In Spain, a Soaring Jobless Rate for Young Workers

Abstract: MADRID — Like hundreds of thousands of other young people, Jesus Pesquero Peñas dropped out of school to go to work when the Spanish economy was booming. But since he was laid off from his construction job two years ago, he has been living on unemployment benefits. Now Mr. Peñas finds himself part of a lost generation in Spain, where unemployment among people ages 16 to 24 is 42.9 percent, the highest in Europe, and more than double the overall rate. “I went to work because the money was good, the lifestyle was good and I really wanted to get out of school,” Mr. Peñas, 25, said as he waited on a long line snaking down the block from an employment office in suburban Madrid. “I totally regret it now,” Mr. Peñas said, who has a 5-year-old daughter by a former girlfriend who is also out of work. Spain is the extreme, but the experience of younger workers here reflects similar problems in the United States, as well as other European countries still struggling to emerge from the recession . In the last 12 months, the jobless rate in the United States among workers ages 16 to 24 has risen to 19.1 percent from 13.9 percent. Economists expect the rate to remain high even as the overall jobless rate in the United States — now 10 percent — begins to shrink. That is because the sectors that employ young people in the greatest numbers — fast food, construction, retail — are expected to take the longest to recover. In the United States, workers on the first rungs of the job market run the risk of lower earnings even after the recovery gets going, said Paul Osterman, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. who also teaches at the Institute de Empresa business school in Madrid. Young Spanish workers, like their counterparts in the rest of Europe, face other obstacles like union rules, long-term contracts and legal protections that shelter older workers and discourage new hiring, Mr. Osterman said. “There is a cohort of people who are condemned to a permanently stagnant career path in Spain,” he said. “It’s very worrisome.” People like Mr. Peñas, with few skills, bleak prospects and little desire to go back to university alongside younger students, are the most vulnerable. “There has been a loss of human capital,” said José Antonio Herce, director of economics at ASI, a Madrid-based consulting firm. “It will take a long time for this cohort to be absorbed.” Spain may be the worst example, but it is not alone, “Young people are the last in the queue when it comes to finding permanent jobs,” said Anne Sonnet, a senior economist with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Even with university degrees, there are many barriers to young people.” Adding to Spain’s woes, its government is unable to inject more stimulus and offer further support for job creation while its economy languishes as one of the weakest in Europe. The outlook on Spanish sovereign debt was recently downgraded, and the government is moving to raise taxes and cut spending. The country’s budget deficit, which hit 11 percent of gross domestic product this year, is supposed to be within the 3 percent threshold enshrined in the treaty that established the euro. The European Union wants Spain and other European countries relying on the euro to return to that range by 2013. “Spain is under tremendous pressure from the E.U. and the bond markets,” Mr. Osterman said. “They’re in a very difficult box.” To be sure, Spain has traditionally suffered from relatively high unemployment, and at 19.3 percent, its overall rate today is double the 9.8 percent average for the European Union. But the sharp increase among young people is particularly problematic. It has jumped from 17.5 percent three years ago at the height of the boom to the current 42.9 percent. At this level, Spain stands out from other troubled European countries. In Greece, for example, the youth unemployment rate is 25 percent, while Ireland’s is 28.4 percent and Italy’s is 26.9 percent. Spain is even worse off than countries in Eastern European where youth unemployment has traditionally been high. In Slovakia, for example, unemployment among young people is 27.9 percent. In Poland, youth unemployment is 21.2 percent, down from over 35 percent a few years ago. In part, Spain is paying the price for its efforts to make it easier to put young people to work. In recent years, a disproportionate share of Spanish youth were employed on temporary contracts. So they were the easiest to lay off when the economy sank, said Alfonso Prieto, deputy director general of employment studies at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. During the most prosperous years, a culture of temporary work developed, Mr. Prieto and others explained. Young workers like Mr. Peñas became known as “mil euristas,” for the 1,000 euros, or $1,438, a month they typically earned. Once looked down upon as temporary, entry-level positions, the few remaining mil eurista jobs are now highly sought, Mr. Herce, the economic consultant, said. Besides drawing young Spanish workers out of school, the growth years lured young immigrants by the millions. Many of them are out of work as well. Katy Mejia, for example, moved here seven years ago from Ecuador with her parents, having just finished high school at age 16. She later married a Spaniard and worked in restaurants and bars in downtown Madrid. “Jobs were plentiful,” Ms. Mejia said, “You could pick and choose.” Today, she is jobless, and her husband is working four hours a day driving a delivery van, forcing them to move in with her family. ”It’s difficult to go back to living with your parents when you are married,” she said. Although low-skilled workers are the hardest hit, Mr. Prieto said, professionals are also suffering. Vanessa Larrosa, who was recently laid off as a veterinarian, lives around the corner from the unemployment office in Santa Eugenia on the outskirts of Madrid. She was used to seeing a line forming in the dark each morning, as peopled huddled in blankets. “But I personally never expected to be here,” Ms. Larrosa said. “I’d like to continue to work as a vet, but I’d be happy with anything.” Spain is spending roughly 30 billion euros ($43 billion) a year on unemployment benefits, but the money is doing little to prepare younger workers for the future. Mr. Herce said that Spain needed to invest more heavily in vocational education and retraining, and require the jobless to improve their skills. That is what Carlos Herras, 26, is counting on. He is taking a course in renewable energy and hopes to find a job installing solar panels. But at this stage, he too would be happy with almost anything. “I started working so young,” he said, ticking off jobs beginning at 14 in a bar, then a hotel and finally in the construction industry until last January. “I am optimistic. I may not find a job that I want, but I’ll find a job.”

Spain
Unemployment
Economic Conditions and Trends
Labor and Jobs


Murkowski to Run Write-In Campaign in Alaska Senate Race

Abstract: Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who lost her state’s Republican primary last month to a Tea-Party-backed conservative, announced late Friday that she will run as a write-in candidate in the general election. “I announce today that I will be a write-in candidate in November for the United States Senate seat that I now hold,” Ms. Murkowski told a loud crowd of supporters in Anchorage, who cheered “Run, Lisa, run!” The senator’s unusually worded declaration reflected the startling turn of events in Alaska over the past few weeks. Ms. Murkowski was defeated in the Aug. 24 Republican primary by Joe Miller , a previously unknown lawyer from Fairbanks who benefited from a late surge of support and spending by the Tea Party Express and the endorsement of Sarah Palin. Mr. Miller, who has proposed stark cuts in federal spending, defeated Ms. Murkowski by about 2,000 votes out of about 100,000 cast. Ms. Murkowski was widely criticized for running a weak campaign and not responding aggressively to Mr. Miller’s attacks, some of which distorted her record. She suggested on Friday that the six-week sprint to Election Day would be far different. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “the gloves are off — for Alaska.” Yet the senator acknowledged that the write-in campaign faced high hurdles, including the challenge of making sure voters are able to spell her last name and the recent embrace of Mr. Miller by top Republican leaders in Washington. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, issued a statement late Friday saying Ms. Murkowski “no longer has my support for serving in any leadership roles, and I have accepted her letter of resignation from Senate leadership.” Sarah Palin, speaking briefly to reporters after delivering a speech in Iowa on Friday, said the write-in campaign was “a futile effort on her part. It really is.” Ms. Murkowski, whose relationship with Ms. Palin has long been strained, alluded to those comments in her remarks late Friday, then referred obliquely to Ms. Palin’s resignation from the governor’s office in July 2009. The senator said that she, unlike Ms. Palin, was “one Republican woman who won’t quit on Alaska.” A Democrat, Scott McAdams, the mayor of Sitka, is also in the race.

Alaska
Elections
Murkowski Lisa
Tea Party Movement
Republican Party
United States Politics and Government
Miller Joseph W


Judge Approves $3.4 Billion in Indian Royalties Settlement

Abstract: WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday approved a $3.4 billion settlement over mismanaged Indian royalties in a case that represents the largest settlement ever approved against the United States government. Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont., claimed in the 15-year-old suit that for more than a century, federal officials systematically stole or squandered billions in royalties intended for American Indians in exchange for oil, gas, grazing and other leases. A federal district judge, Thomas F. Hogan, said in approving the settlement that the legitimacy of the claims could not be questioned. The settlement does not make up for the losses tribes suffered for more than a century, but hundreds of thousands of Indians will receive at least $1,000 each from the government. Many will receive substantially more money. Ms. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe, will receive $2 million, and three other named plaintiffs will receive payments ranging from $150,000 to $200,000. The suit was settled in December 2009. Congress approved it last year, and President Obama signed it into law. But the case required the judge’s approval, which he provided after a hearing on the merits of the case and on legal fees. Under the settlement, $1.5 billion will go to at least 300,000 Indian account holders. An additional $1.9 billion will go to buy back and consolidate tribal land that has become subdivided and difficult to manage. An additional $60 million will go to a scholarship fund for Indian students. In a controversial decision, Judge Hogan awarded Ms. Cobell’s lawyers $99 million — less than half of what they sought but nearly double the $50 million that government lawyers had recommended. Ms. Cobell, 65, is recuperating after cancer surgery and did not appear at Monday’s hearing. But she read a lengthy statement over a speaker phone. “The settlement isn’t perfect,” she said. “I do not think it compensates all for all the losses sustained, but I do think it is fair and it is reasonable.” Not all Indian groups were happy. On Monday, more than a dozen people testified against the settlement, most speaking out against the legal fees. Margie Eder of Cheney, Kan., a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes, accused Dennis Gingold and other Cobell lawyers of stealing. “Lord God rebukes you,” she said, “because you want to line your pockets by robbing people of that which is not yours to take.” Mr. Gingold said he took the case when no one else would and had not been paid in more than a decade.

