English-Language Chinese Newspaper Breaks Silence on Tiananmen Crackdown

Abstract: BEIJING — “Prosperity Tangible along Chang’an Ave” was the innocuous headline in Global Times, China ’s newest English-language newspaper. The text that followed was only slightly more engaging. But the front-page article on Thursday was in one sense a major exclusive: In it, a state-run media outlet in China officially broke the silence on the June 4, 1989, crackdown on China’s pro-democracy movement. The coverage — actually a pair of articles appearing on Monday and Thursday — was more notable for having appeared than for what it revealed. The article on Thursday began and ended by contrasting benign scenes of children and tourists around Tiananmen Square this week with what it called the turmoil of the “June 4th Tiananmen incident.” The articles never expressly said what happened in and around the square 20 years ago. They implicitly endorsed the official verdict that suppression of the protests was necessary to pave the way for China’s recent prosperity. Even so, the newspaper’s chief editor, Hu Xijin, broke the taboo on discussing the crackdown that has prevailed for two decades in China’s state-run media. And in doing so, he seemed to show that some media outlets in China — at least a new, politically well-protected one in English — could risk bending serious rules. Editors at the paper said in recent interviews that they were acting alone, at unknown levels of professional risk. Still, critics were suspect. The central government is putting added political and financial weight behind its own key media brands. Officials hope to project China’s own vision of its development to a global audience rather than rely on overseas media to present China to the world. An important component of that mandate, journalists at official news outlets say, is to press China’s own foreign-language media to work faster and more openly on highly delicate matters of global concern, like Tibet. “This is a part of what the people in power think of as a soft power push,” said David Bandurski of the University of Hong Kong’s China Media Project . One major stumbling block, he said, is, “You still have this big silhouette of the party in the background, bestowing space on this or that trusted media.” Mr. Hu, like many top editors in the state-run media, is a Communist Party appointee. But he comes off as a populist newspaperman as well. In an interview in early May, he described the impetus to create the English edition of Global Times, a Chinese-language tabloid known for vociferously defending Chinese interests. It is part of the People’s Daily media group. He said the English edition was created in part to compete with The China Daily, the country’s official English-language paper, which has recently added a version in Chinese and proven a financial success. Global Times is seeking its share of the buzz created by taking on controversial topics, Mr. Hu said. Since starting on April 20, Global Times has investigated the grievances of parents whose children died last year in schools that crumbled in the Sichuan earthquake . It also has written critically of China’s ties to North Korea, which recently conducted its second nuclear test. “You can tell that we have bigger dimensions to report” than China Daily, said Ding Gang, deputy director of the People’s Daily international news department, and a senior adviser at Global Times. That appears to be true, as far as it goes. But the Global Times article on Thursday did not go that far. In assessing the crackdown, it quoted a scholar as concluding that the government “made a sober and sensible decision to overcome hard times, restore social stability and enhance economic reform in the 1990s. Thus, China didn’t miss a valuable historic development opportunity once again.”

Newspapers
China
Politics and Government
Tiananmen Square (Beijing)


Indonesian Agency Says Missing AirAsia Jet Probably Sank

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia — The head of the Indonesian agency searching for a missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people said Monday that he believed the aircraft was “at the bottom of the sea” and warned that the country lacked adequate equipment to conduct an underwater search. “The capability of our equipment is not optimum,” Bambang Soelistyo, the head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency, said at a news conference. Malaysia, Singapore and Australia joined the search, an effort that evoked a distressingly familiar mix of grief and mystery nine months after a Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared over the Indian Ocean. The Airbus A320-200, operated by the Indonesian affiliate of AirAsia, a regional budget carrier based in Malaysia, lost contact with ground controllers off the coast of Borneo early Sunday. And while it seemed premature to make comparisons to the Malaysian jetliner that disappeared in March, the Indonesian authorities could not explain why the AirAsia jet, Flight 8501, vanished from radar screens about 40 minutes after leaving the Indonesian city of Surabaya around 5:30 a.m. Image Relatives of passengers on AirAsia Flight 8501 waiting for news Sunday at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, Indonesia. Credit Beawiharta/Reuters The authorities said they had found no sign of the wreckage by midmorning Monday. The weather along the path of Flight 8501 to Singapore on Sunday was cloudy, and a weather monitoring service based in the United States reported a number of lightning strikes along the way. But the monsoon conditions did not seem insurmountable for a modern airliner. The route was a well-traveled part of the Indonesian archipelago; six other aircraft were in the vicinity of Flight 8501 when it disappeared, according to data by Flightradar24.com, an organization that tracks aircraft. The search was being conducted in a 100-mile stretch of the Java Sea near the island of Belitung, between the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, the plane’s last known location. Shortly before contact was lost, the cockpit crew informed air traffic controllers in Jakarta that it was planning to raise the plane to 38,000 feet from 32,000 feet to avoid a cloud, Djoko Murjatmodjo, the acting director general of air transport at Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation, said at a news conference in Jakarta. “We don’t know where the exact location is, except that this morning at 6:17, we lost contact,” Mr. Djoko said. The Singapore authorities said contact was lost at 6:24 a.m. Jakarta time; the discrepancy was not explained. Image Loved ones awaited word on Sunday about Air Asia Flight 8501, which had 162 people on board. Credit Fully Handoko/European Pressphoto Agency The newspaper Kompas in Indonesia quoted Mr. Djoko as saying that the plane’s request to divert from its flight path had been approved but that air traffic controllers had denied the request to ascend to 38,000 feet “because of traffic.” He did not elaborate. Mr. Djoko said the authorities had not detected any emergency distress beacons that would normally be triggered by an accident. Earth Networks, a company that tracks weather conditions across the globe, said it recorded a number of lightning strikes “near the path” of Flight 8501 on Sunday morning. While it is rare for a lightning strike to cause serious structural damage that threatens the safety of an aircraft, it can disrupt navigation systems, such as magnetic compasses. A lightning flash, particularly at night, can also momentarily disorient the pilots. The turbulence associated with a big storm can sometimes be severe, and sudden shifts in wind direction could disrupt the airflow through a jet engine, potentially causing it to shut down. However, a shutdown of both engines in such a situation would be highly unlikely, and the Airbus A320 is certified to fly up to three hours on a single engine, in compliance with global aviation safety regulations. AirAsia’s chief executive, Tony Fernandes, said Sunday in a Twitter message that he was traveling to Surabaya, where most of the plane’s 155 passengers were from. On Monday, Mr. Fernandes, who is Malaysian, wrote: “Keeping positive and staying strong. My heart bleeds for all the relatives of my crew and our passangers.” Indonesia sent at least three warships and five aircraft to search for the plane, Malaysia deployed three boats and three aircraft, and Singapore said it had sent a C-130 plane to assist in the search. Australia also offered to lend ships and aircraft to the effort. AirAsia said in its statement that the passengers included 16 children and one infant. A crew of two pilots and five cabin crew members were also on board. The passengers and crew were listed as 155 Indonesians, three South Koreans, one Singaporean, one Malaysian, one Briton and a French citizen, AirAsia said. More than 100 people, believed to be mostly relatives of the passengers, were sequestered Monday in a small room at the Surabaya airport. A woman wandered by, looking stunned and bereft, holding a framed photograph of a family of five. “They were on their way to Singapore to visit their 12-year-old daughter,” said the woman, Nani, who said she was the family’s maid. “That girl is now an orphan.” The captain of the flight was identified as Iriyanto, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name. France’s Foreign Ministry said the French citizen was the co-pilot. Indonesian news media quoted friends and relatives of Captain Iriyanto saying he took his family last week to visit the grave of his younger brother, who died recently. Media reports also described the pilot as a fan of motorcycles and a devoted member of his local mosque. He had previously worked as a pilot at Adam Air, a troubled Indonesian airline with a poor safety record. The Kompas newspaper quoted the pilot’s cousin as saying Captain Iriyanto moved to AirAsia after Adam Air shut down in 2008. Airbus said in a statement Sunday that the aircraft was delivered to the airline in 2008, and that it had flown around 13,600 flights. The missing plane capped a disastrous year for Malaysian airlines. In addition to the Malaysia Airlines jet lost over the Indian Ocean in March, which has yet to be found, an Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July. Both of those planes were Boeing 777-200ERs. But the AirAsia plane’s disappearance was perhaps even more rattling for Indonesia, which has seen explosive growth in air travel despite a troublesome safety record and a string of plane accidents over the years. While many accidents have not caused fatalities, the recurring headlines and images of dazed passengers swimming ashore have raised concerns abroad that Indonesia’s air safety regulations have failed to keep pace with the industry’s growth. Image An information board at Changi Airport in Singapore. Credit Edgar Su/Reuters Since 2007, the European Union has barred dozens of carriers from Indonesia from its skies, in an effort to pressure local regulators to shore up air safety standards. The majority of airlines that appear on the European Union’s so-called aviation blacklist — which includes airlines from several African countries — do not operate flights to Europe. However, travel agencies across the 28-member bloc are required to inform all European passengers who have plans to travel on a carrier listed on the aviation blacklist. AirAsia, one of the world’s fastest-growing airlines, has an excellent safety record. Its Indonesian subsidiary is not included on the European safety list, which was most recently updated this month. However, a budget long-haul affiliate, Indonesia AirAsia X, is among the airlines listed. The missing aircraft last underwent scheduled maintenance on Nov. 16, AirAsia said. AirAsia waited more than four hours to announce on its Facebook page that the aircraft was missing. The airline did not explain the delay. In the hours after the plane was reported missing, American law enforcement agents and intelligence analysts began combing through recent collections of phone intercepts, Internet postings and other communications but found no indications of a terrorist threat or other foul play, officials said. On Sunday, Malaysia Airlines posted a message on its Twitter account: “#staystrong @AirAsia — Our thoughts and prayers are with all family and friends of those onboard QZ8501.”

