Obama and Cameron Call on NATO to Confront ISIS

Abstract: CARDIFF, Wales — President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain have called on NATO to reject “isolationist” impulses and confront the rising terrorist threat posed by Sunni militants in the Middle East, saying the United States and Britain “will not be cowed by barbaric killers.” “We will not waver in our determination to confront” the militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the two leaders wrote in a joint opinion piece published in Thursday’s editions of The Times of London. “If terrorists think we will weaken in the face of their threats they could not be more wrong.” Their pointed words came as leaders gathered in Wales for a NATO summit meeting that was intended to focus on responding to Russia’s escalating military intervention in Ukraine. On the sidelines of the meeting, however, American and British efforts to assemble and lead an international coalition against ISIS are expected to predominate. “The international community as a whole has an obligation to stop the Islamic State from advancing further,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general, said at a news conference on Thursday. But he noted that there had been no request from Iraq for NATO assistance in confronting the group. Mr. Obama and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy will meet with President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine to discuss the crisis in his country, which will also be the topic of an afternoon meeting where allies will consider sending additional assistance to Kiev. Video President Obama pushed the alliance to send a message of support to Ukraine and to help modernize and strengthen its security forces. Credit Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times Before they met, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, warned that Ukraine’s efforts to form an alliance with NATO threatened to short-circuit talks to end the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine. Mr. Lavrov, in televised remarks in Moscow, said that discussions between top Ukrainian officials and NATO leaders were “a blatant attempt to derail all the efforts” to reach a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. NATO leaders will also discuss winding down the alliance’s combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of the year and shifting it to a training and assistance mission, although details of the transition cannot be finalized until Afghans resolve a disputed presidential election . In their joint editorial, Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron argued that ISIS is as immediate a threat to the security of NATO members as is the behavior of Russia, which they wrote had “ripped up the rule book” by annexing Crimea and sending its troops into Ukraine. Russia has denied any military involvement in Ukraine. “Whether it is regional aggression going unchecked or the prospect that foreign fighters could return from Iraq and Syria to pose a threat in our countries, the problems we face today threaten the security of British and American people, and the wider world,” they wrote. Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron argued that NATO must transition to a “more effective security network that fosters stability around the world,” urging member nations to bolster military spending. They also called for keeping a “persistent” NATO defensive presence in Eastern Europe to make clear to Russia that the alliance is serious about the defense of all of its members, and expressed support for a rapid-response force — expected to be endorsed by NATO allies this week — including land, air, maritime and special forces “that could deploy anywhere in the world at very short notice.”

NATO
David Cameron
Ukraine
US Foreign Policy
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Barack Obama


Vladimir Putin Plunges Into a Caldron in Syria: Saving Assad

Abstract: BEIRUT, Lebanon — After two days of attacks directed exclusively against insurgents opposed to the Syrian government, there is little question that Russia is determined to re-establish President Bashar al-Assad as Syria’s leader. “Russia’s goal is to defend Assad; whoever is against him is a destabilizing factor,” said Aleksei Makarkin, the deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies, in Moscow. “Russia wants Assad to get engaged in a political settlement from a position of strength.” Yet to restore Mr. Assad to full control of Syria or, for that matter, to stitch Syria back together without putting troops on the ground, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia will have to accomplish what no other outside power has dared attempt. Mr. Putin can achieve a number of short-term goals. By inserting Russian military forces directly into the Syrian battlefield he can seize the initiative from Mr. Assad’s opponents and severely limit the options of the United States and its allies, not to speak of embarrassing President Obama — always a consideration for Mr. Putin. But the glow of early Russian successes will almost certainly fade, analysts and opposition commanders say, as the realities of Syria’s grim, four-year civil war slowly assert themselves. Mr. Assad’s forces are worn down and demoralized, and they are in control of only about 20 percent of Syria’s territory. Mr. Assad himself is vilified by many in the majority Sunni population as his forces use barrel bombs and other indiscriminate weapons against an insurgency that began with political protests. This past summer the Syrian Army lost ground to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, in the east and to a rival insurgent coalition, the Army of Conquest, in the northwest. Mr. Assad even went on television to declare that the army was facing a manpower shortage. People from government-held areas and draft-age men were increasingly joining the accelerating flow of refugees heading for Europe and elsewhere. In a country that is 80 percent Sunni, he was also relying increasingly on Shiite fighters from Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia group, injecting a sectarian edge into an already vicious conflict. Syria and Rebels Battle for Aleppo as Cease-Fire Collapses A drastic escalation of fighting in Aleppo has shattered a partial truce. At the same time, as the Islamic State moved toward Homs and Damascus from the east, rival insurgents were putting new pressure on the Syrian coastal provinces, where Mr. Assad’s support is strongest. The fighters advancing on that front were not from the Islamic State but from the Army of Conquest, a group that includes an affiliate of Al Qaeda known as the Nusra Front and other Islamist groups, including several more secular groups that have been covertly armed and trained by the United States. By striking at the territory of that group and others opposed to both Mr. Assad and the Islamic State, Russia takes pressure off Mr. Assad and Hezbollah and shifts the ebb and flow in the war’s stalemate back in their favor. Lebanese news media even reported Thursday that Hezbollah could soon be participating in a major ground attack in northern Syria, suggesting there were plans for an assault to roll back some insurgent gains. There were also unconfirmed reports that new Iranian troops were entering Syria. But history suggests that it will be hard for Russia to bring about a purely military resolution. The United States, with tens of thousands of troops and virtually unlimited firepower, could not subdue insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan. And with airstrikes alone, the American-led coalition against the Islamic State has made little headway. Russia remembers its own disastrous battle with Islamist insurgents — American-backed groups that over time spawned Al Qaeda — in the 1980s in Afghanistan. And fears that the strikes would further radicalize people seemed to be coming true on Thursday as one previously independent Islamist brigade declared its allegiance to the Nusra Front, saying unity was necessary because America and Russia were allied against Muslims “to blur the light of truth.” For now, though, Mr. Putin does not seem to be in a rush, particularly since state control of the news media allows him to mold public opinion, much as he did by backing rebel separatists in eastern Ukraine. His supporters say he is not looking for easy victories. Image An explosion on Thursday as Russian planes struck targets in Syria. The attacks may take pressure off Bashar al-Assad. Credit Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, via Associated Press “He is playing a long game in strengthening the Russian position and showing that Russia is an independent, powerful player,” said Sergei Karaganov, an occasional Kremlin adviser on foreign policy as the honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. The Russian president may not even be looking for victory. “He wants to be engaged in a serious conversation that Russia is playing a role there that is good,” said Konstantin von Eggert, a political commentator on Kommersant FM radio. Until then, Mr. von Eggert said, “ attacks on the Islamic State can wait.” With his forces on the ground, Mr. von Eggert said, Mr. Putin can now bide his time and wait for the United States to come around to joining him — if not under the Obama administration then the next one. “You cannot disregard him, because he has a military presence there,” Mr. von Eggert said. “It is the reality you cannot ignore. It is real guys with real weaponry on the ground in Syria that the Americans do not have.” It is not so much Mr. Assad himself that Mr. Putin wants to defend, he added, as the principle that leaders at home should be allowed to do what they want. “By being in Latakia and Tartus they are defending Moscow,” Mr. von Eggert said. “They are defending the principle that any government can do what it wants with its own people.” Defending Mr. Assad is also meant to show the world that Russia and America treat their friends differently. The United States might abandon leaders like President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, but Russia is a better ally. That makes all Assad opponents fair game. Image President Vladimir V. Putin seems determined to use his campaign of airstrikes to re-establish President Bashar al-Assad as Syria's leader. Credit Pool photo by Yuri Kochetkov Others doubt whether Mr. Putin’s lunge into Syria was all that well thought out. A senior Western diplomat who has been deeply involved in the Syria debate said Thursday that there was no evidence that Mr. Putin had a grand strategy in mind in beginning the bombing. Instead, the official said, his calculations seemed mostly tactical. Other officials questioned whether the Russian leader had what they called an “exit strategy” if he found that he was getting sucked further and further into Syria’s civil war. Several American officials, trying to put the best face on Mr. Putin’s direct challenge, have said in recent days they believe that the Russian leader will soon have to take responsibility for Mr. Assad’s attacks on his own people. “Putin owns this now, even if he doesn’t know that yet,” one administration official said. “If he’s there to save Assad, then he’s responsible for controlling him.” Many analysts say that Mr. Putin’s best hope is to push all the parties to work more urgently toward a political resolution — albeit one that is more favorable to Russia and Mr. Assad. But that may take some doing, at least as far as the Obama administration is concerned. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, suggested that Mr. Putin’s real motive is to protect Russia’s military base at Tartus, Russia’s last military outpost outside of the former Soviet Union. “The fact is, Russia is responding to a situation inside the Middle East from a position of weakness. Their influence in that region of the world is waning,” Mr. Earnest said, adding that Russia is “trying to salvage what’s left of a deteriorating situation inside of Syria.” Then again, as with the deal Mr. Putin engineered to rid Syria of its chemical weapons, he might manage to put together a peace deal that Mr. Obama finds he cannot refuse. Mr. Putin’s task is made somewhat easier by the fact that he enjoys high ratings at home and does not have to worry much about public opinion when it comes to a distant war. “Putin does not care about public opinion at home because any story can be sold internally via the television,” said Orkhan Dzhemal, a prominent journalist who specializes in the Middle East. “In addition, most Russians don’t care whom we are fighting against in Syria, ISIS or not ISIS.”