Royalties
United States
Native Americans
Politics and Government


Brooklyn Man Charged With Hate Crimes in Mezuzot Burnings

Abstract: A Brooklyn man with a long arrest record has been charged with three hate crimes in the burning of a dozen Jewish doorway adornments, the police said on Thursday. The man, Ruben Ubiles , 34, of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, was charged with burglary, arson and criminal mischief, all felony hate crimes, as well as with reckless damage and reckless endangerment, the police said, referring to the vandalism in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On Monday, the police said, Mr. Ubiles set fire to 11 mezuzot — small cases containing Scripture that many Jews affix to their door frames — at a public-housing complex on Taylor Street in Williamsburg’s heavily Hasidic South Side. On Tuesday, the police said, he burned another mezuza a block away, on Clymer Street. On Wednesday, the police released surveillance photos of a man they said was the vandal and identified him as Mr. Ubiles, who they said was in custody. Mr. Ubiles has an arrest record that includes charges of robbery, assault and drug possession.

Hate crime
Ruben Ubiles
Arson
Williamsburg Brooklyn
Judaism


Port Authority Rejects More Public Financing for Silverstein at Trade Center

Abstract: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey rejected the use of more public money to guarantee financing for two private office towers at the World Trade Center on Friday. In a letter to the developer of the site, Larry A. Silverstein , the agency criticized him for being willing to put just $75 million of equity into the two towers, which together will cost $4.2 billion. “You demand that the public take on the risk that you and the private sector will not take,” the agency wrote. “It is unrealistic of Silverstein Properties to demand this extraordinary level of public subsidy, and it is not going to happen.” Mr. Silverstein, who is to build three towers at the site, rejected the Port Authority’s most recent offer on the development, which included a condition that he raise $625 million from investors or lenders for the project. In a letter released by the Port Authority, he said its new offer was worse than earlier ones. It “confiscates” Tower 3, he said. The future of Tower 3 has been unclear as the Port Authority and Mr. Silverstein have fought for months over his request that it backstop his loans for Towers 2 and 4. Mr. Silverstein says the repeated delays in readying the 16-acre site for three office towers means that he has to find private financing just as the recession has banks leery of real estate loans and demand for Manhattan offices is low. The delays harm the city’s economy, costing it construction jobs and discouraging companies from moving to Lower Manhattan. Although Mr. Silverstein is supposed to finish the first tower in the next few years, a long legal war would be likely if the agency tried to enforce that deadline. The latest exchange shows how badly the rebuilding has stalled after years of delays due to court fights with insurers and clashes over security and designs.

Office Buildings and Commercial Properties


Nigeria Arrests 2 in Blast That Killed 26 in Church

Abstract: LAGOS, Nigeria — As Nigerian officials announced arrests Monday in connection with the deadly bombing of a church on Christmas Day, American officials and analysts said the violence underscored the increasing ability of a shadowy Islamist insurgency to carry out complex strikes against multiple targets, complicating the fight against it. Nigeria’s national security adviser, Owoeye Azazi, said that two men had been arrested in conjunction with the bombing, and that they were suspected of being members of the Boko Haram sect, which claimed responsibility for attack. They were “caught in the act,” he said. Mr. Azazi said three suspects had driven past the church in Madala, on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, throwing a bomb into the church “from a moving vehicle in the glare of everyone.” One of the men died in the explosion, he said. Mr. Azazi’s version contradicted some earlier accounts of the blast. Local news media had quoted witnesses as saying that a lone suicide bomber drove into the church and detonated the explosive. The National Emergency Management Agency said the death toll from the blast had risen to 26, with hospitals struggling to save the lives of the remaining survivors. The attack was the most devastating of what appeared to be a string of coordinated assaults around the country over the weekend, including strikes on at least two churches in other towns and a police headquarters in the north. While Boko Haram has long struck at the police — and more recently at the United Nations — the attacks during the Christmas holiday raised fears that the group was trying to exploit Nigeria’s religious differences to incite violence between Christians and Muslims, a persistent problem for the country. The president of the Nigerian Senate, David Mark, condemned the violence as a declaration of war on law-abiding citizens of Nigeria. “This is absurd and totally intolerable,” he said in a statement Monday. “This is not part of our culture or way of life.” American military, intelligence and counterterrorism officials have voiced alarm in recent months about the growing operational abilities of Boko Haram and its potential ties to Al Qaeda’s affiliates in North Africa, Yemen and Somalia. “There’s no reason to doubt Boko Haram’s claim,” Gen. Carter F. Ham, who leads the American military’s Africa Command, said in an e-mail Monday. “All the characteristics fit their profile. Sadly, these attacks are wholly consistent with Boko Haram’s increasingly violent ideology. I remain greatly concerned about their stated intent to connect with Al Qaeda senior leadership, most likely through Al Qaeda in the lands of the Islamic Maghreb.” General Ham met in August with Nigerian military and security officials, saying the United States would be willing to share intelligence and offer training to Nigerian security forces. In September, General Ham said that three African terrorist organizations — the Shabab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb across the Sahel region of northern Africa and Boko Haram in northern Nigeria — “have very explicitly and publicly voiced an intent to target Westerners, and the U.S. specifically.” General Ham said that he was particularly worried about “the voiced intent of the three organizations to more closely collaborate and synchronize their efforts.” Defense Department officials said in mid-September that a large car bomb detonated in August by Boko Haram militants bore signature elements of the improvised explosives used by the Qaeda offshoot in the Sahel. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, came to national prominence in 2009, when its members attacked police stations near its base of Maiduguri, a dusty northeastern city on the cusp of the Sahara Desert. Nigeria’s military violently suppressed the attack, crushing the sect’s mosque into shards and arresting its leader, who died in police custody. About 700 people died during the violence, and many analysts and residents say the Nigerian government’s heavy-handed response has frequently worsened the situation, killing civilians and helping the group recruit new volunteers to its cause. American officials said the group initially carried out small-scale, hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes after the 2009 riot. But in the past year, Boko Haram has demonstrated a newfound sophistication and planning of larger-scale attacks. It claimed responsibility for a Nov. 4 attack on Damaturu, Yobe state’s capital, which killed more than 100. The group also claimed the Aug. 24 suicide car bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others. It has engineered other daring attacks, including the June bombing of Nigeria’s federal police headquarters, the assassination of a prominent politician and a prison break that freed more than 700 inmates.

Nigeria
Christmas
Boko Haram
Terrorism
Ham Carter F


Disabled Britons Criticize Cuts in Aid

Abstract: LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron says he wants to end Britain ’s “sick-note culture” of fraudulent disability claims. But his new get-tough policy has left his coalition government in conflict with thousands of ill and disabled Britons. In 2010, Dani Neumann, 28, was working as an administrator at Madame Tussauds wax museum and performing in musical theater when she was hit by a car while crossing the street. Left in crippling pain with severe nerve damage, she went in an instant from complete self-sufficiency to total financial dependence. At every step of the way, she has had to fight hard for help. While the government pays her rent, it rejected her application for a welfare benefit that helps defray added costs associated with disability. It has postponed — since last May — scheduling an assessment for another benefit for unemployed disabled people. Her only income now is $108 a week in temporary assistance. “Because they’re trying to save money, they deny everything on application,” Ms. Neumann said in an interview. “If it hadn’t been for my synagogue’s help for the first five months after the accident, I would have been homeless.” Perhaps one-third of the working-age population here receives some form of state benefit from Britain’s generous welfare system. Next to housing help, disability benefits are its highest welfare expense. The government spends $19 billion a year on one benefit, the disability living allowance, alone. Populist newspapers like The Daily Mail have joined the government in highlighting how “benefit cheats” bilk the government by, for example, playing golf while on disability. Indeed, about 900,000 people have been claiming incapacity for a soon-to-be-defunct benefit meant to help sick or disabled people who are out of work, for more than a decade, the government says. But advocates argue — and the government does not dispute — that many of the most entrenched recipients, like those who went on disability after being laid off from jobs in coal mines during the Thatcher years, have aged out of the system. The fraud rate, they say, stands at less than 1 percent. “There’s been a media war waged against them — they’re being branded ‘benefit-scrounging scum,’ ” said Debbie Young-Somers , a rabbi at West London Synagogue , whose emergency hardship fund is helping pay basic expenses for Ms. Neumann and others. A bill passed recently will make it harder to get and keep disability benefits. The government says the measure will not only save billions but also discourage long-term dependency. “People don’t understand what these benefits are for,” said a spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions , which administers them. Many who qualified under the old system might find they do not under the overhauled one, she said, asking that her name not be used in accordance with government policy. “If you lose a limb, then whilst you’re getting used to becoming mobile you would be eligible for disability living allowance to help you with your mobility needs,” she said, referring to extra help for costs associated with disability. “But there are people who get prosthetic limbs who can walk across the desert,” she added. “They do not have the same mobility needs as they did when they were first injured.” The law tightens the criteria for the allowance, which goes to three million people. Already, thousands of applicants, including Ms. Neumann, say that they have been rejected, with little explanation. One of the most contentious elements of the law limits support for unemployed disabled people. Recipients of what is called the employment support allowance — except for the profoundly disabled or those believed to have less than six months to live — will be given job training and expected to rejoin the work force, even if their conditions preclude them from returning to their old professions. The money will stop after a year, except for those in the lowest-income brackets. Advocates say that would most likely push 280,000 people out of the system. “This is an arbitrary time limit placed on the amount of time they can get the benefit, whether they’re still too sick to work or not,” said Tom Cottam, a policy analyst with Macmillan Cancer Support , a major British charity. “The government has been very explicit that the time limit is a cost-saving measure.” The previous Labour government required most new disability applicants to undergo face-to-face medical assessments. Those who received benefits under the prior system are being reassessed. The program costs $160 million, and assesses about 11,000 people a week. The process is guided by a checklist that includes criteria like whether the applicant can walk a particular distance, make a meal without help or hold a conversation. An independent consultant hired by the government found that the system was plagued with problems, and advocates for the disabled say that not only is it grossly insensitive, but it is also singularly bad at determining who is and is not able to work. In a number of high-profile cases, people who are profoundly physically or mentally disabled have been found fit to work; some have died while waiting to appeal. More than a third of those who used to qualify are being rejected, the government says. “To have such a high percentage who are fit for work just emphasizes what a waste of human lives the current system has been,” Chris Grayling , the employment minister, said recently. But advocates for the disabled say the figures illustrate instead how ineffective the assessments are. About 40 percent of those who appeal after being rejected have won. There is a roughly eight-month backlog of cases. The appeal system is costing the government $80 million. Meanwhile, people like Ms. Neumann are depending on the kindness of others.. “They say people live on benefits because they don’t want to work, but the reality is that you don’t have enough money for heating, to eat properly, to use public transport,” she said, reflecting on her $108 a week. “I understand that we’re in a recession and we need to cut corners at every turn. But why do you turn around and pick on the most vulnerable people?”

