Complexity of Conflict Leaves Donors Wary of Aiding Syrians

Abstract: DAMASCUS, Syria — When an earthquake killed 150,000 people in Haiti in 2010, private individuals donated $20 million to the international aid group Mercy Corps to help victims, most of it within weeks of the disaster. During three years of turmoil in Syria that have produced a similar death toll, the organization has collected just $2 million for Syrians. The pattern bears out across aid agencies. World Vision, the Christian relief group, has collected $1.6 million in private donations for Syria, a tenth of the $16 million it raised for victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Charity donations are only one way to measure public empathy. But the disparities play into a rising frustration among international aid workers, and Syrians themselves, that the enormous human toll and strategic impact of the conflict have not mobilized a stronger and more urgent international response. Aid experts say that the conflict is so complex and intractable, the details of its brutality so nightmarish, that it is difficult for people to wrap their minds around it all. Because of a widespread view that “they are all bad guys” and “do not deserve this help,” said António Guterres, the head of the United Nations refugee agency, “the victims become double victims — of the conflict and of the perception.” An array of regional players have turned the war into a proxy war that has forced nine million people from their homes. Even here, in and around the relatively secure and functioning Syrian capital, displaced families crowd into hotels long bereft of tourists. Within a few minutes’ drive of downtown lie areas that have been cut off from regular food supplies for a year. “We can’t even tell ourselves a coherent story about the whole war — what’s at stake, which party is least insupportable, what the least bad outcome might be,” said Philip Gourevitch, the author of “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families,” an account of the flawed international response to the Rwandan genocide of 1994. David Rieff, a scholar of conflict and aid, cited general wariness of Middle East conflict, economic fatigue and a generalized fear of Muslims among North Americans and Europeans whose governments and private donations provide the bulk of assistance. “ You couldn’t have a worse set of conditions in the history of humanitarian mobilization,” he said. The United States has pledged more than $1.7 billion to aid Syrians, and neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have shouldered huge burdens to welcome refugees. The United Nations’ appeal for Syria is the largest in history. But only a fraction of the pledged funds have been received, and international aid agencies fear that if they cannot build public sympathy, governments will lose the political will to give. So aid agencies have scrambled to unleash a flurry of new initiatives in the past week, as the Syrian upheaval enters its fourth year. Many organizations began celebrity ad campaigns and social media projects around March 15, widely considered the third anniversary of the peaceful uprising, which after violent government repression morphed into armed resistance and war. As the date approached, people who have spent careers dealing with humanitarian disasters groped for superlatives and comparisons to past disasters to convey problem’s magnitude and urgency. They noted that Syrians would soon overtake Afghans as the world’s largest refugee population, that the exodus was comparable to that spurred by the Rwanda genocide, that a strategic country collapsing in the Middle East threatened to create a persistent geopolitical problem as thorny as the 66-year-old Palestinian conundrum. Still, said Jeffrey White, the director of emergency operations at World Vision USA, such comparisons may not mean much to those with little experience with conflict. “Anyone who lives on the coast can identify with a tsunami,” he said. But when it comes to armed conflict, he said, “we believe, maybe not overtly, that this could never happen to us.” Save the Children tried to break that barrier with a video that envisions how a similar cataclysm in London would affect a little girl there. The video has been viewed millions of times on the Internet, but it remains unclear whether it will have a lasting impact on donations. In private, many aid workers speak with increasing frustration, guilt and anger about the problem, expressing pain at having to “sell” the suffering of Syrian children. Mr. Rieff, in “A Bed for the Night,” his critique of the aid industry, argues that people tend to assume that victims of natural disasters are inherently “innocent,” but fear that donations in armed conflicts could benefit perpetrators. Making the situation even harder for Syria, he said, people have trouble sustaining empathy for crises with no apparent solution. Attention fades as a conflict wears on, and violence and disruption become the status quo. Many Americans, he said, are wary of involvement in the Middle East after the ill-fated Iraq intervention, perceive the Arab uprisings as largely failed, and are “afraid of the Islamic world and even contemptuous of it.” That makes them susceptible to the view that in Syria, with the rise of jihadists in the insurgency, there are no “good guys,” and no safe way to make a difference — a view that has influenced United States policy. Mr. Gourevitch drew a comparison to the Bosnian conflict, which, over many years, bored its way into middle-class Western consciousness. Americans could identify with Bosnians in part, he said, because a Western consensus emerged that the Serbian fighters were the primary perpetrators and the Bosnian Muslims were the ones to help. “We all associate the word ‘the siege of Sarajevo’ with an extremely bleak situation,” he said. “Less than half the city fled even then. And now we’re seeing close to half a country gone. Empty.”

Syria
World Vision
Humanitarian aid
Arab Spring
Philanthropy


Grizzlies Defense Pushes Limits of Durant-Westbrook Tandem

Abstract: MEMPHIS — Before Russell Westbrook fulfilled his obligations with the news media on Friday, he pulled a pair of long camouflage shorts over his practice shorts. It seemed less like a fashion statement — always a possibility with Westbrook — than a strategic decision as the Oklahoma City Thunder sought to defend themselves from questions about their predicament in the first round of the playoffs. Perhaps he was preparing for a verbal skirmish in the wake of Thursday’s loss to Memphis, which gave the Grizzlies a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven series. The words that came spilling out of Westbrook’s mouth did little to quell those suspicions. “Our offense is not built around Serge,” Westbrook said when a reporter asked about Serge Ibaka’s lack of late-game shot attempts. “We have No. 35, Kevin Durant.” But Ibaka had been such a valuable part of the offense and — “I ain’t trying to hear that, man,” Westbrook said. “Don’t try to pull us apart. We all in this together. Serge is not on a separate team. Kevin is not on a separate team. I’m not on a separate team. We’re on the Oklahoma City Thunder.” He said it again: the team was “in this together.” That word — together — has become a bit loaded in this series, which involves two teams with different philosophies. The Grizzlies, renowned for the grit-and-grind brand of basketball championed by their defensive stopper, Tony Allen, also operate a sharing-is-caring system on offense. Through three games, they have personified togetherness. Image Kevin Durant, left, and Russell Westbrook struggled in Game 3 on Thursday. Credit Justin Ford/USA Today Sports, via Reuters The Thunder, on the other hand, continue to rely on Westbrook and Durant, who form one of the N.B.A.’s most fascinating superstar tandems. Now, they are in survival mode. Westbrook, who went 9 of 26 from the field in Thursday’s 98-95 overtime loss, went so far as to accuse the news media of conspiring against the team. “I feel like you guys do it,” he said. “When someone’s not getting shots, and nobody’s not getting this and that, you try to find whose fault it is when we lost as a team. Not one person lost. We all lost.” For his part, Ibaka shrugged when he was asked about taking only one shot in the fourth quarter and overtime on Thursday. “Basketball, man,” was his explanation. The spotlight is always going to be harsher on Westbrook and Durant when they shoulder so much of the load and things turn sour. On Thursday, they combined for 60.9 percent of the Thunder’s field-goal attempts. Durant labored once again amid a smorgasbord of defenders, shooting 10 of 27 while missing all eight of his 3-point attempts. And while the Thunder scored 17 unanswered points late in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime, that burst of offensive pyrotechnics was the exception. Their ball movement was largely stagnant. The Thunder passed the ball 230 times while the Grizzlies had 367 passes, according to the league’s player tracking data. The situation at point guard was even more revealing. While Westbrook passed out of just 57 percent of his total touches, the Grizzlies’ Mike Conley passed out of 78 percent of his touches. Memphis wanted to spread the wealth. Image The Grizzlies’ offense, run through guard Mike Conley, has been much more evenly distributed than the Thunder’s. Credit Mark Humphrey/Associated Press “I thought they missed a lot of shots that they normally make,” Grizzlies Coach Dave Joerger said of Durant and Westbrook. “We’ve got to be better. If we want to win tomorrow, we’ve got to be better because you have to assume they’re going to keep raising their game as the series goes on.” None of this should be terribly surprising. Durant is the greatest scorer on the planet, and Westbrook is among the league’s most dynamic players. They are going to get looks, and lots of them. The Grizzlies have no one player who can match either of them. What they do have, though, is an egalitarian offense: shots for everyone, from everywhere. Consider the unlikely role of Beno Udrih, who came off the bench to score 12 points in 14 minutes. He was a late-season pickup for the Grizzlies after the Knicks waived him, and his effort Thursday was no fluke. On Monday, he had 14 points in 14 minutes in the Grizzlies’ Game 2 victory. “We can’t win championships with individual effort,” Udrih said. “We got to stick together and we can go far.” The series is far from over, of course. The Thunder can even the series by defeating the Grizzlies on Saturday in Game 4 at FedEx Forum. Coach Scott Brooks indicated that the Thunder were not about to make wholesale changes to their offense. “We have to trust the things we’ve done all year,” he said. He added: “I love this team inside and out. I know how they’re wired, I know what they do and what they believe in, and they believe in each other. And when they have bad games, they want to come back and respond. I love our guys. I love what they’ve done through the six years that we’ve been together.” Just how together they are could become more apparent this weekend.

Russell Westbrook
Oklahoma City Thunder
Kevin Durant
Basketball
Tony Allen
Memphis Grizzlies


In New York, We Love the Rich. Unless We Hate Them.

