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NEW YORK, MONDAY 12:30PM

Harold Ramis, comic actor, dies

Harold Ramis, best known for his roles

in ‘‘Ghostbusters’’ and ‘‘Stripes,’’ died

on Monday from complications ofautoimmune inflammatory disease He

A shift from policies to politics

Under Jim DeMint, the HeritageFoundation, long known as anincubator for Republican policy ideas,has become more of a politicalorganization feeding off the Tea Party

How a kingpin fell, without a shot

The capture of the world’s most wantedman, El Chapo, upended assumptionsabout the impunity of Mexican

No parking, not even for the F.B.I.

For decades, the F.B.I.’s vehicles wereoff limits to New York City tow trucks

Bill Keller

President Obama may have been right

to keep a low profile on criminal justice

reform until there was a bipartisan

Fed’s aid in 2008 was global

The Federal Reserve extendedhundreds of billions to central banks

PUTIN WAITS FOR UKRAINE’S NEXT MOVE

The Russian president is watching tosee what happens next in Kiev now that

Full currency rates Page 19

Ukraine hunts for its ousted president

KIEV, UKRAINE

BY DAVID M HERSZENHORN

Ukraine’s acting interior minister said

on Monday that the authorities were inpursuit of the ousted president, Viktor F.Yanukovych, who was believed to be inCrimea, in the south of the country, andthat if found he would be arrested oncharges of mass murder in the killings ofdozens of the antigovernment protesterswho chased him from power last week.The pursuit of Mr Yanukovych, a mannow widely despised even by many ofhis former supporters, came as the Par-liament continued its efforts to rebuildthe government, with hopes of appoint-ing an acting prime minister and havingthe rest of a provisional government inplace on Tuesday

Former Prime Minister Yulia V moshenko, freed from prison on Satur-day, has said she does not want to beconsidered for the post So speculation

Ty-on the premiership is now focusing Ty-onher ally Arseniy P Yatsenyuk, who hasbeen a leader of the anti-Yanukovychstreet protests since they began in lateNovember

Western officials on Monday ued to praise the developments inUkraine, saying that Parliament hadsuccessfully filled a power vacuum, andthat democratic institutions had func-tioned successfully Russia, however,stepped up its criticism after recallingits ambassador from Kiev on Sunday

contin-‘‘Today, I see no legitimate Ukrainianpartners for dialogue,’’ the Russianprime minister, Dmitri A Medvedev,said in Sochi, a day after the close of theWinter Olympics, according to the In-terfax news service ‘‘If people crossingKiev in black masks with Kalashnikovrifles are considered a government, itwill be difficult for us to work with such

a government.’’

In fact, the security situation in theUkrainian capital seemed to improve onMonday, with regular law enforcementbodies and some antigovernment fight-ers sharing responsibility for guardinggovernment buildings and directing

UKRAINE, PAGE 3

Fears of a new order filled with old faces

ALBERTO ESTEVEZ/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

CLEAR MESSAGE Jan Koum of WhatsApp drew a crowd on Monday in Barcelona He said that his Internet service would start offering free voice services this year.BUSINESS, 17

KIEV, UKRAINE

BY ANDREW HIGGINS

As Ukraine’s Parliament moved to fill apower vacuum left by the ouster ofPresident Viktor F Yanukovych, IrinaNikanchuk, a 25-year-old economist,

stood outside the elected Legislature onMonday to give voice to a widespreadfeeling here: throw the bums out

Waving a banner calling for earlyelections to a new Parliament, Ms Nik-anchuk poured scorn on current mem-bers and opposition politicians likeYulia V Tymoshenko who have so farbecome the principal beneficiaries of arevolution driven by passions on thestreet and bubbled with disgust atUkraine’s entire political elite

Parliament has moved swiftly since

Mr Yanukovych’s flight on Saturday to

restore a semblance of normal ment, endorsing interim ministers andgiving expanded powers to its newspeaker, Oleksandr V Turchynov, anally of Ms Tymoshenko, empoweringhim to carry out the duties of the presi-dent until a new election is held in May

govern-But the prospect of a new order nated by established opposition parties,almost as discredited in the eyes of manyUkrainians as Mr Yanukovych’s Party

domi-of Regions, has left a bitter feeing thatwhat comes next could end up disap-pointing as much as the government that

followed the 2004 Orange Revolution

‘‘We need new people who can say no

to the oligarchs, not just the old faces,’’

Ms Nikanchuk said, referring to the lionaires who control blocs of votes inParliament but who, with a few excep-tions, hedged their bets until the endabout which side to support in a violentstruggle between Mr Yanukovych andhis opponents

bil-‘‘Tymoshenko is just Putin in a skirt,’’

Ms Nikanchuk added, likening thenewly freed former prime minister to

Not long after the uprising in Syria

turned bloody in the late spring of 2011,

the Pentagon and cyberwarriors at the

National Security Agency developed a

battle plan that featured a sophisticated

cyberattack on the Syrian military and

President Bashar al-Assad’s command

structure

The military’s ability to launch

air-strikes was a particular target, along

with missile production facilities ‘‘It

would essentially turn the lights out for

Assad,’’ said one former official familiar

with the planning

For President Obama, who has been

adamantly opposed to direct,

boots-on-the-ground intervention in a worsening

crisis in Syria, cyberweapons would

seem to be an obvious, cost,

low-casualty alternative But while he was

briefed on variants of the plans — most

of which were part of traditional strikes

as well — he turned them down

Syria was not a place where he saw

the strategic value in American

inter-vention, and even covert cyberattacks

— of the kind he had ordered against

Iran during the first two years of his

presidency — involved range of risks

The strategic considerations that

have stopped Mr Obama from reaching

for offensive cyberweapons his

admin-istration has spent billions helping

de-velop — in large part in hopes that they

can help avoid the need for more

tradi-tional military attacks — reflects the

larger concerns about a new and

un-tested form of warfare

Just as the introduction of the

air-plane changed the nature of warfare in

World War I a century ago, the Obama

administration has been engaged in a

largely secret, behind-the-scenes

de-bate about whether cyberweapons can

be deployed as an ordinary weapon, a

Egypt’s government dissolved

The surprise move by the interim prime

minister, Hazem el-Beblaw, could be

intended to pave the way for the

country’s military chief to leave his post

Court weighs power of precedent

In recent cases, the United States

Supreme Court has been asked to

overrule important precedents and will

soon review a case on a 1988 securities

Back taxes paid over soccer transfer

The Barcelona club paid 13.5 millioneuros in hopes of settling a dispute over

Renzi outlines priorities for Italy

Addressing Parliament, Prime Minister

Matteo Renzi pledged to push through

political and electoral reforms, and to

Strategic considerations

reflect larger concerns

on new type of warfare

CYBERATTACK, PAGE 8

BULENT KILIC/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

A sense of workaday calm seemed to return to Kiev, Ukraine, on Monday, even as barricades still surrounded the main protest sites, including Independence Square, above.

ALESSANDRO GRASSANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Bronze beauty A statue based on one by Leonardo da Vinci guards a Milan

They have argued over whether an pendent Scotland could retain the Britishpound as its currency They have sparredover whether Scotland would remain inthe European Union if it votes in Septem-ber to leave the United Kingdom And onMonday, two of the most prominent ad-vocates of the arguments for and againstScottish independence — Alex Salmond,

inde-Scotland’s first minister, and DavidCameron, the British prime minister —turned to another crucial economic issue

at stake in the battle: the future of thestill-substantial oil and gas reserves inthe North Sea

In a staged but striking symbol of theirdifferences, Mr Cameron brought theBritish government’s cabinet to Aber-deen, a once gritty port that is now thewealthy hub of North Sea oil and gas,only the second time in 90 years the gov-ernment had met in Scotland He an-nounced a new investment to support theenergy industry and asserted that Brit-ain’s economic size and clout are vital tokeeping the profits flowing from oil andgas in the decades to come

‘‘The broad shoulders of one of the top

10 economies in the world has really got

behind this industry,’’ he said of NorthSea oil and gas, adding that being part ofBritain also reduces the impact of sud-den drops in energy prices

In nearby Portlethen, Mr Salmondmet separately with the Scottish gov-ernment’s cabinet ministers He sug-gested that an independent Scotlandcould follow the example of Norwaywhich has built a large sovereign wealthfund from its natural resources

He also highlighted his knowledge ofthe energy industry, noting that he was

an oil analyst in the 1980s when Mr

Cameron was still at Eton, the elite lish school — a continuation of politicalattacks on Mr Cameron as elitist andout of touch with average voters

Eng-With a referendum on Scottish

inde-SCOTLAND, PAGE 4

Future of the reserves

in North Sea is Britain’s concern as vote nears

IN THIS ISSUE

No 40,731 Business 16 Crossword 15 Culture 12 Opinion 6 Sports 14 Style 9

Liens, the new Chaumet watch

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2 | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES .page two

Find a retrospective of news from 1887 to

2013 in The International Herald Tribune

atiht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com

See what readers are talking about and

leave your own comments atinyt.com

1889 Train Robbery in California

As train No 17 left Pixley, near Delano,

California, last evening [Feb 24], five

men boarded it Two went on the engine

and covered the engineer with revolvers

About two miles from the station the train

was brought to a stop The other three

men entered the express car and ordered

the messenger to open the box, and

dy-namite bombs were exploded under the

car In the excitement several passengers

ran towards the front of the train Two of

them were shot — E S Bentley, of

Mo-desto, who is probably fatally wounded,

and Charles Gabert, of Poso, who was

killed instantly The amount secured by

the robbers is unknown

1964 ‘Guns Are Not Butter’

MOSCOW Soviet Premier Nikita S

Khrushchev says that if it were not for

heavy military spending, the Soviet

people could have the world’s highest

living standard ‘‘Rockets and guns are

not butter, meat, milk, bread or kasha

(buckwheat),’’ Mr Khrushchev said in a

preface to a collection of his foreign

policy statements, soon to be published

in Italy ‘‘Were it not for the necessity of

increasing the might of our armed forces

we could have steeply raised the living

standard of our people and in the near

future made it the highest in the world.’’

horn Museum and Sculpture Garden,part of the Smithsonian Institution inWashington; the Studio Museum in Har-lem; the Metropolitan Museum of Artand the Museum of Modern Art in NewYork; and the Tate Modern in London

His work will be shown this year aspart of the Whitney Biennial, which runsfrom March 7 to May 25 at the museum

‘‘Terry always saw object and soundand movement and words and images all

as the material for his art,’’ ThelmaGolden, the director and chief curator ofthe Studio Museum in Harlem, said in aninterview on Friday ‘‘He was so deeplyinspired by aesthetics, philosophy, spir-ituality, music, history and culture, and

he had such a fertile and generativemind, that he was always able to movebetween many different ideas and create

a lot of space and meaning in a work.’’

To his sculpture, Mr Adkins sought tobring the fleeting impermanence of mu-sic, creating haunting assemblages offound objects — wood, cloth, coathangers, spare parts from junkyards —that evoked vanished histories

To his improvisational, jazz-inflectedmusic, he brought the muscular physic-ality of sculpture, forging immense, curi-ous instruments from assorted materi-

BY MARGALIT FOX

Terry Adkins, a conceptual artist whose

work married the quicksilver

evanes-cence of music to the solid permanence

of sculpture, died on Feb 8 at his home

in Brooklyn He was 60

The cause was heart failure, his

deal-er Jeanne Greenbdeal-erg Rohatyn said

A sculptor and saxophonist, Mr

Adkins was at his death a professor of

fine arts at the University of

Pennsyl-vania School of Design His

genre-blur-ring pieces, which might combine visual

art, spoken-word performance, video

and live music in a single installation,

had lately made him ‘‘a newly minted

breakaway star’’ on the international

art scene, as The New York Times

de-scribed him in December

Mr Adkins’s work — cerebral yet

vis-cerally evocative, unabashedly

Mod-ernist yet demonstrably rooted in

Afri-can traditions — has been exhibited at

museums and galleries worldwide,

in-cluding the Whitney Museum of

Ameri-can Art in New York

His art is in the collections of the

Hirsh-als Many were playable, including a set

of 18-foot horns he called arkaphones

The sculpture and the music weremeant to be experienced in tandem, andwith his band, the Lone Wolf RecitalCorps, Mr Adkins staged multimediaperformance pieces that fused the visu-

al and the aural Many were homages topathbreaking figures in African-Ameri-can history, among them the abolitionistJohn Brown, the Rev Dr Martin LutherKing Jr., and the musicians BessieSmith, John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix

‘‘Meteor Stream: Recital in FourDominions,’’ for instance, was one of acycle of works in which Mr Adkinshonored Brown In that piece, per-

Academy in Rome, he explored Brown’sstoried past through an amalgam of mu-sic, sculpture, video, drawing and read-ings from Brown’s own writings

In an installation devoted to Hendrix,

Mr Adkins homed in on lesser-known pects of his subject’s personal history, in-cluding his service in the early 1960s as aparatrooper in the Army’s 101st AirborneDivision To research a piece on the life ofthe African-American explorer MatthewHenson, who accompanied Robert Peary

as-on several expeditias-ons, including the as-one

Peary said reached the North Pole in

1909, Mr Adkins traveled to the Arctic toexperience Henson’s milieu firsthand

At its core, all of Mr Adkins’s workwas about how the past suffuses thepresent and vice versa

Terry Roger Adkins was born inWashington on May 9, 1953, into a music-

al household His father, Robert, a

teach-er, sang and played the organ; his

moth-er, the former Doris Jackson, a nurse,was an amateur clarinetist and pianist

As a young man, Mr Adkins planned

to be a musician, but in college he foundhimself drawn increasingly to visual art

He earned a bachelor’s in printmakingfrom Fisk University in Nashville, fol-lowed by a master’s in the field fromIllinois State University and a master offine arts degree in sculpture from theUniversity of Kentucky

Mr Adkins, who also maintained ahome in Philadelphia, is survived by hiswife, Merele Williams-Adkins, whom hemarried in 1992, along with a son anddaughter

His work was the subject of a majorretrospective in 2012 at the FrancesYoung Tang Teaching Museum and ArtGallery at Skidmore College in SaratogaSprings, N.Y It has also been featured atP.S 1 Contemporary Art Center (nowMoMA PS1) in Queens, the LedisFlamGallery in Brooklyn and elsewhere In

danaroc.com, Mr Adkins spoke of his sire to reconcile the temporal imperat-ives of music with the spatial ones of art

de-‘‘My quest has been to find a way tomake music as physical as sculpturemight be, and sculpture as ethereal asmusic is,’’ he said ‘‘It’s kind of challen-ging to make both of those pursuits dowhat they are normally not able to do.’’

TOM SNELGROVE

Terry Adkins in the Arctic last year, searching the explorer Matthew Henson.

re-The aftermath in Ukraine

Russia is certainly a menace to the

fledgling reborn democracy that Ukraine,

with mind boggling speed, has just

created But at least as much of a danger

lies in the possibility that the established

democracies of the E.U and the U.S will

not do enough to support this new

Ukrainian government If they don’t follow

up to help these people determine their

own fate and establish true sovereignty,

they will have turned their backs on the

democratic principles they espouse

GREG ZSIDISIN, SOUTH CAROLINA

It is alleged that when Putin met G W Bush

in Maine, he told Bush that the greatest

tragedy was the breakup of the Soviet

Union Putin is an unredeemed imperialist

who still dreams of a Russia with worldwide

influence It’s time that Russia accede to

the new realism of its true status in the

world and act accordingly The United

States should learn the same lesson

GEORGE DEANE, RIVERDALE, N.Y.

If the West does not help Ukraine recover

economically, Putin will come back and

restore his influence in Ukraine

Apparently, the U.S and Europe expect

that the I.M.F will restore Ukraine’s

economy But while the I.M.F.’s policies

might work in a functioning country, as it is

being proved in Greece, the I.M.F can

create so much suffering and pain that

Putin, I suspect, is simply going to wait and

see The I.M.F and our deficit hawks might

very well return Ukraine to him

YOANDEL, BOSTON

Putin has a lot of leverage to destabilize

Ukraine He can foster an ethnic conflict;

he can reduce the energy supply and

trigger economic misery So far, the Maidan

was one battle, and the score goes to the

people of Ukraine, but the war isn’t over

Now it’s up for providing the resources

MATHIAS WEITZ, FRANKFURT

Celestine BohlenLET TER FROM EUROPE

SCHWYZ, SWITZERLAND Two weeksago, voters here vented their frustra-tion at the changes happening aroundthem and voted overwhelmingly to put

a stop to mass immigration

At 63.1 percent, the ‘‘yes’’ vote fromSchwyz — one of the three foundingcantons of the original 13th-centurySwiss Confederation — was one of thehighest in Switzerland, in striking con-trast to the next-door urban canton ofZurich, where only 47.3 percent ofvoters supported the initiative, whosevictory nationwide shook up Europe.Evidently, the good citizens ofSchwyz — all 150,000 of them — areparticularly upset about the steady in-flux of foreigners who’ve been flocking

to their region of lakes and mountains.For the most part, these are not poorimmigrants from different continentsand cultures, whose presence elsewhere

in Europe has roiled a spreading wing reaction In Schwyz, the new ar-rivals — about 2,000 to 3,000 a year —

right-are mostly well-off,well-educated Euro-peans, an estimated

40 percent of themGerman, who havecome to take special-ized jobs the Swisslabor force can’t fill

An inflow of man-speaking spe-cialists coming to work in a German-speaking region of Switzerland, whereunemployment is 1.3 percent, hardlyseems justification for populist outrage.Yet, according to Kurt Zibung, amember of Schwyz’s governing counciland head of its economic department,people here voted on Feb 9 ‘‘with theirheart and their feelings.’’

Ger-‘‘We have a very conservative area,’’explained Mr Zibung, member of apolitical party that opposed the refer-endum ‘‘The vote was not against theforeigners People are just afraid thatthey will destroy our culture.’’

