Ukraine Deal Imposes Truce Putin Devised

Abstract: KIEV, Ukraine — After five months of intensifying combat that threatened to rip Ukraine apart and to reignite the Cold War, the Ukrainian government and separatist forces signed a cease-fire agreement on Friday that analysts considered highly tenuous in a country that remains a tinderbox. Previous attempts to stop the fighting have failed. But the prime difference this time was that the main thrust of the plan was not just endorsed, but laid out, by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom Western leaders accuse of stoking unrest to prevent Ukraine from slipping out of Russia’s orbit. Whether a cease-fire persists will probably be determined by negotiations over the political future of the southeastern region, where rebel separatists have been fighting the government since April. The cease-fire was agreed to after a two-week rebel counteroffensive backed by Russian troops, armor and artillery that threatened to roll back most of the gains the Ukrainian military had made. Russia has not acknowledged the presence of any of its military units on Ukrainian soil, and there was no mention of their removal as part of the agreement. From the moment the crisis erupted in November — when Ukraine’s president at the time, Viktor F. Yanukovych, rejected a trade agreement with the European Union in favor of a deal with Russia — Kiev and the West have accused Moscow of destabilizing the country, first with a stealth invasion and annexation of Crimea and then by inspiring and covertly arming the rebels in southeastern Ukraine. The conflict ignited the most serious East-West confrontation since the end of the Cold War, with Europe and the United States looking largely impotent as Moscow upset the postwar order by altering borders by force. The West has imposed some economic sanctions, and it is threatening more, but the Kremlin has dismissed their impact and made it clear that it no longer feels itself beholden to Western nations or institutions. The agreement reached Friday laid out the first tentative steps toward both an immediate cessation of hostilities and the promise of greater political freedom in the future. Artillery exchanges tapered off after it was put in effect at 6 p.m., and quiet prevailed through the initial hours. Image Aleksandr Zakharchenko, left, and Igor Plotnitskiy, rebel leaders, flanking Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov of Russia. Credit Vasily Maximov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images President Obama, speaking at a news conference at the end of a NATO summit meeting in Wales, said he was “hopeful but, based on past experience, also skeptical” about the strength of any cease-fire. Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, issued a statement lauding the agreement and expressing hope that it would be observed in full. The 14-point peace plan includes some references to the cease-fire itself, some practical steps toward returning government control to the southeast Donbass region and some nods toward future political changes, according to a summary published by the Ukrainian national information agency. The agreement resembles, almost verbatim, a proposal for a truce issued by President Petro O. Poroshenko in June. It includes amnesty for those who disarm and who did not commit serious crimes, and the exchange of all prisoners. Militias will be disbanded, and a 10-kilometer buffer zone — about six miles — will be established along the Russian-Ukrainian border. The area will be subject to joint patrols. The separatists have agreed to leave the administrative buildings they control and to allow broadcasts from Ukraine to resume on local television. It was unclear how “disarmament” would be defined, and it emerged as a potential stumbling block. The separatists have demanded that Ukrainian forces withdraw completely from the area, a condition that Kiev considers a nonstarter. The militias will also be unlikely to abandon their weapons. For the future, the agreement says power will be decentralized and the Russian language protected. An early, failed attempt by more extreme members of the Ukrainian Parliament to ban Russian as an official language was one element that spawned the uprising. The agreement says the executive in control of each region, the equivalent of a governor, will be appointed after consultations with each region. It also promises early elections and a job-creation program. The negotiators, meeting in Minsk, Belarus, said they would reconvene on Monday to discuss the mechanics to carry out the agreement. Mr. Poroshenko lauded the agreement in a statement posted on the presidential website, paying tribute in his announcement to the fact that Mr. Putin called for a cease-fire with a seven-point plan released Wednesday. Both men said before Friday that they expected an agreement. A spectrum of politicians, civil society activists, diplomats and other analysts welcomed the proposal but expressed serious doubts that it could hold given the wide rift between Kiev and the restive eastern regions. “I am pleased; it is impossible to solve this conflict by military means,” said Georgiy Kasyanov, a civil society activist and historian who supported the antigovernment protests that erupted in central Kiev last November and eventually led to the overthrow of the government and the conflict. “People are tired and suffer from psychological depression; we have all been living in a state of shock since November.” But he, like many, recognized the hurdles ahead. The majority of Ukrainians want peace, he said, but some will be angry about any compromise with the separatist fighters the government has condemned as terrorists for months. In addition, neither side exerts perfect control over the range of fighters in the Donbass region. It will be hard to rein them all in, and any spark could easily reignite the fighting. The goals of the separatists have never been clear, nor whether they agree even among themselves. “We are planning to continue the course toward secession,” said Igor Plotnitskiy, the prime minister of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, according to the RIA Novosti news service. “The cease-fire is a necessary measure. There is a lot of work ahead of us.” Video Two pro-Russian rebel leaders, the Ukrainian president and an envoy for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe discussed the cease-fire reached between the separatists and Ukraine. Credit Credit Vasily Maximov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The other side laid down a hard line, too. Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk said on Twitter that transforming the cease-fire into a lasting peace would require three things: a long-term cease-fire, the withdrawal of the Russian Army and a wall along the border. Yuriy Syrotyuk, a member of Parliament from the right-wing Svoboda party, said he expected no results. “This is a truce; it is not peace,” Mr. Syrotyuk said in an interview. “There will be no result because Ukraine will not give up Donetsk and Luhansk and Russia will not stop.” In response to an email query, Clifford Kupchan, a director at the Eurasia Group, a Washington consulting firm, and a former State Department official, wrote, “I fear it won’t hold.” The main stumbling block, he said, is that Russia seeks federalization, including the right for each region to conduct its own foreign policy, whereas Mr. Poroshenko has offered only decentralization and would face a political backlash if he went any further. Many analysts said the probable outcome would be a frozen conflict, much like those Russia created in Georgia and Moldova to keep them destabilized. At the negotiations in Minsk, Ukraine was represented by a former president, Leonid Kuchma, and the rebels by Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the prime minister and military commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Russia’s envoy was its ambassador to Kiev, Mikhail Zurabov, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, acting for Europe, was represented by Heidi Tagliavini. Ukrainian forces suffered heavy setbacks in the past two weeks, with the separatists breaking out of their isolation in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and opening a third front along the strategic southern coast around Mariupol. The Russian-backed rebels, who seized control of the coastal town of Novoazovsk last week, had advanced about halfway from Novoazovsk to Mariupol in fighting that continued through Friday morning. Officials interpreted the opening of a new, southern front as an attempt by Moscow to convince Mr. Poroshenko that he had to reach terms at the negotiating table because he could not win on the battlefield.

Ukraine
Russia
Military
Mariupol
Vladimir Putin
Petro Poroshenko
International relations


North Korea May Be Preparing Another Nuclear Test, South Says

Abstract: SEOUL, South Korea — President Park Geun-hye of South Korea reported unspecified signs on Monday that North Korea may be preparing for another underground nuclear test in defiance of United Nations sanctions. Although Ms. Park did not say what those signs were, the South Korean news media, citing anonymous government sources, reported over the weekend that increased activity had been detected at the North’s main underground nuclear test site at Punggye-ri, in the northeast of the country. Four such tests have been conducted at the site since 2006, the latest on Jan. 6 . Ms. Park warned that North Korea may try provocations, like a nuclear test, to help consolidate internal unity in the face of international sanctions. In early March, the United Nations Security Council imposed a new round of harsher sanctions on the country as punishment for its latest nuclear test as well as its launching of a long-range rocket on Feb. 7. Ms. Park’s warning, issued during a meeting with senior presidential aides, was among her first public remarks since her party, Saenuri, suffered a crushing defeat in parliamentary elections on Wednesday. In that voting, widely billed as a referendum on Ms. Park’s government, Saenuri became the first governing party in South Korea to win fewer seats than the opposition in 16 years. Some analysts have said that Ms. Park may try to highlight the threats from North Korea after the elections, using them as leverage in domestic politics to avoid becoming an early lame duck. Fears of another North Korean nuclear test have risen in recent weeks. On March 15, North Korea’s state-run news media reported that its leader, Kim Jong-un, ordered his country to conduct “a nuclear warhead explosion test” soon, as well as tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. On Monday, Moon Sang-gyun, a spokesman at the South Korean Defense Ministry, said that since Mr. Kim’s order was reported, “various movements” have suggested that the North may be preparing another nuclear test. He also did not elaborate, but he said that the North was ready to conduct a nuclear test “anytime it wants to.” In recent weeks, North Korea has claimed a series of successes in testing various technologies needed to make a nuclear warhead small enough to be mounted on a ballistic missile, as well as a long-range missile to deliver such a warhead. North Korea is scheduled to hold its first full-fledged ruling Workers’ Party congress since 1980 next month to help cement and glorify Mr. Kim’s leadership. With no big improvements in the lives of his people, North Korea has been promoting its nuclear program as a key achievement of the Kim family, which has ruled the country for over seven decades.