Abstract: Let’s give a shout-out to Tevye the Dairyman, whose creator, the pseudonymous Sholom Aleichem , was born in czarist Russia 150 years ago this month. This great Yiddish writer made his way to America, and died in New York in 1916 at age 57. On May 16 of that year, The New York Times described how 100,000 people, “with sadness in their faces,” lined the streets watching his funeral procession pass through the Lower East Side. The 150th anniversary has been celebrated by some Jewish groups, with inevitable references to Tevye. He is the most enduring Sholom Aleichem character, probably best known to Americans in his “Fiddler on the Roof” incarnation, singing about tradition and how good his life would be if he were a rich man — daidle deedle daidle deedle daidle daidle deedle dum. So, Tevye, we have a tip for you. Here’s how life would be if you lived not in some shtetl but in modern New York. The mayor would hug you. He really would. He pretty much said so himself. “You know, the yelling and screaming about the rich — we want rich from around this country to move here,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said a few days ago. “We love the rich people.” His words sounded to some like amour-propre: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the richest of them all? You are, the mirror answers him. Mr. Bloomberg is the richest in New York, anyway. So says Forbes magazine, which on Wednesday issued its latest roster of the world’s billionaires. It put his net worth at $16 billion. Among the top 25 people on the list, he alone is described as worth more now than a year ago. If you had that kind of dough, you’d love rich people, too. Naturally, the mayor’s remarks did not sit well with everyone. Opponents offered it as one more example of how he “doesn’t get it” — whatever “it” is supposed to be. This has been a recurring refrain among his critics, who seem to suggest that to be genuinely smart in this town, you have to be poor. So with $16 billion in his kick, this guy must be really, really dumb. Flawed as that logic is, Mr. Bloomberg may find his “love the rich” line coming back to bite him as he diverts a thick slice of his bankroll to run for a third term. His words were, at a minimum, infelicitous. While he has worked hard to learn Spanish, he can get so tangled up in English that you sometimes have to wonder if it is not his true second language. What he tried to say was that rich people disproportionately finance municipal services for the less fortunate. Figures from his budget office show that people earning $500,000 or more a year make up 1 percent of New York taxpayers but account for nearly 50 percent of the income taxes that the city collects. Mr. Bloomberg opposes proposals in these tough times to increase the tax rate for the highfliers. These people have the means to move elsewhere, he says, and some of them will do so, taking their taxable stash with them and leaving the municipal treasury the poorer. Not everyone, of course, buys into that argument. But then, that’s the problem most of us have with the very rich. You can’t live with ’em, but you can’t live without ’em. The same may be said of the Forbes billionaires. The past year has been awful for them. Worldwide, their numbers fell to 793 from 1,125. Their total net worth shriveled to $2.4 trillion from $4.4 trillion. The 359 American billionaires were 110 fewer than a year ago. Among cities, New York had the most, but there were 71 of them in 2008 and 55 today. Is that your lower lip quivering in sympathy for the dears? “Obviously, no tears will be shed for the fact that billionaires have gone down in their net worth,” Steve Forbes, the magazine’s editor in chief, told a gathering of thousandaires, more commonly known as journalists. He got that right. But bear in mind, Mr. Forbes said, that most billionaires are innovators. They create jobs. “They make it possible for people to get ahead and realize their dreams and ambitions,” he said. The good news from his perspective is that billionaires will always be with us. The names may change, Mr. Forbes said, but new fortunes will emerge, even from the ashes of the present economic flameout. “Anytime you have this kind of financial earthquake, new players emerge,” he said. If he is correct, Tevye, it’s good news for you and other dreamers just like you. You may yet be a rich man, daidle deedle and all.

High Net Worth Individuals
New York City
Bloomberg Michael R


Furyk Claims RBC Heritage

Abstract: Jim Furyk won his first PGA Tour event in five years, making birdies on both playoff holes to outlast Kevin Kisner at the RBC Heritage on Hilton Head Island, S.C. Furyk had a one-stroke lead when Kisner birdied the 72nd hole to force the playoff. Furyk shot a 63 in the final round and Kisner a 64, leaving them at 18-under-par 266.


Park Slope Food Co-op Rejects Effort to Boycott Israeli-Made Products

Abstract: Members of the Park Slope Food Co-op voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday night against a motion that would have moved the organization closer to joining an international boycott against products made in Israel. The vote settled a debate that had embroiled the venerable neighborhood institution for many months and divided its membership. The vote, conducted by paper ballot, came during the Brooklyn co-op’s monthly general meeting, with 1,005 people voting against the motion to hold a referendum on a boycott, and 653 in favor. “A boycott should be by consensus, and there is obviously not that,” Jeff Prant, a co-op member, said after the vote. While the arguments for the boycott had merits, he said, they were “outweighed by the divisiveness.” Tensions at the co-op, on Union Street, had been climbing to a breaking point in recent weeks as the members, numbering about 16,300, weighed the matter. Reporters and television trucks had become a common site outside the co-op’s doors. Advocates passed leaflets with increasing urgency. Politicians and pundits weighed in. And emotions, in at least one instance, spilled over into fisticuffs. The boycott lobby is part of an international movement — called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or B.D.S. — that is trying to compel the Israeli government to change its policies toward Palestinians , and withdraw from Palestinian territories. “The vote tonight has shown us that we still have a lot of work ahead in the fight to end Israeli oppression of Palestinians,” said Liz Roberts, a member of the pro-boycott lobby. “However, despite our loss in tonight’s vote, we have succeeded in one of our goals: B.D.S. has entered into the consciousness of thousands of co-op members and has even made it into mainstream conversations.” The start of the meeting was delayed by 45 minutes as hundreds of members filed into a large auditorium at Brooklyn Technical High School. The meeting had been moved from its usual setting in a local synagogue to accommodate the turnout of more than 1,600, a record for the organization. Over nearly 90 minutes, about four dozen speakers stepped to the microphone and made their arguments. Advocates for the boycott criticized Israeli military action in Gaza and the West Bank, and argued that a ban would be an important symbol in the fight against injustice. Dennis James, who pushed for the boycott, recalled a visit to Gaza in 2009. “I viewed the results of the 22-day bombardment,” he said. “I saw apartment blocks blown apart. The American school flattened. The hospital shot full of holes.” But many opponents of the boycott said the store was no place to adjudicate the politics of the Middle East. Some questioned the motives of the B.D.S. movement. Aaron Dobbs occupied something of a middle ground, saying he was “100 percent against” the B.D.S. movement but “100 percent in favor” of the referendum in order to give the greatest number of members a chance to participate in the vote. The anti-boycott lobby received a boost on Monday, when several of the city’s top politicians expressed their opposition to the ban , including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg , who said he would encourage New Yorkers to do more business with Israel, not less. Irina Ivanova, a boycott supporter, said those officials’ statements were “a little disappointing,” but added, “I can’t say I’m surprised.” She said the Park Slope Food Co-op Members that support the B.D.S. group had received endorsements from a range of activists and social justice organizations, including the writer Alice Walker, the antiwar group Code Pink and Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician. Boycott supporters had asked even those opposed to a boycott to support the call for a referendum, arguing that a referendum, which would involve a mail-in ballot, would give members more time to vote, thus allowing greater participation. But some members simply wanted the issue to go away as quickly as possible for fear that further debate would foment more divisiveness and damage the organization, which was founded 39 years ago. “These people are insidious, and they destroy communities,” said Peter Raskin, a co-op member speaking about the boycott lobby. “If they have a problem with Israel, let them go to the State Department.” A boycott would have been largely symbolic; the store carries only a few Israeli-made products, among them a seltzer-water maker, organic paprika, two styles of kosher marshmallows and three varieties of tapenade and pesto, said a store founder, Joe Holtz. One of the product manufacturers is PeaceWorks, a company that seeks to encourage peace among rivals through economic cooperation. Its line of tapenades and pestos uses olives grown in Palestinian villages, glass jars made in Egypt and sun-dried tomatoes from Turkey. “The key to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is greater understanding of each other, not greater polarization,” Joshua Scherz, president of PeaceWorks Foods, said in a statement. Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights advocate and co-founder of the B.D.S. movement, said that regardless of the outcome, the fact that the debate had reached Park Slope reflected the momentum the cause had gained. “We are fast reaching our South Africa moment,” he said in a statement from East Jerusalem. In recent weeks, advocates carrying leaflets have been a common sight on the sidewalk outside the Union Street store. While civility has generally prevailed, two people who apparently hold opposing views on the matter scuffled in front of the store over the weekend. “That makes me very unhappy,” Mr. Holtz said. “I’m hoping that’s the end of that.”

Park Slope Food Co-Op
Boycotts
Israel
Palestinians
Cooperatives
New York City


Trump Campaign Shifts $1.8 Million in Ads to Larger Markets

Abstract: Donald J. Trump’s campaign is shifting more than $1.8 million in advertising planned in key battleground states for next week, taking money out of small markets and reinvesting in larger markets, according to several media buyers who track political advertisements. The $1.8 million shift represents a roughly 23 percent reduction in Mr. Trump’s $7.1 million in ad reservations for next week, and is an unusual move in going to more expensive, higher density markets, leaving other areas dark. For example, the Trump campaign only kept the Miami, Orlando and Tampa markets in Florida. In Iowa, they canceled ads in Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Sioux City, leaving just Des Moines and Omaha, Neb. (which reaches solidly Republican western Iowa). In Pennsylvania, ads in the Wilkes-Barre, Johnstown and Erie markets were canceled; Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg remain. With the money saved from pulling out of the myriad small markets, the campaign has poured more money into advertising in Tampa and Miami, and is also expanding its ad buys into Wisconsin’s Milwaukee and Madison markets. Reports initially stated that the Trump campaign was canceling their advertising buys, but Jason Miller, a campaign spokesman, said on Twitter that it was actually increasing its ad buys. Throughout its 16-month existence, the Trump campaign has been notably reluctant to advertise, spending far less than his Republican rivals during the nominating fight and going completely dark for the first few months of the general election. His campaign told The Associated Press in late September that it planned a $140 million advertising blitz in the final stretch of the campaign, including $100 million in television ads. But with 32 days left, the campaign has only reserved about $34 million in ads through Election Day, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, which tracks political advertising, and spent about $7 million in that same time period.