Vladimir Putin
Syria
Russia
Bashar al-Assad
Military
Sunnis
Syrian Army
Shiite
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State
Barack Obama


Chinese Journalists Get an Exhilarating Look at the U.S. Election

Abstract: American democracy, as the past few months have shown, can be a messy affair. In a one-party state like China, the elections-equals-chaos narrative has been avidly embraced by the state-run media, which sought to paint this year’s hurly-burly presidential race as evidence that the American political system is deeply flawed. “All this weirdness not only clearly shows the predicament of the U.S. political establishment, it also points straight at the corrupt practices of the U.S. political system,” People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, said in a commentary last month. “For a long time, the United States has boasted about how its extremely lively election is a sign of the superiority of its system, and has even used this to willfully criticize the vast majority of developing countries.” Over the past week, however, a small coterie of Chinese journalists has been traveling across the United States, courtesy of the State Department, as part of a program that seeks to give foreign journalists an up-close view of the presidential race in the hopes they will send home dispatches that depict the process, both warts and glories. For Effy Zhang, a 24-year-old reporter for one of China’s biggest online news portals, the past few days have been exhausting, exhilarating and nerve-racking — because she is never sure her articles will pass muster with Beijing’s censors. Along with 47 other visiting journalists, three of them from China, Ms. Zhang has attended a Hillary Clinton rally in Miami, interviewed die-hard Donald J. Trump supporters at Trump Tower and waded through enthusiastic voters at a polling site in Lower Manhattan. “I’ve been surprised, because, before I came here, I thought the U.S. elections were chaotic and crazy,” Ms. Zhang said on Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve come to discover that Americans are actually very serious about the whole election process, which is really well organized.” The Foreign Press Center Election Program, which was established at the close of World War II, has been sponsoring the four dozen journalists for the past week, many of whom are visiting the United States for the first time. They are from Kazakhstan, Venezuela and Morocco and a score of other countries where the idea of unfettered elections is an exotic — and at times, a dangerous — concept. Image A Chinese journalist, Effy Zhang, with cutouts of Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump at a briefing on the election at a Manhattan hotel. Credit Andrew Jacobs/The New York Times The reporters have been ferried to battleground states like Ohio and New Hampshire, shown the inner workings of the balloting process in the Bronx and given background briefings by policy experts from both sides of the political divide. The all-expenses-paid tour culminated Tuesday night at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, where Ms. Clinton gathered with her supporters to await the final vote tally. (A request to bring some of the journalists to her opponent’s election-night venue in Midtown Manhattan was nixed by the Trump campaign, the organizers said.) Richard Buangan , a State Department official who oversees international media outreach, said most of the participants work for news outlets or blogs that are independent of government interference — many of which cannot afford to send correspondents to the United States. Some, like a reporter from Swaziland, an absolute monarchy in southern Africa, are frequently harassed for their work. “These journalists are grateful to be given the opportunity to talk directly to American voters and get beyond the official narratives and confusing spin back home,” Mr. Buangan said. Ms. Zhang, too, faces some peril, and she asked that the name of her company be omitted from this article lest it draw unwanted attention from the authorities. In recent months, Chinese propaganda officials have issued directives barring independent reporting on the United States election, and they have ordered news outlets to use dispatches from Xinhua, the state news agency, or CCTV, the state broadcaster. “What we are doing is forbidden,” Ms. Zhang said with a sigh. To get around the election-season restrictions, her editors omit her byline from her articles and then cross their fingers, hoping they will be overlooked by government censors. Ms. Zhang has lost count of the articles that were spiked after an editor received the dreaded call from the Cyberspace Administration. “We live in fear, but we also cheer when an article survives,” she said. “And you never know why.” In recent days, Ms. Zhang has been surprised by many things: the devotion of voters who stood in the rain for hours awaiting their candidate at a rally, the bark of an election worker who screamed at her for taking photos at a polling place, and the four Latino men who stopped her in front of Trump Tower and asked that she take their photo. The men smiled and then projected a middle finger toward the gaudy skyscraper behind them. To Ms. Zhang, their crude gesture seemed to sum up American democracy. “I couldn’t believe how happy they were,” she said. She added, “You’d never see that kind of behavior in China.”

China
State Department
2016 Presidential Election
News media,journalism
Freedom of the press
Censorship


Cuomo Said to Have Dissuaded Lawyer Use by Witnesses in 2008 State Police Inquiry

Abstract: ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo , leading a high-profile investigation into the State Police when he was attorney general, angered top officials at the agency by discouraging them from obtaining legal representation during the inquiry, according to interviews with former officials and claims made in documents recently obtained by The New York Times. Pedro Perez, who was briefly acting superintendent of the State Police in 2008, when the inquiry was undertaken, said Mr. Cuomo told him at the time that seeking legal counsel would suggest that the officials were guilty of some wrongdoing. “Essentially what he told me was that as law enforcement officials we understood that if someone comes with an attorney, there is a presumption that they have something to hide,” Mr. Perez said in an interview. “And I said that is not, in fact, the case. In our system, having an attorney present does not create a sense of guilt. There’s a right to an attorney. I was taken aback.” The reputed conversation became well known among the State Police officials; The Times learned of it after obtaining the sworn testimony of Glenn Valle, the former State Police counsel, taken in late 2008 as part of the State Police investigation. Mr. Cuomo’s office strongly denied the claim. “No one in the attorney general’s office ever discouraged troopers from being represented by counsel, in conversations with Perez or otherwise,” Richard Bamberger, the governor’s communication director, said in a statement on Monday. “The suggestion that the attorney general’s office resisted representation by counsel is belied by the fact that virtually all members of the State Police had union or private counsel during their testimony.” Mr. Cuomo’s office said there had been a conversation with Mr. Perez, but disputed his recollection; it said Mr. Cuomo told Mr. Perez that Mr. Valle, the chief counsel, could not represent the agency because he would probably have to testify. “Perez was distressed at Valle’s disqualification as counsel,” Mr. Bamberger said. Sharon L. McCarthy, a Manhattan lawyer who was recruited by Mr. Cuomo to take charge of the investigation of the State Police, said: “I conducted the investigation in a way that witnesses felt comfortable bringing their lawyers. I did not ever discourage anyone from bringing their lawyer.” She also said she found it unlikely that Mr. Cuomo did so either, and she recalled most witnesses’ appearing with lawyers. The dispute emerged as Mr. Cuomo faced scrutiny for his handling of a separate State Police inquiry in 2007. His aides recently shielded documents related to that investigation from public view in the state archives, after reporters sought to examine them. It also brought attention to what is certain to be a closely scrutinized chapter in Mr. Cuomo’s biography as his national reputation grows: his tenure as attorney general, when he took on politically sensitive inquiries that at times involved his political rivals. The issue came to light in the last week when reporters for The Times and The Times Union of Albany obtained copies of sworn testimony by Mr. Valle, who served for two decades as the chief counsel of the State Police. Mr. Valle testified that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, had discouraged agency officials from bringing lawyers to the investigation, and then repeated the claim in a memorandum to the office of David A. Paterson, who was then the governor. Neither Ms. McCarthy nor Governor Paterson’s office followed up on the claim. Details of the testimony, which was given on Dec. 30, 2008, also raise questions about the investigation itself, which was meant to examine political interference at the State Police, and whether Mr. Cuomo’s office produced a thorough report of its findings. Seemingly relevant information appears to have been left out of Mr. Cuomo’s final report — specifically details of a reputed effort by the Paterson administration to remove at least 10 white troopers who were members of the governor’s security detail and replace them with black or Latino troopers, leading to an extraordinary standoff with State Police officials, who viewed doing that as illegal and inviting a discrimination lawsuit. In addition, when Mr. Valle was interviewed by investigators, he was never asked about the more than five years he spent as chief police counsel during the administration of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, the current governor’s father. Mr. Valle, known as an aggressive defender of the often-embattled State Police force, has been one of the few public officials who is regularly critical of Mr. Cuomo. “In 33 years of practice as a prosecutor, assistant attorney general and chief counsel to the State Police, I never heard of a prosecutor threatening that if witnesses retained a lawyer, it would be held against them,” Mr. Valle said. Mr. Bamberger discounted Mr. Valle’s criticism. “I do not need to inform you of Glenn Valle’s hostility to the A.G. and his office, which is well documented in the press,” he said. Mr. Valle also outlined the accusation in a Dec. 30, 2008, memorandum to Peter J. Kiernan, who served as counsel to Governor Paterson. Mr. Kiernan said that he did not remember receiving the memo but that he had heard similar claims. “I don’t think they were ever truly directed at Attorney General Cuomo, but rather somebody working in the attorney general’s office,” he said, but he dismissed the reports as hearsay. Legal experts said if the claim about Mr. Cuomo were proven true, it would amount to a violation of legal ethics, but it is unlikely to result in further consequences for him. Another former State Police superintendent, Preston Felton, who retired in early 2008, said he had been told by a number of people about the reputed conversation between Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Perez. He also said he was not surprised that the claim, and other details in Mr. Valle’s testimony, were left out of the report. Mr. Felton ended up invoking the Fifth Amendment in the inquiry, and was cited for an ethics violation in an earlier inquiry. “It’s the way politicians operate,” Mr. Felton said. “They’re going to cover their own. They have a code that’s all their own. And obviously, during it, I was made aware Cuomo was telling people, if you come in with a lawyer, you’re guilty.” From the beginning, the investigation was an oddity — it was initiated at the request of Mr. Paterson, who suggested there was a rogue political unit working inside the State Police. Mr. Felton called the whole investigation a “witch hunt.” Mr. Bamberger said the attorney general’s office “conducted literally hundreds of interviews of state employees, as well as private employees, and representation of counsel was a well-established, respected right, and virtually without exception in four years, every witness in a significant matter had counsel representation.”