Indonesia
AirAsia
AirAsia Flight 8501
Plane Crash
Surabaya Indonesia


Vocal on Iraq, McCain Keeps Quiet on Bush

Abstract: Defiant and energetic, Senator John McCain has taken his “No Surrender” tour to V.F.W. halls, parades and barbecues in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He talks about his support for a renewed effort to win the Iraq war. He pays tribute to Gen. David H. Petraeus and the report he issued about progress in Iraq. The one thing that Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, does not talk about is President Bush. Mr. McCain has entered a pivotal period in what he now sardonically describes as his “lean and mean” campaign, faced with unexpected opportunities but also huge obstacles, two months after many of his supporters had all but written off his campaign, riven with debt and staff dissension. At stop after stop, he has seized on General Petraeus’s report as a validation not only of the so-called surge strategy in Iraq but also of his argument, made long before the White House came to the same conclusion, that victory in Iraq required many more troops there. But even as he lashes his presidential campaign that much tighter to the war in Iraq, Mr. McCain is seeking to decouple his fortunes from those of Mr. Bush, in the latest chapter of a 10-year relationship that has been at times tortured, at times cordial, at times symbiotic. So it is that Mr. McCain sprinkles his speeches not with references to Mr. Bush but to General Petraeus, a shift that not only mirrors the White House strategy of putting the military out front but also symbolically encapsulates a recognition of what many Republicans consider to have been a fundamental mistake of Mr. McCain in his candidacy: trying to present himself as Mr. Bush’s anointed successor and ideological heir. The situation demands that Mr. McCain maintain a balance between continuing to embrace a defining characteristic of Mr. Bush’s presidency, his dogged insistence on fighting on in Iraq, even as he distances himself from the administration. He lauds General Petraeus, portraying him as a hero to cheering crowds — “thank God America is blessed with that kind of leadership,” he said in Sioux City — but also excoriates Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, for the way he led the war. The goal seems to be to acknowledge both public distress over the war and concerns even among Republicans about the White House’s competence without directly assailing Mr. Bush himself, a step that could still alienate the most loyal of the party’s voters, those who tend to turn out in primaries. When Mr. McCain, standing outside a V.F.W. hall in Rock Hill, S.C., was asked on Saturday if he and Mr. Bush were now on the same page on the war, he responded in markedly measured tones. “At this moment,” Mr. McCain said. “For nearly four years we were on opposite sides, because I believed and knew the Rumsfeld strategy was failing.” At the very least, the confluence of two campaigns — one by Mr. Bush and his supporters to rally public support for the war, and the other by Mr. McCain to effectively jump-start his candidacy — has won Mr. McCain a burst of new attention in the early primary states. And Mr. McCain, who had been all but written off two months ago when he fired many of his campaign staff members in response to a collapse in fund-raising and poll numbers, has responded with new energy and cheer. As he campaigned across New Hampshire and Iowa, Mr. McCain was met with sizable and often enthusiastic crowds, though many of them said in interviews that they were on the fence or supporting other candidates. The New Hampshire Union Leader was not alone in proclaiming him the winner of a Republican candidates’ debate in New Hampshire last week. And Mr. McCain, in an interview, said he thought he could win New Hampshire as he did in 2000, while expressing less hope about Iowa; his description of his chances was much the same as those offered by independent analysts. “We really have taken some lumps,” he said. “But I’m guardedly optimistic about New Hampshire. In Iowa, we have a lot of work to do, and I think we have to understand that this is a very significant challenge.” In proclaiming support for the war while distancing himself from Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain is embarking on another chapter in a relationship that has shaped his career and image in ways he is still grappling with. With just months to prove that he is still a viable candidate, Mr. McCain is trying to undo the effects of a decision in recent years to put the bitterness of his early relationship with Mr. Bush aside in favor of a close association that went well beyond the war. That decision raised questions among Republicans about whether Mr. McCain had abandoned his independence to win favor with the White House and the conservative base of the party. Last year, Mr. McCain appeared at Liberty University, next to its founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the conservative religious leader whom he had once described as an agent of intolerance and a threat to the party. “From a political standpoint, the most important thing any candidate has is their authentic brand: That is why he was always so popular, always drew such big crowds,” said Matthew Dowd, who was Mr. Bush’s chief strategist in 2004 before having a falling out with the White House. “But when he became, ‘I want to try to get the popularity of Bush among Republicans,’ his brand dropped. He didn’t gain anything in getting closer to Bush. And he diminished his brand.” Mr. McCain indeed was a constant figure at Mr. Bush’s side, famously pictured giving him a bearhug in the 2004 campaign. And he came to Mr. Bush’s defense on many issues, including the war, in the last four years, as he methodically shed his image of the maverick unafraid to attack the White House. That said, the relationship has been alternately poisonous and unctuous since the 2000 South Carolina primary in which Mr. Bush defeated Mr. McCain. At one point, an aide said, Mr. McCain barked an obscenity upon watching Mr. Bush stand silent as a voter questioned Mr. McCain’s commitment to veterans. When Mr. McCain lost South Carolina, he at first refused to place the obligatory telephone call of congratulations to Mr. Bush, instructing a senior adviser, John Weaver, to do it, before finally taking the telephone and speaking to Mr. Bush, witnesses said. Mr. McCain at the time blamed the Bush campaign for spreading rumors that he had an illegitimate child; Bush aides have always denied doing so. The two repaired their relationship, after Mr. Bush won the nomination, at a private meeting. “It was one of those conversations where you sit down and it’s sort of stilted at first and we talked about sports and we talked about some of the things that we both like,” Mr. McCain said. “And then the conversation became more comfortable.” Mr. Bush had warned aides that Mr. McCain was a “loose cannon” during their fight in South Carolina. Since then, Mr. Bush’s friends said, the president has warmed somewhat to Mr. McCain, even though they said he never quite understood or completely trusted him. Mr. McCain said that he and his wife, Cindy, have had dinner with Mr. Bush and Laura Bush only once — and that the meal lasted about 45 minutes. “It was rather brief,” Mr. McCain said with a chuckle. Mr. McCain did not dispute the observation that his brand, as Mr. Dowd put it, had been diminished. He jumped in to finish the question when asked if coming to Mr. Bush’s defense had tarnished his image. “As a maverick and independent and all that?” Mr. McCain said. “Well, maybe the perception did change because, you know, MoveOn.Org ran all those ads showing me and Bush embracing. I understand that. But on any specific issues there was no change. Again, life isn’t fair. I went from being the greatest critic of the failed Rumsfeld strategy to now being tied to the war as Bush’s guy on the war.” Politics is cyclical; people who are down tend to rise up, and Americans tend to embrace comeback stories, no matter how implausible. Which is to say that none of this means Mr. McCain is back: His obstacles remain huge, and advisers to all his major rivals say they see little or no chance of his re-emergence. The first reason is financial; Mr. McCain, in a bus in New Hampshire and Iowa, could be heard on his cellphone raising money in anticipation of a fund-raising report next month. Several McCain advisers said it would be tough to continue if he did not break this year’s pattern and raise enough money to at least pay for a campaign. The second is the political calendar, which is problematic for anyone trying to run an underdog campaign. If Mr. McCain wins New Hampshire, he still has to deal with what is in effect a national primary on Feb. 5, when as many as 20 states hold contests, a scenario that seems tailor-made for a candidate with money. And should he really begin taking off, his opponents would no doubt come after him with advertisements reminding voters of the issue that caused him trouble before: his support for measures allowing some illegal immigrants to become citizens. One reason for Mr. McCain’s resurgence is that time and passions on immigration have since cooled. And whatever happens in Iraq, the war could pose an obstacle to Mr. McCain in New Hampshire, where independents are permitted to vote in either party’s primary. Mr. McCain won the state in 2000 in large part because independents flocked to him; Mr. McCain acknowledged that antiwar sentiment was high in New Hampshire this time around, suggesting that independents might turn to a Democrat.

Iraq
Presidential Election of 2008
McCain John
Petraeus David H
Bush George W
United States Armament and Defense
United States Politics and Government


China Appoints New Chair of State-Owned Automaker

Abstract: BEIJING — One of China’s biggest state-owned automakers, Dongfeng Motor, said on Wednesday that a provincial Communist Party official would become its new chairman. Dongfeng Motor, which has joint ventures with Nissan Motor and Honda Motor in China, said Zhu Yanfeng, the vice party secretary of Jilin Province, would replace the current chairman, Xu Ping. In its statement, Dongfeng said Mr. Xu would be appointed to another position. Mr. Zhu is a former president at another automaker, China FAW, which has joint ventures with Volkswagen and Toyota Motor. News of Mr. Zhu’s appointment comes a day after Dongfeng and FAW temporarily suspended trading in the shares of their listed units because of market rumors of their merger. Dongfeng Motor resumed trading on Tuesday, saying it had not received any information from the authorities about a merger, but Dongfeng Automobile, FAW Car and Tianjin FAW Xiali Automobile remained halted. An FAW spokesman declined to comment. The central government generally directs leadership changes and restructuring at major state-controlled companies.

