North Korea Threatens to Close Vital Factory Park It Runs With South

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, reiterating that it considered the Korean Peninsula back in “a state of war,” threatened Saturday to shut down a factory complex it jointly operates with South Korea and that stands as the last significant symbol of cooperation. The industrial park, the eight-year-old Kaesong complex in the North Korean border town of the same name, is a crucial source of badly needed cash for the heavily sanctioned North. It funnels more than $92 million a year in wages for 53,400 North Koreans employed there, and its operation has survived despite years of military tensions. The latest threat to close down Kaesong came amid a torrent of bellicose statements by the North in recent days, widely seen as a strategy to increase pressure on South Korea and the United States to soften their policies on the North. Although South Korean officials reasserted that they were ready to retaliate if the North committed any military provocations, they said they saw no imminent sign of any such attacks. On Saturday, cross-border traffic operated as normal, allowing hundreds of South Koreans to travel to and from Kaesong. Over 300 South Koreans remained in the complex, where 123 South Korean textile and other labor-intensive factories employ the North Korean workers, at an average monthly wage of $144. The fate of Kaesong is seen as a crucial test of how far North Korea is willing to take its recent threats against the South. Its continued operation was often seen as a sign that Pyongyang’s verbal militancy was not necessarily matched by its actions. “The South Korean puppet forces are left with no face to make complaint even though we ban the South side’s personnel’s entry into the zone and close it,” North Korea said Saturday in a statement carried by its official Korean Central News Agency. It said its dignity was insulted by South Korean news media reports that suggested the North kept the complex open to obtain hard currency. In another development, some of the North’s main government-run Web sites were disabled on Saturday in what news media reports said were cyberattacks. The disabled sites included those of Naenara, the government’s official Web portal; Air Koryo, the state-run airline; and Voice of Korea, Pyongyang’s international broadcast outlet. North Korea Tech, a Web site that monitors Internet activities on the Korean Peninsula, said the problems appeared “to be part of a loosely coordinated effort by hackers to target North Korean sites.” By late Saturday afternoon, North Korean officials had not confirmed any attacks on government-run Web sites. The problems come as some analysts suspect that cyberattacks have become an increasingly frequent weapon in the intensified sparring between the Koreas, although each side denies hacking the other. South Korean officials suspect that North Korea was behind cyberattacks on March 20 against three banks and the country’s two largest broadcasters. The attacks came five days after North Korea blamed the South and the United States for cyberattacks that temporarily shut down some of its official Web sites, and warned of “consequences.” North Korea has been angry ever since South Korea and the United States started a joint military exercise in early March. Its bellicosity further escalated when the United Nations imposed more sanctions against it after its Feb. 12 nuclear test. The North has since declared an “all-out action” against Washington and Seoul and said that the armistice that stopped the Korean War in 1953, as well as all nonaggression agreements with the South, was nullified. Last week, it cut the last remaining military hot lines with Seoul. Its leader, Kim Jong-un, ordered all his missile units to be on standby and if provoked, attack the United States and South Korea with nuclear-tipped long-range missiles, although most analysts doubt the North has them. A statement by South Korea’s military said that although the North Korean threats were not new, they “are unacceptable and harm the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea
South Korea
Kaesong
Cyberwarfare


Saturday’s College Football Game to Watch: Navy (6-5) vs. Army (4-7)

Abstract: ARMY vs. NAVY 3 p.m. Eastern, CBS, Baltimore One of the best rivalries in sports has been one-sided for over a decade. The Midshipmen have reeled off 12 victories in a row — the longest streak in the rivalry, which began in 1890. Since that run started, in 2002, Navy has played in 11 bowl games, and Army has appeared in one, the 2010 Armed Forces Bowl. Navy started this season 2-4, losing to Air Force by 30-21, but the Midshipmen have won four of their last five — losing only to Notre Dame — and are set to play San Diego State in the Poinsettia Bowl. Saturday’s game will be the season finale for 4-7 Army. This is an old-school rivalry that features old-school football. Navy is averaging 87.6 passing yards per game this season, the second-fewest in the Football Bowl Subdivision — after Army. The Black Knights average only 64.5 a game and have thrown only 98 passes total. Each team uses a triple-option system and runs the ball with great success. Navy has the second-ranked rushing offense in the F.B.S. (357.8 yards per game); Army is ranked sixth (305.5 yards per game). For Army, quarterback Angel Santiago and running back Larry Dixon are the players to watch. They have combined for more than 1,800 yards and 19 touchdowns on the ground. For Navy, quarterback Keenan Reynolds has rushed for 1,082 yards and 20 touchdowns, and fullback Noah Copeland averages 8.2 yards per carry. This is the first Army-Navy game for Black Knights Coach Jeff Monken, who was an assistant at Navy under Paul Johnson, now the coach at Georgia Tech. Monken is the fifth head coach at West Point since 2001. As a result, the program has lacked continuity. A victory would go a long way toward helping Monken set a new tone and get the program back on track. No matter the records or the recent run by Navy, this is one of the most compelling college games of the regular season. Scheduling the game a week after the conference championships gives it the national attention it deserves.


A Worrisome Pileup of $100 Million Homes

Abstract: One of the latest symbols of the overinflated luxury housing market is a pink mansion perched above the Mediterranean on the French Riviera. The 13,000-square-foot property, built and owned by the fashion magnate Pierre Cardin, is composed of giant terra cotta orbs arranged in a sprawling hive. The home’s name befits its price. “Le Palais Bulles,” or “the Bubble Palace,” is being offered for sale at approximately $450 million. Image A room on the 41st floor of an apartment for sale at the Pierre Hotel. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times The listing is part of a global pileup of homes listed for $100 million or more. A record 27 properties with nine-figure prices are officially for sale, according to Christie’s International Real Estate . That is up from 19 last year and about a dozen in 2014. If you add in high-priced “whisper listings” that are offered privately, brokers say the actual number of nine-figure listings worldwide could easily top 40 or 50. Image A hallway on the 41st floor of an apartment for sale at the Pierre Hotel. Credit Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times “It’s a bumper crop,” said Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie’s International Real Estate. “It’s just a new world in terms of what people are building and offering for sale.” The rise in nine-figure real estate listings comes just as sales of luxury real estate have cooled. Many say the sudden surge in hyperprice homes — often built and sold by speculative investors — is the ultimate bubble signal. Image A 38,000-square-foot mansion on Carolwood Drive in Los Angeles is listed for $150 million. “When you have a record number of homes for sale at a price point of $100 million or more, that tells you these homes aren’t selling,” said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc. , a real estate appraisal and research firm. “It’s not as deep a market as some might hope.” Last year, only two homes in the world sold for over $100 million, according to Christie’s. One was a 9,455-square-foot house in Hong Kong purchased for $193 million by Jack Ma, the chief of Alibaba. The other was a townhouse in London that sold for $132 million. This year, a ranch in Texas went on the market for $700 million and a home in Dallas listed for $100 million. Both sold, but the actual sale prices have not been disclosed. Image The Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Credit Hilton & Hyland/Christie’s International Real Estate, via Associated Press The last time a sudden pop in $100 million-plus listings occurred was in 2007 and 2008, just before the housing crash. In 2008, at least four homes in the world listed for nine figures. Only one ended up selling for close to that. A mansion in Palm Beach owned by Donald Trump and listed for $100 million sold for $95 million. (Mr. Trump says it sold for $100 million.) A 103-room mansion in Surrey, England, called Updown Court, was listed for $138 million, but sold in 2011 for about $50 million. A log mansion planned for the Yellowstone Club in Montana, with a promised price of $155 million, was never built, and the land sold for $10 million. Of course, anyone can slap a $100 million price tag on a home to get attention. Yet actual sales of nine-figure homes are rare, even in good times. Between 2011 and 2016, only 15 homes in the world have sold for $100 million or more, according to Christies, and five of those were in 2014. Image Sycamore Valley Ranch, once Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, near Santa Barbara, Calif., is going for $100 million. Credit Hilton & Hyland/Christie’s International Real Estate “The era of aspirational pricing is over, and I’m not sure it ever really worked,” Mr. Miller said. “These prices get headlines, but the properties just don’t sell.” Brokers promoting the listings say their properties are one-of-a-kind masterpieces — like Picassos or Modiglianis — that rarely come on the market. They add that the more than 1,800 billionaires in the world see property as a safer store of wealth than stocks or art. Mr. Conn estimates that of the 27 nine-figure listings, a third will sell for under $100 million, a third will sell for around $100 million and a third for far more. Image Rancho San Carlos in Montecito, Calif., was built in 1929. Credit Jim Bartsch “I don’t think it’s a sign of a bubble,” Mr. Conn said. “It’s a sign of growing wealth in the world and the quality of some of the new construction.” Yet the market for megamansions and penthouses has cooled significantly in the last year. Prices for homes in the top 5 percent of the real estate market fell 1.1 percent in the first quarter of 2016, according to Redfin. Prices for the rest of the housing market increased 4.7 percent. Brokers say the very top of the market — consisting of eight- and nine-figure homes — is faring the worst as slowing economies overseas and volatile stock markets have spooked buyers. The supply of homes for the rich exploded as builders aimed at the high end after the financial crisis. Of the 10 most expensive listings in the world, seven are in the United States and four of these are in Los Angeles. The most expensive listing in the world is the $500 million compound being built in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles by Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative builder. The property will have a 74,000-square-foot main house, a 30-car garage and a “Monaco-style casino.” In nearby Holmby Hills, a more modest 38,000-square-foot mansion, built by the investor and developer Gala Asher, came on the market in April for $150 million. The ultramodern house, on the prestigious Carolwood Drive, has a 5,300-square-foot master suite and a club level with bar, dance floor, wine room, lap pool, theater complex, beauty parlor and massage rooms. The property also includes several guesthouses and staff housing. The broker, Ginger Glass, said the price of the property was justified. “Buyers today want new construction,” she said. “And there isn’t anything that’s new like this in such a great location.” Still more nine-figure homes are on the way. Real estate agents and developers say a home under construction in Bel Air is likely to have more than 50,000 square feet of living space, with finishes rivaling a superyacht’s. The price will be yacht-like, too, at around $300 million. Among the home’s amenities: the world’s largest safe.