Police
Cuomo Andrew M
New York State
Valle Glenn
Ethics (Institutional)


Romney Tones Down Campaign Rhetoric as Vote Nears

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney used to talk up the “crucial” importance of having two parents in the home, saying “a mom and dad together” have a big impact. But over the past week, he has been extolling the virtues of single mothers at every turn, holding them out as examples of Americans “living for something bigger than themselves.” Mr. Romney once delivered partisan-tinged zingers about how President Obama takes inspiration from socialist Democrats in Europe. There are no traces of such barbs in the dwindling days of the race, however, even as a devastating storm buffeted the campaign and much of the country. Instead, he promises to make frequent and personal outreach to the rival party a signature of a Romney presidency. “Democrats,” he says, “love America, too.” As elections near, candidates change in ways big and small. Mr. Romney’s 20-minute stump speech in the final stretch is a case study in such modulation, offering a stark illustration of his long journey from the partisanship of the Republican nominating contest toward the measured and less controversial middle of American politics. It is a speech, revised and refined over time, that offers sometimes vivid contrasts with the words, messages and style that Mr. Romney has employed at various stages of his two-year presidential campaign. (Two words that nobody has heard over the past week: “severely” or “conservative.”) There are plenty of carry-overs, of course: he dings President Obama’s health care law as cumbersome and bemoans the size of the federal debt as immoral, as he has since 2011, when he entered the race. But even if the extent of the evolution is up for argument, there is little debate that Mr. Romney is finishing the presidential campaign as a milder candidate than when he started. A third of likely voters in a New York Times/CBS News poll this week said Mr. Romney had become more moderate in his positions since he became the nominee, a shift that may be a political necessity but one that holds peril for Mr. Romney. The tone and substance of his closing argument risks raising the questions about consistency and authenticity that have dogged him, tracking with his muddied stance on issues like amnesty for young illegal immigrants, Pell grants for college students and limits on abortions. The man who once mocked Mr. Obama for “trying to transform America” is himself embracing “big change” as a mantra — using the phrase up to a dozen times in each speech. On Wednesday, while campaigning at a rally here, Mr. Romney took it further, calling for “bold, aggressive change.” Getting Personal Crowds are riveted during Mr. Romney’s rhetorical finale, in growing numbers: 4,000 in Kissimmee, Fla.; 12,000 in Defiance, Ohio; 15,000 in Land O’ Lakes, Fla. They cheer for his conspicuous talk of bipartisanship, his praise for judicious regulation and his personal stories, which he used to studiously avoid but now tumble off his lips with ease. Several times a day, Mr. Romney talks about his sister Lynn, a widow, and her 43-year-old son, Jeffrey, who has Down syndrome. “I think of Lynn as a hero of mine because she has given herself to that boy,” he says, as the audience becomes quiet. “Given him a full life, takes him to work, makes his life fulfilling.” He pauses. “She lives for her son.” The audience thunders, drowning him out. Emily Bores of Avon, Ohio, sat in rapt attention on Monday. “That story is familiar to anyone who has ever been touched by tragedy,” Ms. Bores said. “He shares a piece of everyone’s heart by having that experience so close to his own.” Loving the Opposition Lately, Mr. Romney cannot stop talking about how much he wants to work with Democrats. “I will meet regularly with Democrats in Washington, with their leaders, and my party’s leaders, and battle together to find ways to help the American people,” he said a few days ago. Rewind to the primaries: Mr. Romney sounded much less centrist. He said then that Tea Party members, known for their uncompromising rigidity, would find him “the ideal candidate.” He also questioned his rival Rick Santorum’s conservative credentials, citing a vote to fund Planned Parenthood. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in early 2012, Mr. Romney emphasized, “I fought against long odds in a deep blue state, but I was a severely conservative Republican governor. I have been on the front lines and I expect to be on the front lines again.” These days, when Mr. Romney talks about his record in Massachusetts, it is not as a deeply conservative governor, but as a leader who welcomed communication and compromise. “I knew from the very beginning, to get anything done I had to reach across the aisle,” Mr. Romney said on Monday. Sitting in the audience, Carla Dickard, 61, said she was drawn to Mr. Romney’s put-down-the-pitchforks message. “It wasn’t always like this, everyone so divided like they are,” she said. Ms. Dickard views Mr. Obama as overly partisan, setting off the birth of the Tea Party. Mr. Romney, by contrast, she said, “seems to understand that we won’t get anything done unless we work together.” The message does not always sink in. On Wednesday in Tampa, as Mr. Romney talked about bipartisanship, a man shouted from the audience: “Fire Obama!” Measured Criticisms Mr. Romney still builds a forceful case against the president. But he is noticeably gentler. Gone are the accusations that Mr. Romney made during the primary race: that Mr. Obama does not understand what makes America “such a unique nation,” that he is trying to redistribute wealth or that he “takes his political inspiration from Europe, from the socialist-democrats in Europe.” Instead, Mr. Romney is attacking the president largely on substance and policy. To college students: “Because the president has been spending about a $1 trillion more every year in this country than we are taking in, he is putting debt on you that you didn’t even know about. Each man, woman and child in this country has about $50,000 worth of government debt.” To the elderly: “If you happen to get sick and you need to see a specialist, if Obamacare gets installed and you call,” Mr. Romney said in the last week, “the receptionist is likely to tell you that the doctor isn’t taking any more Medicare patients.” (An audience member shouted, “That’s right!”) Still, Mr. Romney gets in a few pointed jabs. His favorite centers on the president’s campaign slogan, “Forward!” “The president says ‘Forward.’ I call it forewarned,” he says, with a wry smile. Sometimes, he manages to squeeze two Forward-related digs into a single speech. “Things don’t feel like they are going forward,” Mr. Romney said in Ames, Iowa, on Thursday. “It feels more like backward.” An Inevitable Evolution Presidential candidates’ messages inevitably evolve: the fight for the ideologically rigid in the primary yields to a contest for apolitical independents in the general election. Mr. Romney, for instance, has talked about single mothers from time to time. Last year, he told them to “hold on” as he prepared to deliver economic help. Now, he generously praises single mothers for scrimping to put “a great meal at the table for her kids.” Kevin Madden, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, said the possibility of becoming president had influenced how he was talking. “You probably never get acclimated to or comfortable with the rigors of campaigning, but the idea of actually getting to work governing has helped him elevate and crystallize his closing argument,” Mr. Madden said. “The closing argument that Governor Romney has been engaged in is an embrace of the notion of actually governing.”

Ohio
Presidential Election of 2012
Romney Mitt
Obama Barack


OPEC to Lift Oil Output Modestly

Abstract: VIENNA, Sept. 11 — OPEC sought to regain its authority over volatile oil markets Tuesday, agreeing to increase production by 500,000 barrels a day. But prices still rose to a record. At the same time, representatives of leading OPEC nations said they feared that a slowing global economy might limit future demand. The oil cartel signaled that it would be ready to act swiftly to protect its members’ interests. The decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which came as a surprise to many, followed an unusually long day of arguments about the size and timing of a production increase, intended to meet an expected surge in winter consumption and to push prices down. While the rise in crude oil supplies would be modest, about 2 percent, OPEC nations including Iran, Venezuela and Algeria had initially expressed strong opposition to an increase in production. Others feared that a mistimed decision to add oil to the market might backfire at a time of heightened economic concern. As Vera de Ladoucette of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, saw it: “The Saudis convinced other OPEC countries that $80 a barrel was a ceiling. They were really worried about contributing to the world economic crisis. They acted prudently.” Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations brokered the deal during a seven-hour-long meeting here. Analysts said Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader and the group’s biggest supplier, would be more comfortable with oil around $70 a barrel. The production increase, the first official one in more than a year, will be effective on Nov. 1. But the commodities market seemed to shrug off the decision. In New York on Tuesday, crude oil for October delivery rose 74 cents, to settle at a record $78.23 a barrel. The market consensus was that there would be a big drop in oil supplies in the inventory data to be reported Wednesday by the United States Department of Energy. Oil-consuming countries, including the United States, have been urging OPEC producers to add output to the market, warning that winter was expected to bring a big rise in oil consumption that producers outside OPEC would not be able to meet. They warned further that high oil prices could put an additional drag on the global economy. OPEC members were eager to stress that they were being responsible and responsive. “Our message to consumers is that we care and we are concerned, and that is why we increased production,” Abdalla Salem el-Badri of Libya, the group’s secretary general, said at a news briefing after the meeting. And David Kirsch, an oil analyst at the consulting firm PFC Energy, said: “OPEC is uncomfortable with a situation that takes control away from the fundamentals, and therefore from OPEC. The question they are wrestling with is that there are very short-term bullish pressures on prices, but longer-term question marks.” OPEC representatives said they were aware that excessively high prices might put a dent in a global economy that is already suffering from the weak housing market in the United States. Some oil ministers at the meeting said they did not want to be blamed for worsening global economic woes. “We think that the market is a little bit high,” Kuwait’s acting oil minister, Mohammad al-Olaim, said. Yet OPEC also recognized the dangers that a slowing world economy posed to its business. Many ministers here feared repeating the mistake made in 1997 when the group increased supplies by 2.5 million barrels a day just as the Asian financial crisis was brewing. The result was a collapse in crude oil prices the following year, to $10 a barrel. The producers’ revenue was cut in half. This time, the organization hinted that its members would keep close watch on the market and would be ready to act quickly if needed by cutting production if prices declined too much. In a carefully worded final statement, OPEC said it would be ready “to swiftly respond to any developments which might jeopardize oil market stability and their interests.” Analysts present in Vienna took that to mean that the producing countries would reduce production if prices were to decline too rapidly. The organization is scheduled to meet twice before the end of the year, once in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in November, at a meeting of heads of state, and again in December in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Because of high demand, OPEC members had already been pumping more oil than their previous quotas allowed. The 10 countries of OPEC’s 12 that have been allocated production quotas — all except Angola and Iraq — pumped an average of 26.7 million barrels of crude oil a day last month, according an estimate by Bloomberg, or 900,000 barrels a day more than their collective target. The new production level raises the target to 27.2 million barrels a day. Jan Stuart, an energy economist at UBS in New York, said, “For OPEC, the risk of doing nothing and seeing prices escalate seemed bigger than the risk of doing something and watching prices come off from it.”