2016 Presidential Election
Campaign advertising


Valuable Gains for China in Emerging Auto Markets

Abstract: BEIJING — For more than a decade, automakers around the world have been nervously awaiting the day when China would start exporting sizable numbers of cars to the West. Now it seems they were worried about the wrong threat. China is shipping just a few thousand cars a year to the European Union and virtually none to the United States. But China’s exports to emerging markets are surging as its own auto market slows and its automakers keep pouring billions into new factories. Roads in countries like Algeria, Brazil , Iran , Russia , Saudi Arabia and South Africa are increasingly dotted with cars from manufacturers like Geely, Great Wall Motors and Chery. Less affluent buyers from Santiago to Baghdad are starting to buy cheap Chinese cars as alternatives to used cars, motorcycles and low-end models sold by multinationals. Chinese car exports were up 21 percent in the first five months of this year, and up 43 percent in May from a year ago. The buyers are men and women like Jessica Gonzalez, a 43-year-old agronomist in Santiago, Chile. After owning several used cars, she wanted her next car to be new, but the more established models from Japanese, European and United States companies were out of her price range. Although her mechanic criticized the quality of Chinese cars, she ended up choosing a Chery S21 because it was roomy and well equipped. “The price factor is fairly decisive,” Ms. Gonzalez said. “I paid $5,500 new and full. Toyota with similar features costs around $12,000.” Chinese automakers said they were preparing for further expansion in exports to developing countries. “They’re easy for us to operate in,” said Steven Wang, the deputy general manager for exports at Great Wall Motors Company. “In Europe, they have lots of laws for new entrants, and in Europe and the United States, customers like to keep familiar brands.” The Chinese companies pose a potential challenge for the overseas divisions of companies like General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen and Fiat, all of which are looking to emerging markets for growth and watching the Chinese contenders with varying levels of concern. Annual auto sales in developing countries other than China have risen by 45 percent since 2005, to 21.3 million cars and light trucks last year, according to LMC Automotive, a global data company. Including China, emerging markets passed industrialized countries in 2010 for the first time in the number of cars and light trucks sold. Since 2005, auto sales in industrialized countries have fallen 17.4 percent, to 36.2 million cars and light trucks last year. The market in industrialized countries was still worth more than emerging markets, however, because sticker prices tend to be considerably higher. But with so much growth in developing countries, “you have to be incredibly aware of the domestic brands” emerging in China, said Michael Manley, the head of Chrysler’s international operations. Western automakers have been buying a wide range of Chinese cars and then having engineers dismantle them to study the quality and likely cost of major components. “We have a very thorough benchmarking process” to assess Chinese competitors, said Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s vice president for product development in Asia, the Pacific region and Africa. So far, the quality of the best Chinese cars has been well short of their Western counterparts, leaving even many Chinese customers dissatisfied. When J. D. Power & Associates, the consulting company, surveyed new-car buyers in China last year, it found that they reported 232 quality problems for every 100 Chinese-brand cars purchased. For cars carrying international brands, 131 defects were reported for every 100 cars. Jacob N. George, the managing director of J. D. Power’s China division, said that Chinese automakers had been steadily closing the gap with their overseas rivals since his company began doing annual surveys in 2000. If trends continue, he predicted Chinese manufacturers would catch up in quality by 2018. The shortcomings of Chinese cars tend to lie in basic designs. Chinese automakers spend an unusually low share of revenue on design, focusing on ruthless cost-cutting instead. J. D. Power also surveys buyers in China on how appealing they find their cars after three months of use. Chinese brands consistently score worse than international ones, particularly in categories like engine noise, driving dynamics and seating comfort, Mr. George said. In the area of safety, Western consumers increasingly demand top ratings that Chinese automakers have had scant success in producing so far. But safety is less important to buyers in emerging markets. Ford’s market research found that as recently as 2006, safety ranked last among the nine most important attributes for Chinese car buyers. Although safety has moved up to sixth, the exterior appearance of a car was the top priority for buyers then and now. Chinese regulators are putting pressure on Chinese automakers to strengthen their designs. They have begun issuing star ratings for safety to cars sold in China, after copying the test methods from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the United States. But the fact remains that consumers in China and other emerging markets generally focus more on price. And Chinese automakers are low-price leaders around the globe, selling new cars for as little as half the price of Western rivals. Emerging markets tend to have relatively few late-model used cars competing with new subcompact cars, unlike in the West, making cheap Chinese cars even more salable. Chile, though it is a small market, offers a window into the potential of Chinese brands. While Chinese companies barely registered there six years ago, today they claim 10 percent of all passenger vehicle sales and 19 percent of all commercial truck sales. This unparalleled growth was bolstered by a lack of local manufacturers and a near absence of trade barriers, said Francisco Errandonea, head of equity research at Santander GBM in Santiago. “Because of this openness, many brands see Chile as a test market for the region and a gateway to Latin America,” Mr. Errandonea said. In Brazil, the rapid growth in Chinese car sales led the government to announce in September that it was raising import tariffs on cars by 30 percentage points, to as much as 55 percent, to protect local subsidiaries of multinationals. Brazil went from being one of the top three export markets for Chinese cars last year to not ranking in the top 10 so far this year. Over all, China exported 850,000 vehicles last year. That was dwarfed by Japan, which exported 4.4 million cars and trucks last year, and South Korea, which exported 3.2 million. But China is starting to catch up, with exports up 50 percent from 2010. Despite the extensive presence of Western brands and factories in China, top executives at multinationals said they had no plans to export significant numbers of their Chinese-made cars. “I’m not saying we could not export, but there is no need to export,” said Carlos Ghosn, the chairman and chief executive of Nissan and its corporate sibling, Renault. For now, multinationals are fighting for greater market share in China, the world’s largest auto market with 18 million cars and light trucks sold last year. Indeed, as Chinese buyers become more prosperous and demanding, Chinese brands are finding that their own country is one of their most challenging markets. Chinese automakers held 28.7 percent of their home market for passenger cars in the first five months of this year, down from 32 percent of the market during the same period last year. A few of China’s biggest cities, including Beijing in December 2010 and Guangzhou last weekend, have imposed stringent limits on the registration of new cars, cutting local sales in half almost overnight. Buyers who can obtain scarce license plates are more likely to put them on higher-priced cars, and these tend to be made by multinationals, not Chinese automakers. Chinese auto executives said that while they were intensely interested in other emerging markets, their top priority was the emerging market in their own backyard. “If we want to be No. 1,” Mr. Wang of Great Wall said, “we should be No. 1 in China first.”

China
Brazil
Iran
Russia
South Africa
Sales
Automobiles
International Trade and World Market
Third World and Developing Countries


EBay Plans to Ride PayPal Unit to Better Profits

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — EBay made its name as the biggest shopping site on the Web. But now, as its e-commerce business slows, it hopes to become the biggest online payments provider on the Web through its PayPal service. If John J. Donahoe, eBay ’s chief executive, has his way, PayPal will soon become the way that people pay for everything they buy on the Web or on their mobile phones. On Thursday, eBay is scheduled to announce its plans to open the PayPal platform to developers who want to build applications that use PayPal’s technology. EBay’s payments business, which consists of PayPal and Bill Me Later, has become the company’s growth engine as e-commerce sales decline. On Wednesday, eBay reported that net income in the second quarter, ended June 30, fell 29 percent to $327 million, or 25 cents a share, from $460 million, or 35 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue fell 4 percent, to $2.1 billion from $2.2 billion. But eBay’s online payments business posted $669 million in revenue, an 11 percent jump. In an interview, Mr. Donahoe said that opening up PayPal platform could transform the online payments marketplace. “No other global payments platform, online or offline, has been able to open up to third-party developers. And the effect on PayPal will be very comparable to the effect on the iPhone — we’ll see the exponential innovation and growth that comes with it as you release the creativity of those developers.” For example, Research in Motion, which has been testing the new offering during a pilot period, is using PayPal technology to collect payments from BlackBerry users who buy applications in its app store. And Twitpay, a start-up, uses PayPal’s technology to run its service that allows people to send money using Twitter. Meanwhile, eBay’s traditional marketplace division continues to struggle. Shoppers have reduced spending during the recession, and eBay has been hurt as other e-commerce sites, notably Amazon, take market share. Revenue from the marketplaces segment, which includes the main eBay site and sites like Shopping.com, fell 14 percent, to $1.26 billion from $1.46 billion a year ago. Still, analysts said there were signs that eBay’s marketplace business was stabilizing. The 10 percent decline in gross merchandise volume was an improvement from the 20 percent drop last quarter, and the number of items sold on eBay actually increased 3 percent.