Housing
Price
Real Estate
Luxury Goods
HNWI,Wealth,Billionaires,1 Percent


Bank of New York and Russia Settle Lawsuit

Abstract: MOSCOW — The Bank of New York Mellon and the Russian government have agreed to settle a $22.5 billion lawsuit relating to a 1990s money laundering scandal, with the bank paying the government’s legal fees of about $14 million, Russia’s finance minister said Wednesday. That was far less than the $1 billion that lawyers for the Russian government had sought and seemed to bring to a close the bank’s strange odyssey through the Russian legal system. Separately, the Bank of New York agreed to offer a line of credit to Russian state banks to finance import and export business, the finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin, said in testimony to Parliament. The $400 million loan on favorable terms, though, would be an “act of good will” not formally linked to the settlement, he said. “It has nothing to do with costs of the court case, and is not an admission of guilt.” His statement seemed to confirm the Russian government’s approval of the settlement that was leaked to journalists this week, even though the government backed away from most of its claim. Bank of New York had always maintained that even if the government won in a Russian court, the award would never be collected in the United States. The case spun out of the bank’s huge money laundering scandal of the late 1990s. A group of trial lawyers in Miami took the case on a contingency fee for the Russian government after the Bank of New York reached a $14 million settlement with the American government in 2005. The bank conceded a rogue employee had laundered $7.5 billion from Russia through the bank in the 1990s, but said it had admitted no criminal wrongdoing. But incorrect wording in a news release from the Justice Department announcing the settlement said that the bank had admitted guilt, which lawyers for the Russian government seized upon as the basis for a lawsuit. (The Justice Department recently acknowledged that Bank of New York had not admitted guilt in the matter.) Jonathan D. Schiller, a managing partner of Boies, Schiller & Flexner who is representing the bank, also drew attention to Mr. Kudrin’s remarks Wednesday before the Russian Parliament that the bank had committed no crime. The bank negotiated the deal directly with the Russian government, rather than the Miami law firm, Podhurst Orseck, that had been representing it, Mr. Schiller said. Russia’s customs agency had asserted that it had lost tax revenue because of the money transfer scheme, which was used in part to import goods at below market rates. The Miami lawyers from Podhurst Orseck, led by Steven C. Marks, sought to apply American antiracketeering laws in the Moscow commercial court. The laws allow a civil damage claim based on a criminal act and was first conceived as a tool against organized crime groups. According to court documents, those lawyers would be eligible for about 29 percent of any settlement. It was unclear Wednesday what, if anything, they would receive from the value of the discounted loan that Mr. Kudrin had presented as distinct from the settlement but which Mr. Marks said was worth tens of millions of dollars. Unless the fees are disclosed publicly, it will be impossible to determine whether the government used the loan to renege on the contingency fees, which are not binding in some cases in Russia. “Any objective person looking at this situation would realize it’s a quid pro quo,” Mr. Marks said in a telephone interview of the loan and settlement. “For them to provide this kind of lending is a significant benefit. It defies logic that the two are unrelated.” He said it was his “hope and expectation” that the government would pay in full, and that the $14 million figure cited by Mr. Kudrin would not cover his firm’s outlays on behalf of the Russian government. Both sides drew upon prominent lawyers and experts: Russia’s lawyers tapped Alan M. Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor, as part of its team, while the bank’s defense included Richard Thornburgh, the former United States attorney general. Though courts in the United States and elsewhere apply foreign law in rare circumstances, outside legal specialists criticized the proceedings here as a lapse of the rule of law in Russia, owing to the thinness of the claim that the bank itself had committed a criminal act. The Russian government had been backing away from the litigation for some time.

Russia
Bank of New York Mellon Corp
Suits and Litigation


Oregon and Coach Chip Kelly Are Over Their Opening Defeat

Abstract: As the sun rose in Eugene on Saturday, a man wearing the head of the University of Oregon ’s duck mascot traversed the lines of fans gathered for ESPN’s “College GameDay” broadcast. In a bit of Halloween trickery that could be a metaphor for Oregon’s unlikely season, the man underneath the duck mask was none other than Ducks Coach Chip Kelly. As the sun set in Eugene, Kelly revealed the Oregon program to a national television audience by undressing Southern California and handing the Trojans their worst loss of the Pete Carroll era. “They busted us,” U.S.C. safety Taylor Mays said after the 47-20 rout. As Oregon scored touchdown after touchdown, filleting the mighty Trojans as if they were a weak opponent only collecting a check, it made the Ducks’ nightmarish opening loss to Boise State seem as if someone else had shown up for that game in the Ducks’ garish uniforms. With No. 7 Oregon (7-1, 5-0) in control of the Pacific-10 race, the defining image of their season could come from players with roses in their teeth, not video of running back LeGarrette Blount’s sucker punch of a Boise State player after the loss. Kelly made an inauspicious debut in that sloppy loss, but his reintroduction to the country came as he choked up in a news conference the next day. Kelly announced that Blount, perhaps Oregon’s best player, was suspended for the season. ( Blount may be reinstated this week .) Despite the unrest, Kelly said he never doubted himself or the team. “We lost, 19-8,” he said in a phone interview Sunday night. “We didn’t lose, 90-0.” Watching this all unfold nearly 3,000 miles away, the Boston College receivers coach Ryan Day was not worried about Kelly, who had recruited Day and later coached with him at the University of New Hampshire. Day had seen Kelly lose plenty of times before, in the early days trying to turn New Hampshire into a national power in the Football Championship Subdivision, then known as Division I-AA. “When you get your butt kicked, that’s when you really see what people are made of,” Day said. “And with Chip, on Monday morning, he was always the same guy.” Kelly and the entire Oregon program certainly took their punches in the news media in the days that followed. The Blount punch was replayed nearly as much as Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction. Kelly said the positive from the loss and the incident was the outpouring from coaches around the country. Miami Coach Randy Shannon called to give advice about how the university handled its brawl with Florida International. The former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie checked in, as did Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden. Even P. J. Carlesimo, who knew Kelly from coaching basketball at New Hampshire College, talked to Kelly. “The neat thing, to be honest with you, was how many people reached out to say hang in there,” Kelly said. From there, Kelly showed the traits he picked up on his unconventional path to coaching stardom — accountability and creativity. He did all the right things away from the spotlight, even making the ultimate gesture of accountability by writing a personal check to a fan who wrote a letter demanding a refund for his trip to Boise. Kelly’s on-field creativity comes from knowing every nuance of the football field; he has been a defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator, running backs coach, special-teams coach, secondary coach and offensive line coach throughout his career as an assistant. At New Hampshire in various roles from 1994 to 2006, Kelly had lots of opportunities to leave. He resisted and stayed loyal until Oregon finally called with the offensive coordinator job. “He did it the right way,” Day said. “He came up in a system, and when his opportunity came at Oregon, he was ready. A lot of people aren’t ready. He was ready. He had the answers and the answers to the answers.” And for this Oregon team, perhaps the best answer came from one of his motivational ploys in the aftermath of the Boise State game. Kelly joked that, not surprisingly, he got a flood of e-mail messages. A few of the e-mailers brought up the children’s book “ Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day .” He addressed the team with the story of a boy who told his mother he wanted to move to Australia after having a day much like the night the Ducks had in Boise. “People in Australia have bad days, too,” Kelly told his team, mimicking the advice of Alexander’s mother. A copy of the book now sits on a table in Kelly’s office, though there have not been many reasons to read it lately. Oregon edged Purdue and Utah in the games after the loss, and things clicked from there. Oregon blew out California, 42-3, on Sept. 26 and things have gone so smoothly that Oregon rang up 613 yards on U.S.C., the most the Trojans had yielded since 1946. Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli is playing like an all-American, the red-shirt freshman tailback LaMichael James has emerged as the prototype for Kelly’s offense, and a no-name defense is playing as a cohesive unit. When asked if he would dwell on the performance against U.S.C., Kelly was quick to respond. “Not really, to be honest with you,” he said. In his short time as head coach, Kelly has learned not to overreact. And while he most likely won’t be wearing the mascot head anytime soon — too smelly, he said — Kelly has already revealed himself as one of the country’s top coaches.

University of Oregon
Football
College Athletics
Kelly Chip
University of Southern California
Blount LeGarrette


Florida Congressman Faces Charge of Cocaine Possession

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Representative Trey Radel, Republican of Florida, was charged Tuesday with misdemeanor possession of cocaine after having been arrested here last month, according to District of Columbia Superior Court documents. Mr. Radel, a freshman legislator, is expected to appear in court on Wednesday morning to answer the charges. In a statement, Mr. Radel, 37, apologized to his family, friends and constituents and said he stood “ready to face the consequences of my actions.” Image Trey Radel Credit J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press “I’m profoundly sorry to let down my family, particularly my wife and son, and the people of southwest Florida,” he said. “I struggle with the disease of alcoholism, and this led to an extremely irresponsible choice. As the father of a young son and a husband to a loving wife, I need to get help so I can be a better man for both of them.” Mr. Radel, whose Oct. 29 arrest was first reported by Politico, said he would seek counseling and treatment, “hopefully setting an example for others struggling with this disease.” “Please keep my family in your prayers,” he said. If convicted, Mr. Radel, whose district includes Cape Coral, Fort Myers and Naples, could be sentenced to 180 days in prison and be fined $1,000. “Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards, and the alleged crime will be handled by the courts,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio. “Beyond that, this is between Representative Radel, his family and his constituents.” Mr. Radel is a former Florida television reporter and a conservative radio talk show host. He was elected to the House, his first public office, last year with 62 percent of the vote. His seat was previously held by Connie Mack, also a Republican.