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries


Thailand: 4 Die in Nightclub Fire in Phuket

Abstract: Four people died and a dozen were injured Friday when a fire broke out at a nightclub on the Thai resort island of Phuket, the police said. The identities of the dead were not known late Friday, Maj. Gen. Chanasit Wattanawarangkul, the chief of police in Phuket, said by telephone. Phuket is about 510 miles south of Bangkok. General Chanasit said that the fire had occurred after power was cut and then restored during heavy rain in the early hours of Friday. A transformer “exploded,” he said, and the fire spread quickly into the building. Four French citizens were among the injured, one of whom suffered serious burns, Thai news reports said. The nightclub, the Tiger Discotheque, is in Patong, one of the island’s most popular tourist spots.

Tiger Discotheque (Phuket Thailand Nightclub)


Military Victories Over Boko Haram Mean Little to Nigerians

Abstract: DAKAR, Senegal — A sense of fear nags at Hauwa Bulama every time she leaves home. She worries that suicide bombers might be lurking at the vegetable stand where she shops for her six children. They could turn up at the hospital where she takes her relatives. Any woman in a hijab could have a suicide belt under her clothes, she fears. The frequent public announcements to avoid crowded areas in her northern Nigerian city only heighten her anxiety. “You are always afraid,” said Ms. Bulama, who lives in Maiduguri, a frequent target of the ruthless Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram . “When you take your child to be immunized, you don’t know who is seated next to you. You don’t know who is hiding what.” For Ms. Bulama and countless others in northern Nigeria and across the Lake Chad region, the victories scored by President Muhammadu Buhari’s multinational campaign against Boko Haram since taking office in May have mattered little to their daily lives. Though the Nigerian military has arrested and killed many fighters — and more crucially, retaken a swath of territory once held by insurgents that is estimated to be as large as Belgium — the gains have come against a backdrop of relentless suicide bombings that, if anything, have escalated. Nigeria’s paradox was highlighted recently when Mr. Buhari told reporters that “technically we have won the war” against the group, a statement that many view as premature. Besides the widespread attacks, the United Nations estimates that more than 2.4 million people in the region — half of them children — have fled their villages in recent years and are afraid to return. The more than 200 secondary schoolgirls from Chibok who were abducted in 2014 are still missing, their whereabouts unknown. “To state the obvious, this fight is not over, not in Nigeria or in the neighboring countries,” a senior American State Department official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential government assessments. “Our contacts with the Nigerians, both on the military and civilian side, made clear they also share the same basic understanding of the facts on the ground: The suicide bombings will continue.” Just four days after Mr. Buhari’s declaration, Boko Haram killed at least 50 people in a bombing in Maiduguri, one in a string of vicious attacks at the end of the year that left more than 100 people dead in all. This week, a suicide bomber killed 12 people in an attack on a mosque in northern Cameroon. Last week, the group killed seven people in an attack on a village in northeast Nigeria. It has used children as suicide bombers and has hidden homemade bombs in vegetable carts. Image Victims of a Boko Haram attack waited for treatment at a hospital in Maiduguri, Nigeria, last month. At least 50 people were killed. Credit Jossy Ola/Associated Press Some Nigerians have criticized Mr. Buhari for boasting of having defeated Boko Haram. Ayo Fayose, the governor of Ekiti State in western Nigeria, sought an apology from the federal government for saying as much after the most recent attacks. For Mr. Buhari, declaring a technical victory over Boko Haram may have been a matter of saving face. The president, a former army major general who made ridding the nation of the scourge of the insurgency a top campaign pledge, had vowed to defeat the group by year’s end. Even so, his allies insist that the enduring suicide bombings are evidence that the group has been forced to shift tactics, scattering fighters who are grasping to appear effective. After all, said Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, a Nigerian defense spokesman, suicide attacks can happen even in developed nations that are not at war. Femi Adesina, a special adviser to Mr. Buhari, said: “The military is out there engaging Boko Haram. The attacks will peter out.” Obama administration officials and outside experts give Mr. Buhari high marks for reinvigorating his country’s corruption-plagued, poorly equipped military and increasing the fight against Boko Haram, steps they say far exceed the efforts of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. Mr. Buhari ordered Nigerian commanders to counter Boko Haram in the country’s northeast, much closer to the actual fighting. Arms, equipment and other supplies are now flowing regularly to troops who once complained that they had been forgotten by their civilian leaders. Mr. Buhari shook up the chain of command, appointing Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, a native of the northern Borno State, as the army chief of staff. He also made Babagana Monguno, a retired general and another native of the region, his national security adviser. Boko Haram has been driven from nearly two dozen strongholds where it had set up camp. Image A Nigerian soldier stood last week between two of the 24 armored vehicles the United States donated to the Nigerian armed forces recently. Credit Stefan Heunis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “In my area, I can really say they have tried seriously,” said Jimmy Peter, whose family lives in Gombi, a town in Adamawa State where soldiers battled insurgents last year. “People have gone back to their homes.” Even more significantly, several officials said, Mr. Buhari has bolstered relations with neighboring countries like Chad, Niger and Cameroon, embracing the creation of an 8,700-member regional military to combat Boko Haram. The American government recently gave 24 mine-resistant armored vehicles to Nigerians to help in the fight. “The biggest step has been recognizing that they need to work together, that this is bigger than Nigeria and they cannot do it alone,” said Carter F. Ham, the retired Army general who led the Pentagon’s Africa Command until 2013. “That’s a bigger pill for the Nigerian military to swallow.” American officials warn that with Boko Haram shifting tactics to offset its lost territory, the threat is different, not inherently diminished. To counter this, experts argue, the military needs to infiltrate the ranks of Boko Haram, to gather intelligence and stop the suicide bombings. “Orthodox terrorism itself — attacks on urban areas — can only be dealt with by adequate intelligence infrastructure, not by raw military power,” said Chris Ngwodo, a Nigerian consultant and political analyst based in Jos. “The military is only now beginning to build that capability.” The missing Chibok girls, a cause that still inspires marches on government offices, is a prime example of intelligence shortcomings. Mr. Buhari recently conceded that the military had no credible information about the girls’ whereabouts or well-being. For the first time, he offered to negotiate with leaders of Boko Haram for their release. Image Parents of the more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok who were abducted in 2014 and are still missing met with President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday. Credit Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters For Mr. Buhari, another major hurdle is creating the conditions for the return and safety of the more than two million people displaced by Boko Haram’s violence, officials said. “Resettlement efforts need to be thought through with international support and extra protection,” said Sarah Chayes, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spent three weeks in Nigeria, including Maiduguri, in November. And, at a time of economic strain because of the sinking price of oil, Nigeria still confronts the challenge of rebuilding and retraining its military, which, with about 100,000 troops, is considered small for a country of 190 million people, the most populous on the continent. “Continued, effective coordination among regional partners is imperative to contain and degrade Boko Haram,” said a senior American defense official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential government assessment. “As the Nigerian military establishes security, it must be able to transition governance functions to civil authorities, enabling those authorities to address the root causes of support for Boko Haram.” That means more money for social and economic programs to choke off Boko Haram’s ability to attract new recruits and rebuild trust between civilians and the military, especially after allegations that the military had detained, tortured and killed innocent civilians in its campaign against Boko Haram. “The Nigerians have a lot of work to do to create better relations between the military and civilians in the northeast, as well as delivering jobs,” the senior State Department official said. Emmanuel Bonet, director of the Aid Foundation, which tries to prevent youth in northeast Nigeria from joining Boko Haram, said the effort seemed to be succeeding in Damaturu, a city pummeled in 2011 by a string of coordinated insurgent attacks that killed 100 people and injured hundreds. Many young people recently took part in the International Youth Day celebration for the first time in five years. And Mr. Bonet’s group is building a cafe, complete with Wi-Fi and table tennis and snooker tables to occupy teenagers and 20-somethings. “Life,” he said, “is gradually returning to normalcy.”