China
Dongfeng Motor
Cars
Appointments and Executive Changes


T.C.U. Fans Are Singing Football Coach’s Praises

Abstract: FORT WORTH — In seventh grade, Texas Christian Coach Gary Patterson was the lead singer and guitarist in a band named Walk On Easy. The band played everything from polka music to Three Dog Night at high school dances and in Veterans of Foreign Wars halls for $200 a gig. While playing football as a walk-on at Kansas State, Patterson and a harmony singing group serenaded female students with songs by The Oak Ridge Boys. Back then, Patterson’s fraternity would even pay him not to go home on weekends so he could perform sing-alongs in front of crowds after the bars closed. Patterson acknowledges that many at Kansas State probably remember him more as a musician than as a football player or coach. When he married in 2004, he sang at the reception. Patterson sometimes plays guitar in hospitality rooms at bowl games. “If he hadn’t gone the football route, he might be in Nashville,” said Al Simmons, who played in Walk On Easy. The fiery, defensive-minded Patterson has become a figure of rock-star proportions in this cattle-drive city of 650,000, and on Saturday, fourth-ranked T.C.U. (9-0, 5-0 Mountain West Conference) could be on the verge of crashing the Bowl Championship Series for the first time if it beats No. 16 Utah (8-1, 5-0). After each game, Patterson has returned home to find his yard filled with small T.C.U. flags. He is so popular that his wife, Kelsey, did a double-take when fans dressed as him for a game on Halloween . But Patterson is plenty grounded. A few weeks ago, he was outside his house at 11 p.m. pulling in his garbage cans when a passerby yelled, “You mean you still have to take in your own trash cans?” “Yep,” Patterson answered matter of factly. Patterson talks about T.C.U.’s teaching him to be as comfortable in a tuxedo as he is in blue jeans. He has learned to raise money and is active in the community through his Gary Patterson Foundation. Patterson said he had interviewed for coaching jobs at Auburn, Tennessee, Minnesota and Iowa State. Now, he does not know if he will ever leave T.C.U. “It would have to be very special for me and have more advantages,” Patterson said. “To be honest with you, I think it’s really hard to find more advantages than what we have at T.C.U.” He even has grand dreams of T.C.U. becoming like another prestigious private university known for its football success. “We want to be the U.S.C. of Texas,” Patterson said. “We want to be the private school of Texas.” But that dream once seemed improbable for Patterson. He was raised in Rozel, Kan., a no-stop light, agricultural town of 175 in the west-central part of the state. In high school, Patterson was an all-state linebacker and fullback at Pawnee Heights High School before playing at Dodge City Community College and walking on at Kansas State. “He was a bulldog,” Dennis Franchione, an assistant coach while Patterson played at Kansas State, said in a telephone interview. “He played and worked out hard just like he does everything else. He wasn’t the most talented guy, but he always knew what he was doing and how he was supposed to do it.” Before his redshirt senior season, a then 5-foot-11, 220-pound Patterson looked at the team’s other linebackers, several of whom were 6-4 and 240 pounds, and knew that his playing days were over. So he joined the coaching staff in 1982 as a graduate assistant. “I realized that’s what I wanted to do,” Patterson said. “I could make more of a difference.” Patterson expected to be a high school coach but went to work as a linebackers coach at Tennessee Tech in 1983, the start of a vagabond coaching journey of 10 jobs before he arrived at T.C.U.. He came to T.C.U. as a defensive coordinator in 1998 with Franchione, and was hired as head coach when Franchione left for Alabama three seasons later. He has posted a record of 82-27 in nine seasons. “Gary is as fine a defensive coach as I have ever been around and ever worked with,” Franchione said. “He knows his scheme. He preaches his concepts very well.” For the first four games of his first season, Patterson tried to be stoic like Franchione on the sidelines, but after a 2-2 start, he decided to coach his way. “I started getting in people’s faces,” Patterson said. Patterson’s intensity is legendary, as are his sideline quirks. He frequently yells at players and officials with such passion that he usually has to change his shirt at halftime because he has sweated through it. He also hitches his pants constantly and frequently ties his shoes. During practice, Patterson has been known to yell at a player for 10 straight minutes. He also does a shimmy dance to celebrate plays. “That’s his signature move,” cornerback Rafael Priest said in a telephone interview. “He’s perfecting it.” But Patterson is also reflective. During his second season, he made a list of those who had been influential in his life and started contacting old coaches and friends to reconnect. “It was just people who hung with me and made a difference,” he said. It included Keith Froelich and Jim Buttson, both former high school coaches in Michigan, who worked camps in California with Patterson in the early 1980s. Both will attend Saturday’s game. “I was one of the new guys on the block,” Patterson said. “They kind of took me in.” When Froelich and Buttson visited T.C.U.’s spring practice earlier this year, Patterson asked both several times, “So what do you think?” Patterson has never been afraid to ask questions. Those camps that he worked were run by Tom Moore, the Indianapolis Colts’ senior offensive coordinator. Moore recalled that Patterson had “unbelievable” preparation. He said Patterson used to quiz him about football until he went to sleep. “It’s no surprise to me that he’s where he is right now based on his passion,” Moore said in a telephone interview. But that devotion took its toll on Patterson’s first marriage. Kelsey has helped him find a balance. The couple scuba dives, and last summer they took a vacation to Paris and London, which Patterson said was the most rest that he had had in five years. These days, Patterson does not sing and play guitar as much as he would like to. His wife bought him four hours of studio time for him as a Christmas gift six years ago, and he has still not used it. “After 20 years of yelling, you don’t sing quite as well,” Patterson said. “It’s a little bit more raspy than what it used to be.” But Patterson keeps his iPod loaded with songs of his favorite musicians like Pat Green, Brad Paisley, Willie Nelson, George Strait and Tom Petty. T.C.U.’s motto this year is “Don’t back down,” which was inspired by a Tom Petty song. When Patterson explained the slogan, most of his team had never heard of Petty. So Patterson has had the song played at every practice this season. And after a recent practice, the team sang, “Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out” a part of the song, much to the delight of Patterson. “It’s caught on,” he said. And it could be the soundtrack to a B.C.S. berth.

Football
Bowl Championship Series
College Athletics
Texas Christian University
Patterson Gary


The Chatter for Sunday, September 15

Abstract: “We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.” Twitter’s tweet on Thursday, saying it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to go public. “We don’t want it to be repealed. We want it to be fixed, fixed, fixed.” Terence M. O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, talking about President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Labor leaders are concerned about the postponement of an employer mandate to ensure coverage for workers and the potential effects of the coming health insurance exchanges on existing plans. “I like my work so much that I can’t think of not doing it.” Raymond A. Raskin, who still works four days a week as a psychoanalyst in Manhattan though he is well past 80. A growing number of retirees are continuing to do some type of paid work, for either their old employers or new ones.

IPO
Health Insurance
Retirement
Labor Unions
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act


Defiant Strategy in Spanish Scandal Makes Diego Torres a Prisoner in His Home

Abstract: BARCELONA, Spain — Diego Torres, a onetime marketing guru, built a $2 million dream home outside Barcelona, but it has become a luxury bunker since he challenged the Spanish royal family by revealing its private e-mails as part of his legal defense in a corruption investigation. Mr. Torres rarely ventures out now, fearing that he is being watched — the consequence of his brash strategy in an embezzlement scandal that has ensnared him and his former business partner, Iñaki Urdangarin, the duke of Palma and the son-in-law of King Juan Carlos. Mr. Torres’s lawyer has alerted the authorities that his office has been broken into three times. Other people connected to the case complain, privately for fear of reprisals, that they have received visits from men who they believe are associated with Spain’s secret services, the CNI. Mr. Torres’s dread is real enough that just weeks ago, a prosecutor opened an investigation to determine whether there was an intimidation campaign against him, adding a new element of spy craft to a corruption investigation that has riveted Spain. But the royal palace and Spanish security officials insist that they are not behind any surveillance, with one royal aide saying that they would never indulge in “kindergarten” antics. “What possibility does a knight have without a sword in the face of a machine with unlimited resources that is on the counterattack?” asked Mr. Torres’s lawyer, Manuel González Peeters. The only weapon, he said, is “the truth.” Mr. Torres, 47, and the duke, 45 — a former Olympic handball athlete married to Princess Cristina since 1997 — are accused of exploiting blue-blood connections to reap more than $7.8 million in regional government contracts by vastly inflating their bills through a nonprofit sports foundation, Instituto Nóos, and then diverting money to offshore companies. To defend himself, Mr. Torres salvaged a computer hard drive from the foundation that contained more than 200 e-mails from the duke. Some of them are notes copied to palace advisers and the king. So far, most are banal, including many that involve the duke’s search for a new job and efforts to seek sponsors for sports events, like a plea from the duke to the king to ask the head of LVMH, the French luxury goods giant, to donate about $261,000 to pay for a sports meeting organized by his foundation. Image Diego Torres Credit Enrique Calvo/Reuters But Mr. Torres is using the e-mails to attack the duke, who has testified to an investigating judge that the royal family had nothing at all to do with his foundation. Mr. Torres contends that the palace and its advisers monitored Mr. Urdangarin and the foundation’s dealings closely and offered advice on everything, including car rentals and the purchase of an office printer. The king has not been accused of any wrongdoing and is constitutionally immune from prosecution. But the stakes remain high because Princess Cristina was one of five officers in Nóos, but is the only one who has not testified despite Mr. Torres’s accusation that she was active in running the institute’s affairs. Mr. Torres’s defiant stance — in a nation that has long revered the royal family because of the monarch’s efforts to safeguard democracy — has come at a steep price. In 2011 he was dismissed from a university teaching post at an elite Barcelona business school after he was first implicated in the investigation. “He lost all his jobs immediately,” Mr. González Peeters said. “The royal palace thought that converting my client into an outcast was the solution. With no money there was no good lawyer. But they don’t know me.” New questions have emerged about the CNI’s involvement on the fringes of the case. Félix Sanz Roldán, the director of the Spanish secret services who is close to the king, faces questioning by lawmakers on Tuesday. He is likely to be asked why some 30,000 e-mails about Instituto Nóos turned up in the possession of an Argentine hacker, Matías Bevilacqua Trobado, who has done work for the CNI. Mr. Bevilacqua told the authorities he had the e-mails because he was hired by the duke’s lawyer, Manuel Pascual Vives. Mr. Pascual Vives said he had used Mr. Bevilacqua to sort e-mails already submitted as part of the case, unaware of his CNI history. The case has drawn interest because for decades, the royal family has been a stable pillar that united Spain. But lately the scandal has emboldened some politicians, including the leader of the Catalan Socialist party, to call for the abdication of the 75-year-old king. Mr. Torres has himself been accused of royal blackmail. But he testified that the duke’s lawyer offered him a deal to take the blame for the embezzlement scandal in return for money and a job in South America. He refused, telling a judge: “No way, no matter how desperate this is. I am not going to say something that isn’t the truth.”