Florida
Congress
Trey Radel
Republicans
Drug Abuse
Cocaine and Crack
House of Representatives
US


San Francisco 49ers at Cleveland Browns Preview

Abstract: 49ers (4-8) at Browns (2-10) 1 p.m. Line: Browns by 1.5 N.F.L. Week 14 scores and highlights Johnny Manziel will start at quarterback for the Browns, two weeks after he was benched for his off-the-field behavior. It will mark the sixth change at quarterback for the Browns this season, and the third time Manziel has been given the keys to the offense. “He’s been solid in the building over the last couple of weeks and we are hopeful he takes this opportunity to continue to build on the progress he’s made on the field throughout the season,” Browns Coach Mike Pettine said about Manzie l. “The goal for every game is to go out and win, and Johnny needs to show that he can put us in position to do so during these last four weeks of the season.” PICK: Browns


When ‘What Animals Do’ Doesn’t Seem to Cover It

Abstract: Certain things should never be taken for granted, among them your spouse, your mother, the United States Constitution, and the precise meaning of words that are at the heart of your profession. Daniel Levitis was working as a teaching assistant for an animal behavior course at the University of California in Berkeley, and on the first day of class, the professor explained that the shorthand definition of a “behavior” is “what animals do.” O.K., that’s the freshman-friendly definition, Mr. Levitis thought. Now how about the unabridged, professional version? What is the point-by-point definition of a behavior that behavioral biologists use when judging whether a particular facet of the natural world falls under their purview? After all, animals digest food and grow fur, yet few behavioral researchers would count such physiological and anatomical doings as behaviors. Mr. Levitis asked the professor for the full definition of a behavior. She referred him to their textbook, with its promising title, “Animal Behavior.” To his surprise, neither that textbook nor any other reference he consulted bothered to spell it out. “It was assumed that everyone knew what the word meant,” said Mr. Levitis, who is completing his doctorate at Berkeley. Mr. Levitis decided to ask the people who should know best: working behavioral biologists. The provocative and crisply written results of his quest, carried out with his colleagues, William Lidicker Jr. and Glenn Freund, appear in the current issue of the journal Animal Behaviour. Among the highlights of the report: biologists don’t agree with one another on what a behavior is; biologists don’t agree with themselves on what a behavior is; biologists can be as parochial as the rest of us, meaning that animal behaviorists tend to reflexively claim the behavior label for animals only, while botanists sniff that, if the well-timed unfurling of a smelly, colorful blossom for the sake of throwing your seed around isn’t the ultimate example of a behavior, then there’s no such thing as Valentine’s Day ; and, finally, words may count, but thoughts do not. The researchers acknowledged that biologists had not been crying out for a canonical definition of the term. Marlene Zuk, an animal behaviorist at the University of California at Riverside, contrasted that casual attitude with the often acrid debates now under way on how to define the term species. “What you think a species is means a lot for the way you think about evolution,” she said. But with behavior, she added, “there doesn’t seem to be an existential crisis.” Then again, nothing can be more insidious than the wallflower you ignore. Walter D. Koenig of Cornell University, who helped Mr. Levitis in the early stages of the project, said his interest was piqued when he moved from the study of bird behavior to an investigation of the birds’ primary food supplier, oak trees. Why is it that trees dispersed over great distances end up releasing their acorns, or masting, en masse, he wondered. “Are the trees responding to something produced by other trees?” he said. “It’s entirely possible.” And if you designate this sort of inter-arboreal chemistry a behavior, he added, “it ends up pushing the boundaries” of what you think plants can do. To perform their linguistic investigation, the researchers composed an online survey with two basic parts. In the first, they presented 13 “potentially diagnostic” statements about behavior, compiled from their sweep through the scientific literature, with which respondents could either concur or not. “Behavior always involves movement,” for example, and “is always an action, rather than a lack of action.” Or, “behaviors are always the actions of individuals, not groups” and “something whole individuals do, not organs or parts that make up an individual.” Or, “a developmental change is not a behavior.” In the second part, Mr. Levitis and his co-workers offered 20 instances of natural phenomena and asked, Behavior, yea, nay or can’t say? “A sponge pumps water to gather food,” for example, or “a plant bends its leaves toward a light source” or “a beetle is swept away by a strong current.” Does a flock of geese flying in V formation count as a behavior? How about when a person decides not to do anything tomorrow in the event of rain, or when a female ant that is physiologically capable of laying eggs doesn’t do so because she’s not a queen? (If you’d like to take the survey and see how your responses compare with scientists’ and other readers’, please go to nytimes.com/science . Warning, spoilers ahead.) Nearly all of the items were designed as borderline cases that tested the validity of one or more statements in the first half of the survey. “Flocks of geese fly in V formation,” for instance, contradicted the notion that behaviors are the actions of individuals rather than of groups. A person deciding on inactivity in the event of rain and an ant forgoing reproduction because she’s not royalty both flouted the premise that a behavior is always an action. One offering, “a spider builds a web,” contradicted none of the 13 stipulations about behavior and thus served as an experimental control. Tallying results from 174 respondents, the researchers found an impressive lack of accord. “We didn’t have complete consensus for any item on the survey,” said Mr. Levitis, and that includes the little eight-legged control spinning its web. There were some harmonic notes. All but one participant deemed geese flying in V formation to be a legitimate behavior, while more than 95 percent turned thumbs down to the beetle swept away in a stream. Amusingly, more than half the scientists contradicted themselves, some of them multiple times, by designating as behaviors items on the second list that defied the set of rules they had chosen from the first list. Despite the overall lack of concordance, the researchers sought to extract from the results a trial definition for a word their peers bandy about with abandon. As they pitch it, a behavior is the internally coordinated response that an individual or a group makes to a stimulus. The response can be action or lack of action. The stimulus can come from inside or out. By this definition, masting oak trees, bacterial colonies creeping across a sugar gradient, zebra herds fissioning and fusing, are all displaying behaviors. Dogs that bark are behaving, dogs that obey a trainer’s signal and choose not to bark are most definitely behaving. Yet a favorite human sport fails to meet the new lexical guidelines. Thinking, it seems, is not a behavior. If you think about going for a walk and then go for a walk, that’s a behavior. If you think about going for a walk but then decide it’s too cold, that’s a behavior. Walk or not, just make up your mind. It don’t mean a thing till you get off that swing.

Animals
Surveys and Series
Biology and Biochemistry
Science and Technology


Tested Early by North Korea, Obama Has Few Options

Abstract: Facing the first direct challenge to his administration by an emerging nuclear weapons state, President Obama declared Monday that the United States and its allies would “stand up” to North Korea , hours after that country defied international sanctions and conducted what appeared to be its second nuclear test. Mr. Obama reacted to the underground blast as White House officials scrambled to coordinate an international response to a North Korean nuclear capacity that none of his predecessors had proved able to reverse. Acutely aware that their response to the explosion in the mountains of Kilju, not far from the Chinese border, would be seen as an early test of a new administration, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were determined to organize a significantly stronger response than the Bush administration had managed after the North’s first nuclear test, in October 2006. Speaking in the Rose Garden after returning to the White House from Camp David and meeting with his top aides in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama vowed to “take action” in response to what he called “a blatant violation of international law” and the North’s declaration that it was repudiating past commitments to dismantle its nuclear program. But as they had meetings every few hours — including a lengthy session in the Situation Room on Monday evening — some of Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged that the administration’s options were limited. Much depends, they said, on the new president’s ability to persuade Russia and China to go significantly beyond the strong condemnations that they issued Monday against North Korea, their former ally and a vestige of cold-war communism. “I think we were all impressed with the fact that the Russians and the Chinese denounced this so strongly,” Rahm Emanuel , Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, said in a telephone call. Yet turning that into effective action will prove a challenge. Efforts by the Clinton administration to entice the North to halt its weapons program by providing it with oil and nuclear power plants, and by the Bush administration to push the country to collapse and then to try to seize its leaders’ assets, all failed. So did Mr. Bush’s second-term strategy reversal, when he alienated hard-liners in his administration by reaching a deal with the North to dismantle its main nuclear plant, a step the North began last year. In recent months, the North has renounced the accord and taken the first steps to restart operations and manufacture more plutonium for bomb fuel. Now Mr. Obama must decide how to mix what he called “stronger international pressure” with a new set of diplomatic overtures at a moment when, his aides are acutely aware, Iran and other nations are taking his measure, examining the confrontation with North Korea for hints of how he will handle complex confrontations to come. While Mr. Obama delivered a Memorial Day speech and then took the afternoon off to play golf , aides tried to sift through the sparse data to determine exactly what abilities North Korea had proved, if any. Initial seismic readings showed the blast at Kilju, exactly where North Korea conducted its 2006 test, was “a several kiloton event,” according to one senior administration official. If that judgment is correct, the test yielded a somewhat bigger explosion than the 2006 test, which was later judged a partial fizzle. But it will take days or weeks of testing radioactive particles vented into the atmosphere to calculate the size of the device, and even then there will be continuing debate about whether the North has the engineering ability to make a weapon compact enough to fit in the warhead of a missile, much less to deliver it to a target. The White House said that on Monday evening Mr. Obama called the leaders of the two strongest American allies in northeast Asia , President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea and Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan , promising that he would press for “concrete measures to curtail North Korea” and vowing an “unequivocal commitment” to the defense of both countries. While hardly unexpected, that statement was considered an important signal by American officials who are eager to tamp down any nervousness among Asian allies about whether a new and untested president is willing to face down a regime that has been defying Washington since Eisenhower was in the Oval Office. But as Japanese and South Korean officials acknowledge, they are less concerned about a direct attack from the North — which would almost certainly result in a devastating, American-led response — than about North Korea selling its twice-tested nuclear weapons technology on the black market, much as it has sold missile and reactor technology in the Middle East . “We’re back to the same problem Bush had,” one intelligence official said. “The threat is not that they will shoot off a nuclear weapon; it’s that they will sell nuclear material.” In emergency conference calls after the North gave less than an hour’s notice through its mission to the United Nations that it would conduct a test early Monday, Mr. Obama’s team agreed on some preliminary strategy. One senior administration official said that the United States would never grant full diplomatic recognition to North Korea, or sign a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, unless its nuclear capability is dismantled. To devise a common response, administration officials began planning to meet with Asian leaders, and eventually with the central player in the diplomatic drama: China. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will begin the effort this week on a previously scheduled trip for an annual defense meeting, and his spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said, “There is simply no greater security challenge facing Asia than a nuclear-armed North Korea.” He said Mr. Gates would work “to figure out how we collectively can prevent that from becoming a reality.” Outside experts say it is probably a reality already. A C.I.A. assessment concluded that North Korea had built one or two nuclear weapons during the administration of the first President Bush, and in the spring of 2003, while the United States was focused on Iraq , the North expelled inspectors and harvested the fuel for six or more weapons. The second Bush administration said it would never “tolerate” a nuclear North Korea, but by the time it left office, none of that fissile material had been recovered. Perhaps the most powerful untapped sanction available to Mr. Obama and his allies is contained in a United Nations Security Council resolution passed after the 2006 test. It authorizes the United States and other nations to halt and inspect shipping into and out of North Korea for contraband missile parts or nuclear materials. The sanction has never been enforced, partly because of concerns that it could escalate hostilities with North Korea, the poorest and least predictable state in Northeast Asia. When asked whether Mr. Obama would seek to intercept North Korean shipping, a step that could paralyze the country’s trade, a senior administration official said, “That’s getting ahead of ourselves.” Another senior official, however, said, “Other than having the Chinese cut off their oil, it might be the only step that would show them we are serious.” The calculation about how hard to press the North is made more complex by doubts about who is making decisions in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il , whom North Koreans call the Dear Leader, appeared to have suffered a debilitating stroke last year. Mr. Kim reappeared recently, looking gaunt, thin and greatly aged, but intelligence officials say they believe he is again making day-to-day decisions. Nonetheless, they say, a succession struggle has begun. In the past, the two countries most cautious about pushing North Korean leaders to change course were China and Russia, so it was significant on Monday that when work began at the Security Council on a new resolution, both appeared to support stiffer penalties, after having blocked steps in that direction after the North’s test of a missile in April. The Russians were surprisingly adamant. Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said that the world had to face down threats to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which many view on the brink of collapse, and the still-unapproved Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