Boko Haram
Nigeria
Muhammadu Buhari
Terrorism
International relations
Kidnapping and Hostages
Chibok Nigeria


Carlos Correa, Shortstop, Is Top Draft Pick, by Houston Astros

Abstract: SECAUCUS, N.J. — With a move to the American League planned for next season, the Houston Astros faced the choice of a safe college pitcher or a high schooler loaded with potential. But the team chose neither, selecting Carlos Correa, a shortstop from Puerto Rico, with the first pick in the 2012 first year player draft. The consensus before the draft began was that the team was trying to decide between Mark Appel of Stanford or Byron Buxton, a Georgia high schooler. But Correa, a shortstop who has drawn comparisons to Alex Rodriguez, proved too tempting to pass up. The highest selection ever out of the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy, Correa is a lanky 6-foot-4 infielder, just like his favorite player, Derek Jeter. “There were a lot of good choices in this year’s draft, and we really felt like Carlos had a chance to be an impact player here in Houston for a long time,” Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow said after the selection. In 1992, the Astros also faced a choice between a safe college player and a youngster with potential. The team chose Phil Nevin of Cal State Fullerton over Jeter of Kalamazoo Central High School. Nevin played just 18 games for the Astros before being traded. Jeter has led the Yankees to five World Series titles. This time, the Astros went with a player who oozes potential, even if at 17 he does not have the pedigree, or the Houston connections, of Appel. “I always followed Derek Jeter,” Correa said when asked about the link to his favorite player. “It’s not just because he’s good inside the field, but it’s because he’s good outside the field. And that’s what I’m looking for.” Commissioner Bud Selig seemed thrilled that some of the players chosen, including Correa, were in attendance, compared with years past when the draft was conducted via conference call. He also praised the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy for producing a No. 1 talent. “Wonderful,” Selig said. “It really is. It’s everything we’re really trying to accomplish in a lot of ways, so I’m very pleased.” The highest pick previously from Puerto Rico was Ramon Castro, the No. 17 pick in 1994, who also went to the Astros. “It means a lot for me,” Correa said when asked about being the top pick from an island with a rich baseball tradition. “It’s history, man. I just feel happy.” Correa worked long days at the academy, rising at 5 a.m. and not getting home until after 6 p.m., at which point he would do extra work with his father, a construction worker also named Carlos. The pace seems hectic, but Correa has his eyes on bigger things. “I just want to be a big leaguer and be a Hall of Famer,” he said. “That energy comes from that.” The recently retired catcher Ivan Rodriguez, a fellow Puerto Rican and a future Hall of Fame candidate, said: “There are so many great shortstops in the game, and he could be one of them. His future is in front of him. Now he needs to put it all together.” Correa, who had a 4.0 grade-point average in high school and was valedictorian, committed to play for the University of Miami next year but is planning to forgo college and sign with the Astros. With the second pick in the draft, the Twins chose Buxton, considered by Baseball America and a number of other scouting services to be the most talented member of the draft class, drawing comparisons to Matt Kemp, Eric Davis and even Willie Mays. From the town of Baxley, Ga., population 4,509, Buxton, 18, is a long-term pick but is already major league-ready in terms of speed and outfield defense. Appel ended up falling all the way to the No. 8 pick, with Mike Zunino of Florida having the distinction of being the first college player off the board at No. 3 by the Seattle Mariners. A top defensive catcher, Zunino is hitting .316 with 18 homers and 60 runs batted in for the Gators as they try to make the College World Series. The only knock on him was that he struggled in the strong Southeastern Conference, hitting .255 in conference play, though his slugging percentage was still a respectable .509. It is unclear whether the decision to pass over Appel was based on concerns about his talent or the ability to sign him, but it certainly came as a surprise. A first-team all-American, Appel grew up rooting for the Astros even though his family moved to California when he was 12. On top of that, his schoolmates Andrew Luck and Nneka Ogwumike were chosen with the first picks in the N.F.L. and W.N.B.A. drafts this year, making the package appear all too perfect. Day 1 of the draft consisted of the first round and the compensation round for free-agent signings. The draft will continue Tuesday with Rounds 2 through 15 and will end on Wednesday.

Houston Astros
Baseball
Correa Carlos (1994- )
Draft and Recruitment (Sports)


Yankees’ Rodriguez Progresses, and Makes Promise to Focus on Game

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Alex Rodriguez was back on a baseball field Monday, working out for 48 minutes at the Yankees ’ minor league complex. With the trainer Gene Monahan beside him, Rodriguez took 40 grounders at third base, made about 75 total swings (some off a tee, some on balls flipped from a coach) and did some light running. Besides Rodriguez’s swinging a broomstick in Vail, Colo., it was the first time he had done baseball activities since having surgery in early March to repair a torn labrum in his right hip. “It’s just good to be back in spikes and uniform, with a glove and a bat in my hand — it’s been awhile,” said Rodriguez, who later met with teammates at Tropicana Field. “The next 7 to 10 days are very important as we enter Phase 2 of rehab. I’m doing all I can to come back as quick as possible.” The Yankees say they expect Rodriguez back by May 15, but Rodriguez was careful not to put a firm timetable on when he would rejoin the lineup. He said he might need 20 to 40 at-bats in minor league games before feeling ready. Rodriguez was optimistic about not needing more extensive hip surgery after the season. He said his surgeon, Dr. Marc Philippon, had told him there was a 50-50 chance he could avoid another operation. “When I heard that, I was encouraged,” Rodriguez said. “I’m not going to hang my hat on that, but hopefully it’s 50 on the no.” Rodriguez said he was most concerned about sliding and breaking up double plays. He plans to scale back his pregame work, even skipping batting practice two or three times a week, to save wear and tear on his body. “It’s important to put most of my focus on what happens at 7:05 and not what happens before,” Rodriguez said. “It’s almost like, show up and play.” Rodriguez said his month in Colorado helped him focus on baseball. He seems to realize that the many distractions in his life — as exemplified by the cadre of publicists and image consultants he employs — can be counterproductive. “Not only was I able to fix myself, I was able to rethink things and reorganize my thoughts, kind of put your arms around where you want to be and where you want to go,” Rodriguez said. “It’s all about our team, and everything else is on the back burner.” Rodriguez is said to be distancing himself from Guy Oseary, the Hollywood agent he hired before the 2008 season. Last month’s photo spread in Details magazine was an embarrassment for Rodriguez, and though he did not detail how he would put other things in the background, he promised he would. “Tunnel vision,” he said. “I want to get back to what I did in ’07, cut some of the fat out and focus on playing baseball and focus on what I do best.” Third baseman Cody Ransom has struggled in Rodriguez’s absence, going 1 for 20 (.050) with seven strikeouts in the first six games. Manager Joe Girardi has started Ransom every game, but Ransom said he knows he must do better. “I’ve got to give him a reason to keep me in there,” Ransom said. “I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. My drills are going well, and I feel fine.” When asked how he usually started a season, Ransom, who made an opening day roster for just the second time in his career, said: “Not fast, but not this slow. Usually from June on, I’m better, but that shouldn’t matter. Games are games. It shouldn’t matter if it’s April or October.”


Italian Oil Giant Caught Up in Corruption Investigation

Abstract: ROME — The Italian oil giant Eni said Thursday that Milan prosecutors had expanded their investigation of alleged corruption in Algeria involving Saipem, the company’s oil services subsidiary, to include ENI itself and its chief executive, Paolo Scaroni. ENI denied that it or its directors had any involvement in any corruption in Algeria. “ENI and its C.E.O. declare themselves totally unrelated to the object of investigation,” the company said. The widening investigation has slashed Saipem’s share price and is now casting a cloud over top management of ENI, which had been reveling in its recent success in finding new energy reserves, particularly giant natural gas discoveries in Mozambique over the past two years. ENI is also the largest foreign oil and gas producer in key North African countries including Libya, Algeria, and Egypt. ENI’s shares were the second-best performers among major oil companies in 2012, trailing only Rosneft, the state-owned Russian company. The Italian company’s shares closed 4.6 percent lower in Milan on Thursday. ENI said Thursday that after it learned details of the Milan prosecutors’ investigation in November, it urged Saipem to cooperate with the authorities and take appropriate steps, including conducting an internal audit. Pietro Franco Tali resigned as Saipem’s chief executive in December. At the same time, ENI’s chief financial officer, Alessandro Bernini, who had held the same post at Saipem, resigned. Mr. Tali was replaced by an ENI executive, Umberto Vergine. Saipem said last week that Mr.Tali was under investigation. Prosecutors say they are investigating suspicious payments of about €200 million, or $268 million, on Algerian contracts won by Saipem. A person familiar with the matter said that in 2007, Saipem agreed to pay a Dubai company a percentage of the value of the contracts Saipem won in Algeria. Even if corruption were not a factor, such an arrangement would be in violation of Saipem’s internal controls, said the person, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. A spokesman for Saipem declined to comment. Investigators searched Mr. Scaroni’s home in Milan on Thursday, along with his offices in Rome and Milan. Mr. Scaroni has been streamlining ENI, selling off noncore businesses so the company can focus on finding and producing oil. But he said in an interview in November that he considered Saipem “a major asset.” Last week Mr. Vergine, the new Saipem chief executive, shocked investors when he warned that the company’s net income for 2013 would be about €450 million — roughly half what Saipem has projected it will report for 2012. Mr. Vergine said he was taking a more conservative approach in forecasting profitability. Saipem’s shares tumbled, and over the next several days the company lost more than €4 billion in market value. Officials from Consob, the Italian market regulator, met Monday with Mr. Vergine and Saipem’s chief financial officer, Stefano Goberti, to discuss the profit warning and the sale of a large block of Saipem shares just before the warning was issued. A person with knowledge of Consob’s inquiry said the regulator suspected that the shares were sold through Merrill Lynch in London and had asked the British Financial Services Authority to investigate. Both Merrill and the F.S.A. have declined to comment. Stanley Reed reported from London.


No Bomb Found at Boston Airport After Evacuation

Abstract: Bomb-sniffing dogs alerted authorities to a suspicious package on Tuesday in the Delta Cargo building at Boston Logan International Airport, forcing the evacuation of the building, airport officials said. The package was examined by the state police bomb squad Tuesday afternoon, according to Matthew Brelis of Massport, the airport authority. X-rays indicated that the contents were harmless. Though the incident took place on one of the busiest days of the year for air travel, no scheduled commercial flights were affected, because the evacuated cargo building stands about a mile away from the airport’s passenger terminals. Concerns over the security of air cargo remain elevated after the discovery last month of explosive devices apparently shipped from Yemen that were bound for the United States. The improvised bombs, built by tampering with printer cartridges, were found in air cargo passing through airports in Great Britain and Dubai, setting off an international terror scare that led to searches of cargo planes in Newark and Philadelphia and a delivery truck in Brooklyn; no devices were found in those locations. The incident prompted a general tightening of security rules governing air cargo.