North Korea
South Korea
Park Geun-hye
Kim Jong-un
Nuclear weapons testing
Missiles and Missile Defense
Saenuri Party South Korea
Nuclear weapon


Homeland Security Chief Hears Skepticism on Effort to Identify Extremists

Abstract: The timing could not have been more appropriate, the Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, remarked, for him to hold a day of preplanned meetings with Muslim, interfaith and civil rights community leaders in New York on Thursday. Days earlier, two men had attacked a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest and were killed in a shootout in Garland, Tex., and Mr. Johnson arrived in New York asking the leaders for their help in identifying young people at risk of becoming radicalized as part of a counterterrorism program. He expected an earful, and he got one. Many of the dozen advocates at the morning round-table discussion, held at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, questioned the government’s assumption that there is a predictive path for terrorists, let alone one that lay leaders like teachers and mental health professionals can identify. Advocates also said that deep-seated suspicion from the Muslim community, borne from surveillance and feeling targeted, might make participating in the Homeland Security program, called Countering Violent Extremism, challenging. “People in our community don’t trust law enforcement,” Linda Sarsour, advocacy director for the National Network for Arab American Communities, said at the table. To overcome distrust, she added, the community groups needed consistent financing to develop leadership programs or educational efforts that could encourage an alternative path. “You want to talk about resilience?” Ms. Sarsour said. “Build the capacity in my organization, in other organizations that are not here at the table. Every single day we wake up using chump change to take responsibility for our community.” Mr. Johnson, 57, responded that such financing to build community was not necessarily the government’s responsibility. “There are other ways to do that,” he said later. “We may have different messages, but we still hear each other,” he added. “Every one of these meetings is a host of unanswered questions and widely divergent expression of points.” This was the sixth such stop the secretary has made in his 18 months on the job, following discussions with leaders in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio . His day began with a private meeting with Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan to discuss security for the papal visit this fall. The New York round tables came several months after four Brooklyn men — three from Uzbekistan, one from Kazakhstan — were arrested and accused of trying to join the Islamic State. The terrorism threat is evolving, he said, as foreign fighters or domestic “lone wolves” are being swayed by glossy Internet campaigns by the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL. Asked after the meetings to define the success of his agency’s program, Mr. Johnson said it was still difficult to quantify. “Success is progress,” he said. “It’s building relationships, lowering suspicion, lowering the barriers that exist between the people and their government.” He added of his own involvement: “Showing up is a large part of success — being there in the room so that they can see me and I can see them.” Several of the participants in the first meeting agreed. “I have to say, I think there is a sincere effort on their part to understand the kinds of concerns that were expressed in that room,” said Faiza Patel, the co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. That said, Ms. Patel was concerned that the government’s methodology was flawed. “If you look at the empirical evidence, there is absolutely no agreement amongst people who have been researching what causes terrorism,” she said later. “So when you set out to build a program where we are going to identify people who are vulnerable to terrorism, since there’s no agreement about it, it’s a highly risky proposition.” John Miller, New York City’s deputy police commissioner for counterterrorism, shook his head in frustration with academic arguments. “Short of going into every mosque in a Nancy Reagan fashion and saying, ‘Just say no to terrorism,’ there has to be a more nuanced, complicated approach of how to reach the same people who are getting this ‘kill kill kill’ message,” Mr. Miller said. After the meeting, Mr. Johnson and his entourage — deputies in Homeland Security and Secret Service agents — boarded the subway to Brooklyn for another round table. On the No. 1 train, the secretary borrowed $5 from his staff to give to a pair of off-key buskers and transferred to the No. 2 train with the zeal of a native New Yorker. Then after a hot dog with mustard, he and his team strolled through a glowing Prospect Park. The secretary dreamed that he could switch places with a man lounging on the grass. But there was work to be done. At the Brooklyn Public Library, he hosted a discussion that was less heated; each group shared its concerns, including immigration policy and detention. But his message concluded the way it began, that communities had a role in keeping the country safe: “We need your help.”

Homeland Security
Terrorism
Brooklyn
Islam
Jeh C Johnson
ISIS,ISIL,Islamic State


Rangers Rout Oilers, Tying Franchise Road Win Mark

Abstract: The backup goalie Cam Talbot stopped 26 shots to earn his third career shutout, and Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello scored two goals apiece to lead the visiting Rangers to their sixth win in seven games, a 5-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night. Derick Brassard also scored for the Rangers, who moved into second place in the Metropolitan Division, 2 points ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers. It was the 24th road win for the Rangers, tying their franchise record. “On some nights you need some bounces, and we got a couple tonight,” Coach Alain Vigneault said. “Our penalty killing gave us two big goals tonight, which was good to see. “We hadn’t played as well as we would have liked defensively in Calgary on Friday. We were a lot better tonight.” Center Derek Stepan, who had three assists in the game, agreed. “We tightened it up, and moving forward we have to play that way because the points are so big,” Stepan said. “We have played a good defensive game over the last few weeks, and that is what is going to lead to our offense and help us win.” The Oilers have lost four of their last five games. It was the ninth time this season that the Oilers had been shut out. Edmonton goalie Ben Scrivens kept it scoreless seven minutes into the game with a kick save after Nash split the defense to go in alone on a power play. The Rangers took a 1-0 lead with 3 minutes 30 seconds to play in the first period when Zuccarello tipped in Anton Stralman’s shot. Scrivens argued that the goal involved a high stick, but it was reviewed, and Zuccarello got his 16th goal of the season. The Rangers took a 2-0 lead 4:38 into the second period on the power play. Brassard hit a knuckling shot from the sideboards that seemed to catch Scrivens off guard. Nash gave the Rangers a 3-0 advantage 9:07 into the period when he threw a backhand from behind the goal line. It hit Scrivens and went in for Nash’s 24th goal of the season. The Rangers made it 4-0 with 6:34 left in the second period on a short-handed two-on-one break, with Nash converting a pass from Stepan. BRUINS 4, FLYERS 3 Patrice Bergeron provided the go-ahead goal in the second period and also scored in a shootout to help visiting Boston past Philadelphia. The Bruins have won nine straight road games, a club record for a season. Reilly Smith, the fifth Boston shooter, clinched the victory in the shootout for the Bruins, who had a record of 15-1-1 in March. PENGUINS 4, BLACKHAWKS 1 Sidney Crosby had two goals in the final five minutes, helping Pittsburgh beat visiting Chicago. Already playing without Patrick Kane, the Blackhawks lost Jonathan Toews, their captain, when he sustained an upper-body injury in the second period. Toews was hit hard by Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik and was holding his left arm on the bench before heading to the locker room. James Neal and Lee Stempniak also scored for the Penguins, who won their second straight and snapped a three-game home losing streak. Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves in his 36th victory of the season. PREDATORS 4, CAPITALS 3 Craig Smith scored the only goal in a shootout to lead Nashville over visiting Washington. Patric Hornqvist scored two goals for Nashville, which has won two of three. The Capitals have lost three straight. RED WINGS 3, LIGHTNING 2 David Legwand had a goal and an assist, and Detroit held off visiting Tampa Bay to move into seventh place in the Eastern Conference. Joakim Andersson and Gustav Nyquist also scored for Detroit, and Jonas Gustavsson stopped 26 shots. SENATORS 6, FLAMES 3 Milan Michalek and Kyle Turris had two goals each to lead Ottawa past visiting Calgary. Jared Cowen gave Ottawa a lift with a tiebreaking goal on a wrist shot 1:12 into the third period, and Clarke MacArthur made it 5-3 with a tip-in at 12:22. RANGER NOMINATED FOR AWARD Forward Dominic Moore, who returned to hockey this season after taking more than a year off to be with his ailing wife and then to mourn her death, has been voted the Rangers’ nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. The nomination for the award, which is given to a player who demonstrates perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey, was made by the New York chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association. Moore, 33, left the San Jose Sharks in April 2012 to help care for his wife, Katie Urbanic Moore, who had a rare form of liver cancer. She died Jan. 7, 2013, at 32. Moore sat out the 2012-13 season but signed with the Rangers in July and resumed his career. JEFF Z. KLEIN