Syrians Find Optimism at a Tent City in Turkey

Abstract: ISLAHIYE, Turkey — Almost all of the toilets in a refugee camp here for Syrians who have fled the conflict at home bear messages in spray paint for President Bashar al-Assad . But one note summarizes them all. “The house of Bashar,” reads graffiti painted at the entrance to one portable bathroom, which also gave the president his local name: “Pig.” And so it is throughout this tent encampment of 6,500 Syrians who are waiting out, or in some cases simply taking a respite from, the conflict just beyond the nearby border. The Islahiye camp is a place of hatred and defiance, a concentration of families who say they have been chased from their homes not just by rifles and government troops but also by indiscriminate aerial and artillery barrages. In its way, however, Islahiye is a place where anguish mixes with optimism. Syrians here, cheered by the success of rebel forces on their home ground, calmly insist that their enemies are weakening and that they will be going home. In Syria , a short distance away, the anti-Assad forces have made tactical progress in parts of the northern countryside, carving out areas largely under opposition control. In their most potent strike, a bomb attack killed four of Mr. Assad’s top security officials last week. In many places, the opposition says, government units are confined to garrisons, from which they fire with artillery, mortars and machine guns, but rarely venture out. Some of these government-occupied outposts and bases, the opposition says, are now resupplied almost entirely by helicopter. Government patrols are said to be rare, leaving opposition fighters free to roam, and coordinate attacks, as anti-Assad activists said have been occurring in neighborhoods in the capital, Damascus, much of last week. Inside the refugee camp, Hassan Jubra, who before the conflict was a deputy dean at Aleppo University, offered his view on how a popular revolt that began peacefully will ultimately defeat a conventional military, no matter that military’s superior organization at the outset, or its artillery, attack helicopters and tanks. “We have a cause,” he said. “They don’t have cause. They have interests. There is a big difference between living in a cause and living for the sake of interests.” For this reason, he said, he spoke of Mr. Assad, even as his army fights on, in the past tense. “He is gone,” he said. “He is finished.” Whether this certitude and optimism are well placed is an open question; the pace and course of this conflict, many fighters and refugees said, is impossible to predict, even to those with unshakable confidence in its eventual outcome. And this camp is also a repository of sadness, of interrupted or shattered lives. Wisal Salo, 30, sat in her family’s tent on a recent sweltering day as her 3-year-old son, Hadi, napped fitfully on a cushion on the tent floor. The Salos are from the tiny village of Surmani, near Hama. Ms. Salo said that as part of the collective and indiscriminate punishment of Sunni citizens suspected of supporting the opposition, government soldiers had raided her home and smashed the furniture. And then they left, and the random shelling of Surmani and the area nearby had begun. In places, she said, Syrian troops set fire to the forests, apparently to deny guerrilla fighters concealment. She began to cry, telling of the walk to Turkey, with Hadi and another son. “We left our houses and our land, and fled to here,” she said. “I want to go home, but people warn us the shelling continues, and that we must stay away.” Her husband, she said, remained in Syria to fight. Now her brothers-in-law and other male relatives cycle back and forth between this camp and the northern Syrian countryside — fighting there, resting here. One of her relatives, Rimsan Salo, 32, was in the camp; he said he had left the rebels temporarily because they had too few guns. “I joined them, but there are no weapons,” he said. “If there are weapons, I will go back.” Another relative stepped into the tent and said he would go back sooner. He needed only to pick up some more communications equipment. The Islahiye camp is one of nine run by Turkey that hold, as of last weekend, almost 39,000 Syrian citizens. It is clean and well provisioned with tents, medical attention, electricity and food — all provided by Turkey. No weapons or training were visible within it; the fighters say they leave their weapons in Syria, and this is a place for families, and civilian life. On the day of this visit, the meal included hearty portions of rice and beans, bowls of canned fish in oil and trays of cut watermelon, all with the ever-present tea. The residents said it was a typical meal. Complaints about the camp’s conditions appear relatively few. But one group of men, including Ziad Najjar, 45, a policeman from Azaz who said he had defected, bitterly complained to a passing journalist that he and a few friends had not been given a tent and were sleeping on mattresses under the trees. An official managing the camp said that in fact Mr. Najjar and his friends had been offered spots in a tent, but that they wanted another one just for themselves. “With patience everything will be resolved,” the official said. “It is a protest. They have one tent, and they want two.” (He asked that his name not be published in keeping with what he said was government policy.) Even as Mr. Najjar fumed, Mr. Jubra, who worked at Aleppo University, gently tried to calm him. “We have to be honest, and we have to thank Turkey,” he said, a position that seemed widely shared, even among the weary. The frustration among the residents was at other nations, including the United States, for not helping Syria’s opposition more. Mr. Jubra spoke again of the perils of measuring interests, as opposed to having a cause. “America should not let its interests kill its humanity,” he said. Walking out, toward the gate, another tent of Salo family members, shouted in the afternoon heat, returning to the subject of Syria’s president, whose home, according to the graffiti, was either the camp’s toilets or its garbage cans. Daad Salo had another suggestion. Her voice rose above the rest. “Please God,” he shouted, “take him to hell!”

Middle East and North Africa Unrest (2010- )


Russia Halts Trading on Concerns for Banks

Abstract: In the last several years, the Russian stock market has muscled its way onto the global financial stage in a remarkable oil-driven boom that has also enhanced Russia’s political influence. Now, at a time when the Kremlin is asserting its might abroad, all that is drawing to a close. Russian financial regulators halted stock trading for the second time this week on Wednesday in a move that immediately stirred memories of Russia’s traumatic financial crisis in 1998. The Micex index was down 3.09 percent by 12:10 p.m. on Wednesday, when regulators halted trading. The other main index, RTS, was down 6.39 percent when trading was stopped. Half of the value of the Russian market has evaporated since May on declining oil prices and the violence in Georgia, although much of the recent decline was hastened as the collapse of Lehman Brothers this week made already jittery investors more fearful of taking on risk. Dedicated hedge funds from New York to London to Stockholm focused on the Russian market as oil prices rose to records, enriching a generation of investors. But its sharp fall is a reminder that it has remained, in many ways, a wobbly emerging market. In the last three days, the main stock index slid more than 25 percent, as the collapse of Lehman and the rescue of the American International Group prompted a flight from such investments. The finance minister, Aleksei Kudrin, on Wednesday took the extraordinary step of pledging $44 billion in federal funds for three state-controlled banks to jump-start a rebound and halt a spiral of margin-call selling. Reserve requirements for commercial banks were also reduced sharply to encourage billions of dollars to circulate more freely in the financial sector. “Russia has the reputation of being one of the most trust-challenged places to do business in the world to start with,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard. The war heightened those concerns, he said. “Rightly or wrongly, the conflict with Georgia was viewed as a retreat from connections with global markets and global standards.” American officials seized on to the precipitous slide in Russian markets as evidence that investors had grown disenchanted with Russia after it began a military incursion into Georgia on Aug. 8. “Capital is fleeing Russia, with $7 billion leaving on Aug. 8 alone,” William J. Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, told a Senate hearing, according to Reuters. “Russia and the Russian people are paying a considerable price for their country’s disproportionate military action,” he said. Russian state television showed an image that could sum up the broader disaffection with emerging markets: a once-bustling trading floor in Moscow, all but deserted Wednesday, its screens blank, while one trader sat fiddling idly with a computer mouse. Russian regulators have so far hewed to orthodox economic stimulus policies, in spite of calls last week for the government to invest the nation’s primary sovereign wealth fund in domestic stocks to raise prices. Their response so far, which rests on conventional support for the banking system, suggests that Mr. Kudrin and other economic liberals in the Russian government have won the policy debate on how to respond to the crisis, at least for now. But the problems in Russia run deep, and Mr. Kudrin cautioned against expecting a quick recovery. “Rebuilding will take some time,” he said. Russian stocks have fallen faster than would be justified by dropping oil prices or in response to financial turmoil in the United States, economists say. Part of the reason is that Russia is spending more on its military. On Tuesday, Vladimir V. Putin, the former president and now the prime minister, said 2.4 trillion rubles ($94.4 billion), would go to the military in the 2009 budget. The average price-to-earnings ratio — the most widely used method of valuing stocks, was 4 for Russian stocks Wednesday, far lower than the ratio of 10 found on average in developed markets, according to Steven Dashevsky, chief analyst of Aton, a brokerage firm in Moscow. Surgutneftegaz, one of the largest companies in Russia, was trading Wednesday at just over the value of the cash in its bank account, meaning investors valued its vast oil fields, its thousands of employees and other assets as nearly worthless under its current Russian management.


Tennis Goes to the Web With Hours of Video Clips

Abstract: This is the era of the screen — touch, wide, flat, etc. — and tennis is not even close to immune. The players’ lounge at the United States Open was brimming with technology last week. Among the screens in use at 3 p.m. Tuesday were 6 iPhones, 5 BlackBerrys, 24 laptop computers and 2 iPads. Most were being used for Facebook, e-mail and Skype, others for watching movies and some for watching tennis video. In a world of proliferating information, more tennis footage is available by the day on a Web site like YouTube. Players, particularly younger players, are taking advantage to scout opponents, study new technique and, of course, have a chuckle. “I do get a kick out of it,” the American Alexa Glatch said. “I’ll just go on YouTube browsing and stuff, tennis bloopers or whatever.” Glatch and her coach, Ryan Segelke, also use YouTube for business, analyzing the style of her future opponents, which is something Andy Roddick and others will sometimes do when they draw an obscure, low-ranked player in a tournament. “You can find full matches sometimes, but sometimes even clips and a few points here and there can tell a lot,” Glatch said. Instructional videos have been part of the game for decades, and coaches (and parents) have long videotaped players to help them grasp and address their own technical weaknesses. But the abundance of free video clips has democratized the access to excellence. Yulia Putintseva , an intense and promising Russian junior who is in the final of the girls’ competition at the Open, has a slashing forehand that, despite being hit with her right hand, bears a strong resemblance to a forehand hit by a certain indefatigable Spanish champion. That is no coincidence. “I’m always going on YouTube and putting the Rafael Nadal shots on slow motion,” Putintseva, 15, said. “That’s exactly what I’m copying.” Ben Wagland , a 17-year-old from Sydney, Australia, who played in the boys’ tournament, also studies Nadal. (Wagland is left-handed.) “Everyone looks at their favorite players on YouTube and tries to copy their technique to get a better sense of how the game is changing and make yourself a better player,” Wagland said. “I like the way Rafa plays. His swing is fast, and I try to copy that.” It is not only among players that Nadal footage is in demand. Agents, whose livelihoods depend on finding the next big thing, also make use of it. Lawrence Frankopan, the president of Lagardère Unlimited in Britain, uses Nadal as a measuring stick. “You see an 11-year-old kid, and it’s only natural to say, ‘Let’s put Rafa Nadal in at 11 to see what he was doing at this age, and how he was playing,’ ” Frankopan said. “So you go online and type in Rafa Nadal, 11 years old, and boom! So then I look at my 11-year-old and go, ‘Hmmmm.’ ” An early video of Nadal dates to July 12, 1998, when he was 12 and playing in a tournament in Barcelona, Spain, not yet picking at his shorts before serves and already running around his backhand and giving polite television interviews. It has been viewed more than 700,000 times. “There’s not huge amounts of early stuff out there, but there’s enough to get an idea,” Frankopan said. Search a bit more and you can find footage of Novak Djokovic, ball cap askew, grunting as he whacks serves and overheads at age 7 on a court in Serbia. One suspects that the rising generation of players will be even better documented, and there are videos of, for example, some of Putintseva’s junior matches on YouTube. Frankopan said parents and others sometimes e-mailed links to video of a young prospect. “But normally what happens in our industry is we have this network of coaches and so on that tells you that you should look out for this guy or this guy,” he said. “And the first thing I would do is Google and find the results and see if there is any YouTube footage.” Glatch, a 21-year-old Californian ranked No. 369 after being as high as No. 102 last year, sometimes uses YouTube to watch herself play, and she is hardly alone. During the Open, Michael Llodra, a flashy French player with a large personality, was asked if he had seen Roger Federer’s no-look between-the-legs winner against Brian Dabul. “Amazing,” Llodra said. “But for what it’s worth, I did one like that , too, against Tommy Haas at Indian Wells, and I invite you to watch it on the Web.” Indeed it is there. The year was 2007, and Llodra scrambled just about as deep in the court and passed Haas at the net with a tweener. Federer’s shot was more unusual because he passed Dabul when Dabul was still on the baseline. More tennis exotica is available for viewing, including Jeff Tarango’s Wimbledon walk-off in 1995; a mind-bending 45-stroke, 62-second rally between Federer and Lleyton Hewitt at Indian Wells, Calif.; a leaping overhead winner that Federer hit off an Andy Roddick overhead in Basel, Switzerland, Federer’s hometown; a serve that Roddick embedded in a clay court (staged for a commercial). The tennis fan is well served by this. If you want to know how agile Bjorn Borg really was in 1973 at age 17 , a click or two brings him in view. The same goes for Rod Laver playing Ken Rosewall in Sydney in 1970. Or Maureen Connolly and Doris Hart in the 1953 Wimbledon final . But players also use this archive to examine tennis history, sometimes recent history. “Somebody told me Federer cried at the Australian Open last year, and I didn’t believe it, so I went on YouTube and looked,” said Sloane Stephens, an American who lost in the Open girls semifinals. “I still don’t believe it. Did you know that he cried?”