Disabilities
Disability Insurance
Great Britain
Cameron David
Labour Party (Great Britain)
Law and Legislation


3-D vs. High-Definition at the Garden

Abstract: There were two versions of 3-D hockey at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night when the Rangers played the Islanders. One was in the Theater, where 2,600 fans, advertisers, members of the news media and others watched on a giant screen that was not ideal for 3-D. This was not the “Avatar”-like experience the MSG Network had hyped as the next wave of history at an arena that has seen much of it, if not a lot in the last decade. Although the six 3-D cameras were much closer to the ice than those that were shooting in high-definition, the extra dimension was not consistently apparent. The camera at center ice produced a crisp, clear picture that felt more like 2.5-D. The cameras at the blue lines produced the extra effect, but only when they zoomed in. The best shots came from the two cameras situated at ice level in two of the corners, behind the glass. From those spots, the closeness of the players and officials produced the added dimension. Near my seat, Charles Wang, the owner of the Islanders, and Jim Dolan, the executive chairman of the Garden, which owns the Rangers, watched in their 3-D glasses. Islanders and Rangers fans didn’t feud as they gazed at the screen. But on monitors set up for the media inside the Club Bar and Grill at the Garden, the impact of hockey in 3-D was clear and made the strongest argument for what the game looked like at home to those few early adopters with 3-D television sets. On companion monitors, MSG’s high-definition broadcast looked flat, underlit and distant. On 3-D long shots, the fans nearly popped out of the screen, as if they had plopped on your lap, while the on-ice action could be seen with more clarity. There was a deep focus to the images that might have made movie fans think of the cinematography of Gregg Toland in “Citizen Kane.” As the shots got tighter and the action cut to the corners with the 3-D cameras, the technology’s promise was on its way to being fulfilled. At those points, the pictures were exquisite; the closer a player or official came to the camera, the more defined they became. All flatness was gone, and the figures on the ice seemed to be in individual spheres that continuously merged and separated. Sometimes, you felt like saying, “Whoa!” Some of the best shots came between periods when MSG’s Al Trautwig spoke to Mark Messier, Dave Maloney (the analyst of the 3-D game who couldn’t stop clucking about its greatness) and others. Standing before one of the corner 3-D cameras in medium close-up, they showed how much better talking heads look outside the second dimension. One of the inherent problems in 3-D hockey is that the playing surface is flat and white. It has no dimension, unlike Augusta National, where Comcast will produce the Masters in 3-D, from the back nine, for two hours each round. The contours and topography of the course will provide more visual character than a sheet of ice can. Also, golfers move much more slowly than hockey players. A golf course does not have glass boards. The MSG and 3ality Digital Systems executives in charge of the Rangers-Islanders 3-D broadcast fretted earlier in the day about how intrusive dirt or smudges on the glass in front of the cameras might look, especially in the corners. The cameras are so sensitive that when one was tested during Monday night’s Nuggets-Knicks game, a piece of confetti falling before a camera looked like the tumbling feather in “Forrest Gump.” Noticeably dirty glass did not turn out to be a problem (window cleaners were on standby). But when rendered in 3-D, the glass boards and the metal posts were even more visible than they normally are, and the lights reflecting off the glass slightly diminished the often stunning visuals from the corners. There will be more 3-D hockey on MSG, which carries the Rangers, the Islanders, the Devils and, to upstate residents, the Buffalo Sabres. That’s about 300 games next season and beyond for MSG to experiment with. During its next 3-D broadcasts, MSG should find ways to make viewers feel as if the puck, the players and their sticks are regularly coming out of the screen; Trautwig demonstrated that with a pizza box, but it lacked gravitas. Improving the experience will mean moving cameras even lower and tinkering with shooting a 3-D game in a more adventurous way than it does in high-definition. RANGERS 5, ISLANDERS 0 Marian Gaborik had a goal and an assist during a three-goal first period, and the Rangers began a last-ditch push for an unlikely playoff spot with a victory over the Islanders at Madison Square Garden. After losing three straight, including a devastating 2-1 loss Sunday at Boston, the Rangers brought a newfound looseness into their fifth meeting of the season with their metropolitan rivals. “We’re still alive and we believe,” Gaborik said. (AP)


North Korea Scrapping Accords With South Korea

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea unilaterally declared on Friday that it was scrapping agreements it had signed with South Korea to ease military tension on the divided Korean Peninsula. The announcement followed a series of recent saber-rattling gestures from North Korea that officials and analysts in Seoul have said were aimed at raising tension to gain attention from the new administration of President Barack Obama and to win concessions from President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea. “All the agreed points concerning the issue of putting an end to the political and military confrontation between the North and the South will be nullified,” said a statement from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, the North Korean agency in charge of relations with South Korea. It said the accords to be nullified included a 1991 agreement on reconciliation and non-aggression, as well as North Korea’s promise, contained in the agreement’s appendix, that it would honor the western sea border claimed by South Korea. North Korea has flouted these agreements by developing nuclear weapons and sparking naval clashes on the disputed sea border in 1999 and 2002. After the 1999 clash, it unilaterally redrew the sea border. Government analysts in Seoul scrambled on Friday to figure out the North’s intentions. For one thing, they said, it remained unclear whether the North was also nullifying the agreements its supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, signed with President Lee’s two predecessors in 2000 and 2007 during rare inter-Korean summits. Those two agreements have been the basis of a decadelong softening of relations on the peninsula. During the "sunshine" period, billions of dollars of trade and economic aid — as well as millions of South Koreans on tour or for family reunions — crossed the heavily armed border. North Korea has even called the oldest and primary agreement for peace — the 1953 armistice that ended the three-year Korean War — a “useless piece of paper.” Won Tae Jae, a spokesman of the Defense Ministry in Seoul, said Friday in a news briefing that the South would respond “resolutely” if North violated its western sea border again. “We will see more tension in western waters,” said Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation, a nonpartisan policy advisory body based in Seoul. “It doesn’t appear that it will just end up as empty words from the North.” He predicted that North Korea would focus on improving ties with the Obama administration while snubbing President Lee. Driving a wedge between the allies has been a favorite tactic in North Korean diplomacy. The North Korean committee said it was scrapping the agreements because Mr. Lee had violated them first with his “reckless confrontational rackets against our republic.” “Relations between the North and South have worsened to the point where there is no way or hope of correcting them,” the committee’s statement said. “They have reached the extreme point where the clash of fire against fire, steel against steel, has become inevitable.” North Korea’s oratorical attacks on the South have increased in intensity since Mr. Lee took office a year ago with a vow to take a tougher stance on North Korea, reversing 10 years of his liberal predecessors’ efforts to engage the North with substantial economic aid. Two weeks ago, the North Korean military declared an “all-out confrontational posture” with the South. North Korean officials also told a visiting American scholar that the country had “weaponized” enough plutonium for four or five atomic bombs. Verbal threats from North Korea, which has at various points vowed to turn South Korea into a “sea of fire” and a “heap of ashes,” are a recurring feature of postwar relations between the two countries. They seldom raise an alarm among South Koreans. Since the 1970s, the two Koreas have signed a series of agreements for non-aggression and cooperation, which the North has flouted repeatedly, rendering them little more than symbolic. Still, this was the first time North Korea has said that it was officially nullifying them. “We hope the North will realize that spawning and raising tensions between South and North Korea is not appropriate for peace not only on the Korean peninsula but also in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world,” said Kim Ho-nyeon,the South Korean government’s main spokesman in inter-Korean relations. Mr. Kim said the government was dealing with the North Korean blustering “with calm.” But some analysts said that the chances of North Korea launching a limited border skirmish to prove its points were rising. Still, the South Korean military heightened security along the border in the recent weeks. So far, it has reported no unusual movement by the North Korean army.