Rangers
Rick Nash
Mats Zuccarello
Edmonton Oilers
Ice hockey


Cuban President in Venezuela in First Official Foreign Visit

Abstract: CARACAS, Venezuela — President Raúl Castro of Cuba arrived here on Saturday on his first official foreign visit since assuming power two years ago from his ailing brother, Fidel. The decision to visit Caracas first highlights Cuba’s continuing reliance on subsidized oil and other forms of aid from Venezuela. The visit is an opportunity for President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to burnish his revolutionary credentials. He has vowed to strengthen ties with Cuba’s new leadership despite cultivating a much warmer relationship with Fidel, who is 82 and living in seclusion. “I bring a salute to all the Venezuelan people, an embrace from the Cuban people and the chief of the revolution, Fidel Castro,” Raúl Castro said after arriving here. Mr. Castro, 77, and Mr. Chávez discussed a range of cooperation projects in areas like agriculture, education, medicine and athletic training that are supported by thousands of Cuban advisers operating in Venezuela. The two leaders signed an agreement opening the way for Venezuela to continue assisting Cuba inincreasing its oil-refining capacity and to eventually build a plant in Cubato import liquid natural gas. Cuba is by far the largest beneficiary of Venezuela’s foreign aid, receiving, for instance, more than $150 million to build a petrochemical complex in Cienfuegos on Cuba’s southern coast. But with oil prices plunging recently, the financing for some of Venezuela’s foreign aid projects has come into question. Cuba’s government may also be worried about possible disruptions in subsidized oil exports, which were cut early in the this decade during an oil strike here. Given that uncertainty, Mr. Castro has also been trying to deepen ties with other trading partners like China and Brazil. Indeed, before Mr. Castro’s visit to Caracas was announced this month, Cuba’s government had said that he was planning to go to Brazil for a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean countries convened by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. After stopping in Caracas, Mr. Castro is still expected to travel to Brazil in the coming days, raising the prospect of stronger relations with Brazil and, perhaps, even of a potential option for back-channel dialogue with the coming Obama administration. The government of Mr. da Silva, a former leftist labor organizer, has expressed a strong desire to strengthen relations with both Havana, which Mr. da Silva has visited twice in the past year, and Washington. “The U.S. approach to Cuba will unfreeze with Obama,” said Christopher Sabatini , senior director of policy at the Americas Society , a policy organization in New York focusing on Latin America. “Lula has both the international cred and the ideological cred to be an interlocutor in this process.” Cuba’s potential in developing alternative forms of energy also figures high on Brazil’s efforts to cultivate warmer ties with Cuba, with Brazilian sugar and ethanol producers seeking to interest Cuba in Brazilian ethanol technology and investment, possibly as a way to circumvent an American tariff on imports of Brazilian ethanol if Washington’s embargo is altered. “The Brazilians are taking a long-term view on Cuba as an entry point into the Caribbean and even the United States,” said Jorge R. Piñón, an energy fellow at the University of Miami. “As for the Cubans, they are still recovering from the shock of losing the Soviet lifeline, so they want an insurance policy in case of changes in relations with Venezuela,” he said. “The Cubans are getting their ducks in a row.” But while Brazil has emerged as Cuba’s second-largest trading partner in Latin America, its influence in Cuba is still dwarfed by that of Venezuela, whose subsidized oil exports to Cuba were valued at $3.01 billion this year through November, according to a new study by the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami. Moreover, Venezuela is also financing another refinery expansion in Santiago in eastern Cuba, a project that, combined with the upgrade of the oil and petrochemical complex in Cienfuegos, could put Cuba on the road to becoming a potential regional oil-refining center. Cuba’s recent announcement that its offshore oil reserves could hold as much as 20 billion barrels has also set off fierce speculation in energy markets over whether the estimate was accurate and, if so, how that petroleum would eventually be commercially explored. For now, the American embargo on trade with Cuba has limited the ability of American oil companies and foreign oil companies with large operations in the United States from striking deals to produce oil in Cuban waters or offer the Cuban government energy services in the form of drilling or geological work. But that framework for dealing with Cuba could change, explaining why Mr. Castro has welcomed the Venezuelan investments in Cuba’s refineries and has reached out to oil-exporting countries like Russia, Angola and Brazil, which is increasing its own oil production after a series of huge offshore oil discoveries. “We already have extensive oil dealings with a monarchy in Saudi Arabia, a failed state in Nigeria and Venezuela, which is Cuba’s top patron,” said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, an expert on Cuba’s energy industry at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. “Why should Cuba, which is relatively stable and close to our major ports and refineries, be an exception?”


Make or Break Time for World Cup Contenders

Abstract: LONDON — No matter how much the FIFA hierarchy discredits its own tournament, players everywhere would give everything to reach a World Cup. Many of those players are in the last-chance saloon. Mexicans and Uruguayans and Englishmen must win qualifying games on Friday, and win again on Tuesday, or their nations might be left behind when the World Cup begins in Brazil next June. There are 10 African countries left, and just five places to play for. They meet, this month and next, in home-and-away pairings, winners take all. Among those African players, Egyptians might already stand proudest. Their triumph is getting this far despite the political and civil turmoil all around them. Now, guided by their American coach, Bob Bradley, they face head-to-head eliminators against Ghana, the outstanding African team at the 2010 World Cup. Elsewhere, some big-name players have helped to dig the holes that their countries are in. England’s Wayne Rooney, Mexico’s Javier Hernández, and the Uruguay strikers Luis Suárez and Edinson Cavani are among them. The last hurdles are a test of nerve, of stamina, of leadership. “For a country like ours,” said Rooney at a news conference this week, “with the talent we have, it would be a failure not to qualify. As players, we will all take the responsibility if we don’t get there.” England plays against Montenegro on Friday, and against Poland on Tuesday. Both games are in London, and since Rooney claims that he has never known a better group of English goal scorers than there are at present, what has he to fear with home-field advantage at Wembley Stadium? “These are tense situations,” he answered. “There are a lot of nerves, and sometimes you can hear that through the crowd. It’s really important that experienced players, like Stevie Gerrard and myself help us in these games.” First up, on Friday, is Montenegro. England, the founding nation of soccer, meets Montenegro, which gained independence seven years ago. England, representing 53 million people, against Montenegro, which totals 625,000. The two nations have met three times, and neither team has won or lost. And one reason why mighty England trembles on the brink is that two-thirds of the minutes played in its Premier League are by foreigners — including the new Manchester City playmaker Steven Jovetic, who comes from Montenegro. “We are such a small country,” Jovetic said, “but our people expect a lot because we have seen our neighbors Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia reach World Cup finals. We will give everything.” If England, and its supporters hold their nerve, they have all the advantages. If Mexico could harness the power of belief and longing, then it might even now continue its proud record of reaching every World Cup finals from 1994 on. But El Tri, the Mexican soccer team, has no margin for error. It must beat Panama at the enormous Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on Friday, and then go undefeated in Costa Rica on Tuesday to stand any chance of qualifying. And Panama is no pushover. It has beaten the Mexicans twice already in 2013, and suddenly the population of the regional power is fearful. Mexico has changed the coach, but it cannot change the situation. “Now is not the time for controversy,” insists Guillermo Ochoa, the national team goalie who went from captain to outcast, and then was restored to El Tri. “We want all Mexico to be united,” is Ochoa’s rallying cry. “The team, the media, the fans.” There is, the goalkeeper says, a new vibe about Mexico. But words will not do it: He has to keep shots at bay, and Hernández, who gets little playing time at Manchester United these days, needs to do what he hasn’t done since June, and score for his country. Those new vibes are also Uruguay’s hopes. The smallest of South America’s major soccer nations, it won the inaugural World Cup in 1930, and again won the tournament in the one and only time it was so far staged in Brazil, in 1950. And Uruguay not only went further than Argentina or Brazil in 2010, it won the last Copa America event, too. Uruguay also has strikers that most nations would die for. Suárez has hit 38 goals in 72 national team appearances, Cavani’s record is 18 in 56, and Diego Forlan, though now in his mid-30s, still has the guile and know-how of a man who in 104 games has struck 36 times for La Celeste. And if all three fail, there is a new boy on the block, or rather a late bloomer. Christian Stuani turns 27 this weekend, but his form with the Spanish team Espanyol persuaded Uruguay’s veteran coach Óscar Tabárez to call him up. “Stuani is a very intelligent player,” said the coach. Intelligent enough to fit in with the established striker force. Sharp enough to score in the vital victory over Colombia last month. And Stuani is convinced that the momentum is with Uruguay, despite it sitting perilously close to going out in the South American group. The team, however, needs to contend with elevation to retain momentum on Friday. It currently lies fifth in the 10-group section, and only four automatically qualify for next year’s finals. Equal on points, but with a better goal difference, is Ecuador. The two meet Friday in the Ecuadorean capital, Quito. It stands 2,850 meters, about 9,350 feet, in the Andes, and while that keeps the temperature comfortable so close to the Equator, it puts a premium on lung power during games. Ecuador, however, has less altitude advantage than you might think. Nine in its likely starting lineup — led by the Manchester United winger Antonio Valencia — are employed by European clubs. So Valencia and Suárez have the same distance to travel and the same acclimatization problem. Where they differed was that Ecuador played to the most of its potential in this qualification process, while Uruguay’s form dipped well below its best. In Quito, facing the Pichincha Volcano to the west, it looks like winner-takes-all on Friday evening.