North Korea
Nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapons testing
US Foreign Policy
Barack Obama


Iraqi Refugees Find Hardships in Brooklyn

Abstract: On a warm December afternoon, Zahra Nahim stood in her narrow kitchen pulling flat ovals of bread out of the oven, piling plates with yellow rice and shredded chicken — and thoroughly dusting the front of her black abaya with white flour. Ms. Nahim, an Iraqi refugee who lives with her husband in southwestern Brooklyn, was making lunch for some guests. The food was richly flavored, but the ingredients were simple, like rice and beans and raisins, and many of them had been bought with food stamps. In America, Ms. Nahim, 59, and her husband, Fawzi Hasab, 55, have struggled with illness, language and poverty. But if you set foot in their home, they will drag a 50-pound bag of flour out of the pantry and get to work: you will be fed. “This is like a treatment for our sadness,” Mr. Hasab said in Arabic through an interpreter, placing a hot loaf of bread on the table. “We feel like we’re in a family, like we have family.” In 2008, Ms. Nahim and Mr. Hasab, who are Shiite, lost their sons, Raed, 22, and Ali, 10, to sectarian violence in Baghdad. Their home and their car were bombed by a Sunni group, they said. Raed was in the car, and Ali was in the house at the time. The couple fled Baghdad, where they had been born on the same day of the same month. They went to Syria and then, about two years later, came to the United States, where they were granted refugee status. A United Nations agency placed Mr. Hasab and Ms. Nahim in Nashville, but the Arab community there was small, they said, and they felt alone. So they moved to Brooklyn to be near a relative. They arrived with almost nothing: a few bags of clothes, a couple of household items — like a set of delicate blue teacups — and faded photographs. One picture shows Mr. Hasab as a young man, with thick black curls and a warm, playful smile, leaning against a white sedan. Another shows their Baghdad home, its white brick wall streaked in black, shattered by a powerful blast. They also came with memories of the violence that took their boys. At the mention of their sons, Ms. Nahim tried to speak, but her voice quivered and her face sank slowly toward her chest. Her hands rose to cover her eyes, and she wept. Mr. Hasab rocked himself gently. In Iraq, Mr. Hasab owned a grocery store. In Syria, he set up a barbershop. But in America, he does not speak the language — though he is taking English classes — and his health has begun to fail him. Ms. Nahim has diabetes, and their only income is $472 a month from her disability benefits and food stamps. With the help of the Community Service Society of New York , one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, Mr. Hasab, who suffers bouts of anxiety and post-traumatic stress, is reapplying for disability benefits. He was rejected once, but his caseworker, Anuja Khemka, said his problems were not made clear on his first application, which focused on physical ailments like arthritis. The new application is not their most immediate concern, though, Ms. Khemka said. “I think their biggest problem is housing,” she said. Mr. Hasab and Ms. Nahim live in the back of a modest home owned by an Egyptian woman, in a few small furnished rooms on the ground floor. She initially wanted $1,100 a month in rent, but when she heard the couple’s story, she agreed to $900, Mr. Hasab said. Still, they cannot afford the rent. Last fall, the agency drew $900 from the Neediest Cases Fund to cover the couple’s rent for one month. But their needs stretch further than that. “They keep borrowing money to pay off their rent here and there, but it’s really unsustainable,” Ms. Khemka said. “You know how New York is: it’s really difficult to survive here.” Ms. Khemka and her supervisor, Madeleine Dorval-Moller, have helped the couple apply for affordable housing and have written letters to local politicians asking to help expedite the process. But so far, there has been no progress. In the meantime, Ms. Khemka and the Community Service Society have tried to assist Mr. Hasab and Ms. Nahim in finding some sense of community. Most of their relatives are in Iraq, and Mr. Hasab says it is hard to keep in regular contact because he and his wife do not have a computer. Caseworkers have encouraged Ms. Nahim to take English classes at the Arab American Association and have helped her buy the necessary books. She also applied to be a volunteer at the Moroccan American House Association, where she hopes to read books to children in Arabic. Ms. Khemka also gave Ms. Nahim, a big fan of Bollywood, a DVD of a movie starring her favorite actor, Raj Kapoor. This winter, Mr. Hasab and Ms. Nahim visited the offices of the Community Service Society in Manhattan, their arms stacked with platters of homemade Iraqi food. The little they have, they wanted to share. “They’ve done a lot of good for us,” Mr. Hasab said. “This is how we show we are grateful.”

Community Service Society of New York
New York Times Neediest Cases Fund
Philanthropy


In the End, Plain Old Dirt Is Just Fine

Abstract: PEEKSKILL, N.Y. - LIKE a lot of people her age, Jan Volkmann is ready to downsize to a smaller, less fancy place in a more modest neighborhood. She has decided she does not really need the penthouse location with the polished marble décor, the resplendent magenta carpet, the all-season heat and air-conditioning, the lovely flowers. After all, she figures, if she ever really settled in, it would be just about impossible to get up and move someplace else. So, not quite sure how to unload her pricey hideaway, she took out an ad in the local PennySaver. "Crypt for Sale," it read. "Single in chapel at Hillside Cemetery, Cortlandt Manor. Original price $6,000. Make offer." Yes, Mrs. Volkmann, a cheerful 63-year-old with an endearingly jolly cackle, faces a particularly vexing marketing challenge, shops for second-hand crypts being a little hard to find. Still, in a world with so many second and third and fourth acts, maybe her tale is more familiar than it might seem. Mrs. Volkmann had not given all that much thought to where her remains would end up until she learned that she had breast cancer in 1994, a week before the wedding of her only son. You control what you can, she thought, and she figured that the one thing she could control was what might happen to her body if she died. So, while undergoing chemotherapy a year later, she eventually decided to spring for a crypt in a lovely vaulted chapel where the departed -- in doubles (for couples), singles and urns -- can spend eternity in something that feels like a Ritz-Carlton lobby. Her family, an old one in Peekskill, has a plot at the same cemetery, but she was not sure she would be happy in that neighborhood and ended up purchasing a spot on the top level (closest to heaven) of the crypt. "At that point, I didn't want to be buried in the dirt," she said. "This was a nice, clean shelf, beautiful chapel, heated and air-conditioned. I wasn't interested even in the mausoleums outside. I wanted the whole megillah." But, like so many others in her situation these days, a funny thing happened to Mrs. Volkmann on her way to the crypt. She got well. And then, in her view, she got better. She had just started her studies toward becoming a deacon at her church, St. Peter's Episcopal, and facing mortality was, in its way, she thinks, a blessing. "I'm not sure how to say this," said Mrs. Volkmann, a short, compact woman in a cleric's shirt and a tweed herringbone jacket. "Let me ramble. I've lived a very blessed life. Great childhood. Super-spectacular. Never had money worries. I have a husband from heaven, married 43 years. Son who never gave me a lick of problems. The one thing I was lacking, I think, was humility. I didn't know what it was to be humble. And then the cancer happened, and I learned." In 1999, she became an ordained deacon at St. Peter's, the church where she grew up. It's a landmark in a town that, like so many others on the Hudson, once seemed to be dying, too, and is now brimming with signs of new life. HER main duty and passion is working as executive director of Noontime Meals, a soup kitchen at the Salvation Army supported by local churches and synagogues, St. Peter's in particular. She buys food for the soup kitchen at a discount center, writes its grant applications, oversees the operation. So she stopped by there Monday and said the blessing before the noon meal. Then we stopped by the crypt, and then visited St. Peter's, whose current building dates to 1837 and has a sign out front: "A diverse, inclusive congregation celebrating youth, outreach and community." Oh, and the crypt. Somewhere along the line, she decided that maybe there were things people couldn't control and that it was just as well this was all about the spirit, not the body. She figured the cold, hard ground would be just fine, after all. Plus, she wanted to be buried with her husband, Pete, a retired Peekskill firefighter, whose family plot is at the Assumption Catholic cemetery next door to Hillside. So she tried an ad around 2000 with no luck, and shelled out another $35 for a second one recently. No takers so far on this one, either. Still, she figures it will find a good use for someone, sometime. "I think eventually, something's going to come up that will be the right thing, and I'll know it," she said. "Someone will need it, and I'll be able to say, 'Here. It's yours.' And if not, I'll pass it on to my son, and he'll have to decide. Now, that would be a dirty trick, wouldn't it?" Our Towns E-mail:peappl@nytimes.com