The Feb 9 referendum — narrowlyapproved by 50.3 percent of Swissvoters — sent shock waves acrossEurope, throwing into question inter-locking treaties between the EuropeanUnion and Switzerland, a nonmember,

in effect since 2002 One allows citizens

of European Union countries to work inSwitzerland, and vice versa Yet, mostexperts attribute Switzerland’s recenteconomic boom to the package dealwith the Union that opened the door toEuropean job seekers

‘‘We’ve never been as rich as we arenow,’’ said Peter Fischer, economics ed-itor at Neue Zürcher Zeitung, an author-itative economic newspaper ‘‘We have

an open, healthy economy for which,yes, it is hard to find qualified people.’’The vote on Feb 9 revealed a dividedcountry, with one half looking outwardand the other half clinging to nostalgicnotions defined by cows, Alps and pic-ture-postcard villages ‘‘In the last twodecades, Switzerland has changed, andthere is now a gap between identityand reality,’’ Mr Fischer said

The fact is Switzerland has beenfaced recently with the daunting task

of absorbing 80,000 foreigners a year, alot for a country of eight million Today,more than 20 percent of Swiss resi-dents are foreigners, of which 85 per-cent are European, with Germans andPortuguese the largest groups

In a place like Schwyz, this puts astrain on the local population Accord-ing to Mr Zibung, housing prices havedoubled, traffic has increased, andyoung families are moving out

In the village of Muotatal, the vative epicenter of the canton, one voter

conser-— a music teacher who declined to giveher name — said she had voted for theimmigration referendum without fullyunderstanding its consequences

‘‘It was just getting to be too much,’’she said ‘‘When the Swiss feel over-whelmed, we can’t manage.’’

Josef Gwerder, a shop owner inMuotatal, said that about 10 of the 23apartments in his building were occu-pied by Austrians or Germans, many ofthem working in the local hospital orretirement homes

Mr Gwerder voted against the tive, but he said many of his neighborsfelt disregarded by their own govern-ment and by extension, by the EuropeanUnion ‘‘Voting ‘yes’ was another way ofvoting ‘no’ to what’s going on,’’ he said.This sense of powerlessness is a sen-sitive subject in a country that pridesitself on a tradition of direct democracy

initia-‘‘We are always a little bit afraid thatother people are giving us rules that wedon’t accept,’’ Mr Zibung explained

EMAIL:pagetwo@nytimes.com

Swiss vote reflected one canton’s fear

PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILLIAM WIDMER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

STALLED REVIVAL New Orleans has come a long way since the floodwa- ters subsided after Hurricane Katrina, which struck in Au- gust 2005 But in parts of the city like New Orleans East,

in the photos above, the slow pace of recovery has provoked outspoken frustration Now that Detroit is con- sidering shrinking its size as a result of economic hardship,

it faces similar

chal-lenges as those of New Orleans, where Harvey Bender, left, helped defeat a downsizing plan proposed by an urban planning committee The scale of the two cities and the nature of their calamities differ, but Detroit may be able learn from New Or- leans, where a fix that seemed rational

to some was cast aside for a slower, and fairer, way forward.nytimes.

com/us

A lesson from New Orleans

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 | 3

INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES

With his ally gone, Putin waits for Ukraine’s next move

MOSCOW

BY STEVEN LEE MYERS

The sudden collapse of the

Kremlin-backed government in Ukraine has for

now delivered a profound setback to

President Vladimir V Putin’s strategy

to deepen political and economic ties

with the country and thus keep it from

embracing Europe

Even as Russia celebrates the closing

of Olympic Games that defied some dire

expectations, Mr Putin now faces the

task of reasserting Russia’s influence in

a country that it considers a fraternal

ally, one with deep cultural, social and

political connections that bind it to

Mos-cow’s orbit regardless of its new

gov-ernment

Russia still has enormous leverage

and close allies in Ukraine, particularly

in the east and on the Crimean

Penin-sula, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet

and a sizable ethnic Russian population

that views the leaders of the political

up-rising that toppled President Viktor F

Yanukovych with disdain

That has raised fears that Russia

would use the disenchanted populations

there as a pretext to intervene to

re-verse Ukraine’s new trajectory — even

militarily, as the Kremlin did in two

eth-nic enclaves in 2008 in another former

Soviet republic, Georgia

The fears have been so palpable —and the subject of endless speculation inUkraine and here in Russia — that Pres-ident Obama’s national security ad-viser, Susan E Rice, warned in a televi-sion interview on Sunday that it ‘‘would

be a grave mistake’’ for Russia to useforce ‘‘It’s in nobody’s interest to see vi-olence return and the situation esca-late,’’ Ms Rice said on NBC’s ‘‘Meet thePress.’’

How exactly Russia will respond mains to be seen, but the turmoil is cer-tain to further strain relations withEurope and the United States, which of-ficials here have denounced as med-dling in Ukraine at the expense of Rus-sia’s vital interests At the same time,the United States and Europe have ac-cused Russia of trying to impose its willthere

re-Mr Putin’s envoy refused to sign theagreement mediated on Friday by threeEuropean foreign ministers to end twodays of carnage in the Ukrainian capit-

al, Kiev, only to have the agreementovertaken by a political upheaval thatthreatens to undercut Russia’s influ-ence over any new government

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S

Peskov, complained on Sunday thatwhile Mr Yanukovych had honored theterms of the agreement — which called

for new elections and a return of tutional powers to the Parliament — hispolitical opponents had not Instead, theParliament has effectively seized powerand is now rushing through an series ofvotes that have provoked rage amongRussian lawmakers and commentators

consti-‘‘It’s a confusing situation,’’ Mr

Peskov said in a telephone interviewfrom Sochi, where Mr Putin attendedthe closing ceremony of the OlympicGames ‘‘We have to figure out what weare facing there Is it a coup or what?’’

Mr Putin has not yet made any publicstatements about the latest events, as isoften the case when he is confronted byunexpected challenges or crises ‘‘Let’swait and see,’’ Mr Peskov said

Mr Putin and Mr Yanukovych havespoken several times in recent weeks todiscuss the situation, but Mr Peskovsaid he did not know whether they hadspoken since Saturday, when Mr Ya-nukovych’s legitimacy evaporated and

he fled Kiev

It is clear that Mr Putin has followedthe crisis intently, even as he attended tothe Olympic festivities that he clearlyhas relished as a symbol of a new Russia

On Friday he met with his national rity advisers and a day later dispatchedtwo Russian lawmakers to a regionalparty congress in eastern Ukraine thathad been called to rally opposition to the

secu-new political authorities in Kiev

Vladimir Lukin, the envoy Mr Putinsent to Kiev at Mr Yanukovych’s re-quest during the negotiations with theEuropeans, returned to Moscow andcriticized the European foreign minis-ters as siding with ‘‘the nationalist-rev-olutionary terrorist Maidan,’’ referring

to the square that has been the nucleus

of the protests, and not the ‘‘legitimategovernment that they recognized.’’

Only hours before the closing

ceremo-ny in Sochi, Mr Putin spoke by phone with Chancellor Angela Merkel ofGermany The Kremlin said in a state-ment only that they discussed the situ-ation in Ukraine, but Germany’s foreignoffice went further, saying that the twoleaders agreed that ‘‘the territorial in-tegrity of Ukraine must be preserved.’’

tele-Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V

Lavrov, spoke with Secretary of StateJohn Kerry for a second time in twodays, and Russia later announced that ithad recalled its ambassador in Kiev be-cause of ‘‘the deteriorating situation’’ inthe country The State Department re-leased a statement saying that Mr

Kerry expressed support for the votes

in Ukraine’s Parliament and called onRussia to support the transition now un-derway

Patrick Reevell contributed reporting.

PETER PARKS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

President Vladimir V Putin at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

He followed the crisis in Ukraine intently, even as he attended to the Olympic festivities.

Ukraine pursues ex-leader

for deaths of protesters

UKRAINE, FROM PAGE 1

traffic A sense of workaday calm

seemed to return to the city, even as

bar-ricades still surrounded the main

protest sites

But it was the chase for Mr

Ya-nukovych that gripped the nation

The acting interior minister, Arsen

Avakov, who was appointed by

Parlia-ment on Saturday, wrote on his

Face-book page that he was personally

in-volved in the manhunt, perhaps in

hopes that someone would find the

fu-gitive, much as Iraqis and United States

forces hunted for Saddam Hussein in

2003, or Libyans for Col Muammar

el-Qaddafi nine years later

Apparently fearing their fate — Mr

Hussein was hung after a peremptory

tri-al, Colonel Qaddafi shot by opponents

while on the run — Mr Yanukovych fled

Kiev on Friday night by helicopter

Mr Avakov said that he had traveled

to the Crimean city of Sevastopol on

Sunday night hoping to intercept Mr

Yanukovych at the airport there, but

that the deposed president had not

turned up as expected He said Mr

Ya-nukovych had then fled in an unknown

direction, traveling by car, and with a

di-minished security detail

As Mr Yanukovych’s public persona

morphed from feared strongman to

de-tested fugitive, any last vestiges of

sup-port for him seemed to vanish even in the

pro-Russia eastern and southern parts

of the country, which had historically

provided his base of political support

Mr Yanukovych’s own Party of

Re-gions, which had supported him until

lawmakers began defecting over last

week’s mass killings in Kiev, issued a

statement on Sunday saying the country

had been deceived, robbed and

be-trayed ‘‘All responsibility for this lies

with Yanukovych,’’ the party wrote ‘‘We

condemn the flight and cowardice of

Ya-nukovych We condemn the betrayal.’’

Mr Yanukovych and his family were

known to have accumulated vast wealth

during his time in office, and he was

be-lieved to have access to at least one yacht

that might ferry him out of Ukraine

On Facebook, Mr Avako, the acting

abandoning his residence near the ital, Mr Yanukovych had flown by heli-copter to Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine,where he prepared a video statement onSaturday declaring that he remainedpresident Then he went to the airport inDonetsk, where he and several compan-ions sought to flee the country on Falconairplanes

cap-Border police officers at the airportprevented the planes from flying, Mr

Avakov said, and Mr Yanukovych thendeparted in a motorcade for the south

After learning that Parliament hadvoted to strip him of power, Mr Ya-nukovych began avoiding governmentresidences, including a presidentialcountry house in Crimea where he hadbeen expected to seek shelter

In addition to the murder charges,there have been calls for the prosecution

charges after the discovery of ing trappings of wealth at his abandonedpresidential residence in a national parkoutside of Kiev Throughout the week-end, curious and angry members of thepublic streamed to the compound togawk at the collections of expensivemodern and antique cars, the privatezoo and other gauche accouterments

astonish-As journalists scoured the compound,sorting through a trove of documentsthat had been partly burned or dumped

in a river, the local news media began porting allegations of embezzlement andcorruption, and new details about Mr

re-Yanukovych’s personal life emerged

The Kyiv Post, a newspaper here, saidthat it had found evidence that Mr Ya-nukovych, 63, was living at the resi-dence with a 39-year-old girlfriend andher 12-year-old daughter from a priorrelationship Mr Yanukovych has beenmarried for 42 years, but his wife, Lyud-mila, has long lived in Donetsk and typ-ically has not performed the duties offirst lady

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Moscow.

Tough antigay bill in Uganda

is signed into law by president

LONDON

BY ALAN COWELL

Brushing aside Western threats and

outrage, President Yoweri Museveni of

Africa’s antigay movement on Monday

by signing into law a bill imposing harsh

sentences for homosexual acts,

includ-ing life imprisonment in some cases,

ac-cording to government officials

The move came weeks after Mr

Museveni’s counterpart in Nigeria,

Goodluck Jonathan, took similar steps,

threatening offenders with 14-year

pris-on terms The Ugandan law seemed

even tougher, threatening life terms on

charges such as ‘‘aggravated

homo-sexuality,’’ referring to homosexual acts

with a minor, a disabled person or

someone infected with H.I.V

Alluding to Western pressure to reject

the bill, Mr Museveni said, according to

The Associated Press: ‘‘We Africans

never seek to impose our view on

oth-ers If only they could let us alone.’’

He signed the legislation at his official

residence at Entebbe, near the capital,

Kampala, in front of government

offi-cials, journalists and a team of Ugandan

scientists who had said they found no

ge-netic basis for homosexuality — a

conclu-sion that Mr Museveni cited in support of

the new law, The A.P said

While Western gay-rights ers have accused American evangelicalChristian groups of promoting antigaysentiment in Uganda, Mr Museveni ac-cused ‘‘arrogant and careless Westerngroups’’ of seeking to draw Ugandanchildren into homosexuality

campaign-The Ugandan government man, Ofwono Opondo, said Mr Musev-eni wanted to sign the bill ‘‘with the fullwitness of the international media todemonstrate Uganda’s independence inthe face of Western pressure and pro-vocation.’’ Mr Opondo announced onTwitter that Mr Museveni had signedthe bill, which drew condemnation fromrights groups and Ugandan activists

spokes-‘‘It’s a gloomy day, not just for the gaycommunity in Uganda but for allUgandans who care about human rights,because this law will affect everybody,’’

Julian Peppe Onziema, an advocate forgay rights in Uganda, told Reuters

The Ugandan Parliament approvedthe law in December, saying it wasaimed ‘‘at strengthening the nation’scapacity to deal with emerging internaland external threats to the traditionalheterosexual family.’’

Gay-rights activists in Uganda havevowed to oppose the law, which couldjeopardize hundreds of millions of dol-lars in crucial Western aid

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world news europe africa

Oil at heart of Scots’ independence drive

SCOTLAND, FROM PAGE 1

SCOTT HEPPELL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A pub in Edinburgh over the weekend Most opinion polls show that a majority of people

in Scotland want it to remain part of Britain, though the gap may be narrowing.

pendence due in September, Mr

Camer-on has ratiCamer-oned his visits to Scotlandknowing that, as an Englishman leading

a Conservative Party that is unpopularwith Scots, he is not the most effectiveadvocate for the anti-independencecampaign But at stake in September’svote is the future of the United Kingdom,its place on the world stage and the repu-tation of Mr Cameron, who does notwant to become the prime minister whopresided over the breakup of Britain

Because of its wider ramifications thereferendum is being watched in other re-gions in Europe with aspirations for in-dependence, such as Catalonia, andquestions have been raised over whetherScotland would remain in the EuropeanUnion and what currency it would use

Most opinion polls show the majority

of Scots want to stay part of Britain,though the gap may be narrowing

Though he appealed to sentiment inone recent speech, Mr Cameron hopesthat hard-headed economics will provedecisive in September’s poll, in whichthose age at least 16 and who live inScotland can participate

Mr Cameron’s message on Mondayboiled down to the idea that Britaincould better manage the remainingNorth Sea oil and gas reserves The Brit-ish government on Monday announced

a 100 million pound, or $166 million, vestment in a gas-fired carbon captureand storage facility at Peterhead It alsopromised a new energy regulator and achange so that licenses for exploitationwould be awarded in order to maximizerecovery of remaining energy supplies

in-But supporters of Scottish dence say that resources have beenpoorly managed in London, and Mr Sal-mond told the BBC that there had been

indepen-16 tax changes affecting the industry in

10 years and that 14 different ministershad been in charge of policy in 17 years

A day of announcements began with

Mr Cameron visiting an oil rig where heappeared for TV cameras in all-weatherjacket and safety helmet He did not meet

Mr Salmond let alone hold the face debate Mr Salmond has demanded

face-to-Both men know that the economy is acrucial battleground and Scots havebeen warned by the three main Britishpolitical parties that they would lose thepound as their currency if they opt forindependence Mr Salmond disputesthat and has accused his critics of ‘‘bul-lying.’’ He also argues that an independ-ent Scotland would automatically re-main a member of the European Union

— though that assertion has been ted by Jose Manuel Barroso, president

rejec-of the European Commission, the utive of the 28-nation bloc

exec-Though that may alarm voters, some

pollsters believe that such warningsmay backfire by making the ‘‘no’’ cam-paign seem negative

Most of Britain’s remaining oil andgas resources lie off the northern part ofthe country in the North Sea or the Shet-land Islands Lindsay Wexelstein, ananalyst at Wood Mackenzie, an Edin-burgh market research firm, estimatesthat 85 percent of Britain’s remaining oiland gas lies under Scottish waters.One Scottish government study esti-mates that Scotland would have beenentitled to 94 percent of the oil and gastax receipts of about 11 billion poundsfor the 2011 and 2012 fiscal year.While an estimated 42 billion barrels,

a very large amount, has already beenproduced, there may still be as much as

24 billion barrels left, which could beworth more than $2 trillion

Hundreds of their supportersgathered outside the courthouse to con-demn the trial and the Kremlin’s crack-down on opposition The police de-tained about 200 of them, accusingthem of violating public order Amongthose detained were two members ofthe punk protest band Pussy Riot whohad spent nearly two years in prison aspunishment for their own anti-Putinprotest

The defendants sentenced on day were among 28 people rounded upafter the protest on May 6, 2012, on theeve of Mr Putin’s inauguration for athird presidential term The rallyturned violent after the police restric-ted access to Bolotnaya Square, acrossthe river from the Kremlin, where theprotesters had permission to gather.The eight defendants were found guiltylast week, but sentencing was post-

In a report on obesity levels in 53countries, the agency, an arm of theUnited Nations, said as much as 27 per-cent of 13-year-olds and 33 percent of 11-year-olds were overweight Obesityrates among 11-year-old boys and girlswere highest in Greece, Portugal, Ire-land and Spain, the report found

‘‘Our perception of what is normalhas shifted; being overweight is nowmore common than unusual We mustnot let another generation grow up withobesity as the new norm,’’ said Zsuz-sanna Jakab, regional director for theagency.(REUTERS)

In Ukraine, fear of new order filled with old faces

KIEV, FROM PAGE 1

President Vladimir V Putin of Russia In

2009, as prime minister, Ms

Tymoshen-ko engineered a natural gas deal with

the Kremlin that helped Ukraine avoid a

catastrophic energy shortage but left

the country paying an exorbitant price

for its natural gas supplies

Ms Tymoshenko, who was

im-prisoned by Mr Yanukovych after

los-ing the 2010 presidential election, had

been put forward as one of three

candi-dates for the post of prime minister, but

she issued a statement on Sunday

say-ing she had not been consulted on it and

did not want to be considered for the

po-sition Still, it left open the possibility

that she will run for president

‘‘The problem is that the old forces

are trying to come back to take their old

chairs,’’ said Vasily Kuak, a shipping

broker who stood outside the

Parlia-ment building waving a sign that read,

‘‘Revolution, Not a Court Coup!’’