North Korea
South Korea
Lee Myung-bak
International Relations


For New York, Unemployment Rates Dip in January

Abstract: Unemployment rates for New York City and the state dipped in January, providing a faint signal that the waves of layoffs set off by the financial crisis may be subsiding. According to figures that the State Labor Department released on Thursday , the city’s official unemployment rate declined to 10.4 percent in January from a revised 10.5 percent in December. That was still well above the national unemployment rate, which dropped to 9.7 percent in January from 10 percent in December. But the report, which contained annual revisions to previous estimates of job losses during the recession , reinforced the view of many economists that New York has fared considerably better than the nation since the crisis took hold two years ago. The revisions raised the estimate of the total job loss in the city. Yet proportionally, the loss of jobs is significantly smaller for the city than for the nation. Employment in the city peaked in August 2008, several months after the national recession began. For every 50 private-sector jobs that existed in the city back then, about 2 have been lost. By contrast, about 3 of every 50 such jobs in the nation have been lost. “Despite the fact that this was one of the worst financial crises in more than half a century, its effect on the New York City economy was one of the mildest,” said Barbara Byrne Denham, chief economist with Eastern Consolidated, a real estate services firm in Manhattan. “It is still kind of bumpy. I don’t think there’s going to be real job growth for at least four months, maybe longer.” The city lost jobs in January, as it usually does when temporary workers hired for the holidays are let go. But the decline in employment in January, which totaled 72,700 jobs, was significantly smaller than the average January loss in the city over the last 10 years, which was 107,600 jobs, said James Brown, an analyst with the Labor Department. After those numbers are adjusted for seasonal fluctuations in hiring and firing, the decline in employment in January is likely to appear as a gain. The department makes seasonal adjustments to the monthly jobs data it releases for the state, but does not adjust the city numbers. Ms. Denham calculates her own seasonal adjustment of the city numbers; by her estimate, the city added about 25,000 jobs on an adjusted basis in January, a gain that reduced the total job loss in the city during the recession to about 160,000. “January numbers are notoriously volatile, depending on the exact timing of post-Christmas layoffs and school closings,” Mr. Brown said. “But we did see significantly fewer layoffs in the professional and business services sector than we usually get. That could be a positive sign.” The jobs estimate and the unemployment rate are derived from separate surveys, which is one of several complications that make it possible for the unemployment rate to decline while the city is still losing thousands of jobs. The state’s unemployment rate slipped to 8.8 percent from 8.9 percent as private-sector employers added 30,500 jobs, according to the department’s seasonally adjusted figures. That gain represented an increase of 0.4 percent and raised the number of private-sector jobs in the state to 6.99 million. The state’s public sector shrank a little in January, so the total of nonagricultural jobs increased by just 25,500, to 8.49 million. The state’s unemployment rate has remained below the nation’s throughout the recession. Since the state’s job count peaked in April 2008, New York has lost 352,700 jobs, or about 4.8 percent of its highest total. The state’s unemployment rate averaged 8.4 percent for all of 2009, the highest annual rate since 1992, said Peter A. Neenan, director of the department’s research division. “Our newly revised jobs data indicate that the impact of the national recession on New York state’s economy was deeper than first estimated,” Mr. Neenan said.

Unemployment
New York City
New York State
Labor and Jobs


Indictments Are Expected in Killing of Inmate, 18

Abstract: Prosecutors are expected to announce criminal charges on Thursday against three city correction officers suspected of deliberately looking the other way as several inmates on Rikers Island beat another inmate to death in the jail in October, people briefed on the case said on Wednesday. The battered body of the victim, Christopher Robinson, 18, was found in his cell on Oct. 18. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide, officials said. No motive for the fatal attack has been divulged. Within days of Mr. Robinson’s death, two correction officers, Michael McKie and Khalid Nelson, were placed on modified assignment as an investigation into the death at the Robert N. Davoren Center of the jail complex began, law enforcement officials said. Those two officers, as well as a third, a woman whose name has not been released, and several inmates accused of being the assailants are believed to have been named in the indictment, which is expected to be unsealed in State Supreme Court in the Bronx on Thursday, said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the charges have not been resolved. The indictment is expected to allege that the correction officers “were purposefully not paying attention,” the official said. “My understanding is they have been arrested and are in custody.” Sanford A. Rubenstein, a lawyer for the victim’s family, said officials from the office of the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, notified the teenager’s mother, Charnel Robinson, 34, about the pending charges but did not provide her with the names of the defendants or the specific charges they are facing. He added: “This indictment will send a message to those charged with the responsibility of safeguarding inmates from harm that if you do not do your duty, you will be charged criminally, and a message to inmates that if you commit a horrible crime while incarcerated you will be held accountable.” Mr. Rubenstein said that Ms. Robinson told him that her son was arrested in August on a parole violation stemming from a 2007 burglary charge. He said she said the violation involved her son’s “working late.”

Prisons and Prisoners
Rikers Island Prison Complex
Guards
Murders and Attempted Murders
McKie Michael
Nelson Khalid


Staten Island Youth Wrestle With Cause of Violence

Abstract: Arianna Rodriguez, a bright and verbose 11-year-old, was bravely attempting to explain the swirl of race and class divisions, immigration politics and bewildering violence that had swamped Port Richmond, her neighborhood on Staten Island. Finally, she sighed and threw up her hands. “What has it come to?” she asked. “This is terrible!” In the past week, the world — at least in the eyes of Arianna and others of her generation in these uneasy streets on the borough’s north shore — seems to have descended on Port Richmond. Patrol cars cruise around the clock; television trucks have become a fixture; politicians wearing suits and furrowed brows come and go. And just as the community’s leaders are trying to make sense of the crimes that have made the neighborhood a center of attention — a string of at least 10 attacks against Mexican immigrants, mostly by black assailants, in the past four months — so, too, are its young people. Social workers and others point out not only that the children embody the community’s future, but also that most of the attackers are believed to be in their teens or early 20s. The most recent victim was 18. On Monday night, young people were invited to speak at a round-table discussion with civic leaders at a local Baptist church, both as a sort of therapy and as a way to help the adults figure out how to address the roots of the violence. Their comments at the meeting, and in numerous interviews over the past few days, reveal the challenges of growing up in Port Richmond: navigating streets where the level of threat can change block by block and hour by hour; negotiating a place riven by fault lines of race, ethnicity, class and immigration status; and trying, in spite of all that, to hold on to friendships and simple pleasures. “It used to be nice,” said Farad Montalvo, 17, a Staten Island native of part-Puerto Rican heritage who will be a senior at Port Richmond High School in the fall. “Now kids are getting scared. They can’t walk down the street now.” Children here said they learned the geography of danger early in life. They know to avoid the darker streets and other places that offer cover for muggers. Some parents allow them to visit the main commercial strip, Port Richmond Avenue, by day but forbid them to go at night, when the street traditionally becomes the domain of thieves, hustlers and prostitutes. The temporary police surge that began last week has apparently halted much of the crime along the avenue and nearby streets. But some children worried aloud about what would happen once the officers left. “It’s a war between Mexicans and blacks,” said Dream Rogers, 11, who was walking with her sister, Kim, 10, on Tuesday. “When the cops leave, it’s going to start again.” At school, social tensions are rarely felt among the youngest children but appear to worsen in the upper grades — and become increasingly complicated. High school students spoke of black classmates who disparaged other blacks from poorer backgrounds, and Mexican-Americans born in the United States who talked condescendingly about peers born in Mexico. Some young people told of trying to digest bigoted comments by relatives and family friends while maintaining friendships with people of other ethnicities. One black high school sophomore, who counted Mexicans and other Latinos among her friends, said she had heard relatives and family friends criticize Mexicans. “People think of them as low,” she said. Most students said that fistfights driven solely by ethnic differences were rare at their schools, where cliques were based on interests rather than race or national origin. Still, whether to assert their identity or protect themselves, Mexican gangs have taken root in the schools, they said. Darren, who is black and a sophomore at Port Richmond High, said the gangs were intimidating and, as a result, their members were largely left alone. The more timid Mexicans were more likely to be picked on, he said. “I’ve got nothing against them,” he said of Mexicans in general, as he arrived for a summer football clinic at the high school. “They work for my Moms.” He added, “One even made me breakfast this morning.” The discussion on Monday night was supposed to be an opportunity for young children to express their concerns in a quiet setting. But it was somewhat eclipsed by the arrival of Christine C. Quinn, speaker of the City Council, and six television camera crews. All the same, from the children’s halting comments emerged a list of changes they thought might make a difference in their lives, from increasing the number of public buses to creating a civilian neighborhood patrol. “This neighborhood really changed from when I was growing up until now,” said Jocelyn Jackson, 14. “I’m always looking over my shoulder.” On Wednesday — partly inspired, she said, by comments she had heard at the children’s meeting — Ms. Quinn unveiled a 10-point plan to respond to the violence. It included expanding an anti-bias curriculum in the area’s high schools, increasing anti-bias training for social service organizations, improving park safety and starting a public information campaign aboard the Staten Island Ferry. But some children said there were problems that lay far deeper than such measures could reach. Larry Martinez, 17, vice president of a student anti-violence group that formed several years ago, said the biggest problem facing the neighborhood’s youth was a lack of recreation and other diversions. “There is no money, there is no funding, there are no after-school activities, there are no camps,” said Larry, who was born on Staten Island and is of Mexican descent. “People have nothing to do.” Some young people feared that students would take the summer’s violence into school in the fall, perhaps setting off wider conflicts. “I know that if the attacks keep happening, the Hispanic gangs are going to do the same,” said Larry’s sister Sonia, 15, a junior. She paused, then added, “I don’t want this to be a clash of the gangs.”