CEMETERIES
BREAST
CANCER
SALVATION ARMY
VOLKMANN JAN
VOLKMANN PETE


Job Seekers Might Prepare for a Longer Wait

Abstract: It isn’t a surprise, but it’s still worth noting: the time it takes to find a job is growing longer. That’s according to a survey of 3,000 job seekers conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm. According to Challenger, “the median job search among those winning positions in the third quarter lasted nearly 4.4 months,” up from 3.6 months in the second quarter. It’s also notable that 13.4 percent of the job seekers ended up relocating to take new positions. That’s up from a first-quarter figure of 8.9 percent, but still lower than the share who relocated in 2006 and most of 2007. Moving is stressful and expensive, and some people may simply be unwilling to take that step. But the lower percentage of relocation no doubt stems at least in part from the housing market. Job seekers who are eager to move for the right job may find themselves trapped by an inability to sell their homes (and perhaps wishing they were renters right now). PHYLLIS KORKKI

Employment Agencies
Hiring and Promotion


Migrants Said to Be Missing After Small Boat Overturns Near Macau

Abstract: HONG KONG — Fifteen people were reported to be missing Friday after a small boat overturned in heavy winds off the Chinese territory of Macau. Macau’s Marine and Water Bureau said the boat was believed to have been transporting illegal migrants when it capsized shortly before 6 a.m. off Hac Sa Beach near the Grand Coloane Resort. Four people swam to shore after the accident, and rescuers continued to search for people still in the water, the authorities said Friday. China’s state-run Xinhua news service reported that 15 people were missing and that the four people who had swum to shore were all from mainland China. The boat was pulled out of the water and towed to shore by salvage vessels as strong wind and high waves hindered the rescue effort, the Macau authorities said. Macau’s economy is highly dependent on migrant workers, who make up 118,000 of the total work force of 405,500, according to statistics for the fourth quarter of 2014. Last year Macau repatriated more than 1,400 illegal immigrants, all of whom were from mainland China.

Macau
Rescue
Illegal Immigration
Boat Accidents


Amanpour to Anchor a Nightly Show on CNN International

Abstract: In her 25 years at CNN, Christiane Amanpour has hopscotched the world, the very model of a foreign correspondent, turning up at seemingly every war, genocide, famine and natural disaster, slipping through previously closed borders and interviewing even the most recalcitrant of foreign leaders. But there is one thing she has never done: anchored her own daily news show. That will change next year, when she starts a nightly program on CNN International, which is retooling its lineup. An edited version of Ms. Amanpour’s show is expected to be shown on the weekends on CNN’s United States channel. No start date for either version has been set, and the new program does not yet have a title, producer or much of a format, at least not one that executives are ready to talk about. But in her office in the Time Warner building, with its sweeping view over Columbus Circle and Central Park in Manhattan, Ms. Amanpour said she would continue to travel with the program, “because I’m a field person at heart, in my bones and in my DNA.” “I think that’s massively important,” she said, “because you can’t just sit back and opine about the news; you have to actually go out there and cover it and report it.” Tony Maddox, executive vice president and managing director of CNN International, said: “Our thinking was we wanted a big, the biggest, name to hub our international prime time, and when it comes to global international superstars that list pretty much begins and ends with Christiane Amanpour.” Ms. Amanpour’s program will go after big interviews but also include reporting and round- table discussions, he said. It will begin in the second quarter of 2009, joining several other new programs that the network — which reaches about 240 million households worldwide — has already started to show in the noon to 6 p.m. Eastern time period, which is prime time for much of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. “BackStory,” with Michael Holmes as anchor, began in October; other programs, planned for early 2009, are in the pilot phase. There had never been talk of Ms. Amanpour, 50, doing a daily program; she never had much desire, she said, because she was too busy running around to the world’s hot spots. But in recent years, after the birth of her son, Darius, now 8, Ms. Amanpour has put more energy into documentaries, including “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden”; last year’s six-hour “God’s Warriors,” which won a Peabody Award; and the coming “Scream Bloody Murder,” about genocide, which will be broadcast on Dec. 4. In January, Ms. Amanpour, who was raised in Iran and is a British citizen, moved back to the United States for the first time since she left for Germany (later followed by home bases in Paris and most recently, London) nearly two decades ago. Her husband, James Rubin, the former Clinton administration official who is an adjunct professor of foreign policy at Columbia, wanted to return to New York in an election year. “I’d always said when it was his turn we’d come back to the United States,” she added. A serious, occasionally fierce defender of the place of international reporting in an American television news diet, Ms. Amanpour has over the years, often while accepting honors for her work, made public, pointed barbs at her own bosses, when she thought entertainment fluff threatened to overwhelm more substantive topics. But these days, she says, she’s “hopeful that we’re up to the task.” “The American people,” she said, “spoke loudly. The majority of the American people in the run-up to this election said they believe that the next president, one of his most important priorities should be restoring America’s position in the world. That to me says it all: That means that there is an openness, that there is a desire, a hunger to know about the world, and to know about where America is and fits into the world.” Programming executives seemingly agree. In June, CNN added a one-hour international news program hosted by Newsweek International’s editor, Fareed Zakaria, to its Sunday afternoon lineup; Ms. Amanpour is a frequent guest. Elsewhere, CBS’s “60 Minutes,” for which Ms. Amanpour was a contributor for nine years until 2005, has thrived this season with a steady component of international reporting, and BBC America continues to invest in news programming for the United States. In October, the public television stations WLIW and WNET in New York began producing a half-hour daily international news program for public television stations nationwide, anchored by Martin Savidge, Ms. Amanpour’s former CNN colleague. In the coming documentary, Ms. Amanpour highlights the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide with a look at a century of genocidal campaigns, from the Holocaust to Rwanda to Darfur today. The stories are told, she said, through the perspective of people “who in each case knew what they were seeing and tried to scream bloody murder to stop it.” Fittingly, however, one example where public attention eventually worked was in Bosnia, the first big story of Ms. Amanpour’s career. “I didn’t fully know what it was until I’d spent weeks and months understanding what it was. It wasn’t just two sides battling it out, it was genocide, and when we said that we were taking an enormous risk,” she recalled. That war, she said, shaped her outlook on her chosen profession. “When we’re not there, when we’re not there in a critical mass and we don’t tell the story and we don’t put our eyewitness testimony in the public sphere, then the most unspeakable evil can happen.”

