about loan modifications: they rose 55 percent in the quarter. That growth came on a very low base, of course, but the move encouraged John C. Dugan, head of the comptroller’s office. “As the administration’s ‘Making Home Affordable’ program gains traction and helps offset the impact of this very difficult economic cycle,” he said in a statement, “we should continue to see progress in future reports.” A glimpse of second-quarter mortgage data, however, indicates that the progress Mr. Dugan and his colleagues in Washington are hoping for may take longer to emerge — raising questions about whether policymakers and banks are moving quickly or intelligently enough on the foreclosure problem. Foreclosures remain one of the great financial ills for the economy. The Bush administration largely overlooked foreclosures affecting average homeowners, focusing instead on propping up elite, troubled financial institutions with taxpayer funds. The Obama administration has said it wants to wrestle the foreclosure issue to the ground by encouraging mortgage loan modifications, but its efforts have gotten little traction. Loan modifications occur when a lender agrees to change terms of a troubled borrower’s mortgage; the most common approach is to reduce the loan’s interest rate. Cutting the amount of principal owed — an option that could be of more help to a borrower — is rare because it means homeowners pay less money back to the bank over time. Lenders and their representatives, however, don’t like to modify loans through interest rate cuts or principal reductions because, of course, it reduces the income they receive from borrowers. No surprise, then, that loan modifications have been a trickle amid the recent foreclosure flood. Enter the government, with the program it announced in March to encourage modifications. It offers incentives to loan servicers to change mortgage terms, providing $1,000 for each loan they modify. The program focuses on making payments more affordable through lower interest rates, but delinquent amounts and late fees are typically tacked onto the mortgage balance. “Making Home Affordable” does not compel lenders to reduce mortgage balances. Servicers signed on to the program in April. The program’s early months were not covered by the O.C.C.’s first-quarter report. But other figures on modifications conducted in April, May and June are available. And they show a decline in modifications, not an increase as the government hoped. Alan M. White, an assistant professor at the Valparaiso University law school in Indiana, analyzed data on 3.5 million subprime and alt-A mortgages in securitization pools overseen by Wells Fargo. The loans were written in 2005 through 2007; data on their performance is provided to the trusts’ investors. Mortgages handled by five of the nation’s largest loan servicing companies — Bank of America, Chase Home Finance and Litton Loan Servicing among them — are contained in the Wells Fargo data. Mr. White found that mortgage modifications peaked in February and have declined in all but one month since. While servicers modified 23,749 loans in these trusts in February, they changed only 19,041 in May and 18,179 in June. This is exactly when servicers were supposed to be responding to the government’s loan modification urgings. Foreclosures, meanwhile, keep rising. In June, 281,560 were in process, slightly above the 277,847 in May. Last January, there were about 242,000 foreclosures in the pipeline among the Wells Fargo trusts. “I was hoping we would see some impact in June of the government’s program,” Mr. White said. “Is ‘Home Affordable’ working? My short answer is no.” To be sure, the government’s data differs from that which Mr. White analyzed, and its loan modification figures for the second quarter may look better as a result. The O.C.C. includes prime loans as well as subprime, for example, while the Wells Fargo data contains no prime loans. Nevertheless, Mr. White has collected the figures since November 2008, and he said that in the months since, the performance of the 3.5 million mortgages that he analyzes tracked the O.C.C. data pretty closely. THE Wells Fargo data is illuminating. It shows that in June, 58 percent of modifications cut the payments that the borrower has to pay, a slightly smaller percentage than in April or May. The average reduction in June was $173 a month. But the most fascinating, and frightening, figures in the data detail how much money is lost when foreclosed homes are sold. In June, the data show almost 32,000 liquidation sales; the average loss on those was 64.7 percent of the original loan balance. Here are the numbers: the average loan balance began at almost $223,000. But in the liquidation sale, the property sold for $144,000 less, on average. Perhaps no other single figure shows how wildly the mortgage mania pumped up home prices. It also bodes poorly for the quality of the mortgage-related assets lurking in banks’ books. Loss severities, like foreclosures, are rising. In November, losses averaged 56.1 percent of the original loan balance; in February, 63.3 percent. Given losses like these, Mr. White said he was perplexed that lenders and their representatives were resisting reducing principal when they modify loans. His data shows how rare it is for lenders to reduce principal. In June, for example, 3,135 loans — just 17.2 percent of the total modified — involved write-downs of principal, interest or fees. The total loss from these write-downs was just $45 million in June. And yet, the losses incurred in foreclosure sales involving loans in the securitization trusts were a staggering $4.59 billion in June. “There is 100 times as much money lost in foreclosure sales as there was in writing down balances in modifications,” Mr. White said. “That is not rational economic behavior.” If banks have written down the value of these loans to the 40 cents on the dollar that they are fetching on foreclosures — the only true value for these homes right now — then why don’t they bite the bullet and reduce the loan amount outstanding for the troubled borrowers? That type of modification would be far more likely to succeed than larding a borrower who is hopelessly underwater with yet more arrears. “You can reduce payments with a lot of gimmicks similar to those built into subprime loans — temporary rate reductions that defer a lot of principal, balloon payments,” Mr. White said. “To me that leads to a situation where American homeowners are paying 50 to 60 percent of their incomes for mortgages which reset in 2011 and 2012. That is not solving the problem.” Certainly not for borrowers, that is. And because many of these losses will ultimately be passed on to taxpayers, it’s not solving our problem, either.

Foreclosures
Mortgages
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Housing and Real Estate