Thinking Outside the Box by Moving Into One

Abstract: OAKLAND, Calif. — This summer, the median rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco’s cityscape of peaked Victorians soared higher than Manhattan’s, sent skyward by a housing shortage fueled in part by the arrival of droves of newcomers here to mine tech gold. And so, as the story of such cities goes, the priced-out move outward — in New York City, to Brooklyn and, increasingly, to Queens. For San Franciscans, the rent refuge is here in Oakland, where the rates are increasing as well — so much so that young professionals are living in repurposed shipping containers while the homeless are lugging around coffinlike sleeping boxes on wheels. These two improvised housing arrangements have emerged in an industrial pocket of Oakland where the median rent has gone up by 20 percent over the past year. One, in a warehouse, is called Containertopia, a community of young people who have set up a village of 160-square-foot shipping containers like ones used in the Port of Oakland. Each resident pays $600 a month to live in a container, which can be modified with things like insulation, glass doors, electrical outlets, solar panels and a self-contained shower and toilet. Containertopia was started last year by Luke Iseman, 32, and Heather Stewart, 30, who were then a couple. For Mr. Iseman, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and works in technology — most recently developing automated systems for watering plants — container living has been a social experiment in stripping down to the basics, one that he hopes to teach others to replicate. Image Heather Stewart at Containertopia in Oakland, Calif. Ms. Stewart created Containertopia, a village of 160-square-foot shipping containers, with Luke Iseman. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times “If we can do it in one of the highest-cost places in the world,” he said, “people can do this anywhere.” Just outside the warehouse doors is another community, residing, too, in containers of a sort. Here, the homeless live in dwellings made by a local artist named Gregory Kloehn, set on wheels and made for the streets. Each is about eight feet long and tall enough for a person to sit up in. “It doesn’t fit our mind-set of what a home is,” said Mr. Kloehn, 44, who began creating and giving away the portable homes, which are made of recycled material, in 2011. Oakland has about 3,000 homeless people, according to the East Oakland Community Project , a nonprofit organization that helps house people who live on the street; San Francisco has about 6,700. Mr. Kloehn has made about 40 of the cheerily painted rolling boxes, coaxing people to leave their cardboard or tarp shanties on the streets. “In this city, with all its money, within it there is another layer: these nomadic people who are living off our garbage,” he said. Image Gregory Kloehn, an artist, uses recycled materials to build containers, about eight feet long and on wheels, that people can live in. He gives them away to homeless people in Oakland, Calif. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times Containertopia and Mr. Kloehn’s mobile shelters draw from the tiny house movement, a shift to a more ascetic way of living that has inspired entire microhome villages in places like Olympia, Wash., and Madison, Wis., as well as isolated examples in countless backyards. Such residences are embraced by the ecologically and social-justice minded, but are often fought by local governments; they often do not comply with building codes or are plopped in areas where they should not be. But that is where the similarities between the homeless dwellings and the shipping containers end. Though they are on the same block, they are worlds apart. Ms. Stewart and Mr. Iseman initially set Containertopia in an abandoned lot in the area, which they purchased for $425,000 with several friends. They were forced out this spring after neighbors complained. (The lot is not zoned for residences; for now, the owners grow vegetables there while they decide what to do with it.) Then, with 12 of their friends and a forklift, Mr. Iseman and Ms. Stewart moved the container homes indoors to a warehouse. Mr. Iseman’s container, painted azure inside, cost about $12,000 to make habitable, with a lofted bed and a picture window carved into one flank. Ms. Stewart is still at work on hers, spackling drywall and carving a kitchen countertop from a redwood board she milled from a giant trunk. The shift from house to container dwelling has made them reprioritize almost everything. Ms. Stewart quit her job in digital design to manage Containertopia and sold most of her possessions. Image Norris Reed with his tiny home in Oakland, Calif., created by the artist Gregory Kloehn. The fireplace is the door. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times “I can work an office job and pay my rent every month and be stressed about not being able to do anything else, or I can live in a ridiculous warehouse,” she said. “The choice is obvious.” Mr. Kloehn, the artist, is best known for his own container home , a Dumpster turned studio apartment on the lot of an arts collective in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where he spends part of the year. His other home is a studio in Oakland in the same industrial neighborhood as Containertopia. Several years ago, Mr. Kloehn became fascinated with how homeless people appropriated what few resources they had — namely, other people’s trash — to create shelters. He decided to do the same, cobbling the small dwellings together with an artist’s skill. “I’m just kind of ripping a page from the homeless people’s books,” he said. “They’ve been making homes out of this stuff for a long time.” Another artist, Elvis Summers, started making similar tiny homes for the homeless around Los Angeles. But that city determined those homes were illegal; many of the structures were moved onto private property before sanitation workers could remove them from the streets. Image Gregory Kloehn with one of his “tiny house” creations in Oakland, Calif., for people “who are living off our garbage.” Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times Mr. Kloehn says that cracking down on the boxes is misguided. If the box homes were banned, “would they be in an apartment?” he asked of the dwellers. “Would they be in a condo? Or would they be nowhere?” In Oakland, the portable houses have been largely tolerated. Several residents said they were occasionally asked by the police to wheel them elsewhere, but were otherwise left alone. A block from Mr. Kloehn’s studio, and around the corner from Containertopia, sits one of his homes for the homeless, brightly colored with a trompe l’oeil paint job that makes it look like a microsize suburban home. “This house is a blessing,” the woman living in it said. She declined to give her name because she said she was ashamed she lived on the streets, having once had a steady job and a real home. She added, “This is my way of trying to get back to how I used to be.”

Rent
San Francisco
Housing
Homelessness
Zoning
Real Estate
Oakland CA
Waste management


Ohio State Quarterback Is Suspended After Arrest

Abstract: One week after winning back the starting job, Ohio State quarterback J. T. Barrett, a redshirt sophomore and a team captain, was cited Saturday morning by the Columbus police on a charge of operating a vehicle under the influence, a misdemeanor. Barrett was suspended for one game by Coach Urban Meyer. The incident, reported by the website Eleven Warriors, was confirmed in a statement Saturday morning by Ohio State’s athletics department. Multiple news outlets have reported that Barrett, 20, was arrested at a checkpoint near campus and that his blood-alcohol concentration registered slightly over Ohio’s limit of 0.08 percent for those over 21. However, the limit is 0.02 percent for those under 21. Under athletics department rules, Barrett will be tested for alcohol regularly, and if he again violates departmental policy, he will be subject to a mandatory two-game suspension. Barrett was thrust into the starting job last year when the presumed starter, Braxton Miller, sustained a season-ending injury during the summer. Barrett led Ohio State to an 11-1 record before breaking his ankle in the final game of the regular season. At that point, Cardale Jones, now a redshirt junior, took over and helped the team go 3-0 en route to the national championship. Jones held onto the starting job until Meyer announced that Barrett would start on Oct. 24 at Rutgers. No. 1 Ohio State (8-0, 4-0 Big Ten) did not play this weekend. Its next game is against Minnesota on Nov. 7.

Ohio State
J. T. Barrett
College football
Driving Under the Influence DUI
Sobriety Tests


Smooth Start to Latest Space Mission

Abstract: A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian, an American and a Dutchman to the International Space Station blasted off from Russia’s launching facility in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. Oleg Kononenko, the mission commander, and his colleagues, Don Pettit of the United States and Andrew Kuipers of the European Space Agency, are to dock with the space station on Friday. The launching took place without any problems, and the spacecraft reached orbit about nine minutes later. Russia’s space program has provided the only way for crew members to reach the space station since the United States retired its space shuttle program in July.

Space
Russia
International Space Station
Kazakhstan
United States
Soyuz Project
Kononenko Oleg
Pettit Don
Kuipers Andrew


In California, Even the I.O.U’s Are Owed

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — The only thing worse than being issued an i.o.u. rather than a check from the State of California may be not getting the i.o.u. at all — at least in time to meet the deadline of your bank. But across California on Tuesday, many vendors who had been told they would receive the i.o.u.’s instead of actual money said they had not yet received them. And if they do not arrive soon, they may be hard to turn into cash. Last week, the state began issuing the warrants for the second time since the Great Depression . It ran out of cash to pay its bills as the Legislature and the governor failed to resolve the state’s $26 billion budget deficit. Millions of dollars in i.o.u.’s, known as registered warrants, began rolling off the controller’s presses in lieu of checks to pay taxpayers, vendors and local governments. The warrants offer a 3.75 percent interest rate when they mature in October. In most cases, banks around the state have agreed to honor the warrants only until Friday, in hopes that the deadline will prompt lawmakers to reach an agreement. As of Tuesday, 71,810 warrants to the tune of $108 million had been printed, but many had not yet been received. “We are out of cash now,” said Carlos Flores, the executive director of the San Diego Regional Center, which provides services to Californians with developmental disabilities. The center is awaiting a $12 million warrant. “I can pay my staff next paycheck, and that’s it,” Mr. Flores said. Other state contractors who provide services to the disabled had similar stories. Mark Berger, the chief executive of Partnerships With Industry, which offers job placement and training for the same type of clients, said he, too, had yet to get a warrant. “I haven’t heard of anybody who has received one,” Mr. Berger said. Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, said he had yet to learn of a college that received the warrant in lieu of the state education grants. “My expectation is that they will get them next week,” Mr. Brown said. “That is a real problem because colleges and universities have cash flow needs at this time of year and usually use a line of credit to cover their expenses, and then fill that credit line up with tuition revenues.” The majority of banks have been clear that they will not take the warrants after July 10. Banks “do not wish to facilitate the lack of resolution of the budget deficit by basically providing this accommodation for an extended period of time,” said Rod Brown, chief executive of the California Bankers Association. “California must become more fiscally responsible.” Garin Casaleggio, a spokesman for the state controller, said that warrants were issued as bills became due, and that not every vendor would be issued paper immediately. People expecting money from the state who do not get a warrant by Friday have three choices. They can try to find an alternative bank or credit union willing to deal with someone who is not a customer, they can hold the warrant until it matures and collect the interest, or they can try their luck in secondary markets, where some people are already seeking to buy i.o.u.’s at a discount. Because of a proliferation of potential customers on Craigslist and other Web sites, like BuyMyIOU.com , the California treasurer, Bill Lockyer, said Monday that his office would not redeem i.o.u.’s held by third parties unless they were accompanied by a notarized bill of sale. Of course, it is not clear how attractive a piece of California’s debt would be to investors. On Monday, Fitch Ratings downgraded California’s long-term bond rating to BBB from A-, only two notches from junk-bond status, citing the state’s continuing budget drama. Matt Fabian, managing director of Municipal Market Advisors, said that general obligation bonds had the full faith and credit of the state behind them, but that i.o.u.’s had a lesser guarantee.