Television
Cable News Network
Amanpour Christiane
News and News Media


Picking Up a Career in Perfect Stride

Abstract: KEARNS, Utah — The race took place more than three years ago and lasted less than 42 seconds, but Apolo Anton Ohno remembers every detail. As he watched the replay last month at the practice rink here, he surged with the same euphoria, leaning on each turn, fist pumping at the finish. After Ohno won gold in that race, the 500-meter short-track speedskating final at the Turin Games in Italy, he appeared on a Wheaties box, signed with a Hollywood talent agency and ruled the television show “Dancing With the Stars.” The blossoming entertainment career led Ohno and his father, Yuki, to consider the transition out of skating. By then, Ohno had won almost every race an elite skater could enter and had collected two gold and five total Olympic medals. But the race lingered, always, even as Ohno waltzed and tangoed his way into American living rooms. Rarely a day passed when he did not remember that feeling, addictive as any drug. Eventually, it prompted his return to skating, to the world championships this weekend in Vienna and, if the plan holds, to the Vancouver Olympics in 11 months. Because for those precious seconds, Ohno was not solid, or good, or great, or even spectacular. He was perfect.  His coach’s screams echoed in his ears after Ohno drew the spot he wanted, the No. 1 inside lane, in a four-and-a-half-lap 500-meter race in which the start is critical. Already, the Canadian contenders François-Louis Tremblay and Eric Bedard had false-started. Ohno decided to perfectly time the third start, and his legs churned at the exact moment the starting gun sounded, possibly even earlier. Yuki Ohno said it was as if his son were connected to that gun. He darted to an early lead, but he also knew how much could still go wrong. The 500 is a pure sprint. He described it as “40 seconds of mayhem” and “five guys trying to eat you.” Ohno spent the first half of the race building speed by finding the right path — not too wide and not too tight. He quickly gained control. All the sounds, the fans and the horns in the arena, had faded into silence.  The notion of the perfect race first came to Ohno after the Salt Lake Games in 2002. He had won gold at 19, after an opponent’s controversial disqualification. It got him thinking about fulfillment, about destiny. As the Turin Games approached, Ohno let his mind wander on long training runs. He often envisioned the perfect Olympic race, a mixture of timing and precision and control. Ohno arrived in Italy with a bum ankle and a strained hamstring. As much as he tried to forget the pain, he turned in lap times so slow that he estimated he was skating at 60 percent of full health. Favored in the 1,500 meters, the same race in which he had won gold four years earlier, Ohno collided with a Chinese skater. At full strength, the contact would not have bumped him off course. Instead, he spun out of contention and into a stunned locker room. Before his next race, the 1,000 meters, Ohno said he had a dream in which he overtook a South Korean competitor at the last second to win gold. The actual race played out in reverse: Ohno hesitated, just slightly — a moment of self-doubt, a lack of confidence. With three and a half laps to go, he was overtaken by a South Korean and finished third. Ohno met with his Olympic adviser, who told him he should be proud of the bronze medal and his two-time Olympic career. Ohno took that to mean that United States officials had lost faith in him. They considered him a long shot in the 500. Yuki Ohno knew better. “Apolo always delivers when the pressure mounts to unbelievable intensity,” he said. The 500 represented his final chance. Ohno’s room overlooked the skating oval, and on nights of fitful sleep, he would stare across the street. Doubts crept in. He started to feel caged, he said, even a little crazy. He had been trained never to show weakness, never to admit to pain or doubt, yet there they all were. “I felt like I was in the middle of a spider web,” Ohno said. “All these different paths in front of me, and I didn’t know which one I was supposed to take.” On the morning of the 500, however, he felt normal. But instead of jogging inside the arena to warm up, he ran past the security guards and burst outside. He thought about Yuki, his single father, greatest influence and best friend. A man who had immigrated from Japan and opened a hair salon, who had worked hard and late and never once complained, who had steered his son’s manic energy into speedskating and away from childhood delinquency. Ohno thought about Dr. Lawrence Lavine, who had taught him how to heal naturally, who had showed him the benefits of acupuncture, who had joined him in Turin to ease the pain. He thought about Maria Kelly, a family friend and spiritual adviser who had mailed him a quotation from the Greek philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis days before the race. The message implored him to forget about winning or losing, to “carry the struggle further.” At the end of his jog, as Italian security guards shouted at him to return inside, Ohno stopped in front of the main entrance. A broad grin stretched across his face. Inside, Lavine turned to Yuki Ohno. “Apolo will deliver today,” Lavine told him.  Competitors skated inches behind Ohno, waiting for him to make his first mistake. He glanced backward, just slightly, which increased his heart rate by 40 beats a minute. Fifteen seconds remained. After thousands of training hours and hundreds of competitions, Ohno could sense his deepest fears as he reached what he called the purest form of sport — man versus self, triumph or fail. He gained separation, a rarity in a race so short. “I went absolutely ballistic,” he said. “Every single ounce of energy, every single type of training I’d ever done in my life, went into those last 15 seconds.” Ohno crossed the line, raised both arms and screamed so loud his father could hear it in the stands. This really happened, he remembers thinking. Apolo, you really did it. You had the perfect race.  Ohno compares his life, his ability to balance competing interests, to an antique Japanese dresser. His has compartments for dancing and acting, a large drawer for skating, even empty drawers waiting to be filled. After the race, Ohno shut the skating drawer and never talked about returning or retiring. He signed with a talent agency that counts Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler among its clients. On “Dancing With the Stars,” he found he loved the camera, and his victory on the show proved to him that audiences in America loved him back. He slept in. He ate pancakes for breakfast instead of plain oatmeal. He rode in limousines and signed autographs. Eventually, he began to ask himself tough questions. Had the perfect race drained his passion for the sport? Did he have the same hunger he possessed at 18? “Am I willing to sacrifice, you know, a life?” he asked. The deeper he dug, the more he discovered that being an Olympian defined him. He kept returning to that single race, that feeling. “I know that I was meant to skate,” Ohno said. “Whether it’s to stand on the podium again or deliver a different message, I don’t know. I’ve won everything that I can possibly win. I’ve been consistent. I’ve had amazing races. I’ve had the perfect race. “And I really, honestly, in my heart believe there’s a reason why I’m still skating. There’s a reason I’m still healthy, a reason I’m still winning, a reason I’m still here.” Ohno’s elite training started in Vancouver, the same place it is likely to end next February. Whether it is fate or destiny or simply the act of coming full circle, Ohno appreciates the symmetry. To the perfect race he skated in Italy, he hopes to add the perfect ending.

Ohno Apolo Anton
Short Track Skating
Speed Skating


Kazakhstan: 3-Man Rocket Departs for Space Station

Abstract: A Russian rocket carrying two astronauts from the United States and one from Russia lifted off successfully early Wednesday from Kazakhstan , bound for the international space station. The spacecraft, the Soyuz TMA-19, is carrying the astronauts, Douglas H. Wheelock, Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin, to the international orbiting laboratory for a mission lasting about six months. The three will be onboard the space station to see the final shuttle, the Endeavour, depart from its last planned mission to the lab in November before the fleet is retired. With the shuttle being phased out, the Soyuz rocket will be the only means by which astronauts can travel to the station.

Kazakhstan
Space
International Space Station
Soyuz Project


Man Thought to Be Behind Anti-Muslim Film Arrested

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The man thought to have been behind the anti-Islam video that set off deadly protests across the Muslim world in recent weeks was arrested on Thursday for violating terms of his probation in a 2010 bank fraud case. The man, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was ordered held without bond during an appearance in Federal District Court here on Thursday evening. Judge Suzanne H. Segal, a federal magistrate, called Mr. Nakoula “a flight risk and a danger to the community.” He will remain in jail until a probation-revocation hearing is scheduled. Mr. Nakoula is widely considered to be the filmmaker responsible for “Innocence of Muslims,” an inflammatory, amateurish video that is supposedly a trailer for a full-length film. The video depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a buffoon, a womanizer and a child molester. It was first uploaded to YouTube in June, and translated into Arabic and uploaded several more times leading up to the 11th anniversary of the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Nakoula was charged with eight probation violations, including lying to law-enforcement officers when they initially detained him for questioning, and using various aliases, which an assistant United States attorney, Robert Dugdale, said was “part of a lengthy pattern of deception.” Federal officials have been investigating whether Mr. Nakoula was the person who posted the video on YouTube using the pseudonym Sam Bacile, a name he used during the making of the movie, according to actors and crew members. If he did post the video, he would have violated the terms of his sentencing in a conviction in a 2010 check-kiting case, which restricted his use of the Internet. Mr. Nakoula served about a year of a 21-month prison term for orchestrating a check-kiting scheme against Wells Fargo Bank, court records show. As part of his sentence, Mr. Nakoula was ordered to pay restitution of $794,700. The bank fraud scheme included a twist that is probably pertinent to the current investigation: he committed the crime using a variety of aliases. And just who Mr. Nakoula is remains something of a mystery. On Thursday, Mr. Dugdale said Mr. Nakoula had a passport that had been issued under the name Mark Basseley Youseff and had a driver’s license as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. He used a third name during production of the film. The prosecutor said that in the check-kiting case that Mr. Nakoula had been found in possession of 641 credit and debit cards that were not in his own name. Federal probation officers on Sept. 15 took Mr. Nakoula to a Los Angeles County sheriff’s station in the suburb of Cerritos, where he lives, for questioning. He wore a hat and had a white shawl around his face. He was not arrested at that time. Mr. Nakoula has not spoken publicly since the trailer, parts of which were broadcast on Egyptian television, first set off a wave of rioting and attacks that led to the deaths of four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador. On Saturday, a Pakistani cabinet minister offered a $100,000 reward for the death of the person behind the video, with the incendiary statement coming a day after violent protests paralyzed Pakistan’s largest cities, leaving at least 23 people dead. Mr. Nakoula’s lawyer, Steve Seiden, had argued unsuccessfully that it was a dangerous for his client to be in jail where there are, presumably, Muslim inmates. “My client’s safety has been an issue for weeks,” he said. Ian Lovett contributed reporting.

Nakoula Nakoula Basseley
Innocence of Muslims (Movie)
Muslims and Islam
Demonstrations Protests and Riots


Atlantic City Could Default in Weeks, Ratings Agency Says

Abstract: ATLANTIC CITY — Atlantic City could face default as early as April without “drastic action” from the state, a ratings agency warned on Wednesday. The agency, Moody’s Investors Service, said in an analysis that the city would run out of money in the next few weeks, which could lead to bankruptcy, if two measures are not approved by lawmakers. The first bill would strip Atlantic City of most of its decision-making power and give New Jersey the right to break contracts and sell off city assets to help get the city’s finances under control. The second would allow casinos to make payments in lieu of taxes. The bills are backed by the president of the State Senate, Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat, and Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican. The speaker of the Assembly, Vincent Prieto, a Democrat, said the bills needed to be changed to ensure that the state could not unilaterally cancel public employee contracts. Moody’s said the city’s projected $102 million deficit would be cut by 73 percent this year and be almost eliminated by 2020 if both bills passed. “No matter which scenario ultimately occurs,” Moody’s said in a statement, “Atlantic City’s financial position remains vulnerable to external factors such as further casino closures and deteriorating state finances.” Reeling from the continuing contraction of the casino industry — its largest employer and taxpayer — Atlantic City could run out of cash within weeks. In January, Mr. Christie vetoed an aid package that would have helped the city and its casinos, saying Atlantic City had not done enough over the years to stabilize its finances.

