INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE n°111205 - Page 3 - page two 2 | MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE . . . . Printed in ATHENS | BALI | BANGKOK | BEIRUT | BELGIUM | BOLOGNA | CAIRO | DHAKA | DOHA | DUBAI | FRANKFURT | GALLARGUES | HONG KONG | INDIA | ISLAMABAD | ISTANBUL | JAKARTA | KARACHI | KUALA LUMPUR | KUWAIT | LAHORE | LONDON | MADRID | MALTA | MANILA | MOSCOW NEPAL | OSAKA | PARIS | SÃO PAULO | SEOUL | SINGAPORE | SWEDEN | SWITZERLAND | SYDNEY | TAIPEI | TEL AVIV | TOKYO | U.S. • Subscription Inquiries: Europe 00 800 44 48 78 27 (toll-free) Other countries +33 1 41 43 93 61; E-mail subs@iht.com; Fax +33 1 41 43 92 10 Advertising Inquiries: +33 1 41 43 92 06; Fax +33 1 41 43 92 12 • Printer: Paris Offset Print, 30, rue Raspail, 93120 La Courneuve. Albert R. Hunt LETTER FROM WASHINGTON Herman Cain, who suspended his pres- idential campaign over the weekend after cascading reports of personal fail- ings, is the exception. U.S. voters are increasingly tolerant when it comes to private behavior. Three of the last five Republican presidential nominees have been di- vorced. President Bill Clinton survived, even flourished, after revelations of a sexual dalliance with an intern, and Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, was re-elected even after disclosures that he frequented a prosti- tute. The acid test of this growing open- ness may be the new Republican presi- dential front-runner, Newt Gingrich. His personal past is messier than most. He is on his third marriage, and he left his first two wives when they were in poor health and while he was having affairs. Also, his version of events is replete with gaps and changing and contradic- tory stories; both of his two former wives have questioned his moral character. Finally, he is the front-runner of a party in which a siz- able chunk of the base consists of fam- ily-values conserva- tives who will have to decide between Mr. Gingrich’s rhetoric and his past. When Mr. Gingrich, a former speak- er of the House of Representatives, first announced his intention to run for the presidency in May, there were sto- ries detailing his past transgressions; his candidacy floundered, and cover- age ceased. In the past few weeks, as other challenges to the front-runner at the time, former Governor Mitt Rom- ney of Massachusetts, collapsed, the Gingrich candidacy soared in the polls. A centerpiece of Mr. Gingrich’s wide- ranging message is a call to restore moral values and stop President Barack Obama’s ‘‘secular-socialist ma- chine,’’ the subtitle of one of Mr. Ging- rich’s recent books. The return to the spotlight means re- newed scrutiny by the news media and his opponents. Two recent episodes crystallize the stakes and challenges. The first was a letter from his daugh- ter, Jackie Cushman Gingrich, that was published on a Web site. She said there were recurring reports that in 1980, as her mother was dying of cancer, her fa- ther visited the hospital to discuss the terms of their divorce. Jackie Gingrich says her mother is alive and, in fact, was herself the one who initiated the divorce proceedings well before she went into the hospital for cancer sur- gery. The other was an open letter a few days ago to Mr. Gingrich from Richard Land, an influential leader of the South- ern Baptist Convention. He called on the candidate to express a mea culpa for his personal past before a pro-fam- ily audience. ‘‘You need to make it as clear as you possibly can that you deeply regret your past actions,’’ Mr. Land wrote. ‘‘Promise your fellow Americans that if they are generous enough to trust you with the presidency, you will not let them down and that there will be no moral scandals in a Gingrich White House.’’ The record complicates his daugh- ter’s vindication and the Land chal- lenge. In 1985, five years after the di- vorce, Mr. Gingrich’s first wife, Jackie, spoke to several reporters. She con- firmed the story that her husband came to see her at the hospital post- surgery to talk about a divorce, that he had initiated the discussion and that it was a ‘‘complete surprise’’ to her. The accounts of both Gingriches were then confirmed in a Washington Post inter- view that is at odds with the current contention of their daughter. ‘‘He can say that we had been talk- ing about it for 10 years, but the truth is that it came as a complete surprise,’’ Jackie Gingrich, who met her husband when she was his high school geometry teacher, said in that interview. In the same article, the congressman seemed to acknowledge the story: ‘‘All I can say is when you have been talk- ing about divorce for 11 years and you’ve gone to a marriage counselor and the other person doesn’t want the divorce, I’m not sure there is any sensi- tive way to handle it.’’ Moreover, after the divorce, when Mr. Gingrich was in Congress and earning a good salary, the family had to turn to their church for assistance and his ex-wife had to go to court for sup- port payments. His second wife, Mari- anne, says he proposed to her before he was divorced. Marianne Gingrich gave a long inter- view to Esquire magazine last year, re- counting how her husband left her after she learned she had multiple sclerosis. He admitted there was anoth- er woman. Later, in court proceedings, it emerged that there had been an af- fair that extended throughout his ten- ure as speaker, while he was leading the effort to impeach Mr. Clinton for ly- ing about sex. The woman was Callista Bisek, now his third wife. In the interview, the second Mrs. Gingrich said that when she found out about the affair, her husband asked her to just tolerate it. She said she declined. Mr. Gingrich, according to Marianne, ‘‘believes what he says in public and how he lives don’t have to be connect- ed.’’ A short while after this incident, Mr. Gingrich gave a speech stressing family values. Marianne says she asked him about the disconnect. ‘‘It doesn’t matter what I do,’’ she quoted him as saying. ‘‘People need to hear what I have to say.’’ Several years earlier, as he was ap- proaching the end of his first year as speaker, Mr. Gingrich gave a speech to a conference of evangelical pastors at Liberty University in Virginia, founded by the late evangelist Jerry Falwell. The address was heavy on God and morality and the need to re-establish a spiritual base in the United States, a re- curring Gingrich refrain. At the time, he was having an affair with a twenty- something House staffer, Ms. Bisek. After that speech, in response to a question, Mr. Gingrich explained that he did not attend religious services be- cause a Democratic-led redistricting had put his church outside his district. As a candidate in his early congres- sional campaigns, he proudly pro- claimed he was a deacon in that Baptist church. There are more than a few other politicians who have engaged in sexual transgressions. Most voters think there are more important considerations. And the former speaker, under the in- fluence of his wife, converted to Cath- olicism three years ago and has said that he experienced a spiritual awaken- ing. Yet he is seeking the presidential mantle of the self-styled family-values party. In an interview, Mr. Land, the Southern Baptist leader, was asked whether he believed any public apolo- gy by Mr. Gingrich would be sincere. After a pause, he said, ‘‘I’m hopeful.’’ (BLOOMBERG) E-MAIL: pagetwo@iht.com IN OUR PAGES ✴ 100, 75, 50 YEARS AGO 1911 Taft to Take Conservative View NEW YORK Leading interests in the fi- nancial district confirm the synopsis of the President’s Message already cabled to the ‘‘Daily Telegraph’’ and the ‘‘Daily Express.’’ The opinion prevails that Mr. Taft’s statement on the trust situation will be the most comprehensive and use- ful issued from the White House in the last ten years. In addition to the sane and conservative view taken by the President on how ‘‘big business’’ may conform to the law, the dominant powers in Wall Street are elated over the unex- pected conservatism of the President’s Commission on Railway Stocks and Bonds. 1936 British Crisis Taken Seriously NEW YORK The British Crisis is being treated much more seriously than might have been foreseen. Even those papers taking the most liberal view of the King’s personal position stress the importance of maintaining the unity and prestige of the British Empire. The New York Herald Tribune says, ‘‘A forced abdication of the King would probably threaten the sym- bolical utility of the monarchy as much as the projected marriage. Whatever the fi- nal outcome of the crisis may be, consid- erable damage has already been caused to the British people’s faith in imperial structure.’’ The New York ‘‘Times’’ feels the King must ‘‘conform to constitutional usage.’’ He is spoken of as a ruler who does not govern, as a symbol of the power of the state and the unity of the Empire. 1961 Paris May Curb Right to Strike PARIS Prime Minister Michel Debré warned today that the government might curtail the right to strike if the na- tion continues to be faced with massive walkouts that paralyze economic life. In his first press conference since taking office in January, 1959, Mr. Debré said that ‘‘the government does not have the right to let the expression of liberties threaten the security or the develop- ment of the country.’’ Union leaders charged tonight that Mr. Debré’s speech amounted to ‘‘a refusal to discuss the problem of wages.’’ ‘‘It doesn’t matter what I do,’’ one ex-wife recalls him saying. ‘‘People need to hear what I have to say.’’ Gingrich may test voters’ limits SHIHO FUKADA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Actors in the play ‘‘Top Secret,’’ which producers gingerly pitched to the authorities in China as a Vietnam War-era contretemps between President Richard M. Nixon and the press. Life imitating art in Beijing BEIJING BY ANDREW JACOBS As far as dramatic timing goes, the text message from the powers that be an- nouncing the sudden cancellation of a post-performance discussion of ‘‘Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Pa- pers’’ was perfectly timed. The message, sent to the cellphone of the play’s producer on Friday night, warned of ‘‘unforeseen consequences spreading beyond the theater,’’ should the audience at Peking University be al- lowed to openly discuss the work, which delves into delicate matters like press freedom, power-hungry political lead- ers and the Nixon administration’s de- sire to quash information it deemed em- barrassing. ‘‘It was rather ironic, but it drove home the issues in the play,’’ the produc- er, Alison Friedman, said moments after the house lights came up, and the crowd, many of them students at Peking, China’s most prestigious university, drifted away. ‘‘I can’t say we were sur- prised.’’ Perhaps the bigger surprise was that this spare, fast-paced docudrama, per- formed in English and financed partly by the U.S. Embassy, was even staged in a country whose cultural czars regu- larly block movies, books and plays they find objectionable. In August, for example, the authorit- ies canceled ‘‘Dr. Sun Yat-sen,’’ a sump- tuous new opera about that Chinese rev- olutionary that was weeks away from opening at the National Center for Per- forming Arts. Officials described the ac- tion as a postponement, but they told its producers that the opera was politically problematic. Susan Albert Loewenberg, the produ- cing director of L.A. Theater Works, which shepherded ‘‘Top Secret’’ to China through a thicket of logistical, fi- nancial and bureaucratic obstacles, said there were many times during the two- and-a-half-year odyssey when she thought the production was dead. ‘‘Frankly, I’m amazed we got this far,’’ she said. If the journey of ‘‘Top Secret’’ holds any lessons for Western theater produ- cers seeking to reach Chinese audi- ences, it is this: Have a seasoned guide, avoid the country’s most high-profile performance spaces and be prepared for countless frustrations and disap- pointments. U.S. companies that had supported L.A. Theater Works in the past refused to back its China produc- tion; permits did not materialize until the last moment; and an earlier panel discussion planned for Guangzhou was also scotched. But the rewards, as Ms. Loewenberg and Geoffrey Cowan, an author of the play, tell it, have been immense. During its 10-day run ‘‘Top Secret’’ has played to sold-out audiences in Shanghai and Guangzhou, with many performances punctuated by shouts of approval from the audience and standing ovations. Perhaps most gratifying for the pro- ducers was that those audiences were almost entirely Chinese and young, many of whom learned about the pro- duction through Weibo, the Twitter-like microblog service that has revolution- ized the way Chinese communicate with one another — including expressions of displeasure over government malfeas- ance. ‘‘It was a refreshing contrast to the U.S., where you’re always playing to 60- year-olds and struggling to reach younger audiences,’’ Ms. Loewenberg said. Communist Party officials could be forgiven for viewing the play as an unal- loyed slice of U.S. propaganda, even if the creators of ‘‘Top Secret’’ say they had no such intentions. Written by Mr. Cowan and Leroy Aarons, who died in 2004, it was first produced by L.A. Theater Works in 1991 as a radio play. Spanning several days, it dramatizes the showdown between the White House and The Washington Post as that paper balanced the threat of criminal prosecution against its desire to burnish its journalistic credentials by publishing the Pentagon’s secret history of U.S. in- volvement in the Vietnam War. The story begins on June 17, 1971, after a U.S. court has enjoined The New York Times — which had already published three installments based on the docu- ments — from publishing any more. The Post promptly gets its hands on copies of the papers, and what follows is an ex- ploration of the role of the press in keep- ing a secretive and manipulative gov- ernment in check. After a judge rules in the paper’s fa- vor, a reporter gives a rousing valedic- tory about press freedom as a hedge against tyranny as John Lennon’s rous- ing anthem ‘‘Power to the People’’ bathes the house. ‘‘I’ve played in a lot of theaters, but to have 1,400 people in China cheering for the little guy is subversive,’’ said Josh Stamberg, who plays Ben Bradlee, The Post’s editor. To get as far as it has, L.A. Theater Works relied on Ms. Friedman, whose company, Ping Pong Productions, spe- cializes in taking international perform- ing arts to China and Chinese troupes to the West. After nearly a decade living and working here, she has learned how to navigate a maze of permits and egos, when to massage cultural bureaucrats and, perhaps most important, whom to call when roadblocks suddenly appear. Even though the unmistakable mes- sage of ‘‘Top Secret’’ is the importance of a free press and an independent judi- ciary in the face of a bullying govern- ment, the producers gingerly pitched their production as a Vietnam War-era contretemps between President Nixon and the press. ‘‘They put the play in the ‘American history’ box,’’ Ms. Friedman said of the many officials who gave the production a green light. ‘‘We also chose low-profile partners. We didn’t want the govern- ment to think too heavily about the play.’’ In the end, it was low-level bureau- crats who stood in their way, especially when it came to the troupe’s final per- formances in Beijing on Sunday. Al- though arranged months in advance, the Peking University show did not re- ceive its required permit until the day before showtime. Even then, the producers were stunned to learn they could not sell tick- ets. The permit, they were told, also lim- ited the audience to 1,000, ensuring the theater was less than half full. Although she had been told to steer clear of ‘‘sensitive topics,’’ Ms. Fried- man said she was assured that the post- performance discussion would go ahead as planned, as it had in Shanghai. It was just after intermission when she re- ceived the disappointing text message. Later, as the cast was taking its bow and she was announcing the cancellation of the discussion, she could hear a univer- sity official exhorting a technician to kill her microphone. It was too late. A sigh rose through the members of the crowd, but as they filed out of the theater, few expressed sur- prise. ‘‘I thought the play was very mean- ingful,’’ Yin Wenhong, 27, a book editor, said with some hesitation as she left the building. ‘‘It would be nice if our gov- ernment could open their minds and learn something from this play.’’ Censors allow staging of a play on Nixon era, but discussion is quashed ‘‘It was rather ironic, but it drove home the issues in the play. I can’t say we were surprised.’’ Failed candidacy personifies hurdles in Chinese politics BEIJING BY SHARON LAFRANIERE Periodic elections to neighborhood People’s Congresses are as close to par- ticipatory democracy as this nation comes. Of the many grass-roots candi- dates running here this year, Qiao Mu, an energetic 41-year-old journalism pro- fessor in the capital, seemed one of the better bets. He was well known and liked on the campus of Beijing Foreign Studies Uni- versity, his election district. He ran an innovative campaign, making full use of social networks and other Internet tools. He amassed a cadre of enthusiast- ic student campaigners, and he aimed for practical improvements in campus life: a faster Internet connection and permission for students to study in the spare classrooms instead of the crowded cafeteria. He lost anyway. Another candidate — a university vice president who was largely unknown and whose campaign amounted to posters — collected three times as many votes. Mr. Qiao said the authorities did all they could to stymie him, keeping his name off the ballot, threatening his stu- dent volunteers, even forcibly collecting the little red bookmarks he had printed with the slogan: ‘‘I am the master of my ballot.’’ ‘‘The harassment started from the very beginning,’’ he said in an interview in his university office, still cluttered with campaign paraphernalia he was never able to distribute. ‘‘It is a shame, because I didn’t do anything wrong,’’ he said. ‘‘All we did was follow China’s Con- stitution and election law.’’ His experience shows an underlying political doctrine of today’s China: while Chinese leaders speak in favor of political reform, the local authorities routinely deny voters the chance to freely choose a political representative. Such official machinations have be- come more obvious and more intense this year — a telling indicator of the gov- ernment’s paranoia over a greatly in- creased pool of independent candidates, even given the near powerlessness of the congresses. A final assessment is still months away. But Li Fan, an election specialist who has been monitoring voting around the country, said the process was more rigged than ever. ‘‘It is a big step backward from previ- ous years,’’ said Mr. Li, director of the World and China Institute, a nongovern- mental research center in Beijing. The government, obsessed with the notion that political stability must be main- tained, ‘‘has taken strict control of the elections,’’ he said. Inspired by the potential of Internet services like China’s Twitter-like micro- blogs to create visibility and impetus, a record number of independent candi- dates are trying to contest the Commu- nist Party’s chosen candidates for two million seats in the local party con- gresses, China’s lowest parliamentary tier. Haidian district, a Beijing sector of 1.6 million residents where Mr. Qiao sought office, is particularly hospitable to such challenges. The district, chockablock with universities and known for its com- paratively liberal bent, elected China’s first independent candidate in 1984. Ac- cording to Mr. Li, Haidian fielded 23 of Beijing’s roughly 28 successful inde- pendent candidates in 2003 and all 16 in- dependent candidates elected in the capital in 2006. But on Nov. 8, Mr. Li said, although Beijing had a surge of 40 to 50 grass- roots candidates, not a single one was elected. The same held true in voting on Sept. 8 in Wuhan, a city in east-central China, and on Nov. 18 in Shanghai, he said. The local governments ‘‘do not want to see any independent candidate be seated,’’ he said. Shi Da and Mia Li contributed research. SHIHO FUKADA FOR THE NYT Qiao Mu holding a bookmark printed with the slogan ‘‘I am the master of my ballot.’’ MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 | 3THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . . INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE4 | MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 . . . . World News europe Putin’s party wins a hollow victory MOSCOW BY DAVID M. HERSZENHORN Russian voters streamed to the polls on Sunday in a parliamentary election that has shaped up as a referendum on the governing party and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin as he prepares to re- turn to the presidency next year. While there was little question that the party, United Russia, would win the most votes, given its huge structural ad- vantages and weak opposition, the cen- tral question was how well it could con- tinue to sell its message of stability to an increasingly weary electorate, now widely empowered by the Internet to complain about the status quo. With the results still being counted, United Russia declared victory on Sun- day evening. ‘‘While the 2010-2011 elections in the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal saw the change of ruling parties, we can now say calmly that United Russia re- mains the ruling party and I would to thank our voters for that,’’ said Boris Gryzlov, the chairman of the party’s Su- preme Council. But two exit polls suggested that the party was on its way to losing far more seats than forecast, potentially redraw- ing the political landscape as voters ex- pressed a louder-than-expected mes- sage of frustration. The party’s supporters said pre- serving the current system, with Mr. Putin in charge, was the only prudent course. Galina I. Popkova, 76, said she had voted for United Russia to avoid political paralysis. ‘‘I think we need to allow one side to be stronger, so that we will move forward, even if that movement is slow,’’ shesaid,thoughshewarnedthatthegov- ernment needed to start showing results. ‘‘Russians, we are like bears, we are so patient,’’ she added. ‘‘But when our pa- tience ends, then we begin to growl.’’ Darya I. Mychkina, 96, held a United Russia poster showing the faces of Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medve- dev. ‘‘How can you not vote for these beautiful men?’’ she asked. But a growing minority of disconten- ted voters voiced their dissatisfaction in numerous ways: voting for any party but United Russia, spoiling the ballot with a political message, or boycotting the elec- tion.‘‘Today,Iamnotvotingforsomeone but against someone, because there is no one appealing to vote for,’’ said Sergei Tarakanov, 62, who stood in the snow in a leather coat and porkpie hat outside at a school in central Moscow where he had just cast his ballot. ‘‘So I am a protest voter. Today, I am voting against the party of thieves and swindlers.’’ Fatigue with United Russia has been building for years, and the election was expected to reflect that sentiment. But Mr. Putin’s announcement on Sept. 24 that he intended to swap places with Mr. Medvedev next year seemed to annoy voters. The party’s support dipped, and the Kremlin recently acknowledged that United Russia would almost certainly lose the two-thirds supermajority that now allows it to make changes to the Constitution without consulting the op- position. United Russia holds 315 of the 450 seats in the Duma, which is the lower house of Parliament, and the party has said it could lose as many as 75 in a worst-case outcome. While Mr. Putin is still expected to easily win a separate presidential election in March, a steep loss for his party on Sunday would re- flect flagging support for him as well. Final results are expected on Monday. The election also seemed to mark a portentous, new chapter in Russian cy- berpolitics. Throughout the campaign, voters used cellphones to record video of heavy-handed politicking, including attempts at bribery, campaign law vio- lations, and other manipulation, and to then quickly distribute the evidence on the Internet. There were also several attacks Sun- day on political Web sites. Golos, the country’s only independent election monitor, which was fined about $1,000 by a Moscow court on Friday for break- ing the law by publishing complaints of campaign abuses, discovered that its Web site was disabled by a cyberattack on Sunday morning. Several other sites also reported crip- pling attacks, including that of Echo Mosky, a popular radio station, and LiveJournal, the country’s most popu- lar blogging platform. United Russia re- ported that one of its sites, established to track campaign violations by its op- ponents, had also come under assault. Experts said the most significant campaign violation may be the hardest to prove: United Russia’s use of govern- ment resources for its political cam- paign. United Russia also holds a huge struc- tural advantage in the voting. Russia elects members of Parliament propor- tionally by party list. The United Russia listsareallledbyMr.Medvedev,butthey also typically include an array of well- known state and local politicians, and even celebrity athletes and performers. Many of these candidates draw votes even though they may never serve in Parliament. Under complex rules, the parties can replace candidates who withdraw. Only United Russia has the resources to field strong lists in every region of the country. The opposition parties best-posi- tioned to win seats from United Russia were the Communist Party and the Lib- eral Democratic Party, which is nation- alist. Some voters said the historical baggage of those groups left them with a wrenching choice. A 30-year-old bank clerk, who would give only his first name, Alexei, said he had voted Communist as a protest de- spite his capitalist profession. Ruman Urovlyov, 35, an athletic nutri- tionist, said he would spoil his ballot. ‘‘These elections are illegitimate, and I plan to write several strong Russian words on my ballot,’’ he said. A third opposition party, Just Russia, was also expected to gain at United Rus- sia’s expense. Exit polls suggest loss of seats will be much greater than forecast ‘‘Today, I am not voting for someone but against someone, because there is no one appealing to vote for.’’ DANIEL ETTER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Visitors along the Bosporus in Istanbul with the Asian side in the background. For the first time in decades, analysts say, Europe needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Europe. Turkey faces east, its back firmly to E.U. TURKEY, FROM PAGE 1 next year as ‘‘half a country’’ leading a ‘‘miserable union,’’ according to Milli- yet, the Turkish newspaper. Turkey is locked in a fight with Cyprus, which remains divided into Turkish and Greek Cypriot regions fol- lowing the Turkish invasion of 1974. When France took the rare step last week of inviting Turkey to join an Euro- pean Union foreign affairs meeting in Brussels to discuss the Syria crisis, Cyprus, an European Union member, retaliated by vetoing Turkey’s atten- dance. Many Turks gloat that Turkey, once dubbed the ‘‘sick man of Europe’’ when the Ottoman Empire was crumbling in 1914, has seen that distinction passed on to an ailing continent. While Europe copes with negative growth rates and harsh austerity measures, Turkey’s economy is forecast to grow 7.5 percent this year. ‘‘Those who called us sick in the past are now sick themselves,’’ said Zafer Caglayan, Turkey’s minister of econo- my. ‘‘May God grant them recovery.’’ The European Union is not alone as a target of Turkish disparagement. Last week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. of the United States listened as Ali Babacan, a deputy prime minister, talked of Turkey’s strong economic growth this year and argued that his country, and not the larger but troubled economies of the United States and Europe, was poised to win in the 21st century. ‘‘The fast fish, not the big fish, eats the small fish,’’ he said. When Mr. Biden spoke, he took issue with Mr. Babacan’s competitive tone, saying, ‘‘I am going to suggest that we, all nations, are in this together.’’ Then, even as he was acknowledging econom- ic difficulties, he reminded the audience that in a sea of young sharks, the United States was still the whale. Exacerbating tensions between Tur- key and Europe, analysts say, is that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany andPresidentNicolasSarkozyofFrance, who both oppose European Union mem- bership for Turkey, are currently leading the agenda. Mr. Sarkozy has said that Turkey is not geographically part of Europe. Many Turks interpret this to mean their country is not welcome be- cause of its large Muslim population. Due to opposition mainly from France and Cyprus, 17 areas of Turkey’s negoti- ations have been blocked since 2006. When Cyprus takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-member bloc in July 2012, Ankara has said it will boycott the presidency, effectively put- ting its negotiations on ice. Turkish offi- cials say privately that if negotiations still remain deadlocked in 2014, Turkey could abandon the talks with Brussels. In 2004, 73 percent of Turkish re- spondents said membership in the European Union would be a good thing, but that dropped to 38 percent in 2010, according to a survey by the German Marshall Fund. For all the depressing signs, Turkey insists its European Union aspirations have not faltered, and Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European Union affairs, said in an interview that Turkey remained committed to joining the European Union. The recent outreach to its neighbors, he insisted, was helping Turkey to become an even more effec- tive bridge between east and west. ‘‘Hold on Europe,’’ he said. ‘‘Turkey is coming to the rescue.’’ Even members of the Turkish busi- ness community, which has long been among the most ardent supporters of European Union membership, have lost patience with Brussels. Mr. Yarar owns 404, a chemical and food company that produces Turkey’s iconic apple tea. He said that the Euro- pean Union’s snubbing of Turkey was helping to draw Turkish companies to- ward the Muslim world. While Europe still accounts for about 56.3 percent of Turkey’s exports, in 2010 the Middle East received nearly 20.2 percent, about $18.7 billion worth of goods, compared with 12.5 percent in 2004. For Europe, the backlash in Turkey comes with a heavy price, depriving it of influence in the Arab world where Tur- key, a NATO member bordered by Iran, Iraq and Syria, is becoming the west’s maininterlocutor.Forthefirsttimeinde- cades, analysts say, Europe needs Tur- key more than Turkey needs Europe. For those taking to the streets in Cairo or Damascus, Mr. Erdogan, a Muslim overseeing a prosperous country of 78 million, has become a powerful symbol of the compatibility of democracy and Is- lam. Senior Turkish officials say that Mr. Erdogan has turned away from Europe and embraced Washington instead. Europe’s diminished role was evident last week when Turkey introduced the sanctions against Syria. While Mr. Er- dogan coordinated closely with Presi- dent Barack Obama, Turkish officials said that the European Union was releg- ated to a supporting role. If soured relations are harming Europe, its waning influence here is also harming Turkey at a time when the country is fashioning itself as the model of democracy in the Arab world. Turkey has continued to democratize, circumscribing the role of the army and preparing to draft a new Constitution to bring Turkey’s military-imposed Con- stitution in line with European stan- dards. Yet now that the incentive of European Union membership holds little sway, human rights advocates say the government’s authoritarian streak is growing unchecked. According to a November report by theEuropeanCommission,64journalists are in jail in Turkey. The Dogan Media Group, previously an outspoken critic of the government, was saddled by the gov- ernment with a tax fine of $2.5 billion. Yet even the younger generation in this cosmopolitan city are fed up with the European Union. AtabustlingcaféontheEuropeanside of Istanbul overlooking Asia, just a short trip across the Bosporus, Tugce Erbad, 19, a student studying international fi- nance, said her generation of Turks was not interested in joining a sinking Euro- pean Union. Yet she insisted that she and her friends were still more drawn to Europe than to the Arab world. ‘‘I would rather go to Paris than Beirut,’’ she said, before quickly adding: ‘‘Turkey is neither east or west. We are moving in our own direction.’’ Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting. BRIEFLY Europe ZAGREB, CROATIA Governing party expected to lose to left-leaning coalition Long-dominant conservatives in Croa- tia were expected to be rejected by voters in parliamentary elections Sun- day just as the country prepares to join the European Union. The winners will also inherit a coun- try where social discontent is high as a result of declining living standards and high unemployment. The elections for Parliament, which has 151 seats, pits the governing party, the Croatian Democratic Union, against a coalition of left-leaning parties. Com- plete results are expected Monday or Tuesday. (AP) LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA Conservatives appear headed for victory in early elections Citizens of Slovenia on Sunday voted in early parliamentary elections that were likely to give power back to conserva- tives, who would confront debt, unem- ployment and a looming recession. The vote is Slovenia’s first early elec- tion since becoming independent from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. It was called in September after the center-left government was toppled amid economic uncertainty and charges of corruption. Preliminary results were expected to be announced on Sunday night. (AP) E.U. leaders to meet on emerging deal to solve euro crisis EUROPE, FROM PAGE 1 ate a sizeable ‘‘fire wall’’ of money, built from different pots of cash, to cushion Italy and Spain from market speculation while they move to fix their economies. After consecutive, expensive failures to stabilize the markets and protect the euro, the emerging plan may have better luck, in part because it is cobbled togeth- er from elements that aim to deal with the various issues of the euro, including the provision of a central authority that can surveil and override national budget decisions if they break the rules. But important disagreements persist, and the two key leaders of the euro zone, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will meet on Monday in Paris to try to hammer out a joint proposal for the summit meeting on Thursday evening and Friday. That meeting is considered a lastchancethisyeartogettheeuroright, even as some investors and analysts are beginning to predict its collapse. The deal is complicated because the Germans, along with the Dutch and the Finns, remain dead-set against what some consider the simplest solution: al- lowing the European Central Bank to become the euro zone’s lender of last re- sort and to buy sovereign bonds on the primary market, in unlimited amounts. Mrs. Merkel is also dead-set for now against collective debt instruments, like ‘‘Eurobonds,’’ that would put German taxpayers on the hook for the debt of others, which Berlin regards as illegal. So Mr. Sarkozy and other European leaders are working on a less elegant and more phased way to create a ‘‘fire wall’’ of money to drive Italian and Spanish bonds down to a sustainable rate of interest, European and Ameri- can officials say. Mrs. Merkel says it is time to get the euro’s fundamentals right, at long last. She is insisting on treaty changes to promote more fiscal discipline, includ- ing a ‘‘debt brake’’ limiting fiscal defi- cits, with outside supervision and sur- veillance of national budgets before they become dangerous and clear sanc- tions for profligate countries that don't keep to the new firmer rules. Berlin wants the new standards backed up the European Court of Justice or perhaps the European Commission, with the power to reject budgets that break the rules and return them for revision. She would like the treaty changes to be accepted by all 27 members of the European Union, but failing that, she said, she would accept treaty changes within the euro zone, with other coun- tries who want to join in the future, like Poland, free to commit to the tougher rules now. Many countries, and not only Britain, are opposed to institutionalizing a two- or even three-tier European Un- ion, fearing that their interests will be sacrificed and their voices diminished. Mr.Sarkozy,asthepoliticalinheritorof Gaullism, disagrees about the reach and nature of European oversight and super- vision of national budgets and about the role of European institutions in sanction- ing profligate states. The French are more jealous of their sovereignty and more skeptical of European courts, not wishing to give them — let alone the bu- reaucratic commission — more sway over national budgets and policies. ‘‘Europe must be refounded and re- thought,’’ Mr. Sarkozy said last week. ‘‘But the reform of Europe is not a march toward supranationality.’’ How outside budgetary supervision will be achieved is less clear in French eyes, yet Mr. Sarkozy also favors the creation of a European Monetary Fund. France also wants to emphasize the need for structural changes to promote economic growth, because it does not believe that austerity alone will do more than throw the euro zone into recession, increasing debt, not reducing it. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Germany believes that treaty changes can happen rapidly, without the need for a constitutional convention or referendums in some countries; oth- ers are not so sure, given that any ced- ing of national sovereignty is a major step that may require more than just a quick vote in parliaments. Still, mo- mentum toward binding new fiscal rules could be achieved by an intergov- ernmental agreement in the interim, while treaty changes go on apace. If there is clear evidence of fiscal re- forms now and tighter discipline for the future, some board members of the European Central Bank and its new president, Mario Draghi, have strongly hinted that the bank would move more aggressively to protect Italy and Spain. Mr. Draghi insists that bond buying must be ‘‘limited and temporary,’’ but both words are otherwise undefined. At the same time, the European Finan- cial Stability Facility, which Europeans once hoped could be leveraged from its current ¤440 billion, or $590 billion, to more than ¤1 trillion, has been weakened by the higher interest rates even AAA- rated countries like France have to pay. After Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the fund has some ¤250 billion uncommitted, and officials believe that this amount could be leveraged up by two or even threetimesbyguaranteeingthefirstpor- tion of any losses on sovereign bonds. If the fund can leverage up to ¤750 bil- lion, then the International Monetary Fund could provide more, perhaps even ¤250 billion, which could then also be leveraged. The Fund here would func- tion as a credible vehicle for investment. Individual European central banks, for instance, could loan money to the I.M.F. that could then be used to bolster the fire wall; there is also discussion of the I.M.F. creating a special fund for sur- plus countries like China, Brazil or Rus- sia to invest. The idea is to create a cu- mulative fire wall big enough to protect Italy, at least, which European and American officials regard as solvent, but which has a total debt of ¤1.9 trillion. As crucial as this summit meeting will be for market confidence, Mrs. Merkel loves to repeat, ‘‘There is no magic wand’’ or ‘‘single act’’ to solve the euro crisis. As she told the Bundestag last week, ‘‘It is a long process, and that pro- cess will take years.’’ MICHAEL SOHN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, plans to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to try to negotiate a joint proposal for a summit meeting on Thursday and Friday. The package is hardly a perfect solution that will make the euro crisis suddenly go away. ‘‘Those who called us sick are now sick themselves.’’ MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 | 5THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . . INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE6 | MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 . . . . world news europe asia ROME BY RACHEL DONADIO Prime Minister Mario Monti enjoys broad popular support as he takes on the daunting mandate of turning around the moribund Italian economy. But the honeymoon may end as soon as he an- nounces austerity measures aimed at saving up to $25 billion to balance the budget by 2013. The cabinet approved the deal Sun- day night, and details are to be revealed to Parliament on Monday. He is expect- ed to ask for higher taxes on the super- rich and luxury items like yachts, an in- crease in the retirement age and the re- introduction of property taxes — politic- al third rails that are expected to meet fierce opposition. Mr. Monti has told Italians that such changes are essential for Italy to bolster its anemic growth, stave off a recession and pay down its staggering public debt, which is ¤1.9 trillion — $2.5 trillion — or 120 percent of gross domestic product, in order to stabilize the Italian economy and protect the euro. It is a tricky balancing act, and already labor unions are objecting to pension changes, to say nothing of changes to Italy’s labor market, which Mr. Monti has also said are on his agenda, though not immediately. ‘‘The road will be very rocky, very bumpy,’’ said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. ‘‘This is a government that doesn’t have friends in Parliament,’’ he added. Mem- bers of Parliament ‘‘aren’t convinced of the gravity of the crisis, because it’s a mediocre political class, not to say any- thing worse,’’ Mr. D’Alimonte said. It will also be a test for Italy’s techno- cracy: the cabinet of specialists widely seen as towering figures in their fields but lacking grassroots political support. The welfare minister, Elsa Fornero, ran a highly regarded pension research institute. The defense minister, Adm. Giampaolo di Paola, was chairman of NATO’s military committee. Corrado Passera, who holds the eco- nomic development and infrastructure portfolios, is a former chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo, a leading Italian bank — an appointment that prompted wide- spread criticism about conflict of in- terest, both from left-wing critics and from right-wing supporters of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, skep- tical of what they see as a government of bankers. A former European commissioner, Mr. Monti has a sterling reputation abroad that will not necessarily help him navi- gate the difficult political waters at home. His government won a confidence vote in Parliament last month by a wide marginwiththesupportofthecenter-left Democratic Party and Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right People of Liberty party. But it lacks a political base of its own. Angelino Alfano, People of Liberty’s leader, whom Mr. Berlusconi has often called his dauphin, said Friday the party would give Mr. Monti’s government a chance. ‘‘We think it’s right at this mo- ment that the new prime minister have all the opening possible to propose the measures most useful for Italy and most balanced in terms of their contents,’’ he said in televised remarks on Friday. Mr. Berlusconi removed property taxes on first homes in 2008, making good on a campaign pledge, and his party has said it would oppose their re- turn. The People of Liberty also counts in its ranks many professionals who are largely opposed to Mr. Monti’s plans to liberalize Italy’s professional guilds, such as those of lawyers, notaries and pharmacists, which they see as a threat to their power and incomes. Mr. Monti faces an equally serious challenge from the Democratic Party, the cornerstone of his parliamentary support. Made up of former Commu- nists with close ties to labor unions and neo-liberals pushing for more reforms, the party is badly divided over econom- ic issues. Mr. Monti’s government is expected to fast-track changes that would base pensions entirely on the number of years of contributions, rather than on salary at the time of retirement, as was once the case. It is also expected to raise the number of years required to qualify for a pension, which can now be collect- ed after 40 years of contributions. A majority of Italians who retired after 2004 qualified to do so at an average age of 58 — in a country where life expect- ancy is 82 — and raising that bar could save Italy billions a year. After initially dismissing calls to meet with labor un- ions, which have been vehemently op- posed to any pension changes, Mr. Monti met with them on Sunday and then ad- vanced a cabinet meeting by a day to dis- cuss the details of the austerity plan. Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting. Italy leader dives into the fray PIER PAOLO CITO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Prime Minister Mario Monti with the welfare minister, Elsa Fornero, on Sunday in Rome. With a public debt of ¤1.9 trillion, Italy’s leader faces a delicate fiscal balancing act. New leader’s popularity may quickly evaporate as he tackles austerity ‘‘The road will be very rocky, very bumpy. This is a government that doesn’t have friends in Parliament.’’ KABUL BY ROD NORDLAND The Afghan government has been talk- ing about ending the U.S. military’s campaign of night raids for years, but now it sees an opportunity to actually do something about them. In continuing negotiations for a long- term strategic agreement between the two countries, the Afghans have made a no-compromise stand on abolishing or greatly limiting night raids, in which commandos go after people suspected of being insurgents in private homes rather than in the field. Both sides very much want the stra- tegic agreement. It would give bases to the U.S. military in Afghanistan and give the Afghans assurances of contin- ued training and financing for their rap- idly growing and ever more costly secu- rity forces. Western diplomats say that all such big issues are already settled, but night raids remain the thorn in the talks. ‘‘It is one of the central points — yes, we hope it will not be a deal breaker,’’ Aimal Faizi, the spokesman for Presi- dent Hamid Karzai, said in an interview. ‘‘It is one of our primary conditions.’’ There are other sticking points as well, according to Western diplomats — how to handle detentions, and how le- gally binding the agreement will be — but those have not attracted the same level of public interest, or put the Amer- icans on the defensive with their Afghan allies to such a degree. TheU.S.militaryseesnightraidsasan essential and effective part of its coun- terinsurgency effort, with a very high re- ward-to-risk ratio. But Mr. Karzai and much of his government see the raids as politically disastrous, as they enrage the populace and often set entire communi- ties against the U.S. military presence. Over the past year, U.S. commanders have greatly increased the frequency of the raids, with as many as 40 around the country being carried out on some nights, and an average of 10 a night, the military says. Even that is estimated to be twice the rate of 2010. Thousands of Taliban insurgents, hundreds of them midlevel commanders, have been cap- tured or killed in the raids, officials have said. Delegates at the recent loya jirga meetings convened by Mr. Karzai over- whelmingly asked the president to make an end to night raids a condition of signing a strategic agreement. Mr. Kar- zai has repeatedly demanded in speeches that night raids by foreign forces should end. Most night raids are carried out by various kinds of Special Operations troops, and now the vast majority are ‘‘partnered’’ — conducted with Afghan troops along, the military says. A smal- ler number are considered ‘‘black ops,’’ covert missions conducted solely by specialized U.S. units like the army’s Delta Force, the navy’s Seals or the C.I.A. NATO officials say they have modi- fied how night raids are conducted in re- sponse to the Afghan government’s con- cerns. ‘‘Ninety-five percent of all night oper- ations at this stage are already partnered,’’ said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jac- obson, the NATO spokesman in Afghan- istan. ‘‘So basically the recommenda- tion of the traditional loya jirga is already put into action.’’ ‘‘It is in our combined interest that as soon as possible, Afghanization is ac- complished,’’ he added, referring to an Afghan takeover of security responsibil- ity. Mr. Faizi was unimpressed by that ar- gument. ‘‘According to reports from our officials in different provinces, the Afghan security forces are leaving with the American forces to go conduct night operations without being informed di- rectly where they are going, which house they are searching and who is the target,’’ he said. While General Jacobson said night raids averaged 10 a night now, a recent study of night raids by the Open Society Foundations, financed by George Soros, estimated that 19 a night were taking place during the first three months of 2011. The U.S. military is so enamored of the tactic that some generals have said that without night raids, the United States may as well go home. General Jacobson said that 85 percent of night raids took place without a single shot fired, and that over all such opera- tions accounted for less than 1 percent of all civilian casualties. Afghans, however, complain that be- cause night raids involve soldiers going into private homes and often seeing the women who live there, they deeply of- fend Afghan cultural sensitivities and have an alienating effect out of propor- tion to either their military value or their casualty rate. ‘‘This has become a very sensitive is- sue for the Afghan people,’’ said Mr. Fa- izi, who made it clear that he was relat- ing Mr. Karzai’s views on the subject. ‘‘In general, they are not against night raids if they are led by Afghan people.’’ Mr. Faizi said the raids were the biggest complaints that Mr. Karzai heard when visitors from the provinces met with him. ‘‘If one of the messages of the United States is to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, then these night raids are totally against this,’’ he said. ‘‘People are becoming more and more against the international presence in Af- ghanistan.’’ Mr. Faizi said the president was con- cerned that in many cases, Afghan fam- ilies were forced to give food and shelter to insurgents, and then later were blamed for doing so and arrested. ‘‘We think that all these night raids, they bring the conflict directly to the homes of the Afghan people,’’ he said. ‘‘It has to be the opposite, the fight has to be fought somewhere else.’’ Hajji Faizullah, a money changer in Kandahar who lost his leg fighting the Soviets, said a nephew and son-in-law were seized six months ago in night raids in the city of Kandahar. They are still in detention. ‘‘In our customs, if a strange man enters your house, you are allowed to kill him, he has come either to rob or to dishonor you,’’ Mr. Faizullah said. ‘‘So the Americans are violating our houses at night and dishonoring us, but we are feeble and cannot resist them.’’ With both sides’ views on night raids seemingly set in stone, that is one of the reasons the strategic agreement talks between the United States and Afghan- istan have taken months more than originally expected — talks have been going on in earnest since March and at first had been expected to conclude by summer. An agreement between Afghanistan and Britain, with no mention of night raids, has already been concluded. Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul. Kabul makes tough stand on the issue in talks for security accord with U.S. ‘‘We think that all these night raids, they bring the conflict directly to the homes of the Afghan people.’’ Afghans seek to end night raids MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 | 7THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . . middle east world news TEHRAN FROM NEWS REPORTS The official news media in Iran said Sunday that its military had shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that had vi- olated Iranian airspace along the coun- try’s eastern border. An unidentified military official quoted in the report, by the Islamic Re- public News Agency, warned of a strong and crushing response to any violations of Iranian airspace by such aircraft. ‘‘An advanced RQ-170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran’s armed forces,’’ the agency quoted the official as saying. ‘‘It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran’s armed forces.’’ No further details were reported. A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said he had no immediate com- ment on the report. The type of aircraft Iran says it downed, an RQ-170 Sentinel, is made by Lockheed Martin. The aircraft is equipped with stealth technology, but the U.S. Air Force has not made public any specifics about the drone. Al Alam, an Arabic-language state television network in Iran, quoted a mil- itary official as saying, ‘‘The Iranian military’s response to the American spy drone’s violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran’s borders.’’ Iran is locked in a dispute with the United States and its allies over the in- tentions of Tehran’s nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at de- veloping nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that it seeks to generate electricity and pro- duce medical isotopes. The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to re- solve the nuclear dispute. Iran has dis- missed reports of possible U.S. or Israeli plans to strike Iran, warning that it would respond to any such assault by at- tacking U.S. interests in the Gulf and Is- rael. Analysts say Tehran could retaliate with hit-and-run strikes in the Gulf and by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 40 percent of all traded oil leaves the Gulf region. In July, the Iranian authorities said the country had shot down a U.S. spy drone over the holy city of Qum, near its Fordu nuclear site. In January, Iran said that two pilotless spy planes it said it had shot down from its airspace were operated by the United States and offered to put them on public display. Tehran holds frequent military exer- cises, primarily to assert an ability to de- fend against a potential U.S. or Israeli at- tack on its nuclear facilities. Iran has focused part of its military strategy on producing drones for reconnaissance and attacking purposes. Iran announced three years ago that it had built a drone craft with a range of more than 600 miles, or 1,000 kilometers, far enough to reach Israel. (AP, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG ) Tehran says its forces shot down a U.S. drone In Yemen, cooperation by opposition may backfire SANA, YEMEN BY KAREEM FAHIM For years, Islah, the largest and best-or- ganized opposition group in Yemen, played a double game in local politics, maintaining close ties to the govern- ment of President Ali Abdullah Saleh while also cultivating a network of sup- porters to defeat him. Its shifting alliances, reflecting differ- ent currents within the movement, helped keep Islah ahead of its opposition rivals in Yemen. That strategy also kept Islah out of power, unable to credibly of- fer an alternative to a government with which it was seen to be in league. Now, with the increasing likelihood of Mr. Saleh’s exit, Islah, like Islamist or- ganizations around the region, should be poised to win a strong showing at the polls. But that outcome may be in doubt: The strategy that kept the party afloat through the Saleh years may have undermined its credibility. Unlike the largely untested Islamist parties that are rising to power in the wake of the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, Yemen’s Islamists may find that their long record in politics here, stretching over two decades, is a liability, analysts said. Islah’s leaders — even if they hold strong positions in the interim unity government — will have to contend with the party’s mixed re- cord of governance, confusion about its ideological goals and the continued dominance of Mr. Saleh’s ruling party, which remains intact, analysts said. Like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Yemeni movement has been dealing with visible divisions as it edges closer to greater power. Days after Is- lah’s leaders signed on to an agreement that required Mr. Saleh to hand over his executive powers in exchange for a promise of immunity, many of the group’s members were still protesting in the streets and fuming at what they saw as an unacceptable compromise. For their part, Islah’s leaders are try- ing to use the moment to reintroduce themselves to Yemenis. During a two- year transitional period starting with a presidential election in February, they are scheduled to share power with other opposition groups and the ruling party in a national unity government. Like those of other regional Islamist parties, some of Islah’s leaders are pro- moting their plans to fight corruption and create a civil state based on laws, while publicly playing down any talk of imposing a religious social agenda, for fear of frightening voters. ‘‘The most important thing to do in this period is reassure people that we are not just seeking power,’’ said Rajeh Badi, the editor of Islah’s newspaper, As Sahwah. ‘‘I think Islah is not going to work alone. Islah knows if it works alone, it commits suicide.’’ Founded in 1990 by members of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and powerful tribesmen after the unification of North and South Yemen, Islah col- luded with Mr. Saleh to blunt the influ- ence of the Socialist Party. By the end of the decade, Islah had been transformed to the opposition, though one of its founders, Sheik Abdullah al-Ahmar, re- mained an ally of Mr. Saleh. Strengthened by a highly effective re- cruitment policy, as well as its organiza- tional skills and its provision of services the government could not provide, Islah became the biggest opposition party. Even so, Yemeni voters repeatedly denied the movement a mandate. In elections for local councils in 2006, Mr. Saleh outmaneuvered the Islamists, who won far fewer seats than expected. Some of Islah’s own leaders, including Sheik Ahmar, propelled their rivals to victory by publicly endorsing Mr. Saleh. The party has also had to face linger- ing resentment from southern Yemenis, who remember the role played by Is- lamist militias allied with the North dur- ing the civil war of 1994. Yemeni analysts say Islah’s future success will depend in large part on how it manages its own diverse member- ship, in a party that includes Muslim Brotherhood members, ultraconserva- tives called Salafis, tribal sheiks and businessmen. Tawakkol Karman, the journalist and Nobel Peace Prize recipi- ent whose arrest in January helped set off Yemen’s revolution, is affiliated with the group’s more moderate current. On the other side is Abdul Majid al- Zindani, a onetime mentor to Osama bin Laden who was named a ‘‘specially des- ignated global terrorist’’ by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2004. Mr. Zindani is the most prominent leader of the old-guard camp that many Yemeni observers say still holds sway in the party, despite assertions by moderates that they are becoming more influential. In March, Mr. Zindani spoke at Change Square, delivering a message that was both a signal of his break with Mr. Saleh and an indicator of his view of the party’s goals. ‘‘An Islamic state is coming!’’ he declared. ‘‘I think Islah is not going to work alone. Islah knows if it works alone, it commits suicide.’’ Islamist rivals put pressure on Brotherhood EGYPT, FROM PAGE 1 into long-term suspicions of even fellow Islamists that they are too concerned with their own power. The Salafis are political newcomers, directed by religious leaders who favor long beards in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad. Many frown on the mixing of the sexes, refusing to shake hands with women, let alone condone any sort of political activity by them. Although their parties are required to include fe- male candidates, they usually print pic- tures of flowers instead of the women’s faces on campaign posters. And while the Salafis’ ideology strikes many Egyptians as extreme and anachronis- tic, even voters who disagree with their puritanical doctrine often credit the Salafis with integrity and authenticity. After the first election results last week, the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party quickly declared that it had no plans to form any coalition with the Salafis, with some members ending months of restrained silence by striking back. In an interview after the vote, for example, Dina Zakaria, a spokeswoman for the party, derided the Salafis’ prohi- bition on women in leadership roles and their refusal to print the faces of their fe- male candidates. ‘‘We don’t hold stagnant positions,’’ she said, insisting that the Brother- hood’s party favored an evolving under- standing of Islam that supported the right of women to choose their own roles. (At campaign rallies, women from the party sometimes underscore the point by saying Muhammad even enlis- ted women in combat.) Such debates, however, threaten to knock the Brotherhood off the fine line it has attempted to walk. In public statements, the party’s lead- ers have preferred to focus on broader themes of Islamic identity and the bread-and-butter questions that are the more urgent concerns of voters. On the campaign trail, the Brotherhood some- times even seems to appeal to both sides from the same podium — sound- ing like Salafis themselves one minute but avowing moderation the next. ‘‘To give your vote for Islamists is a religious issue,’’ an Islamic scholar, Sayed Abdel Karim, declared at a cam- paign rally in Giza, across the Nile from Cairo, calling for ‘‘the rule of God, not the rule of the people.’’ ‘‘The revival of Islamic spirit in the region is a direct threat to Israel and the future of the Western civilization, Europe and the U.S.,’’ he said, asserting that ‘‘the enemy media’’ were already saying that ‘‘those who love Jews, the United States and Europe, should make every effort to keep the Islamic spirit dormant. Look at the conspiracy!’’ But moments later, the main speaker and the top candidate on his party’s list, Essam el-Erian, declared that the party believed only in nonsectarian citizen- ship for all, that Christians and Muslims should enjoy equal rights as ‘‘sons of the nation’’ in the eyes of a neutral state and that the next constitution should protect free expression. And he pledged warm relations with any nation that respected Egypt’s ‘‘independence and culture.’’ (Brotherhood leaders have said that they support retaining the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel, with some possible modifications, while the Salafis have sometimes talked of put- ting it to a national referendum.) ‘‘The garrison of religion in Egypt has special characteristics,’’ Mr. Erian said. ‘‘Tolerance and moderation.’’ Leaders of the Brotherhood’s party have endorsed public commitments to protect individual rights. And its plat- form strikes a consistent theme of es- chewing the quick prod of legal coercion in favor of encouraging private en- deavors toward gradual change. Unlike the Salafis, it has not proposed to regu- late the content of arts or entertain- ment, women’s work or dress, or even the religious content of public educa- tion. In fact, the party’s platform calls for smaller government to limit corrup- tion and liberalize the economy. Instead, the party proposes to nudge Egyptian society by the power of ex- ample. In culture, it would encourage ‘‘self-censorship’’ by asking artists and writers to sign a voluntary ‘‘code of eth- ics.’’ The government, meanwhile, would support music, films and other arts that extolled religious and family values. For social welfare, the party seeks to institutionalize the obligatory Islamic charitable contribution, known as Za- kat, by collecting a mandatory 2.5 per- cent income tax from all Muslims, which the government would then pass to reg- ulated Islamic charities. It would en- courage these Islamic charities to set up their own religious schools and hospit- als. And to encourage women to accept traditional gender roles, it would pro- mote family values in entertainment while subsidizing community centers for matchmaking and marriage coun- seling. ‘‘Do you find anything saying that our party is going to impose any kind of law on the moral side?’’ said Mr. Erian, who is running for Parliament in Giza. Every major party in Egypt — liberal or Islamist — supports retaining the clause in the Constitution stipulating that Islam is the source of Egyptian law. But competing Islamist parties offer conflicting ideas about ‘‘activating’’ the clause. The most liberal — like the former Brotherhood members in the Center Party and the presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, both breakaways from the Brotherhood — advocate essentially secular-liberal states, arguing that the government should not get involved in interpreting Islam. The Salafis, on the other hand, often favor the idea that a specialized council of religious scholars should advise the Parliament or review its legislation to ensure compliance with Islamic law. The Brotherhood debated similar ideas as recently as a few years ago. This year, however, the Freedom and Justice Party has sought a middle ap- proach. Its platform calls for Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court to rule on compliance with Shariah. But that stance is essentially without con- sequence because the court already had that power under Mr. Mubarak, and the judiciary is a bastion of liberalism whose views of Islamic law are highly flexible, to say the least. ‘‘Religious scholars’ guardianship over political life is completely unac- ceptable,’’ Mohamed Beltagy, another leader of the Brotherhood’s party, said in an interview. ‘‘Nobody could speak in the name of the heavens or the name of religion. We don’t accept tyranny in the name of religion any more than we ac- cept tyranny in the name of the mili- tary.’’ Mayy el Sheikh and Amina Ismail con- tributed reporting. KHALIL HAMRA/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Volunteers from the Muslim Brotherhood in Assiut, Egypt, helped voters find their polling stations during the election Sunday. ‘‘I want to say: citizenship restricted by Islamic Shariah, freedom restricted by Islamic Shariah, equality restricted by Islamic Shariah.’’ Fresh. Degustibusnonestdisputandum. To expand in California, TesCo must adapt to the strange Us preference for frozen food. We cover it, because in business, what’s fresh doesn’t always work. Businessweek.com/fresh Discover more. © 2011 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE8 | MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 . . . . Views editorial opinion InternationalHerald Tribune THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON Publisher InternationalHerald Tribune 6 bis rue des Graviers, 92521 Neuilly Cedex France Tel: +33 1 41 43 93 00 E-Mail: iht@iht.com Internet address: global.nytimes.com Subscriptions: subs@iht.com Tel: +33 1 41 43 93 61 Classified: +33 1 41 43 93 85 Regional Office, Asia-Pacific: #1201, 191 Java Road, Hong Kong Tel. +852 2922 1188 Fax: +852 2922 1190 The Americas: Regional Office, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018 Advertising Tel. +1 212 556 7707 Fax: +1 212 556 7706, Circulation Tel. 