Eli Paperboy Reed Lifts Young Voices in the Gospel Spirit

Abstract: There was a moment in Eli Paperboy Reed’s gospel quartet class recently, at the end of Blind Willie Johnson’s plaintive “ Let Your Light Shine on Me, ” when Asher Bethune, a reserved 19-year-old, hit a note so low, so unexpectedly, that the other students jumped and shouted. No one had heard Mr. Bethune sing like that before. Luke Waldron, 17, declared the presence of the supernatural. “He’s in this room!” he shouted. Mr. Reed, the teacher, beamed and shook his head. Quartet singing will do that to a person, he knew. It had done things to him. Mr. Reed’s journey to the Harlem townhouse where the group meets includes some familiar chapters of America’s musical narrative: a start in the juke joints around Clarksdale, Miss., where he got the nickname Paperboy because of a cap he wore; then up north to Chicago, where he played piano and sang in a church on the South Side; then east to New York. But some twists along the way are distinctly Mr. Reed’s: a Reform Jewish upbringing and bar mitzvah in Brookline, Mass.; studies at the University of Chicago; a couple of Nike and Toyota commercials; and the divine intervention of a free-market think tank. In the classroom, Mr. Reed, 32, exhorted the students to cut loose. “I want you to get out of your comfort zone on this,” he said, growling a line to demonstrate. “I want a sense of urgency. If you can fake it, you can do it for real.” The words could serve as a motto for his own sojourn. In 2013, Mr. Reed, whose real name is Eli Husock, received a call from his father, Howard Husock, about a free after-school program called Gospel for Teens , held inside a renovated brownstone on West 126th Street. Like his son, Howard Husock has had a varied career journey, writing about blues and soul music for The Boston Phoenix and Creem magazine in the 1970s, then becoming a vice president at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research , which promotes free-market capitalist principles. The institute was considering Gospel for Teens for a social entrepreneurship award ; did Eli want to join his father for a visit? Image A gospel quartet class for teenage boys in Harlem taught by Eli Paperboy Reed, right. “I would leave just completely energized by the kids,” Mr. Reed said. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times At the time, Mr. Reed’s career seemed about to take off. He had finished recording an album of pop soul songs for Warner Bros. Records; even before release, songs were being licensed for use in commercials for Nike and Toyota, as well as in movie and television soundtracks. Of course he wanted to join his father, he said. His timing was fortuitous, said Vy Higginsen , executive director of the Mama Foundation for the Arts, which runs the Gospel for Teens program. “We needed something special for the young men,” she said. “We thought young black men were in danger, and we wanted to give them some extra attention.” Mr. Reed had a proposition: How about a class in gospel quartet singing, the music that produced stars like Wilson Pickett and Sam Cooke? The school had strong choir programs, but quartet singing is something different — flashier and looser, with more male sex appeal. “I said, I’ll do it, I’ll be around, let’s make it happen,” Mr. Reed said. “So now it’s three years.” As Mr. Husock remembered the meeting, his son sat at the piano and belted out an old Alex Bradford song. “I’ve seen him in a lot of black churches, and the reaction is always the same,” Mr. Husock, 65, said. “First, people are dumbfounded. Then they’re blown away by his voice. In that instant, he formed a bond with Vy Higginsen.” Mr. Reed placed the students — just a few that first year, gradually growing to eight — on the front stoop and on street corners to sing songs from a tradition their parents may be too young to remember. Luke Waldron, now in his third year, said he was “kind of skeptical” the first time he met Mr. Reed. “I stayed quiet and shy,” he said. “I had to feel him out. But our relationship over time has become extremely close. He’s increased my confidence.” Image Mr. Reed teaches students to explore their full vocal range. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times In contrast to the choir teachers, who expected Luke to hit the notes as written, Mr. Reed encouraged him to use his full range and bend the song to his emotions. “He will take risks,” Luke said of his teacher. “He says in quartet music, there’s no reason for holding back. Have confidence in your voices. Don’t be afraid of messing up.” Mr. Reed did not anticipate what happened next. Turnover at Warner Bros. left his album orphaned. The label dropped him. The weekly gospel quartet class, which he had expected to squeeze between tours — and for which he refused compensation, Ms. Higginsen said — was suddenly his only musical outlet. “I was really down,” he said. “I’d be at home, not touring, not recording, not really writing. And then on Fridays I would come here and I would leave just completely energized by the kids and the music we were making. I would definitely think, ‘Man, I don’t want to go all the way up there, it takes me an hour and a half to get there from Brooklyn.’ Then I’d say, ‘No, I’m gonna do it, these kids are depending on me.’ And by the end of it I was just so stoked about all of it, and stoked about music.” If he was discouraged, he did not show the students, said Stephen Pedley, 17. “He had this swagger about him,” Stephen said. “From the first class, he’s the same Eli.” Last year, Mr. Reed started writing songs again, this time in an explicitly gospel vein, and recorded them using his own money, for an album, “My Way Home,” scheduled to come out in June. For Mr. Reed, the evolution has felt natural. “I don’t think you have to necessarily embrace every particular word of the song or the scripture to enjoy the beauty and joy that the music creates,” he said. “In the other churches I’ve played in and the gospel groups I’ve been in, people have been very accepting of me. It hasn’t been an issue. I find that the black church is one of the most open and accepting places that I’ve ever encountered in my whole life.” Image Mr. Reed’s albums include “Come and Get It”; a new one, “My Way Home,” is scheduled to come out in June. One of his mentors, the gospel and soul singer Roscoe Robinson, 87, said he was not surprised by the overtly Christian messages in Mr. Reed’s new songs. “I think he’s a Christian person,” Mr. Robinson said, from his home in Birmingham, Ala. “I really think he knows the Lord.” In the weeks after Asher Bethune hit his low note, he was still marveling at the sound that had come from his body. For Asher, a freshman at Concordia College in Bronxville, the religious content was the heart of the music. Something bigger than him must have guided that note, he said. “I was taught that we should let the spirit lead you when you’re singing,” Asher said. “When I hit that note, that came from my soul and my heart. I didn’t know it was there.” Ms. Higginsen said she hears the same spirit in Mr. Reed’s music and tutelage. “The common thread is the dedication and joy in good music,” she said, “and to serve as real role models and say, O.K., we understand that making music is more than making a record or making money, that somehow the music is therapeutic.” “It’s an end to itself,” Mr. Reed said. “So whether you decide to pursue a music career or be a veterinarian, it really doesn’t matter,” Ms. Higginsen said. “When you take the music with you, you’re taking your own therapy with you.” The class finished with a slinky gospel song called “ Don’t Let the Devil Ride ,” with Mr. Reed taking lead on the last verse, pushing it as hard as he could, until the students raced through the final vamp. Class was over; needs had been met. Mr. Reed packed up his guitar and headed home, spirits high.