Race
Blacks
Mexican-Americans
Gangs
Port Richmond (NYC)
Children and Youth
Immigration and Emigration


When Tenants Can’t Be Evicted, Building Around or Over Them

Abstract: Two years ago, while walking his family’s new puppy, Paul Boardman had the kind of epiphany only a real estate entrepreneur can have. A developer who was once the lead designer for all the Equinox gyms , Mr. Boardman was passing by 711 West End Avenue in Manhattan, a seven-story apartment building of red brick and squat windows between 94th and 95th Streets that looked almost as if it were shrinking from the grand prewar buildings around it that are twice its size. Mr. Boardman envisioned something equal in stature for the site. But tearing down 711 West End Avenue would be all but impossible, considering that most of its 144 apartments are rent-stabilized, giving their tenants a right to stay. So Mr. Boardman came up with a daring plan . By threading a series of multi-ton support columns around the existing structure, a new 10-story condominium tower could be built. It would essentially sit not atop the old building, but above it, with its bottom floor hovering more than 80 feet in the air. “We get to unlock the value of this site and create a building truly worthy of this great neighborhood without displacing any of the existing residents,” Mr. Boardman said in an interview last week. In a city where the only place to go is often up, adding floors to an existing building is nothing new. Rarely, if ever, is this work undertaken over an occupied apartment building. If it works, though, other developers might start stacking apartments, too. Image A 10-story condominium tower, which Ms. Cooper and Mr. Weinberg oppose, is planned above their seven-story building. Credit Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times “The idea is genius,” said Jesse M. Keenan, research director at the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University. “The execution will be challenging, but not impossible.” The soon-to-be downstairs neighbors are not so enthusiastic. Tenants in about half of the apartments at 711 West End Avenue have formed a group opposing the project, contending that the blueprints do not begin to convey what the project will look and feel like from below. “I’m afraid for my life that any minute, one of these three-ton steel beams could come crashing through my wall,” Stephanie Cooper, a resident of 47 years, said last week inside her two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor. She originally paid $267 a month, and now pays less than $2,000. While building a 10-story building over a seven-story one might seem like a futuristic proposition, the engineering for 711 West End Avenue is quite conventional, certainly when compared with all the cantilevered building extensions and 1,000-foot-tall but 50-foot-wide towers on the horizon. Here, the top 10 floors will sit on a steel and concrete platform supported by a crisscrossing steel superstructure surrounding but not touching the lower building. Other than the shaft for a new elevator and fire stairs that will run from the lobby to the new eighth floor, the buildings are totally separate. A roughly six-foot gap will separate the roof of the existing 1952 building and the bottom of the new one because they must comply with different fire codes, though the facade of the Art Deco-inspired addition will obscure the gap. The idea is to unify the buildings visually but not physically. “We hired all the best consultants, and it’s pretty amazing what they’ve come up with,” Mr. Boardman said. He is teaming up with the Miller family, which has owned 711 West End Avenue since the 1960s, and SJP Properties, a large New Jersey developer. Image A rendering of the plan. Credit PBDW Architects Some of the Millers even live in the building, as do two of Mr. Boardman’s relatives who recently moved in. The owners point to this as proof they will take the utmost care during construction. Those in the tenants’ group remain suspicious. They say they are worried not only about the risks posed by two or more years of construction above them, but also the continuing impact after the building is finished, such as how the new steel structure might overshadow their windows. The group hired its own engineer to challenge the developer’s tenant safety plan, arguing it is insufficient. And the boards of the neighboring co-op buildings and parents at Public School 75 across 95th Street have joined with Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal to oppose the project, calling it a danger to surrounding properties. Even so, the city’s Department of Buildings approved permits for the project in June, though it did subject the plan to additional scrutiny, including a review by its high-rise investigations team and an independent engineer. The department has tried to reassure residents the new building will be safe. “It’s our mission to facilitate safe development,” Thomas Fariello, the department’s first deputy commissioner, said in an interview. “Notice that safety comes before development.” The owners maintain that the project will be a boon for current residents as well as new ones, and not only because they get to stay. The plans also call for adding new windows and central air-conditioning to all existing units, as well as a new lobby and a courtyard garden. Yet even these plans are seen as intrusive by some. “This isn’t for the tenants; it’s for them,” said Barbara Stark, who has been there 52 years and has seen four generations grow up there, including her 16-month-old great-granddaughter. “They just want it to look nicer so they can sell their condos.” Image From left, Barbara Stark, 80; with her great-granddaughter Daisy Davidson, 16 months; and granddaughter Sadie Davidson, 22, residents of 711 West End Avenue. Credit Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times While the renovations have been held up as a benefit, they could also be used to raise rents for stabilized tenants through capital improvement charges. “This is not an end-run scheme of any sort,” Edward Kalikow, the building manager, said. “If anything, it’s going to enhance the value of the asset for everyone there.” He said that if tenants cooperated, the owners would consider not raising the rent for improvements. The work will no doubt be disruptive for residents. For construction to proceed without dislocating tenants below, their building will be shrouded in reinforced scaffolding, and they could experience noise and vibrations. And anyone who does not allow access to their units for work could be threatened with eviction. An eviction case is already underway for a seventh-floor tenant who lives where the new elevator is planned. She is the only one in that vertical column of apartments who has not accepted a buyout and moved out or to another apartment. Neither the tenant nor her lawyer responded to requests for comment. Mr. Boardman said there were three alternatives to build around her, if need be, so she could not stop the project. And though they have not been as vocal as their neighbors, some residents said they were actually looking forward to the expected improvements. One tenant of two years, Zoran Nikolin, sounded unbothered by the coming work. “It’s going to be great for everybody,” Mr. Nikolin said. “But we have to endure the nuisances for that to happen.”

Paul Boardman
Real Estate
Construction
Housing
Rent Control
West End Avenue Manhattan


Ahmadinejad Makes State Visit to Lebanon

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran arrived here on Wednesday morning and was given an ecstatic welcome by supporters of Hezbollah , the militant Shiite movement his country backs. Thousands of cheering supporters thronged the road that leads from Beirut’s airport to the city, waving Iranian flags, throwing flowers, and chanting greetings in Persian as Mr. Ahmadinejad’s convoy slowly passed. It is the Iranian president’s first state visit here since he was first elected in 2005, and it comes at a time of rising tension between Hezbollah and its political rivals. The Shiite group has been waging a campaign against the international tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, which is expected to indict several of the Shiite group’s members. Hezbollah’s leaders have warned of disastrous consequences if that happens. They see the tribunal as an Israeli plot aimed at discrediting them and have pressured other factions to publicly disavow it. Even without indictments, some fear the tensions could lead to violence or the collapse of Lebanon ’s tenuous unity government, in which Hezbollah and its allies wield veto power. American officials voiced their disapproval last week of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit, which seems timed to embolden Hezbollah and underscore Tehran’s broader influence in Lebanon. After his arrival, Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared at a news conference alongside the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, announcing several bilateral agreements on energy, water, and other issues. Iran, which has long provided arms and training to Hezbollah, has also offered repeatedly to help equip the Lebanese Army if the United States cuts off its military aid here. Iranian money was crucial to the rebuilding effort after the 2006 war with Israel, an array of reconstruction projects directed by Hezbollah but whose benefits — apartment blocks and roads — were not limited to its followers. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s trip had all the trappings of a typical state visit by a foreign leader, including news conferences, a formal lunch, and meetings with leaders of Lebanon’s various sectarian communities. But he was also hailed by many in the Shiite community — Lebanon’s largest — as something different: a heroic patron of the struggle against Israel. On Wednesday evening, he delivered a speech at a vast Hezbollah rally in Beirut’s southern suburb in which he railed against Israel as tens of thousands of supporters roared their approval. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah also spoke by video link, thanking Iran for its support and calling for Israel to be “wiped out of existence.” On Thursday, the Iranian president plans to visit southern Lebanon — near the Israeli border — in a trip aimed at highlighting Iranian support for Hezbollah’s armed struggle with Israel. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Israel had asked the United States, France, and the United Nations to pass on the message that it viewed Mr. Ahmadinejad’s planned visit to southern Lebanon as a provocation. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit follows several other recent diplomatic missions to Lebanon, which has long been a battleground for regional powers. In August, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria met in Beirut in a rare show of unity. The Saudi king’s involvement was widely seen as an effort to legitimize greater Syrian influence in Lebanon, and over Hezbollah, in the hopes of countering Iran’s role here. But Damascus has shown no sign that it will distance itself from Tehran, or modify its policies here. Earlier this month a Syrian judge issued arrest warrants for 33 Lebanese officials, including some close allies of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, saying they had misled the tribunal’s investigation. The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, has disparaged the tribunal, adding to the pressure on Mr. Hariri and his allies. As the Iranian president’s motorcade passed on Wednesday morning, a black-clad elderly Shiite woman who gave her name only as Um Ali — the mother of Ali — waved an Iranian flag as she stood in a thick crowd of admirers, many of them women. “He rebuilt Lebanon, we welcome him here in his second country,” she said. “God willing, we will have an Islamic republic in Lebanon.” Nearby, a group of butchers was preparing to slaughter 2 camels and 10 sheep in Mr. Ahmadinejad’s honor. “He’s an important guest, he deserves an important gift,” said Amir Salim, as he cleared the crowds away so that they would not be stained with the animals’ blood.