Diego Torres
Spain
Embezzlement
King of Spain Juan Carlos I
Email
Inaki Urdangarin


After Arizona Shooting, Political Bickering Goes On

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Aides to Sarah Palin angrily rejected suggestions that she had some responsibility for the angry political climate that served as a backdrop to the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords . Some Democrats said Ms. Palin should at a minimum apologize for political tactics like putting out a map that placed cross hairs on Ms. Giffords’ district. They said she should think about what contribution she might have made to fomenting antigovernment sentiment. A day after the shooting of Ms. Giffords and 19 other people in Arizona focused the nation’s attention on the heat of its political culture, Republicans and Democrats began the delicate task of navigating a tragedy that has the potential to alter the political landscape. Leaders in both parties sought Sunday to project a nonpartisan civility, with President Obama , whose advisers were weighing the possibility of a national address, calling for a national moment of silence and the House speaker, John A. Boehner, replacing a contentious health care debate on Wednesday with a bipartisan security briefing for lawmakers. Yet beneath that public sense of comity was a subtle round of jockeying — on cable news, blogs, Twitter and even Ms. Palin’s Facebook page — as both sides sought to gain the high ground and deal with the risks and challenges presented by the shootings. Some Democrats and liberal activists wondered aloud whether heated Republican and conservative attacks against Democrats and the government over the past two years had contributed to a climate in which the gunman found a target in a member of Congress. Republicans, at times indignant, focused blame on the apparent psychological problems of the suspect, Jared L. Loughner, and suggested that liberals were trying to politicize a personal tragedy. As much as anyone, Ms. Palin emerged as a fulcrum for the debate, once again personifying a broader cultural and ideological divide. Former Representative Chris Carney of Pennsylvania, whose district, like Ms. Giffords’s, was on list of 20 Congressional districts that Ms. Palin’s political operation marked with cross hairs, was quoted in The Times Tribune of Scranton as saying, “It would be very useful if she came out and, if not apologize, say that she was wrong in putting that sort of logo on people’s districts.” He was echoing Ms. Giffords’s own comments from around the time the list came out, when she said there could be “consequences” to political appeals that use symbolism like gun sights. “I don’t understand how anybody can be held responsible for somebody who is completely mentally unstable like this,” an adviser to Ms. Palin, Rebecca Mansour, said in an interview with a conservative radio host, Tammy Bruce. Responding to accusatory messages on the Web, Ms. Mansour added: “People actually accuse Governor Palin of this. It’s appalling — appalling. I can’t actually express how disgusting that is.” Ms. Mansour said that the cross hairs, in fact, were not meant to be an allusion to guns, and agreed with her interviewer’s reference to them as “surveyors symbols.” Aides to Ms. Palin did not respond to interview requests on Sunday. The Arizona rampage upended the opening agenda for the 112th Congress, particularly efforts by the new Republican majority to repeal the new health care law. “This inhuman act should not, and will not, deter us from our calling to represent our constituents and to fulfill our oaths of office,” said Mr. Boehner, who presided over a unity conference call with hundreds of Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Sunday. “No act, no matter how heinous, must be allowed to stop us from our duties.” The president ordered that flags be flown at half-staff and called for a national moment of silence at 11 a.m. Monday, which aides said he would observe from the White House South Lawn. He canceled an economic trip to New York on Tuesday. Mr. Obama was considering delivering a speech about the greater context surrounding the shooting, but advisers said it was premature to do so until Ms. Giffords’s condition stabilized and more became known about the gunman’s motives. The shooting could also become a theme of the State of the Union address . The subtext for the political discussion was the new balance of power in Washington, and how the shootings might play into Democratic efforts to regain initiative — and Republican efforts to keep it — after their losses in November. Both sides emerged from the weekend cognizant of the ways in which a politically charged act of violence, whatever the actual motives or mental state of the gunman, can recalibrate the national dialogue. Mr. Obama did not speak about the shootings on Sunday, but the attack offered a moment for the president to rise above partisan politics. Some Democrats were urging him to look back to recent history, when President Bill Clinton seized the political high ground after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, placing blame on the growing antigovernment sentiment. (Marking the 15th anniversary of those attacks this past April, Mr. Clinton said the return of the sentiment in recent years, combined with the ability to spread it faster via the Internet, was threatening to set the stage for a new round of violence.) Yet openly seeking political advantage in tragedy is a delicate business and can backfire, as some of Mr. Clinton’s aides suggested. “The only way you gain political advantage is by doing absolutely nothing to take advantage — and not have a lot of people backgrounding about how clever your political strategy is,” said Michael D. McCurry, who was Mr. Clinton’s press secretary at the time of the Oklahoma bombing.

Tucson Shooting (2011)
United States Politics and Government
Republican Party
Democratic Party
Giffords Gabrielle
Murders and Attempted Murders
Palin Sarah
Obama Barack
Tucson (Ariz)
Loughner Jared Lee


Harold C. Turner Gets 33-Month Sentence for Radio Threats

Abstract: A right-wing Internet radio host was sentenced on Tuesday to 33 months in prison for threatening the lives of three federal judges in Chicago after they upheld a local gun control law. The host, Harold C. Turner, 48, was convicted in August in United States District Court in Brooklyn. He had been charged with one count of threatening to assault or murder the three judges. Mr. Turner, known as Hal, used his radio broadcasts to attack Judges Frank H. Easterbrook, Richard A. Posner and William J. Bauer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, who had upheld a local handgun law. He said they had acted in “a manner so sleazy and cunning as to deserve the ultimate punishment.” He called for their murder and published their photographs and work addresses online. Mr. Turner, of North Bergen, N.J., worked as an F.B.I. source between 2003 and 2007, prosecutors said, because of his “popularity with and access to white supremacist groups.”

Radio
Turner Harold C
Easterbrook Frank H
Posner Richard A
Bauer William J
Threats and Threatening Messages
Sentences (Criminal)


South Korea Expects Missile Launch by North

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — The South Korean government warned on Sunday that the North might launch a missile later this week, while a top military leader postponed a scheduled trip to Washington, citing escalating tensions on the peninsula. The warning by Kim Jang-soo, director of national security for President Park Geun-hye, came three days after the South Korea’s defense minister said that the North had moved to its east coast a missile with a “considerable range” but not capable of reaching the mainland United States. The missile was widely believed to be the Musudan, which the South Korean military says can travel “more than” 3,000 kilometers or 1,864 miles. But South Korean media and analysts say the missile can extend its range to 4,000 kilometers or 2,490 miles, which would put American bases in Guam within its reach. Mr. Kim said that the North Korean authorities had told foreign embassies in Pyongyang to inform them by Wednesday whether they needed assistance in evacuating should they wish to because of rising tensions on the peninsula. The North gave a similar warning to some of the 123 South Korean factories in the joint industry park in the North Korean city of Kaesong, Mr. Kim said. For a fifth consecutive day, North Korea blocked South Korean workers and supplies from entering the factory park, forcing 13 plants to stop production as of Sunday. The Kaesong complex is the last remaining major project of inter-Korean cooperation and a crucial test of whether North Korea was willing to sacrifice a lucrative source of hard current to push its political and military priorities. “We believe this is a calculated move by the North,” Mr. Kim said during a meeting of security-related officials on Sunday. The North, he said, “may launch a provocation, such as missile launch,” around Wednesday, he said. His comments were relayed by Kim Haing, a presidential spokeswoman. “North Korea has been engaged in a so-called headline strategy,” Mr. Kim, the national security director, said, referring to an almost daily drumbeat of North Korean threats that has made newspaper headlines since early March. North Korea was raising tensions in an effort to frighten and force the United States and South Korea to return to dialogue with possible concessions, Mr. Kim said. The pressure was also aimed at China and Russia to mediate on North Korea’s behalf. “We see through their motive," he said. Although North Korea shows no signs of attempting a full-scale war, it will suffer damage many times more than we do if it launches even a localized provocation.” South Korea “has no intention of attempting premature dialogue just because of a crisis,” Mr. Kim said, urging the North to ease tensions so dialogue can start. Foreign embassies told to consider evacuating Pyongyang have dismissed the advisory. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Sunday that the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang was operating normally, and urged the North to "thoroughly ensure the safety of Chinese embassy and consular personnel resident in North Korea." The Xinhua News Agency on Saturday quoted Foreign Minister Wang Yi as telling United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that Beijing would “not allow trouble on China’s doorstep.” Also on Sunday, Gen. Jung Seung-jo, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the South Korean military, postponed plans to meet with his American counterpart, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, in Washington on April 16, military officials said. General Jung could not be away from South Korea amid the rising tension, the officials said. South Korea’s military is on heightened alert after North Korean threats to strike the United States and its allies. North Korea has been angry over United Nations sanctions imposed on it for its February nuclear test and joint American-South Korean military drills. Washington responded by flying nuclear-capable bombers over South Korea in training missions and moving two of the Navy’s missile-defense ships closer to the Korean Peninsula. It also planned to deploy a land-based missile-defense system to Guam later this month.