FIFA
Uruguay
England
Mexico
2014 World Cup


SEAL Team 6 and a Man Left for Dead: A Grainy Picture of Valor

Abstract: Britt Slabinski could hear the bullets ricochet off the rocks in the darkness. It was the first firefight for his six-man reconnaissance unit from SEAL Team 6, and it was outnumbered, outgunned and taking casualties on an Afghan mountaintop. A half-dozen feet or so to his right, John Chapman, an Air Force technical sergeant acting as the unit’s radioman, lay wounded in the snow. Mr. Slabinski, a senior chief petty officer, could see through his night-vision goggles an aiming laser from Sergeant Chapman’s rifle rising and falling with his breathing, a sign he was alive. Then another of the Americans was struck in a furious exchange of grenades and machine-gun fire, and the chief realized that his team had to get off the peak immediately. He looked back over at Sergeant Chapman. The laser was no longer moving, Chief Slabinski recalls, though he was not close enough to check the airman’s pulse. Chased by bullets that hit a second SEAL in the leg, the chief said, he crawled on top of the sergeant but could not detect any response, so he slid down the mountain face with the other men. When they reached temporary cover, one asked: “Where’s John? Where’s Chappy?” Chief Slabinski responded, “He’s dead.” Now, more than 14 years after that brutal fight, in which seven Americans ultimately died, the Air Force says that Chief Slabinski was wrong — and that Sergeant Chapman not only was alive, but also fought on alone for more than an hour after the SEALs had retreated. The Air Force secretary is pushing for a Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award, after new technology used in an examination of videos from aircraft flying overhead helped officials conclude that the sergeant had killed two fighters with Al Qaeda — one in hand-to-hand combat — before dying in an attempt to protect arriving reinforcements. The new account of Sergeant Chapman’s last act reopens old wounds for SEAL Team 6, the elite Navy unit that would later kill Osama bin Laden. The findings could rekindle tensions between Team 6 and other Special Operations organizations that lost men in the March 4, 2002, mission, which they felt the SEALs had planned and executed poorly, according to current and former military officials. Like some other military units, Team 6 accepts as an article of faith that its members never leave a fallen comrade behind. While that can be difficult to fulfill, it is a creed as old as warfare itself, a pact with those facing great peril. Abandoning a wounded man to fight and die by himself, however inadvertent, officers say, would be devastating. “These things happen in combat, but it’d be awful,” said Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell, a retired Delta Force commander who was involved in the broader operation that included the mountaintop episode. “It’d be terrible to find that out.” Video A Predator drone recorded Army Rangers and members of Al Qaeda fighting on an Afghan mountaintop 14 years ago. The Air Force believes Sgt. John Chapman was killed around this time. He cautioned anyone who had not been there against second-guessing. “It’s easy to say, ‘Well, I’d never leave someone behind,’” he said. “It’s a lot harder when you’re getting your ass shot off.” He added, “If anybody thought Chapman was alive, we would have been trying to move heaven and earth to get him out of there.” Chief Slabinski, who is now 46 and retired, acknowledged that he might have made a mistake under intense fire in thinking that Sergeant Chapman was dead. Still haunted by what happened on the mountain, he replayed the events there to explain his decisions that day. “I’m trying to direct what everybody’s got going on, trying to see what’s going on with John; I’m already 95 percent certain in my mind that he’s been killed,” he said in an interview. “That’s why I was like, ‘O.K., we’ve got to move.’” Image Britt Slabinski, a senior chief petty officer, concluded that Sergeant Chapman had been killed. New technology applied to video taken at the time of the battle has suggested that the fallen airman survived and continued the fight after the SEAL unit had withdrawn. While saying the sergeant should be recognized for his valor if the Air Force narrative was correct, Chief Slabinski still expressed skepticism that the new evidence — gleaned from software that can isolate pixel representations of people and help track their movements — was reliable. SEAL Team 6 supports the proposed award, military officials said, but is not taking a position on whether Sergeant Chapman was alive when the SEALs retreated. If approved by the president, the award will be the first of the more than 3,500 Medals of Honor given since the Civil War to rely not on eyewitness accounts but primarily on technology. The events surrounding the ill-fated mission have long been controversial, partly because Chief Slabinski has said previously that higher-level officers denied his request to delay it 24 hours to reduce the risks. In the interview, he said he feared that critics in the Special Operations community would blame him while glossing over decisions by the higher officers that contributed to the deaths. “They’re going to say: ‘Yep, it’s all your fault. You left him up there, behind, alive,’” he said. A Retreat Under Fire Chief Slabinski’s team was ordered to establish an observation post on top of the mountain, Takur Ghar, during Operation Anaconda, an effort to encircle and destroy Qaeda forces in the Shah-i-Kot Valley in eastern Afghanistan, about 25 miles from Pakistan. The battle occurred less than three months after bin Laden had escaped at Tora Bora , and American commanders still hoped to capture or kill senior Qaeda leaders. Chief Slabinski’s plan was to land by helicopter near the base of the 10,000-foot mountain around midnight and climb up stealthily, but a series of delays involving aircraft left no time to do that before dawn. Under pressure from superiors, he said, he reluctantly flew to the peak at about 3 a.m. Unbeknown to the SEALs, Qaeda forces were already there, and they hit the helicopter with heavy fire. One of Chief Slabinski’s men, Petty Officer First Class Neil C. Roberts, fell out about 10 feet above the ground, and the pilot could not retrieve him before the stricken aircraft crash-landed a few miles away. Shortly before 5 a.m., the five remaining SEALs and Sergeant Chapman returned to the top — later called “Roberts Ridge” — on another helicopter to try to rescue Petty Officer Roberts. They did not know that enemy fighters had already killed and tried to decapitate him. The Americans were again met by a withering barrage. Rushing through thigh-deep snow, Sergeant Chapman charged ahead of Chief Slabinski, and they killed two fighters in a bunker — a hole dug in the ground under a tree — before the airman was wounded. Image The top of Takur Ghar after the battle between Special Operations forces and fighters with Al Qaeda in March 2002. A dead Qaeda fighter is in the rear right of the frame. Credit United States Department of Defense Under fire, the SEALs retreated about 15 minutes later. Chief Slabinski’s plan, he said, was to take cover and let a circling Air Force gunship hammer the Qaeda fighters before trying again to seize the peak and recover Sergeant Chapman’s body. But grenades and mortar fire drove the SEALs farther down the mountain, making it impossible to return. Three Army Rangers, an Army helicopter crewman and another Air Force commando were killed later that morning after arriving as reinforcements. Almost as soon as the guns fell silent, the accusations started to fly. Some Ranger, Army Special Operations aviation and Air Force special tactics personnel blamed the SEALs for their losses. Soon after, the military opened an investigation to determine what had gone wrong. The chief investigator, Lt. Col. Andrew Milani of the Army, wrote later that an Air Force gunship had failed to detect the militants on the mountaintop and that the SEALs had “violated a basic tenet of reconnaissance” by landing directly on their observation post instead of hiking up to it. Colonel Milani also looked into footage captured by a Predator drone about 50 minutes after the SEALs had left the mountaintop. The grainy images showed someone in the bunker defending himself against two attackers and killing one with a rifle shot, prompting the question: Who was that? Colonel Milani’s investigation remains classified, but an unclassified paper that he wrote in 2003 offered two possible explanations: The Qaeda fighters had become confused and were firing at one another, or Sergeant Chapman, still alive, had resumed fighting. The colonel did not reach a conclusion, based on the evidence he had. But the suggestion that members of one of the military’s most elite Special Operations units might have, even unintentionally, left someone from another service to fight and die alone added to the tensions. Sergeant Chapman, a father of two daughters, in 2003 was posthumously awarded an Air Force Cross, a recognition of valor second only to the Medal of Honor, for his initial charge atop the mountain. The citation noted that Chief Slabinski, who received a Navy Cross for his actions in the firefight, had credited the airman “unequivocally with saving the lives of the entire rescue team.” Sergeant Chapman had enlisted in the Air Force as a computer technician, but soon found that he was not suited to a sedentary lifestyle. A former high school diving and soccer star from Windsor Locks, Conn., he transferred into the elite ranks of the Air Force Special Operations Command as a combat controller, a job that involved calling in airstrikes and handling radio communications for SEAL Team 6 and other secretive units. By the time he had joined Chief Slabinski’s team in October 2001, he had spent more than a decade in Special Operations and, at 36, was expressing doubts about his ability to keep up, Chief Slabinski said. The chief told him that he had nothing to worry about. New View of a Battle Image The Ranger helicopter that was shot down as it landed on the peak, with — according to the Air Force — Sergeant Chapman trying to provide covering fire. Credit United States Department of Defense Sergeant Chapman was considered for the Medal of Honor when the secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James, directed the service’s Special Operations Command to review the seven Air Force Crosses awarded since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for possible upgrades. She recently recommended the award to the defense secretary, whose approval is required before it goes to the White House. Pentagon policy forbids military officials to talk about potential Medals of Honor, but several officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said that even the sergeant’s initial bravery had stood out. Chief Slabinski said he wondered whether the Air Force was motivated as much by hopes of receiving its first Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War as by a desire to fully understand what transpired on the mountain. (Since the Sept. 11 attacks, 12 Army soldiers, three Marines and three SEALs have received the medal for gallantry in Iraq or Afghanistan.) A briefing prepared by Air Force special operations officials dismisses as “not viable” Colonel Milani’s suggestion that the gunfight caught on video by the C.I.A. Predator might have involved militants fighting one another, according to people who have received it. That the airman was alive and fighting “is fully supported by the evidence,” the briefing slides state. The use of the imagery-enhancement technology to scrutinize the Predator video was central to the findings, particularly when combined with footage, from an AC-130 gunship, that had not been available to Colonel Milani. As the drone circled more than 6,500 feet above the peak, trees and other objects impeded its view, and it had trouble staying locked on to the men in the fight. The imagery technology, still being refined in an Air Force lab, enabled the service to assign each person in the blurry videos a “pixel signature” based on his size, his clothing and the weapons he carried, people who have been briefed said. By identifying Sergeant Chapman shortly after he stepped out of the helicopter with the SEALs, the briefing slides say, its imagery analysts could follow him around the mountaintop, picking him up even when trees or other obstacles partly obscured him. Outside experts familiar with the technology said having video footage from the gunship as well as from the Predator drone would have provided the analysts with more tracking angles and clarity. “That’s two different eyes, and they could fuse that together,” said David J. Kriegman, a computer science professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has done research in this area. Based on the analysis, the Air Force believes that Sergeant Chapman was unconscious when Chief Slabinski thought he was dead. The sergeant regained consciousness and began engaging enemy fighters in three directions, the slides suggest. Image Sergeant Chapman holding a young girl in a tent in Afghanistan during a blizzard in the winter of 2002, not long before he died. The analysis suggests that Sergeant Chapman crawled into the bunker within 13 minutes of the SEALs’ departure, or at about 5:25 a.m. Then, at 6:00, shortly after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the bunker, he fatally shot a fighter rushing toward him, according to the briefing. A few minutes later, another militant crawled to the bunker’s edge, where, at 6:11, the airman killed him in hand-to-hand combat. As a Chinook helicopter carrying Ranger reinforcements approached, the Air Force contends, the sergeant rose up in the bunker for a better angle to provide covering fire. He faced machine-gun fire as he tried to relieve the pressure on the Rangers, whose helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. It was only then, with rescue tantalizingly close, that two machine-gun bullets struck the right side of his chest, killing him almost instantly. The Air Force says his death was not captured on video. Presented with the Air Force analysis, Colonel Milani submitted an addendum to his paper. “With some of the original uncertainty removed, I can state that the probability now lies more in favor of Chapman surviving the original assault,” he wrote. The Air Force’s case includes a new analysis of Sergeant Chapman’s autopsy that found that bruising on his forehead could have happened only if he had been alive, making the hypothesis that he had been briefly knocked out more plausible. His body, which was recovered later that day, had nine bullet wounds, five below his waist and four above. The sequence of the injuries is not known. But the two fatal rounds entered at what would have been an impossible angle had he been killed where the SEALs said he had fallen, according to people familiar with the Air Force briefing. Lingering Questions A team led by the Air Force’s 24th Special Operations Wing commander, Col. Matthew Davidson, briefed Chief Slabinski on the findings late last year. “I didn’t see anything new,” the chief said. “It was just presented differently.” Image A bunker on Takur Ghar. New evidence suggests that Sergeant Chapman fought on for more than an hour after his presumed death from this bunker or another close by, killing two Qaeda fighters before dying. Colonel Davidson said the Air Force could see Sergeant Chapman “moving in and around the bunker” where he and Chief Slabinski had killed the two enemy fighters, the chief said. But because the bunker was under a tree that largely obscured it, this was not clear to Chief Slabinski watching the video. “You’ve got these little flashes,” he said. “Here’s a sliver of the pixel here, and then it kind of goes away, and there’s another sliver of it, and here’s some muzzle flash stuff.” Chief Slabinski said Sergeant Chapman’s assault rifle had been equipped with a suppressor to mask its muzzle flash, but the video showed the man in the bunker firing a weapon with an unsuppressed muzzle flash. The chief also questioned why the man shooting in the video appeared to fire on full automatic, rather than with the single aimed shots that the sergeant would have been trained to use. At times, Chief Slabinski said, he feels as if he had never left Takur Ghar. He still has “visions” in which he sees fighters on the mountain moving in slow motion, and hears the sound of grenades and gunfire. He has trouble sleeping, and says he has received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress after a dozen years of war. What stays with him the most is that morning he led his team into battle to try to save one man, only to be told later that he had left another fighting for his life. “Is it within John’s character to go on and do this? Without a question,” the chief said. “If John did this stuff, I want him to get recognized.”