In Kiev, at least, nobody is publicly

challenging the ouster of Mr

Ya-nukovych and his government,

al-though Russian-speaking regions in the

east of the country are far from

enthusi-astic about a new order they fear could

veer toward hard-line nationalist forces

One of the first acts of Parliament after

the flight of Mr Yanukovych, himself

from eastern Ukraine, was to nullify a

law that provided for the use of Russian

as a second official language

But even the Party of Regions, which

is particularly strong in the east, has

now thrown its lot in with the forces of

change, denouncing the former

presi-dent as it scrambles to keep itself

relev-ant and avoid being punished for its

former loyalties

All the same, the sight of luxury cars’

dropping off members of Parliament at

the legislature, a grand colonnaded

building now guarded by ‘‘self-defense’’

units that previously battled

govern-ment forces around Independence

Square, has stirred dismay and anger

‘‘Again we see Mercedes and BMWs

bringing deputies who are supposed to

represent the people,’’ said Mr Kuak,

the shipping broker ‘‘We don’t want to

see these people again We want to see

people from the square, from the

revolu-tion.’’

But as with any revolution, the

ques-tion of who should represent the

turbu-lent forces that created it is a difficult one

The heroes are the squads of helmeted

young men with clubs who risked their

lives to hold back government forces as

they tried early last week to seize

Inde-SERGEY PONOMAREV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mourners in Kiev on Monday at Independence Square, the main focal point of demonstrations against the government of Viktor F Yanukovych and the site of much deadly violence.

pendence Square, known as Maidan Thecenter of Kiev is now scattered withshrines to those who died, each one piledwith flowers left by grateful residents

‘‘We need people from Maidan, notpeople like you,’’ an angry womanscreamed as Volodymyr Lytvyn, aformer speaker of the Parliament with areputation for shifting with the wind, leftthe legislature As he tried to answerquestions from the crowd, protected bytwo bodyguards and a solid wrought ironfence, a cry went up clamoring for ‘‘lus-tration of everybody,’’ a term usually as-sociated with the purge of officials and

politicians suspected of serving nist regimes before the revolutions of

Commu-1989 across Eastern and Central Europe

Peppered with angry demands thatParliament raise pensions, reopenclosed hospitals and find work for thejobless, Mr Lytvyn struggled to re-spond but essentially called for pa-tience, a virtue that is likely to be inshort supply if the interim governmentdoes not manage to convince Ukraini-ans that people it is working to improvetheir lives, not line its own pockets

Mr Turchynov, the speaker and tively Ukraine’s interim president until

effec-elections, is receiving credit for swiftlyshepherding legislation through Parlia-ment to establish the legal basis for apost-Yanukovych order But few see him

as representing the revolution

‘‘He knows parliamentary routinesbut he does not have the support of thepeople,’’ said Nikita Kornavalov, a 29-year-old teacher who left a job in Nor-way to support what he hopes will be anew era free of the corruption and bru-tality that have marred Ukraine sinceindependence in 1991

But even many of those who want adecisive break with a political class seen

as corrupt and self-serving edge that the heroes of the street mightnot make the best rulers One of themost prominent leaders of the streetforces is Dymtro Yarosh, the head ofRight Sector, a coalition of previouslyfringe nationalist groups But his eleva-tion to government would terrify manyRussian-speaking Ukrainians in theeast and accelerate the risk of a danger-ous break-up

acknowl-‘‘Yarosh would be good in the stagesecurity service or the police,’’ said Ms

Nikanchuk, the economist, ‘‘but not as aminister.’’

Ailing Algerian president will run for a 4th term

TRIPOLI, LIBYA

BY CARLOTTA GALL

Algerian officials have announced thatthe country’s ailing president, Ab-delaziz Bouteflika, who has been largelyincapacitated since a stroke last year,intends to run for a fourth term in anelection scheduled for April 17

The announcement on Sunday endedmonths of speculation about the leader-ship of Algeria, one of the most impor-tant countries in North Africa, a region

in upheaval as it deals with politicalchanges inspired by the Arab Spring aswell as the spread of terrorism

Mr Bouteflika, 76, has governed ria for 15 years, but he has not appeared

Alge-in public sAlge-ince spendAlge-ing three months Alge-in

a French hospital after a stroke lastApril His cabinet ministers, and occa-sional visitors, say his mind is unaf-fected and his health is improving, but

he has not addressed the country in 18months and has only been shown onstate television sitting down

Nevertheless, he has shown a tenacityduring his convalescence, replacing anumber of cabinet ministers and region-

al officials, even removing high-levelmembers of the powerful intelligenceservice Analysts have interpreted themoves as an effort to consolidate sup-port for his re-election campaign

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal nounced Mr Bouteflika’s candidacy at anews conference in the city of Oran on

an-Sunday, The Associated Press reported.Since a devastating civil war in the1990s, Algeria has been guided by atightly controlled state, dominated by thearmy and intelligence forces Politicalparties and social movements are givenlimited freedom to operate, and socialtensions are defused by a mixture of po-lice control and payments from the state.Yet as controls over the printed newsmedia have loosened and politicalparties have been allowed to operate,criticism has grown against the presi-dent and his aging circle, a generation ofleaders who have ruled Algeria since itwon independence from France in 1962.Several independent candidates haveannounced their intention to run for pres-ident, but few expect the vote to be fair

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Trang 5

Milan looks at a gift horse and wonders what to do with it

MILAN

BY ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Thousands of years after the citizens of

Troy learned about the complications

posed by outsize equine sculptures, the

modern residents of Milan find

them-selves embroiled, again, in a debate

about how to make the most of a gift

horse: a colossal bronze steed

presen-ted by a group of American donors

Inspired by an uncompleted statue

de-signed by Leonardo da Vinci (the sole

clay cast was destroyed in 1499), the

stal-lion arrived in Milan in 1999, by way of a

foundry in Beacon, N.Y., and was

posi-tioned in a pedestrian piazza at the city’s

racetrack in the San Siro district

For its admirers, installing the

sculp-ture in a site where it gets few visitors

aside from bettors — whose interest in

static horses is understandably limited

— has been tantamount to putting it out

to pasture

Now, with the opening of the World

Exposition in Milan less than 15 months

away, calls have intensified to move the

horse to a more visible position and even

to make it a symbol of the city during the

fair, which officials hope will draw

mil-lions of visitors to the Lombardy capital

The bronze horse ‘‘would be a

land-mark,’’ a cultural monument akin to the

Statue of Liberty, said Carlo Orlandini,

president of the Committee for the

Great Horse, a volunteer group that has

lobbied for years to transfer the steed to

a more decorous post

‘‘We need to persuade people that the

current solution is not dignified and

doesn’t correspond to the spirit in which

the gift was given,’’ said Mr Orlandini,

whose group is encouraging the public

debate on the statue, which was

broached in recent weeks by the

Corri-ere della Sera, the Milan daily

Conceived nearly four decades ago by

a retired airline pilot, Charles C Dent, of

Allentown, Pa., as a contemporary

sub-stitute for Leonardo’s original, the

bronze statue was intended as a gift

from the American people to their

Itali-an counterparts ‘‘to honor Leonardo da

Vinci and Italian Renaissance,’’ a

plaque on the pedestal explains

Before he died in 1994, Mr Dent

in-volved dozens of donors to raise more

than $6.5 million to cast the horse, which

stands more than seven meters, or 24

feet, tall and weighs 15 tons In 1999, it

was shipped to Milan and inaugurated

with much fanfare at the San Siro

racetrack, far from the city center

There, it has effectively ‘‘been doned,’’ Mr Orlandini said

aban-A cultural and educational park thatthe city had agreed to build at the track

as part of the donation agreement nevermaterialized, ‘‘which was a disappoint-ment,’’ said Peter C Dent, CharlesDent’s nephew, who has been on theboard of several institutions ‘‘that lookafter the interests of the horse.’’

Over the years, attempts to move thehorse have faced a variety of obstacles,including a vociferous residents’ com-mittee in San Siro that wants the statue

to stay City Hall also dragged its feet, ifonly because finding an alternative sitehas been a municipal brainteaser

Now the citywide preparations for theWorld Expo, which starts in May 2015,have offered the steed’s supportersfresh hope that it will find a new home, ifonly for the six months of the expo’s run

‘‘I say let’s talk about it,’’ said giacomo Schiavi, deputy editor of the

opened a debate in the newspaper aboutmoving the statue, which he said should

be valued as a ‘‘symbol of Milan’s coming reception’’ for all visitors

wel-Showcasing the horse could also light Leonardo’s underexplored ties toMilan, he said After all, Leonardo lived

high-in the city for nearly 20 years, leavhigh-inghis masterpiece ‘‘The Last Supper’’ asthe best-known testament of his stay

His uncompleted horse was intended tohonor a powerful 15th-century Milaneseduke, Francesco Sforza Had Frenchsoldiers occupying the city not used theclay model for target practice in 1499, itwould have been the largest bronzehorse in existence

The publicity over moving its modernsuccessor (no easy feat in itself ) wouldonce again focus attention on that his-torical link, even as the story of CharlesDent and his dream to resuscitate Le-onardo’s lost horse stands as ‘‘a symbol

of overcoming the impossible,’’ Mr

Schiavi said

But the debate on this horse’s mixedpedigree has riled some critics, de-scribed by Mr Orlandini as ‘‘purists,’’

who say that the American horse’s linkswith Leonardo’s lost work are question-able at best

When Charles Dent engaged on hisquest to rebuild Leonardo’s horse, he cre-ated a model based on the artist’s extantwritings and drawings When his claymodel was enlarged, however, it mani-fested various proportional and anatom-ical distortions, so in 1996 the backersdrafted the American sculptor Nina

Akamu to complete the project She ted from scratch, and her version, whileinspired by Leonardo, ‘‘is not intended to

star-be a recreation of his sculpture,’’ shewrote in her artist’s statement

‘‘We treat it and try to talk about it forwhat it is,’’ said Joseph AntenucciBecherer, vice president and chief cur-ator of the Sculpture Program at theFrederik Meijer Gardens & SculpturePark in Grand Rapids, Mich., which hasits own version of the statue ‘‘It is anoriginal work of art by Nina Akamu,

though it’s been difficult to get thatacross to people.’’ He called the horse ‘‘amonument to creativity.’’

Critics of the horse are quick to score its modern aesthetics, deemed to

under-be post-Leonardesque ‘‘Nina’s horse,with all due respect, would never havebeen accepted, because it’s a contem-porary work, and it’s a bit banal,’’ saidMarco Castelli, a retired businessmanand an artistic-heritage promoter whohas written a book about the horse

There is as yet no official decision on

the statue’s future Milanese officialsseem receptive to a new location withthe expo approaching But much maydepend on whether the Great Horsecommittee will pay the transportation

around $412,000

The complicated logistics of movingthe horse in one piece would involvevarious municipal departments, as itcould involve cutting tram and electric-

al cables along the route and ensuringthat roads could support the weight

One possible alternative site, CityHall says, would be in front of the SforzaCastle, in an area where the expo’s in-formation center is being built Somecity lawmakers, however, argue thatmoving the horse just for the six-monthevent is a waste of resources and money

at a moment when the city should be cusing on other priorities

fo-‘‘It would be better to keep the horse

at the racetrack,’’ said Enrico hini, a Milan Council member ‘‘Andsend expo visitors there.’’

Fedrig-Renzi outlines early priorities for Italy

ROME

BY JIM YARDLEY

AND ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

Making his first appearance before

Par-liament since becoming prime minister,

Matteo Renzi on Monday called for

law-makers to have the ‘‘courage’’ to make

‘‘radical change,’’ pledged to push

through political and electoral reforms,

and promised bold, innovative

mea-sures to revive the moribund economy

Mr Renzi, 39, the youngest prime

min-ister in Italy’s history, spoke for roughly

an hour before the Senate, which was

ex-pected to hold — and approve — a

confi-dence vote on his new government later

on Monday evening A second

confi-dence vote is scheduled Tuesday in the

lower house, where Mr Renzi’s

Demo-cratic Party holds a comfortable majority

and passage is considered a certainty

For Mr Renzi, the former mayor of

Florence who was sworn in Saturday

after forcing out a sitting prime minister

from his own party, Monday’s speech

was his first formal presentation of his

early priorities It also provided a taste

of his jaunty, confident style He seemed

to relish verbally jousting with

law-makers of the opposition Five Star

Movement and gave no hint of being

awed by a chamber in which he has

nev-er snev-erved

‘‘Our country is rusty, bogged down,’’

he said, ‘‘immobilized by an

asphyxiat-ing bureaucracy, by rules, norms and

codicils that paradoxically don’t

elimi-nate illegality.’’ He argued that the sires and ambitions of ordinary Italianshad surpassed the performance of Par-liament ‘‘It is ahead of us, and it is up to

de-us to catch up,’’ he added

Focusing foremost on the economy,

Mr Renzi outlined four immediate orities: repayment of unpaid govern-ment debts to private firms by using astate investment and loan fund; supportfor small and medium enterprisessqueezed by the credit crunch; reduc-tions in income and labor taxes; and acomprehensive reform of the justicesystem, including changes to make do-ing business easier

pri-He also pushed for passage of asweeping electoral reform package that

he has already brokered with Silvio lusconi, the opposition leader andformer prime minister That packagewould change Italy’s complex votingsystem to favor bigger parties and coali-tions and better produce working par-liamentary majorities Mr Renzi also ispushing to amend the Constitution todrastically reduce the powers of theSenate so that lawmaking authority isconcentrated in the lower house

Ber-‘‘I’d like to be the last prime minister

to ask this chamber for a vote of dence,’’ he said

confi-Perhaps that goal is one reason theassembled senators only occasionallybroke into meaningful applause MarcoDamilano, a political commentator forthe weekly magazine L’Espresso, saidthat Mr Renzi deliberately emphasizedhis role as an outsider to the politicalcircles of Rome and that the radicalchanges he promised were the samethings he has been talking about when

he politicked nationally while serving asmayor of Florence

‘‘He acted as the mayor of Italy, but

he’s now prime minister in a ring wherethe rules have remained the same,’’ Mr

Damilano said during a televised view, arguing that the blasé reception tothe speech by many senators portended

inter-a bumpy ride

‘‘They listened with a certain ness: Sure, you can come and make allthe promises you want, but you stillhave to pass through us,’’ he said

sly-Analysts say Mr Renzi is likely to facedifficulties in achieving every one of hisgoals, including his plans to rein in theentrenched managers of Italy’s publicadministration ‘‘He will face a signifi-cant opposition, by trade unions to be-gin with,’’ said Stefano Manzocchi, pro-fessor of international economics atLuiss Guido Carli University in Rome

‘‘But if he starts at the top levels, he’dhave a lot of popular support.’’

Mr Renzi has been regarded as arising star in Italian politics, especiallyafter he was elected leader of the Demo-cratic Party in a nationwide primarylast December But his ascension toprime minister came rapidly and unex-pectedly, amid growing frustrationsover the inability of former Prime Min-ister Enrico Letta and his coalition gov-ernment to approve major reforms

Earlier this month, Mr Renzi called

an emergency meeting of the cratic Party, in which members voted toremove Mr Letta, a party member, andreplace him with Mr Renzi He now

agenda with the same fractious tion of left and right parties that at timesstymied Mr Letta

coali-Mr Renzi, a skilled communicatorcomfortable with social media and at-tuned to the power of television, hascast himself as a symbol of generationalchange in Italy Last weekend, henamed a 16-person cabinet evenly di-vided between men and women — afirst in Italy — with an average age of 47

The youngest cabinet members, MariaElena Boschi and Marianna Madia, areboth 33

In his speech Monday, Mr Renzi tioned that Italy’s economic malaise isdragging down the country’s youngergeneration ‘‘who can’t afford to go outfor pizza.’’ He said gross nationalproduct had dropped sharply since 2008while youth unemployment had nearlydoubled to 41.6 percent

cau-‘‘These are the numbers of a crisis,’’

he said ‘‘They are the numbers of a lapse.’’

col-He also said that the country had anopportunity to send a signal to the rest

of Europe, assuming Parliament canpass major reforms before Italy as-sumes its rotational turn holding thepresidency of the European Union inJune

‘‘We won’t be credible if we aren’table to arrive at the European semesterwithout sorting out the things we have

to sort out,’’ he said

ALESSANDRO GRASSANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Since arriving in Milan in 1999, a statue based on one by Leonardo da Vinci has been displayed at a racetrack Some would like to see it in a more central site for the 2015 World Expo.

At ease in first address

before Senate as premier,

he vows to act boldly

TONY GENTILE/REUTERS

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi arriving on Monday to speak before the Italian Senate,

which was to hold a confidence vote on his government A second vote is due on Tuesday.

Trang 6

6 | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES .

ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER JR.,Publisher

JILL ABRAMSON, Executive Editor

DEAN BAQUET, Managing Editor

TOM BODKIN, Deputy Managing Editor

LAWRENCE INGRASSIA, Deputy Managing Editor

RICHARD W STEVENSON, Editor, Europe

PHILIP McCLELLAN, Deputy Editor, Asia

ANDREW ROSENTHAL, Editorial Page Editor

TRISH HALL, Deputy Editorial Page Editor

TERRY TANG, Deputy Editorial Page Editor

MARK THOMPSON, Chief Executive Officer, The New York Times Company

STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON, Président et Directeur de la Publication

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Michael Kassen Lee Rosenberg

WASHINGTON Like all Americans, westrongly hope that the Obama adminis-tration’s diplomatic efforts lead to thepeaceful dismantling of Iran’s nuclearweapons program To achieve this keynational security goal, we support apolicy that complements the currentnegotiations with a range of congres-sional actions that threatens greatereconomic and diplomatic pressure onthe Iranian government

Some opponents of such a policycrudely characterize its proponents aswarmongers, and fret that Tehran willwalk away from the table But the crit-ics have it backward

The approach we outline offers thebest chance to avoid military conflictwith Iran In fact, diplomacy that is notbacked by the threat of clear con-sequences poses the greatest threat tonegotiations — and increases prospectsfor war — because it tells the Iraniansthey have nothing to lose by embracing

an uncompromising position

Successful negotiations between versaries rest on the confluence of in-terests and goals Iran came to the ne-gotiating table because it sought theabrogation of sanctions; we came to thetable to reach an agreement that, in thewords of President Obama, would

ad-‘‘make it impossible’’ for Iran to

devel-op nuclear weapons

Our message to Tehran should be

clear: It will not achieve its objectivesunless it satisfies ours

Unfortunately, Iran’s leaders are ing as if they have not received thatmessage In recent weeks, PresidentHassan Rouhani has declared that hisgovernment will not dismantle a singlecentrifuge Tehran also went beyondwords by testing long-range ballisticmissiles that could reach American mil-itary bases in the Middle East, as well

act-as our ally Israel It hact-as even patched warships to sail close to the

dis-maritime borders ofthe United States inthe Atlantic Ocean

We also know theIranians haveworked to deceive us

in previous rounds ofnegotiations In 2003,when Mr Rouhaniwas Iran’s chief nu-clear negotiator,Tehran issued a dec-laration that it was suspending urani-

um enrichment and other nuclear ities Last year, as he ran for president,

activ-Mr Rouhani even boasted that Iran hadflouted the agreement

Offering inducements is not enough

Diplomacy must be backed by a clearchoice for the Iranian government:

Either it dismantles its nuclear gram so that it lacks a pathway toweapons capability or it faces greatereconomic sanctions and internationalisolation Without this clarity, no onecan be surprised if Iran rejects diplo-matic overtures

pro-The partial recovery of Iran’s

econo-my in recent weeks, thanks to the ation of sanctions, in tandem with itscontinuing advanced research and de-velopment of centrifuges, highlightsour concerns If Iran can achieve suchprogress without dismantling any part

relax-of its nuclear program, why should itmake concessions?