South Korea
Military
North Korea
International relations


Suns’ Defense Is No Match for the Lakers

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Provident. Divine. Blessed. Whatever the Lakers are — and no doubt, Amar’e Stoudemire is home at night thumbing through his thesaurus — this much is clear through the first two games of the Western Conference finals: there is no stopping them. The Lakers jumped to a 2-0 series lead Wednesday night with a 124-112 romp over the Suns , who have provided as much resistance as a collection of Saguaro cactuses. The decisiveness of the Lakers’ victories has already begun to set Los Angeles fans’ sights past Games 3 and 4 in Phoenix, and on toward their nemesis Boston, which opened the Eastern Conference finals by winning the first two games in Orlando. Parts of the last 90 seconds were played with fans in the upper reaches of Staples Center serenading their team’s eighth consecutive playoff victory with chants of “We want Boston.” “Well, what can you say?” Phoenix Coach Alvin Gentry said as he sat down in the interview room. “We can’t slow them down. I thought we played well offensively, but every time we tried to make an adjustment to slow them down, they go somewhere else.” A little while later, as he was standing outside the locker room, he tapped into a familiar feeling from the days when he coached the Clippers. “As I said, we’re open for suggestions,” Gentry said. “We’re not going to grow in the next three days.” The first task will be figuring out a way to limit Kobe Bryant. Bryant, rejuvenated since having his swollen left knee drained late in the first-round series against Oklahoma City, torched the Suns for 40 points in the opener, when he made Hill look like he was in danger of needing another ankle operation with a crossover dribble that sent the 37-year-old stumbling backward to the floor. In Game 2, Bryant was Kobe the Facilitator. He managed 21 points, but when Phoenix sent double teams at him, Bryant eagerly moved the ball. He finished with 13 assists, the most by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson’s 13 in 1996. With the ball in his hands as the first-quarter clock ran down, Bryant started toward the basket, then passed the ball to a wide-open Ron Artest in the corner. Artest, with the crowd on its feet, made the shot as the buzzer sounded and Bryant celebrated a 36-24 lead by pointing both his index fingers at Artest. It was a point well made — if you leave the other Lakers wide open, Bryant was more than happy to put the ball in their hands. In the fourth quarter, after Phoenix had clawed back from a 14-point deficit to tie the score at 90, that meant delivering the ball to Pau Gasol, who scored 14 of his game-high 29 points in the final period — most of the time being single-covered by Stoudemire. “It’s my responsibility and Pau’s responsibility to make the defense have to do something,” Bryant said. “If they play straight up single coverage, then we’ve got to go to work. And then once the defense adjusts, it’s our responsibility to make the right play.” In the fourth quarter, that meant delivering the ball to Jordan Farmar, who hit a 3-pointer from the corner to start the period and another that boosted Los Angeles’ lead to 104-95. It came during a stretch in which the Suns turned the ball over on three consecutive possessions — including two by Steve Nash. They never got closer than 8 points after that. No matter how slick the Suns’ offense looked at times — Nash was effective in creating dunks for Stoudemire or open 3-pointers for Jared Dudley, who made five, and Jason Richardson, who had 27 points — they only rarely stopped the Lakers. In the two games of the series, the Lakers have shot 58 percent from the field. It is a familiar problem for Phoenix. When the Suns knocked the Lakers out of the playoffs in 2006 and 2007, it prompted the Lakers to retool, and they have repeatedly hammered the Suns. It was the Lakers’ ninth victory in 11 meetings since they acquired Gasol in January 2008. “We have to figure it out,” said Hill, who scored 23 points and helped lead the Suns’ third-quarter charge. “We’ve scored enough points, but they’re scoring at will. I don’t really know what the answer is.” And if the Suns were grasping for answers, they also did not have the right words. Stoudemire, who called Lamar Odom’s 19-point, 19-rebound performance in Game 1 lucky, said he did not have any regrets. Odom managed 17 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, and did his best to take the high road. But when asked if anyone had called him lucky before, Odom could not suppress a smile. “Yeah but I don’t think this is the time or place to go over that,” Odom said, netting the last uncontested point of the evening at the Suns’ expense.

Los Angeles Lakers
Phoenix Suns
Basketball
Playoff Games


Michigan: Worker Fired After Helping Put Out Fire

Abstract: A retiree said he had been fired from a job as a greeter at a store in northern Michigan after rushing to the parking lot last month to put out a vehicle fire. The man, David Bowers, 62, said he grabbed a fire extinguisher when a customer entered a Meijer store in Gaylord last month pleading for help. “The one supervisor told me that my heart was in the right place but my brain wasn’t,” Mr. Bowers told the TV station WPBN-WTOM. The company released a statement saying, “We have well-established safety procedures,” and adding, “our team members know there are consequences when they don’t follow them.”


To Deter Crime, Brazilians Choose Armored Cars

Abstract: SÃO PAULO, Brazil — After being robbed twice in traffic, once at gunpoint, João Neves cast aside whatever concerns he had about the global economic crisis and bought himself an armored car two months ago. “Even though the crisis does exist, I consider my well-being and my security a priority,” said Mr. Neves, the owner of a small marketing agency. “I am afraid of being shot dead.” Rather than buy a new car, though, Mr. Neves opted for a 2005 Volkswagen Passat capable of withstanding bullets fired from a .44 Magnum revolver or a 9-millimeter submachine gun. Brazilians have already trimmed their appetites for appliances and electronics in the recession, but bulletproofing is one expense they are not giving up easily. Once the domain of the very rich, armored cars have become a middle- and upper-middle-class obsession, especially in this huge city notorious for roadside assaults and kidnappings. Officially, crime is on the wane. But as the economy slides and the country sheds jobs, there is a palpable dread that street crime will get worse as well, economists here say. Many Paulistanos, as São Paulo residents are called, say the interminable stop-and-go traffic and the wide gap between haves and have-nots are recipes for assaults and carjackings, especially now that Brazil’s boom times have come to a halt. “It is not a question of if you are going to be assaulted, it is when it is going to happen,” said Craig Bavington, who runs a tourist agency based here. After being assaulted twice, he decided to buy a used armored car two years ago when his wife became pregnant with their first child. More than 7,000 vehicles were armored for civilian use in Brazil in 2008, up from 1,782 a decade earlier, and the pace has continued in 2009 despite the economy’s dispiriting first quarter, according to the Brazilian Association of Bulletproof Manufacturers . A decade ago, there were just a handful of armoring companies in Brazil. Today there are about 120. São Paulo leads the country — and the world — in making and selling armored cars. Rio de Janeiro , a city with legitimate concerns about stray bullets from gang warfare in the favelas, or shantytowns, overhanging the city, is Brazil’s second-largest market. The government, perhaps unwittingly, has helped perpetuate the bulletproofing wave. With industrial production slowing last year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ’s administration removed a tax on the car industry, saving buyers from 5 to 7.5 percent. The change was so popular that the government recently took similar action for electronics and appliances, hoping to stop the bleeding in those industries as well. So while car sales have suffered in other parts of the world, they have surged here in the past four months, the longest streak of monthly sales increases since 2002, according to the National Association of Car Manufacturers. And when car sales are strong, industry officials say, bulletproofing invariably follows. With so many companies now in the field, the cost of armoring a car has fallen in Brazil in the past decade, to about $22,000 from $55,000, opening the business to a new category of consumer. A decade ago, BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes and Jeep Cherokees were the models most sought after for armoring; today, Toyota , Volkswagen and Chevrolet are in the top five. Ultimately, however, crime is the force behind it all. Economic contagion in the late 1990s spread from Asia to Brazil, sinking the currency’s value here and leading to record unemployment and high poverty. In 1999, the city of São Paulo recorded a murder rate of nearly 53 per 100,000 people, according to the state’s Department of Public Safety — much worse than New York City has ever recorded. In the late 1990s, the United Nations ranked Jardim Ângela, in São Paulo, as the most violent neighborhood in the world. Since then, the murder rate in São Paulo has fallen by 78 percent and vehicle thefts by 38 percent, though armed robberies have dropped by only 6 percent. More police officers are on the streets, especially on big, congested avenues, said Tulio Kahn, the São Paulo state coordinator of planning and analysis. Global positioning systems and coded locking devices have helped many owners track and retrieve their stolen cars. And yet, Mr. Kahn said the drop in the crime statistics “has not kept people from continuing to feel insecure.” A new wave of “flash” or “express” kidnappings, unplanned assaults in which robbers take their captives to cash machines and then free them after a few hours, has not helped matters. “This type of crime has really scared people,” Mr. Kahn said. A commodity-led boom in Brazil in the past several years gave many Paulistanos the money to fight back. More stable inflation set off an unprecedented expansion in consumer credit . Car sales surged to record levels, topping 2.8 million in 2008, up from 1.9 million in 2006; according to government statistics, there are about 6.4 million cars on the roads in São Paulo, a city with a population of 11 million. The ability to buy cars in multiple payments also helped make armored cars more affordable to middle- and upper-middle-class professionals like Mr. Neves. Today, dentists, children of small businessmen, even shoe store owners are buying armored cars, many of them used, said João Jorge Chamlian, owner of Auto Miami , a dealership here for armored cars. On the city’s outskirts, at the hangar-size assembly plant for Truffi, one of Brazil’s largest armoring companies, some 100 workers installed yellow Kevlar and thick glass windows one recent morning. The bulletproof armor adds about 400 pounds to a car’s weight, which reduces gas mileage and increases wear and tear. For Mr. Neves, who spends more than two and a half hours a day commuting, the more protection the better. He was shaken, he said, when a client of his was shot dead by a robber who took only the man’s watch. “When you are inside an armored car,” Mr. Neves said, “you feel as if you are inside a fortress.” For Alessandra Amara, a bulletproof car became a necessary expense three years ago, she said, after she was robbed for the 11th time in little more than 10 years. “Having an armored car in this city is essential,” said Ms. Amara, 34, who works in the financial department of a car dealership. “I have been robbed every way imaginable.” Once, thieves abducted her in her car at gunpoint and made her pull money from two bank machines before freeing her. Another night, as she waited in her car at a red light, a gunman stole her wallet as witnesses silently stood by. The last straw came when she was leaving work in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Suddenly, a boy slammed a stone through her window and grabbed for her purse. She took her foot off the clutch and crashed into the car ahead of hers. She clung to the purse and the thief ran away. She arrived home, trembling with fear. Soon after, she became pregnant, and she and her husband decided to buy a used armored car. “If the government can’t keep me safe,” Ms. Amara said, “then I have to go out and look for that security on my own.”