Britt Slabinski
John Chapman
Medal of Honor
Afghanistan War
Navy Seals
US Air Force
US Special Operations Command
US Military


Brooklyn Bridge Was Terror Plot Target, Documents Reveal

Abstract: Al Qaeda has long had a fascination with suspension bridges, especially the Brooklyn Bridge. New documents reveal that before Sept. 11, 2001, methods for bringing down bridges were being taught at a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. After 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , the admitted mastermind of the attacks, got even more specific, telling an operative, Iyman Faris, to “destroy the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting the suspension cables,” according to a 2006 assessment of Mr. Mohammed that is among the hundreds of classified Guantánamo files made available recently to The New York Times. The Brooklyn Bridge plot was revealed in 2003 with the arrest of Mr. Faris, a naturalized American citizen from Kashmir. But the brief reference in the report on Mr. Mohammed hints at the impact of the aborted plot on security in New York and on the bridge in particular. Today, the bridge is one of the most carefully guarded potential targets in New York — maintenance crews, for example, must notify the Police Department’s Intelligence Division before scaling the cables. Security cameras watch hidden corners of the bridge. Other measures, like police cars stationed on entry ramps, are there for all to see. To at least some extent, that is the legacy of the plot, no matter how far-fetched it might have seemed at the time. In fact, the Police Department realized it was not far-fetched at all. After Mr. Faris’s arrest, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly visited an isolated room near where the thick cables split into several thinner cables and are anchored on the shore. A vulnerability, he said, had been detected. “I, myself, climbed down and looked at the room where the cables came together, after the Faris plot,” Mr. Kelly said. Someone could enter that room, he said, and “cut or physically weaken the center cables of the bridge.” “If you look through all the components of it,” he added, “it was doable.” The newly revealed Guantánamo assessments, obtained last year by the group WikiLeaks and provided by another source to The Times, show that those who mentioned bridges as possible targets were among the most high-profile Qaeda operatives, like Mr. Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah . An assessment of Mr. Zubaydah says he provided interrogators with a list of potential Qaeda targets, including “U.S. symbols” like the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations building and “major hanging bridges,” the report says. It was an Egyptian detainee named Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah who told interrogators about a course in improvised explosive devices given at the training camp, where he learned about “methods to destroy suspension bridges,” his assessment says. References to the Brooklyn Bridge were being picked up by intelligence officers in the Police Department before 9/11. Images of the bridge appeared, for example, in the backgrounds of prerecorded memorial messages left behind by suicide attackers overseas. After 9/11, said Paul J. Browne, the chief police spokesman, the department hired an engineer to study the ways the bridge could be taken down. Karen J. Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University, said the reference to the Brooklyn Bridge in Mr. Mohammed’s file underscored the bridge’s importance as a target — as a symbol and because of the potential “for disrupting the commercial fabric of the city.” “You get a sense from these of how Al Qaeda was thinking,” Ms. Greenberg said. “It’s akin to blocking the port in a way. It’s a major point of entry.” In addition to the police cars on the ramps, a police boat is always nearby in the East River, with officers keeping their eyes on the bridge. Those measures were put into place after 9/11, and Mr. Kelly has said he believed they deterred Mr. Faris. Indeed, it was reported at the time that Mr. Faris, after checking on the bridge, informed Mr. Mohammed that the plot was not going to work. “We believe that he saw what we had done, in terms of additional coverage, the radio cars on both ends of the bridge and the boat in the water,” Mr. Kelly said. “And his message back was ‘The weather is too hot,’ as I understand it.” The police have also locked the hidden access point to the bridge’s cables. Security cameras are aimed around the clock on that spot because it was believed a saboteur would need just 15 minutes of sustained cutting with a heavy-duty gas-powered saw to sever a few of the thinner cables and undermine the bridge, law enforcement officials said. Even routine maintenance is controlled. “If legitimate maintenance has to be done,” Mr. Browne said, “the Intelligence Division has to be notified.”

Classified Information and State Secrets


Drive-In Theaters Offer a Bit of the Past, and Its Prices

Abstract: MONTCLAIR, Calif. THE citrus groves are gone. Route 66, which once pulsed through this Los Angeles suburb, is a memory . Marilyn Monroe lives on mainly through tacky gift shop trinkets. But another 1950s-era symbol of Southern California — the drive-in movie theater — continues to thrive here. Mission Tiki , a Polynesian-themed drive-in with four screens and room for 1,000 cars, has been packed this summer, just as it was last year. At sunset on a Saturday in early July, with the San Gabriel Mountains glowing burnt orange in the distance, children with hot dogs ran between cars, a few teenagers on dates cozied behind dashboards, and families camped out in lawn chairs. “Got to get nachos before the new ‘Spider-Man’ starts,” said Maria Gonzalez, a 27-year-old sales clerk, following a popcorn-scented breeze toward the faux-bamboo snack bar. Drive-ins remain an extremely fragile business. Only 368 remain in the United States , and their numbers are dwindling by two or three a year, according to the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association. But some survivors, like Mission Tiki, appear to be chugging along just fine — a few are even gaining steam — as a more affordable option to the multiplex, where ticket prices in a big city can run $12.50 or more for adults and $9.50 or more for children (not to mention an extra $3 or so for 3-D films that the drive-ins can’t show). Mission Tiki, reflecting prices at drive-ins nationwide, charges $7 for adults and $1 for children ages 5 to 9. Younger children are admitted free. “Don’t forget that you can also bring your own food to a drive-in, which is what we did,” said Kristy Dahlstrom, 23, a marketing assistant, as she sat in her Ford Focus with a friend at Mission Tiki awaiting the comedy “Magic Mike.” Picking up dinner at a McDonald’s drive-through on their way “got us an entire dinner for the price of a single popcorn at the regular theaters,” she said. DRIVE-INS are where thriftiness and a fondness for the past converge with escapist entertainment — under the stars, no less. Soupy cheese fries are part of the deal, footballs occasionally fly past the windows and the romance in the next car can be more deserving of an R rating than the movie. And while the crackling speakers of old have been replaced by low-frequency radio transmissions, no one is expecting a state-of-the-art presentation — a good thing, considering that the headlights of late-arriving cars can end up co-starring with the characters on screen. “Yep, we’re at the drive-in,” Ms. Dahlstrom said, as the lights of an S.U.V. momentarily merged with a shirtless Channing Tatum on the big screen. Nostalgia, of course, helps power this corner of moviegoing. Older adults may have fond memories of sneaking in by hiding in car trunks; younger people may want to channel Danny Zuko of “Grease” (who sang of being “stranded at the drive-in”) while they still can. “I love taking a date to a drive-in because it’s just so unexpected these days,” said Seth Hancock, 30, who frequents the Vineland theater in City of Industry, Calif. “Plus, everyone is always in a good mood at a drive-in.” There is no publicly available box-office data for drive-ins, but West Wind , a seven-theater chain centered in California , says 2011 ticket and concession revenue was up 43 percent compared with three years ago. Frank Huttinger, the chief executive of DeAnza Land and Leisure, which owns six drive-ins, including Mission Tiki and the Starlight Six in Atlanta , said his operation had “a substantial increase in attendance” this summer, compared with last. Both West Wind and DeAnza are in the process of installing digital projection systems at their theaters, an investment that West Wind estimates at about $2 million. “The conversion to digital is expensive, for sure, but it also means we think there is a future,” said John Vincent Jr., president of the drive-in association and owner of the Wellfleet Drive-In on Cape Cod . Attendance there so far this summer is “extremely encouraging,” Mr. Vincent said. The drive-in obituary has been written repeatedly, for what seem to be good reasons. The first drive-in opened in 1933 in New Jersey , and about 4,000 were operating by the late 1950s, but a changing America found new leisure-time loves. The solidification of daylight saving time in the 1960s contributed to the drive-in’s downfall, forcing later starting times. Widespread sales of color televisions hurt, too. Later, the VCR and multiplexes — called hardtops in movie theater parlance — took a toll. And real estate development is a continuing threat. Drive-ins can occupy 30 acres or more, and originally were often built on low-value farmland. But urban sprawl eventually caught up, with shopping mall builders in particular buying and razing the outdoor theaters. “Every three years or so,” Mr. Huttinger said, “we are approached by developers at one of our various properties with an offer that we have to take seriously.” The resilience of the drive-in business seems to shock even those who make a living in it. “The truth is, we hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the drive-ins because, like a lot of people, we thought they were going away,” said Tony Maniscalco, West Wind’s vice president for marketing. West Wind was formerly part of the Century chain of traditional theaters, which was sold to Cinemark in 2006. But Cinemark did not want the drive-ins. “We were scratching our heads asking, “What can we do with these things?’ ” Mr. Maniscalco said. “We decided to start repairing them and cleaning them up and promoting them. And we were amazed at the response.” He added, “Suddenly, we have a business even we believe in.” COUNT Chuck Rayes in, too. A body shop manager, Mr. Rayes, 50, came to Mission Tiki with his wife to see “Ted” and was surprised to find fresh paint and a pothole-free parking lot. “I admit that I had to be dragged,” he said, sitting in a lawn chair. “But I’m impressed. There’s a nice feeling of community here that you don’t get many places anymore.” His only complaint: the food was a little too good. “I was hoping for old times’ sake to have a hamburger that had been sitting for hours under one of those warming lights,” he said.