U.S. May Summon HSBC in Tax-Evasion Inquiry

Abstract: Federal authorities are considering whether to serve a broad legal summons on HSBC to ascertain whether it sold tax-evasion services to scores of wealthy American clients, people briefed on the matter said Wednesday. The legal action was being considered as a federal indictment was announced Wednesday of an affluent client of an unidentified international bank on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States by keeping hidden bank accounts in India and the British Virgin Islands, an offshore tax haven, from about 2001 until this year. The people who had been briefed on the matter said that the international bank was HSBC, which is based in London but has Swiss-style private banking operations around the world. The indictment, of Vaibhav Dahake, by federal prosecutors in United States District Court in Newark, said the unnamed bank had identified wealthy Indian-Americans as clients for undeclared offshore banking through N.R.I. Services, a United States division of the bank. The division, court papers said, encouraged United States citizens to open undeclared bank accounts in India. Mr. Dahake, of Somerset, N.J., was born in India and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2006. He is a principal of Tricolor Inc., an information technology business in Somerset. It was not clear how many client names would be covered under a summons, which would have to be issued by the Internal Revenue Service and enforced by the Justice Department. Last August, authorities dropped a similar summons against the Swiss bank giant UBS that had sought to require the bank to disclose the names of as many as 52,000 wealthy American clients. HSBC said, “HSBC does not condone tax evasion and fully supports the U.S. efforts to promote appropriate payment of taxes by U.S. taxpayers.” In 2001, Mr. Dahake received from the international bank “an unsolicited letter advertising bank accounts in India that paid high interest rates,” court documents said. The indictment cited as unindicted co-conspirators five unidentified bankers: three Americans, in New York and Fremont, Calif.; and two Indians, in Thane, near Mumbai, India. One of the bankers advised Mr. Dahake to transfer money between his accounts in smaller amounts “to stay below the radar” of rules requiring banks to report to American customs officials transfers of $10,000 or more, according to the documents. Other bankers advised him not to file required forms to the I.R.S declaring the money, and told him that money transferred between the British Virgin Islands account and the India account would not be processed through the United States banking system, further evading scrutiny. One of the bankers told Mr. Dahake that he did not have to worry about bringing his money from the India account back to the United States because, according to court papers, the I.R.S. “would be looking for undeclared accounts maintained in the Caribbean rather than in the Far East,” and his ownership of and the structure of the British Virgin Islands account would be unknown to authorities. The international bank, the papers said, also counseled Mr. Dahake about holding money in Singapore and Hong Kong, two Asian tax havens. Lawrence S. Horn, a lawyer for Mr. Dahake, said in a statement on Wednesday that he saw the 10-page court document “as something much more than just an indictment of Mr. Dahake.” He added that “the timing of this indictment appears to be a ‘clubbed invitation’ for American citizens with undisclosed accounts to apply for admission into the second initiative of the voluntary disclosure program or risk prosecution once that bank eventually discloses his or her name to the I.R.S.” On Monday, the I.R.S. said that it would soon announce a new amnesty program aimed at encouraging wealthy Americans with hidden offshore bank accounts to come forward, declare their money and pay taxes owed in exchange for reduced fines and penalties.

Internal Revenue Service
Tax Evasion
HSBC Holdings PLC
Banking and Financial Institutions


With Six Strong Innings, Colon Keeps Himself in Mix

Abstract: PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Every start for Bartolo Colon has been a revelation. He arrived in Yankees camp as a curiosity. He may leave it next week as a member of their rotation. With the competition nearing its final stages, Colon flummoxed the Tampa Bay Rays over six innings Monday night, retiring 18 of 20 hitters in the Yankees’ 3-1 loss. The effort impressed Manager Joe Girardi, who characterized Colon’s command as outstanding. Catcher Russell Martin said Colon was “ready to go.” But where will Colon go? To the rotation? The bullpen? Or somewhere else? Club officials met Monday to discuss roster decisions, and Ivan Nova seemingly has an edge for one of the two vacant starting spots. The other is all but certain to go to Freddy Garcia, more of a known commodity, or Colon, who, after not pitching professionally in 2010, has revived his career. When evaluating Colon, the Yankees will have to weigh his exceptional spring — in 15 exhibition innings he has a 2.40 earned run average while striking out 17 against only one walk — against his age (37), weight (267 or so pounds) and yearlong hiatus. If Colon makes the team, he will receive $900,000. “We’ve all been deceived in March before, but we’ve also been rewarded in March before,” General Manager Brian Cashman said before the game. “You go through the motions, you put the work in, you see what you see in the games and you have to make a call. And you hope it’s going to be the right call.” Colon said through an interpreter that he was pleased with his performance, but that he would not be disappointed if he was passed over. He added that he would accept a job in the bullpen. That remains a possibility, with the team still unsure of its long reliever. On Monday, Colon pitched as if he wanted to start opening day, handling the Rays’ representative lineup, including Johnny Damon, Evan Longoria, Ben Zobrist and B. J. Upton. With his fastball regularly reaching 93 miles per hour, he disrupted batters’ timing with an assortment of two-seamers, changeups, cutters and the occasional slider. Through the first two innings, Colon threw 16 of 18 pitches for strikes. In all, he threw 52 of his 64 pitches for strikes, a remarkably efficient showing that was hardly marred by the one-out homer he allowed to Kelly Shoppach in the sixth. “I mean, they’re just not comfortable up there,” Martin said. “He just makes quality pitches, he just goes after you, throws strikes early.” Since the beginning of spring training, Girardi has praised Colon’s command. But even then, he was considered little more than a peripheral candidate. “With Bartolo, I didn’t know what to expect,” Girardi said. “With the other guys, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect.” Colon has spent the last month allaying concerns about his ability, emerging with better sink on his two-seamer and improved off-speed pitches. Questions about his durability still persist, given that he has not pitched 100 innings in a season since 2005. “I think you try to look at all the scenarios,” Girardi said. “You watch swings and how the guy competes and you watch his stuff. A lot of these games are on TV, so you can go back and watch it. Is it an illusion? Is it moving as you think it is? I’ll watch it tomorrow. “His stuff has been outstanding. It’s been pretty good. We’ve just got to figure out what we’re going to do.” PHILLIES SIGN CASTILLO As expected, Philadelphia signed second baseman Luis Castillo, who was cut Friday by the Mets, to a minor league contract. Castillo has what the Phillies said amounted to a 10-day tryout for playing time while Chase Utley recovers from an injury. (AP) HALLADAY SEEMS READY The Philadelphia right-hander Roy Halladay looked ready for opening day, pitching into the eighth inning to lead the Phillies past Boston, 4-1. Halladay flirted with a rare spring training complete game, holding the Red Sox to one run and five hits. ... The Cincinnati right-handed starter Johnny Cueto will miss the start of the season because of an inflamed pitching shoulder. (AP)


Ice Cross Blends Hockey Gear and High Speed at Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship

Abstract: ST. PAUL — A company at the top of the marketing game, Red Bull insists that ice cross downhill, like the other extreme sports the company has created, is not about selling beverages but rather an obligation to improve the lives of adrenaline junkies worldwide. The participants at the Crashed Ice qualifier at Xcel Energy Center here this week seemed convinced. Red Bull officials could have hollered, “This is an expensive marketing ploy to sell more energy drinks,” and the overwhelming response from skaters would have been, “Is it my turn yet?” Ice cross downhill combines elements of downhill skiing and motocross, and it is performed by four skaters at a time who race in full hockey gear down a steep, twisting, mogul-studded course at speeds reaching 45 miles an hour. Red Bull’s Crashed Ice World Championship consists of five ice cross downhill tournaments, only one of which takes place in the United States. It started here on Thursday and will end on Saturday . The Crashed Ice course, plunging from a bluff-top cathedral to downtown St. Paul, took 20 days and an army of workers with snowmobiles to construct , just for this three-day event. As the rookie Sever Lundquist climbed the 84 metal steps to the starting gate 48 feet above ground for the first time, realizing that within two strides he would be hitting vehicular speeds on thin steel blades, he said his only thought was, I can’t wait. “I used to be extremely involved in sports,” Lundquist, 23, said. “Now I work 50 hours a week at Target Corp and watch my two best friends play pro hockey in Norway. I want a chance to hopefully be a star, to be really great at something. To travel and be considered a pro athlete — that would be awesome.” The ice cross demographic is heavily white, male and 18 to 34 years old. Like the other extreme dudes, Lundquist said he had nothing but gratitude for Red Bull for investing its beverage-backed millions in all-comer awesomeness. “Sure, there’s a business incentive behind it, but Red Bull puts a lot of money into these outrageous events, and they don’t charge anybody for them,” he said. St. Paul businesses, particularly bars, are similarly pleased. The mayor’s office reported that Crashed Ice 2012 brought in $20 million in what was traditionally the coldest week of the year in the city. Image Sever Lundquist, center, listening to instructions before he and 99 competitors raced down the crashed ice track in St. Paul. Their sport is a mix of downhill skiing with motocross. Credit Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times Lundquist is not about to waste this opportunity. Because the United States has no permanent ice cross courses on which to train, his father pulled him behind a snowmobile while he navigated an obstacle course they built on a lake. “Otherwise, at no time would you ever hit 45 m.p.h. on skates,” he said, laughing. Andrew Bergeson, a second-year member of Red Bull Crashed Ice Team USA, is another believer. “I have to pinch myself,” said Bergeson, 25, of Red Wing, Minn. He was attired at the tryouts in the offhand manner of a veteran, wearing pink and black Zubaz pants. “I’ve played hockey since I was 3 years old. Within two months of doing ice cross, I was at the top of the sport. It excites me to be a pioneer.” Like most ice crossers, Bergeson has a strong hockey background sprinkled with other fast-moving, hard-hitting pursuits like skiing, in-line skating and football. “My brother and I were always making jumps in our backyard,” he said. “So when I heard about the tryouts, I thought this was something I might be good at. The prize money never crossed my mind: I just wanted a chance to get on the course.” Competing last January against an international field of about 160 veterans and rookies, in front of a Red Bull-primed crowd of 80,000, Bergeson finished in 26th place, the third American. As such, he was invited to join Team USA for the Crashed Ice World Championship 2012 series — in the Netherlands, Sweden and Quebec — at Red Bull’s expense. “Everything was first-class,” he said. “Every city tried to outdo the last one with bigger parties, better dinners and cooler atmosphere.” Crashed Ice athletes pay no entry fee to compete, and the top eight finishers at each event win from $265.81 to $4,651.74. (The prize structure is in euros, since Red Bull is an Austrian company.) Image In ice cross downhill, four skaters at a time race in full hockey gear down a steep, twisting course at speeds reaching 45 miles an hour. Credit Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times Bergeson spent $1,000 on custom skates, built an ice cross course in his backyard and burned through the vacation from his full-time job as a nuclear plant operator before the end of March. Then he dropped out of last year’s Netherlands Crashed Ice Championship with a separated shoulder. The loss of points, combined with a change in Red Bull’s athlete support structure, meant Bergeson received $500 toward hotel and airfare for this season’s first Crashed Ice tour stop in Niagara, Ontario, instead of full fare. “If Red Bull didn’t give me a dollar, I’d still do it,” he said. “It combines all my favorite sports — it’s a ton of fun. Plus, once you get out of college, there aren’t many ways to compete at a pro level like this.” A rising ice cross downhill star, Cameron Naasz, shared Bergeson’s sentiment. “I’m 100 percent grateful Red Bull has given me the opportunity to compete at the highest level of a sport I didn’t even know existed a year ago,” Naasz, a fifth-year student at St. Cloud State, said by phone. Naasz was a walk-on at last year’s Crashed Ice Championship in St. Paul, and his training in hockey, aggressive in-line skating, mountain biking and snowboarding paid off with a 24th-place finish. He won an award as the best newcomer to the sport and an invitation to join Team USA, joining Bergeson and the Salt Lake City native Tigh Isaac for the remaining three stops on the tour. “At first, I wasn’t thinking about competing seriously,” Naasz said. “I was just there to hang with guys like me, get a little crazy, have some fun.” The life of a professional ice crosser did not mesh with that of a full-time student, however, so Naasz took the spring semester off and caught up on classes over the summer. “My parents think the travel is great, but they probably would have killed me if I didn’t keep up with school,” he said. As latecomers to ice cross downhill, the Team USA athletes finished the 2012 season in the middle of the world rankings, with Swiss, Canadian and Finnish athletes taking the top spots. Naasz trained last summer with renewed energy, working out in the gym daily, mountain biking and getting on the ice three times a week. His dedication resulted in a second-place finish at this season’s first Crashed Ice event in Ontario, just behind the world champion Kyle Croxall of Canada. “The experience has been well worth the time and effort,” said Naasz, whose world ranking ensures that he will once again represent the United States on this year’s tour, at Red Bull’s expense. “We’re living the dream, traveling the world. We’re like semi-celebrities in the winter months. When I go out with friends, they’re like, ‘Do you know who this guy is?’ and I’m like, ‘How’s it going?’ ”


Flow of Money Bedevils Climate Talks

Abstract: DOHA, Qatar — The United Nations climate conference here has settled into its typical doldrums, with most major questions unresolved as a Friday evening deadline for concluding the talks approaches. One of the thorniest issues is money, which has often bedeviled these affairs. Since the process for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change began about 20 years ago, countries have been split into two often-warring camps: the small number of wealthy nations that provide money to help deal with the effects of global warming , and the much larger group of poorer states that receive it. At a climate summit meeting in Copenhagen three years ago, the industrialized countries promised to secure $10 billion a year in funds for adapting to climate change over the following three years and $100 billion a year beginning in 2020. The short-term money has more or less been raised and spent, although some nations have quarreled over whether it was new money or simply repurposed foreign aid. A Green Climate Fund has been established to handle the money after 2020. Left unclear was whether money would flow from 2013 to 2020. That is what negotiators from about 190 countries are fighting about here. And it is a particularly difficult time for the donor nations to find new money. The United States, which traditionally provides about a quarter of such international finance, is teetering on a fiscal precipice, and few in Washington are thinking about finding several billion dollars to help sub-Saharan Africa or precarious island nations cope with drought and rising seas. Jonathan Pershing , the State Department’s deputy special envoy for climate change, said Wednesday that the United States had “every intention” of finding money for climate adaptation. But he pointedly noted that in the United States, “like most places, the budgeting process is complicated.” Pete Betts, the principal climate negotiator for the European Union , said that Europe would continue to provide climate money. But he, too, noted, “These are tough financial times, and many states are in difficult circumstances, so we won’t be in a position to state our target for 2015.” This reticence by richer countries annoys the recipient countries, which see it as avoiding responsibility for decades of uncontrolled emissions that now threaten the health of the planet. Some, like Brazil, raise legalistic objections that the wealthier countries promised in previous agreements to provide a steady flow of such financing. André Corrêa do Lago, the chief Brazilian delegate, said, “There is a very different interpretation between developed and developing countries, which is natural because some are giving the money and some are getting the money.” He said that most developing countries had believed that the roughly $10 billion a year in short-term money would be replaced by a gradual increase until 2020. He said he was sympathetic to the budget problems of Europe and the United States, but he also said that unless the donor countries promised to keep up their support, Brazil and other countries would not allow the negotiating process to go forward. “If at the end you don’t, it’s a very frustrating exercise,” he said. The most impassioned voices, as usual, are representatives of poor African nations and of low-lying island states threatened with being swamped by rising seas. “Please, ladies and gentlemen,” the delegate from Nauru, a Pacific island nation, pleaded to the assembly, “show me on a map which countries you think are expendable.” Todd D. Stern, the senior American diplomat here, said the United States understood the impatience and frustration of its negotiating partners from the developing world. Addressing the conference on Wednesday, he said that different countries had different abilities to cope with a changing climate and to find the money to adapt. He said that the United States was willing to discuss the concepts of equity and “common but differentiated responsibilities,” terms that carry heavy emotional and historical baggage at these gatherings. In what was read by many here as a shift in tone, Mr. Stern said that such notions would be central to the outcome of a new global climate change treaty that is supposed to be concluded by 2015 and take effect in 2020 under an agreement reached in Durban, South Africa, a year ago. “The United States would welcome such a discussion, because unless we can find common ground on that principle and the way in which it should apply in the world of the 2020s, we won’t succeed in producing a new Durban Platform agreement ,” Mr. Stern said. “And we have to succeed.”