Brazil
Armored cars
Sao Paulo Brazil
Recession and Depression


In Closing Arguments, Bruno as Bully or Honest Worker

Abstract: ALBANY — Joseph L. Bruno : Tiny the Bully, or just Uncle Joe? Two vastly different portraits of Mr. Bruno, the former New York State Senate leader, emerged on Monday as prosecutors and defense lawyers presented closing arguments in his corruption trial. Prosecutors called him Tiny, describing Mr. Bruno as a schoolyard bully whose political muscle in Albany was quietly deployed on behalf of his clients, including investment firms seeking union pension fund money and companies seeking state grants. “Some people give their lunch money to Tiny. Some people fight for it. Some people run away,” said William C. Pericak, one of the two assistant United States attorneys prosecuting the case. “He’s the weight of Albany. That’s what he’s there for.” But defense lawyers presented a character far more befitting the nickname Uncle Joe, as many in the capital region fondly referred to Mr. Bruno during his years as one of the most powerful elected officials in the state. Mr. Bruno, the defense said, was a hardworking part-time lawmaker legally entitled to earn a living in the private sector and determined to follow the rules as best he understood them. His lead lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell, asked jurors to set aside whatever qualms they might have about Mr. Bruno’s dual roles, the unseemly side of which prosecutors placed on vivid display over the last three weeks. “Perhaps it’s not a good idea for New York State, or any other state, to have a part-time Legislature,” Mr. Lowell told the jury, which was to begin deliberating Tuesday morning. “But indicting and convicting a legislator is not the way to change the law. The Legislature must do that.” Both sides delivered summations to a courtroom packed not only with Mr. Bruno’s family and supporters, but also with elected officials, advocates for good government and others with a professional interest in the outcome of what could be the most significant corruption trial in Albany’s recent history. Much of the case against Mr. Bruno hinges on the degree to which he disclosed potential conflicts of interest between his private business and his official duties, like soliciting pension fund investments from labor unions with interests before the Legislature. To find Mr. Bruno guilty, the jurors would have to conclude not only that his business activities conflicted with his public duties, but also that he intentionally took steps to conceal those conflicts. Time after time, Mr. Pericak said, Mr. Bruno failed to disclose his myriad business interests to his associates, other lawmakers, members of his staff, and the public, in part by filing what prosecutors have said were financial disclosure forms that deliberately disguised his sources of income. But Mr. Lowell emphasized evidence that Mr. Bruno repeatedly consulted with his ethics lawyers before filing disclosure forms or entering into contracts with clients. “There is not one document, witness, check, e-mail that said anything about ‘Let’s conceal, don’t disclose, let’s do a scheme, let’s do something that isn’t right,’ ” Mr. Lowell said. “This is an indictment that seems to be in search of a crime,” he added later. If convicted, Mr. Bruno would face up to 20 years in prison. Addressing the jury for two and a half hours, Mr. Lowell noted Mr. Bruno’s age, 80, and the approaching Thanksgiving holiday. Early in his argument, Mr. Lowell sought to unravel the prosecution’s assertions that Mr. Bruno’s official acts were linked with private business dealings. Mr. Lowell said that in some cases Mr. Bruno was given consulting contracts months or years after clients benefited from help he had delivered in the Senate, like grants or legislation. At times appearing outraged, the normally mild Mr. Lowell dismissed the government’s case as a mishmash of innuendo and trivia, “like throwing a bowl of spaghetti at the wall, hoping one strand will stick.” Mr. Bruno merely opened doors for his clients through actions like introducing them to officials in unions and state agencies, Mr. Lowell argued. He noted that all the unions that invested pension money with Wright Investors’ Service, a firm that paid Mr. Bruno $1.37 million to solicit business, first consulted independent investment advisers who signed off on Wright. “Tiny was in the playground,” Mr. Lowell told the jury, taking up the prosecution’s conceit. “But Tiny wasn’t alone. The principal was there. The teachers were there. The hall monitor was there. The school superintendent was there.”

New York State
Ethics
Bruno Joseph L
Politics and Government
State Legislatures


Saving Big on Energy Bills, People Take It to the Bank

Abstract: Sometimes, even the supposed experts can lose track of a billion dollars or two. Or, in this case, $100 billion. While few outside of Texas and North Dakota are complaining about this huge savings that consumers have enjoyed since energy prices began falling last summer, economists have been stumped recently trying to figure out exactly what consumers are doing with the windfall. They have not gone on a shopping spree at the mall or online. Results at many retail chains have been mixed, and some stores that are middle-class fixtures, like Sears and J.C. Penney, continue to struggle. One hint at what consumers might be thinking came Monday, when new government data on the economy showed a healthy gain for wages and salaries in January, even as spending by consumers inched lower for the second month in a row. As a result, the savings rate ticked upward to 5.5 percent, the highest level in just over two years. The yardsticks for retail activity have been surprisingly lackluster lately. Even when the effect of lower gas prices and therefore less spending at service stations is stripped out, core retail sales were flat last month and actually dipped 0.2 percent in December. “There is a little head-scratching going on,” said Michael Hanson, senior United States economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “You can’t deny that everyone on Wall Street has been looking for better data. The pickup in the savings rate is a little bit of a surprise and it is an indication that people are still cautious.” Still, no one disputes the benefits of lower energy prices, especially for less affluent Americans who pay a larger share of their income to fuel their cars and heat their homes. With gas prices having dropped to $2.50 at the end of 2014 from a high of $3.78 in June, American drivers saved an estimated $76 billion last year, according to Douglas P. Handler, chief United States economist at IHS, a research firm. A further drop in gas prices in January created billions more in savings. And despite a recent rebound to $2.33 a gallon as of last week, consumers are still receiving a huge windfall compared with a year ago. In the Northeast, where the weather has been frigid and many people depend on heating oil , the extra savings has also been substantial. “The big question is, where did it go?” said Mr. Handler, who estimates the typical household will have an extra $1,100 to $1,200 to spend this year if energy prices remain steady. As with many big questions in macroeconomics, there are a multitude of explanations, and a final answer will not be available for a while until more data arrives. One theory is that people are banking the savings, as the higher savings rate in December and January suggests. Video As the price of crude oil fluctuates, why some countries are faring much better than others. Credit Credit Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters Another possibility is that consumers are spending more on services like dining, travel, housing and health care, instead of actual goods like appliances, clothing, cars and other items captured in the monthly retail sales figures. Data for purchases of services will not be available until March. Jeff Bryant, a scrapyard worker in Canton, Ohio, said that while the saving on gas is nice, it’s no substitute for higher hourly pay or more hours on the job. He earns $19 to $20 an hour, but that has barely increased in recent years, and now his employer is trying to cut back on overtime and reduce workweeks to 32 hours from 40 hours. For now, though, he’s happy for what relief he can find at the pump, even if he does not plan to hit the mall anytime soon. “Every little bit helps, and it makes me feel a bit more comfortable,” Mr. Bryant said. “I might buy a new pair of shoes for the summer.” A more fundamental explanation for Mr. Bryant’s reluctance to spend now is what’s known in economics as the permanent income hypothesis, developed by Milton Friedman when he was at the University of Chicago in the 1950s. His theory suggests that consumer spending is determined by what people expect to earn over the long term. So temporary gains like savings on gas or a one-time tax cut don’t alter underlying patterns of consumption. “People tend to save windfalls and in this case there’s also a lag in terms of spending because people aren’t convinced gas prices will stay low,” said Guy Berger, United States economist at RBS. In a few cases, consumer behavior has changed. With gas prices on the downswing, Americans are buying higher-priced light trucks and S.U.V.s, rather than smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. In January, light trucks and S.U.V.s accounted for 56 percent of total auto sales, the highest proportion since 2005, said Joseph G. Carson, global chief economist for AllianceBernstein. “When you drive down the cost of owning the car, people buy bigger vehicles with more options,” said Mr. Carson, noting that light trucks on average cost $10,000 more than regular cars. Although Mr. Bryant has yet to see any evidence of it, the good news now is that wages may finally be poised to rise at a more robust pace as the labor market tightens, along with energy savings accumulating further. Employers added workers last year at the fastest rate since 1999, and the unemployment rate now stands at 5.7 percent, down from 8 percent two years ago. Economists expect the unemployment rate to fall again when the government reports data Friday on how the job market performed in February. And they will be watching closely to see if January’s healthy 0.5 percentage point increase in average hourly earnings was a fluke or a sign of things to come. In particular, if economic growth is to be sustainable, it is critical that the vast middle and lower tiers of the American work force enjoy better wage growth, as these groups have seen paltry gains during the recovery. Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said in February that it would raise its minimum hourly pay to $9, affecting about half a million workers, and lift it to $10 in early 2016. Last week, the TJX Companies, owner of the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls retail chains, announced a similar move. While the hourly gains might seem small, they are significant economically since the bottom half of earners “effectively have no savings so they will spend any additional earnings,” Mr. Hanson said. What’s more, Mr. Hanson said, the rebound in purchasing power during the recovery has largely been limited to higher-income workers with more education and specialized skills. The wage increases by Walmart and TJX are benefiting the opposite end of the wage and skill spectrum, he said, and could be a turning point in the recovery. In Canton, Mr. Bryant, 56, hopes the raises these big retailers are giving their workers will encourage nearby blue-collar employers to do likewise. “It seems like everybody else is doing well and getting paid a bit more,” he said. “We’re still waiting.”