Drive-in theater
Movies
DeAnza Land and Leisure
West Wind Drive-Ins
United Drive-In Theatre Owners Assn


Carnival Swings to First-Quarter Profit

Abstract: Carnival Corporation reported a first-quarter profit on Friday, despite problems. The cruise line earned $37 million, or 5 cents a share, in the quarter ended Feb. 28, after a loss of $139 million, or 18 cents a share, a year earlier. But its annual forecast was below analysts’ predictions, and its shares fell 2 percent. An engine fire last month left 4,200 passengers stranded for five days without working toilets or power, and two ships had mechanical problems this week.


Counterfeit Bills Found at 2 Midtown Chase Banks

Abstract: The forger’s efforts were at most halfhearted. The bills were made from ordinary paper stock and were blank on one side. But stacks of them were found in A.T.M.’s in Midtown on Monday and a few of them wound up in customers’ hands. By late afternoon on Monday detectives had discovered A.T.M.’s in two banks that were loaded with these uninspired counterfeits, a law enforcement official said. Detectives and bank officials were operating under the assumption that whoever had put the counterfeit bills in the A.T.M.’s had done so to replace cash that was stolen. Teller machines at the banks — Chase branches on West 57th Street and on Ninth Avenue — were short some $110,000. The police are looking into whether a 26-year-old employee at NCR Corporation, a company that services bank A.T.M.’s, is a suspect. He is believed to currently be in the Dominican Republic, two people with knowledge of the investigation said. An NCR spokesman, Jeffrey Dudash, said he was not aware of the situation. The counterfeit bills did not appear intended to fool customers so much as to trick the A.T.M.’s into believing they were carrying a full complement of cash. However, in most instances, the machines appeared to have been able to distinguish the fake bills from the real ones, and separate them. A Chase bank official said that the canisters designed to snare bogus bills for this purpose in the A.T.M.’s were full of them. But at least two of the bills got through on Monday. A customer at each of the two Chase branches alerted bank employees that they had received a fake bill, the bank official said. In one case, the customer had made a withdrawal for $20, while the other customer’s withdrawal was for $100, the official said. Both customers discovered the fake bill right away, the official said. In a statement issued by JPMorgan Chase & Company, the company said: “We are working to get all the facts and don’t want to come to any conclusions too early. Obviously, all of our customers who withdrew money will be made whole.” It was not immediately clear whether any other A.T.M.’s had dispensed counterfeit bills. An A.T.M. technician at a Chase bank branch on West 57th Street who inspected the counterfeits described the notes as “amateurish.” The technician said that the bills were cut correctly, but that visually it was easy to tell they were different. Inspector Kim Y. Royster, a Police Department spokeswoman, said that there had been one complaint about the phony money. She said that detectives were actively investigating the situation, but that “we do not have any suspects in custody at this time.”

Counterfeit Money and Financial Instruments


Malaysia Suspends 2 Newspapers Covering Scandal at State-Owned Fund

Abstract: HONG KONG — The Malaysian authorities have ordered two newspapers to suspend publishing for three months over their reporting on a financial scandal that has embroiled Prime Minister Najib Razak and other members of the country’s elite, the outlets’ parent company said Friday. Print publication by The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily will be suspended beginning Monday by order of the Ministry of Home Affairs, according to the newspapers’ parent company, Edge Media Group. Edge Media said the order was in response to coverage of an investigation into possible wrongdoing at 1Malaysia Development Berhad, also known as 1MDB, a heavily indebted, government-owned development fund. “We don’t see how exposing the scam to cheat the people of Malaysia of billions of ringgit can be construed as being detrimental to public and national interest,” said Edge Media Group’s publisher and chief executive, Ho Kay Tat, according to an article posted on the group’s main website. “This is nothing more than a move to shut us down in order to shut us up.” Mr. Ho said that the outlets would continue to publish online and that the company would fight the closure of the print editions in court. Malaysia has strict publishing laws that give the government the authority to close newspapers, which advocates of press freedom say puts undue restrictions on critical reporting. Malaysian government officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Edge Media outlets have published a series of articles on the development fund, including one on Monday alleging that 1MDB executives, the Saudi oil company PetroSaudi International and investors including Jho Low, a prominent financier, had conspired to defraud the country out of more than $1.8 billion. In February, The New York Times published an examination of the relationship between Mr. Low and Mr. Najib and his family, as well as Mr. Low’s ties to 1MDB. The Wall Street Journal reported in early July that documents from the investigation showed that nearly $700 million had been deposited into accounts said to be controlled by Mr. Najib, the prime minister, who heads the development fund’s board. Mr. Najib and 1MDB have denied wrongdoing, and the prime minister has called the allegations a smear orchestrated by his political opponents. Edge Media ran into trouble with the authorities earlier this year. In March, Mr. Ho was arrested along with the chief executive and three editors of another Edge Media outlet, the website The Malaysian Insider, over an article about a proposal to allow strict enforcement of Islamic law. Press freedom groups characterized that action against Edge Media as the latest in a series of troubling moves by the Malaysian government to intimidate critical publications.

Malaysia
Najib Razak
1MDB
Freedom of the press
News media,journalism


Panetta Presses Brazil to Buy Boeing Fighters

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta pushed Brazil on Wednesday to buy $4 billion worth of Boeing-made Super Hornet fighter jets, saying the prospective sale reflected how important Brazil was to the United States. During the first visit by an American defense secretary to the country in seven years, Mr. Panetta used a speech at Superior War College here to focus on smoothing a sometimes thorny relationship and promoting American weapons sales. Brazil is deciding whether to buy 36 fighter jets worth about $4 billion in a competition between Boeing in the United States, Dassault Aviation in France and Saab in Sweden. Boeing makes the F/A-18 E/6 Super Hornet, Dassault makes the Rafale and Saab makes the Gripen. Mr. Panetta’s appeal was unusually direct and reflected the Pentagon’s new attention to Brazil after the country’s president, Dilma Rousseff , met this month with President Obama at the White House. Mr. Panetta told an audience of Brazilian military officers at the war college that the Boeing offer had strong support in the United States Congress and “contains an unprecedented advanced technology sharing that is reserved for only our closest allies and partners.” The Boeing sale is a priority for the American government — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been pushing it as well — in large part because it will provide jobs. Brazil wants the planes for air defense, including keeping watch over the Amazon, a major route for cocaine coming in from Bolivia. It is unclear whether Mr. Panetta’s appeal on the Super Hornet will work, however. Brazil is irritated at the Pentagon for canceling a $380 million contract that called for the United States to buy turboprop aircraft from Brazil for the Afghan Air Force. The contract, with the Brazilian company Embraer and its American partner, Sierra Nevada Corporation for 20 AT-29 Super Tocano warplanes, was canceled in February after a legal challenge from a rival, Hawker Beechcraft Corporation. The Pentagon has called for a new round of bidding on the contract. American defense officials insisted that there was no quid pro quo in the contracts. But at a news conference on Tuesday in Brasília, Brazil’s defense minister, Celso Amorim, pointedly said he was “sad” that the Embraer warplanes, “which were certainly the best,” were not purchased. Mr. Panetta, who is on a weeklong visit to Brazil, Colombia and Chile, also said that the United States and Brazil had to cooperate on cybersecurity and humanitarian assistance. The American and Brazilian Navies conduct joint exercises and United States Army Rangers train with Brazilian commandos.