We strongly believe that the tion by Congress of its historic role inforeign policy can, in fact, complementand enhance the administration’s ef-forts by forcing Iran to recognize thestark implications of intransigence Thepresident should welcome such con-gressional initiatives, which would ac-tually strengthen, not weaken, the hand

asser-of his administration in negotiations

Thus we urge Congress to outline forIran the acceptable terms of a final ac-cord This must include, at a minimum,the dismantling of its nuclear program,

so that Iran has neither a uranium nor aplutonium pathway to a nuclear weapon

Second, Congress should exerciseoversight to ensure that Tehran under-stands that our existing core sanctionsarchitecture will remain in place for thefull duration of the negotiations Third,Congress must oversee continual im-plementation of the interim agreement:

We cannot permit Iran to violate trustagain by advancing its nuclear pro-gram even as it joins negotiations

Finally, we support the NuclearWeapon Free Iran Act, sponsored by theSenate Foreign Relations Committee’schairman, Senator Robert Menendez,Democrat of New Jersey, and by SenatorMark Kirk, Republican of Illinois Thisbill would present Iran with a menu of

consequences, including new sanctions

— if, and only if, the talks fail Earlier thismonth, we agreed with Mr Menendez ondelaying a vote in the Senate, but we re-main committed to the bill’s passage.Historically, presidents have resistedcongressional involvement that wouldaffect or constrain their diplomatic ef-forts Over the past two decades,however, both Republican and Demo-cratic administrations have opposedIran sanctions legislation only to em-brace it later as their own At this mo-ment, we must not allow Iran to dictatethe appropriate role of Congress

As long as Mr Rouhani can brazenlydeclare that he will not dismantle asingle centrifuge as part of a finalagreement, the United States Congressshould proclaim that Iran will pay asteep price for its recklessness Amer-ica’s elected representatives are not theproblem; the unelected theocrats ofIran are

Next week, more than 14,000 cans from all walks of life will carry thisbipartisan message to Capitol Hill aspart of the American Israel Public Af-fairs Committee’s annual policy confer-ence We support the president’s diplo-matic effort to prevent Iran fromacquiring a nuclear weapon We alsobelieve the best chance for success inthis purpose lies with continued con-gressional pressure on Iran throughoutthe negotiations

Ameri-MICHAEL KASSENis the president, and

LEE ROSENBERGis the chairman of the board, of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Bill Keller

I doubt any president has been as wellequipped as Barack Obama to appreci-ate the vicious cycle of American crimeand punishment As a community or-ganizer in Chicago in the 1980s, hewould have witnessed the way a systemintended to protect the public siphonedoff young black men, gave them an ad-vanced education in brutality, and thenreturned them to the streets unqualifiedfor — and too often, given the barriers

to employment faced by those who havedone time, disqualified from — any-thing but a life of more crime He wouldhave understood that the suffering ofvictims and the debasing of offenderswere often two sides of the same coin

It’s hard to tell how deeply he ally absorbed this knowledge In theChicago chapters of his memoir,

actu-‘‘Dreams From My Father,’’ Obamanotes that in the low-income housingprojects ‘‘prison records had beenpassed down from father to son formore than a generation,’’ but he hassurprisingly little to say about the shad-

ow cast by prisons on the families leftbehind, about the way incarceration be-came the default therapy for drug ad-dicts and the mentally ill, about the ab-ject failure of rehabilitation

Still, when the former community ganizer took office, advocates of reformhad high expectations

or-In March I will give up the gloriousplatform of The New York Times tohelp launch something new: a non-profit journalistic venture called TheMarshall Project (after Thurgood Mar-shall, the great courtroom champion ofcivil rights) and devoted to the vast andurgent subject of our broken criminaljustice system It seems fitting that myparting column should address thequestion of how this president has lived

up to those high expectations so far

I’ll begin by making his excuses Thepresident’s powers in this area are lim-ited The action (and there is a lot of itright now) is mostly at the state level

His first term was entangled in

econom-ic crisis and health care This presidenthas faced tireless and often petty resis-tance from the Republican House on al-most every initiative Historically Demo-crats have risked being Willie-Horton’ed

if they don’t maintain a tough-on-crime posture And African-American constituents — who are alsodisproportionately the victims of crime

tougher-than-— are not necessarily bleeding-heartvoters In short, it was probably nạve toassume that Obama was going to be theCriminal Justice Reform President

And yet Obama took office at a time

of tidal shifts The economics of onment, the ebbing of crime rates, thehorror stories of overcrowded peniten-tiaries and the persistent activism of re-form advocates had begun to generate

impris-a public consensus thimpris-at merely cimpris-agingpeople is not a crime-fighting strategy

Fiscal conservatives alarmed at the

high cost of incarceration, evangelicalsshocked by the waste of lives, and liber-tarians who spotted another realm ofgovernment power abused haveclambered onto what was once a liberalbandwagon (How much those conser-vatives will be willing to invest in alter-native ways of protecting the public —drug treatment, more intensive paroleand probation programs, job trainingand so on — is another question.)

In his first term Obama did not makethis a signature issue; he rarely men-tioned the subject But his proxy, Attor-ney General Eric Holder Jr., was out-spoken from the start Six months intothe first term, he was already at theVera Institute of Justice in New Yorktalking about the social costs of massincarceration and pressing for policiesthat would divert low-level drug offend-ers to treatment and ease the re-entry

of former prisoners into a productivelife In the last five years, Holder hasbecome increasingly bold, and en-countered little backlash This month

he exhorted states to repeal policiesthat deny felons the right to vote,policies that disenfranchise 5.8 millionAmericans, including nearly one in 13African-American adults He framed itnot just as an act of compassion but as away of re-engaging prodigal souls

‘‘By perpetuating the stigma and lation imposed on formerly incarcer-ated individuals, these laws increasethe likelihood they will commit future

iso-crimes,’’ Holder said

‘‘All that sounds very good,’’ saidMichelle Alexander, the legal scholarwho wrote ‘‘The New Jim Crow,’’ ascorching 2010 indictment of the racial-ized war on drugs ‘‘And it is good, be-cause for decades the rhetoric was run-ning in the other direction But if therhetoric is not matched with action

then it is fair to wonder whether theshift in rhetoric reflects significant shifts

in public opinion in recent years, ratherthan a real commitment to these issuesand a willingness to take political risks.’’

In practice, the administration’s cord has been more incremental thanits rhetoric

re-By the crudest metric, the population

of our prisons, the Obama tion has been unimpressive The fam-ously shocking numbers of Americansbehind bars (the U.S., with 5 percent ofthe world’s people, incarcerates nearly

administra-a quadministra-arter of administra-all prisoners on eadministra-arth)have declined three years in a row

However, the overall downsizing islargely thanks to California and a hand-ful of other states In overstuffed feder-

al prisons, the population continues togrow, fed in no small part by Obama’scrackdown on immigration violators

The administration has some ments to tout Obama signed the 2010Fair Sentencing Act, and has put somemuscle behind the Smarter SentencingAct, two measures aimed at makingdrug-sentencing laws less absurd Hold-

achieve-er has issued guidance to prosecutors toavoid routinely seeking maximum sen-tences for low-level offenders — thoughit’s not clear yet whether prosecutorsare going along The administration cre-ated an Interagency Reentry Councilthat uses federal guidance to whittleaway at the barriers to employment,housing and education so that releasedprisoners have some hope of becomingproductive citizens

At the same time, long after the War

on Drugs has been recognized as a ure, there has been little serious effort

fail-to cut the number of federal drug cutions, or to shift money from incar-ceration to drug treatment Alexandercites as a significant disappointmentthe continued federal reluctance to de-criminalize marijuana, despiteObama’s acknowledgment to DavidRemnick of The New Yorker that pot isless harmful than alcohol and that thelaws are mostly enforced against poor

prose-minorities Anothermissed opportunity:

He could havepushed more aggres-sively to fill districtand circuit court va-cancies with judgeswho would buck thestatus quo

Obama has alsobeen the stingiest ofrecent presidents inusing his powers ofpardon and commutation to undo thedamage of the crack panic and of sen-tencing that keeps prisoners in lockuplong past the age when they represent adanger Marc Levin, director of the Cen-ter for Effective Justice at the TexasPublic Policy Foundation, a conserva-tive think tank with a justice reformagenda, points out that in his first termObama pardoned one in 50 applicantswhile Ronald Reagan pardoned one inthree Late last year Obama commutedthe sentences of eight drug offenders,out of more than 8,000 federal convictsserving time under outdated crack laws.Obama is, we know, a cautious man,leery of getting ahead of public opinionand therefore sometimes far behind it.And some reform advocates argue that

it made sense for Obama to keep a lowprofile until a broad bipartisan con-sensus had gathered That time hascome Now that Obama-scorners likeSenators Rand Paul and Mike Lee andeven Ted Cruz are slicing off pieces ofjustice reform for their issue portfolios,now that red states like Texas, Georgia,South Carolina, Missouri and Kentuckyhave embraced alternatives to prison,criminal justice is one of those rareareas where there is common ground to

be explored and tested

The Obama presidency has almostthree years to go, and there is reason tohope that he will feel less constrained,that the eight commutations were notjust a pittance but, as he put it, ‘‘a firststep,’’ that Holder’s mounting enthusi-asm for saner sentencing is not just talk,but prelude, that the president will usehis great pulpit to prick our conscience

‘‘This is something that matters tothe president,’’ Holder assured me lastweek ‘‘This is, I think, going to be seen

as a defining legacy for this tion.’’

administra-I’ll be watching, and hoping thatHolder’s prediction is more than wish-ful thinking

Crime and punishment and Obama

Don’t let up on Iran

The list of infectious diseases that could leap from remoteareas of the world to strike countries thousands of milesaway is growing A warning of what can happen occurred adecade ago when an outbreak in China of a mysteriousnew viral disease, known as SARS, or severe acuterespiratory syndrome, was covered up by the Chineseauthorities, allowing infected airline passengers to carrythe virus to more than two dozen other countries Thedisease killed nearly 800 people and caused largeeconomic losses in Asia and Canada

Now worries that such deadly viruses as Ebola might becarried from Africa to the United States and elsewherehave been joined by new concerns These include, amongothers: potentially dangerous strains of avian flu recentlydetected in China; an often lethal lung disease, known asMiddle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which has sofar been found mostly in Saudi Arabia; multidrug-resistantstrains of tuberculosis that are very difficult to treat; and amosquito-borne viral disease known as Chikungunyafever, which was first detected in Africa, spread to Asiaand Europe, and recently invaded the Caribbean

It made good sense, then, when the Obamaadministration, after meeting last week withrepresentatives of three United Nations agencies and 26countries, announced an ambitious plan to improve thesurveillance and treatment of infectious diseases over thenext five years in up to 30 countries Although 196 countrieshave signed an international agreement, reached in 2005, toreport outbreaks promptly to the World Health

Organization and take steps to control them, the vastmajority have not fully complied The odds forimprovement this time around may be better The healthsystems in poor countries, though still fragile, haveimproved thanks to international programs to combat AIDSand other diseases, and those systems could be expanded

The Defense Department and Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention are spending a combined $40million this year to help detect and contain infectiousdisease threats in 10 countries The administration said itwould propose an increase of $45 million in the C.D.C

budget for 2015 to help additional countries Congressought to approve that money A five-year program toextend assistance to 30 countries to protect theirpopulations could cost the United States up to $1.5 billion,which would be worth spending if the initial projects provesuccessful Other advanced nations need to contributemoney and expertise, too

Last April, the United States Court of Appeals for theNinth Circuit, in California, upheld a lower court’s orderrequiring the government to grant bond hearings toimmigrants who have been held six months without such ahearing These rulings reflect the growing understanding

— in the federal courts, if not at Immigration and CustomsEnforcement — that the constitutional guarantee of dueprocess demands that a detainee have a hearing within a

‘‘reasonable’’ time and that more than six months is notreasonable by any definition

The Obama administration, in expanding the surge ofimmigration enforcement begun under President George

W Bush, has detained and deported nearly two millionpeople The majority are dealt with swiftly, without everreceiving a hearing before an immigration judge Otherswho challenge their deportation, like the Sri Lankans, waitfor years to get a resolution of their cases Automaticallygranting bond hearings to immigration detainees, many ofwhom pose no threat, is the least the government can do

President Obama, who has promised to do more to fixthe broken immigration laws, can ensure that the six-month rule is adopted in immigration courts nationwide

Beyond granting bond hearings, the government shoulduse more humane and cost-effective alternatives todetention, like ankle bracelets and home monitoring

Locking people up indefinitely is not a path to a morerational immigration system

COPING WITH INFECTIOUS DISEASE

LOCKED AWAY IN IMMIGRATION JAILS

BRIAN STAUFFER

It may have made sense for Obama

to move cautiously

on criminal justice reform.

Until now.

Opinion

Trang 7

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opinion

Elif Shafak

ISTANBUL Although the word

turbu-lence doesn’t exist in Turkish, it is

prob-ably the best description of the state of

politics in Turkey these days But we

have other words, many of them, that

denote ‘‘tension,’’ ‘‘masculinity’’ and

‘‘polarization,’’ all of which afflict the

Turkish state

Turkey is a liquid country, a

water-course of conflicts and contradictions

The mood changes weekly, sometimes

daily Until recently the country was

seen as a successful combination of

Is-lam and Western democracy, a power

broker in the Middle East That view is

rapidly fading, and the river that is

Tur-key is running faster than ever

With local, presidential and general

elections coming, this is a year of loud

polemics and quiet concerns Citizens

glance through websites dozens of

times daily to see what else has

happened During a vote that gave the

government greater control over the

ju-diciary, members of Parliament

ex-changed blows; a bloody nose was a

testament to our bruised democracy

Nothing reflects the tempest better

than the recent proliferation of

conspir-acy theories

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip

Er-dogan repeatedly accused outsiders of

being behind the protests in Gezi Park

last summer, which left six people dead

and 8,000 injured Several government

officials insinuated that dark forces were

operating behind the scenes, including

the Jewish diaspora, the C.I.A., the BBC,

CNN and the interest-rate lobby, a term

for a cabal of domestic and foreign banks

that officials believe want to harm

Tur-key to further their own interests A

Turkish BBC reporter was openly

ac-cused of being a foreign spy Protesters

in Taksim Square were called terrorists

The German airline Lufthansa, it was

suggested, was trying to scuttle an portant new airport for Istanbul

im-On social media there are endless mors about ‘‘deep state within deepstate.’’ Gradually, Turkey is turning in-

ru-to a nation in the grip of paranoia

Nobody takes anything at face valueanymore There is a growing publicsuspicion that the news is filtered, if notmanipulated Recently leaked tape re-cordings revealed that opinion pollspublished in a major newspaper mighthave been tampered with to please thegovernment Journalists have marched

to protest curbs on press freedom

In a country where freedom of pression is curtailed and media di-versity has shriveled, social media isthe only alternative platform of com-munication, information and misinfor-mation A new Internet law passed byParliament further threatens freedom

ex-of opinion, though President AbdullahGul, who said he would approve it, hasconceded that parts are problematic

If the Gezi riots fueled conspiracy ories, the recent corruption investiga-tion fanned the flames Government offi-cials talk constantly about foreign plots

the-Turkey has done too well, they say, andnow hidden actors want to stop it fromgrowing These accusations resonatewith some segments of society

Why are we so in need of contrivingconspiracy theories?

Part of the answer lies in the fact thatTurkey is still not a mature democracyand its politics are masculinist, aggres-sive and polarized Turkey’s polariza-tion affects every layer of social, cultur-

al and economic life When checks andbalances, separation of powers and me-dia diversity are all at risk, those inpower become too powerful

And part of the answer lies in oldfears that go back to our upbringing

One of the songs from my childhoodwent: ‘‘One, two, three long live theTurks four, five, six, Polandplummeted seven, eight, nine, Rus-sians are traitors ’’ We children mer-

rily sang this song on the streets, claring that the Italians were cunning,the Germans pigs We grew up believ-ing that Turkey was surrounded onthree sides by water and on four sides

de-by enemies The Greeks aspired to conquer Istanbul and make it Con-stantinopolis The Arabs were untrust-worthy The Russians plotted to seizethe Bosporus Everybody wanted apiece of Anatolia, our land, and a Turk’sonly friend was another Turk

re-In the past, one of the strengths of

Mr Erdogan’s party, Justice and opment, was a foreign policy of ‘‘zero

Devel-problems with bors.’’ That policyhas not been sus-tained

neigh-This government,which liberal intellec-tuals once supported

in the hope that itwould push Turkey

to join the EuropeanUnion, restrict the role of the militaryand enact democratic reforms, isnowadays reviving overused rhetoric

When Mr Erdogan speaks he dresses the nation’s subconscious Hespeaks to our primordial fears andxenophobia And without realizing, we,millions of us, become children again,waiting in the school courtyard for theheadmaster, the baba, to tell us how ill-intentioned every foreigner is and howunited we must stand against theworld

ad-Yet, at the same time, this warpedmentality no longer entices Timeshave changed The youth are far moreopen to the world than the previousgenerations, and the people are ahead

of their politicians

As much as we tend to buy into spiracy theories, we Turks have alsogrown very, very tired of them

con-ELIF SHAFAKis the author of nine novels, including ‘‘The Bastard of Istanbul’’ and

‘‘The Forty Rules of Love.’’