Atlantic City
Bankruptcy
New Jersey
Chris Christie
Moody's
Budget


$265 Million Promised to Carnegie Mellon

Abstract: William S. Dietrich II, 73, has pledged $265 million to Carnegie Mellon University , to take effect at his death. The gift — the largest in the history of the Pittsburgh-based university, and one of the 10 largest individual gifts to a university — is not yet designated for a particular purpose. Mr. Dietrich, who never attended Carnegie Mellon, is former chairman of Dietrich Industries Inc., a leading supplier of steel building materials. He has served as a trustee of Carnegie Mellon, on and off, since 1997.

Carnegie Mellon University
Gifts
Dietrich II William S.


Nonstop Theft and Bribery Stagger Iraq

Abstract: BAGHDAD, Dec. 1 — Jobless men pay $500 bribes to join the police. Families build houses illegally on government land, carwashes steal water from public pipes, and nearly everything the government buys or sells can now be found on the black market. Painkillers for cancer (from the Ministry of Health) cost $80 for a few capsules; electricity meters (from the Ministry of Electricity) go for $200 each, and even third-grade textbooks (stolen from the Ministry of Education) must be bought at bookstores for three times what schools once charged. “Everyone is stealing from the state,” said Adel Adel al-Subihawi, a prominent Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, throwing up his hands in disgust. “It’s a very large meal, and everyone wants to eat.” Corruption and theft are not new to Iraq , and government officials have promised to address the problem. But as Iraqis and American officials assess the effects of this year’s American troop increase, there is a growing sense that, even as security has improved, Iraq has slipped to new depths of lawlessness. One recent independent analysis ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Of 180 countries surveyed, only Somalia and Myanmar were worse, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based group that publishes the index annually. And the extent of the theft is staggering. Some American officials estimate that as much as a third of what they spend on Iraqi contracts and grants ends up unaccounted for or stolen, with a portion going to Shiite or Sunni militias. In addition, Iraq’s top anticorruption official estimated this fall — before resigning and fleeing the country after 31 of his agency’s employees were killed over a three-year period — that $18 billion in Iraqi government money had been lost to various stealing schemes since 2004. The collective filching undermines Iraq’s ability to provide essential services, a key to sustaining recent security gains, according to American military commanders. It also sows a corrosive distrust of democracy and hinders reconciliation as entrenched groups in the Shiite-led government resist reforms that would cut into reliable cash flows. In interviews across Baghdad, though, Iraqis said the widespread thieving affected them at least as powerfully on an emotional and moral level. The Koran is very clear on stealing: “God does not love the corrupters,” one verse says. And for average Iraqis, those ashamed of the looting that took place immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the current era of anything-goes is particularly crushing because almost no one can avoid its taint. For many, it is not a question of getting rich. Theft and corruption have become survival tools, creating a spiral of dishonest transactions that leave nearly everyone feeling dirty. Abu Ali is a 23-year-old Sunni with a soft middle and a common tale. Identifying himself by only a nickname, which means father of Ali, he said that he, his wife, his elderly mother and six relatives fled their home in eastern Baghdad last year after receiving death threats from Shiite militias. First they rushed to Diyala Province, and when that turned violent, they moved back to a safer area of Baghdad — broke and desperate. A major breadwinner for his family, Abu Ali needed a job. And like many Iraqis, he saw only one employer hiring: the government. A neighbor who was a police officer suggested joining the force. Abu Ali asked how, noting that recruits outnumbered positions. The answer was simple: a $500 bribe. Abu Ali borrowed the money a few months ago and found his way to a cellphone shop downtown, where, he said, a man in his late 20s welcomed him inside. The man identified himself as a police captain and seemed at ease with the transaction. His wealth sparkled all around. “He had a silver Mercedes,” Abu Ali said. “He was wearing a thick gold chain and a gold watch.” Abu Ali tried to bargain for a lower fee, but failed, handing over the cash and filling out official forms. In return, he said, he received a blue card stamped “Ministry of the Interior,” which declared him an accepted member of the police force. The man with the gold chain told him to watch for an announcement in the local paper that listed the names of newly accepted recruits, and to bring the card to his first day of training. “How do I know I’ll really get the job?” Abu Ali said he asked. “He told me, ‘I’ve put in 70 or 80 people already. Don’t worry about it.’” Five months later, Abu Ali’s name appeared in the newspaper. At the police academy in September, he said, he discovered that most of his class was from Sadr City and that everyone paid $400 to $800 to join. “There’s not a single person among the 850 people in my class who joined for free,” he said. His commanders, he added, also now collect the salaries of recruits who quit, a payout of more than $100,000 a month. “No one can stop it,” Abu Ali said. “Corruption runs from top to bottom.” The details of Abu Ali’s story could not be independently verified, but they fit a pattern of bribes and payroll schemes found in nearly every nook of Iraq’s government, according to government workers, Iraqi lawmakers and some American officials. Many Iraqis speak from personal experience. Mr. Subihawi, the Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, said that when he recently tried to find a job for a young member of his tribe, he was told by local government officials that there was nothing available unless he was willing to pay. Other Iraqis, in interviews, described similar encounters. Cash is also often what leads to promotions — with the help of a fake college degree, purchased for about $40 — and theft is no less common. One government worker, who goes by the name Abu Muhammad, said a senior administrator at the ministry where he worked recently sold off computers, laser printers, office furniture and other supplies that appeared to have been paid for with American aid. The official was never caught or prosecuted, he said. Haider Abu Laith, an engineer at the Ministry of Culture, said a close friend and fellow engineer at a government agricultural agency recently told him he was being pressured to inflate the cost of equipment purchased abroad so that senior officials could skim the surplus. He said his friend quit, fearing that he would be killed if he refused. And at the Ministry of Health’s main warehouse in Baghdad, American troops discovered this summer that two trucks full of medicines and medical equipment had disappeared while several guards on duty — young men in acid-washed jeans, with gel in their hair — said they saw nothing. Even some Iraqi lawmakers admit that the free-for-all has become too extensive to stop easily. “The size of the corruption exceeds the imagination,” said Shatha Munthir Abdul Razzaq, a member of Parliament’s largest Sunni bloc. “Because there are no tough laws, no penalties for those who steal.” Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who runs the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki actually undercut anticorruption efforts this year by requiring that investigators get permission from his office before pursuing ministers or former ministers on corruption charges. Mr. Maliki has also not rescinded a law, opposed by the Americans, that lets ministers exempt their employees from investigation. “Those two legal positions within the fledgling Iraqi government are incompatible with democracy,” Mr. Bowen said in an interview. “My concerns about the corruption problem have risen.” Ali al-Dabbagh, the prime minister’s spokesman, has said the government is determined to fight corruption. And at some gas stations, especially where American troops have concentrated their efforts, Iraqis report fewer demands for the bribes that once tripled or quadrupled the price of gas. But for a large number of people, survival still depends on taking what they can, when they can. Some estimates put unemployment at 40 percent. For many Iraqis, minor theft seems justified because others take so much and because daily life in Iraq still feels precarious — a crust of calm resting on currents of sectarianism, poverty and anger. Baghdad, in particular, is still marked by desperation, with more women begging at intersections and with many Iraqis barely getting by, even with a little cheating. These are people like Sattar Alwan, 41, a taxi driver with a dark mustache who lives with nearly a dozen relatives in a makeshift, illegal house on government land in eastern Baghdad. He said his family built the squat brick structure because gunmen pushed them out of their own home and they had nowhere else to go. Or Abbas Wadi Kadhim, 42, who uses a raspy air compressor to extract city water from broken pipes so he can earn money washing cars. Mr. Kadhim acknowledges that he does not pay for the water, nor does he pay rent at the abandoned government building a few hundred yards away, where he often sleeps so he can be ready when customers arrive at 7 a.m. He figures his government owes him. He was imprisoned by Mr. Hussein’s government and disabled in the Iran-Iraq war. His left forearm is as thin as a child’s, and crooked at the wrist. “I have six kids,” he said, spraying down a silver sedan last week, “and all I get is 150,000 Iraqi dinar,” about $120 a month in disability payments. “It’s not enough.” Mr. Kadhim said he was from Sadr City, a sprawling public housing project dominated by the Mahdi Army, Iraq’s most prominent Shiite militia. He suggested that he could make more money if he were less religious. “The forbidden work is far away from us, as far away as the seven seas,” he said, looking east toward his old neighborhood. He sounded proud. He spends long hours scrubbing cars for $4 each in an empty lot with a clear view of Baghdad’s main soccer stadium. His customers praise him for being thorough. But like many Iraqis who have made a choice to bend the rules, he seems still unsure of his moral footing: a little bit ashamed, a touch defensive. “This job is better for us than doing things that are forbidden,” he said, his voice getting louder. “It’s better than stealing or using people.”“The more honest the job is and the harder we work, the better.”

Bribery
Iraq
Robberies and Thefts
Frauds and Swindling
United States Armament and Defense
Politics and Government


Flooding and a Landslide Kill Dozens Amid India Monsoons

Abstract: NEW DELHI — At least 73 people have died in India since Friday amid flooding and a landslide linked to heavy rains in two states in the country’s east, disaster management officials said. Thousands of people have taken refuge in relief camps and medical camps in West Bengal, the most severely affected state, said Arnab Chatterjee of the West Bengal Department of Disaster Management. Almost 700 emergency workers have been deployed across the affected areas, Mr. Chatterjee said The crisis in West Bengal was complicated by the need to discharge water from reservoirs overwhelmed by the rain, said Surjeet Singh Guleria, deputy inspector general of operations at the National Disaster Response Force. Farther east, in Manipur State, at least four people died and five were missing in a landslide caused by rain in Chandila district, Mr. Guleria said. Floods in India occur frequently during the monsoon season, which runs roughly from June to September. In June, 41 people were killed after unexpected rain caused severe flooding in the western state of Gujarat.