Brazil
United States
Boeing Company
Military Aircraft
Panetta Leon E
Defense Contracts
Defense and Military Forces


Esteban Chaves Wins and Moves Into Lead of Vuelta a España

Abstract: Esteban Chaves of Colombia timed his final charge perfectly to win the sixth stage of the Vuelta a España, notching his second stage win to take the overall race lead. Chaves, 25, finished in 4 hours 46 minutes 16 seconds. Daniel Martin of Ireland was second, five seconds behind.


Indian and Pakistani Guards Trade Fire on Disputed Border

Abstract: NEW DELHI — Indian and Pakistani border guards exchanged fire along the disputed northern border in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, leaving at least two people dead and at least one other wounded, officials said Saturday. Each side accused the other of breaking a cease-fire. A Pakistani military official said a 13-year-old girl had been killed by “unprovoked firing” from Indian border posts near the city of Sialkot. An 8-year-old was wounded in another district, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with protocol. Indian officials said Pakistani rangers “kept on firing the whole night,” using mortars and machine guns against 15 posts manned by India’s Border Security Force. One woman was killed in the Samba district, said Rakesh Sharma, chief of the Indian forces in the Jammu region. Mr. Sharma said that the exchange of fire had been lighter during the day on Saturday, “an odd shell left and right,” but that residents were beginning to leave their homes in anticipation of heavier nighttime firing. Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir, and the neighbors have fought two wars over the region. For years, cross-border exchanges of fire have occasionally erupted, but in recent months, episodes of heavier shelling have prompted thousands of families in villages near the border to flee in search of safety.

Kashmir and Jammu
International relations


Rieslings in Abundance, Just in Time for Ham

Abstract: In Germany, considered the native land of riesling, this grape’s white wine is a traditional accompaniment for Christmas ham. Abundant local dry and semidry rieslings — I tallied at least 15 — can bring Long Islanders similar pleasure. The nine I tasted pair well with hams. The off-dry versions can harmonize with glazed hams; the dry ones with smoky, juicy ones. My favorite was the tantalizing, complex, off-dry 2011 Luminous ($18) from Anthony Nappa Wines , in Mattituck. It was processed at the Premium Wine Group , a for-hire Mattituck winery, and is sold at the Winemaker Studio , in Peconic. Close behind were both the zesty 2011 semidry riesling ($19.99) and the supple, understated 2011 dry riesling ($22) from Paumanok Vineyards , in Aquebogue. The 2010 half-dry riesling ($22.99) from Castello di Borghese , in Cutchogue, is sweetly aromatic and charming. Roman Roth, the German-born winemaker at Wölffer Estate Vineyard , in Sagaponack, makes riesling there under his private label, the Grapes of Roth , from purchased grapes. His concentrated 2010 dry edition ($22) delivers the power of rieslings from the Pfalz region of Germany. Influence Wines , a brand that is a recent discovery for me, has a beguiling, tart, off-dry 2011 riesling ($18.95) offering a gardenlike bouquet. It is made by Erik P. Bilka, a Premium winemaker, and sold at Empire Wine Cellars , a Riverhead shop. The 2011 Suhru Wines dry riesling ($14.95), from Russell Hearn at Premium, where he is a partner, is crisp, lithe and spicy. Peconic Bay Winery , in Cutchogue, is a veteran riesling producer. Its dry, citric, palate-whetting 2010 ($19.95) offers tropical-fruit flavors. The brisk, basic, dry 2011 ($20.99) from Vineyard 48 , in Cutchogue, won a gold medal at the annual New York Wine and Food Classic, a statewide contest, in August, as did Castello di Borghese’s 2010 and Suhru’s 2011. Some of these wines came from Finger Lakes grapes. Six contain less than the customary 12 percent alcohol. All should be served moderately chilled.


Energy Secretary Emerges to Take a Commanding Role in Effort to Corral Well

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Steven Chu may hold a Nobel Prize in physics, but he has no training in geology, seismology or oil well technology. Nevertheless, he has stepped in repeatedly to take command of the effort to contain BP’s runaway well, often ordering company officials to take steps they might not have taken on their own. In early May, he suggested using gamma ray imaging to determine the condition of the well’s blowout preventer, a move no one at the company had considered. A few weeks later, he overruled some BP officials and ordered the company to stop the “top kill” effort, citing “very, very grave concerns” that it could backfire. He insisted in late June that a tighter cap be installed on the leaking riser. And on Tuesday, over the strenuous objections of top BP officials, he ordered a 24-hour delay in plans to conduct a pressure test on the well, saying that more safety precautions and analysis were necessary. It is an unusual role for an energy secretary. And although Dr. Chu may be a board-certified scientific genius, like everyone else involved in the BP oil spill disaster, his climb up the learning curve has at times been rocky. In an interview Thursday, Dr. Chu said that if he had understood geology and well technology better in the early days after the April 20 blowout, he might have urged a faster attempt at the top kill, which involved shooting mud and other gunk to clog up the damaged blowout preventer atop the gushing well. The delay, he said, might have allowed pressure to increase in the well, rendering the attempt fruitless when it was tried at the end of May. He declared three weeks into the crisis that “things are looking up,” based on a few hopeful steps toward controlling the well. Since then, repeated control efforts failed and some 100 million gallons of crude poured into the gulf. And just this week, it took days of strenuous argument among his team of government scientists and with BP engineers before he became satisfied that the pressure test on the new well cap could be conducted safely. Dr. Chu said he did not believe that he and his team had made any serious miscalculations in the nearly three months of trying to corral the renegade well, but like everyone involved in the catastrophe, they had been learning as they went along, under intense scrutiny and pressure. “I don’t want to dwell on ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda,’” he said. “There’s nothing I can really point to that we shouldn’t have done based on what we knew at the time.” Dr. Chu, former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said: “When things are unfolding, there are lots of possibilities and false starts. If you knew the right path at the beginning, could it have been done a little faster? Probably.” He said he became involved in the early days of the spill response as a scientific diagnostician — he used the term “kibbitzer” — and not as a decision maker. Early on, he suggested the use of high-energy gamma rays to see inside the wrecked blowout preventer, providing data that helped guide later steps at controlling the oil flow. His active involvement in decision making in BP’s Houston control room began in early May after he raised a number of technical points about the blowout in a meeting with President Obama and advisers in the White House Situation Room. “You better get down there,” the president said, according to an aide who was in the meeting. Dr. Chu has since made six extended trips to the gulf, conferring with his own scientific team as well as top BP engineers and executives in the company’s command center. He spends several hours a day on the problem, on the telephone or in meetings with his advisers and with BP officials. He is not formally part of the chain of command in the spill response, but carries the authority of Mr. Obama as well as his own considerable intellectual heft. His role gradually deepened as he assembled a team of scientists from the Department of Energy laboratories, universities and other government agencies. By late May, his confidence had grown and he was giving orders to BP officials, including his demand to stop the top kill effort even though some BP engineers believed it could still succeed. “A lot of us said ‘don’t start it,’ and he was the one who said ‘stop,’ ” said a BP technician who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. “But having done all we had already done, I thought we should have completed the final two operations. He was not keen to listen. BP people said, ‘Let’s try these last two steps,’ but he said, ‘No, stop.’ ” In the last three weeks, Dr. Chu and other government officials have dictated the pace and timing of the measures now in place to collect the majority of the oil or seal the well from the top. Those actions, too, generated significant controversy in the Houston control room. The BP engineer said that many technicians at the company believed that the pressure test now under way was too risky — a view Dr. Chu shared for some time. BP executives, however, wanted to proceed, the engineer said, in part to learn more about the condition of the well bore, and in part because they were eager to demonstrate that they could actually stop the flow of oil. “It’s not necessary,” the technician said. “It’s not justified. Dr. Chu accepted a compromise, allowing the shutdown to proceed but with extensive data collection and numerous opportunities to stop the test if the pressure readings were not favorable. Robert Dudley, the top BP official handling the spill response, said that he was impressed not only with Dr. Chu’s technical virtuosity, but his command demeanor. “He is confident, he is inquisitive and he seeks views from a variety of people,” Mr. Dudley said. “He can speak with senior executives and then with subsea engineers, and ask probing questions about pressure variants and burst steel casing. He can actually interpret the data and have a very sharp engineering discussion with an expert from BP.”