Airports
Security and Warning Systems
Freight (Cargo)
Boston (Mass)
Bombs and Explosives


States Move to Control How Painkillers Are Prescribed

Abstract: A growing number of states, alarmed by the rising death toll from prescription painkillers and frustrated by a lack of federal action, are moving to limit how these drugs are prescribed. On Thursday, Massachusetts lawmakers passed a bill expected to be signed next week that would sharply restrict the number of pain pills a doctor can prescribe after surgery or an injury to a seven-day supply. Officials in Vermont and Maine are considering similar actions, and governors across the country are set to meet this summer to develop a broad approach that could reduce the use of painkillers like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. The states’ push points to a looming change affecting how doctors use narcotic painkillers, or opioids, which are the most widely prescribed class of medications in the United States. The move comes against the backdrop of a public health crisis involving heroin-related overdoses. The governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin, said in an interview that states were taking action because drug industry lobbyists had the ability to block federal initiatives. “The states are going to lead on this one because Big Pharma has too much power,” said Mr. Shumlin, a Democrat. In recent years, some states have enacted tough new rules to reduce prescriptions for the drugs. But the pace of activity in states has grown so intense that experts are having difficulty keeping track. Currently, there are about 375 proposals in state legislatures that would regulate pain clinics and several aspects of prescribing painkillers, according to the American Academy of Pain Management, an organization for medical professionals that receives drug industry funding. Even some physician groups that have long opposed legislative interference in how doctors practice have softened their stance. For example, the Massachusetts Medical Society, while opposing a proposal of a three-day limit on initial opioid prescriptions for acute pain, supported the seven-day cap adopted on Thursday by state lawmakers. Some doctors and dentists give patients as many as 60 or 90 painkillers containing narcotics such as oxycodone or hydrocodone, giving rise to potential misuse of the drugs or opening a door to addiction. “Usually we are opposed to carving anything in stone that has to do with medical practice,” said Dr. Dennis Dimitri, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. “But we are willing to go forward with this limitation because we recognize this is a unique public health crisis.” In 2014, the death toll from overdoses involving prescription painkillers or heroin reached 28,647 , a 14 percent increase from the previous year, according to federal data. Many recent heroin deaths involve the use of illicitly produced fentanyl, a prescription opioid often mixed with heroin. It is unclear what effect the laws about prescription painkillers are having on death rates, which in some ways are the ultimate measure for any public policy aimed at reducing substance abuse. Some experts argue that measures to reduce prescribing painkillers may be having the unintended consequence of driving people to try heroin and other illicit drugs. Others dispute that , pointing out that the shift toward heroin use happened before the recent policy focus on opioids took hold. The use of opioids began to skyrocket in the 1990s in the face of claims by pharmaceutical companies and medical experts that opioids could be used to treat conditions like back pain and arthritis without fear of addicting patients. But as their misuse and abuse became rampant, public health officials, doctors, regulators and pain-treatment advocates remained deadlocked for years over how to address the public health crisis, arguing over whether tighter prescribing rules would penalize patients who needed the medications. Some patient and medical groups maintain that little scientific data exists to warrant major new restrictions. But such arguments appear to be losing sway. Along with the threat of addiction, there is also growing evidence that when given to patients in high doses, opioids pose a greater risk of overdoses as well as problems such as sleep apnea, sharply reduced hormone production and increased sensitivity to pain. “We have a much better sense of the risks,” said Dr. Bruce Psaty, a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, who studies drug safety. “The culture has begun to change.” Sales of opioids reached an estimated $1.98 billion in 2014, according to IMS Health, a research firm that collects prescribing data. There is little question that the drugs help tens of thousands of patients function better, including those suffering from chronic or long-lasting pain. The moves now underway in Massachusetts and other states are not the first attempts to control how drugs are prescribed. Every state, with the exception of Missouri, now has a so-called prescription monitoring program to try to stop people from getting prescriptions from multiple doctors. But while many of those programs have been voluntary, big impacts have occurred in places that require doctors to check the databases before writing a prescription. For example, after Kentucky passed a series of measures in 2012 including one requiring doctors to make such checks, opioid prescribing in the state fell 8.6 percent in one year, according to a 2015 report by researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Some states have also started to look at a program used since 2012 by an insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, as a possible model. Under the program, doctors cannot initially issue more than a 15-day supply of painkillers and doctors are restricted from prescribing more than 30 days’ worth of the drugs over a two-month period. In addition, they must seek prior approval from the insurer before prescribing long-acting narcotics such as OxyContin, except for cancer patients or those receiving palliative care. Over the last three years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts has found an 18 percent decline in the volume of opioid doses prescribed and a 50 percent drop in prescriptions for OxyContin and other long-acting opioids. Tony Dodek, an associate chief medical officer at the insurer, added that if it was developing the plan today, the insurer would most likely place a tighter limit on initial prescriptions. Mr. Shumlin, the Vermont governor, said he expected that members of the National Governors Association would discuss opioid prescribing strategies when they meet in July. “If we could adopt policies regionally or nationally, we could make some real progress,” he said. As state initiatives gather momentum, there is even movement at the federal level. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to issue soon guidelines urging doctors to use opioids sparingly and treat pain first with nondrug approaches. The effort has run into opposition. Some patient and doctors groups, including those funded by the drug industry, have charged that the guidelines were developed behind closed doors without their input and that they should not be published until more scientific evidence to justify them is developed. In Washington, the Senate passed a bill on Thursday that would authorize funds for states to underwrite addiction treatment services and prescription monitoring databases, though it did not provide immediate money for the measures.

Massachusetts
Doctor
Opioids
Heroin
US states
Drug Abuse
Health Insurance
Fatalities,casualties


China Begins Air Patrols Over Disputed Area of the South China Sea

Abstract: HONG KONG — China said Monday that it had begun what would become regular military air patrols over disputed islands and shoals of the South China Sea, highlighting its claim to the vast area a week after an international tribunal said Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis . China’s air force flew a “combat air patrol” over the South China Sea “recently,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported , citing Shen Jinke, an air force spokesman. The patrol consisted of bombers, fighters, “scouts” and tankers and would become “regular practice,” Mr. Shen said, according to Xinhua. The announcement of the air patrols, plus a separate statement that China would conduct military exercises in the South China Sea off the coast of Hainan Island, came as Adm. John M. Richardson, the chief of United States naval operations, was in Beijing to discuss the South China Sea and other issues that arose after the tribunal rebuked China’s claims over the waters on July 12. The landmark decision rejected China’s assertion that it enjoys historical rights over a huge area of the South China Sea encompassed by a “nine-dash line.” China had argued that the tribunal had no jurisdiction in the matter. China’s announcement of military exercises and patrols as a response to the ruling had been expected by analysts. But Beijing also moved to contain any public anger over the tribunal’s decision. Demonstrators in China called for boycotts at about a dozen KFC outlets on Monday to protest the United States’ role in the South China Sea dispute. But the protests were small compared with previous nationalist outpourings in China, and the state news media warned demonstrators not to disturb social order. The angry mobs of people rallying outside embassies in the Chinese capital, a regular feature in the past when China wanted to vent its grievances, never materialized. Flying combat aircraft over international waters is also a more mild response than other measures China could have taken, like initiating reclamation work on the disputed Scarborough Shoal or setting up a so-called air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, in which China would require that aircraft entering the zone identify themselves or face a military response, said Euan Graham, the director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia. “I think China is licking its wounds and taking stock,” Mr. Graham said by telephone. “The real unknown is how this will play out internally.” On Monday, Admiral Richardson’s Chinese counterpart, Adm. Wu Shengli, said China would continue construction in the South China Sea. In the past two years, China has reclaimed thousands of acres on seven features in the Spratly Islands, an area where Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims, building ports, large airstrips and radar installations . “We will never stop our construction on the Nansha Islands halfway,” Xinhua, in a separate report , quoted Admiral Wu as saying, using the Chinese name for the Spratly chain. “The Nansha Islands are China’s inherent territory, and our necessary construction on the islands is reasonable, justified and lawful.” Significantly, the Xinhua report on the air patrols said the flights encompassed Scarborough Shoal , a fishing ground far to the north of the Spratlys off the coast of Luzon Island in the Philippines. China seized control of the shoal in 2012, using coast guard vessels to bar Filipino fishermen. A photograph released by Xinhua showed a Chinese bomber flying near the shoal. “It is an aerial version of showing the flag,” Mr. Graham said, adding that air patrols were far less provocative than reclamation work, which would probably inflame tensions with both the Philippines and the United States. The Xinhua article did not say when the air patrol took place and did not provide any details, other than saying that the bombers were H-6K aircraft , a modification of a 1950s-era Soviet design that carries cruise missiles. Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that a more telling test of China’s posture after the decision last week may come when the United States Navy resumes so-called freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, which often involve testing Chinese claims by ordering American ships to transit within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-claimed features. While Admiral Wu reminded Admiral Richardson about China’s position on the South China Sea, his remarks, coming only days after one of the most stinging rebukes to Beijing’s foreign policy in years, were moderated with calls for more cooperation between the world’s two biggest navies. Highlighting agreements between the United States and China that sought to govern encounters between the two militaries in the air and at sea to help prevent accidental clashes, Admiral Wu said that cooperation is “the only correct option,” Xinhua reported.