Eli Paperboy Reed
Harlem
Music
Youth
Black People,African-Americans
Gospel music


Drought-Driven Voters Vent Anger Over Farm Bill

Abstract: THURMAN, Iowa — John Askew pulled at a soybean pod and revealed two anemic beans dappled with stem rot, the harvest of a too hot sun and too little rain. Representative Tom Latham peered in and shook his head. “We need a farm bill — that’s the first thing,” said Mr. Askew, whose family has farmed here for six generations. Mr. Latham, a Republican, agrees. But House leaders, including Speaker John A. Boehner, who popped into Iowa on Friday night to promote Mr. Latham’s re-election campaign, have been unable to muster the votes. A summer drought that has destroyed crops, killed livestock and sent feed prices soaring is now extracting a political price from members of Congress, who failed to agree on a comprehensive agriculture bill or even limited emergency relief before leaving Washington for five weeks. Farmers are complaining loudly to their representatives, editorial boards across the heartland are hammering Congress over its inaction, and incumbents from both parties are sparring with their challengers over agricultural policy. In Minnesota, Senator Amy Klobuchar and her Republican Party-endorsed opponent, Kurt Bills, disagreed sharply in their first face-to-face debate over what a farm bill should contain. In Missouri, Senator Claire McCaskill and her Republican challenger, Representative Todd Akin, defended their positions before the state farm bureau’s political unit. Representative Leonard L. Boswell, Mr. Latham’s Democratic opponent in a newly drawn district, said, “Every time I get out there, people keep asking me: ‘What happened to the farm bill? Why don’t we have a farm bill?’ ” In Arkansas, the Democratic Party paid for an automated call by a farmer imploring rural voters to pester Representative Rick Crawford, a Republican, about the unfinished farm business. Representative Kristi Noem, Republican of South Dakota, took heat back home for backing away from a petition sponsored by Democrats that would have forced the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill to the floor. “We would have much preferred they pass the House bill,” said Michael Held, the chief executive of the South Dakota Farm Bureau. “I think the attitude here is this is typical Washington, D.C., not getting its work done.” With a quarter of the country experiencing an exceptionally severe drought that is expected only to deepen, with the government projecting that much of the spring’s record corn planting will wither away, with significant damage to soybean and wheat crops and with prices for feed at record levels, farmers and ranchers are increasingly anxious about the gridlock in Washington. “I am tired of our leaders doing nothing,” Mr. Askew said. President Obama will begin a tour of this drought-hit state on Monday, an unusual amount of attention that underscores Iowa’s swing-state status. Mitt Romney visited Des Moines last week and addressed the drought. While the most recently enacted farm bill will not expire until next month, disaster relief that would have helped some livestock producers cope with the high costs of feed and fodder lapsed last week. And with big disagreements in Congress over proposals to overhaul insurance and other provisions, farmers are finding it difficult to plan for any recovery in the next growing season. Farm policy bills, which typically come up for renewal every five years, are usually built to attract bipartisan support by combining subsidies for farmers with allotments for food stamps and other nutrition programs that appeal to urban lawmakers. But in a dynamic that has roiled the 112th Congress, this year’s farm bill was unlike any before it. While the House Agriculture Committee signed off on a measure , its substantial cuts to food programs alienated too many Democrats. And its cuts to those programs, as well as to some forms of farm aid, were not enough to appease the chamber’s most conservative members. Republican leaders were unable to muster enough support for even a one-year extension of the law and instead passed a short-term drought-relief measure, the first time the House has failed to bring its own farm bill to the floor. The Senate, which had passed its own version by a healthy bipartisan margin, declined to take up the short-term House bill, and Congress left town in a stalemate. The differences over food stamps are among the most profound facing this Congress, as the costs of nutritional programs have been growing rapidly and account for about $80 billion in annual spending. The Senate’s farm bill would cut $4.5 billion, and the House’s version $16.5 billion. Representative Paul D. Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman and newly anointed vice-presidential candidate, has recommended cutting $134 billion from food stamps over the next decade and turning the program into block grants to the states. Over the years, he has run up a complex record on farm programs, with votes for and against various bills, but has generally remained skeptical of subsidies and favorable toward fundamental changes. Mr. Ryan is also scheduled to visit Iowa on Monday. In the new Third Congressional District in central Iowa — a long stretch divided roughly equally among Republicans, Democrats and independents — the farm bill debacle leaves Mr. Boswell and Mr. Latham, both senior incumbents, in tricky spots as they fight for their political survival. Many voters clearly want a bill that would provide ample crop insurance for farmers but scale back nutrition programs. On the other hand, plenty of voters in an area like Des Moines support a robust food stamp program. Some, like Mr. Askew, whose wife volunteers in a food bank, want both. But having both is not what this Congress is about. “I would like to see a farm bill on the floor, I really would,” Mr. Latham said. “I think you can find a sweet spot on food stamps and farm programs. Spending is an issue to people in this district, but there is also an understanding that people are in need.” Mr. Boswell, who is a member of the Agriculture Committee, counters that Mr. Latham should press Mr. Boehner to push Republicans to take up the bill. “Mr. Latham is such a buddy with Mr. Boehner,” he said, “why doesn’t he tell him to bring the bill to the floor?” In this and other breadbasket states, members of each party are quick to deflect blame to the other side for the impasse. “This bill is being held up by the same people who held up the debt ceiling last year,” said Bob Kerrey, who is seeking to regain a Senate seat he once held in Nebraska, where he joined Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Friday for a drought meeting and news conference. “They don’t want a farm bill.” Republicans counter that Democrats should accept a short-term fix until the broader issues can be ironed out. “You know the president — he’s going to be here in a couple of days,” Mr. Boehner said at a fund-raiser for Mr. Latham. “Some of you might want to remind him when he comes that the House passed a bill last week to help those in the livestock industry.” While some editorial boards have saved their wrath for Mr. Boehner or Democrats, many have simply denounced the entire process. Criticizing the Congressional recess, The Times Record News of Wichita Falls, Tex., wrote last week : “Emergency aid for ranchers and farmers was left on the table. Each side of the aisle blames the other, but the finger-pointing gives little relief to our own Texas ranchers and farmers.” With little relief in sight on either the legislative or meteorological front, farmers are at the mercy of the whims of August. “We had five inches of rain the other day,” said Derryl McLaren, a corn and soybean farmer who met with Mr. Latham at a farm bureau not far from here on Friday. “And it’s all gone to hell anyway.”

Drought
Iowa
Agriculture and Farming
Farm Bill (US)
United States Politics and Government
Series
In Full Swing (Series)


Chávez Appears to Use Venezuelan Fuel to Help Syrian Leader

Abstract: CARACAS, Venezuela — A day before the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn President Bashar al-Assad of Syria this month for his bloody crackdown on the uprising in his country, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela was conducting a very different kind of diplomacy on his own. A ship owned by the Venezuelan state oil company sailed into the Syrian port of Baniyas, its location captured by a satellite system that tracks ship movements. The ship, making its second trip to Baniyas since December, appeared to be carrying fuel to help prop up the embattled Mr. Assad. The Venezuelan shipment flies in the face of international efforts to isolate Mr. Assad and pressure him to step down, but Mr. Chávez is no stranger to such controversy. Last month, he played host to another Middle Eastern ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, ridiculing Western claims that Iran was seeking to be able to produce nuclear weapons. Still, Mr. Chávez is at the start of what could prove to be a difficult re-election campaign overshadowed by his battle with cancer , and the political equation here may be shifting. While provocative moves like oil shipments to Syria play well among Mr. Chávez’s staunchest backers, they may prove to be a liability among voters who resent his oil tanker diplomacy. The Venezuelan ship, the Negra Hipólita, arrived in the Syrian port on Feb. 15, according to John H. Paskin, the chief executive of Commodity Flow, a company based in London that compiles satellite data and other information to track the movement of ships. He said the ship left a Venezuelan refinery complex at Puerto La Cruz on Jan. 25. The Puerto La Cruz complex produces gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel components, according to the Web site of the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, known as P.D.V.S.A. Mr. Paskin said the tracking data showed that the ship made a previous trip to Syria last fall, leaving a Venezuelan refinery complex on the Paraguaná Peninsula on Oct. 15 and arriving at Baniyas on Dec. 1. The ship is named after a slave who was a wet nurse and nanny to Simón Bolívar, the national hero, whom Mr. Chávez idolizes. A Venezuelan shipping broker said the shipment, first reported by Reuters, probably carried diesel and possibly other types of fuel. Asked about the shipments and whether the fuel delivered could be used by Syria’s military, Mr. Chávez answered by referring to his country’s oil shipments to the United States, Venezuela’s largest customer. “Have we by any chance asked the United States what it does with the fuel we sell to the United States?” he said in an exchange with reporters at the presidential palace last week. “Have we by any chance allowed anyone to impose conditions on our sale of petroleum to the United States?” He said that the answer was no and added, “We are a free country.” William A. Ostick, a State Department spokesman, said that American or European sanctions did not prohibit shipments of fuel to Syria. “We continue to work with the friends of the Syrian people to increase pressure on the Assad regime to get him to step down,” Mr. Ostick said. Venezuela has some of the world’s largest oil reserves, and Mr. Chávez has benefited from the high price of oil as he uses petroleum revenues to finance social programs at home. He has also used oil aggressively to promote his interests abroad. He has helped prop up the debilitated Cuban economy through shipments of oil in exchange for doctors to staff Venezuelan clinics and for other aid. China has become a major buyer of Venezuelan oil, and loans and investments have followed. Venezuela has backed isolated Middle Eastern governments before, sending a gasoline blending component to Iran in late 2010 and early 2011, action that drew a rebuke from the United States. In supporting autocratic governments in the Middle East, Mr. Chávez has portrayed them as the victims of imperialist aggression. He sounds the same message at home, and it is carried daily on state media: Mr. Chávez as a champion standing up to the bullying of the United States. Such views resonate with Mr. Chávez’s followers. “The United States wants to impose a new hegemony,” said Pedro Correa, 56, an industrial draftsman from Santa Teresa del Tuy, a city about an hour’s drive south of central Caracas, who supports Mr. Chávez. But many Venezuelans who oppose Mr. Chávez are quick to voice resentment of his petro-diplomacy, especially the generous deal with Cuba. “He gave our riches away to other countries,” said Carlos Cedeño, 55, a driver for a concrete company in Maracay. He supports Mr. Chávez’s opponent in the presidential election this year, Henrique Capriles Radonski.