Chu Steven
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Accidents and Safety
Offshore Drilling and Exploration
Gulf of Mexico
BP Plc
United States Politics and Government
Obama Barack


Japan’s Governing Party Is Plunging in Polls

Abstract: TOKYO — Is this the beginning of the end for Japan ’s long-governing Liberal Democratic Party? A lawmaker championing government reform quit the party on Tuesday, saying that the administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso was not committed to change and had lost the people’s trust. The high-profile resignation comes as Mr. Aso’s approval ratings have fallen and his party’s chances of losing a coming election have risen sharply. Analysts say it may embolden other lawmakers, who have signaled similar intentions, to act. “Unfortunately, Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party has practiced politics completely disconnected from the people,” said the lawmaker who resigned, Yoshimi Watanabe, who had served as minister of administrative reform in two previous administrations, and had become one of the most recognizable faces pressing for change in the government bureaucracy. Opinion polls published this week by major Japanese newspapers showed Mr. Aso’s approval ratings slipping below 20 percent, a danger sign in a country where governments with ratings below 30 percent have fallen. Dissatisfaction with his government was underscored by voters’ strong rejection of free money — Mr. Aso’s plan to jump-start the economy through cash handouts of at least $130 per person — as a cynical attempt to woo voters, polls showed. Mr. Aso, who must call a general election by September, rejected pressure from Mr. Watanabe and the opposition to do so immediately. He said he would not consider dissolving Parliament’s lower house and calling an election until the nation’s budget was passed in April. The prime minister appeared to be counting on a bounce in the polls from the cash handouts. But more than 70 percent of voters opposed them, saying they would do nothing to stimulate the overall economy, according to polls. “Voters have already given up on him and on the party,” said Naoto Nonaka, a professor of politics at Gakushuin University here. Members of Mr. Aso’s party — who chose him last September in the hopes of riding his coattails — appeared increasingly to be counting him out as well. Worried about their survival, they could follow Mr. Watanabe out of the party, after the budget is passed in April, to run for re-election as independents. “Mr. Watanabe is playing a political game and jumping around to draw attention, but many around him are thinking the same thing,” said Mr. Nonaka, whose recent book is “The End of Liberal Democratic Party Politics.” “I expect we’ll see even bigger developments in April or May.” Defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has led Japan since 1955 for all but 11 months, could lead to a long-expected realignment in Japan’s political landscape. Senior members of the party have already publicly put out feelers to the main opposition Democratic Party. Smaller opposition parties — including the People’s New Party, which was formed in 2005 by former members of the Liberal Democratic Party — have begun positioning themselves. “Because the Democratic Party is the main opposition party, the Democratic Party will inevitably be at the center of a new administration,” Hisaoki Kamei, secretary general of the People’s New Party, said in an interview. He said that his small party was prepared to back the Democratic Party as long as it offered a clear vision, adding, “To help build this vision, we intend to say what needs to be said.” The Liberal Democratic Party rebuilt postwar Japan into the world’s second biggest economy, but it has struggled to redefine its goals since the bursting of Japan’s so-called bubble economy in the late 1980s. Since then, Japan has gone through a series of ineffective leaders, with the exception of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who, tellingly, became popular by pledging to destroy his own party. In keeping with Mr. Koizumi’s drive to reshape the party and government, Mr. Watanabe focused on weakening one of the central facets of Japan’s postwar political system: the elite bureaucracy’s practice of rewarding itself with plush jobs. Mr. Watanabe, who said he would remain an independent lawmaker for now, said he wanted to create a “public movement” by leaving the party first. But some members of the governing party said Mr. Watanabe had quit not over principles, but because of self-interest. “It’s ridiculous,” said Kazuyoshi Kaneko, the minister of transport. “He’s quitting because he thinks the Liberal Democratic Party will lose the next election.” In a television interview before Mr. Watanabe officially tendered his resignation, Mr. Aso said he was confident that no other party members would follow suit. “I don’t understand what he will do after leaving the Liberal Democratic Party,” Mr. Aso said. Polls showed that Mr. Aso was less popular and considered less trustworthy than Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party.

Japan
Liberal Democratic Party
Aso Taro
Politics and Government


Welcome to the Haiyatt. In China, It’s Not the Hotel It Sounds Like.

Abstract: Is the Peninsula Hotel in Yangcheng part of the five-star Peninsula Hotels group known for its Rolls-Royces? Can you accrue Marriott rewards points at the Marvelot Hotel , which includes the Chinese characters for Marriott in its name? Is the Haiyatt hotel in China a Hyatt brand hotel? No, no and no. Like many Chinese businesses with names and products closely resembling well-known international brands, hotels that look and sound somewhat familiar to international travelers are popping up in China. As established chains expand deeper into China, they find that they are competing with reasonable facsimiles of themselves. The Haiyatt Suzhou is in Suzhou, a large cultural and industrial city in Eastern China. The hotel offers deluxe rooms, suites, conference rooms, European cuisine and a “Haiyatt Grand Nightclub” — just about everything a business traveler would expect in a Hyatt Hotel, in a city where travelers might expect to find a Hyatt. In fact, the Haiyatt Suzhou will be joined this spring by the Hyatt Regency Suzhou. Western brands are often seen as higher in quality than their Chinese counterparts, said Kunal Sinha, chief knowledge officer for Ogilvy China, so giving a product, whether it is a shampoo or a hotel, a name similar to a Western brand is valuable. “The hotel business is expanding rapidly in China,” Mr. Sinha said. “Owners of new hotels will use western-sounding names to connote better service and quality.” The name may even be mistaken for the original. Last year, a travel agent told Mr. Sinha he was booked at the Shenyang Marriott for a business trip. When he arrived, Mr. Sinha was surprised to find he was not checking into a Marriott hotel, but at the Marvelot. “Local people assume it is a Western hotel because it is a big and impressive property,” he said. Brand names that sound and look similar to established successful brands are viewed more benignly in China. “Throughout Chinese history, skillful reproduction by artists poets and crafts workers has been highly regarded,” said Professor William P. Alford, the director of the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. The emphasis placed on originality is a Western ideal, he said. This cultural influence, with weak Chinese laws and uneven enforcement regarding internationally famous trademarks, has fostered the proliferation of knockoff consumer goods, restaurant chains and hotels. “Copying successful brands is a backdoor scheme to make money, and lots of unscrupulous people are doing what they know is wrong, but one of the reasons they can have some success doing it is that there is cultural ambivalence,” said Professor Alford. Image The Haiyatt Garden Hotel in Guangdong Province, China. Western brands are often seen as higher in quality in China. Credit Theodore Kaye for The New York Times Foreign companies, and more recently some Chinese entities, too, have pressed for better enforcement, but it has been slow in coming, Professor Alford said. Peninsula is a popular name for hotels in China, even when they are inland. These include the Yangcheng Peninsula Hotel, Guobin Peninsula Hotel and Peninsula Hotel Chengdu Zongfu, none of which are affiliated with the high-end global chain known for its liveried chauffeurs. The chain’s only official hotels in China are in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Even in Shanghai, the Hengsheng Peninsula International Hotel, which is not part of the chain, is just a 10-minute walk from the Peninsula Shanghai. Li Quan, a pharmaceutical sales representative traveling on business this week in Shanghai, said he knew the Hengsheng Peninsula International Hotel was not part of the international Peninsula chain, but believed it would be an “upscale hotel because of the obvious name resemblance.” He was disappointed to find “so-so facilities and worse-than-average service,” and said that some domestic hotels tried “to boost their value and brand awareness by sharing names with other reputable hotel chains so they can achieve a make-believe attachment to those hotels.” None of the similarly named Peninsula hotels in China are five-star hotels, so experienced travelers who see photos of the property, compare nightly rates, look at online reviews or stay there once would most likely know the difference. Similarly, the Savoy Hotel in Lanzhou, a business hotel with 788 rooms, bears little resemblance to the iconic Savoy Hotel in London built in the 1800s. The established brands are keenly aware of the others. “We do take steps to protect our brand, " said Sian Griffiths, director of communications for the Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel. “However, we also feel that our target customers are sufficiently discerning not to confuse the Peninsula-branded hotels with the copycats.” Farley Kern, vice president for corporate communications for Hyatt, said the company took “this matter very seriously,” and was working within China’s legal channels to address hotel operators that use names that might cause confusion. Still, foreign companies can be reluctant to push too hard because they do not want to antagonize the government and lose access to the Chinese market. In the case of the Marvelot, the hotel used to operate under a Marriott franchise agreement, and chose to keep the Chinese characters for “Marriott” when the relationship ended in 2006. Marriott pursued legal action to protect its name and had some success. The hotel is not permitted to use Marriott as a stand-alone word in Chinese, but may use it as part of a name, said Thomas Marder, vice president for global corporate relations at Marriott International. Marriott has 66 hotels in China and plans more. Haiyatt versus Hyatt may confuse Westerners more than Chinese speakers. “English speakers may confuse Haiyatt and Hyatt because they sound alike, but the hotel names look and sound different when they are spelled in Chinese characters,” said Wenjun Chen, a real estate broker who lives in Seattle and travels to China. Some guests, though, are confused by the sound-alike names, judging from comments on the travel website TripAdvisor. A few Chinese and English reviews have compared a hotel’s standards to those of a brand of which it is not part. A recent guest posted on TripAdvisor about being surprised to discover upon checking in that a hotel was not a Marriott and being upgraded to the executive floor as compensation. Ayumu Watanabe, a Japanese business traveler staying at the Shanghai Haiyatt Hotel this week, said he was not bothered that it was not affiliated with the Hyatt brand, but that the name was “really misleading and confusing.” As China develops more of its own valuable intellectual property, including its own hotel and other consumer brands, and looks toward establishing them worldwide, its government will have more of an incentive to provide fuller legal protection for trademarks, Professor Alford said. “That may be the time we see the copycats start to go away,” he said.

China
Hotels
Peninsula Hotels
Hyatt Hotels
Trademarks
Marriott International