Roger

Cohen

Any sentient being who walks the

by-ways of northern Europe, so placid now

with their glistening poplar trees and

villages clustered around church

spires, must occasionally feel the

intru-sion of the painful thought that beneath

the soil lie the corpses of millions,

young men sacrificed for the gain of a

few meters, and often in Kipling’s

phrase only known unto God

World War I erupted at a time when

much of humanity was persuaded that

rapid technological development,

sci-entific progress and accelerated

com-munications (connectivity in today’s

parlance) had consigned warfare to the

past It was sparked by a single

gun-shot in Sarajevo, made possible by

stra-tegic miscalculation, and ended with

the collapse of several empires, the

world of yesterday demolished in an

unimaginable bloodbath whose

un-settled scores would soon produce

an-other cataclysm

In the very banality of the chain of

events that led to slaughter, in its

ap-parent unnecessariness, the Great War

(in the British phrase) offers an eternal

warning to those inclined to take peace

for granted Peace is hard work Its

al-ternative is never far beneath the

sur-face

It being the centennial of the

out-break of the war, numerous

commem-orations are planned But

memorializa-tion diverges Germans, when theythink about World War I, see nothing

‘‘great’’ in it Rather they see the seeds

of Hitler’s rise, and it is to his warabove all that they have devoted theiranguished reckonings The Frenchwho, like the British, call it ‘‘La GrandeGuerre,’’ have a different view; theystopped the Germans racing to Paris,

as in 1871 Glory is a word that surfaces

in Paris and London, notwithstandingWilfred Owen’s dismissal of the ‘‘oldlie’’: That in youth’s prime ‘‘Dulce etdecorum est pro patria mori.’’

I decided a few weeks ago to bow myhead to the dead by visiting the

cemetery at St phorien in Belgium,where the first Brit-ish soldier killed onthe Western Front isburied, and also whatare thought to be thelast Commonwealthsoldiers killed In all

Sym-284 German and 230Commonwealth servicemen find theirfinal resting place here

The cemetery, watched over by windturbines, was deserted I was the onlyvisitor The German graves are in graystone, the British in white I read thenames of the conscripts An ‘‘Unteroff-izier Rolf Berger’’ from Hamburg, a

‘‘Musketier Otto Finke’’ from Kiel: man kids cut down It crossed my mindthat perhaps the Finke family, aftertheir loss, would end up fleeing Hitler

Ger-The British and Commonwealthgraves are set out in lines: Lt D.C.C

Sewell, aged 20, with the inscription

‘‘Thy Will Be Done.’’ W.G Bathgate,Highlanders, 23 August 1914, ‘‘Dulce etDecorum Est Pro Patria Mori.’’ Andthat most devastating of all epitaphs:

‘‘A Soldier of the Great War, KnownUnto God.’’

Among the crosses was a single Star

of David, on the grave of Private P

Goldberg of the Middlesex Regiment,died Aug 23, 1914 I was reminded of mygreat-grandfather’s brother, MichaelAdler, a distinguished rabbi who com-piled the 1916 Prayer Book for JewishSailors and Soldiers at the front duringWorld War I and served as chaplain toJewish soldiers

I have a precious copy of the prayerbook It begins with a ‘‘prefatory note’’

signed by my forbear: ‘‘It is hoped thatthis book will meet the wants of the verylarge number of English Jews who aretaking part in the present Great Euro-pean War.’’ The first prayer for the 16,000British Jews on active service includesthis line: ‘‘Fill our hearts with courageand steadfastness that we may performour duty to our King and Country for thehonor of Israel and the Empire.’’

The word order suggests Adler’s tempt to balance loyalties: first King,then Israel (not yet reborn as a modernstate), then Empire Jewish allegiance

at-to the crown had been questioned:

Thousands of Yiddish-speaking EastEuropean Jews were not yet natural-ized and so could not serve In Novem-ber 1915, The Jewish Chronicle reportedexamples of recruiting officers saying,

‘‘Lord Kitchener does not want anymore Jews in the Army.’’ But Jewsclamored to prove their loyalty

Adler initially encouraged them Bythe end of the war, however, havingseen the carnage, he had otherthoughts On July 6, 1918, he wrote, ‘‘Allthis colossal upheaval will have been invain unless civilized mankind resolvesonce and for all that every effort should

be made that war shall cease forth.’’

hence-His words went unheeded Europewould plunge again into horror AndIron Crosses for valor at the Somme didnothing to keep German Jews from thegas

Murithi Mutiga

Contributing Writer

LONDON It was not without reasonthat President Bill Clinton lavishedpraise on African leaders like PresidentYoweri Museveni of Uganda back in thelate 1990s

Mr Museveni, like Meles Zenawi ofEthiopia, had come to office throughthe barrel of a gun, a depressingly fa-miliar means of gaining power in Africaduring the first three decades of inde-pendence But after ending a cycle ofmurderous rule by despots steeped inhuman rights abuses and financial cor-ruption, the young leaders proved to bedifferent from their predecessors Bothintroduced rational governance struc-tures, presided over economic turn-arounds and brought much-needed sta-bility to their countries

‘‘One hundred years from now yourgrandchildren and mine will look backand say this was the beginning of an Af-rican renaissance,’’ Mr Clinton said inAccra, Ghana, in March 1998, praising a

‘‘new generation’’ of African leadersthat — along with Mr Meles and Mr

Museveni — included Isaias Afewerki

of Eritrea, Paul Kagame of Rwanda,Jerry Rawlings of Ghana and ThaboMbeki of South Africa

But Mr Clinton spoke too soon If one

of the greatest tests of revolutionaries

is their capacity to voluntarily give uppower, Mr Museveni and Mr Meles(who died in office in 2012) proved to becut from a different cloth from such il-lustrious statesmen as Nelson Mandelaand Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, justlycelebrated for resisting the temptation

to be presidents for life Or, for thatmatter, from Mr Mbeki, who steppeddown in 2008 after losing a battle forleadership of the African National Con-gress, and Mr Rawlings, who relin-quished his office in 2001, thus becom-ing the first leader in African historywho had seized power by force to yieldpeacefully to the democratic process

Mr Afewerki and Mr Kagame, on theother hand, are still in power

As for Mr Museveni, after pledging

to retire following his election in 2001,the Ugandan leader abolished term lim-its ahead of elections in 2006 and offeredhimself for re-election again in 2011

Many had hoped that would be his lastelection But Mr Museveni, now 69, isdetermined to run again As autocratsoften do, he is clothing his ambitions as

a response to the ‘‘will of the people.’’

On Feb 11, a governing party caucus ofmembers of Parliament ‘‘strongly’’ ap-pealed to the president to run again

This is bad news for Uganda and forEast Africa Autocratic rule has the ob-vious effect of weakening a country’sinstitutions, with profound con-sequences for its citizens

Uganda is a poor country with a capita income of only $598 in 2012, ac-cording to the United Nations A func-tional government in such circum-stances would have sought to speed upthe process of commercial production

per-of the substantial oil reserves covered in the country in 2006, whichthe World Bank estimates have the po-tential of accounting for 10 to 25 percent

dis-of gross domesticproduct

Instead, the cess has been tightlycontrolled by theState House — thepresident’s officialresidence Thus,while Uganda re-mains far away fromfully developing its oilindustry, the compar-atively well-run WestAfrican country of Ghana, which dis-covered its own oil reserves a year afterUganda, has already began commercialproduction

pro-Meanwhile, Mr Museveni continues

to implement ever-harsher laws aimed

at stifling domestic dissent, includingthe much derided Public Order Man-agement Bill, which requires that ifthree or more people are to gather inpublic to address political issues, theyneed permission from the police

What is to be done? Uganda is a jor regional American ally with itstroops having played a vital part inousting the militant Al Shabab groupfrom the Somali capital, Mogadishu

ma-Public pressure on the Ugandan leader

is unlikely to have the desired effect,however, and can help him play the na-tionalist card to serve his domesticagenda

Instead, the Obama administrationshould privately make it clear to Mr

Museveni that Uganda’s interestswould be better served if he oversees ademocratic transition and that rela-tions will not remain the same if heclings to power A precedent exists InKenya, the United States ambassador

to Nairobi, Johnnie Carson, played animportant role in urging PresidentDaniel arap Moi to give up power in

2002, at a time when there were tempts to amend the Constitution to al-low him another run for the presidency.But rather than put pressure on Mr.Museveni to step down, the Obama ad-ministration has been focusing crit-icism on the anti-homosexuality lawthat Mr Museveni has thrown to hissupporters This emphasis by Washing-ton is misplaced, and will only serve theUgandan leader’s ends

at-Ultimately, though, only Ugandanscan rid themselves of Mr Museveni’slong rule and stop their country frombeing left behind in the wave of pro-gress sweeping Africa

Civil society and the oppositionshould threaten a boycott of the nextelections unless a set of changes — in-cluding the creation of an independentand impartial electoral commission,amendment of laws that restrict free-dom of assembly, and the introduction

of curbs on spending of state resourcesduring campaigns — are implemented

In his reformist days, PresidentMuseveni wrote a statement that hewill never live down: ‘‘The problem ofAfrica in general and Uganda in partic-ular is not the people but leaders whowant to overstay in power.’’

Today, his refusal to step down, eventhough his increasingly corrupt andautocratic rule is ruining his nation’sprospects, is selfish and damaging

It was a former Ugandan president,Godfrey Binaisa, who with refreshinghonesty told his people that he was re-luctant to give up power for purely self-interested reasons ‘‘Enno entebeewooma,’’ he said, quoting a Lugandaproverb that means ‘‘This chair issweet.’’

President Museveni clearly agrees.But he should accept that his determina-tion to keep his grip on Uganda’s seat ofpower for life is the last thing his coun-try and Africa need in the 21st century

MURITHI MUTIGAis an editor at the Nation Media Group in Kenya.

Known unto God

Uganda’s stubborn autocrat

Ugandans must rid themselves

of President Museveni and stop their country from being left behind.

A tempest of fear in Turkey

Although we buy into conspiracy theories, we Turks are also very tired of them.

In its centennial year, the Great War still divides memory.

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world news united states asia middle east

C O R R E C T I O N S

edi-tions about the founders of WhatsApp,the text messaging service acquired byFacebook, misstated the number of em-ployees WhatsApp had last summer Itwas 40, not 30

Plissner, a longtime political director forCBS News, referred incorrectly to theorigin of the phrase ‘‘too close to call.’’ Ithas been in use at least since 1933, whenThe New York Times used it in a sportscolumn; it was not, as Mr Plissnerclaimed, ‘‘invented at CBS’’ in the early1960s, although that was when CBSNews began using the phrase in its cov-erage of elections (His erroneous claim,

as noted in the obituary, also appeared

in one of William Safire’s ‘‘On guage’’ columns in The Times, in 1996.)

about the actor Andy Karl, who playsthe lead in the new Broadway musical

‘‘Rocky,’’ misidentified the musical inwhich he met his wife, the actress Orfeh

It was ‘‘Saturday Night Fever,’’ not

‘‘Legally Blonde.’’

disillusion-ment among Libyans on the eve of a vote

to elect members of a constitutional sembly quoted incorrectly from a lawpassed by Libya’s General NationalCongress in December It declared thatShariah should be ‘‘the source of legisla-tion,’’ not ‘‘above the constitution.’’

as-MAURICIO LIMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Grief in Kabul Afghan Army soldiers on Monday carrying the coffin of one of 21 comrades shot and killed in their sleep on Sunday by Taliban insurgents at a remote base

Government

in Egypt is dissolved by the premier

CAIRO

BY KAREEM FAHIMAND MAYY EL SHEIKH

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi ruptly announced the resignation of hisgovernment on Monday after seven tur-bulent months of trying to containEgypt’s political unrest and growingcriticism of the cabinet’s performance

ab-Mr Beblawi was installed as primeminister last July by the military soonafter it removed the country’s Islamistpresident, Mohamed Morsi His resig-nation on Monday fueled speculationthat it was intended to clear the way forField Marshal Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, thedefense minister and the dominant fig-ure in the government, to announce hiscandidacy for president

The interim government led by Mr.Beblawi has faced persistent questionsabout its authority and legitimacy Dur-ing its tenure, the military and the secu-rity services embarked on a ferociouscampaign to suppress Mr Morsi’s sup-porters and other rivals, resulting in theworst mass killings in modern Egyptianhistory

Despite infusions of cash from sian Gulf states meant to prop upEgypt’s economy, a wave of laborstrikes emerged as the latest challenge

Per-to Mr Beblawi, affecting a number ofcrucial groups, including police officers,textile workers, doctors and transporta-tion employees

Even though the government was der considerable pressure, one ministersaid the announcement came as a sur-prise It was made after a cabinet wasconvened a day earlier than had beenscheduled ‘‘I walked in this morning;the resignation statement was read; Ileft,’’ the minister said

un-Speaking on television afterward, Mr.Beblawi complained about the strikesand ‘‘personal interests.’’ He also said,

‘‘This is the time to put the country’s terests above everyone.’’

in-While he allowed that the governmenthad not achieved ‘‘complete success’’ inhis tenure, he asserted that the state’s

‘‘prestige’’ had been restored,

mention-ing the ratification of a new Constitution

‘‘The police and the armed forces pose the power of law on everybody,’’ headded ‘‘That doesn’t mean that therearen’t disruptions here and there, butthis is a normal in a fierce confrontationwith a side that doesn’t want goodthings for the country.’’

im-It was not clear who would replace theministers who had resigned The statenews media reported that they wouldcontinue to oversee their ministries un-til a new government was seated.Field Marshal Sisi, who is seen asEgypt’s most popular political figure, hasyet to formally declare that he will run forpresident, but people who have met withhim recently speak of his candidacy as aforegone conclusion When an Egyptiandelegation visited Russia this month,President Vladimir V Putin wished FieldMarshal Sisi luck in his campaign

Abrupt decision comes after 7 months and fuels talk on presidential race

MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/REUTERS

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi plained of strikes and ‘‘personal interests.’’

com-WASHINGTON

BY ADAM LIPTAK

Here is a good way to get a belly laugh

from Justice Clarence Thomas: Suggest

to him that the Supreme Court’s

de-cisions should seldom be overruled

‘‘You are the justice who is most

will-ing to re-examine the court’s

preced-ents,’’ Judge Diane S Sykes told him in

November, in a public conversation at an

annual dinner sponsored by the

Federal-ist Society, the conservative legal group

Justice Thomas responded with a

deadpan statement that the audience

could tell was a joke ‘‘That’s because of

my affinity for stare decisis,’’ he said,

us-ing the Latin term for ‘‘to stand by thus-ings

decided.’’ Then he let out a guffaw

‘‘Stare decisis doesn’t hold much

force for you?’’ Judge Sykes asked

‘‘Oh, it sure does,’’ Justice Thomas

re-sponded ‘‘But not enough to keep me

from going to the Constitution.’’

He was still laughing The audience

gave him a standing ovation

Justice Antonin Scalia was present,

and he could not have been surprised

‘‘He does not believe in stare decisis,

period,’’ Justice Scalia once told one of

Justice Thomas’s biographers

The current Supreme Court term has

been a master class in stare decisis In

cases argued in the last few months, the

justices have been asked to overturn or

modify important precedents

concern-ing campaign finance, abortion protests,

legislative prayer and union organizing

And on March 5, the court will

con-sider a request to overrule a 1988

securi-ties fraud decision If the court does so,

it will do away with most class actions

for securities fraud

As is his custom, Justice Thomas has

not participated in the arguments this

term Indeed, Saturday was the eighth

anniversary of the last time he asked a

question from the bench

Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker

re-cently called Justice Thomas’s silence

‘‘downright embarrassing.’’ But the

real work of the Supreme Court is done

in written opinions, and there Justice

Thomas has laid out a consistent and

closely argued judicial vision

Consider his most recent statement on

stare decisis It came in his majority

opinion in June in Alleyne v United

States, which overruled a 2002 decision

on the jury’s role in criminal sentencing

Overturning the earlier decision was

permissible, Justice Thomas said,

be-cause the power of precedent is ‘‘at its

nadir in cases concerning procedural

rules that implicate fundamental

consti-tutional protections.’’ He added that the

2002 ruling was at odds with ‘‘the

origi-nal meaning of the Sixth Amendment.’’

In dissent, Justice Samuel A Alito Jr

wrote that ‘‘the court’s decision creates

a precedent about precedent that may

have greater precedential effect than the

dubious decisions on which it relies.’’

The case to be argued next week,

Hal-liburton v Erica P John Fund, No

13-317, adds an important wrinkle to the

usual analysis of whether a precedent

deserves to survive That is because the

decision in peril interpreted a federal

law, the Securities Exchange Act, rather

than the Constitution

In constitutional cases, the Supreme

Court has the last word If it is wrong,

nothing short of a constitutional

amend-ment can change things That suggests,

as Justice Thomas told Judge Sykes,

that the court should be open to

ad-dressing its errors

Cases in which the court interprets

statutes are different In them, Congress

has the last word If lawmakers disagree

with the court’s interpretation of a law,

all they need to do is say so in a new law

If Congress fails to act, it may be said to

agree with the court’s decision

Letting lawmakers have the last word

‘‘arises from the respect owed to the

legislative branch and the reality that

Congress is often better suited to

evalu-ate whether an existing statutory rule

or interpretation should be abandoned

in light of changed circumstances of

policy judgments,’’ Charles Fried, who

served as United States solicitor

gener-al in the Reagan administration, wrote

in a supporting brief urging the justices

to leave the 1988 precedent alone

Justice Thomas seems to agree In a

1994 concurrence, he wrote that

‘‘con-siderations of stare decisis have ‘special

force’ in the area of statutory

interpre-tation.’’

According to the plaintiffs in the new

case, the Supreme Court has not

over-ruled a statutory precedent in an area in

which Congress has been active since

1961, in a tax case

But lawyers for the defendants said

the 1988 decision was entitled to

‘‘lessened precedential weight’’

be-cause it was ‘‘largely a procedural and

evidentiary construct.’’