China
South China Sea
Military
Scarborough Shoal
Spratly Islands


Kentucky: Notice Served on Closing of Health Site

Abstract: Gov. Matt Bevin has formally notified the Obama administration that he plans to “wind down and cease operation” of the state’s health insurance exchange. Mr. Bevin, a newly elected Republican who opposes the Affordable Care Act, said in a letter to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, that he wanted Kentucky residents to start using the federal insurance exchange serving 38 other states “as soon as is practicable.” Kentucky residents will continue using the state’s exchange, called Kynect, during the open enrollment period that ends Jan. 31. Mr. Bevin’s predecessor, Steven L. Beshear, a Democrat, has said it would cost the state at least $23 million to dismantle Kynect.

Kentucky
Matt Bevin
Health Insurance
Sylvia Mathews Burwell
Health and Human Services
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act


Hopes Fade for Quick Deal on European Union Budget

Abstract: BRUSSELS — Leaders resumed haggling over a trillion-euro budget for the European Union in a second day of talks on Friday but played down expectations of a deal before the weekend amid bitter divisions over where cuts should fall. “I don’t think there’s been enough progress so far,” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain told reporters as he arrived at the summit meeting venue. “There really is a problem that there hasn’t been the progress in cutting back proposals for additional spending,” he added. Late Thursday, Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, presented a new budget plan for the seven years from 2014 to 2020. The new outline reshuffled the amounts to reduce proposed cuts for agriculture and development assistance but kept the overall spending ceilings in his earlier proposal on the budget, which is worth the equivalent of about $1.3 trillion. Mr. Cameron suggested that Mr. Van Rompuy’s plan represented little more than “tinkering” and said it wasn’t “the time for moving money from one part of the budget to another.” Britain so far has gotten nowhere in a push to slash spending on the Union’s administrative apparatus, a small but symbolic area of costs and one of the few budget items easily comprehensible to ordinary citizens. After the first day of negotiations broke up after midnight Thursday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said the leaders’ positions remained “quite far apart.” She indicated that a deal on spending is unlikely this week. The negotiating marathon over the budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework, is held every seven years and, focused on hard cash, tends to push national interests to the fore and swamp feel-good talk of European harmony, a cause for which the Norwegian Nobel Committee last month named the European Union as the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. The budget, which amounts to about 130 billion euros per year, goes mostly to subsidize farmers and support regional projects in poorer member states, policies that were originally intended to help bind Europe together and mute the economic discord that in the past fueled antagonisms that led to bloody wars. But differences in economic performance and priorities between member states are huge, pushing them to embrace starkly divergent agendas in budget talks. In large measure, this is because what began as an economic bloc comprising six similarly developed market economies in Western Europe is now a 27-member body that includes 10 much poorer East and Central European nations formerly part of the socialist bloc. As well as divisions between east and west, there is also a big gulf between northern countries, especially Germany, and so-called Club Med states in the south like Greece, which, burdened with huge debts, is struggling to keep its economy afloat and avoid social unrest. Diplomats recalled with dark humor how Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, compared the round of E.U. budget negotiations in 2005 with trying to broker peace in Northern Ireland — only more difficult. Nearly a third of the Union’s member states have hinted in recent days at using the veto that allows each country to blow up a budget deal. Much of the attention at the special budget summit meeting has focused on demands for deep cuts by Mr. Cameron. Failure to achieve these would likely intensify growing hostility toward the Union in Britain and could even help prod the country in the direction of one day pulling out of the group altogether. But Germany, too, wants big cuts, and that is a position that has put it at odds with Paris and unsettled a French-German tandem without which significant deals in Europe rarely happen. French officials said Paris does not object to slimming spending, only to sharp cuts in farm subsidies. Yet for Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo of Belgium, the overall amount proposed by Mr. Van Rompuy should be higher to help the bloc out of the economic doldrums. “The big problem, the basic problem is that there is not enough money,” Mr. Di Rupo told reporters. “This is dramatic because European countries need the support of the E.U.,” he said. With divisions looking unbridgeable, a number of leaders echoed Ms. Merkel’s suggestion of a second budget summit meeting, perhaps early next year. “I do hope that we can move on, but if that is not possible, we have to come back some other day,” Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen of Finland told reporters Friday. “Everything seems to be open. Some opinions are very far from each other, and it’s very difficult to assess at the moment what will happen today,” he added.

European Union
Europe
Budgets and Budgeting


Dodgers and Yankees: A Gathering Made for Autumn

Abstract: When the Dodgers played in Yankee Stadium, it was always the World Series back in the day. Back in the decades, actually, from 1941 to 1981. In Series history , the 11 Yankees-Dodgers duels are the most between two franchises; the Yankees and the Giants are next, with seven Series meetings. But interleague baseball has intruded on the autumn ritual. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the Dodgers will be at the Stadium for regular-season interleague games for the first time. The Yankees visited Los Angeles twice for three-game sets, with the Dodgers winning two in 2004 and the Yankees winning two in 2010. But this will be the Dodgers’ first visit to the Bronx in gray road uniforms since the 1981 World Series, more than three decades ago. No Series is in sight this year. The Yankees are in third place in the American League East; the Dodgers are wallowing in last in the National League West. And in another twist, Don Mattingly, once a Yankees idol as their first baseman, is the Dodgers’ manager. Image Reggie Jackson watched his third home run of Game 6 in 1977. Credit Associated Press This happened before. Leo Durocher, although no Yankees idol as an infielder on their 1928 championship team, was the Brooklyn Dodgers’ manager in 1941 when the Series rivalry began. In a reverse situation, Casey Stengel, the Old Perfessor in four Yankee triumphs in five Series against the Dodgers from 1949 to 1956, had been a popular outfielder and unsuccessful manager in Brooklyn. In the teams’ 11 Series matchups, the numbers favor the Yankees. They won eight of the Series, and in games at the Stadium, they were 15-5 against Brooklyn and 7-4 against Los Angeles for a dominant 22-9 over all. In games at Ebbets Field in Flatbush, the Yankees had a 12-11 edge; at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers had an 8-3 advantage. In Brooklyn and Los Angeles, the Dodgers were 19-15 over all. Whatever the won-lost numbers, the rivalry’s quality of talent must be appreciated. Those 11 Series showcased 23 players who became Hall of Famers (14 Yankees and 9 Dodgers). The Yankees: Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto, Red Ruffing, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Johnny Mize, Enos Slaughter, Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rich Gossage and Dave Winfield. The Dodgers: Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Billy Herman, Joe Medwick, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Don Sutton. Six of the Series managers are honored with bronze plaques in Cooperstown: Joe McCarthy, Bucky Harris and Stengel with the Yankees; Durocher, Walter Alston and Tom Lasorda with the Dodgers. Each Series had moments that have endured in baseball history, mostly good for the Yankees, some good and some bad for the Dodgers. Image The Dodgers triumphed in the teams’ last Series meeting, in 1981. Credit Associated Press In 1941, the Dodgers appeared to have tied the Series at 2-2 when Tommy Henrich swung at and missed the right-hander Hugh Casey’s curveball for the final out of a 4-3 victory at Ebbets Field. But when the ball skipped past catcher Mickey Owen, Henrich hurried to first. DiMaggio singled. Charlie Keller doubled. Dickey walked. Gordon doubled. The Yankees won, 7-4, for a 3-1 lead and won again the next day. In 1947, the Yankees right-hander Bill Bevens, who had a 7-13 record, had a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 4 at Ebbets Field. But after two walks (of 10 issued by Bevens), pinch-hitter Cookie Lavagetto doubled off the right-field wall for a 3-2 victory. In Game 6, Dodgers left fielder Al Gionfriddo raced to the low fence in the Stadium to snare DiMaggio’s drive. The Yankees won Game 7. In 1949, Allie Reynolds outpitched Don Newcombe in the Stadium opener, winning, 1-0, on Henrich’s ninth-inning home run. The next day, the Dodgers’ Preacher Roe outpitched Vic Raschi, 1-0. Yankees in five. In 1952, the Yankees were leading Game 7 at Ebbets Field, 4-2, in the seventh when the Dodgers loaded the bases with one out. Stengel brought in the left-hander Bob Kuzava, who got Snider to pop up. Robinson also hit a high pop-up, and with the runners flying, first baseman Joe Collins lost the ball in the sun, but Billy Martin dashed in to snatch it near the mound. Then Kuzava got the last six outs. In 1953, Martin had four hits in the opener, including a three-run triple off Carl Erskine in the first inning, and 12 hits over all for a .500 average. In a quick return, Erskine struck out 14 in a Game 3 win at Ebbets Field. Mantle crushed a grand slam off Russ Meyer in Game 5. Yankees in six. In 1955, the Dodgers won their only Series representing Brooklyn, as the left-hander Johnny Podres shut out the Yankees, 2-0, in Game 7 at the Stadium after left fielder Sandy Amoros snared Berra’s fly near the box seats along the left-field line and threw to Reese, who doubled Gil McDougald off first. Image Don Larsen’s perfect game in 1956 earned a hug from Yogi Berra. Credit Associated Press In 1956, the Yankees right-hander Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game in Series history in Game 5. Berra homered twice off Newcombe in Game 7. In 1963, Koufax struck out 15 in Game 1 at the Stadium, winning, 5-2, then outdueled Ford, 2-1, in Game 4 to complete a rare sweep of the Yankees. In 1977, Jackson smashed three home runs in an 8-4 clincher in Game 6 at the Stadium. He hit a record 5 Series homers, drove in 8 runs and scored 10. In 1978, Graig Nettles thwarted the Dodgers with four magical plays at third base to help Ron Guidry to a 5-1 victory in Game 3 at the Stadium. Yankees in six. In 1981, the Yankees right-hander George Frazier was a three-time loser in relief as the Dodgers, after losing the first two games, won in six, including a 9-2 finale at the Stadium. That was the last time the Dodgers emerged from the visitors’ dugout at Yankee Stadium. It’s not the World Series, but the Dodgers are coming back, and that’s enough.