Tennis
Recordings and Downloads (Video)
YouTube.com
United States Open (Tennis)
Computers and the Internet


Trial of German Neo-Nazi Is Delayed Over Media Concerns

Abstract: BERLIN — After weeks of outrage in Germany and Turkey over how seats for members of the foreign news media were allocated at the trial of a prominent neo-Nazi, a state court in Munich said Monday that it would delay the opening of the trial by three weeks to allow for a new accreditation process. The decision — only two days before Beate Zschäpe, the sole survivor of a neo-Nazi cell that killed 10 people, was to go on trial — was met with a mixture of relief and anger. Representatives of the relatives of victims expressed frustration that the court had waited so long to find a solution to a problem that had drawn in government officials. Revelation of the cell’s existence in late 2011 shocked Germans and raised questions about how security authorities could have failed for the better part of a decade to stop the group from killing minorities. The cell’s members killed eight men of Turkish descent, a Greek and a German policewoman. Among the most dismayed at the trial’s delay were the victims’ relatives, many of whom had made travel arrangements and taken time off from work to attend the trial, said Barbara John, the ombudswoman appointed by the German government to represent their interests. Image Beate Zschäpe Credit Reuters Jens Rabe, a lawyer for Kerim and Semiya Simsek, whose father was the cell’s first victim in 2000, called the last-minute decision “more than annoying.” “The delay of the trial opening is the result of the court’s unyielding position and refusal to accept criticism or constructive suggestions for solutions,” Mr. Rabe said. Since it became clear last month that no Turkish journalists were among the 50 reporters — out of more than 100 who applied — to be guaranteed a seat in the courtroom, calls for their inclusion spread from the news media to politicians in Turkey and Germany. On Friday, Germany’s highest court ruled in favor of a Turkish journalist who had filed a petition to be allowed into the courtroom, citing what he called an unfair distribution of seats. The journalist, Ismail Erel, an editor at the Turkish newspaper Sabah, had argued to the constitutional court in Karlsruhe that the e-mail informing him about the accreditation arrived 19 minutes later than at several German newspapers, enough of a delay to jeopardize his chances for a guaranteed seat. Officials including Philipp Rösler, Chancellor Angela Merkel ’s deputy, and Germany’s minister for immigrant affairs, had urged the court to show “sensitivity” in handling the Turkish media’s appeals to attend the trial. Margarete Nötzel, a spokeswoman for the Munich court, said in a statement that given the constitutional court’s ruling on Friday, “a new accreditation process will be necessary. ” She gave no details about how the process would be conducted.

Germany
Neo Nazis
News media,journalism
Beate Zschape
Fringe Groups
Terrorism


Awaiting a Full Embrace of Same-Sex Weddings

Abstract: CAPE TOWN — It was another picture-perfect wedding at the foot of Table Mountain, recalled the Rev. Daniel Brits. Inside the chapel, a female vocalist sang “Wind Beneath My Wings” before he led the nervous couple through their vows surrounded by family and friends a few weeks ago. That the betrothed were two men gave few of the guests pause. For Mr. Brits, it was all in a day’s work. After all, he says, he has married more than 500 gay couples in the four years since South Africa became the first country in the Southern Hemisphere to legalize same-sex marriage . (This month, Argentina became the second .) More than 3,000 same-sex couples have been married in South Africa, with about half of those couples including at least one foreigner, the government says. The law permitting same-sex marriage has begun to pave the way for greater tolerance of homosexuality, advocates contend, and the weddings have provided a shot in the arm to companies catering to those tying the knot. “Apartheid suppressed tolerance, but once that was out of the way our society has moved so fast and most people just go with the flow,” said Mr. Brits, a nondenominational minister. The weddings frequently take place on Table Mountain, the vast, flat-topped landmark that looms over the city, and at hotels like the 12 Apostles , a resort perched on a cliff above the sea where Arianne McClellan and her bride, both London police officers, said “I do” last fall. The couple chose Cape Town for its stunning natural beauty and gay-friendly culture. The legal protections in South Africa stand in stark contrast to the antigay sentiment that has recently been on display elsewhere in Africa, whether in the trial of a gay couple in Malawi or the legislative proposal in Uganda to make homosexuality a capital crime in some cases . But even as human rights advocates praise the country’s legal openness and the economic windfall that has accompanied same-sex nuptial tourism, they fret that the law, like so much of the new South Africa’s promise and prosperity, has bypassed many of the country’s citizens, particularly in the black majority. Anthony Manion, director of Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, said the law had largely failed to benefit blacks living in the impoverished townships that stretch for miles outside cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg. In them, gay men and lesbians often face unabashed discrimination and violence; advocates say that a growing number of lesbians have become victims of so-called corrective rapes aimed at ridding them of their sexual orientation. “The vast majority of gay people in South Africa are still shut off from marrying the partner of their choice because of the deep economic inequality, social isolation and cultural exclusion,” Mr. Manion said. He and others complain that the focus on wedding cakes and floral arrangements distracts attention from far more serious challenges. Melanie Judge, an author of “To Have & To Hold: the Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa,” was far more blunt, accusing white middle-class South Africans of ignoring their black brethren in their rush to the altar. “Marriage is a commodity that’s been branded and packaged,” she said. “The law hasn’t gotten to the depths of prejudice if gay marriage ignores our collective trauma in favor of clothes, makeup and honeymoons.” Others say change in the socially conservative townships will take time, and they point to a shift in attitudes among Afrikaners — the white minority that once imposed racial apartheid on the nation — and within the mixed-race population known as coloreds. Mr. Brits, for one, said it was striking that 80 percent of the South Africans he has married have been Afrikaners, who come from a community that has long condemned homosexuality. Perhaps most astonished are the same-sex couples who expected far more resistance among their families. When Jens Von Wichtingen, a German, and his Afrikaner husband, Daniel, who took his surname, married in February after 17 years together, they were surprised at how readily Daniel’s deeply religious parents accepted their union. “Afrikaners do not talk about sex and definitely not about gays,” Jens said. Yet at the wedding “they were so damn proud.” He added that Daniel’s parents might not feel comfortable with the notion of “gay rights,” but they accepted their marriage and their decision to adopt a black child. But white South Africa is still a long way from fully embracing gay marriage. While some mainstream businesses have been happy to capture part of the gay market, others — photographers, clerics and catering hall owners — have rejected same-sex couples citing “Christian principles,” some industry members say. James Cussen, co-founder of an online same-sex wedding directory , said that even as his listings had grown to include more than 60 service providers, others still balked when asked to list their companies. “They say, ‘No, we’re not gay; why would we do that,’ ” he said. “Others hang up on me.” Seon Kilian, a Cape Town-based event planner who has done a number of same-sex weddings , says that after the country’s long struggle against racism, it is painful to see another group of South Africans facing bigotry. She says she tries to buffer clients against uncomfortable moments by vetting the waiters, floral designers and videographers she hires. “The last thing you want is two grooms kissing on the dance floor and a waiter drops a tray in disgust,” Ms. Kilian said. To some gay South Africans, the law has allowed them to dwell on questions they might never have thought possible, like guest lists, wedding vows and their lives as husbands and wives. “We just want it to be a truthful mirror of our intentions and how we feel about each other,” said Paul Botha in the midst of arranging the final details the day before marrying his partner, Albert Marton. And for many foreign gay and lesbian couples, South Africa offers a legal tolerance often denied in their own countries. In 2007, Damon Bolden married his partner at Constitution Hill, the site of an apartheid-era prison that now houses South Africa’s Constitutional Court and several human rights groups. The American couple, who lived in Johannesburg for five years before returning to New York in 2008, married in a ceremony that blended American and African traditions, including jumping the broom, a wedding ritual used by slaves in America, who were forbidden to marry. “It was an honor to get married in a democracy so young and progressive,” Mr. Bolden said from New York. “If it can happen there, it can happen here.”