Venezuela
Syria
Chavez Hugo
Assad Bashar Al-
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Embargoes and Economic Sanctions


In U.S. Soccer, Klinsmann Will Find There Are No Points for Style

Abstract: When Jurgen Klinsmann makes his debut as the coach of the United States men’s soccer team in a friendly game against Mexico on Wednesday in Philadelphia, he will be closely watched by American fans with high expectations based on his impressive résumé. Klinsmann, who replaced Bob Bradley late last month, was a top-level player for Germany’s national team as well as for top clubs in England, Italy and Germany. As a coach, he led Germany to third place in the 2006 World Cup. But some of his remarks as he assumed his new position gave some reason for concern. “One of my challenges will be to find a way to define how the U.S. represents its country and its style of play,” he said. “I’ve played in different countries, and they all have their own identities and style. I believe that soccer has to reflect the culture of the country. I’ve studied the U.S. the last 13 years, and it’s going to be quite a challenge.” He is not kidding. “American culture” is a concept that defies easy explanation or understanding. Sometimes called a melting pot or a salad bowl, the United States is multicultural. With 310 million people who have roots from around the world, leading social scientists would be hard-pressed to identify one American culture, much less apply it to a soccer team. As a nation of immigrants, the origins and identity of one’s ancestors are a key part of American culture, which sets up a sort of impossible loop for Klinsmann to try to navigate. Consider that the squad Klinsmann named to face Mexico features players whose families are from Germany, Mexico, Nigeria, Ghana, Colombia and Jamaica, as well as from Texas, California and New York. Rather than look to culture, Klinsmann should pay more attention to philosophy. One homegrown tradition from the United States is pragmatism, which is focused on what works. Klinsmann, who has lived here for 13 years, apparently understands American pragmatism. Like generations of immigrants, Klinsmann has changed the spelling of his name, dropping the umlaut that appears over the u in his given name and eschewing the use of “ue” as a replacement. Why? “It’s just easier that way,” he said. Pragmatism was aptly summarized in the context of American football by the motto of Al Davis, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, “Just win, baby.” When the United States hockey team knocked off the mighty Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics, that victory immediately became a part of the hard-to-define American culture. The previous Olympic hockey team had the same ragtag characteristics as the 1980 squad, but it failed to land a place in American culture because it finished fifth out of six teams in the 1976 Games. The United States soccer team will never be a squad of joga bonito or total football and will never exemplify the Barça style, each of which is readily associated with a specific national culture. Americans celebrate substance, not styles. We celebrate the 46 defense of the Chicago Bears, the four-corners and triangle offenses in basketball, and “moneyball” in baseball, not because these tactics are examples of American culture but because they worked. Or perhaps more accurately, they became a part of American culture because they led to success. So Jurgen Klinsmann should spend little time worrying about how to shape American soccer to American culture. Just win, baby, and you’ll become a part of it in no time.

Soccer
United States
Klinsmann Jurgen
World Cup (Soccer)
Bradley Bob


Trial Opens in Killing of Immigrant in Brooklyn

Abstract: A taxi driver testified on Tuesday that he had a clear view when an Ecuadorean immigrant was fatally beaten in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn — a killing that prosecutors said was motivated by hate. The driver, Davi Almonte, said he was waiting for a traffic light to change when he saw two Hispanic men walking and hugging each other. The next minute, he said, two other men who had pulled up in a sports utility vehicle attacked one of the Hispanic men, first with a bottle, then with their feet and finally with a bat. The bat was swung seven or eight times, and even with his windows rolled up, Mr. Almonte said, he “could hear the impacts” and finally had to stop watching. “I didn’t want to see his head bleeding or explode,” he explained. Mr. Almonte, whose testimony was translated from Spanish by an interpreter, was the first witness as the trial of two men charged with killing the immigrant, José O. Sucuzhañay, opened on Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said Mr. Sucuzhañay (pronounced suh-KOO-shen-y’eye) and his brother, Romel Sucuzhañay, who was not seriously hurt, were attacked because they were Hispanic and because the assailants were under the mistaken impression that they were gay. The two men on trial, Keith Phoenix, 30, and Hakim Scott, 26, have pleaded not guilty to charges including murder as a hate crime , and face up to life in prison if convicted. Prosecutors said Mr. Phoenix beat Mr. Sucuzhañay with the bat; he has said that he was defending himself because he thought Mr. Sucuzhañay was reaching for a weapon. The killing occurred on Dec. 7, 2008, barely a month after another Ecuadorean, Marcelo Lucero, was stabbed to death in Patchogue, N.Y., on Long Island; in that case, a jury found a teenager guilty of manslaughter as a hate crime on Monday afternoon. While Mr. Lucero’s killing was feared to be part of a pattern of anti-Hispanic violence in Suffolk County, the attack on Mr. Sucuzhañay was seen as a tragic setback in an increasingly multicultural pocket of Brooklyn. Condemnation from the city’s politicians came swiftly, and advocacy groups representing gays and Latinos quickly organized marches and vigils. The outrage only deepened after the arrests, when video footage was released showing Mr. Phoenix laughing in his car 19 minutes after the attack. Mr. Phoenix’s lawyer, Philip J. Smallman, suggested in his opening arguments on Tuesday morning that his client might simply have been involved in a late-night brawl among men who, by all accounts, had been partying. “Does anything good happen at 3 o’clock on a Sunday morning in 30-degree weather, with people with bellies full of booze?” Mr. Smallman asked. Craig Newman, Mr. Scott’s lawyer, said his client never intended to “seriously physically harm anyone.” “This was never about hate,” Mr. Newman said. “This was never about prejudice.” The trial is expected to last several weeks, with separate juries to weigh the evidence against Mr. Phoenix and Mr. Scott. Prosecutors are expected to introduce videotaped confessions by the two defendants, and to call several witnesses who watched the beating, including Mr. Phoenix’s cousin, who was 17 and in the car with the two men that night. Though there was no DNA or fingerprint evidence, the prosecutors said that data from cellphone towers placed the two suspects at the scene of the crime, at Kossuth Place and Bushwich Avenue. A prosecutor, Josh Hanshaft, said that Mr. Phoenix taunted the Sucuzhañay brothers with slurs describing gays. “There will be no dispute,” he told jurors, that pejoratives were used. Mr. Hanshaft agreed with the defense lawyers that it all began with revelry in Brooklyn. José Sucuzhañay, his girlfriend and his brother started their night at a church party; Mr. Scott, Mr. Phoenix and his cousin were at a family party elsewhere in Brooklyn, Mr. Hanshaft said. José and Romel, who was visiting from Ecuador, stopped at a bar for a nightcap, then walked home. “They had a lot to drink that night,” Mr. Hanshaft said. “José more than Romel.” As they reached the street where José lived, Kossuth Place, Mr. Hanshaft said, they encountered the other men, who were sitting in Mr. Phoenix’s red S.U.V. What happened next will be disputed in the weeks to come. According to Mr. Almonte, the cabby, one of the Sucuzhañay brothers, seeing the S.U.V. pull into a crosswalk, tried to kick it. Then, prosecutors say, Mr. Scott left the rear passenger seat wielding a bottle, which he smashed over José’s head. Mr. Phoenix, prosecutors say, grabbed a baseball bat from the trunk and started to beat José, who had fallen to the ground. Mr. Scott chased after Romel with the remaining shards of the bottle. With the bat “held high above his head,” Mr. Phoenix beat Mr. Sucuzhañay “over and over and over again,” Mr. Hanshaft said. “He came back with the bat and hit him two to three times on the head, cracking his skull wide open.” “He didn’t like what they looked like,” the prosecutor added. “He didn’t like that they were Hispanic. From his eyes, it appeared they were a gay couple, a way of life he didn’t like and wasn’t going to tolerate.” It was the taxi driver, Mr. Almonte, who provided the clue that led to the arrests. When he opened his eyes, he drove toward the S.U.V. and wrote down the license number on an envelope, which he gave to a friend.

Hate Crimes
Sucuzhanay Jose O
Phoenix Keith
Scott Hakim
Brooklyn (NYC)