Didi Chuxing and Uber, Popular in China, Are Now Legal, Too

Abstract: HONG KONG — Ride-hailing services in China have attracted billions of dollars in investments. They have pulled in money from some of the world’s largest tech companies, like Apple and Alibaba. They have become a crucial road test for one of America’s best-known start-ups, Uber. On Thursday, they finally became legal. In a new law announced by several regulators, China’s government gave the thumbs-up for ride-hailing companies like Uber and its Chinese rival, Didi Chuxing, to operate in the country. The law clears up regulatory uncertainty and lays out a new framework under which ride-hailing companies can operate in the country. Uber and Didi have upended China’s taxi industry by allowing drivers to take passengers in private vehicles with the help of hugely popular apps. Despite investments in technology, marketing and subsidies, both companies had operated in a legal gray zone, with drivers occasionally being detained by the police. Strict government rules have repeatedly tripped up local and foreign internet companies in China. Yet in the fast-moving Chinese tech industry, an “invest first, get approval later” model has prevailed. For Uber and Didi, it appears that ethos has paid off. Analysts said the new law, which will take effect on Nov. 1, signaled a step back from earlier, stricter proposals. According to the rules, drivers must have three years’ experience, be licensed by a local taxi regulator and have no criminal record. Cars with more than 600,000 kilometers, or about 370,000 miles, on the odometer may not be used. Drivers were divided on what to make of the new rules. On one hand, they said in a chat group, it was a relief to see their job permitted by the government. On the other hand, the finer points of the law were unclear, leaving open questions like whether cars licensed outside Beijing would be allowed to take fares in the city. In an interview, a 31-year-old driver with the surname Liu, who did not give his full name because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the ride-hailing services, pointed out that the law did not address other concerns; many drivers have seen incomes cut nearly in half recently as Didi and Uber have reduced subsidies. That has been more painful to drivers who bought cars to take advantage of the big bonuses that had been offered. One man, Wen Zhenjiang, 37, quit a job driving Coca-Cola trucks from Beijing to the western city of Xi’an and bought a Volkswagen to start driving for Uber and Didi. “I will see how much I can earn,” Mr. Wen said. “If I can’t earn much, even if it’s legal now, there’s no point in doing it.” He added that he thought many drivers would fail the licensing process and that he was wary of the GPS tracking devices the new law says must be installed on their vehicles as a safety measure. Similar devices have led to limits on how much time drivers can spend on the road in trucking, he said. “I know the tracking devices,” he said. “Once you install that and drive more than eight hours a day, you will be fined, and your company won’t pay the fine.” Experts said there was nothing in the law to validate Mr. Wen’s concerns. Uber and Didi issued statements welcoming the regulation. In a note from the senior vice president of corporate development for Uber’s Chinese arm, Zhen Liu, the company said it was “regulation-ready” and would be working with local authorities to put the regulations into practice. Didi said its drivers would begin applying for local licenses. Didi’s statement praised elements of the rules, like the fact that ride-hailing companies will be allowed to set their own prices. Calling the new law a “milestone” for China’s sharing economy, Wu Shenkuo, a Beijing Normal University law professor, said he did not see any evidence that the law would specifically take aim at foreign companies. Still, he said, the companies must take care to comply with the rules, which will be put in place locally. “Companies need to adjust to the new law, especially in terms of applying for licenses, screening drivers and equipping cars,” he said, adding that the law creates a model as China seeks to regulate new internet-based industries that conflict with existing businesses. Taxi drivers in China have held mass protests over ride-hailing apps, which they say are unfair competition. “From what I can see now, it is very likely that companies will give out less subsidies, raise the rate up for car-hailing, and as a consequence, there might be fewer part-time drivers,” he added. While Uber remains in the middle of a brutal pricing competition with Didi, which has more of the market, the rules to some degree validate the American company’s willingness to flout regulations in new markets. Uber introduced the ride-hailing model to China. Putting ordinary Chinese behind the wheel of pay-to-ride vehicles led to occasional run-ins with the police, but it also won customers before Didi, which began as an app for flagging taxis rather than private cars, adjusted to the competition . If Uber does not face difficulties in obtaining licenses from local taxi regulators, it will become the first major American internet company in recent years to break into China in a dominant way and get official approval. Even so, it faces tough competition from Didi, which not only has support from the Chinese internet giants Tencent and Alibaba, but recently gained a powerful new backer in Apple, which invested $1 billion in May.

Didi Chuxing
Uber
China
Carpool
Regulation and Deregulation


Deutsche Bank Freezes North Carolina Expansion, in Protest of Bias Law

Abstract: Deutsche Bank, the German financial giant that has a significant business in the United States, said on Tuesday that it would freeze its plans to add jobs in North Carolina, a response to the passage last month of a state law that, among other things, eliminates antidiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation. Deutsche Bank had planned to create 250 positions at its technology development center in Cary, N.C., a municipality near Raleigh, that currently employees 900 people. In explaining why those plans had been delayed, John Cryan, co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank, took aim at the new law, which also bars transgender people from using bathrooms that do not match their gender at birth. “We’re proud of our operations and employees in Cary and regret that as a result of this legislation we are unwilling to include North Carolina in our U.S. expansion plans for now,” Mr. Cryan said in a statement, “We very much hope that we can revisit our plans to grow this location in the near future.” PayPal, an electronic payments company, announced last week that it was not going ahead with a plan to add 400 jobs, in protest of the law. And scores of chief executives of other large corporations spoke out against the law in a letter sent to North Carolina’s governor, Pat McCrory. Deutsche Bank has had operations in Cary since 2009. The bank had planned to spend $9 million in the expansion this year, and the additional jobs were expected to pay out total compensation of more than $21 million a year. North Carolina agreed to give Deutsche Bank tax reimbursements if the bank fulfilled job creation requirements. In a news release in September , Mr. McCrory spoke positively about Deutsche Bank’s expansion, saying it highlighted features that drew companies to the state, including competitive costs and a “great quality of life.”

Deutsche Bank
North Carolina
Jobs
John Cryan
Bathrooms
Legislation
Pat McCrory
Transgender,Gender Dysphoria
Gay and Lesbian LGBT
Discrimination


Bismack Biyombo Emerges for Raptors, and a Big Payday Could Follow

Abstract: An ankle injury to a red-hot Jonas Valanciunas in the second round of the N.B.A. playoffs came at a terrible time for the Toronto Raptors, but for Bismack Biyombo, the team’s backup center, it could not have worked out better. Biyombo, a 6-foot-9 defensive ace, has flourished in the starting role. And with the ability to opt out of his contract and become a free agent this summer, he also appears to have set himself up for a huge payday. While solid all season for the Raptors, and a contributor in the first two rounds of the playoffs, Biyombo caught fire in Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. As Toronto fought back, on Monday tying the series at two games apiece, Biyombo amassed an incredible 40 rebounds while also contributing 12 points, 7 blocks and 2 assists and committing just two turnovers. He has put on a show, with finger wags after his blocks worthy of Dikembe Mutombo, and plenty of tough play inside against a heavily favored team. Other than some fears that his physical style could end up injuring an opponent, the only mild controversy that had surrounded Biyombo entering Wednesday night’s game involved whether or not he had been given permission by Mutombo to replicate his signature gesture. Biyombo, who like Mutombo is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, has said he was given permission; Mutombo good-naturedly denied that but also made it clear that Biyombo needed no permission. “He’s a young man, so I let him enjoy the fame,” Mutombo said. “He’s making me famous. I will see him in the Congo this summer, so him and I will talk back home with nobody around us.” Predicting Biyombo’s ascension a year ago would have been nearly impossible. The seventh pick of the 2011 draft, Biyombo has always been entertaining, but he never averaged more than 5.2 points or 4.9 rebounds a game in four seasons for Charlotte. Even as he steadily improved in various advanced basketball statistics, the world failed to notice. He signed a free-agent deal with Toronto worth around $3 million for this season with a player option for a second year at roughly the same amount. That he would eventually opt out was probably a foregone conclusion, even before his breakout in the playoffs, as he thrived as the defensive half of a center rotation with Valanciunas, playing in all 82 games while averaging 5.5 points, 8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks in just 22 minutes per game. Still only 23, and able to play much larger than his 6-foot-9 frame, he was sure to command far more than a $3 million guarantee based on his regular-season performance alone. Now he is likely to be lobbying teams for a starting role and a salary to match. He has thus far proved himself capable of a larger role, logging 39 or more minutes in three of the team’s last five games heading into Wednesday, after playing that much only two times during the regular season and seven times in his four seasons with Charlotte. Biyombo has perhaps already priced himself out of Toronto, which is committed long term to Valanciunas, whose four-year, $64 million contract extension starts next year. The Raptors may not have the money or the playing time to keep Biyombo. Valanciunas returned Wednesday night for Game 5, but as he gets back into the groove, Biyombo will still probably handle the majority of the work. Judging by Games 3 and 4, that should cause some discomfort for Cleveland.

Bismack Biyombo
Raptors
Cavaliers
Basketball


Legal Giant Skadden Loses 2 Top Partners to Kirkland

Abstract: David Fox and Daniel E. Wolf, two top partners at the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have defected to Kirkland & Ellis in a move likely to send shockwaves through the Wall Street legal world. The loss of Mr. Fox, 51, who was among the highest-paid lawyers at Skadden, is a blow to the firm, where revenue has fallen across nearly all practice areas. A prominent mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, Mr. Fox is leaving after more than 20 years with the firm, founded in 1948. It is rare for an established firm to lose such a senior lawyer to a less-known rival, and the move is the first time a partner in Skadden’s New York M.& A. practice has jumped to a competitor. The loss of two noted partners, who together generated tens of millions of dollars in fees annually for Skadden, could signal a broader shift in the corporate legal landscape as lawyers at large full-service firms leave for more focused, profitable shops. Last year, Kirkland generated about $2.47 million in profit for each partner, a closely watched measurement, compared to $2.07 million in profits per partner at Skadden, according to The American Lawyer, an industry magazine. “Skadden is a terrific firm and has been a home for my entire career,” Mr. Fox said in a short interview. He added that Joseph H. Flom, the firm’s leader, “is one the greatest lawyers and one of the greatest people I know.” Mr. Wolf, 36, is a rising star in the tight-knit world of deal advisers and, at 30, was one of the youngest people to make partner at Skadden. He has worked on several prominent mergers with Mr. Fox, including BHP Billiton’s $150 billion bid for Rio Tinto last year — the largest attempted takeover in history. (BHP ultimately gave up its pursuit of the company.) While they were partly lured to Kirkland by higher salaries, people close to the private talks said Mr. Fox and Mr. Wolf saw an opportunity to build the firm, based in Chicago, into one of the top five worldwide M.& A. advisers. The firm is currently not in the top 10, according to Thomson Reuters. Skadden is No. 1. Kirkland bills itself as younger and more entrepreneurial than some of its long-established competitors, which also attracted Mr. Wolf and Mr. Fox. The firm is also more focused on specific profit-producing areas like M.& A. and bankruptcy, while bigger firms like Skadden, Jones Day, and Latham & Watkins offer a vast swath of legal services. These legal superstores have been cutting costs as business dries up across several practice areas. This year, Skadden offered to pay its 1,300 associates a third of their base pay not to show up at work in 2009.

Kirkland & Ellis
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom
Legal Profession