Same-Sex Marriage Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships


Rule on Rearview Cameras for Cars Is Delayed for Review

Abstract: DETROIT — Safety regulators will not complete the details of a rule mandating rearview cameras on all passenger vehicles until the end of the year, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told Congressional leaders on Tuesday. Mr. LaHood said safety regulators had “made significant progress in developing the final rule” but will delay issuing the mandate until later this year. A 2008 law originally called on regulators to set new rear visibility standards for vehicles by Feb. 28, 2011, but Mr. LaHood already had extended the deadline several times. In January, he told Congress that he expected the department to issue the requirement by Feb. 29. “Further study and data analysis — including of a wider range of vehicles and drivers — is important to ensure the most protective and efficient rule possible,” Mr. LaHood said in a statement issued late Tuesday. “The department remains committed to improving rearview visibility for the nation’s fleet and we expect to complete our work and issue a final rule by Dec. 31, 2012.” The requirement is intended to protect children and other pedestrians from being hit by vehicles when the drivers are backing up and fail to see them. About 228 deaths occur annually in such cases, the government says. It estimates that using a camera to eliminate the rear blind spot could cut that number roughly in half. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said that including cameras would add up to $200 to the cost of a vehicle, or a total of $2.7 billion for the auto industry, at least some of which would be passed on to consumers. The agency’s original proposal called for the requirement to be phased in, with all vehicles having the feature by September 2014. A rearview camera already comes standard on 45 percent of cars and trucks in the current model year. Among the details that regulators want to resolve are how quickly a camera image must appear on the screen when the driver shifts the vehicle into reverse gear and the size of the area that must be shown.

Cameras
Automobile Safety Features and Defects
Automobiles
Law and Legislation
Regulation and Deregulation of Industry
Transportation Department (US)


Lax State Gun Laws Tied to Crimes in Other States

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Nearly 600 mayors nationwide, led by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and other city leaders, are mounting a new campaign to identify states with lax gun laws and push for tighter restrictions to prevent the trafficking of guns used in crimes. A study due to be released this week by a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns uses previously unavailable federal gun data to identify what it says are the states that most often export guns used in crimes across state lines. It concludes that the 10 worst offenders per capita, led by Mississippi , West Virginia and Kentucky , supplied nearly half the 43,000 guns traced to crime scenes in other states last year. The study also seeks to draw a link between gun trafficking and gun control laws by analyzing gun restrictions in all 50 states in areas like background checks for gun purchases, policies on concealed weapons permits and state inspections of gun dealers. It finds that, across the board, those states with less restrictive gun laws exported guns used in crimes at significantly higher rates than states with more stringent laws. An advance copy of the study was provided to The New York Times . “There are 12,000 gun murders a year in our country, and this report makes it perfectly clear how common-sense trafficking laws can prevent many of them,” said Mr. Bloomberg, who is the co-chairman of the coalition with Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston . “For mayors around the country, this isn’t about gun control. It’s about crime control.” The gun trafficking issue provides Mr. Bloomberg, often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, with another national platform. He has been the face of the mayors’ coalition since it was created in 2006 in opposition to a Congressional amendment that restricted the sharing of federal gun data with the local police. Since its inception, the group, which now includes 596 mayors nationwide, has expanded into other gun-related issues, including the exporting of guns from the United States to Mexican drug cartels . The mayors plan to use the new trafficking data to push for more stringent gun restrictions at the state and federal levels. Among the targets, coalition officials said, will be closing the so-called gun show loophole. The loophole allows people to buy firearms at gun shows without going through the usual background checks that weed out felons and other banned buyers. Gun control advocates have fought a losing battle against the loophole for more than a decade, but neither Congress nor the Obama administration has shown any inclination to revisit the issue, particularly since the Supreme Court and lower courts have issued a series of rulings affirming Second Amendment rights. The mayors’ push to identify and crack down on states with high rates of gun trafficking is sure to face stiff opposition from gun rights advocates, who have been buoyed by the court rulings. Chris W. Cox, the National Rifle Association ’s chief lobbyist in Washington, dismissed the upcoming report as “a cute little P.R. stunt.” When told of the main findings, Mr. Cox said the report appeared to have relied on “flawed assumptions” about how guns flow across state lines and are traced back to their original purchasers. “It’s completely bogus for a group with a clear political agenda to release some study based on selective statistics,” he said. “This is not a serious discussion. But this is what we’ve come to expect from Mayor Bloomberg and his gun control agenda.” Authors of the study, however, said they had conducted a careful analysis of reams of gun “trace” data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — showing the path of guns confiscated at crime scenes — in reaching their conclusions. They said the study provided the deepest look to date at how states export guns used in crimes and how that relates to gun restrictions in those states. James Alan Fox , a criminology professor at Northeastern University who was not involved in preparing the study, said the findings were likely to attract wide interest from academics and policymakers. Of particular significance, he said, will be the study’s data linking the laxity of gun laws in some states to the exporting of guns used in crimes in other states. “What this does is help refute some of the statements that people make on the pro-gun side in saying that tougher gun laws are unconnected to reducing crime,” he said. “A state’s gun laws are only as good as the weakest link in the national chain,” Professor Fox said. “A state with weaker gun laws becomes a supplier for states with stronger laws.” Indeed, the authors of the mayors’ study, which was prepared largely out of Mr. Bloomberg’s office, said the findings suggested that gun traffickers had sought out states with less restrictive gun-purchase laws. “What this really shows is that bad laws really do equal more gun trafficking,” said John Feinblatt, Mr. Bloomberg’s chief policy adviser, “and that gaps in the law really do make a difference.” The study found that Mississippi, the state with the highest rate of crime-gun exports, supplied 50 out-of-state guns per 100,000 residents — more than three times the national average. It also found that Mississippi, like all of the other states with the highest export rates, had relatively lax laws for bringing gun prosecutions, conducting background checks on buyers and preventing illegal purchases and transfers of guns. Officials at the Mississippi attorney general’s office declined to comment on the findings. But Mr. Cox, of the N.R.A., said that the best way to prevent illegal trafficking was for the police and prosecutors to crack down on criminals, not to enact further restrictions that, he said, serve only to make it tougher for law-abiding citizens to purchase weapons. He predicted the new data from the mayors’ coalition would have no real impact on public policy. “Do I think Mayor Bloomberg and his group are desperate for relevancy in a debate where they have no legitimate role? Sure,” Mr. Cox said. “Do I think their approach will continue to be rejected by the American people and Congress? I do.”

Mayor
Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Gun Control
Politics
US states
Mike Bloomberg


China Adds New Limits on Foreigners and Journalists

Abstract: BEIJING — Apparently unnerved by an anonymous Internet campaign urging Chinese citizens to emulate the protests that have rocked the Middle East , Chinese authorities this week have begun a forceful and carefully focused clampdown on activities by foreigners that the government deems threatening to political stability. Public security officials have summoned dozens of foreign journalists in Beijing and Shanghai to be dressed down on videotape, warning them that they had broken reporting regulations by visiting locations that had been selected as protest sites in Internet postings. Journalists were bluntly warned that they faced the loss of their visas, revocation of their credentials and expulsion if they did not abide by new limits on their ability to interview and photograph Chinese citizens, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in a statement. In Shanghai, the authorities objected to the location of an annual St. Patrick’s Day parade set for March 12 that had been expected to draw more than 2,000 people, prompting Irish organizations to abruptly cancel the event on Monday. The parade was to have taken place on a major street close to a cinema where the Internet postings had urged people to gather every Sunday to show their displeasure with the Chinese government. Western diplomats in China said other events that had been planned by foreigners, or with their help, had also been abruptly canceled. “We’ve noticed that a somewhat larger number of our cultural and educational programs around China are being postponed or canceled, but we haven’t been notified by Chinese authorities of any specific reason,” said one diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Separately, Beijing officials announced Wednesday that they intended to monitor the movements of millions of residents by means of information transmitted by their cellphones. One official was quoted on a government Web site as saying that the new program would provide “real-time information about a user’s activity.” The project aims to monitor all Beijing residents who use cellphones — about 20 million people — to detect unusually large gatherings. One official said the primary use would be to detect and ease traffic and subway congestion . But Chinese media reports said government officials could use the data to detect and prevent protests. The government’s actions this week are the latest in a long and steady process of restricting speech and assembly freedoms that appears to have gained speed after antigovernment protests flared in Tibet in March 2008 and in the western region of Xinjiang in 2009. The limitations also follow two weeks of unusually harsh treatment of political activists, possibly also inspired by fear that the upheaval in the Middle East could spread to China. Four prominent lawyers involved in rights issues have disappeared after being seized by the police, at least 100 activists have been detained and an unusually large number of activists have been charged with crimes, including some that could draw life sentences with a conviction, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher in Hong Kong with Human Rights Watch . Criminal charges were not a hallmark of the last major crackdown on activists, in December, when the imprisoned democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Bequelin said. “That is an escalation,” he said. “You have one case or a couple of cases, well, that happens. But now, we have quite a few.” Victor Shih, a China specialist and political science professor at Northwestern University , said Chinese authorities were systematically carrying out lessons they had learned from the collapse of authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe. “Once there’s a sizable demonstration, it becomes costlier to control, so why let it happen in the first place?” he said in an interview in Beijing on Thursday. “Because they have a lot of resources, they are able to pour a lot of money into making sure that, at least in Beijing, nothing happens.” No protests of any note have taken place in China since calls for Middle East-style demonstrations were first published on an American Web site two months ago. But last Friday, public security officials, without mentioning the possibility of weekend protests, summoned some foreign correspondents in Beijing, reminding them to abide by unspecified reporting rules. Some who tried Sunday to look into vague, Internet-based calls for protests paid a price. In Beijing, plainclothes officers dragged reporters and photographers into alleys or shops and erased images from their cameras. Three journalists were injured, including a Bloomberg News videographer who was kicked and beaten, according to the correspondents’ association. This week, public security officials warned reporters from The New York Times , The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and numerous other foreign news organizations that they had violated regulations by appearing at possible protest sites and that further infractions would not be tolerated. At Thursday’s regular news conference at the Foreign Ministry, Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman, suggested that some reporters were trying to stir up unrest, not report on it. “Law-abiding people will be protected by the law,” she said. “But people who are trying to create trouble in China, I can tell them that they have made the wrong plans.” “Some people are eager to join the fray,” she continued. “For people with that kind of motive, no law can protect them.” She insisted that a decree signed by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in October 2008, allowing foreign journalists to conduct interviews and travel within China without first obtaining government permission, remained in force. “There is no change,” she insisted. “There is no step back.” But Ms. Jiang also made it clear that journalists should check first with the authorities before visiting places where many people gathered, lest they disrupt order and traffic. The need to get government permission depends “on the local law-and-order situation in that particular spot and the judgment of police,” she said. New regulations posted on a Beijing government Web site strictly forbid journalists to report at the Wangfujing pedestrian mall, where anonymous organizers had called for Sunday gatherings outside a McDonald’s restaurant. The regulations also bar beggars, fortunetellers, gamblers and “running dogs and other animals” from frequenting the area. Journalists in Shanghai have been warned against reporting from an area near the Peace Cinema , adjacent to People’s Square, where the Internet postings have urged protesters to gather. Conor O’Riordan, the Irish consul general in Shanghai, said concerns about the St. Patrick’s Day parade percolated for about a month and came to a boil on Monday. He said Chinese officials were willing to allow it to proceed if organizers found a “more modest” route. The chosen street, Nanjing Donglu, is part of the area journalists have been warned away from. Unable to change locations so quickly, organizers on Monday canceled the event, Mr. O’Riordan said. Instead, a volunteer-run organization will hold an invitation-only, indoor celebration.