Justice Thomas agreed that the

de-cision ‘‘is questionable.’’ Since he will

almost certainly ask no questions at the

argument next week, we will have to

wait until the court decides the case,

probably in June, to see how just how

weak his ‘‘affinity for stare decisis’’ is

And looming over the issue is thequestion of retaliation — whether a cy-berattack on Syria’s air power, its elec-tric grid or its leadership would promptSyrian, Iranian or Russian retaliation inthe United States

It is a debate Mr Obama has neverspoken about publicly Because he hasput the use of cyberweapons largely in-

to the hands of the National SecurityAgency, which operates under covertauthorities, there is little of the publicdiscussion that accompanied the argu-ments over nuclear weapons in the1950’s and 1960’s, or the kind of roilingargument over the wisdom of usingdrones, another classified program that

Mr Obama only began to discuss licly in the past 18 months

pub-But to many inside the tion, who declined to speak on the recordabout discussions over one of America’smost highly-classified capabilities, Syr-

administra-ia puts the issue back on the table Mr

Obama’s national security council met

on Thursday to explore what one officialcalled ‘‘old and new options.’’

One of the central issues of the debate

is whether a cyberstrike on Syria would

be seen as a justified humanitarian tervention — less likely to cause civiliancasualties than airstrikes — or whether

in-it would only embolden American versaries who have been debatingthemselves how to use cyberweapons

ad-Jason Healey, the director of the ber Statecraft Initiative at the AtlanticCouncil, said it was ‘‘worth doing toshow that cyber operations are not evilwitchcraft but can be humanitarian.’’

Cy-Others caution whether that would bethe perception

‘‘Here in the U.S we tend to view a berattack as a de-escalation — it’s lessdamaging than airstrikes,’’ said Peter

cy-W Singer, a scholar at the Brookings

In-stitution who has published a book oncyberdefense and offense, ‘‘Cyber Secu-rity and Cyber War: What EveryoneNeeds to Know.’’

‘‘But elsewhere in the world it maywell be viewed as opening up a newrealm of warfare,’’ he said

Internally, Mr Obama has made nosecret of his concerns about using cy-berweapons He narrowed ‘‘OlympicGames,’’ the program against the Irani-

an nuclear enrichment program, to sure that it did not cripple civilian facil-ities, like hospitals

as-What he liked about the program wasthat it was covert, and that, if successful,

it could help buy time to force the ans into negotiations That is exactlywhat happened But when a technologic-

Irani-al error resulted in the broadcast of the

‘‘Stuxnet’’ virus around the world, mately leading to the revelation of theprogram’s origins with the cyberwarri-

ulti-ors at the N.S.A and Israel’s Unit 6200,

Mr Obama’s hopes of keeping such grams at arm’s length were dashed

pro-Since then, there has been no overtevidence that the United States hasused cyberweapons in another majorattack (It was considered during theNATO attacks on Libya in the spring of

2011, but dismissed after Mr Obama’sadvisers warned him that there was noassurance they would work against

pre-Internet air defenses.)The director of the N.S.A, Gen Keith

B Alexander, said in an interview lastyear that cyberweapons had been usedonly a handful of times in his eight-yeartenure

But Syria is a complicated case, ing different issues than the attack on

rais-Iran did In Syria, the humanitarian pulse to do something — without put-ting Americans at risk or directly enter-ing the civil war — is growing inside theadministration Most of that discussionfocuses on providing more training andarms for ‘‘moderate’’ rebel groups But

im-in the conversations about steppim-ing upcovert action, cyber is one tool underdiscussion

Part of the argument is that Syria is aplace where America could change itsimage using its most advanced technol-ogy for a humanitarian purpose

‘‘The United States has been caughtusing Stuxnet to conduct a covert cybercampaign against Iran as well as trawl-ing the Internet with the massive Prismcollection operation,’’ Mr Healey wroterecently ‘‘The world is increasingly see-ing U.S cyber power as a force for evil inthe world A cyber operation againstSyria might help to reverse this view.’’

Yet that would require openly takingcredit for a cyberattack — somethingthe United States has never done

Even if the United States wanted toact covertly, a cyberattack on Syriawould be hard to keep secret Anythingthat grounded the air fleet, or turned outthe lights at key facilities in Damascusand at major military outposts, would beinstantly noticed — and would not nec-essarily be accomplished quickly

United States military planners cluded after putting together options for

con-Mr Obama over the past two and a halfyears that any meaningful attack onSyria’s facilities would have to be bothlong enough to make a difference andtargeted enough to keep from making

an already suffering population evenworse off

For those and other reasons there aredoubters throughout the military andintelligence establishment ‘‘It’d be oflimited utility, frankly,’’ one senior ad-ministration official said

For instance, a cyberattack could rupt or shut down the navigational sys-tems for Syria’s aircraft, including the

dis-Russian-designed Mi-8 and Mi-17 copters that are carrying out many ofthe so-called barrel bomb attacksagainst civilians in Homs and Aleppo

heli-But Syrian commanders would mostlikely shift to other weapons in their ar-senal, such as array of rockets and mis-siles, including longer-range Scud mis-siles, that Mr Assad’s forces havealready employed with deadly affect

Syria is no stranger to cyberattacks,either on the receiving or the giving end

Israel’s September 2007 strike that stroyed a nuclear reactor being built inthe Syrian desert was accompanied by

de-an ingenious cyberattack that blindedthe country’s air defenses

When the Syrian military awoke thenext morning, the reactor being builtwith North Korean help was a smokinghole in the ground, as were some associ-ated facilities

On the offensive end, the ElectronicFrontier Foundation, which follows cy-berissues, assembled evidence in a re-port published late last year that theSyrians had used an old ‘‘spear phish-ing’’ scam that gets their target to click

on a link in an email, in this case videos

of war atrocities, to identify people whoare aiding the rebel groups and get in-side their computer systems

And the Syrian Electronic Army,which American intelligence officialssuspect is actually Iranian, has conduct-

ed strikes against targets in the UnitedStates over the past year, including thewebsite of The New York Times Mostly,these have been denial of service at-tacks, annoying and disruptive, but nottruly sophisticated

The chances that Syria could manage

a significant cyber-response is low,American officials and outside expertssaid But the precedent could free up theRussians and the Iranians — who alsohave stakes in the Syrian war, and farmore capability — into a new and rap-idly escalating form of warfare

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Obama vetoed cyberattacks on Syria

CYBERATTACK, FROM PAGE 1

Democratic stalwart of Congress to retire after 29 terms

WASHINGTON

BY ASHLEY PARKER

Representative John D Dingell, crat of Michigan and the longest-serving member of Congress in history,announced on Monday that he wouldnot seek re-election at the end of his cur-rent term

Demo-Mr Dingell’s retirement, first nounced by Detroit newspapers andconfirmed by Democratic leadershipaides, will come at the end of this year —the end of his 29th full term — and rep-resents the end of a historic tenure inthe House that began in 1955 That year,

an-Mr Dingell, at the age of 29, succeededhis father after he died

Mr Dingell, 87, who amassed erable power as the chairman of the En-ergy and Commerce Committee, in Junebecame the longest-serving member ofCongress with 20,997 days as a repre-sentative Until then, the record hadbeen held by Senator Robert C Byrd,Democrat of West Virginia Mr Dingellhas served under 11 presidents

consid-Mr Dingell asserted jurisdiction overvast expanses of federal policy as the in-timidating chairman of the energy com-mittee In 2008, his fellow Democratsousted him from the committee chair-manship, where he had reigned as thetop Democrat for nearly 30 years

Mr Dingell, 6 feet 3 inches tall, had

grown stooped in his later years, ing with the help of a cane (from Har-rods in London) or wheeling around on

walk-a motorized scooter (with walk-a plwalk-aque claiming him ‘‘the Dean’’ of the House)

pro-But Mr Dingell said his retirement had

as much to do with the changing nature

of the body in which he served as withany health concerns

He had recently begun to bemoan the

current culture of Congress — its bers’ inability to work together andcompromise — and in an interview withThe Detroit News, he was even morepointed: ‘‘I find serving in the House to

mem-be obnoxious,’’ he told the newspaper

‘‘It’s become very hard because of theacrimony and bitterness, both in Con-gress and in the streets.’’

Mr Dingell’s retirement is also

anoth-er blow for Representative NancyPelosi of California, the minority leader,who has lost several of her key liberal al-lies to retirement Earlier this year, Rep-resentatives George Miller and Henry

A Waxman, both of California, also nounced their retirements

an-Mr Dingell became famous for his called Dingell-grams, the elaboratewritten requests for information frompeople or agencies he planned to inves-tigate, and he considered his commit-tee’s oversight powers to be far-reach-ing, often pointing to a map of the Earthwhen asked what his jurisdiction was

so-He also became well-known for hissupport of progressive causes He votedfor the 1964 Civil Rights Act — a vote heconsiders his most important — andpresided over the passage of Medicare

(The gavel he used still sits on his desk.)Following the lead of his father, John,who introduced his own national healthcare legislation at the beginning ofevery Congress, Mr Dingell continuedthe tradition, and voted in favor of Pres-ident Obama’s signature health carelaw

His wife of more than three decades,Deborah, is a power in her own right inWashington She has served as an autoindustry executive and is a close ad-viser to her husband She recently con-sidered, but ultimately decided against,

a Senate bid There is speculation thatshe might run for her husband’s seat

Syria was not a place where Mr Obama saw the strategic value in American intervention.

Securities fraud decision

of 1988 is latest case to

face potential overrule

J SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Representative John D Dingell, 87, Democrat of Michigan, began his House career in 1955,

at the age of 29, succeeding his father after he died He has served under 11 presidents.

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INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 | 9

Armani

in green

Missoni, with texture

GIORGIO ARMANI

MISSONI

REGIS COLIN AND GUILLAUME ROUJAS/NOWFASHION.COM

To be both peaceful and forceful in

fash-ion is a special achievement And who

butGIORGIO ARMANIcould have made an

entire collection out of subtly redrawn

silhouettes colored only in the softest

green, shaded to gray? Those colors

en-veloped the show that closed the Milan

collections on Monday

‘‘The force of green,’’ said the

design-er as he stood among his models aftdesign-er

the show’s end The lineup told the

whole story: a crescent moon of outfits

from tailored coats, cut in the round, to

long dresses Among the choices was a

fresh asparagus color, with the model’s

bare legs striding out of a back slit,

wearing flat pumps in celery green

The color focus in the collection

seemed to embrace nature and the city,

almost as though the designer were

telling a story of a woman trapped in

town who escapes to green fields The

opening pieces were smart and urban,

mostly pants, but they were slightly

cropped and loose The same ease was

found in the shorter rounded jackets

made in soft flannel fabrics that

domi-nated the collection

The changes to the Armani silhouette

seemed so insignificant — and yet they

did so much The proportions worked

fine for both flat and high heels, and when

the color was gray, a handbag might be

green and sparkling, a twinkling surface

that also appeared on some dresses

The ability to change so subtly, yet to

stay yourself, is the mark of a great

de-signer So, once again, Mr Armani’s

draft of lime has earned him that status

SUZY MENKES

If you can’t tell the boys’ clothes fromthe girls’, that is just fine with AngelaMissoni

Like so many designers this season,she hit the sweet fashion spot by usingsimple, sporty shapes while putting herenergy into extraordinary textures

It helped that three-quarters of the

MISSONIshow was in knit of some kind,although it was hard to believe that anapparently tweedy coat was, in fact,knitted

That same reaction applied to manyinventive effects of looped intarsia andchevron pattern

Then there were the colors — juicyand joyous, as sunflower yellow andorange with a dash of swimming poolblue appeared on coats, pants andsweaters in this excellent collection.Texture is fashion’s ongoing story for

AQUILANO.RIMONDI the concept is oftendrawn from the richness of the past, atime when it was normal to mix tweedand velvet, sprinkle an outfit with appli-quèd roses or use fur buttons on a flan-nel jacket

Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto mondi cited their inspiration as graphicArt Deco and the lush beauty of thefilms of Luchino Visconti But the collec-tion, with its pleated skirts or wafts oforganza around the knees, caught themeld of fabrics that seems modern.One way to define autumn 2014 fash-ion is the ‘‘feel’’ of winter — meaningboth the fabrics and their effect

Ri-GABRIELE COLANGELO told his storygraphically, like a black and whitemovie Inspired by the watercolors ofthe German artist Joachim Bandau, thedesigner used a kind of shadow play togive a third dimension to streamlinedclothes Degradations of color, as blackmoved to gray, had a gentle, painterlyeffect

Shoes, clothes or both?

They were demonstrating the art and

company’s famous footwear in an ceptional setting Fifty historic shoesfrom its Florentine museum were dis-played in the academy’s scenographydepartment, where miniature buildingsfrom small homes to vast cathedralshad been created by students

ex-The focus on Ferragamo shoes, thecore of the brand, came at an interestingpoint in the company’s development:

The fashion show held earlier as part ofthe autumn 2014 Milan season was prob-ably the most convincing collection yet

Giornetti

Starting with misty gray and white

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10 | TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES .

VALEXTRA

AU JOUR LE JOUR

Moving to the ’60s

For the men’s wear collection last

models inside a penitentiary For thewomen’s show Monday, it was a mad-house — and it was hard to decide whichpresentation was more discomforting

As with the men’s show, the clotheswere quite interesting, especially as thedesigners Dean and Dan Caten appear

to have moved toward an early 1960sstyle and also offered full-on long even-ing gowns

The story seemed to go somethinglike this: mentally disturbed women, re-membering their past of glamorousparties, were hanging out in an all-whitemedical area complete with wirecaging They were then accompanied

by two nurselike figures, in all whitewith helmets, which looked like AndréCourrèges outfits from the 1960s

The design duo were on message withthis nod to the A-line tailoring of the pre-hippie era In fact, some of the day wearhad a faint resonance with this season’sGucci collection

DSquared2’s style beyond sportswear

Yet the show seemed to be pushingboundaries of decency — not on the run-way, but in the presentation

they took their bow as their wacky andwhimsical clothes did on the runway

The idea of highlighting Eurotrash

Howling

at the moon

The wolves howled, that particular cryacross the frozen steppes that createsshivers — even if these wild animalswere just on video screens, part of astage set

ANTO-NIO MARRAS backstage, following thatname with a list of artists, poets andwriters who focused on wolves and theirfictional, scary variations in fairy tales

It seemed an unlikely fashion tion but it was extremely effective indrawing the designer away from histendency to embrace the past as a path

inspira-to a magical collection

The wolves were there from the start:

two animals, necks stretched, tongueshanging, as they cried toward the moon

— and all this just above the hem of arounded and regular winter coat

So the embellishment went on, with

ONLINE: INTERNATIONAL STYLE

Suzy Menkes talks with Antonio Marras about wolves, Sardinia and a designer’s dreamsinyt.com/style

The textures had a similar trajectory,with craft difficult to define from a dis-tance, but adding to the feeling thathandwork is one of the important fea-tures of Italy’s promising young design-ers

VIN-CENZO was one indication why LVMHMoët Hennessy Louis Vuitton an-nounced on Monday that it is taking aminority stake of about 45 percent in thedesigner’s company

Pietro Baccari, chairman and chiefexecutive of the LVMH brand Fendi,was at the show Mr de Vincenzo hasbeen designing for Fendi for about 13

AQUILANO.RIMONDI GABRIELE COLANGELO MARCO DE VINCENZO STELLA JEAN

checks for tailoring rounded at the

shoulders, the designer focused on

in-tense craftsmanship within a clearly

drawn silhouette

The textures of furry mohair

sweat-ers or knife-pleated leather skirts

cre-ated extra dimensions, as did animal

prints partly saturated with black, as if

paint had been thrown at them

The effect of dripping color became

more dramatic when lemon yellow or a

pinky purple were added Both the

sur-face decoration, achieved with jacquard

and needle punching, and the urban

sportiness of the clothes were striking

And don’t forget the footwear

‘‘I loved those little boots,’’ said

Hil-ary Swank, referring to ankle-high

shiny bootees The actress said she

would be confident of their comfort

be-cause that was part of Salvatore

Fer-ragamo’s original aesthetic

Take the shoes or the clothes? That is

a pertinent question now that Italian

ac-cessory designers are following in the

platform-soled steps of earlier design

generations like Gucci and Prada Both

those brands developed renowned shoe

and bag houses into luxury fashion

brands back in the 1990s

Twenty years on, can it be done

again?