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The full text of the Contributor Policy appears on the Internet at: http://www.ihtinfo.com/press/contributorpolicy.html MARTIN GOTTLIEB Editor, Global Edition ALISON SMALE Executive Editor TOM REDBURN Managing Editor PHILIP McCLELLAN Deputy Managing Editor URSULA LIU Deputy Managing Editor KATHERINE KNORR Assistant Managing Editor RICHARD BERRY Editor, Continuous News RICHARD ALLEN News Editor SERGE SCHMEMANN Editor of the Editorial Page PHILIPPE MONTJOLIN Senior Vice President, Operations ACHILLES TSALTAS Vice President, Circulation and Development CHANTAL BONETTI Vice President, Human Resources JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DEMARTA Vice President, International Advertising CHARLOTTE GORDON Director of Strategy and Marketing RANDY WEDDLE Managing Director, Asia-Pacific SUZANNE YVERNÈS Chief Financial Officer Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, Président et Directeur de la Publication China has a plethora of tasks on its eco- nomic to-do list, but none of them are impossibly daunting. EGYPT’S BRAVE VOTE Egyptians proved their mettle again this past week by turn- ing out in huge numbers to begin electing their first freely chosen Parliament. To get to this point, they had to force the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, and tens of thousands braved a vicious crackdown in recent days to protest the army’s hold on power. Voters showed courage and will to move to build a new democratic order. Their struggle isn’t close to done. This round of voting is only the first step in an overly complicated process, dictated by the military, that won’t produce a Parliament until mid- March and will elect a new president in June. There are seri- ous questions about whether the army will fully turn over power even then. Leaders of the democratic uprising were also expressing anxiety about the strong showing by Islamist parties. The Muslim Brotherhood, the only organized opposition to Hosni Mubarak for years, is expected to take the dominant share of seats, followed by the ultra-conservative Islamists known as Salafis, who among other noxious beliefs deny women the right to vote. Respecting the voters’ choice is an essential part of democ- racy. But the long years of political suppression — and the way the military tipped the field in the Brotherhood’s favor — also make it hard to figure out what these early results say about the country’s thinking or its future. What should be clear to the Brotherhood, which, on Thurs- day, denied any plans to form an alliance with the Salafis, is that most Egyptians have no interest in swapping Mr. Mubarak’s secular dictatorship for a religious one. Brother- hood representatives say that they want to end corruption and foster reform and economic development. The Brother- hood needs to spell out a detailed agenda focused on jobs, education and guaranteed rights for all Egyptians. We hope the first-round results propel other parties to work harder to ensure their voices are represented in Parlia- ment. And all the political groups that believe in democracy need to join together to press the generals to quickly transfer power to a credible, interim civilian government and drop at- tempts to direct the writing of a new constitution. Holding on will only foment more instability. The Obama administration has rightly condemned the re- cent violence and urged the army to transfer power to a civil- ian government as soon as possible. But many Egyptians see the United States, which gives billions of dollars in military aid, as too sympathetic to the army. President Barack Obama must do a better job of making clear that he stands with those advocating civilian rule, full democratic rights and tolerance. He should insist that the council lift emergency laws and re- lease all political prisoners. The elections drew millions to the polls. They are proof of how much Egyptians yearn for democracy. And, with the rest of the Arab world watching closely, it is vital that they succeed. Will China stumble? Don’t bet on it Iran’s first Great Satan was England Anti-Brit- ish outrage has burned for genera- tions in Iran. Steven Rattner Hardly a day goes by without news of yet another economic problem facing China. A frothy real estate market. Quickly rising wages. A weakening manufacturing sector. Tightening lend- ing standards. The list can seem end- less and frightening. But after a recent visit to China, I re- main staunchly optimistic that it will continue to be the world’s greatest ma- chine for economic expansion. While developed countries bump along with little growth, China’s gross domestic product is expected to increase by 9.2 percent in 2011 and an equally astonish- ing 8.5 percent next year. The country pulses with energy and success, a caldron of economic ambition larded with understandable self-confi- dence. Visit the General Motors plant on the outskirts of Shanghai and watch Buicks churned out by steadily moving assembly lines almost indistinguish- able from those in plants in Michigan. That shouldn’t surprise, as G.M. strives for uniformity across its Chinese facilities. Perhaps more star- tling is that G.M. achieves American levels of productivity, quality and work- er safety — with pay that is a small fraction of levels in the United States. This illustrates China’s great strength: its ability to relentlessly grind down costs by combining high labor efficiency with wages that remain extraordinarily low. At Foxconn’s largest plant, in Shenzhen, 420,000 Chinese earning about $188 per month assemble electronic components for megacustomers like Apple, Hewlett- Packard and Dell. Often criticized for just being a nation of ‘‘assemblers,’’ China has been in- creasing the value it adds to exports as more components are produced there. G.M., for example, uses 350 local suppliers. China’s success is colored by its opaque political system, re- pressive and riddled with corruption. But the unusual mix of authoritarianism and free enterprise should continue to work because of its ability to deliver rising in- comes, satisfying a populace that ap- pears more interested in economic ad- vancement than in democracy. China has a plethora of tasks on its economic to-do list, but none are im- possibly daunting. Just as in the United States a century ago, jobs are needed for vast numbers of rural migrants moving into cities. Inefficient state- owned companies must be restruc- tured. The other evident stresses, like the indisputable property bubble, are manageable and far short of what brought down the American economy. Meanwhile, an opportunity lurks in China’s seeming inability to create inno- vative products with international iden- tities. In an era of global corporations, a country that reveres brands, especially luxury ones like BMW and Louis Vuit- ton but also Starbucks and Häagen Dazs, has yet to give birth to its first. Lenovo, one of the best-known Chinese companies, has achieved lim- ited success with its 2005 acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business. As- tonishingly, Chinese auto companies have the lowest share of their home market of any major country. So China has emphasized building products like ships, where brands don’t matter. Not unlike the United States in the 19th century, China’s early stage of in- dustrialization has brought with it an un- savory wild West flavor, from cronyism to fraudulent accounting, that justifiably worries investors. But behind those dis- tractions is a country that is investing substantially in its future — about 46 percent of its gross domestic product. And while total government debt in China is high, much of the debt was in- curred for investment rather than con- sumption, far better for longer-term growth. Notwithstanding accounts of ‘‘roads to nowhere,’’ China has vastly improved its core infrastructure. Its government arguably does better than ours at allocating capital. The antipathy of Chinese households toward personal debt (a quarter of homes are bought with cash) has re- sulted in a savings rate of nearly 40 per- cent of income, compared with less than 5 percent for Americans. Underpinned by a reverence for en- trepreneurship, China has made start- ing new businesses easier, paving the way for the accumulation of vast for- tunes; there are more billionaires in China than in any country except the United States. A gradual move toward reform ap- pears evident. Controls over interest rates, foreign exchange, cooking oil and gasoline, to name a few, are being liber- alized. There is even attention to the en- vironment, with tax subsidies for fuel- efficient autos and limits on new-car purchases in the largest cities. The frustrating mercantilist ap- proach taken by China — it manipulates its currency and trade rules with aban- don — has served it well. It has accumu- lated vast foreign currency reserves ($3.2 trillion and rising) while blocking access to its market and gaining com- petitive advantages internationally in everything from solar panels to toys. Congressional saber rattling notwith- standing, China is likely to continue to get away with reforming only slowly. While China hardly lacks challenges, I am betting on its continued success. STEVEN RATTNER was a counselor to the U.S. Treasury secretary and lead auto adviser. He is a longtime Wall Street executive. Stephen Kinzer BOSTON If there is one country on earth where the cry ‘‘Death to Eng- land’’ still carries weight — where people still harbor the white-hot hatred of British colonialism that once in- flamed millions from South Africa to China — that country would be Iran. And that is what the leaders of Iran must have been counting on when screaming militiamen, unhindered by the police, poured into the British Em- bassy in Tehran to vandalize it on Tues- day. Most Iranians, like most people any- where, would deplore the idea of thugs storming into a foreign embassy. None- theless, some may have felt a flicker of satisfaction. Even an outrage like this, they might have said, is a trifle com- pared with the generations of torment Britain inflicted on their country. So Iran’s mullahs — they, not Presi- dent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are re- ported to have been behind the attack — were not gambling in ordering, or at least tolerating, it. They presumably realized that the world would denounce their flagrant violation of international law. But they also knew it would reson- ate with the narrative Iranians have heard for so long about their own history. The spark for the embassy invasion was Britain’s imposition of new eco- nomic sanctions on Iran. Pressure for those sanctions came not so much from Britain as from the United States and Israel, but those countries could not be targets for a similar attack because they do not have embassies in Tehran. Besides, Iranians these days can be surprisingly besotted with the United States; in my own visits I am often sur- rounded by people who compete to pro- claim their love for America, and whose anger at Israel seems more political than emotional. Those Iranians, however, feel quite differently about Britain. Britain first cast its imperial eye on Iran in the 19th century. Its appeal was location; it straddled the land route to India. Once established in Iran, the British quickly began investing — or looting, as some Iranians would say. British companies bought exclusive rights to establish banks, print cur- rency, explore for minerals, run transit lines and even grow tobacco. In 1913, the British government ma- neuvered its way to a contract under which all Iranian oil became its prop- erty. Six years later it imposed an ‘‘agreement’’ that gave it control of Iran’s army and treasury. These ac- tions set off a wave of anti-British out- rage that has barely subsided. Britain’s occupation of Iran during World War II, when it was a critical source of oil and a transit route for sup- plies to keep Soviet Russia fighting, was harsh. Famine and disease spread as the British requisitioned food for their troops. One of the most popular Iranian nov- els, ‘‘Savushun,’’ is set in this period. It tells of two brothers who take roles every Iranian can recognize: The elder is ambitious and panders to the occupi- ers; the younger refuses to sell his grain to them and pays a tragic price for his integrity. During their occupation, the British decided that Reza Shah Pahlavi, whom they had helped place in power, was no longer reliable. They deposed him and chose his son, Mohammed Reza Pah- lavi, as the new shah. Once the war ended, Iran resumed its efforts to install democracy, under the leadership of Mohammed Mossadegh. He had campaigned against the Anglo- Persian Agreement of 1919 and had written a book denouncing ‘‘capitula- tion’’ agreements, under which foreign- ers were granted immunity from Irani- an law. After he was elected prime minister in 1951, Mr. Mossadegh asked Parlia- ment to take the unimaginable step of nationalizing Iran’s oil industry. It agreed unanimously. That sparked a historic confrontation. Mr. Mossadegh embodied the anti- British emotion that still roils the Irani- an soul. The special envoy President Harry S. Truman sent to Tehran to seek a compromise in the oil dispute, W. Aver- ell Harriman, report- ed that the British held a ‘‘completely 19th-century colonial attitude toward Iran,’’ but found Mr. Mossadegh just as in- transigent. When Mr. Harriman assured Mr. Mossadegh that there were good people in Britain, Mr. Mossadegh gave him a classically Iranian reply. ‘‘You do not know how crafty they are,’’ he said. ‘‘You do not know how evil they are. You do not know how they sully everything they touch.’’ Desperate to regain control of Iran’s oil, the British sought to crush Mr. Mossadegh with measures that in- cluded harsh economic sanctions — sanctions comparable to the ones they are now imposing. When that failed, they asked President Dwight D. Eisen- hower to join in a plot to overthrow him. He agreed, not because he wished to help the British recover their oil but be- cause he had been persuaded that oth- erwise, Iran might fall to communism. Iran, after all, was on the southern flank of the Soviet Union, standing be- tween it and the oil fields and warm-wa- ter ports of the Gulf. The coup, staged in August 1953, ended Iranian democracy and allowed Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to build a dic- tatorship that remained a staunch cold- war ally of both Britain and the United States. But the alliance backfired on both countries when his repression set off the 1979 revolution that brought the mullahs to power. Today, many Irani- ans who loathe the mullahs neverthe- less look for Britain’s hand behind any dark plot; some even accuse it of organ- izing the 1979 revolution, and imposing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. More than half a century ago, Secre- tary of State Dean Acheson wrote that Mr. Mossadegh was ‘‘inspired by a fanatical hate of the British and a de- sire to expel them and their works from the country regardless of the cost.’’ Many Iranians still feel that way, as their country falls into ever deeper isolation. In Iran, the words ‘‘anger’’ and ‘‘Britain’’ fit easily to- gether. Outside interference is a central fact of modern Iranian history. And for most of the 20th century, Britain was at the center of most of it. Nonetheless, a spark of admiration has long been buried within Iranians’ anger, as it was in many other places across the British Empire. Mr. Harrim- an noticed it in his talks with Mr. Mossadegh. The old man liked to tell stories about his favorite grandson, and Mr. Harriman asked where the boy was attending school. ‘‘Why, in England, of course,’’ was the reply. ‘‘Where else?’’ STEPHEN KINZER is a visiting professor of international relations at Boston Univer- sity, a former New York Times correspon- dent and the author of ‘‘Reset: Iran, Tur- key and America’s Future.’’ Talking face to face is so ... yesterday Dominique Browning Admit it. The holiday season has just begun, and already we’re overwhelmed by so much ... face time. It’s hard, face- to-face emoting, face-to-face empathiz- ing, face-to-face expressing, face-to- face criticizing. Thank goodness for less face time; when it comes to dis- rupting, if not severing, lifetimes of neurotic relational patterns, technology works even better than psychotherapy. We look askance at those young adults in a swivet of tech-enabled multi- friending, endlessly texting, tracking one another’s movements — always dis- tracted from what they are doing by what they are not doing, always con- necting to people they are not with rather than people right in front of them. But being neither here nor there has real upsides. It’s less strenuous. And it can be more uplifting. Or, at least, safer, which has a lot going for it these days. Face time — or what used to be known as spending time with friends and family — is exhausting. Maybe that’s why we’re all so quick to aban- don it. From grandfathers to tweenies, we’re all taking advantage of the ways in which we can avoid actually talking, much less seeing, one another — but still stay connected. The last time I had face time with my mother, it started out fine. ‘‘What a lovely blouse,’’ she said, plucking lov- ingly (as I chose to think) at my velvet sleeve. I smiled, pleased that she was noticing that I had made an effort. ‘‘Too bad it doesn’t go with your skirt.’’ Had we been on Skype, she would never have noticed my (stylishly intentional, I might add, just ask Marni) intriguing mix of textures. And I would have been spared another bout of regressive face time freak-out. Face time means you can’t search for intriguing recipes while you are listen- ing to a fresh round of news about a friend’s search for a soul mate. You can’t mute yourself out of an endless meeting, or listen to 10 people tangled up in planning while you vacuum the living room. You can’t get ‘‘cut off’’ — Whoops! Sorry! Tunnel! — in the middle of a tedious litany of tax prob- lems your accountant has spotted. My move away from face time star- ted with my children; they are gener- ally the ones who lead us into the fu- ture. It happened gradually. First, they left home. That did it for face time. Then I stopped getting return phone calls to voice mails. That did it for voice time, which I’d used to wean myself from face time. What happened? ‘‘Text, Mom.’’ I don’t text. Rather, I didn’t text. Be- cause before too long, it wasn’t just the kids who were no longer listening to voice messages. No one was. Neither was I. A quick glance at the record of who had called was enough. This is mainly because people no longer leave voice messages while they are curled up on a sofa, in the quiet comfort of their living rooms, ready to chat. In- stead, they catch up while they are out- side, on the way somewhere, so that their message is drowned out by sirens, trucks and winds. Why bother to listen? Texting didn’t last long with me; it is difficult to switch to reading glasses while negotiating sidewalk traffic. Now I simply ignore my phone — though I’m filled with admiration at the adroitness of codgers who are able to text and shop, or text and drink, or text and talk. Now I’m even finding voice time an ordeal. After having had a career of of- fices to show up in every morning, I went into shock when I woke one morn- ing to realize I had nowhere to go — and no more colleagues to see. No more meetings, no more hallway conversa- tions, no more business lunches. No more face time, when you get down to it. I was upset about this, for months. After all, 30 years of doing work that de- pended on that chance conversation, that closed-door pep talk when some- thing was wrong, that shared play of delight when something was right — these are difficult work habits to shake. But now I spend a great deal of time at a computer on my kitchen table. I’m in comfortable sweaters and sweat- pants — when I’ve managed to ditch the pajamas. When I attend meetings, it is via earbud. At this point, Skype seems im- possibly intimate — the worst of both worlds. Imagine having to see the per- son you are talking to, without being with them. Except with one’s mother, why would anyone want to do that? Apple is promoting an amiable fea- ture called, laughably, FaceTime — which, it claims, is remarkable: ‘‘talk, smile and laugh with anyone on an iPad 2, iPhone 4,’’ etc. ‘‘Catch up, hang out, joke around and stay in touch with just a click. Sure, it’s great to hear a voice. But it’s even better to see the face that goes with it.’’ I’m not so sure. Seeing faces burdens us with responsibilities we may be too weary to shoulder. I’ve gotten used to not having to deal with everything that gets dragged in behind those voices, smiles and laughs. Things like the wince in the forehead, when you’ve been too sharp. Or the shadow across the eyes when you’ve hurt a feeling. Face time conversation is very differ- ent from faceless conversation. Silence, for example, is meaningless in the face- less realm. Whereas, in face time, si- lences are resonant, often resplendent, moments of connection. Face-to-face si- lence means, I’m thinking, I’m listen- ing, I’m searching, I’m feeling your pain. Not, I’ve hung up. Recently I was talking to my 23-year- old son, Theo, about my nostalgia for LP record albums. Theo thought a mo- ment and conceded that he, too, was feeling nostalgic ... for dial-up modem. (He had nice memories of pleasant beeping sounds.) I suppose the point is that we all start to pine for the way things were, once they’ve been gone long enough for us to forget how annoy- ing they used to be. Which means we will soon enough feel nostalgia for face time. I’m not quite there yet. But I’m hoping someone is working on an app that rep- licates the sensation of snuffling a freshly bathed child. I remember how lovely it used to be, not so very long ago, before they grew out of face time, before I tired of face time, how delicious it was when both boys were little, to wrap my arms around them, listen to the day’s woes, rub noses and kiss goodnight. We clicked. And we didn’t even need ‘‘just a click.’’ DOMINIQUE BROWNING is senior director of Moms Clean Air Force, organized to fight air pollution as a children’s health issue. She blogs at Slow Love Life. All political groups that believe in de- mocracy need to join together to press the generals to quickly transfer power. Today, many Iranians who loathe the mullahs nevertheless look for Britain’s hand behind any dark plot. The country pulses with energy and success, a caldron of economic am- bition larded with self-con- fidence. BRIAN REA MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 | 9THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . . Price quoted is for recipients who live in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. Your free IHT pocket diary will be sent to you once payment has been received. 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Semple Jr. Delegates from 194 countries will meet this week in Durban, South Africa, to see whether the world can do a better job of controlling the man-made green- house gases that scientists believe will lead to sea-level rise, floods, drought and famine. Over the years, there has been far more talk than action. In 1997, these nations collectively promised as a first step to reduce emis- sions by about 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. But only 37 industrial- ized nations agreed to binding targets under the treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol; the developing nations prom- ised simply to do their best. The overall results have been dismal, even by Kyoto’s modest standards. That agreement expires next year, and there is almost no chance that the dele- gates in Durban will agree on a replace- ment. Even 1997 signatories like Japan and Canada will not endorse a new treaty unless the Chinese do, which they won’t. What we’ll see is another set of aspirational targets that will mean little if countries choose to ignore them. On this point, history is not encour- aging. From 1990 to 2009, global emis- sions of carbon dioxide, the main green- house gas produced by burning fossil fuels, rose by a whopping 38 percent. The increase would have been far worse were it not for the economic col- lapse of the old Soviet bloc; emissions from those countries dropped by about one-third. Western Europe has managed to re- duce emissions by 5 percent by adopt- ing a cap-and-trade system that effec- tively puts a price on carbon emissions; substituting natural gas for coal; and, in Germany’s case, greatly expanding the use of renewable energy sources like solar power. The biggest obstacle to global progress has been countries like China and India that made no pledges at Kyoto because, they argued (and continue to ar- gue), the industrial- ized world caused most of the problem and thus bore most of the responsibility for solving it. This reasoning has lost much of its punch as those two coun- tries have become economic power- houses. Over all, emissions in countries that did not agree to targets have more than doubled, while China’s have tripled. What of the United States? As the largest per capita emitter of green- house gases among big economies, America should have taken a leader- ship role. It did not. The Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto accord, President George W. Bush flatly repudiated it, and Congress failed to put a price on carbon. Having pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by 7 percent, Amer- ica saw its carbon emissions rise by al- most that amount. The trends were not wholly negat- ive. Carbon dioxide emissions rose steadily in the 1990s, partly because the economy took off after the 1992 election, and power plants and facto- ries started operating at full capacity. Emissions then leveled off after 2000, partly because some manufacturing moved abroad but also because rules requiring more energy efficiency began to kick in. And further improvements are with- in reach. In the United States, old coal- fired power plants are closing, the price of natural gas (which emits only half the carbon dioxide of coal) is dropping, and automobiles are becoming more ef- ficient. Clean energy sources like solar power are being introduced in poor Af- rican nations, and the Chinese are in- vesting heavily in clean energy as well. Are these bits and pieces enough? Al- most assuredly not. Many scientists say we need a wholesale shift in the way the world produces and uses en- ergy, and the time window for such a shift is closing. The question at Durban is whether the world can act before the window slams shut. ROBERT B. SEMPLE JR. is the associate editor of the New York Times editorial board. Thomas L. Friedman In many ways, President Obama has been a disappointment on energy and the environment. He has been com- pletely missing in action on the climate debate. His decision to block his own Environmental Protection Agency from setting new rules to cut smog levels was disappointing. And, while I believe in using the balance sheet of the U.S. government to spur clean-tech re- search and start-ups, Solyndra was a case of embarrassing excess — pre- cisely what happens when you rely too much on government push not con- sumer pull, spurred by price and regu- latory signals. But, for me, all is forgiven — because Obama came through big-time last month. He backed his great E.P.A. adminis- trator, Lisa Jackson, and Department of Transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, in producing a deal with all the top U.S.- based automakers that will go into ef- fect in 2017 and require annual mileage improvements of 5 percent for cars, and a little less for light trucks and S.U.V.’s, until 2025 — when U.S. automakers will have to reach a total fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon. The current aver- age is 27.5 m.p.g. This deal will help America’s cars and trucks approach the mileage levels of Europe and Japan and spur innova- tion in power trains, aerodynamics, bat- teries, electric cars and steel and alu- minum that will make cars lighter and safer. The E.P.A. and the Transportation Department estimate that these new innovations will gradually add about $2,000 to the cost of an average vehicle by 2025 and will save more than $6,000 in gasoline purchases over the life of that car — savings that will go into the rest of the economy. And all that as- sumes that gasoline prices will only moderately increase and there are no innovation breakthroughs beyond what we anticipate. If gasoline prices soar higher and innovation goes faster — both highly likely — the savings would be even more. The new vehicles sold over the life of the program — including its first phase between 2012 and 2016 — are expected to save a total of four billion barrels of oil and prevent two billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution. This is a big deal — a legacy deal for Obama that will make a significant, long-term contribution to America’s en- ergy, environmental, health and national security agendas. The compromise was worked out be- tween the E.P.A. and the Transportation Department with General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, Nis- san, BMW and six other major car companies. It was announced Nov. 16 and came about largely because once the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide was a pollutant — and once California made clear that it and sever- al other states were going to impose their own improved auto emissions standards, if the federal government didn’t — the major auto companies saw the handwriting on the wall and entered into talks with the Obama ad- ministration on a deal that will trans- form the industry. The Global Automakers trade associ- ation — which endorsed the deal be- cause it gives the industry long-term regulatory certainty to do research and invest — called the Obama plan a ‘‘comprehensive and harmonized na- tional approach to reducing green- house gas emissions and improve fuel economy ... while providing manufac- turers the needed flexibility and lead time to design and build advanced tech- nology vehicles.’’ Dan Becker, director of the Safe Cli- mate Campaign of the Center for Auto Safety, said the mileage deal ‘‘is the biggest single step that any nation has taken to cut global warming pollution,’’ but he cautioned that, like any Wash- ington compromise, it does contain loopholes that ‘‘give the auto compa- nies opportunities to behave irrespons- ibly — if they choose.’’ If the compa- nies’ total fleet mix of cars and trucks stays roughly as projected, they would hit the 54.5 m.p.g. target by 2025. But, because the deal allows for a weaker mileage standard for trucks than cars, Becker added, ‘‘if the industry as a whole decides to make many more trucks than now projected, we will not achieve the 54.5 m.p.g. target, although average mileage would still improve significantly from today’s levels.’’ Naturally, the E.P.A.-haters hate the deal. They focus on the increase in vehi- cle costs that will phase in over 13 years — and ignore the net savings to con- sumers, plus the national security, inno- vation, jobs, climate and health benefits. These critics are the same ‘‘conserva- tives for OPEC’’ who, after Congress agreed in 1975 on a 10-year program to raise the fleet average mileage of Amer- ican cars from 15 m.p.g. to 27.5 m.p.g., got together not only to halt mileage im- provements in American vehicles dur- ing the Reagan administration, but to roll them back. This helped to drastical- ly slow U.S. auto mileage innovation and ultimately helped to bankrupt the Amer- ican auto industry and make sure the United States remained addicted to oil. Of course, today’s Republican Party, whose energy policy was best de- scribed by Lisa Jackson as ‘‘too dirty to fail’’ — i.e., we can’t close any polluting power plants or impose cleaner air rules because it might cost jobs — is fighting a last-ditch effort to scuttle the deal. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and chairman of the House oversight committee, is lead- ing the charge to kill it. What a thing to be proud of. Hair matters This is a big deal Remember Kyoto? Meanwhile ALEX BEAM It’s back. It’s black. It’s under control — or is it? It’s Mitt’s hair. Political junkies remember how Mitt Romney’s hair dominated campaign trail news before the last presidential election. While the former Massachu- setts governor was locked in a tight primary race for the Republican nomi- nation with snowy-headed Senator John McCain and addlepated former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, rumors began to surface: that his remarkably youthful tonsure owed more to Grecian Formula than to excellent DNA. ‘‘I don’t dye it. I don’t color it, and you can take a real close camera shot and see there’s a lot of gray mixed in with all that black,’’ Romney declared in Milwaukee four years ago. The 60-year-old Mitt’s fabulous follicles had become Campaign Topic No. 1 thanks to a secret strategy memo unearthed by Scott Helman of The Boston Globe. According to the con- fidential document, Romneyites fretted — ‘‘Werewolves of London’’ anyone? — that their man’s hair was too ‘‘perfect.’’ Just a few days ago, The New York Times combed through Mitt’s hair yet again, this time with a front-pager anchored by an interview with Mitt’s oft-quoted barber, Leon de Magistris. ‘‘Mr. Romney’s head of impeccably coiffed black hair has become some- thing of a cosmetological Rorschach test on the campaign trail,’’ opineth the Times, ‘‘with many seeing in his thick locks everything they love and loathe about the Republican candidate for the White House.’’ Hot on the heels of the Times feature comes the New Republic columnist Timothy Noah’s tart observation that the newspaper completely missed the true story. ‘‘Since his early teens, Mitt had pat- terned his own hairstyle after a man named Edwin Jones, who served as his father’s top aide in running the Detroit operations of the Mormon Church,’’ Noah writes, citing a lengthy Globe series on our former governor. ‘‘The hair is Mitt’s North Star. And he owes it all to an enigma of history called Edwin Jones. Did the haircut say, ‘I want to be Dad’s assistant?’ Did it say, ‘My dad isn’t fit to shine his assistant’s shoes’? I have no idea.’’ Who cares about hair? Everyone. A case history of hair in recent American politics would include the story of Bill Clinton’s $200 haircut (Christophe!) in Air Force One at Los Angeles Interna- tional Airport, and ‘‘Breck Girl’’ John Edwards’s politically ill-advised $400 wash and trim. ‘‘Hair matters,’’ Hillary Clinton told a Yale audience in 2001, only half-joking. ‘‘Pay attention to your hair, because everyone else will.’’ Let’s take a brief tour d’hairizon of the current political field. Among the Red State-heads, Texas Governor Rick Perry is clearly the man to beat, the Jabba the Hutt of Great Hair. How won- derful is Governor Perry’s hair? It’s so great that Texas troublemaker at large- country music thang-gubernatorial can- didate Kinky Friedman, who admires Perry, once said that he would like to be cremated and have his ashes strewn in Governor Perry’s hair. No one is saying that about Newt Gingrich’s oddball retro do, I can assure you. Across the aisle, the hair news is less sanguine. The Obama-no-fro has been graying from Day One, as is to be ex- pected. Veep Joseph Biden’s hair trans- plant from hell is beneath contempt. He wanted to be president once, and saw that a bald man hasn’t been elected to the White House since 1956. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the winner that year, won World War II, which is a bit different from battling for Delaware’s credit card companies, the state’s former senator’s martial achievement of note. Memo to senatorial wannabe Eliza- beth Warren: ‘‘Little House on the Prairie’’ went off the air in 1982. The Willa Cather look isn’t going to beat Scott Brown’s blowsy do — and Brown is a man who takes hair very seriously. How do I know? Two years ago I at- tended a rump meeting of the G.O.P. Hair Club for Men, Willard M. Romney, presiding. I couldn’t help noticing, and reporting, that the unknown senatorial candidate, Scott Brown, also had a ter- rific mane of sandy brown hair. I bumped into Brown a few days later. He refused to shake my hand and berated me for undignified reporting. This from a guy who posed nude for a women’s magazine. ‘‘I can’t believe you wrote about hair,’’ he said. Believe it, Senator Brown. And I will again. BOSTON GLOBE More politics as usual The world as I know it is over. To wit, on some streets, it is forbidden to smoke but permissible to burn a flag; you may post porn on the Internet but you can’t pray in school; if we normal citizens lie to Congress it’s a felony, if Congress lies to us, it’s just politics. Calls for higher taxes and more entitle- ments in the name of ‘‘fairness’’ lead me to ask how much of my private wealth is community property? Elec- tions have become public auctions of private property. Politicians have no loyalty to their constituents, nor do they see them- selves as representatives. They act as masters who are beholden to their biggest contributors. I have abandoned any idea that politicians hold the answer to my future. It is disheartening to see so many people clamoring for an omnipotent gov- ernment with more regulations, higher taxes, spending and borrowing in spite of all that has happened. The results of these policies are a matter of record. If these protesters persist in their delusion that doing more of the same will pro- duce different results, there is little doubt that President Barack Obama will be re-elected. ED KONECNIK, NEW YORK With each passing day it becomes more obvious that the narcissistic Occupy Wall Street gatherings — promoted by the liberal mainstream media — are be- ing used to deflect attention from the failed Obama presidency and its bank- rupt economic policies. Karl Marx and these modern-day aco- lytes may choose to portray our eco- nomic woes as a byproduct of the capi- talist system. But Marx was a man who famously wasn’t hugged enough by his father: a fact the rest of us have come to regret. Meanwhile, the college students among the protesters are learning that majoring in French literature or in trendy social causes masquerading as legitimate fields of study doesn’t guar- antee a job. Especially in this flounder- ing Obama economy. The coming 2012 elections will fea- ture a partisan media continuing to peddle the socialist vision. Let’s hope they fail. RON GOODDEN, ATLANTA, GEORGIA LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A legacy deal for Obama on gas mileage will make a significant contribution to America’s energy agenda. EDITORIAL OBSERVER: At Durban we’ll see an- other set of aspirational targets that will mean little if coun- tries choose to ignore them. INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE10 | MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 . . . . world news americas SCOTT EELLS/BLOOMBERG NEWS New York police officers removing an Occupy Wall Street protester from Zuccotti Park. Police officials insist they are not becoming more militarized, but rather evolving as threats evolve. BRIEFLY United States WASHINGTON U.S. stops short of apologizing for Pakistani soldiers’ deaths President Barack Obama telephoned the president of Pakistan on Sunday to offer direct ‘‘condolences’’ for the deaths of two dozen of its soldiers in NATO airstrikes along the Afghan bor- der, the White House said. The conversation, eight days after the deaths, overcame reservations among some in the U.S. Defense De- partment in favor of diplomats who had urged a conciliatory gesture. Mr. Obama’s response, however, stopped short of a formal apology or videotaped statement of the kind sought by the Pa- kistani government as a way to ease in- tense public anger in Pakistan. ‘‘Earlier today, the president placed a phone call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to personally express his condolences on the tragic loss of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers this past week along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan,’’ the White House said. ‘‘The president made clear that this re- grettable incident was not a deliberate attack on Pakistan and reiterated the United States’ strong commitment to a full investigation,’’ it added. ‘‘The two presidents reaffirmed their commit- ment to the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral rela- tionship, which is critical to the security of both nations, and they agreed to stay in close touch.’’ WASHINGTON Proposal expected to extend tax cut Senator Harry Reid, the majority lead- er, will offer a compromise on Monday to extend a popular payroll tax cut, his fellow Democrat Senator Kent Conrad said Sunday. Mr. Conrad, on ‘‘Fox News Sunday,’’ said the proposal would cover the cost of extending the tax cut, set to expire Dec. 31. Last week, the Senate defeated competing plans by Democrats and Republicans. (REUTERS) When police look more like the military NEW YORK BY AL BAKER The riot police tear-gassing protesters at the Occupy movement in Oakland, Cali- fornia. The surprising nighttime inva- sion of Zuccotti Park in New York, car- ried out with D-Day-like secrecy by officers deploying klieg lights and a mili- tary-style sound machine. And campus policeofficersinhelmetsandfaceshields dousing demonstrators at the University of California, Davis, with pepper spray. Is this the militarization of the U.S. po- lice? Police forces undeniably share a sol- dier’s ethos, no matter the size of the city, town or jurisdiction: officers carry deadly weapons and wear uniforms with insignia denoting rank. They salute one another and pay homage to a ‘‘Yes, sir,’’ ‘‘No, sir,’’ hierarchical culture. Beyond such symbolic and formal sim- ilarities, U.S. law and tradition have tried to draw a clear line between the police and military forces. To cast the roles of thetwotooclosely,thoseinandoutoflaw enforcement say, is to mistake the mis- sion of each. Soldiers, after all, go to war to destroy, and kill the enemy. The police, who are supposed to maintain the peace, ‘‘are the citizens, and the citizens are the police,’’ according to Chief Walter A. McNeil of Quincy, Florida, the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, citing the words of Robert Peel, the father of modern-day policing. Yet lately, images from Occupy protests streamed on the Internet — of- ten in real time — show just how readily police officers can adopt military-style tactics and equipment, and come off more like soldiers as they face down cit- izens. Some say this adds up to the emer- gence of a new, more militaristic breed of civilian police officer. Others disagree. What seems clear is that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the U.S. Homeland Security dollars that flowed to police forces in response to them, have further encouraged police forces to embrace paramilitary tactics like those that first emerged in the decades of the ‘‘war on drugs.’’ Both wars — first on drugs, then terrorism — have lent po- lice forces across the United States jus- tification to acquire the latest technol- ogy, equipment and tactical training for newly created specialized units. ‘‘There is behind this, also, I think, a kind of status competition or imitation, that there is positive status in having a sort of ‘big department muscle,’ in smal- ler departments,’’ said Franklin E. Zim- ring, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. ‘‘And then the problem is, if you have those kinds of specialized units, that you hunt for ap- propriate settings to use them and, in some of the smaller police departments, notions of the appropriate settings to use them are questionable.’’ Radley Balko, a journalist who has studied the issue, told a House subcom- mittee on crime in 2007 that one crimin- ologist found a 1,500 percent increase in the use of SWAT, or special weapons and tactics, teams in the United States in roughly the past two decades. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 gen- erally bars the military from law en- forcement activities within the United States. But today, some local and city po- lice forces have rendered the law rather moot. They have armored vehicles and the sort of equipment and training one would need to deter a guerrilla assault. Such tactics are used in New York City, where Police Commissioner Ray- mond W. Kelly, whose department has had armored vehicles for decades, has invoked the 19th-century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz in talking about the myriad threats his city faces — both conventional and terrorist. After the would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was arrested aboard a plane at Kennedy Airport in 2010, Mr. Kelly calculated the plot-to-capture time: Slightly more than 53 hours. ‘‘Jack Bauer may have caught him in 24,’’ said Mr. Kelly, who served as a Mar- ine commander in Vietnam. ‘‘But in the real world, 53’s not bad.’’ In truth, the vast majority of officers in Mr. Kelly’s 35,000-member force are not specialized troops, but beat cops. But that did not stop Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from sounding a general last week, when he boasted, ‘‘I have my own army in the N.Y.P.D.,’’ suggesting his reasons for preferring City Hall to the White House. More disturbing than riot gear or heavy-duty weapons slung across the backs of U.S. police officers is a ‘‘militaristic mind-set’’ creeping into officers’ approach to their jobs, said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization. The more the police fail to defuse con- frontations but instead help create them — be it with their equipment, tactics or demeanor — the more ties with commu- nity members are burned, he said. The effect is a loss of civility, and an erosion of constitutional rights, rather than a building of good will. ‘‘What is most worrisome to us is that the line that has traditionally separated the military from civilian policing is fad- ing away,’’ Mr. Lynch said. ‘‘We see it as one of the most disturbing trends in the criminal justice area — the militariza- tion of police tactics.’’ Police officials insist they are not be- coming more militarized — in their thinking or actions — but merely im- proving themselves professionally against evolving threats. This is the way to protect citizens and send officers home alive at the end of shifts in an in- creasingly dangerous world, they say. Of course, in the event of a terrorist attack, they have to fill the breach until U.S. or National Guard troops can rush in. ‘‘If we had to take on a terrorist group, we could do that,’’ said William Lansdowne, the police chief in San Diego and a member of the board of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Though his force used U.S. government grants to buy one of those fancy armored vehi- cles — complete with automatic-gun portals — he said the apparatus was more useful for traditional crime-bust- ing than counterterrorism. ‘‘We are see- ing suspects better armed than ever be- fore,’’ Chief Lansdowne said. Now the Occupy movement and highly publicized official responses to it areforcingthepublictoconfrontwhatits police forces have become. But analysts say that even here the picture of policing is mixed. While scenes from Oakland were ugly, the police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia last week evacuated Oc- cupy encampments relatively peace- fully; Los Angeles officers used a cherry picker to pluck protesters from trees. Police officers are not at war, said Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum, and cannot imagine themselvesasoccupyingarmies.Rather, they must approach any continuing Oc- cupy protests, now or in the spring, with a respect for the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech and the right to assemble peacefully, and a real- ization that protesters are not enemies but people the police need to engage with uptheroad.‘‘Youcanhaveallthesophis- ticated equipment in the world,’’ Mr. Wexler said, ‘‘but it does not replace common sense and discretion and find- ing ways to defuse situations.’’ Occupy protests reveal a sharp shift in tactics by American officers ‘‘What is most worrisome to us is that the line that has traditionally separated the military from civilian policing is fading away.’’ NEWS ANALYSIS U.S. agents launder cash for Mexican drug cartels WASHINGTON BY GINGER THOMPSON Undercover U.S. narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dol- lars in drug proceeds as part of Wash- ington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former U.S. law enforce- ment officials. The agents, primarily with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are. They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents. The officials said that while the D.E.A. had conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplo- matic concerns about Mexican sover- eignty and blur the line between surveil- lance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their opera- tions over months or even years before making seizures or arrests. Agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing con- cerns about compromising their investi- gations. But Michael S. Vigil, a former senior agency official who is working for a private contracting company called Mission Essential Personnel, said, ‘‘We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these opera- tions so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren’t launder- ing money for the sake of laundering money.’’ Another former agency official, who asked not to be identified speaking pub- licly about delicate operations, said, ‘‘My rule was that if we are going to launder money, we better show results. Otherwise, the D.E.A. could wind up be- ing the largest money launderer in the business, and that money results in vio- lence and deaths.’’ Today, in operations supervised by the Justice Department and orches- trated to get around sovereignty re- strictions, the United States is running numerous undercover laundering in- vestigations against Mexico’s most powerful cartels. One D.E.A. official said it was not un- usual for U.S. agents to pick up two or three loads of Mexican drug money each week. A second official said that as Mexican cartels extended their operations from Latin America to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, the reach of the operations had grown as well. When asked how much money had been laundered as a part of the opera- tions, the official would only say, ‘‘A lot.’’ ‘‘If you’re going to get into the busi- ness of laundering money,’’ the official added, ‘‘then you have to be able to launder money.’’ The former officials said that the drug agency tried to seize as much money as it laundered — partly in the fees the op- eratives charged traffickers for their services and partly through carefully choreographed arrests at pickup points identified by their undercover operat- ives. And the former officials said that U.S. law enforcement agencies had to seek Justice Department approval to launder amounts greater than $10 million in any single operation. But they said that the cap was treated more as a guideline than a rule and that it had been waived on many occasions to attract the interest of high-value criminal targets. ‘‘They tell you they’re bringing you $250,000, and they bring you a million,’’ one former agent said of the traffickers. ‘‘What’s the agent supposed to do then, tell them no, he can’t do it? They’ll kill him.’’ It is not clear whether such opera- tions are worth the risks. So far, there are few signs that following the money has disrupted the cartels’ operations, and there is little evidence that Mexican drug traffickers are feeling any serious financial pain. Last year, the D.E.A. seized about $1 billion in cash and drug assets, while Mexico seized an estimat- ed $26 million in money laundering in- vestigations, a tiny fraction of the esti- mated $18 billion to $39 billion in drug money that flows between the countries each year. Trying to follow trails of money to kingpins, and raising thorny issues Asked how much money had been laundered as a part of the operations, one official would only say, ‘‘A lot.’’ Republicans maneuver as Cain suspends bid CAIN, FROM PAGE 1 with him. ‘‘I’m at peace with my wife,’’ Mr. Cain said Saturday, ‘‘and she is at peace with me.’’ Some of Mr. Cain’s former rivals went out of their way on Sunday to express sympathy, doubtless hoping to appeal to his backers. ‘‘Herman’s gone through a very, very difficult time,’’ Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, said on ABC’s ‘‘This Week.’’ But he added that the series of accusations ‘‘was clearly a distraction that was not going to go away.’’ While the other Republican candi- dates awaited word of whom Mr. Cain would decide to endorse, at least one, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, asserted that she had already benefited from his departure. ‘‘Beginning yesterday, our office had call after call after call of people who wanted to switch over and wanted to support me,’’ she told the television pro- gram ‘‘Fox News Sunday.’’ She added that ‘‘I think we’re going to pick up a lot of the support across the country.’’ And Representative Ron Paul of Texas, noting on CNN that many voters liked ‘‘the independent-mindedness of Herman Cain,’’ added that ‘‘I’m opti- mistic that we’ll pick up some votes from there.’’ Even before Mr. Cain’s departure, Mr. Gingrich was riding a wave of newfound popularity and one that appeared well- timed, as the nominating season is set to enter full gear with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary a week later. A new Des Moines Register poll in Iowa, conducted before the Cain depar- ture,gaveMr.Gingrichasignificantlead, with 25 percent of likely voters, ahead of Mr. Paul, with 18 percent, and Mitt Rom- ney, the former Massachusetts governor, at 16 percent. Joseph W. McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, said Sunday on NBC that backers of Mr. Cain would be likely to gravitate to Mr. Gin- grich because voters were ‘‘looking for someone with passion.’’ His newspaper gave Mr. Gingrich its coveted endorse- ment, but Mr. Romney continued to show strength there. The opinion poll in Iowa showed that support for Mr. Cain had plummeted to just 8 percent of respondents, from 23 percent in late October. Mr. Gingrich was up just as sharply. But the front-runner’s role inevitably brings sharper criticism, and on Sunday Mr. Santorum bluntly assailed Mr. Gin- grich for failing to champion conserva- tive social values, saying he put those questions in ‘‘the back of the bus.’’ In suspending his candidacy, as op- posed to saying that he was ending his bid, Mr. Cain, according to campaign fi- nance lawyers, maintained an ability to accept money to pay for his campaign so far and potentially to finance the new venture that he called his Plan B: to travel the country promoting his tax and foreign policy plans. His tax plan in particular — known as 9-9-9 for the percentages at which he would set three key tax rates — as well as a sunny disposition and some early strong debate showings had drawn Mr. Cain an enthusiastic core of support. But some conservatives had never taken the former pizza-company execu- tive seriously. George F. Will, the colum- nist, said Sunday that Mr. Cain fell with- in a category he described derisively as ‘‘charlatans, entrepreneurs and entre- preneurial charlatans’’ and was ulti- mately most interested in selling his book. Mr. Cain had barely campaigned in Iowa or New Hampshire. Mr. Will suggested on the ABC pro- gram ‘‘This Week’’ that the long series of Republican debates was becoming, at times, something of a circus, particu- larly with the real-estate tycoon and television personality Donald Trump set to moderate one Dec. 27 in Des Moines. Mr. Will’s wife, Mari Maseng Will, is a Republican operative now working for Governor Rick Perry of Texas. Mr. Paul rejected an invitation to take part in the Des Moines debate, saying that Mr. Trump, with a reputation for big hair and brash commentary, was ‘‘clown-like.’’ Jon W. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor, also rejected an invitation. With Mr. Cain gone, the remaining Re- publican candidates on Saturday tried to show their conservative credentials during a forum on Fox News. Mr. Gin- grich was pressed on how conservatives can ‘‘trust that a President Gingrich will not advance these sorts of big govern- ment approaches’’ that he had advo- cated, including his one-time support for a mandate that citizens obtain health in- surance. Mr. Gingrich noted that he did so in league with other conservatives and that ‘‘every conservative has in fact left that kind of a model.’’ Mr. Romney argued that his health care policy in Massachusetts was less ambitious than Mr. Obama’s and did not seek to upend the health care system. ‘‘What the president has done is way beyond what we envisioned,’’ he said. Ms. Bachmann was asked how she would carry out her call to remove all il- legal immigrants living in the United States or pay an estimated cost of $135 billion to do so. ‘‘It would be enforce- ment both at the border but also by’’ im- migration agents, she said. Mr. Cain, with his golden voice and folksy manner, had appealed to voters who sought an anti-establishment can- didate. Now 65, he grew up in poverty in the segregated South, the son of a janit- or and a maid. But beyond his personal charm and rags-to-riches biography, he had an eclectic résumé: chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, conservative radio host and chairman of the Federal Re- serve Bank of Kansas City in Missouri. As to his admirers, some who attend- ed his announcement in Atlanta said they were surprised and disappointed. They blamed the news media, some screaming insults at the press corps. Lisa Chambers, 48, a volunteer from Snellville, Georgia, said: ‘‘This is not what I wanted. Not at all. I’m not sure what to do now. I’m so disappointed.’’ Reporting was contributed by Robbie Brown from Atlanta; Ashley Parker from Manchester, New Hampshire; Jeff Zeleny from Washington; and Nicholas Confess- ore, Jim Rutenberg and Trip Gabriel from New York. PHILIP SCOTT ANDREWS/THE NEW YORK TIMES Herman Cain announcing the suspension of his presidential bid after repeated accusations of sexual misconduct. The remaining hopefuls awaited word on whom he would endorse. ‘‘Herman’s gone through a very, very difficult time.’’ MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2011 | 11THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . . Between the development of once under-appreciated reserves and the application of new, or neglected, technologies, ‘‘peak energy’’ has seldom looked further away. --4/; special report DUBAI BY DANIA SAADI From the Arctic to Latin America, Qatar is scanning the globe for multibillion- dollar energy investments in hopes of diversifying its income and vastly ex- panding its international energy reach. Qatar’s eagerness to expand abroad is driven by the kingdom’s robust for- eign policy, a moratorium on new proj- ects in its single biggest gas field, and a desire to protect itself from fluctuating demand and prices for natural gas. Having achieved its goal of producing 77 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year, Qatar — the world’s biggest L.N.G exporter — is looking at projects in places like Russia and in industries like electricity, while increasing investments in high-consuming markets in Asia. Analysts say the Qatari drive to diver- sify abroad is unlikely to ease because it is expected to stick to its moratorium on new projects in its North Field, the world’s biggest single gas reservoir, which Qatar shares with Iran. In fact, the kingdom has said it will not lift the ban until at least 2013. Qatar imposed a moratorium in 2005 for fear that rapid production could damage the reservoir. Although Qatar holds the world’s third-largest gas reserves, after those of Russia and Iran, nearly all of them are in the North Field. ‘‘If it doesn’t have the domestic re- source to be able to expand its produc- tion, it has to look beyond its border,’’ said Julian Lee, senior energy analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. ‘‘That’s why it is looking to be- come a much more international player than purely a local one, and that’s what’s behind the interest in potential projects in Russia, Australia and grow- ing investment in China.’’ Qatar’s policy of having stakes in vari- ous energy sectors and cooperating with rivals echoes its political approach of having good ties with friends and foes. Qatar has expressed an interest in ac- quiring a stake in the Russian gas pro- ducer Novatek and its Arctic Yamal L.N.G. project, which would be the first Qatari foray into an L.N.G. production facility beyond its borders. Investment in that project would also turn the two gas rivals into co-investors, at a time when Russia is ramping up its L.N.G. output with an eye on Asia, while Qatar is counting on growth in Asian de- mand to offset a drop in L.N.G. exports to other markets, notably the United States. An increase in U.S. production of un- conventional gas has thwarted Qatar’s ambitions in the United States, the world’s biggest oil consumer. Qatar had so much faith in the U.S. market that it even invested in an L.N.G. regasifica- tion terminal there. Meanwhile, Qatar is vying with Rus- sia over Europe, whose debt crisis could threaten demand for L.N.G. The Russians ‘‘have a very strong foothold in the Europe gas market and they are feeling competition from the Qataris,’’ said Samuel Ciszuk, a global oil supply consultant at the energy ad- visory firm KBC. ‘‘There is a benefit for having closer cooperation and some ex- change of strategic goals and informa- tion with Russia, especially when you have such a big foothold in the market they have a foothold in.’’ Closer ties with Russia began to emerge last year. Gazprom, the state- owned Russian gas giant, said last year that it had been invited to participate in Qatar’s L.N.G. industry once the mora- torium on the North Field was lifted. Both countries are members of the Doha-based Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a club of producers that share information on markets and projects. Russia and Qatar will be eager to align their gas policies in order not to under- mine prices, which have taken a beating since 2008 with the onset of the global recession and a surge in North Ameri- can gas output from shale rock. Qatar is wary not only of Russia, but of the rising might of Australia, which is expected to dislodge the Gulf state as the world’s biggest L.N.G. exporter to- ward the end of the decade. This may even prompt Qatar to look at investing in Australia. ‘‘Qatar has a choice between being a partner in projects that will compete with Qatar’s own L.N.G. production, or it can see those projects go ahead on their own without Qatari involvement,’’ said Mr. Lee of the Center for Global En- ergy Studies. Involvement in international L.N.G. ventures would be less risky than under- taking new projects in Qatar and creat- ing a gas glut that would depress prices. But analysts say one big impetus for Qatar to expand abroad rather than ex- pand locally by removing the North Field ban may be its desire to placate Iran. Tehran has struggled to tap its side of the reservoir because of a shortage of technology brought about by ever-tight- ening international sanctions over its nuclear program. Qatar and Iran have ‘‘straws in the same gas field, but only Qatar is suck- ing,’’ said Eckart Woertz, a visiting fel- low at Princeton University. ‘‘It must be a worry for the Iranians that Qatar has built the largest L.N.G. plants on the planet when their side of the field is still not developed.’’ The fact that relations between Shiite Muslim Iran and the Sunni Muslim Gulf states are on edge does not help. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have hint- ed of Iranian involvement in Shiite protests on their home turf this year, a charge Iran has denied. The Gulf region is not immune to the flaring of conflicts over energy resources. Saddam Hus- sein used the pretext of Kuwaiti siphon- ing of Iraqi oil from a disputed field to in- vade the Gulf state in 1990. Qatar, though, has managed to main- tain good relations with Iran, and Pres- ident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was ex- pected to attend a meeting of the gas forum in November, though in the end he did not. Peace with Iran is also necessary to maintain the safety of Qatari L.N.G. tankers traversing the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most vital energy channel. Most recently, Qatar’s political in- volvement in Libya, where it helped arm the rebels and even marketed oil produced in areas held by the rebels, has led to speculation that Qatar is in- terested in being more than just a peacemaker. ‘‘Certainly playing a wider political role internationally has been important for Qatar,’’ Mr. Lee said. ‘‘How much is that driven by the commercial consider- ation and how much it is driven by broader political concerns within Qatar is unclear.’’ He added: ‘‘There is a lot of good feel- inginthenewgovernmentcircleinLibya towardQatarandthatmaywelltranslate into upstream contracts’’ and some kind of marketing relationship with Libya. Although analysts caution that it is too early to tell if Qatar will reap the benefits of its Libya gamble, the coun- try’s huge energy reserves and proxim- ity to Europe could prove helpful to Qatar in the future. With or without Libya, Qatar’s energy tentacles are still expected to aim for new corners. This year, Qatar bought a 6.2 percent stake in the Spanish utility Iberdrola, giving it access to European power mar- kets, big wind-power projects and the potential to tap high-growth areas like Latin America, where Iberdrola has ac- quired a Brazilian power distributor. Qatar also signed an initial agree- ment with local Chinese authorities, the Chinese state-run oil company C.N.P.C. and Royal Dutch Shell to be part of a petrochemical and refining complex in China, the world’s second-biggest oil consuming nation. Kingdom is scouring all regions for deals that expand energy footprint Electricity in old form is at work again Qatar has world in its sights for power projects BY MICHAEL KANELLOS ThomasEdisonandhisdirectcurrent,or D.C., technology lost the so-called War of the Currents to alternating current, or A.C., in the 1890s after it became clear that A.C. was far more efficient at trans- mitting electricity over long distances. Today, A.C. is still the standard for the electricity that comes out of our wall sockets. But D.C. is staging a roaring comeback in pockets of the grid. Alstom, ABB, Siemens and other con- glomerates are erecting high-voltage D.C. grids to carry gigawatts of electric- ity from wind farms in remote places like western China and the North Sea to faraway cities. Companies like SAP and Facebook that operate huge data centers are us- ing more D.C. to reduce waste heat. Panasonic is even talking about build- ing eco-friendly homes that use direct current. In a D.C. grid, electrons flow from a battery or power station to a home or appliance, much as water flows down- hill to a lake. In A.C., electrons flow back and forth between generators and appliances in a precisely synchronized manner — imagine a set of interlocking canals where water continually surges back and forth but the water level at any giv- en point stays constant. Direct current was the electrical transmission technology when Edison started rolling out electric wires in the 19th century. Alternating current, which operated at higher voltages, was later cham- pioned by the Edison rivals Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. The A.C. forces won when Tesla and Westinghouse figured out how to fine- tuneA.C.transmissionsoitrequiredfew- er power plants and less copper cable. D.C. did not die, however. AT&T adopted direct current for the phone system because of its inherent stability, which is part of the reason that landline phones often survive storms better than the electric grid. And household appliances and much industrial equipment — from hair dry- ers to jet planes — are built to use D.C. Embedded converters bridge the mis- match between the A.C. grid and the D.C. devices on the fly. But those constant conversions cause power losses. For example, in conven- Most of the world went A.C. long ago, but D.C. is finding new uses The Russians ‘‘are feeling competition from the Qataris’’ in the European gas market. CURRENT, PAGE 12 tional data centers, with hundreds of computers, electricity might be convert- ed and ‘‘stepped down’’ in voltage five times before being used. All that heat must be removed by air-conditioners, which consumes more power. In a data center redesigned to use more direct current, monthly utility bills can be cut 10 percent to 20 percent, according to Trent Waterhouse, vice president of marketing at G.E. Energy. ‘‘You can cut the number of power conversions in half,’’ he said. On a far smaller scale, SAP spent $128,000 retrofitting a data center at its offices in Palo Alto, California. The proj- ect cut its energy bills by $24,000 a year. The revival of D.C. for long-distance power transmission began in 1954 when the Swedish company ASEA, a prede- cessor of ABB, the Swiss maker of power and automation equipment, linked the island of Gotland to mainland Sweden with high-voltage D.C. lines. Now, more than 145 projects using high-voltage D.C., known as HVDC, are under way worldwide. While HVDC equipment remains ex- pensive, it becomes economical for high-voltage, high-capacity runs over long distances, said Anders Sjoelin, president of power systems for North America at ABB. Over a distance of a thousand miles, or 1,600 kilometers, an HVDC line carry- ing thousands of megawatts might lose The Pearl GTL gas-to-liquid plant in Ras Laffan, an industrial city in Qatar. Analysts say one big impetus for Qatar to expand abroad rather than locally, by remov- ing its ban on new projects in its North Field, may be its desire to pla- cate Iran, which also controls part of the North Field. SIEMENS A transformer, part of the high-voltage direct current transmission system between Tasmania and the rest of Australia. High-voltage D.C. is more efficient than alternating current over long distances. SHELL
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