Dodgers
Yankees
Baseball
Brooklyn Dodgers


Financial Survival in a Time of Fiscal Peril

Abstract: BETWEEN now and the end of the year, investors who are paying even the slightest bit of attention to the news will hear the term “fiscal cliff” repeated so often that it will surely either strike fear into their hearts or numb them to possible risks ahead. For some, it may sound like the warning they wished they had received ahead of the 2008 crash, or a signal that it is time to retrench. For others who have their money in cash or bonds, the chatter may confirm their worst fears about living in an uncertain time and persuade them to wait longer to invest in stocks. It should do neither. The phrase itself refers to a confluence of tax increases and spending cuts that will happen automatically on Jan. 1, 2013, if Congress and the president do not come to an agreement to avert them. Think of skid marks ahead of a precipice. If the government does not hit the brakes and all the provisions that make up the fiscal cliff come to pass, however, the impact on gross domestic product will be to reduce it 4 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center made the impact more personal: 90 percent of Americans will see their taxes rise, with an average increase of $3,500. The United States economy will slide back into recession. As if this were not scary enough, the news from other major economies is not encouraging. China appears to be slowing down just as its leaders are distracted by the once-a-decade leadership change. While events in Europe are not making headlines as they did last year, the debt situation there is not vastly improved. And don’t forget the numerous flash points of the Middle East and the peril they could pose to global energy markets. What should investors do? Neeti Bhalla, head of the tactical asset allocation team at Goldman Sachs, said they needed to learn to live with uncertainty for quite some time. “We won’t have an answer to the fiscal situation after the election,” Ms. Bhalla said. “We won’t have an answer to the European crisis after they come up with some fiscal union. We won’t have an answer to China after they transfer power. The issues everyone is concerned about don’t have a finite end to them.” That’s the bad news. The good news is no analyst interviewed for this article thought the government would drive over the fiscal cliff, since many of the expiring provisions have bipartisan support. “Our belief is Congress is going to punt,” said Thorne Perkin, a managing director at Papamarkou Wellner Asset Management, which advises very wealthy investors. “They will turn the fiscal cliff into a fiscal hill and do some form of compromise people can live with. I don’t think anyone wants to go through the full shock.” But even a hill implies some pain to an economy that is not experiencing strong growth now. “You might not get compromise on capital gains rates going from 15 to 20 percent, but Lockheed Martin’s stock price does not reflect $500 billion in defense cuts over the next 10 years,” said Rex Macey, chief investment officer of Wilmington Trust, referring to mandatory defense budget cuts in the worst case. “We’re not ones to believe it makes sense to panic at this point.” However sober that view is, Mr. Macey said he still had days when he was concerned that lawmakers seemed ambivalent about addressing the tax and spending issues at hand. “I feel like I’m in this bus heading over the fiscal cliff, and I’m looking at everyone and I’m nervous but no one else is,” he said. “I know they see the cliff because everyone’s pointing at the cliff.” This is one of those times when fretting about all of these bad things may be useless: average investors cannot control them. That still leaves the question of what to do with their money. There are two complementary schools of thought on getting through the turmoil of the next six months. Both involve restraint and planning. The first requires investors to return to their plan. What advisers are asking is not that investors necessarily take big risks in the face of the fiscal cliff — after all, really bad economic things could still come to pass at the beginning of 2013. But they are asking that they return to a normal asset allocation and get back to being broadly diversified. This sounds simple. But it may not be for investors who have been putting their money in cash, whose value is eroded by inflation, and low-yielding United States Treasury bonds. “The people we are advising have been overallocated to asset classes that they consider to be safe and conservative — cash and fixed income,” said John Taft, head of RBC Wealth Management in the United States. “Cash has the certainty that your purchasing power will be eroded by the rate of inflation. Bonds have the risk that when and if monetary policy tightens, rates will go up and they’ll be exposed to principal loss.” Bond interest rates move in the opposite direction of bond prices, so a one percentage point increase in rates on new bonds would result in about a 15 percent loss in the price of a previously issued bond on the open market. For those who are skittish, and want to cling to their cash and low-yielding bonds, G. Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, advises a mental accounting fudge. He has told clients to have enough money in cash to pay expenses for a period of years that makes them comfortable and put the rest into an investment plan meant to increase the value of the portfolio for years after that. “If an investor has set aside three years of spending needs, she’s bought three years of time horizon for the rest of the portfolio,” he said. He acknowledged that it was tough to tell people to put money into low- or negative-yielding assets, but he saw it as a trade-off. “This is the price I have to pay for liquidity,” he said. “It’s a measure of comfort. You won’t worry what the market does tomorrow.” Fredrik Nerbrand, global head of asset allocation at HSBC Private Bank, has a more daring way of urging clients to return to diversification: adopt a hit-and-run strategy. “It’s like when you see a bully in the schoolyard — you hit him and run away,” Mr. Nerbrand said. He is telling clients now, “You sit with a very conservative portfolio and from time to time you add a bit of risk.” For those with more gumption, who think the fiscal cliff will lead to buying opportunities when falling asset values prompt sell-offs, recommendations vary. One favorite is dividend-paying stocks, which may seem counterintuitive because the tax rate on dividends could increase to as high as 43.4 percent from the current 15 percent. But Barbara Reinhard, chief investment strategist at Credit Suisse Private Bank, sees two reasons to favor dividend stocks: First, the stocks themselves are inexpensive relative to their historical earnings, and second, companies that are paying and increasing dividends now are strong and often diversified, so they are best positioned to weather any volatility over the next few months. Ms. Reinhard said that all else being equal, an increase in the dividend and capital gains rate to 20 percent would be preferable to having capital gains taxed at 20 percent and dividends taxed as income, which could go as high as 43.4 percent for the highest earners. She and other analysts were not worried about the impact of an increase on most investors. Mr. Taft estimated that a third of dividend-paying stocks were owned by foreign investors and another third were owned in pension funds or retirement accounts that did not pay taxes. For the other third, particularly those who depend on the dividend for income, the increased taxes will be a hit. “If you have a $40 stock and it’s been paying you 85 cents after taxes, next year it will pay you 60 cents,” Mr. Macey said. “That’s a big difference. But we’ll know early enough next year, maybe after one or two dividend payments, what’s going to happen, so we’d rather wait.” On a less positive note, Keith Voight, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying group running a ‘defend my dividend’ campaign in warning of the fiscal cliff, said his group feared a domino effect in which higher earners sell their dividend-paying stocks, depressing the value for all owners. But Rob Lutts, president and chief investment officer for Cabot Money Management in Salem, Mass., said he was not worried about the long-term effects of a tax increase on capital gains or dividends. “We can adapt to that,” he said. “The market could have some indigestion when we get there, but the valuations are so lopsided toward bonds that it supports equities going forward.” Still, he has moved 10 to 12 percent of his clients’ money into gold and precious metals as a hedge against the effect on the dollar of the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low. “There is a cost to that support,” Mr. Lutts said. “We are going to create a fairly high level of inflation down the road.” There are other hedging strategies for people worried about volatility. Harry Clark, chairman and chief executive of Clark Capital Management, which oversees $3 billion for smaller investors, said his firm had bought a combination of exchange-traded funds and notes to cap any loss for clients at about 10 percent. “We don’t worry about a massive decline,” he said. “But there are other ways to make a portfolio defensive, like buying companies in the materials, energy, consumer essentials and utilities spaces.” The thinking here is that if the worst happens, there are still some essential things, like soap and gas, that people will need to buy. “I think the biggest risk is in the bond market,” Mr. Clark said. “That’s the next disaster waiting to happen. They’re going to drop like a rock when rates go up.” For those with the deepest risk appetite — or deepest wallets — the best strategy is one that allows them to look beyond all the noise the fiscal cliff will create. Real estate and private equity come to mind. Mr. Perkin said he was putting together a group to invest in a unique way in the oil boom in North Dakota: lodging. “Every oil company in the world is going gaga over the Bakken oil fields,” he said. “The problem is there is zero infrastructure: terrible roads, no restaurants, nowhere to stay, the airport is awful, no hospitals or schools, nothing.” Despite all that, he said, he has a group of clients investing $60 million into a hotel project with another $40 million of investments planned. “It’s the kind of thing people are looking for — infrastructure and a hard asset,” he said. “It’s like the California gold rush. Who made the most money on the gold rush? Levi Strauss. We’re looking at the ancillary businesses that come out of the demand for oil.” This is not without risks beyond the lack of liquidity in the deal. If the price of oil drops below $60 a barrel, the demand for Bakken crude could slow, he said. But now, he said, clients like investments that appear uncorrelated with the market volatility the fiscal cliff could cause. Still, for most investors, even those with many millions of dollars, the best strategy may be to take a similarly long view without as much risk. “Most investors are best served by the following strategy, and I say this with 100 percent conviction,” Mr. Taft said. “Sit down with yourself or your adviser and figure out what you’re trying to accomplish over the rest of your life. Develop a plan with as few moving parts as possible and then stick to that plan.” “Individual investors are notoriously bad about making tactical, short-term changes to their portfolios,” he added. “That’s basic advice, but it’s the best advice there is.”

United States Economy
Stocks and Bonds
Credit and Debt
Inflation (Economics)
Federal Budget (US)