De Blasio Betting on Pre-K to Succeed

Abstract: Mayor Bill de Blasio stumbled away from the first state budget battle of his administration with his mandate bruised and his political momentum stymied, but clutching a hard-fought prize: money, and a lot of it, for his signature plan to offer free prekindergarten classes in New York City. Now the onus falls on City Hall to deliver in five months a program that has taken other cities years to develop, and on which the mayor has placed an increasingly large wager that his early missteps will be forgotten, so long as his centerpiece plan proves a success. “The mayor’s position and the mayor’s rollout was very bold,” said Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, a Bronx Democrat, who helped negotiate the final funding amount, $300 million, for the city’s prekindergarten program. “It’s just a matter of now making sure that it’s implemented well.” That calculus — that a grand policy achievement can wash away tough headlines — was repeated time and again by Mr. de Blasio’s advisers throughout his painful legislative fight in Albany, where the mayor was routinely outmaneuvered by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lost his fight to raise taxes on wealthy New York City residents. As criticism of the mayor rose, and his poll numbers fell, aides in City Hall dismissed such concerns as ephemeral, insisting that all would be forgotten after Mr. de Blasio obtained funding and began to enact his education agenda. But Mr. de Blasio may have sacrificed more to secure prekindergarten than he bargained for. In the midst of negotiations with Albany, the mayor’s team was blindsided by a controversy over charter schools, which threw Mr. de Blasio into the center of a heated national debate and provided Mr. Cuomo with another wedge against his negotiating rival. The controversy set off a debate among the mayor’s top advisers, some of whom believed City Hall had moved too slowly to counter a coordinated public-relations attack from charter schools and their well-heeled backers. When the final budget was released this weekend, Mr. de Blasio discovered that his authority over the use of public school space for charter schools had been diminished, jeopardizing his much-discussed efforts to slow their expansion in New York. It was a potent lesson for the mayor that Mr. Cuomo can prove a constant menace, able to meddle with the city’s agenda in future budget cycles. “I believe this was a learning experience for him,” Senator Martin J. Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, said. “The terrain in Albany is much different than he may have thought it was.” On Sunday, Mr. de Blasio spoke triumphantly of the funding he secured for prekindergarten classes, calling the program “historic.” And his advisers pointed out that the prekindergarten plan, all but dismissed when Mr. de Blasio unveiled it as a fledgling mayoral candidate in 2012, was now among the foremost policy issues in New York politics. Those same aides acknowledged that getting the prekindergarten program underway by fall is now of paramount importance. “In September, there are going to be tens of thousands of people taking their children to a full-day pre-K class in New York City, and that’s what really matters at the end of the day,” said Peter Ragone, a senior adviser in City Hall and one of Mr. de Blasio’s top strategists. Inside City Hall, the administration is devoting vast resources to build up the program and is hiring numerous officials dedicated to its implementation, even as the mayor faces lingering criticism about the slow pace of his appointments in other key roles. The city’s Buildings Department, for instance, still has no permanent commissioner, and the Fire Department and the Office of Emergency Management are being led by temporary holdovers from the last administration. Every other week, representatives from at least five city agencies meet at City Hall to check in on prekindergarten’s progress. Besides education officials, the meeting includes representatives from the Fire Department, which would have to issue permits for some newly designated classrooms, and the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which could help facilitate the placement of prekindergarten classes in private retail space. Mr. de Blasio, in his public remarks, has made no effort to reduce the pressure on his team, or on himself. “This is mission critical,” he said on Tuesday, at one of three public appearances last week that were focused on the program. “Literally mission critical for the good of our schools.” The Rev. Al Sharpton, a frequent presence at Mr. de Blasio’s rallies for his education plan, said he was pleased that the mayor had secured a significant amount in funding from the state. “If you count the numbers, it’s less than what he and those of us who supported wanted, but the fact that he was able to get it done at all is a victory for him,” Mr. Sharpton said in a telephone interview. Mr. Sharpton added that the mayor’s implementation of the program would be crucial. “He’s got to make it as effective as he can,” Mr. Sharpton said. “They are going to have to work hard. I think it’s a poker game. He lost a few hands, but in the end, he can win the game.”

Bill de Blasio
Budget
Preschool
Andrew Cuomo
NYC


Eli Manning Will Face Brother Peyton in Giants’ Game Against Colts

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Eli Manning lifted a stumbling Giants offense onto his back Sunday, throwing three touchdown passes to prevent an embarrassing defeat. He rallied the Giants three times and stayed cool even when some of his best passes became interceptions because his receivers deflected them into the air instead of catching them. He was the best player on the Giants last year, and Sunday, he was still their best player. But if he ever thought he might get a day or even an hour to enjoy his latest accomplishment in the wake of a 31-18 victory over the Carolina Panthers , he apparently knew better. Because minutes after leaving the field, he was asked about the next game, against the Indianapolis Colts and his older brother Peyton, and Eli broke into a smile at the thought of another Manning football reunion. “The first time, with all the Manning Bowl stuff before the game, I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have,” he said of the Colts’ 26-21 victory over the Giants in 2006 . “The second time, you know, I think about it differently. I don’t know how many times it’s going to happen. It might be the last time. It’s rare, and I’m trying to appreciate it. “To stand out there during the national anthem and look over and see your big brother on the other sideline, that’s pretty special. I’m going to appreciate some of that, too.” When the game begins next Sunday night, the Colts will be winless, while the Giants will be 1-0. “It’s going to be a tough game with them coming off a loss,” Manning said. “They’ll be fired up.” Manning said he would probably talk with Peyton on Sunday or Monday and again on Friday, just like any other football week. But there will not be much of the usual football talk. “Sometimes we go over a little game-plan stuff,” Manning said. “But not this week. But he’s still my brother. We’ll talk.” Manning was asked if the two had ever imagined what it would be like to face off in a Super Bowl . “No,” he answered with an aw-shucks grin. “If we get there, I hope we’re not playing someone as good and as talented as the Colts.” The Giants and the Colts will play a nationally televised night game in Indianapolis. If that puts added pressure on the Giants playing on the road, at least it gives them a week to figure out what went wrong with their running game against the Panthers. Although the Giants finished with 118 rushing yards, nearly three-fourths of that total came in the fourth quarter when the Carolina defense was tired, trailing and taking chances. Early in the game, when the Panthers were a little less vulnerable and a little more confident, they stuffed the Giants’ running game. With a few minutes left in the first quarter, the Giants’ running backs — a traditional source of pride — had carried the ball six times for minus-3 yards. The 2010 Giants looked a lot like last year’s Giants. Which may have been what Manning was thinking at the time. He also may have been thinking that this was no way to open the New Meadowlands Stadium. And at that point, he stopped waiting for the rushing game to resurrect itself and took over the offense, throwing the ball on six successive plays near the end of the first half. “That really showed the confidence he has in himself,” Coach Tom Coughlin said of Manning, who completed 20 of 30 passes for 263 yards. Late in the first quarter, with the running game at its nadir and the Panthers leading, 3-0, Manning threw 31 yards down the sideline to Mario Manningham. Two plays later, he rifled a pass into a narrow gap between two defenders where Hakeem Nicks plucked the pass out of the air for a 26-yard touchdown. When the Panthers regained the lead, Manning went to work again, putting the two-minute offense through seven plays that chewed up 80 yards. The final play was Manning’s second touchdown pass to Nicks, this time for 19 yards. Opening the second half, the Giants were behind again, so Manning led the Giants to a field goal, completing 5 of 6 passes for 32 yards on the drive. He followed that with another scoring drive, connecting on three passes in four plays, the last of which was a throw on the run to Nicks for a 5-yard touchdown. The Giants were on their way to christening their new football palace as they had wished. Manning was one step closer to Manning Bowl II, a designation he may accept this time around.