Diego Della Valle believes so The

president and chief executive of the Tod

empire has built fashion into the line

and now has offered a surprise from

HOGANthis season Along with the

foot-wear, with its buckled boots, knee-high

in soft leather or laced high tops with

splashy patterns, the designer Simon

Holloway created a full collection of

A rusty orange gleaming from the

sur-face of a purse and another, very

differ-ent shade of flamingo pink were rare

This bag company was built on

discre-tion — and on the practical effects that

the designer Álvaro González has

worked inside the purse

He rightly understands that

Valex-tra’s customers are looking for useful

additions rather than flashy inventions

Mr González is, therefore, interested in

the ergonomics of leather goods,

produ-cing, for example, a wallet big enough to

hold money, credit cards and a space to

slide in a digital tablet

The aim is to make living and

travel-ing easier And when Mr González

works the brushed surface of a burnt

orange bag with embossing, the effect is

as discreet as it is elegant

How many aluminum drink cans will

the public throw into recycling bins? It

cannot be too many for Ilaria Venturini

Fendi, whose imaginative use of the

cans’ metal tabs seem to know no

bounds

They appear in many guises to

sharp style to compare with the sportier

and malleable bags that Ms Fendi has

handmade in Africa

DSQUARED2

Missoni, working with texture

MISSONI, FROM PAGE 9

Devising how to put

the practical in bags

the wolf and his teeth particularly tive on a chunky sweater as a bold sym-bol on the chest is now all the fashionrage

effec-The color palette was perfect: a guine red, but the dark tones contrast-ing with flashes of pink and pale tur-quoise For embellishment, there waslace paneling, shearling and brocade —but none of those gave a heaviness tothe clothes

san-The finale was dramatic as the els mounted a scaffolding so that, as Mr.Marras explained, they could get closer

years This is a young Roman designerwhose skill with fur and leather is ex-ceptional

Working on the surface of fabrics, Mr

de Vincenzo sent waves of materialrolling down the front of a dress whilethe same dramatic effect was achieved

on other garments with chevron work

These patterns ran diagonally or onangles, making it difficult on the runway

to identify the base material

But the designer is also capable of ating simple clothes for his generation,like a blazer jacket with Lurex high-lights melding into one another on thedress underneath

cre-Craft, imagination and originality

make him a rising star at Milan FashionWeek

STELLA JEAN, another name to watch,took a turn out of Africa for her new col-lection, focusing instead on knitweardone in Italy Each of the giant coatswith bold patterns that opened the showrequired more than 100 hours of hand-work, said the designer, Stella MariaJean Novarino

But like so much of this collection, Ms

Novarino kept tripping over her ownfeet — literally, in the case of models insky-high stilettos She is especially suc-cessful with print and, though the shownotes talked about inspiration from theKabuki theater of Japan, what really

girls was only the beginning, for thesefeisty females seemed to have a pen-chant for cute animals, preferably catsand dogs, printed side by side The an-imals even appeared as intarsia treat-ment on furs

The energy and sense of fun evenmade prints of lips, common since theera of Salvador Dali, seem fresh

been focused on tough biker stuff, thisHogan collection was whimsical, usingthe drawings of the artist Julie Verho-even to suggest the 1970s as it moved tothe ’80s

Bold, fur-trimmed jackets in chalkywhites or perhaps a fiery plum pinkcomplemented the printed chiffon hip-pie-de-luxe dresses

Why move into fashion when cessories are the cash cow of so manycompanies?

ac-‘‘The idea is to complete our story,’’

said Mr Della Valle, explaining thatwhile the focus may be on accessoriesnow, companies need a wide offering

Hence his brother Andrea, the group’svice president, is expanding the range

of Fay, another Tod’s brand, along withHogan

‘‘The difference today is that we haveour shops to fill Before we had to sellthings to stores,’’ said Mr Della Valle toexplain the strategy Tod’s, for example,already has 200 stores worldwide

Yet this strategy is not universally

direction, putting more focus on its coreproducts and its new but experiencedshoe and bag designer, Pablo Coppola

He has concentrated on quality, triguing surface treatments and a dis-tinct Bally look that does not requirebold logos

in-A super-glossy treatment for leather,giving it the sheen of a rubber boot butkeeping a luxurious softness, was oneexample, made in gum pink and a richred The same colors appeared on a redsuede bag with snakeskin handles whileother unexpected shades for bags in-cluded a light pistachio green andshrimp pink

‘‘Ready-to-wear is a compliment tothe total look, but craftsmanship is ourbrand DNA,’’ said Frédéric de Narp,Bally’s chief executive

That attitude was reflected in a lineup

of classic court shoes: a Bally signature

worked were the bold African-style waxprints on which she established her col-lection

Intriguingly, it turned out that thegeometric patterns on tailored pieceswith clean lines were the ‘‘made inAfrica’’ part of the collection, handworkfrom Burkina Faso

The clothes for the designer’s ‘‘urbanMadame Butterfly’’ were just too fancy

in cut and decoration Ms Novarinoneeds to step back, reassess herstrengths and remember that modernwomen should be striding, not teeter-ing SUZY MENKES

HOGAN

BALLY

CARMINA CAMPUS

Trang 12

The nightmares evoked by the title of

Georg Friedrich Haas’s new ‘‘dark

dreams,’’ which the Berlin

Philharmon-ic played with its chief conductor,

Si-mon Rattle, on Saturday evening at the

Philharmonie here, involve repetition

and circling back: the ominous sense

that even as things change, they

re-main the same

This was also the lesson, of sorts, to

be learned from Mr Haas’s 2000

mas-terpiece, ‘‘in vain.’’ A 70-minute work

for chamber orchestra, ‘‘in vain’’

hov-ers in the air, rising to burning climaxes

but always slithering free of them,chastened, and returning to hushedstasis The feeling is one of uncertainty,

as it is also in ‘‘dark dreams,’’ which ispermeated by the sound of string play-ers making quivering trills while slid-ing up their instruments’ fingerboards:

instability atop instability

The new score is full of swift risesand equally swift falls in volume Thetempo is firmer — at 60 beats a minutefor most of the 23-minute piece, the fun-damental pace has the steady click of aclock’s second hand — but the instru-ments blur around it, tending to speed

up just as the music seems to havereached stillness, as if a reminder thatthings inevitably fall apart At one point

a passage of blissed-out, golden joy, allbrass and bronzed strings, suddenlydissolves as the strings accelerate intohysteria

If Mr Haas, 60, has previously posed music of Wagnerian intensity,with touches of the Alpine brass ofStrauss’s tone poems, then ‘‘darkdreams’’ shifts the emphasis a bit (The

com-orchestra will bring the work to gie Hall in October.) We are now in theworld of the lurid excesses of Strauss’sExpressionist operas, ‘‘Salome’’ and

Carne-‘‘Elektra,’’ with sound juxtapositionslike the curt chop of a woodblock andthe roar of a horn, as if by a rearinghorse Later, the basses briefly scuffle,

as in the angry passage just before thehead of John the Baptist is presented toSalome

Insistent and yet ultimately, as itstitle indicates, a paean to futility, ‘‘invain’’ was intended as a protestagainst, or at least an elegy about, thevictory of far-right factions in the 1999Austrian elections Ears alert to Mr

Haas’s political interests (he is an) will spot a battle-ready passage in

Austri-‘‘dark dreams’’: a beat first in thewoodblock, then the drum, then thetimpani that evokes the Prussian-stylemarches of his 2004 Cello Concerto

In ‘‘dark dreams,’’ the moment isquickly engulfed by more of those slid-ing trills; even to call it a protest —against militarism, fascism, whatever —seems an overstatement of the helplessmodesty of the reference Mr Haas, likemany of us, seems sadly resigned to be-ing able merely to glance at injustice andpain before turning his attention else-where

As throughout Mr Haas’s body ofwork, the score uses microtones — thesounds between the traditional West-ern octave’s 12 notes — but the impact

of ‘‘dark dreams’’ is far more macrothan micro, sometimes to its detriment

Not long before the work ends, it buildsinto orgiastic overload; in the stringsalone, 18 lines play simultaneously,rhythms completely out of joint There

is another passage that alternatessomber brasses and a mass of answer-ing strings, like an ancient rite

Some of Mr Haas’s classic works, like

‘‘in vain’’ and his Third String Quartet(2001), are long and immersive, evenplacing audience members and per-formers in extended stretches of dark-ness to heighten their perceptions But

in a more compressed work like ‘‘darkdreams,’’ the very loud and very softpassages tended to feel unearned, gran-diose rather than grand The extremeswere less riveting than relentless,capped, after so many climaxes, by amelancholy anticlimax, perhaps anoth-

er nod to the great nightmare of politicalpowerlessness: a forlorn tuba solo over

a quiet, complex string chord grounded

in a low C sharp Then silence

The orchestra gave an excellent formance of a very good piece of music,which was particularly vivid in thetheater-in-the-round architecture of thePhilharmonie and was brilliantly pro-grammed just before Debussy’s ‘‘LaMer.’’ The two works have nearlyidentical orchestral forces, and theopening of the Debussy — involvingtwo harps, quivering scales in the

per-CHESTER HIGGINS JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES

Misty Copeland is the second black female soloist in American Ballet Theater’s history.

BY ROSLYN SULCAS

The dancer Misty Copeland has

per-formed with the singer Prince and the

pop group TLC She has appeared in

commercials for Diet Dr Pepper and

Coach handbags, is national youth of the

year ambassador for Boys & Girls Clubs

of America and has a contract with the

Under Armour sports clothing brand

She has her own dance wear line, and

next month Simon & Schuster will

pub-lish her memoir, ‘‘Life in Motion: An

Unlikely Ballerina.’’

But on a mild January day at

Ameri-apartment ‘‘You have to push yourselfand push yourself, and it’s never per-fect And to be different means you mayeven have to be stronger.’’

Ms Copeland, petite, pretty and ished, is different among ballerinas be-cause she is a black woman in a worldthat is very largely white While a num-ber of black men have made prominentnames for themselves in ballet — Ar-thur Mitchell, Albert Evans, CarlosAcosta — few black women, outsideDance Theater of Harlem, have becomeprincipals at major American balletcompanies A mere handful have made

pol-it to the rank of soloist, and Ms land is only the second black woman inBallet Theater’s history to hold that po-sition New York City Ballet has onlyhad one black female soloist: DebraAustin, in the 1970s

Cope-There are complex reasons for this:economics and access to ballet perfor-mances and classes, stereotypes aboutblack women and — most worryinglyfor black female dancers — stereotypesabout what a ballerina should be: whiteand waiflike

‘‘I think when I joined Ballet Theater,there were people on the staff who didnot want to see a brown person in thecorps onstage,’’ Ms Copeland said

In ‘‘Life in Motion,’’ written withCharisse Jones, Ms Copeland recountsher upbringing in San Pedro, Calif.,

Ominous tones in a fitful realm

strings and a timpani roll — is like a second summary of ‘‘dark dreams.’’

30-‘‘La Mer,’’ too, involves a delicate ance between true power and meregarishness Mr Rattle avoided the lat-ter by conducting the work with a fe-verish edge and abrupt bendings of thetempo that kept it sounding unexpectedand fresh He emphasized the same in-tensity in Brahms’s Third Symphony,which opened the concert: The end ofthe first movement was a burst of re-leased tension, and even the noble pas-toral of the Andante had raw emotion

bal-I have never heard an effect quite likethe vocal quality Mr Rattle drew fromthe strings in the exhalations near theend of ‘‘La Mer.’’ It was, simply, as if aninvisible choir were singing from theorchestra: astonishing The passage ismarked ‘‘calmer and very expressive,’’but this was deeper than that, a peacewhich passeth understanding

Simon Rattle conducting ‘‘dark dreams’’

at the Philharmonic in Berlin on Saturday With this work, Georg Friedrich Haas, its Austrian composer, takes the audience in-

to the lurid excesses of Strauss’s sionist operas, ‘‘Salome’’ and ‘‘Elektra.’’

Expres-ONLINE: THE CULTURE AT LARGE

Read up-to-the-minute news on the ArtsBeat blog.nytimes.com/arts

BALLERINA, PAGE 13

Berlin Philharmonic

presents ‘dark dreams’

by Georg Friedrich Haas

Misty Copeland recounts

her life as a black dancer

in a largely white milieu

At one point a passage of blissed-out, golden joy suddenly dissolves as the strings accelerate into hysteria.

can Ballet Theater’s studios, she looked

as anxious as a novice when she put hertoes to the floor and, supported by herpartner, Herman Cornejo, tried to risegracefully from a kneeling position to astraight leg ‘‘Try it again,’’ urged thecoach Susan Jaffe, who was rehearsing

Ms Copeland, a soloist at Ballet

Theat-er, for her debut in the principal role ofSwanhilda in Nicholas Sergeyev’s

‘‘Coppélia,’’ which she will perform ing the company’s spring season at theMetropolitan Opera House

dur-Ms Copeland and Mr Cornejo tried itagain And again and again By the end

of the rehearsal, the passage, just a fewseconds long, was slightly better

‘‘You have to be so strong to be a fessional ballet dancer,’’ Ms Copeland,

pro-31, said a day later, in an interview at anUpper West Side restaurant close to her

‘‘There were people on the staff who did not want to see a brown person’’ onstage.

A singular ballerina’s multiple paths

M U S I C R EV I EW

Trang 13

where she and her five siblings were

raised by her mother, Sylvia DelaCerna,

and a string of her husbands and

boy-friends When Ms Copeland was 2, she

writes, ‘‘our family began a pattern that

would define my siblings’ and my

child-hood: packing, scrambling, leaving —

often barely surviving.’’

She was 13 — an anxious,

perfection-ist student who was captain of her

school drill team — when she happened

to glimpse a ballet class at the San

Pedro Boys & Girls Club of America,

where Ms Copeland and her siblings

spent their after-school hours The

teacher, Cynthia Bradley, persuaded

her to join, and despite beginning ballet

many years later than most dancers,

Ms Copeland proved to have

extraordi-nary aptitude Soon, after Ms Bradley

offered her a scholarship to her own

school, she was training there every

day Eventually, she moved in with Ms

Bradley and her family to focus on her

ballet training, escaping the motel room

where her mother and siblings were

liv-ing

Two years later, however, her mother

demanded that she return home; Ms

Bradley’s response was to suggest that

Ms Copeland sue for emancipation

A court battle ensued, placing Ms

Copeland, her family and the Bradleys

in a glare of publicity Ms Copeland

dropped her emancipation request, and

a judge eventually found in Ms

Dela-Cerna’s favor ‘‘But the battle in my

mind and spirit raged on,’’ Ms Copeland

writes in her book

These experiences, she said, have

been fundamental to her development

‘‘I think that I came into this profession

with something that most of the dancers

didn’t have As hard as it all was, it

helped me from a young age to become

a character, to feel certain emotions

when dancing.’’

After winning a scholarship to Ballet

Theater’s summer program, she joined

the company’s junior Studio Company

in 2000, then the senior troupe the

fol-lowing year

‘‘When I first saw her, I almostlaughed, she was just so coordinatedwith such amazing facility,’’ said KevinMcKenzie, the artistic director of BalletTheater ‘‘I have seen her grow upthrough injury and difficulties I think,

to some degree, the racial issue has got

to be a driving force, because therereally haven’t been that many dancers

of color who have reached this level in aclassical art form She has kept her con-nection to her community and acceptsbeing a symbol and has kept her eye onwhat it means to excel.’’

Although Ms Copeland was givensolo roles and won critical plaudits — ‘‘abreakthrough season,’’ Anna Kisselgoffwrote in The New York Times of her

2004 performances in William sythe’s ‘‘workwithinwork’’ — shebegan to feel that she didn’t fit in, shesaid, adding, ‘‘Suddenly I felt aware ofbeing black, that I was never going toget those classical parts.’’

For-Eventually, she said, the feelings ofisolation and exclusion strengthenedher resolve In 2007, she was promoted

to soloist; she has subsequently formed principal roles in ‘‘La Bay-adère,’’ ‘‘Le Corsaire’’ and Alexei Rat-mansky’s ‘‘The Firebird,’’ as well as inmore contemporary work In 2009 came

per-a surprise eper-arly-morning cper-all per-askingwhether Prince could have her phonenumber ‘‘I was half-asleep,’’ she said

‘‘I was, like, ‘Prince who?’’’ She filmed

The Kennan Diaries.By George F Kennan

Edited by Frank Costigliola Illustrated 712

pages W.W Norton & Company $39.95.

BY FAREED ZAKARIA

‘‘All conservatism begins with loss,’’

An-drew Sullivan writes ‘‘If we never knew

loss, we would never feel the need to

conserve.’’ That’s why the first and still

canonical conservative text is Edmund

Burke’s ‘‘Reflections on the Revolution

in France,’’ a lamentation on the

uproot-ing of that country’s monarchical order

And that’s why America, as an

experi-ment in modernity, hasn’t had many

genuine conservatives in its history

The so-called conservative founding

fathers, John Adams and Alexander

Hamilton, were in fact creators of a new

and radical system of government The

19th-century Whigs — Webster, Clay

and Calhoun — sometimes seen as

con-servatives, were aggressive

pro-ponents of capitalist development

Even many Southerners who argued

for slavery were advocating an

eco-nomic system that kept them rich,

en-thusiastically embracing the trade and

modern technology that made slavery

so profitable And contemporary

con-servatism — which began as a reaction

to the progressive era and the New

Deal — has always mixed dynamic

capitalism with moralism

Given this background, ‘‘The Kennan

Diaries’’ is an illuminating, fascinating

and sometimes disturbing book

George F Kennan was the most

cele-brated diplomat-intellectual of the 20th

century, the brilliant author of the

strategy of containment that the United

States adopted and that won the Cold

War For most of his life he was seen as

a strategist and — because he was

dovish on most foreign policy issues —

a liberal As these diaries make clear,

he spent much of his life thinking about

political philosophy And his instincts

and insights were deeply conservative,

but in a way that doesn’t really fit into

today’s left-right categories

‘‘I cannot help but regret that I did

not live 50 or 100 years sooner,’’ he

wrote in one of his entries ‘‘Life is too

full in these times to be comprehensible

We know too many cities to be able to

grow into any of them too many

friends to have any real friendships, too

many books to know any of them well,

and the quality of our impressions gives

way to the quantity, so that life begins toseem like a movie, with hundreds of ka-leidoscopic scenes flashing on and offour field of perception, gone before wehave time to consider them.’’

It’s a vivid expression of a deep, stinctual conservatism, especiallywhen you consider that it was written

in-in December 1927

In keeping with a long tradition ofconservatism, Mr Kennan mournedthe loss of small communities with theirsense of common purpose In 1938,while working at the State Department,

he took a brief leave and bicycledthrough rural Wisconsin, the state hegrew up in, and recalled how the smallvillages he moved through had oftenrallied together, in the wake of floods,hurricanes and war, and how modernlife, with its emphasis on individualism,was eroding that sense of solidarity

Seventeen years later, he surveyed hiscountry — the booming, urbanizingAmerica of the 1950s — with disgust: ‘‘Icould leave it without a pang: the end-less streams of cars, the bored, setfaces behind the windshield, thechrome, the asphalt, the advertising,the television sets, the filling stations,the hot-dog stands, the barren businesscenters, the suburban brick boxes, thecountry clubs, the bars and grills, theempty activity.’’

He saw a dark side in almost all theadvances of modern life, especially carsand airplanes On the former: ‘‘Thebest thing is travel by turnpike — atnight, a wholly useless exercise, to besure — hours of death subtracted fromthe hours of life, but better than seeinganything.’’ ‘‘Flying (but particularlythe airports) puts me into the nearestthing to a wholly psychotic depres-sion,’’ he explained His reaction to theexplosion of the space shuttle Chal-lenger in 1986 was to note that he wouldgladly trade ‘‘the entire Americanspace program, in all its forms militaryand civilian, for a good national tele-graph system and railway transporta-tion network such as we used to have.’’

His views were rooted in history,philosophy and — somewhat surpris-ingly to me — faith Writing on GoodFriday, 1980, he composed a beautifulpaean to the life and legacy of JesusChrist: ‘‘Most human events yield tothe erosion of time The greatest,most amazing, exception to this gener-alization occurred on the hill ofGolgotha A man, a Jew, some sort ofdissident religious prophet, was cruci-fied in company with two common

thieves In the teachings of this manwere two things: first the principle ofcharity of love but secondly, the pos-sibility of redemption in the face of self-knowledge and penitence The com-bination of these two things: charityand redemption inspired an entirevast civilization, created a great art,erected a hundred thousand magnifi-cent churches, shaped and disci-plined the minds and the values ofmany generations — placed, in short,its creative stamp on one of thegreatest of all flowerings of the humanspirit.’’