Flood
India
Monsoon
West Bengal
Manipur State India
Emergency Response and Preparedness
Fatalities,casualties


Guard Awarded $850,000 Over Sexual Harassment

Abstract: The New York State Division of Human Rights awarded a lesbian prison guard $850,000 yesterday after an administrative law judge determined she had been subjected to a “relentless, daily regimen of mental and physical threats” by a co-worker at an upstate prison. The award, one of the largest by the state agency in years, also included provisions to establish a new training program in the state prison system to prevent unlawful discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation. The prison guard, Alicia S. Humig, 55, first filed a complaint with the state agency in March 2003, claiming that for nearly a year Jim Wright, a fellow officer at the Wende state prison in Alden, N.Y., had been harassing her for being gay. Public hearings were held last year, and in September the administrative judge, Martin Erazo Jr., issued an opinion recommending damages for mental anguish and called Officer Humig’s case one that “shocks the conscience.” “This case reflects the most disturbing nightmare that any employee could find herself in,” he wrote. The State Department of Correctional Services “willfully permitted a work environment to flourish where the credible evidence showed” that Officer Humig “could have been killed because she is a gay female.” The corrections department, Judge Erazo wrote, “took the willful and deliberate position to ignore the obvious harassment.” Moreover, he said, prison officials “twice retaliated” when Officer Humig “placed her plea for help in writing.” Kumiki Gibson, the commissioner of the human rights division, said: “The law requires employers to respond, but here they neither responded nor prevented. In fact, they became complicit, a partner in crime.” Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the corrections department, said it planned to appeal the ruling because officials believed the award was “excessive.” Mr. Kriss added that under departmental regulations officials had done all they could do by placing Officer Wright, who still works at the prison, in counseling. Officer Humig, who still works as a prison guard at Wende, in Erie County, started there in 1983. She was the only female officer on what is known as D block and, according to the judge’s opinion, was widely known to be gay. Her problems, the opinion said, began in July 2002 when Officer Wright accused her of having an “improper relationship” with a male inmate and asked his supervisor to remove the inmate from her control. When Officer Humig challenged the allegations, Officer Wright began to abuse her with obscene insults about her sexual orientation on “a daily basis,” the opinion said. Around the same time, offensive comments began to appear on a staff calendar in a common work area. At one point, someone wrote, “the lesbian’s on vacation,” on the calendar. It was Officer Wright’s handwriting, the opinion said. That same month, someone drew a series of penises on a photograph of Officer Humig’s motorcycle that hung with pictures of other motorcycles in the common work area. Each penis had the name of a male inmate at the prison, the opinion said. Several times, the opinion said, the insults and abuse took place in front of inmates, making her vulnerable, as her authority was challenged. In September 2002, Officer Humig filed a written complaint with prison officials, but it was ignored, the opinion said. Four months later, the corrections department’s Office of Diversity Management conducted an investigation, after which Officer Wright was given counseling. Despite the counseling, “Wright continued to verbally harass and humiliate” Officer Humig, the opinion said. After another written complaint was filed in June 2003, a supervisor ordered a search of Officer Humig’s locker, the opinion said. At the public hearings last year, Officer Humig testified that she was in fear for her life. In his opinion, the judge wrote that her demeanor “reflected terror.” Officer Humig was so distraught, Judge Erazo wrote, that “she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat” and was up all night with nosebleeds. She suffered from insomnia and headaches and was found by a psychotherapist to have “adjustment disorder with depressive mood.”

Sexual Harassment
Discrimination
Homosexuality


Illinois: Prison Sought for Rod Blagojevich

Abstract: Rod R. Blagojevich , the former governor convicted of trying to sell or trade the Senate seat once held by President Obama, should go to prison for 15 to 20 years, federal prosecutors said in legal papers filed Wednesday. Lawyers for Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat convicted of 18 corruption-related counts, have indicated they will seek probation when a judge sentences him next week. Mr. Blagojevich is the second consecutive Illinois governor to face prison; George Ryan, his predecessor and a Republican, is serving a corruption sentence. In their filing, prosecutors wrote, “On the heels of one corrupt governor and after running on a campaign to end ‘pay-to-play,’ Blagojevich took office and immediately began plotting with others to use the office of the governor for his personal gain through fraud, bribery and extortion.”

Illinois
Senate
Blagojevich Rod R
Frauds and Swindling
Extortion and Blackmail


China Keeps Up Pressure on Japan Over Disputed Islands With Patrols

Abstract: TOKYO — Chinese patrol ships entered waters around a disputed island group in the East China Sea for a 14th straight day on Friday, in what analysts here called a sign that China had embarked on what appeared to be a new, long-term strategy for challenging Japan ’s control of the islands. While Chinese ships have sailed near the islands before, this is the first time since a recent flare-up began that they have plied the waters so consistently. Analysts say that suggests China is trying to wear down Japan’s resolve in the dispute, and possibly even trying to chip away at Japan’s claim of having effective control over the uninhabited islands established in part by its own maritime patrols. “This is the beginning of a war of patience, a war of attrition,” said Kunihiko Miyake, research director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo. “This promises to be a long, long showdown in which China tries not to provoke Japan, but instead to discourage Japan from continuing to try to control those islands.” The Japanese Coast Guard said that on Friday six Chinese ships — four belonging to a maritime surveillance agency and two fisheries patrol ships — had entered waters claimed by Japan near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese. The coast guard said Japanese cutters intercepted the vessels, warning them by radio to leave. The Chinese ships responded via radio that they were “carrying out valid operations in Chinese waters,” according to the coast guard. It said the Chinese ships stayed for about two hours, coming as close as 14 miles to the largest island, Uotsuri, just outside the 12-mile territorial limit but well within the broader zone of economic control claimed by Japan. Tensions over the islands intensified in recent months as the Japanese government announced it planned to buy three of the islands still owned by a Japanese citizen. While Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan said he had made the purchase to prevent the islands from falling into the hands of Tokyo’s nationalist governor, China reacted with anger at the move, which it viewed as upsetting an uneasy status quo in which each side had avoided provoking the other. The Japanese government’s decision touched off angry street demonstrations in China in which Japanese businesses were ransacked and burned, and a continuing informal boycott of Japanese goods has helped depress Japan’s overall trade performance and its gross domestic product numbers. While the Chinese government eventually clamped down on the protests, it has kept up the ship visits. Japan has responded by dispatching dozens of coast guard vessels to waters near the islands, where they are on the lookout for paramilitary ships and fishing boats from China as well as from Taiwan, which also claims the islands. An economic stimulus package approved by Parliament last week will strengthen the coast guard by speeding up procurement of helicopters and seven more patrol ships. Such a show of resolve has been uncharacteristic for confrontation-averse Japan, and taken in combination with the latest dispatch of Chinese ships has led some analysts and former diplomats to warn that the current standoff could drag on for some time. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, refused to say how long China would send its ships into waters around the islands. However, he said the Chinese surveillance ships were “completely justified,” describing their maneuvers as “a normal part of their duty” in overseeing China’s sovereign interests. China also appears to be ratcheting up pressure by broadening its effort to use current and former senior officials to make China’s case to the world. In a speech in Hong Kong this week, Chen Jian, China’s former ambassador to Japan, took aim at the United States, saying its support of its ally Japan was encouraging what he called a return of Japanese militarism. Other Chinese officials and news media have taken a similar view, blaming a swing in Japan to the nationalist right for the tensions. However, analysts in Tokyo, and some in the United States, say China has seized upon Japan’s purchase of the islands as a pretext for pressing its longstanding claims. They said that the continuing Chinese pressure has seemed to confirm a growing sense of Japanese insecurity over China’s rising economic and military presence in the region, as well as the relative decline of both itself and its longtime protector, the United States. That nervousness has made Japan more willing to push back. “It is disingenuous to claim the Japanese caused this problem,” said Kevin Maher, a former United States diplomat in Japan who is now a senior adviser at NMV Consulting, based in New York. “But this has been an eye-opening experience for people in Japan to see that the security environment in East Asia can be a dangerous place.” Japan’s anxieties have also provided at least some opportunity for a small but vocal group of nationalists like Tokyo’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara, whom many in Japan blame for starting the current flare-up with China by proclaiming in the spring that he would buy the islands. Analysts said it was unlikely that China would go as far as attempting a forceful takeover of the islands. Rather, said Mr. Maher, the goal may be to try to undermine Japan’s claims under international law that it wields effective control over them, while building a legal basis for making similar claims of its own. China’s motives appear to be partly economic: the Chinese economy’s hunger for the petroleum and natural gas that scientists believe lie under the ocean floor surrounding the islands. Analysts also cited a Chinese desire for payback for Japan’s brutal World War II -era invasion of China. China says Japan seized the islands from China in 1895 as a first step toward Japan’s empire-building in Asia. Japan says it annexed islands that were not claimed by any nation. The analysts said China may also have a military motive in claiming the islands, which sit in waters between China and Okinawa that the Chinese military would seek to control in the event of any conflict. By deploying paramilitary ships, analysts said, both nations were being careful not to call in their navies, in order to avoid a dangerous escalation. Still, Japanese Coast Guard ships and many of China’s surveillance ships are armed, leading to concerns that a miscalculation or human error by a single sailor could touch off a violent confrontation. The United States has so far taken a neutral position on sovereignty over the islands, though it has said any Chinese attack on the islands would fall under the treaty under which it is bound to defend Japan. Mr. Maher said the United States should take a more active role by telling China to stop the pressure tactics. “The Chinese are using intimidation and threat of force against our closest ally in the region,” Mr. Maher said, “and this is not something that the U.S. should be neutral about.”

China
Japan
East China Sea
Senkaku Islands
Defense and Military Forces