Carolina Panthers
Indianapolis Colts
Football
New York Giants
Manning Eli


Kerry Rebukes Israel, Calling Settlements a Threat to Peace

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday of thwarting peace in the Middle East, speaking with a clarity and harshness almost never heard from American diplomats when discussing one of their closest and strongest allies. With only 23 days left in his four-year turn as secretary of state, during which he made the search for peace in the Middle East one of his driving missions, Mr. Kerry said the Israeli government was undermining any hope of a two-state solution to its decades-long conflict with the Palestinians. The American vote last week in the United Nations allowing the condemnation of Israel for settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he added, was driven by a desire to save Israel from “the most extreme elements” in its own government. “The status quo is leading toward one state and perpetual occupation,” Mr. Kerry said, his voice animated. His speech was a powerful admonition after years of tension and frustration, with the Obama administration giving public voice to its long-held concern that Israel was headed off a cliff toward international isolation and was condemning itself to a future of low-level, perpetual warfare with the Palestinians. Reaction was immediate and harsh, not only from Mr. Netanyahu, but also from Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. President-elect Donald J. Trump did not even wait for Mr. Kerry to speak before condemning the secretary of state. The United States and Israel are in the middle of a breach rarely seen since President Harry S. Truman recognized the fragile Israeli state in May 1948. In a direct response to Mr. Netanyahu’s barb over the weekend that “friends don’t take friends to the Security Council” — a reference to the Obama administration’s decision to abstain from the resolution condemning the building of new settlements in disputed territory — Mr. Kerry said the United States acted out of a deeper understanding of the meaning of its alliance. “Some seem to believe that the U.S. friendship means the U.S. must accept any policy, regardless of our own interests, our own positions, our own words, our own principles — even after urging again and again that the policy must change,” he said. “Friends need to tell each other the hard truths, and friendships require mutual respect.” Toward the end of his 70-minute speech in the State Department’s auditorium, Mr. Kerry acknowledged that Mr. Trump may well abandon the major principles that the United States has used for decades of Middle East negotiations, including the two-state solution that both Republicans and Democrats support. Mr. Trump is nominating a new American ambassador, David M. Friedman , who has broken with even the pretense of supporting a two-state negotiated agreement and has helped fund some of the settlements Mr. Kerry denounced. Video Israelis and Palestinians had strong opinions about the two-state solution. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Secretary of State John Kerry's speech was a "deep disappointment.” Credit Credit Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images On vacation in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump posted two Twitter messages rejecting the speech before it was delivered. “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect,” he wrote on Wednesday morning. After assailing the nuclear deal in Iran and last week’s vote at the Security Council, he said, “Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” He was soon praised — also on Twitter — by Mr. Netanyahu, who later released a video statement that was unsparingly direct and dismissive of Mr. Kerry. “The entire Middle East is going up in flames, entire countries are toppling, terrorism is raging and for an entire hour the secretary of state attacks the only democracy in the Middle East,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Maybe Kerry did not notice that Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christmas can be celebrated in peace and security. Sadly, none of this interests the secretary of state.” Mr. Kerry’s speech was criticized at home as well. Mr. McCain called it a “pointless tirade,” while Mr. Schumer, the incoming Senate Democratic leader, said he feared that Mr. Kerry had “emboldened extremists on both sides.” Mr. Kerry did make note of the Palestinian violence, the “extremist agenda” of Hamas, and the Palestinian unwillingness to recognize Israel. All, he said, were at the heart of the conflict. But Mr. Netanyahu’s continued support of settlements, “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible,” he said, is driving a solution further and further away. Mr. Kerry argued that Israel, with a growing Arab population, could not survive as both a Jewish state and a democratic state unless it embraced the two-state approach that a succession of American presidents have endorsed. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, responded to Mr. Kerry’s speech by calling on Israel to freeze housing construction in order to restart negotiations. “The minute the Israeli government agrees to cease all settlement activities, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem, and agree to implement the signed agreements on the basis of mutual reciprocity, the Palestinian leadership stands ready to resume permanent status negotiations,” he said. Mr. Netanyahu has said he is willing to meet Mr. Abbas anytime for talks as long as there are no preconditions. It was notable that it was Mr. Kerry who delivered the speech rather than President Obama, who has long kept a distance from Middle East peace negotiations, a pursuit he has always doubted would succeed. After talks at Camp David collapsed in 2000, it was President Bill Clinton himself who gave a speech laying out the parameters of an ultimate deal, about 10 days before leaving office in 2001. At the time, Mr. Clinton also censured Israel for its settlements, but in far more measured terms. Mr. Kerry called them a violation of international law, a position he said the State Department had taken since 1978. “The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution, but his current coalition is the most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” he said. “The result is that policies of this government — which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ — are leading in the opposite direction, towards one state.” Seldom in modern American diplomacy has an American administration so directly confronted — and disavowed — a close ally’s actions as Mr. Kerry did on Wednesday, dropping most of the restraint he had shown in public over the past four years. One of the last times was during the Eisenhower administration, when the United States broke with Britain, France and Israel over the 1956 invasion of the Egyptian Sinai. Eisenhower had warned against the invasion and threatened to harm Britain’s financial system in retaliation. When Mr. Kerry got to the principles for a future settlement, they were unsurprising. Many date to the 1990s or earlier, and many to past United Nations resolutions. The principles he described started with a “secure and recognized border between Israel and a viable and contiguous Palestine,” based on Israel’s withdrawal from territory occupied since the 1967 war and land swaps to “reflect practical realities on the ground.” A second principle was the creation of a state for the Palestinian people, and a third was a “fair and realistic solution to the Palestinian refugee issue,” including compensation. There was no mention of a “right of return” for refugees and their descendants forced to leave Israel and the Palestinian territories, back to 1948. The fourth principle called for Jerusalem to be the recognized capital of both states, which Mr. Kerry said was “the most sensitive issue for both sides.” The fifth was an agreement to satisfy Israel’s security needs while ending its military occupation of Palestinian territories. Mr. Kerry, who has cast himself as one of Israel’s greatest friends, said in recent months it became clear he had to “save the two-state solution while there was still time.” “We did not take this decision lightly,” he said of the vote in the United Nations Security Council, where the American abstention allowed a 14-to-0 condemnation of Israel go forward. “Israelis are fully justified in decrying attempts to delegitimize their state and question the right of a Jewish state to exist. But this vote was not about that. It was about actions that Israelis and Palestinians are taking that are increasingly rendering a two-state solution impossible.” It was also about Mr. Kerry’s own personal disappointment. As soon as he took over from Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in 2013, Mr. Kerry plunged into the tar pit of Middle East peace negotiations with an enthusiasm neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama shared. The goal was a nine-month negotiation leading to a “final status” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the summer of 2014. It never got that far. Despite scores of meetings between Mr. Kerry and his two main interlocutors, Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Kerry and his lead mediators, Martin S. Indyk and Frank Lowenstein, could not make progress. They blamed both sides for taking actions that undermined the process, but the continued expansion of the settlements was one of their leading complaints — an effort, in the American and European view, to establish “facts on the ground” so that territory could not be traded away. Mr. Netanyahu has accused the United States of “orchestrating” the vote, and his aides have said that Mr. Kerry and Mr. Obama effectively stabbed Israel in the back. Israeli officials have said they have evidence that the United States organized the resolution. Mr. Kerry pushed back at that narrative on Wednesday. Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, is biding his time and waiting for Mr. Kerry and Mr. Obama to move on. Israeli leaders postponed plans on Wednesday to move ahead with new housing in East Jerusalem, just hours before the speech.

Israel
John Kerry
Benjamin Netanyahu
Palestinians
State Department
US Foreign Policy
Israeli settlement
Barack Obama


Anna Merz, Protector of Black Rhinos, Dies at 81

Abstract: Anna Merz, who went to Kenya seeking a serene retirement but became so appalled by the slaughter of black rhinoceroses that she helped start a reserve to protect them, becoming a global leader in the fight against their extinction , died on April 4 in Melkrivier, South Africa. She was 81. The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, the reserve she founded, announced her death. She left no immediate survivors, but more than 70 black rhinos, including one born the day she died, continue to thrive in the sanctuary that she created to protect them from poachers, who kill the animals for their horns. As a young woman, Mrs. Merz roamed the world and ended up in Ghana, where she married twice, ran an engineering firm and became active in wildlife conservation. She and her husband went to Kenya to retire, but her revulsion at seeing the carcasses of rhinos strewn about a national park, each missing its distinctive double horn, compelled her to change her plans. She started looking for land to use as a rhino reserve and, after many rejections, found a patron, David Craig, who with his wife, Delia, owned a vast tract in the shadow of Mount Kenya. They agreed to set aside 5,000 acres for the project, which opened in 1981 as the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary. It has since grown to 61,000 acres through more land donations and was renamed the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in 1995. Lewa’s success helped the black rhino population double to 4,880 over the last decade, still a far cry from the millions that once roamed Africa . Lewa is home to 10 percent of Kenya’s black rhinos, and its efforts have lent substance to the dream of returning the species to its former dominance in northern Kenya. Lewa rhinos must be regularly resettled elsewhere because the success of the breeding program — the reserve’s numbers grow 10 percent a year — has caused overcrowding and fights. Mrs. Merz’s example has inspired other wildlife conservation efforts and has helped make the black rhino, which is still critically endangered, a global symbol of extinction prevention. “I have met many remarkable animal specialists during my life, but none as extraordinary as Anna Merz,” Desmond Morris, the zoologist and author, wrote in the foreword to her 1991 book , “Rhino at the Brink of Extinction.” “What Joy Adamson was to lions, Dian Fossey was to gorillas, and Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees, Anna Merz is to rhinos.” Florence Ann Hepburn was born in Radlett, England, on Nov. 17, 1931, and moved between London and Cornwall as a child. A formative experience was seeing a museum exhibit on the dodo, which is believed to have become extinct in the 17th century. Another was being on a beach at age 9 when a German fighter plane attacked: a total stranger threw his body on top of hers and died saving her life. She graduated from Nottingham University, studied law and traveled to exotic places before settling in Ghana. There she married Ernest Kuhn, whom she divorced in 1969, and Karl Merz, who died in 1988. Both husbands were Swiss. In Ghana she trained and rode racehorses, rescued chimpanzees and was named an honorary game warden by the nation’s game department. She and Mr. Merz moved to Kenya in 1976. After securing the first 5,000 acres for the reserve, Mrs. Merz, using her inheritance, built an eight-foot-high fence, then began rounding up rhinos using helicopters and stun guns. She hired more than 100 armed guards, bought a plane for surveillance and built a network of spies to inform on poachers. Poachers, also armed, sell the horns largely to Asians, who grind them for folk medicine, and Arabs, who carve them to use as dagger handles. Prices for rhino horns can run higher than those for gold. “These are very ruthless people,” she said of poachers. Mrs. Merz herself carried a gun and knife. Deborah Gage, a conservancy official in London, wrote in an e-mail that about a year ago Mrs. Merz heard a yelp and “went into the next-door room to find that a python had taken her favorite dog, so she grabbed her pistol, shot the python in the head and gradually unraveled it off her dog.” At first Mrs. Merz used her own money to finance the project, a total of more than $1.5 million, but she came to rely on donations. The American Association of Zoo Keepers helped by raising millions for rhino preservation through its annual “Bowling for Rhinos” campaign. Winners spent a week with Mrs. Merz at her reserve. Giving local people a stake in the reserve was crucial to its success. She employed them, built schools and medical clinics for them and helped foster the tourist industry. Besides rhinos, of both the black and white species, visitors come to see lions, elephants and other animals. Prince William of Britain and Kate Middleton became engaged in 2010 while staying at a cottage at the reserve. In 1990, the United Nations Environmental Program named Mrs. Merz to its Global 500 Roll. To Mrs. Merz, rhinos — far from being the stupid, aggressive, ill-tempered sorts many suppose — were, in her words, beautiful and elegant. She blamed their bellicosity on their poor eyesight, leading them to charge first and ask questions later. She found that rhinos have a sense of humor and that they communicate by altering their breathing rhythms. She read them Shakespeare to soothe them. Samia, an orphan rhino whom she raised from babyhood, even crawled into bed with Mrs. Merz — not entirely to her delight. Samia would follow her around like a dog, even after leaving Mrs. Merz’s immediate care and returning to the reserve, where she mated and had her own calf. If Mrs. Merz fell, Samia would extend her tail to help her up. Not realizing how big she had grown, Samia once tried to sneak back into the house where she had been nursed and became jammed in the dining room door. Mrs. Merz had to pour a gallon of cooking oil on her rough skin to ease her through.