Saving
Retail
Jobs
US Economy
Consumer behaviour
Oil and Gasoline


Skeptics See Euro Eroding European Unity

Abstract: LONDON — Europe’s slow emergence from its second recession in the last five years is raising new questions about whether the euro currency is doing more harm than good. Five years of crisis have laid bare deep differences in national policies, politics and priorities across the European Union. The 28-member bloc is increasingly confronting a more fundamental problem: whether it is too unwieldy to address the multiplying array of challenges it faces. And in many ways, the most divisive issues involve the 17-member subset of the union that was supposed to give them something in common — the euro currency. The notion that the European Union has structural deficiencies has been debated almost since its founding. The tension between economic integration and political harmonization is nothing new. But as the global financial crisis is beginning to fade, Europe’s troubles persist, exacerbated by the fissures of the currency union that have impeded the region’s economic recovery. “My worst fears are confirmed,” George Soros, the Hungarian-born former hedge fund titan, said in an interview. “This is what I was afraid of, that the euro would be preserved and it would pervert the venture and destroy the European Union,” he said. “Instead of the solidarity that was supposed to be embodied, it became every country by itself.” The strains are evident at many levels. Hopes for greater political cooperation are falling victim to domestic economic stress in many countries and the rise of populist politics heading into European parliamentary elections next spring. An interest-rate cut by the European Central Bank last week reportedly came over the objections of the German members of the bank’s governing council. And there are deep divisions within the European Union over a plan to unify the process for identifying and closing down troubled banks — and paying the costs of doing so. Those disagreements could get a further airing this week when euro zone finance ministers meet in Brussels. The core of the trouble, critics say, stems from the structure of the euro currency union. Unlike a single-currency country like the United States or Britain, it lacks a common treasury and the ability to issue common debt. That has created a poisonous dynamic between creditor nations, like Germany, and debtor nations, like Greece. True, there have been glimmers of good news lately. Consumer confidence among Europeans has improved, and recession has ended in countries like France and Spain. European stock indexes are up for the year. And yes, the euro in recent months has risen in value against other main currencies — although that is more curse than blessing, because it makes exports relatively more expensive outside the euro zone. But the big worry lately is the specter of deflation, a doom loop of falling prices, wages and profits that, once underway, is a tailspin hard to pull out of. The fear of years of stagnation was the main impetus for the European Central Bank’s decision to reduce interest rates, over the objections of Germany, which worries that looser money will only encourage profligacy by its weaker euro neighbors. It is not evident, though, that anything has been gained by the austerity policies that Germany long preached, which have been a drag on economic growth; government debt in the euro zone has risen sharply over the last half decade. Perhaps worst of all, the various economic afflictions have reinforced the kind of nationalism and xenophobia that the broader European Union project was supposed to chase away. Image Nicholas Spiro, founder of a London economic consultancy, said that Europe was “stuck in a halfway house between a shaky and ill-managed monetary union and a more secure economic and political one.” The risks are increasing of “one of these countries’ politically imploding,” Mr. Spiro said. Fabrizio Saccomanni, the Italian finance minister, said in a speech last week that the European Union needed to have a philosophical reckoning of sorts, as his country prepares for a stint next year holding the six-month revolving presidency of the union. “The time has come for a frank discussion of what we want to do with the European construction in the future,” he said in a speech at the London School of Economics. “What went wrong was not the fact that the project was imperfect, it was that it was not carried out to its full realization.” “People want to know,” he said, “whether what we’re building is a common market with no rules, except perhaps general principles about fair trade, whether we want to build a confederation of states, whether we want to build a federal state, or a superstate, or just a monster bureaucracy that has no legitimacy whatsoever.” A few numbers shed some light on the euro zone’s struggles. In the United States, gross domestic product is forecast to be up 5.9 percent this year from its level in 2008, using data provided by the European statistical agency, Eurostat. It will be down 2.1 percent in the euro zone over the same period. At the same time, overall government debt has increased in the euro zone from 70 percent of G.D.P. in 2008 to about 90 percent last year. There are still voices of optimism, to be sure. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, brushed off suggestions last week that Europe was sinking into the kind of long-term stagnation that plagued Japan for decades. “If you look at the euro area from a distance, you see that the fundamentals in this area are probably the strongest in the world,” he said at a news conference. “This is the area that has the lowest budget deficit in the world,” he said, as well as the highest trade surplus. An assessment last week from Olli Rehn, the European Union’s commissioner for economics and monetary affairs, was bleak. He said economic output would shrink slightly this year in the euro zone, and while he forecast growth of 1.1 percent next year, he said unemployment would remain high at 12.2 percent. Mr. Rehn, who is under pressure to do more to push Germany to reduce its trade surplus with other member states, will issue annual report cards on the national budgets of euro zone members on Friday. He is expected to chide France once again for not doing more to meet key deficit-reduction targets. François Heisbourg, a military expert at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, said the currency union’s problems have been a debilitating distraction from the broader European project. “We have been paying too much attention to the euro and not enough attention to the European Union,” he said. Mr. Heisbourg is author of a recent book, “The End of the European Dream.” While he is pro-European, he said the euro was not viable without a major shift toward a more federal structure. But that, he said, is not politically feasible. As a result, Mr. Heisbourg said, European officials should begin to “look actively at the possibility of unraveling the euro in an orderly manner,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s a great option. I’m not saying it’s easy to do and it’s not traumatic. And I do say it’s dangerous, but what are the other options? The federal option is not on the table, and what is currently occurring, the transfer of major liabilities to the creditor countries like Germany, is economically and politically corrosive.” Mr. Soros largely agrees. He said that an orderly division of the currency zone into northern and southern parts “could cure the disparity in competitiveness much faster than sticking together.” “But Germany does not support that,” Mr. Soros said, “and the other countries can’t impose it. Therefore it is not going to happen.”

Euro
European Monetary Union
EU
Recession and Depression
Euro Crisis
GDP


Cardiff Stuns Manchester City

Abstract: Fraizer Campbell scored twice, and Cardiff won for the first time in more than 50 years in the top tier of English soccer, jolting visiting Manchester City, 3-2. ■ Missing Lionel Messi, Barcelona needed Adriano’s long strike to beat Málaga, 1-0, in the Spanish league.

Soccer
Cardiff City Soccer Team
Manchester City Soccer Team


Christophe Gbenye, Radical Nationalist in Congo, Dies at 88

Abstract: Christophe Gbenye, a radical nationalist whose brutal rebel warriors seized control of eastern Congo in 1964 and held hundreds of foreigners hostage until they were rescued by Belgian paratroopers dropping from American planes, died on Feb. 3 in Kinshasa. He was 88. His death was reported by Radio Okapi, the United Nations-supported station in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A Belgian-trained civil servant who was appointed interior minister under Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, Mr. Gbenye was briefly one of several pivotal players in the seesawing civil wars waged by superpower proxies after the Belgian colonial regime left in 1960. Mr. Gbenye (pronounced gah-BEN-yah) was born in 1927 in Orientale Province of what was then the Belgian Congo. A deputy mayor in Stanleyville and an elected member of the Chamber of Deputies in the first Congo government, he served until Mr. Lumumba was ousted in 1960. Having figured in internecine rivalries in the cabinets of Antoine Gizenga and Cyrille Adoula, he was placed under house arrest and fled to Brazzaville in what is now the Republic of Congo, where in 1963 he became the president of the Committee for National Liberation, a coalition that said it was mounting a second war for independence, against what it branded the neocolonialist regime based in Léopoldville, now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His warriors, known as simbas (Swahili for lions), armed themselves with “traditional weapons and magico-religious resources that supposedly ensured their invincibility,” Prof. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja of the University of North Carolina, the author of a new biography of Patrice Lumumba, wrote in “The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila, A People’s History.” After killing or terrorizing thousands of Congolese, Mr. Gbenye’s coalition overpowered a 1,000-man Congolese Army garrison at Stanleyville (now Kisangani) on Aug. 5, 1964. Mr. Gbenye declared himself president of a people’s republic, which received support from Eastern bloc countries and was dedicated to overthrowing what the Western-backed premier, Moise Tshombe, called his national reconciliation government. Hundreds of hostages, including foreign nationals and recalcitrant Congolese, were herded into Stanleyville, where Mr. Gbenye threatened to harm them unless government troops halted their advance on territory he nominally controlled. In mid-November, the rebels announced that Dr. Paul E. Carlson, an American medical missionary, would be executed as a spy. According to an official United States Army history, “The spy charges, which could not be believed by the non-Communist world, tended to drive home the plight of Carlson and of the other hostages held by the rebels.” They inspired the rescue mission. Belgian soldiers recaptured Stanleyville. As many as 1,000 Congolese and scores of others were killed, including Dr. Carlson and another American missionary, but the United States consul and four other consular officials emerged unharmed. The assault dealt a fatal blow to Mr. Gbenye’s rebels and led to his exile in Africa and Europe; he returned to Congo decades later. Information on his survivors was not available.