Conflict in Ivory Coast Threatens to Destabilize Its Neighbors

Abstract: PÉHÉ-KANHOUÉBLI, Ivory Coast — Standing by a burned-out house on a road speckled with spent ammunition casings, Brig. Gen. Gueu Michel, the commander of rebel forces in western Ivory Coast , outlined his plan to stem an influx of Liberian mercenaries he said were fighting for Ivory Coast’s embattled strongman, Laurent Gbagbo . “Gbagbo’s troops are composed of the Ivorian Army, the Liberian mercenaries and the militia,” he said recently, pointing to a carefully folded map. “We want to cut off the mercenary flow into Côte d’Ivoire.” But the traffic at the border moved in two directions. As General Michel’s troops gained ground, a tide of refugees escaping the crisis crossed the porous and remote border into Liberia , a country with a fragile grip on stability itself. According to the United Nations , more than 100,000 people have fled to Liberia, an exodus visible in the women with bundles on their heads and babies on their backs, trudging on or sitting exhausted by trail sides. And as the struggle over Ivory Coast spills beyond its borders, many fear it will rattle a region still trying to recover from its own history of civil war. “It’s a serious threat to the stability of Liberia and, I might say, to the stability of all neighboring countries,” President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia said in an interview. “There’s been a lot of investment for peace in this subregion; we’re beginning to see the result of that investment,” she added. “If nothing is done to resolve the crisis, all of these efforts will be undermined.” Ivory Coast was once a bastion of stability in a troubled region, its skyscraper-studded commercial capital, Abidjan, a favored expatriate posting. Then a civil war in 2002 left Ivory Coast divided between a south loyal to Mr. Gbagbo and a rebel-controlled north. Ivorians went to the polls in November to heal those wounds, but Mr. Gbagbo refused to step down after losing to his rival, Alassane Ouattara , prompting a long standoff with the international community and, now, a rebel advance to try to expel Mr. Gbagbo by force. As part of that campaign, General Michel’s entourage included fashionable young men in sunglasses and civilian clothes alongside fighters in fatigues carrying Kalashnikovs. The general himself wore a neatly pressed uniform, with a name tag on his breast, and insisted he was operating under the command of Mr. Ouattara. Liberian and United Nations officials said the general was correct to suspect Liberian mercenaries of crossing into Ivory Coast to help Mr. Gbagbo stay in power. Harrison S. Karnwea Sr., Liberia’s interior minister, pointed to the recovery of a Liberian voter registration card from a combatant inside Ivory Coast. “According to what we hear, both sides are recruiting Liberian mercenaries,” he said. “When people have been used to living on violence, they have got no profession to earn their living on.” But officials contended that the biggest risk to regional destabilization was the exodus heading in the other direction. Liberia is profoundly fragile after being consumed by civil war for much of the 1990s, a conflict that created warlords and drugged-up child soldiers. Today, eight years after the end of hostilities, there are still 8,000 United Nations troops in the country. While Liberia’s entire budget is $375 million, the peacekeeping mission costs $500 million a year, the United Nations said. Ellen Margrethe Loej, the head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia, is most concerned about arms from Ivory Coast crossing the border. “After the civil war, disarmament was fairly — if not very — successful in Liberia, but there are still a lot of weapons around in Côte d’Ivoire,” she said. “The border is very porous.” A generation of young Liberians knew only war, and at least some found opportunity in taking part in it. Since then, great efforts have been made to encourage a different way of life. “Liberia’s taken the last seven years and some months to rein in the guys who had been fighting,” said Michael McGovern, a political anthropologist at Yale who studies West Africa. Now, he said, there is a risk of people being “torn out of the social fabric they had been woven back into.” The refugees have already overwhelmed some villages. At Old Pohan, a Liberian settlement next to the thickets that extend to the border, refugees greatly outnumbered the local population, and more were arriving all the time. “We don’t have sleeping places, and the refugees are more than us; no food,” said a villager, Victor Gaye. The refugees themselves, some wearing Laurent Gbagbo campaign T-shirts that suggested they were opposed to the advancing rebels, spoke of a desperate trek south after an attack on the Ivorian town of Bloléquin. “We were in the bush for one week,” said Zoué Bah Suzanne, 52. “Since I arrived, I want food to eat, I want a sleeping place to lie down.” With tens of thousands of refugees already in Liberia, United Nations officials said they were struggling to muster an international response, at a time when many other crises were demanding the world’s attention. “If you see the news in any international TV channel today you see Libya, Libya, Libya,” said António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, during a tour of affected areas in Liberia. Seeking to move the Ivorians away from border settlements, the United Nations has opened a camp about 25 miles inside Liberia. Lines of tents stretch out in freshly cleared jungle, itself dust-blanched at the end of the dry season. But only a few thousand refugees have come, because those at the border do not want to go farther, some already having settled for weeks. Refugees are also starting to cross in significant numbers into Ghana, which is far more stable than Liberia. But Abidjan, which rebel forces reached on Thursday, lies close to the border, potentially sending a surge of refugees into Ghana. Ivory Coast has millions of foreign laborers, including many from Burkina Faso. If they are forced to flee, their home country, which is desperately poor, may struggle to accommodate them. “If there is a total collapse of the economy, there will be a further social impact on their countries of origin,” Mr. Guterres said. Konate Sidiki, a former Ivorian minister of tourism, now the secretary of organization for the rebels, argued that despite the humanitarian consequences, “there is no other solution” but force against Mr. Gbagbo. “For three months we try to discuss, we try to negotiate,” he said.

Ivory Coast
Liberia
United Nations
Defense and Military Forces
Refugees and Displaced Persons
Gbagbo Laurent
Ouattara Alassane D


Subpoenas in Contested State Senate Race Draw Anger

Abstract: The unresolved State Senate contest between Senator Frank Padavan , a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, James F. Gennaro, moves on Tuesday into a Queens courtroom, where nearly a dozen college students have been subpoenaed to verify their residences. Republican lawyers have challenged the votes of students, mostly from St. John’s University, saying that they filled out affidavit ballots with addresses that were not their permanent residences. In the paper ballot count, Mr. Padavan is leading by about 600 votes, but about 1,000 more ballots remained to be counted and the validity of an additional 2,000 must still be reviewed. While the challenges and subpoenas have angered students, who are being forced to appear during exams, they underscore the high stakes attached to winning the Senate seat in Queens. The Democrats now have at least 32 seats in the Senate, giving them a majority for the first time in more than 40 years. But three dissident Democrats have yet to pledge their support for the would-be majority leader, Malcolm A. Smith. That limits him, at the moment, to 29 votes in the 62-member body. A victory by Mr. Gennaro would bring the Republicans down to 29 seats and provide Mr. Smith with 30 votes. One of the dissident Democrats, Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., says he would not vote for a Republican leader. So, at the very least, a Gennaro win would improve the prospects for Mr. Smith. Steven H. Richman, the general counsel at the New York City Board of Elections, said that under state law, a student can vote from a polling place near either his or her permanent address or a college address. “A college student has the option,” Mr. Richman said. “If you’re living on campus, you have the right to register and vote from that district. Or you can register from your parents’ address. You just can’t vote in two places.” Democratic officials said they were incensed by the subpoenas. “It’s outrageous that this is the lesson that Republicans want to teach young voters,” said, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “They are teaching students that they can be dragged into court just for fulfilling their civic duty. It’s absolutely outrageous.” In an interview, Mr. Padavan defended the issuing of the subpoenas. “These students have permanent residences that are great distances from the 11th Senatorial District, as evidenced by their driver’s licenses and other materials,” he said. “The question is whether they are valid voters. And if they are not valid voters, their vote shouldn’t count. It’s as simple as that.” Cristina Fernandez, a student at St. John’s, said by phone that it was more convenient to vote near the school. “Even though my parents live in Manhattan, I live right here in Queens and didn’t see any reason to vote back in Manhattan when I could register to vote right here in the neighborhood,” said Ms. Fernandez, a senior majoring in accounting. “I was so excited to vote this year,” she added. “But then I had some man showing up on my doorstep issuing me a subpoena because the Republicans are trying to challenge my vote. So, I have to go to court in the middle of finals, instead of studying. It makes you not want to vote ever again.”