Anna Merz
Kenya
Rhinoceros
Obituary
Endangered Species
Poaching


Injury to Santonio Holmes May Limit Jets Further

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — On the first play of the fourth quarter, Santonio Holmes crumpled, and a miserable afternoon for the Jets ’ offense turned considerably worse. Holmes, the Jets’ star receiver, slipped as he went for a pass in the flat along the right sideline. He caught the ball but barrel-rolled in pain, gripping his left leg and fumbling the ball. Adding insult to injury, San Francisco’s Carlos Rogers pounced on the fumble and returned it 51 yards for a touchdown, giving the 49ers a 24-0 lead. That put the game well out of reach for the Jets’ moribund offense, which to that point had accumulated only 128 total yards. But the bigger, grimmer picture for the Jets was the sight of Holmes writhing on the turf. He was helped off the field by two trainers, putting no pressure on the leg, and carted into the locker room with what the Jets called only a foot injury. He left MetLife Stadium wearing a walking boot and carrying crutches but declined to speak to reporters. X-rays were negative, and a magnetic resonance imaging test is scheduled for Monday. Upon first glance, Holmes’s collapse looked eerily reminiscent to the noncontact slip by cornerback Darrelle Revis a week ago. Revis tore his left anterior cruciate ligament and is not expected to return this season. If Holmes did not injure his knee, that would be considered a positive sign for the Jets — on a day where there were few of them — but the severity is still not certain. “Anytime one of your best players goes down, especially when they’re by themselves on the field, it’s scary,” linebacker Aaron Maybin said. Holmes is mercurial, at times a destructive influence in the locker room , but on the field he is undeniably a playmaker of the sort the Jets have in increasingly short supply. He came into Sunday’s game expecting to build on last week’s performance, in which he caught nine passes for 147 yards against Miami. He had been thrown to 33 times this season, the sixth most in the N.F.L., and the trend appeared to be continuing: Holmes caught an 11-yard pass from Mark Sanchez on the Jets’ first play of the game. In the end, that would represent the afternoon’s peak. Holmes made two other catches for 14 yards before his final catch of the day. He was the intended receiver eight times. “Obviously, it looked bad,” receiver Chaz Schilens said. “If he’s going to come out of the game, he’s a tough guy; it’s got to be something that’s not so good. We’ll see.” So the Jets will hold their breath while waiting for test results on a key player’s injury, a recurring nightmare after the fretting last week over Revis, the team’s irreplaceable defensive star. Holmes is not quite as exceptional, but without him, the Jets appear woefully thin at receiver. They would look toward the rookie Stephen Hill and Schilens as the primary deep threats, with Jeremy Kerley and Patrick Turner as additional options. Tight end Dustin Keller has not suited up since Week 1, when he sustained a hamstring injury. After reeling in 266 yards and 3 touchdowns as a unit in the season opener, the Jets’ receivers are averaging 185.3 yards in the three games since, with only two scores. Sanchez did not exactly deny the perceived lack of firepower with Holmes’s condition now unclear. “We have to play with what we got,” Sanchez said. “It’s going to be on me to be much more accurate than today and last week, and play well with the receivers we have.” Sanchez added: “What are we going to do? We can’t just not show up. We’ve got to play and we’ve got to play better than we did today, no matter who’s out there.” Hill, who scored two touchdowns against Buffalo in Week 1, has yet to catch a pass in two games since (nine have been thrown his way). He missed Sunday’s game with a hamstring injury but said he expected to play against Houston next Monday. As Holmes was being carted off the field, Hill reached over to shake his hand. Holmes gave the rookie a word of encouragement. “He said, ‘It’s time for you to get healthy, time for you to get back on the field,’ ” Hill said. “I’m ready to go.”

Holmes Santonio
Sports Injuries
New York Jets
Football
San Francisco 49ers


Money Market Funds Enter a World of Risk

Abstract: Money market funds have been among the few places that investors could put their cash and sleep peacefully. At the moment, that is not necessarily true. On Tuesday, the Reserve Primary Fund, a giant money market fund whose parent helped invent that investment, said its customers would lose money. Instead of each share being worth a dollar for every dollar invested, it said its customers’ shares were worth only 97 cents. In Wall Street parlance, it “broke the buck,” a rare occurrence. So far, it appears that no other money market funds have fallen below a dollar a share. And other money market managers have hastened to reassure investors that their money is safe. But the Primary Fund’s announcement did raise this question: What, in today’s world, is truly safe? After all, the Primary Fund’s troubles did not occur in isolation. They followed the disappearance of both Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch , not to mention the government bailouts of the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the insurance company American International Group . And if you haven’t already forgotten, there was the failure of the California thrift IndyMac in July. And that’s why, in this market, financial advisers agreed on Wednesday, consumers need to become their own chief investment officers, even when it comes to something as simple as finding a place to put their cash. “One by one, all of my safe havens aren’t so safe anymore, and that’s a bad thing,” said Matthew Tuttle, a certified financial planner and president of Tuttle Wealth Management in Stamford, Conn. “It used to be O.K. to have money in a CD, but now you have to worry, ‘Is my bank going to go under?’ ” he added. “You used to be able to buy a guaranteed annuity from an insurance company, but now you have to worry, ‘Is my insurance company going to go under?’ Or, you can have auction-rate preferred securities, but now there is no market.” Before you pull your cash out of your money market fund, you need to understand what you own. There is a big difference between money market mutual funds and the money market deposit accounts at a bank (and banks sometimes sell both). Money market funds are essentially mutual funds that invest in securities that, until this week, were deemed relatively low risk. Those include government securities, certificates of deposit, asset-backed commercial paper and other highly liquid securities. The Primary Fund got in trouble because some of its investments were in Lehman Brothers’ debt. To stop what is in essence a run on the fund, the Primary Fund has stopped all redemptions for up to seven days. A money market deposit account, on the other hand, is entirely different. It is an interest-bearing bank account that is insured — up to $100,000 per account and up to $250,000 for some retirement accounts — by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation . Joint accounts are insured for $100,000 per account holder. If you had been putting your money into a money market account because you wanted to avoid all risk, then you should consider the money market deposit accounts and other accounts insured by the F.D.I.C., like certificates of deposit and regular checking and savings accounts. There are also Treasuries. But because so many investors were rushing into them on Wednesday, the yields have been driven down. “There is no yield,” said Saxon Birdsong, chief investment officer of Baltimore - Washington Financial Advisors. “It’s just a safety play.” If you decide to invest — or stay — in a money market fund, there are several things you should keep in mind. When it comes to money market funds, bigger may be better, several financial advisers said. Many investors use the funds that happen to be with the brokerage firm they are doing business with because it’s convenient to sweep money between accounts. But you should make sure your money market account is with a large, diversified money management company that would have the resources to make you whole, even if its funds ran into trouble. Mr. Tuttle said companies like Fidelity and Vanguard fit into this category. “I would be less comfortable with a smaller money management fund that didn’t have a lot of assets and wasn’t making a lot of money,” he said. “From my standpoint, I have a very high comfort level that if a Fidelity money market fund had toxic whatever, they would step up with the money from somewhere else to keep the buck.” Once you decide on a provider, read the prospectus carefully. If you don’t understand the investments, call the company and ask for more details. “I would encourage investors to not stop asking questions until they have complete comfort and peace about what they own,” said Karin Maloney Stifler, a certified financial planner with True Wealth Advisors in Hudson, Ohio . And if you are still nervous, ask your current mutual fund company or brokerage if it has a Treasury or government money market fund that invests only in Treasury securities, said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com , a personal finance Web site. “You will have to settle for a lower yield,” he said, “but it takes risk off the table.” Indeed, this is one of those times when you shouldn’t necessarily choose a fund because it has a high yield. That higher yield could indicate that the fund is investing in riskier securities. “This is a painful but poignant reminder that anything that is paying you a higher yield, you have to assume is carrying a higher risk,” said Peter Crane, president of Crane Data, which tracks money market mutual funds. Finally, investors should diversify cash holdings, just as they would with a stock and bond portfolio. “If you have money market mutual funds with multiple providers, you are hedging against the risk that any one of them will encounter problems that they can’t survive,” Ms. Stifler said. But if you don’t have a strong stomach for the slightest risk, stick with investments that are F.D.I.C. insured, even if you need to sacrifice a little yield. After all, “this is a portion of your portfolio that should help you sleep at night, not keep you awake,” Mr. McBride said. The Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund industry’s trade group, compiled a list of statements late Wednesday from money-market mutual fund managers that assured investors their funds were safe. Here are the links to the fund company’s statements: Blackrock (pdf) Columbia Management (pdf) Evergreen Investments Federated Investors (pdf) Franklin Templeton Invesco (pdf) Legg Mason (pdf) MFS (pdf) Oppenheimer Funds Pimco Schwab (pdf) State Street T. Rowe Price Vanguard