Christophe Gbenye
Committee for National Liberation
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Obituary
International relations
Kidnapping and Hostages


Missy Franklin Breaks Through in Trials and Earns a Return to Olympics

Abstract: OMAHA — In the first three races of her third Olympic trials — two heats of the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter freestyle preliminaries — Missy Franklin swam scared. She put together a more composed race in the semifinals of the 200, and then a day later, in Wednesday’s final, Franklin broke free of the chains of anxiety that had constrained her. Franklin, 21, finished second to Katie Ledecky in a time of 1 minute 56.18 seconds to earn a berth in the individual event and the 4x200 freestyle relay at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. Ledecky was clocked in 1:54.88. “People say there’s nothing like making your first Olympic team,” Franklin said. “But there’s nothing like making your second Olympic team.” Allison Schmitt, the reigning Olympic champion in the 200 freestyle, will not defend her title. But the tears she shed after the race were not from disappointment. “I don’t know the last time I had happy tears,” said Schmitt, who finished fourth to secure her passage to Rio as a relay team member. Franklin and Schmitt embraced after the race. Few people could understand Schmitt’s emotions better than Franklin, who finished seventh in the 100-meter backstroke on Tuesday. She needed to finish in the top two to be able to defend her Olympic title in the event. “Last night was really hard,” Franklin said, adding that she had struggled to handle the expectations and pressure that she felt to match, or exceed, her 2012 performances. She was thinking about making the Olympic team, she said, and that was the wrong mind-set. “It’s just to swim well,” she said. And swim well Franklin did, earning the admiration of the 19-year-old Ledecky in the process. “I told her after the race she’s one tough cookie,” Ledecky said. “She got the job done tonight.” Melanie Margalis also showed her toughness by working an overtime shift. After finishing sixth in the 200 freestyle, which put her on the Olympic relay, she came back less than an hour later and somehow found a closing kick to out-touch Caitlin Leverenz, the bronze medalist in the event in 2012, by five-hundredths of a second with a 2:11.11. Maya DiRado, the winner of the 400 I.M., completed the double by touching first in 2:09.54. “I can’t believe that just happened,” said Margalis, adding: “That 200 was one of the most painful I’ve had recently, so at first I was kind of like, oh, know, I have another event to do. But it worked out O.K.”

Missy Franklin
Allison Schmitt
Swimming
2016 Summer Olympics


Mortgage Modifications Are Seen as Adding to Housing Woes

Abstract: The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good. Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes. As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies. Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system. “The choice we appear to be making is trying to modify our way out of this, which has the effect of lengthening the crisis,” said Kevin Katari, managing member of Watershed Asset Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund. “We have simply slowed the foreclosure pipeline, with people staying in houses they are ultimately not going to be able to afford anyway.” Mr. Katari contends that banks have been using temporary loan modifications under the Obama plan as justification to avoid an honest accounting of the mortgage losses still on their books. Only after banks are forced to acknowledge losses and the real estate market absorbs a now pent-up surge of foreclosed properties will housing prices drop to levels at which enough Americans can afford to buy, he argues. “Then the carpenters can go back to work,” Mr. Katari said. “The roofers can go back to work, and we start building housing again. If this drips out over the next few years, that whole sector of the economy isn’t going to recover.” The Treasury Department publicly maintains that its program is on track. “The program is meeting its intended goal of providing immediate relief to homeowners across the country,” a department spokeswoman, Meg Reilly, wrote in an e-mail message. But behind the scenes, Treasury officials appear to have concluded that growing numbers of delinquent borrowers simply lack enough income to afford their homes and must be eased out. In late November, with scant public disclosure, the Treasury Department started the Foreclosure Alternatives Program, through which it will encourage arrangements that result in distressed borrowers surrendering their homes. The program will pay incentives to mortgage companies that allow homeowners to sell properties for less than they owe on their mortgages — short sales , in real estate parlance. The government will also pay incentives to mortgage companies that allow delinquent borrowers to hand over their deeds in lieu of foreclosing. Ms. Reilly, the Treasury spokeswoman, said the foreclosure alternatives program did not represent a new policy. “We have said from the start that modifications will not be the solution for all homeowners and will not solve the housing crisis alone,” Ms. Reilly said by e-mail. “This has always been a multi-pronged effort.” Whatever the merits of its plans, the administration has clearly failed to reverse the foreclosure crisis. In 2008, more than 1.7 million homes were “lost” through foreclosures, short sales or deeds in lieu of foreclosure, according to Moody’s Economy.com . Last year, more than two million homes were lost, and Economy.com expects that this year’s number will swell to 2.4 million. “I don’t think there’s any way for Treasury to tweak their plan, or to cajole, pressure or entice servicers to do more to address the crisis,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “For some folks, it is doing more harm than good, because ultimately, at the end of the day, they are going back into the foreclosure morass.” Mr. Zandi argues that the administration needs a new initiative that attacks a primary source of foreclosures: the roughly 15 million American homeowners who are underwater, meaning they owe the bank more than their home is worth. Increasingly, such borrowers are inclined to walk away and accept foreclosure, rather than continuing to make payments on properties in which they own no equity. A paper by researchers at the Amherst Securities Group suggests that being underwater “is a far more important predictor of defaults than unemployment.” From its inception, the Obama plan has drawn criticism for failing to compel banks to write down the size of outstanding mortgage balances, which would restore equity for underwater borrowers, giving them greater incentive to make payments. A vast majority of modifications merely decrease monthly payments by lowering the interest rate. Mr. Zandi proposes that the Treasury Department push banks to write down some loan balances by reimbursing the companies for their losses. He pointedly rejects the notion that government ought to get out of the way and let foreclosures work their way through the market, saying that course risks a surge of foreclosures and declining house prices that could pull the economy back into recession . “We want to overwhelm this problem,” he said. “If we do go back into recession, it will be very difficult to get out.” Under the current program, the government provides cash incentives to mortgage companies that lower monthly payments for borrowers facing hardships. The Treasury Department set a goal of three to four million permanent loan modifications by 2012. “That’s overly optimistic at this stage,” said Richard H. Neiman, the superintendent of banks for New York State and an appointee to the Congressional Oversight Panel, a body created to keep tabs on taxpayer bailout funds. “There’s a great deal of frustration and disappointment.” As of mid-December, some 759,000 homeowners had received loan modifications on a trial basis typically lasting three to five months. But only about 31,000 had received permanent modifications — a step that requires borrowers to make timely trial payments and submit paperwork verifying their financial situation. The government has pressured mortgage companies to move faster. Still, it argues that trial modifications are themselves a considerable help. “Almost three-quarters of a million Americans now are benefiting from modification programs that reduce their monthly payments dramatically, on average $550 a month,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said last month at a hearing before the Congressional Oversight Panel. “That is a meaningful amount of support.” But mortgage experts and lawyers who represent borrowers facing foreclosure argue that recipients of trial loan modifications often wind up worse off. In Lakeland, Fla., Jaimie S. Smith, 29, called her mortgage company, then Washington Mutual , in October 2008, when she realized she would get a smaller bonus from her employer, a furniture company, threatening her ability to continue the $1,250 monthly mortgage payments on her three-bedroom house. In April, Chase, which had taken over Washington Mutual, lowered her payment to $1,033.62 in a trial that was supposed to last three months. Ms. Smith made all three payments on time and submitted required documents, Chase confirms. She called the bank almost weekly to inquire about a permanent loan modification. Each time, she says, Chase told her to continue making trial payments and await word on a permanent modification. Then, in October, a startling legal notice arrived in the mail: Chase had foreclosed on her house and sold it at auction for $100. (The purchaser? Chase.) “I cried,” she said. “I was hysterical. I bawled my eyes out.” Later that week came another letter from Chase: “Congratulations on qualifying for a Making Home Affordable loan modification!” When Ms. Smith frantically called the bank to try to overturn the sale, she was told that the house was no longer hers. Chase would not tell her how long she could remain there, she says. She feared the sheriff would show up at her door with eviction papers, or that she would return home to find her belongings piled on the curb. So Ms. Smith anxiously set about looking for a new place to live. She had been planning to continue an online graduate school program in supply chain management, and she had about $4,000 in borrowed funds to pay tuition. She scrapped her studies and used the money to pay the security deposit and first month’s rent on an apartment. Later, she hired a lawyer, who is seeking compensation from Chase. A judge later vacated the sale. Chase is still offering to make her loan modification permanent, but Ms. Smith has already moved out and is conflicted about what to do. “I could have just walked away,” said Ms. Smith. “If they had said, ‘We can’t work with you,’ I’d have said: ‘What are my options? Short sale?’ None of this would have happened. God knows, I never would have wanted to go through this. I’d still be in grad school. I would not have paid all that money to them. I could have saved that money.” A Chase spokeswoman, Christine Holevas, confirmed that the bank mistakenly foreclosed on Ms. Smith’s house and sold it at the same time it was extending the loan modification offer. “There was a systems glitch,” Ms. Holevas said. “We are sorry that an error happened. We’re trying very hard to do what we can to keep folks in their homes. We are dealing with many, many individuals.” Many borrowers complain they were told by mortgage companies their credit would not be damaged by accepting a loan modification, only to discover otherwise. In a telephone conference with reporters, Jack Schakett, Bank of America ’s credit loss mitigation executive, confirmed that even borrowers who were current before agreeing to loan modifications and who then made timely payments were reported to credit rating agencies as making only partial payments. The biggest source of concern remains the growing numbers of underwater borrowers — now about one-third of all American homeowners with mortgages, according to Economy.com. The Obama administration clearly grasped the threat as it created its program, yet opted not to focus on writing down loan balances. “This is a conscious choice we made, not to start with principal reduction,” Mr. Geithner told the Congressional Oversight Panel. “We thought it would be dramatically more expensive for the American taxpayer, harder to justify, create much greater risk of unfairness.” Mr. Geithner’s explanation did not satisfy the panel’s chairwoman, Elizabeth Warren. “Are we creating a program in which we’re talking about potentially spending $75 billion to try to modify people into mortgages that will reduce the number of foreclosures in the short term, but just kick the can down the road?” she asked, raising the prospect “that we’ll be looking at an economy with elevated mortgage foreclosures not just for a year or two, but for many years. How do you deal with that problem, Mr. Secretary?” A good question, Mr. Geithner conceded. “What to do about it,” he said. “That’s a hard thing.”

Subprime Mortgage Crisis,2008 Financial Crisis