Elections
New York State
Voter Registration and Requirements
Legislatures and Parliaments
Voting and Voters
Colleges and Universities
Padavan Frank
Gennaro James F
Queens (NYC)


Ex-Officer Seeks Bond in Shooting Death of Walter Scott

Abstract: CHARLESTON, S.C. — Saying that he hoped to spend time with his young son, a former police officer asked a judge on Friday to release him on bond while he awaits trial in the shooting death of an unarmed black man after a traffic stop in April. The former North Charleston officer, Michael T. Slager, 33, told Judge Clifton Newman that he “was not a flight risk” and would follow any bail requirements set by the court. Bound in chains and wearing a purple-gray jumpsuit, Mr. Slager appeared haggard as he spoke in court for the first time since he was arrested in April in the death of Walter L. Scott, 50. Mr. Slager shuffled to the stand and said he hoped to see his family — particularly his son, who is to be baptized soon. Judge Newman said he would rule “as expeditiously as possible” on the bond request. The trial is expected sometime next year. Mr. Slager’s bond hearing had been put off, his lawyers said, because of delays in collecting information needed to make the defense’s arguments. A video of the shooting taken by a bystander appeared to show Mr. Slager firing at Mr. Scott as he tried to run away in what started as a traffic stop over a broken taillight. The episode strained racial tensions in this port city and came at a time of intense scrutiny of the treatment of African-Americans by law enforcement officials. During an earlier hearing on Thursday, Scarlett A. Wilson, the South Carolina prosecutor overseeing the case, squared off against Andy Savage, a Charleston lawyer known for representing clients in prominent cases, including the families of victims of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church slayings in June. Mr. Savage argued that Mr. Slager’s bond request was warranted because he was a supportive husband and father who had no criminal record and had earned exemplary performance reviews from his superiors. The hearing produced the defense’s first attempt to lay some of the blame for the killing on Mr. Scott. Mr. Savage argued that Mr. Scott had traces of cocaine in his bloodstream and that he and Mr. Slager had been involved in “a violent physical confrontation” moments before the shooting, fighting over Mr. Slager’s Taser. He said Mr. Slager, who had already fired the Taser at Mr. Scott, feared for his life. Mr. Savage argued that the traffic stop occurred because Mr. Slager was trying to fill a quota system that mandated North Charleston officers pull over a minimum of three drivers a day for minor offenses such as noisy mufflers, loud radios or faulty brake lights. “That’s the policy that Michael Slager was following as he drove west on Remount Road and saw a Mercedes without a tiny little brake light in the rear,” Mr. Savage said. Ms. Wilson vigorously disputed the defense’s characterization of Mr. Scott, saying only a trace amount of cocaine was found in his system. In addition, she said, Mr. Slager’s lightly skinned knees, lightly bloodied middle finger and clean uniform gave no indication of a perilous struggle. The prosecutor noted inconsistencies in Mr. Slager’s testimony and asserted that the blurry footage at the start of the video showed not a violent attack but Mr. Slager grabbing Mr. Scott’s arm, the Taser falling to the ground and Mr. Scott turning to flee before being gunned down. “Should he have fled from Officer Slager?” Ms. Wilson asked. “No, he shouldn’t have. But that doesn’t mean that Mr. Slager should have then become a firing squad and executed Mr. Scott.” Mr. Scott’s mother, Judy, fought back tears as she described his devotion to family that included caring for a father who is blind and on dialysis. “I’m truly hurt, and I pray for Slager and his family,” Ms. Scott said, “because of the love of Christ on the inside cannot hate. I don’t know what you would call that. To gun down a human being like you did. Nothing that’s done will ever bring him back.” Outside the county courthouse, James Johnson, the Charleston president of the National Action Network, the civil rights organization started by the Rev. Al Sharpton, said that none of Mr. Savage’s arguments overshadowed the fact that Mr. Slager fired on Mr. Scott as he ran away. “If Charleston County Court allows him to be out on bond, then every murder suspect whose bond was denied should be granted a new hearing,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that his and other civil rights organizations will call for nonviolent rallies should bail be granted.

Police Brutality,Police Misconduct,Police Shootings


Syria Tries to Ease Deep Political Crisis

Abstract: CAIRO — The Syrian government tried to ease a grave political crisis on Sunday by blaming armed gangs for killing 12 people in the northwestern port city of Latakia in previous days and promising to soon lift a draconian emergency law that allows the government to detain people without charges. Despite an announcement that the president, Bashar al-Assad , would address the nation on Sunday night, he stayed out of sight, as he has during more than a week of unrest that is threatening his own 11-year presidency and more than 40 years of his family’s iron-fisted rule. At least 61 people have died during crackdowns on protesters in several cities. The capital, Damascus, was quiet throughout the day, offering a veneer of calm at a time of great uncertainty. Speculation over high-level conflicts swirled as Syrians retreated to their homes, fearful of more protests and more bloodshed. There were rumors of cracks within the insular and opaque leadership of the nation, while the government sent out competing messages of compromise and crackdowns. There was also confusion over what, if anything, the government was planning regarding the emergency law. A government official told reporters in Damascus that it would soon be repealed. But the official did not explain what it would mean to remove the emergency law, in place since 1963, given that so many other laws restrict freedoms and grant immunity to the secret police. “What will change is nothing,” said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights activist and legal expert now teaching at George Washington University. What was certain was that the crisis was far from resolved by sunset on Sunday. The coastal town of Latakia was sealed off by security services and the military one day after witnesses and human rights groups reported that government forces opened fire on demonstrators. That flare-up of violence came after days of protests in the south, starting in the city of Dara’a, where government forces also opened fire, killing dozens. The protests began after the police arrested and held a group of young people who scrawled antigovernment graffiti. Details of the unrest, as well as exact numbers of the dead, are uncertain because the government has blocked foreign reporters from entering or working in Syria . But human rights groups reported that the death toll nationwide was 61 even before the killing began on Saturday. “Yesterday was a terrifying situation in Latakia,” said Mr. Ziadeh, who said he had stayed in close touch with events in Syria. “More than 21 have been killed.” The Assad family has wielded power through a complex alliance of intersecting interests between the Assads’ minority Alawite sect and other religious minorities, including Christians, and an elite Sunni business class. The rush of revolts may be especially unnerving to the leadership because they have occurred in two strongholds of the leadership. Dara’a is a majority Sunni tribal region that has long been a base of support for the elite; it is the home of key leaders in the military and the government, including the vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa. Latakia is one of the few places in the country that has an Alawite majority. If the unrest spreads to major cities, where there are Sunni majorities, analysts said, the entire system could become unhinged, as happened in Tunisia and Egypt, where the presidents were forced from power. “It’s over; it’s just a question of time,” said a Western diplomat in Damascus, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with diplomatic protocol. “It could be a slow burn, or Qaddafi-esque insanity over the next few days. It’s very tense here, very tense. You can feel it in the air.” The crisis is the second, and most serious, to test President Assad, 45. Mr. Assad’s brother Basil had been the heir apparent to their father, Hafez, but he died in a car accident. At first, Bashar al-Assad, a British-educated eye doctor then only 34, was seen as a potential agent of change after his father’s heavy-handed rule, which relied on brute force and co-option. But many promises of change have stalled, especially political change. The Baath Party under Mr. Assad preserved its monopoly on power, and the state still functions with at least five intelligence services, a military court and a state security court, and Article 16, which, according to Mr. Ziadeh, says, “Employees of intelligence services should not be held accountable for their crimes committed during their job.” Still, the solidarity of the government itself is in question. “There are people in the regime who want to open fire on the protesters, who want to beat them, who want to do anything they can to suppress them,” said Michel Kilo, a prominent intellectual and dissident. “But there are other people in power who say no. There are people in power who say that the protesters’ demands are legitimate.” Ammar Qurabi, the chairman of Syria’s National Association for Human Rights, said that, in his view, elite opinion in Syria was divided along three axes: “Security opinion, government opinion and Baath Party opinion.” Speaking in Cairo, he cited the example of Al Watan newspaper, owned by Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of President Assad. Mr. Qurabi heard that last week the editor, Rabah Abdorabo, was called in to the Ministry of Media and told to stop printing that day’s issue of the paper. Half an hour after he left, he was called in to the secret police, who ordered him to keep printing. The official Syrian Arab news agency, SANA, reported that at least 10 people were killed in Latakia by “armed gangs.” Government supporters were dispatched to provide the government’s account, which denied that government forces opened fire. In phone conversations with people in Syria, many said they were too frightened to talk, and others rescinded earlier condemnations of the government’s use of violence. “They were an armed gang that came to steal things and cause destruction,” said Mohammed Habash, a moderate Islamist cleric and a member of Parliament, repeating the government line after having earlier deplored the use of violence. “The people dead were a part of that gang. It has no connection to political activism in Syria.” Mr. Ziadeh said that government had threatened people, and offered himself as an example. Though he lives in the United States now, his family is in Syria, and he said Saturday night he received an e-mail “saying I am a traitor and I have to be careful about my mother. It was terrifying.” In Damascus, the government’s chief spokeswoman, Bouthiana Shaaban, told reporters that the president would soon move to lift the emergency law, though she did not say when. But experts on Syria said that while lifting the law was a primary demand of the demonstrators, that alone would not provide room for freedom of speech, assembly and political activity. “Syria has many laws on the books that would allow police to arrest people who cause trouble for the regime or who assemble without permits,” said Joshua M. Landis, an expert on Syria and director of the Middle East Studies Center at the University of Oklahoma.