Finance
Money market account
Personal finance
Stocks and Bonds


Aldon Smith and Justin Smith Lead 49ers’ Defense

Abstract: SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In 2001, Justin Smith set the Missouri record for sacks in a season, with 11. In 2009, Aldon Smith broke it, with 11 ½. In 2010, Justin Smith led the San Francisco 49ers in sacks, with eight and half. This season, Aldon Smith topped him again, with 14 — missing the N.F.L.’s rookie record by half a sack. The pair share a last name and an alma mater. They dress two stalls from each other in San Francisco’s locker room, and spend time together off the field. On Saturday, they will do their darndest to disrupt the N.F.L.’s top-ranked offense as the 49ers host the New Orleans Saints in an N.F.C. divisional playoff game at Candlestick Park. Justin Smith, a 32-year-old defensive lineman in his 11th season, is the cornerstone not just of the relationship, but of the N.F.C.’s stingiest defense. Rarely has a player so clearly demonstrated what a difference there can be between accumulating statistics and succeeding on the field. He has had seasons in which he sacked more quarterbacks, recorded more tackles and assisted on many more plays than he did in this one. Never, however, has he received the level of respect he is currently garnering for the often less appreciated work that he does on the defensive line. San Francisco Coach Jim Harbaugh has repeatedly referred to him as the team’s most valuable player, and this month he was named to the All-Pro team — twice. He made the first team as a defensive tackle, and the second team as a defensive end — he slides inside when the team shifts from its 3-4 base formation to a four-man front. It was the first time a player had been so honored. “Justin requires attention,” Aldon Smith said. “He gets guys paying attention to him, which singles me up so I can make plays. He draws the double-team so I can go one-on-one.” When Aldon Smith goes one-on-one, good things happen for the 49ers; he ranked fourth on the team in forced fumbles, one behind Justin, to complement his prodigious sack total — despite playing fewer than half of San Francisco’s defensive snaps this season. Aldon, a 6-foot-4, 258-pounder who was taken seventh over all in last year’s draft, played defensive end in college. His move to linebacker, and the steep learning curve that came with it, were part of the reason for his somewhat limited playing time, as he was used primarily on passing downs. “It’s all part of the progression,” Harbaugh said. While Aldon appreciates the up-close look he has gotten at Justin’s durability — the elder Smith was in for more than 90 percent of the defensive plays this season and has not missed a start since the second month of his rookie year — he has known about the Justin Smith legend since arriving at the University of Missouri three years ago. Aldon was raised just outside Kansas City, about 120 miles from the university’s campus in Columbia. Justin hails from only 30 miles away, in Holts Summit. Justin was an all-Big 12 and all-American performer. He set the university’s power-clean record, lifting 500 pounds according to the university’s Web site. His photograph hangs in the athletic facility and his name litters the Tigers’ record books. Aldon’s initial chance to see firsthand what all the fuss was about, however, did not arrive until last June, when Justin invited him, fresh off the draft, to join the team’s off-season workout program at San Jose State. The lockout was still on, but the elder Smith made a point of preparing the defensive linemen — and Smith — for the moment when the doors finally opened. “I was working with guys who were 8, 10 years in the league, who had a lot of experience and really got after it,” Aldon said. “It really helped my work ethic to see the way these guys went about their business, helped me become a pro that much quicker.” The 49ers’ defensive coordinator, Vic Fangio , said of the Smiths: “They’ve worked well together. They’ve kind of had a good relationship of big brother/little brother, and I think Aldon has been able to elevate his game because he’s seen how much toughness and tenacity enters into this equation.” Aldon has also been aided by Fangio’s defensive scheming, which includes a variety of stunts in which he loops around Justin Smith and Ray McDonald . Against New Orleans, Justin will try to occupy a pair of Pro Bowlers — left tackle Jermon Bushrod and left guard Carl Nicks — letting Aldon go one-on-one with center Brian De La Puente in an effort to get to Saints quarterback Drew Brees . “To me that’s the key to the game, defensively,” Justin Smith said. A few weeks ago, Harbaugh was discussing a play Aldon Smith made in a Week 14 loss to Arizona, in which he overran the quarterback, then spun around to knock the ball loose for a turnover. “I thought that was kind of Justin Smith-like, in a lot of ways,” he said. As far as Harbaugh is concerned, that is the highest compliment he can offer.

San Francisco 49ers
University of Missouri
Smith Justin
Smith Aldon
Football


Markets Can’t Hold Gains After Details of Bank Tests

Abstract: In a reflection of the market’s recent volatility, stocks fell in early trading Wednesday, giving back most of the gains from a 236-point rally in the Dow Tuesday. They rebounded in the afternoon as federal regulators announced details on the stress tests for banks worth more than $100 billion. But in the last minutes of trading, the major indexes dipped back into the red. The Dow Jones industrial average declined 80.05 points, or 1.09 percent, to 7,270.89. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 8.24 points, or 1.07 percent, to 764.90. The Nasdaq composite index decreased 16.40 points, or 1.14 percent, to 1,425.43. Crude oil prices continued to rise, settling at $42.50 a barrel, up $2.54 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. “Everybody was trading on emotion there, positive news, something to look forward to,” Dan Faretta, senior market strategist at Lind-Waldock, said. “Today we’re giving back the gains. I think everyone’s coming back to reality.” Banking shares ended the day without sustaining the broad losses that typified trading in recent weeks. The financial sector finished near the top of the market, and JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America closed higher. Investors were paying particular attention to the fate of Citigroup, which may need the government to raise its stake in the bank to 30 to 40 percent, from about 8 percent. Shares of Citigroup fell 8 cents, to $2.52. Under the program announced by government regulators, large banks will receive immediate access to additional support from the government’s $700 billion financial rescue fund. The support, the Treasury said, will be in the form of preferred shares that would be convertible into common shares at a 10 percent discount to their price before Feb. 9. Shares of home builders, whose stock have plunged as housing prices collapsed, fell farther after a report on existing-home sales offered more signs of trouble for the housing market. The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes fell to an annual rate of 4.49 million in January, their lowest since 1997. The median home price dropped to $170,300 last month — down nearly 15 percent from January 2008 and down more than 25 percent from its peak in July 2006. The luxury department store chain Saks gained 13 percent, or 24 cents, to $2.09 a share, after reporting a loss of $98.8 million for the three months ending Jan. 31, as consumers cut back on spending. But in a conference call, Saks fought back against rumors it was in danger of declaring bankruptcy and said it was positioning itself for surviving the downturn. The discount retailer TJX, which operates T. J. Maxx, HomeGoods and Marshalls, rose 7.34 percent, or $1.58, to $23.12 a share, after reporting a 17 percent drop in fourth-quarter profits. The Treasury’s 10-year note fell 1 4/32, to 98 15/32. The yield, which moves in the opposite direction from the price, rose to 2.93 percent, from 2.80 percent late Tuesday. In Europe, more concerns about Eastern Europe underscored fears that a severe contraction in less-developed economies could ripple through banks in Western Europe and further drag down the global financial system. Following are the results of Wednesday’s Treasury auction of five-year notes and 294-day cash management bills:

Stocks and Bonds
Economic Conditions and Trends
Banks and Banking


Chinese Activist, Gao Zhisheng, Disappears Again

Abstract: BEIJING — Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human rights lawyer whose 13-month disappearance at the hands of Chinese security agents stirred an international outcry until he resurfaced in March , has again vanished, his friends said Friday. Associates said Mr. Gao failed to return to a Beijing apartment on April 20 after spending more than a week in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region in western China , where he had been visiting his father-in-law. Mr. Gao telephoned his father-in-law as his plane left Urumqi, saying he would call upon his arrival in Beijing, they said. That appeared to be his last contact with the outside world. Li Heping, another Beijing human rights lawyer and a close friend, said he had visited Mr. Gao’s apartment repeatedly, but had not found him. “No one had been there for a while,” said Mr. Li, who last went to the apartment on Thursday. “I have no idea who to call, or who has taken him.” Others said they were sure that the government had again removed him from public view and that the authorities’ earlier decision to allow him to resurface briefly had been a ploy to try to demonstrate to the outside world that he had not been mistreated. “Now we understand that the freedom was arranged by the authorities just for a show,” Jiang Tianyong, a Beijing lawyer and rights activist, said by telephone. “He is missing again; he is still under their control. We must continue to pay attention to his case.” An official of Amnesty International said Friday that the organization was “seriously concerned” for Mr. Gao’s safety. “It’s a matter of serious concern when he loses contact with his family and friends,” the organization’s deputy director for Asia and Pacific programs, Catherine Baber, said in a telephone interview from London. Mr. Gao, whose outspoken approach has made him a contentious figure, is one of the nation’s best-known activists. He has also been a ceaseless gadfly to Chinese authorities. In the early 2000s he earned international attention, and the government’s enmity, for his legal work on behalf of marginalized citizens, including members of underground Christian churches and practitioners of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement that Chinese authorities say is an antigovernment cabal. After Mr. Gao sent letters to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, accusing the government of persecuting Falun Gong members, he was stripped of his law license and sentenced to prison in late 2006 on charges of inciting subversion. After being released, Mr. Gao said he had been tortured , adding that he had also been warned that discussing his torture publicly would result in his death. China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, denied those claims at a news conference in March. “There is no such thing as him being tortured,” he said. Mr. Gao and his family were under constant surveillance and harassment after his release. Early last year his wife and two children escaped from China , eventually gaining asylum in the United States. Mr. Gao disappeared shortly afterward. Despite pleas from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, he was not seen again until he appeared in March at a Buddhist monastery in northern China. In a telephone interview then with The New York Times, he said he had given up his work as a human rights defender and merely sought “to calm down and lead a quiet life.” He refused to say whether he had suffered mistreatment while in captivity. In an April 7 interview with The Associated Press, he said simply, “I don’t have the capacity to persevere.” But The South China Morning Post, based in Hong Kong, which first reported Mr. Gao’s disappearance on Friday, said in an article that he had been “quite outspoken” during an April 6 interview in his Beijing apartment, despite the near certainty that security agents were recording his conversation. But the article said he had asked that details of his treatment by the authorities while in captivity not be made public. “If this is reported,” he was quoted as saying, “I’ll disappear again.”

Gao Zhisheng
China
Freedom and Human Rights
Political Prisoners