Mr Kennan’s conservatism was

poet-ic, comprehensive and utterly

imprac-tical In 1979, he outlined the kind of tics he would favor ‘‘In addition to being

poli-a politicpoli-al isolpoli-ationist, I poli-am poli-a believer inautarky Not only do I believe that thehealthy national society would rigidlyeschew the importation of foreign labor but I consider that it should restrict to

a minimum its economic and financialinvolvements with other peoples.’’ Tosome readers, this may sound like NorthKorea, but Mr Kennan’s celebration ofthe character, coherence and moral su-periority of small communities has arich pedigree in European thought Italso informs what can only be described

as Mr Kennan’s racism

Writing on a flight to Los Angeles in

1978, Mr Kennan thinks about how fewwhite faces he will see when he landsand laments the decline of people ‘‘ofBritish origin, from whose forefathers

The poetic, impractical conservatism of a Cold War strategist

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ONLINE: BALLET WITHOUT BORDERS

A slideshow of Alexei Ratmansky’s works.nytimes.com/dance

B O O K R EV I EW

the constitutional structure and

politic-al idepolitic-als of the early America onceemerged.’’ Instead, he predicts, Ameri-cans are destined to ‘‘melt into a vastpolyglot mass, one huge pool of indis-tinguishable mediocrity and drabness.’’

Mr Kennan at times displayed tional racism His views on SouthAfrica were strongly shaped by his feel-ing that blacks were simply not capable

conven-of handling liberty and democracy ‘‘Iwould expect to see within five or 10years’ time,’’ he wrote in 1990, ‘‘onlydesperate attempts at emigration onthe parts of whites, and strident ap-peals for American help from an Afri-can regime unable to feed its ownpeople from the resources of a ruinedeconomy.’’ But for the most part, Mr

Kennan’s racism was a product of hisconservatism, which is to say that hewas profoundly mistrustful of the mod-ern multiethnic nation-state with its

‘‘mingling of the races.’’ He did not lookdown on the Chinese, Indians, Russians

or Jews, believing that they would ceed better in their own coherent com-munities than in a mixed-up meltingpot The tone of his ‘‘A Guest of MyTime’’ comments about nonwhites,however, always has a sharp and deris-ory edge

suc-With time, Mr Kennan’s tions grew in scope, encompassing theenvironment, overpopulation and therape of the earth’s limited natural re-sources ‘‘The danger of collective ca-tastrophe is so great as to be in part acertainty,’’ he wrote in 1968 He worriedabout nuclear weapons for much of the1970s and 1980s, believing firmly thatthey would lead to war and therefore aglobal cataclysm of unimaginable pro-portions As late as 1988, as Mikhail S

lamenta-Gorbachev was bringing the Cold War

to a close, he wrote, ‘‘I have no hopethat a nuclear disaster can be avoided.’’

For years, Mr Kennan had been deeplycritical of American foreign policy forits militarization, imperial reach, arro-gance and aggression The end of theCold War, in a manner he had largelypredicted in 1946 and 1947, brought him

no joy or sense of vindication He ried about the dynamic and disruptivechanges taking place across Europeand hence was skeptical about the re-unification of Germany

wor-I realize that at this point he soundslike a cranky old man, trapped in nos-talgia and ideology How, then, to ex-plain the extraordinary brilliance ofKennan the strategist? From his earli-est days as a diplomat, he was an acute

PEOPLE

It’s been far too long — ically speaking — since France invadedNew York in the spring of 2001 withFrance Moves, a festival programmed

choreograph-by Yorgos Lukos, the artistic director ofthe Lyon Opera Ballet This spring ush-ers in Danse: A French-American Festi-val of Performance and Ideas, which be-gins May 1 and affords a rare

opportunity for an immersion intoFrench dance Fourteen venues will host

16 United States premieres and one NewYork premiere, including the poetically

his two productions will be performed

by the Lyon Opera Ballet — and the

FRANÇOIS CHAIGNAUD — Gia Kourlas

TheVIVIENNE WESTWOODhat that

atten-tion at the Grammy Awards last month isfor sale on eBay With six days to go, thehigh bid stood at $12,500 on Monday, with

68 bids so far Proceeds are to benefitFrom One Hand to Another, a nonprofitthat Mr Williams founded in 2008 to sup-port community centers and education.For the third weekend in a row, ‘‘TheLego Movie’’ was the top draw at NorthAmerican theaters, while the volcano ad-venture ‘‘Pompeii’’ blew its chance atprofitability ‘‘The Lego Movie’’ (WarnerBrothers) took in an estimated $31.5 mil-lion, for a domestic total of $183.2 million,according to Rentrak, which compilesbox-office data The action crime drama

‘‘3 Days to Kill’’ (Relativity Media), ringKEVIN COSTNER, arrived in secondplace, with ticket sales of about $12.3 mil-lion ‘‘Pompeii’’ (Sony Pictures Enter-

esti-mated ticket sales of $10 million, aterrible result for a film that cost $80 mil-lion to produce and millions more to mar-

ket — Brooks Barnes

PHOTOGRAPHS: AP/RELATIVITY MEDIA, REUTERS, AP, EPA

observer of the world — and we see this

in the diaries He arrived in Russia inDecember 1933, with the first Americanambassador to the Soviet Union, andquickly grasped the cruel realities ofthe Soviet system, while many West-erners were still in awe of it Describing

a tea at the American Embassy in cow in September 1934, with British lib-erals, including a founder of Fabian so-cialism, Sidney Webb, he noted thatBritish liberals ‘‘think very abstractlyand find it easy to be enthusiastic aboutCommunism because their attitude is acomplete pose In their hearts, theynever dream of being Bolshevistic oranything else except plain British.’’

Mos-This acute sense of realism pervadesall of Mr Kennan’s diplomatic observa-tions In 1944, having dinner with thePolish prime minister, who had re-ceived encouraging words of supportfrom the Russians for the country’s in-dependence, Mr Kennan was sure that

no matter what anyone said, the Poles

would end up badly ‘‘The jealous andintolerant eye of the Kremlin can distin-guish, in the end, only vassals and en-emies, and the neighbors of Russia, ifthey do not wish to be one, must recon-cile themselves to being the other.’’

Similarly, Mr Kennan’s critique ofAmerican plans for a postwar peace up-held by international organizations wasshaped by his historical perspective

‘‘These structures have always servedthe purpose for which they were de-signed just as long as the interests ofthe Great Powers gave substance andreality to their existence,’’ he wrote

‘‘The moment it became in the terests of one or the other of the GreatPowers to alter the status quo, none ofthese treaty structures ever stood inthe way of such alteration.’’ Few were

in-as prescient about the United Nations

in 1944 In 1945, he was almost alone inpredicting that Russia would take con-trol of Eastern Europe and that Frank-lin Roosevelt’s faith in Stalin was mis-guided and nạve He was also, alongwith some others, farsighted in predict-ing in the late 1940s that China and theSoviet Union, though tight Communistallies, would split apart

What then explains Mr Kennan’s

strange mixture of prescience abroadand obtuseness at home? I think it lies

in his own admission that he felt like astranger in his own country, ‘‘a guest of

my time and not a member of its hold.’’ Mr Kennan’s genius was to per-ceive accurately the essence of othercountries, often far more traditionalthan America — and to connect them totheir past For example, in his famous5,500-word ‘‘Long Telegram,’’ which ar-gued for containment of the Soviet Un-ion instead of military confrontation,his seminal contributions were to showhow Stalin’s policies were largely a con-tinuation of an older Russian strategy

house-— and why the modern, imposed Sovietsystem would eventually wither Hisanalysis of Poland, the United Nations,China, all drew on a similar under-standing of history, continuity and cul-ture

What Mr Kennan could not reallycomprehend was modernity Technol-ogy, capitalism, trade, immigration, allcreated so much change that Mr Ken-nan could not see in them anything butdanger and disaster America, the cen-ter of these forces of dynamism, be-came the locus of his worst fears

In 1994 (at the age of 90 ) Mr Kennanwrote an entry in which he tried to putRussia’s foreign policy into context,pointing out that seven decades ofCommunism had distorted a great civi-lization and that one must have sym-pathy for this ‘‘tragically injured andspiritually diminished country’’ to un-derstand its fitful moves on the interna-tional stage He then went on to reflect

on America, for which he could muster

no empathy at all He saw in it a landconsumed by ‘‘unrestrained decad-ence,’’ a ‘‘pathological preoccupationwith sex and violence, the weird efforts

to claim for homosexuality the status of

a proud, noble and promising way oflife’’ and, finally, perhaps most men-acing for him, the curse of political cor-rectness, which meant ‘‘the total loss of

a sense of humor.’’ That was his tion to the booming 1990s

reac-George Kennan shined a powerfullight on the world beyond But in hisown land, from the beginning to his lastdays, he remained a bewildered guest

Fareed Zakaria is the host of ‘‘Fareed karia GPS’’ on CNN and the author of

Za-‘‘The Post-American World.’’

a music video with him, then performed

a number of times during subsequentPrince concerts at Madison SquareGarden

The publicity brought her new mediaopportunities, contracts and appear-ances (She has a second book, for chil-dren, coming out in the fall, and a docu-mentary about her life is being made:

George.) Ballet Theater started ProjectPlié, a diversity program that offersscholarships to promising minority dan-cers and asked Ms Copeland to be itsface

‘‘Everything I do is about bringingballet to more people,’’ she said ‘‘It’s in-credible to get these letters from girlswho have seen the Dr Pepper ads andsay, she is brown like me I hear crit-icism of what I do in the ballet world, butthese opportunities show ballet to

people who would never see it wise.’’

other-Whether Ms Copeland will become aprincipal at Ballet Theater is a questionthat hangs over her career (althoughthe promotion may not make much dif-ference to her popularity)

‘‘She wants to do the big classicalroles, and she can, because she is verystrong and clear, with an incredibleamplitude,’’ said Ms Jaffe, a former Bal-let Theater ballerina who is now thedean of dance at the University of NorthCarolina School of the Arts ‘‘But I thinkshe is a new kind of dancer.’’

‘‘There is so much untapped potentialthere With the right choreographer, shecould do anything.’’

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREA MOHIN/ THE NEW YORK TIMES

Above, Joseph Gorak, left, and Misty Copeland in a scene from ‘‘The Sleeping Beauty’’ at the Metropolitan Opera House At left, Ms Copeland in ‘‘One.’’

George F Kennan’s instincts were deeply conservative in a way that doesn’t fit into today’s left-right categories.

A singular ballerina’s multiple paths

BALLERINA, FROM PAGE 12

‘‘As hard as it all was, it helped me from a young age to become a character,

to feel certain emotions when dancing.’’

EDDIE HAUSNER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

George F Kennan in 1969 He saw a dark side in almost all advances of modern life.

KEVIN COSTNER, KIT HARINGTON, VIVIENNE WESTWOOD , PHARRELL WILLIAMS

Trang 14

SOCHI, RUSSIA The closing ceremony

of the Sochi Games was a celebration of

everything Russian, and everything

that Russia does so well

A pianist filled Fisht Olympic Stadium

with Rachmaninoff as dozens of grand

pianos floated around the stage Sunday

night Ballet dancers twirled and leapt so

expertly that they surely could have won

a gold medal for their efforts Massive

photos of the country’s best writers —

Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky — were

greeted with wild applause

The entire night provided a showcase

for Russia’s many success stories, and

like it or not, hosting an Olympics is

now among them

Dmitry Chernyshenko, the president

of the Sochi organizing committee, told

me that he considered these Olympics

‘‘impeccable,’’ and purely from an letic standpoint, I have to agree As thetwo of us stood outside the main hockeyarena, we looked out at the OlympicPark, which sits on the Black Sea, andmarveled at what Russia had built,turning a crumbling summer vacationspot filled with Stalin-era sanitariumsinto a compact collection of state-of-the-art sporting venues

ath-In a lot of ways, these Games werebetter than Olympics past The venues,the transportation, the setting, the se-curity — all winning Sure, soft snowand a few unfinished hotels upset someathletes and visitors, but most of thecompetitors raved

‘‘I have not heard one bad thing fromanyone,’’ said the hockey player JulieChu, who won a silver medal and wasthe flag-bearer for the United States atthe closing ceremony

So why might there be some tance to acknowledge that these Gameswere so good? Maybe because the suc-

reluc-cess of them also stands as a symbol ofthe power and influence of PresidentVladimir V Putin

Putin lobbied Olympic officials togive these Games to Sochi, which haslong been his personal getaway Theydid, and seven years later they wereconfronted with the makings of a grimsporting event Terrorist threats keptsome fans and athletes’ families away

Putin’s politics turned attention beforethe Games to human rights violationsinstead of athletics His disturbing re-cord of quashing voices of dissent andhis law criminalizing the spread of ‘‘gaypropaganda’’ to children made theOlympics difficult for many to enjoywithout reservation

But as the Games went on, athleteswere treated with respect, and nonewho wanted to express their opinionsabout politics were silenced, according

to those I spoke with That’s what madethese Games so special, said ThomasBach, the International Olympic Com-mittee’s new president

‘‘By living together under one roof in

the Olympic Village, you send a ful message from Sochi to the world, amessage of a society of peace, toleranceand respect,’’ Bach said in his closingceremony speech, which may or maynot have been scripted with Putin inmind He continued, ‘‘I appeal to every-body implicated in confrontation, op-pression or violence: Act on this

power-Olympic message of dialogue andpeace.’’

From his office overlooking theOlympic Park, Bach had told me that hedid his best to keep Putin’s politics —and all politics — from marring thespirit of the competitions, or the eventsthemselves He basically said he wasannoyed that he had to play referee be-tween countries and leaders who kept

trying to inject politics into theseGames

While he did not name those worldleaders, he said he did not ‘‘appreciatewhen governments sent political mes-sages on the backs of their athletes.’’ Itwas easy to guess to whom he was re-ferring: Putin and President Obama,who declined to attend these Olympicsand sent a delegation with severalopenly gay members instead, presum-ably to make a point

‘‘This is exactly what the I.O.C

doesn’t need,’’ Bach told me, referring

to the attempt to politicize the Games

I asked him why the I.O.C hadchosen Sochi to host the Games, partic-ularly when the city is in one of themost restive areas of the world He said

it was because Russia did not havewinter sports facilities after the dissolu-tion of the Soviet Union — those facilit-ies had been based outside Russia —and because the I.O.C wanted to help agreat winter sports country build an in-frastructure for winter sports

That seemed like a feeble reason But

if the goal of the Olympics is to increasethe participation in Olympic sports,they must have succeeded this time.There were other, more importantbenefits to having the Games here.More than 25,000 volunteers wereneeded to conduct these Olympics.Many of them appeared sullen whenthe Games began but were smiling anddancing in the Olympic Park by theend Walking to my hotel after the clos-ing ceremony on Sunday, I saw several

of them crying in celebration The ones

I spoke to over the past few weeks saidworking for free had been a newconcept for them, as it was for manypeople in Russia

Similarly, if the Games had not beenheld here, the uproar about Russia’santigay law — among other oppressivelaws — would not have been heard by

so many around the world

Putin got the Olympics, and his try thrived A less endearing side ofRussia was exposed in the process,which might prove to be the most im-portant success of the Games here

coun-Amid Sochi’s triumphs, an argument for tolerance

The success of the Games also stands as a symbol of the power and influence of President Vladimir V Putin.

Memories they’ll never forget from the 2014 Olympics

OLYMPICS

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The 2014 Winter Olympics might be

over, but lasting impressions remain

with the people who covered the Games

on the slopes of Krasnaya Polyana,

Rus-sia, and in the arenas in Sochi

FROM A BACKPACK, REFRESHMENT

There was a ski-rental shop at the base of

the gondola In exchange for 1,400 rubles

(about $40) and temporary custody of

my American driver’s license, I got skis,

poles, boots and a helmet for the day

My Olympic credential got me on the

gondola and the next one and the next

one, until there were no more

moun-tains to climb and the view was all

downhill Through the snow-capped

peaks, the Black Sea was a dark shadow

on the horizon

I had an hour to kill before I met

Danny Davis and Greg Bretz, American

snowboarders who had agreed to let me

ski with them to see how they unwound

after the halfpipe competition I wove

past the downhill course and a slalom

training session The slopes were

virtu-ally empty

I got to our prescribed meeting point

at the top of the first gondola It was hot,

and I stripped off my jacket and sat in

the shade

A man approached He wore a

back-pack that had a tube protruding, and he

poured himself a malty-looking

bever-age There was a bit of foam at the top He

took a sip He pointed to it and raised his

eyebrows, the international gesture to

ask if I wanted a cup, too In broken

Eng-lish, he said that it made him ski better

I used two of the three Russian words

I knew: Nyet, spasibo No, thank you

The last thing I needed at 10:30 in the

morning was a beer

A woman came along, and the man

cheerfully poured her a beverage

Funny: A guy just hands out beers on

the slopes in the morning But then she

stepped into the cool shade, and I saw

steam rising from her cup I looked at

her quizzically The woman raised the

plastic cup

‘‘Chai,’’ she said I knew another word

after all It was tea

I turned to the man Yes, of course

A SNAPSHOT TO REMEMBER

Mikaela Shiffrin had won the Olympic

gold medal in slalom, been saluted by

the finish-line grandstand crowd in a

flower ceremony, held a huge news

con-ference before an international

gather-ing of journalists and found time to hug

coaches and friends

With her face flushed and her eyes

wide, Shiffrin was well aware she was

living a shining, definitive moment in a

young life

But as she left the Alpine skiing area

late Friday night and headed out into a

new world of celebrity, there was still

one little ritual to complete, something

Shiffrin had been doing after ski races

since she was in grade school

She wanted to pose for a picture with

her parents

In visits to the Shiffrin home in the

last year, I saw dozens of these kinds of

snapshots: Shiffrin with her parents,

Eileen and Jeff, at the bottom of

innu-merable racecourses in Colorado, New

Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Utah,

Canada and Europe In the earliest

pho-tos, she was half as tall as her parents

Slowly, in more ways than one, she

began to progress in stature

But on the night she became the

youngest Olympic slalom champion,

and with the athletic world buzzing over

the possibilities of an 18-year-old

bud-ding ski queen, Shiffrin abruptly

stopped the whirlwind enveloping her

With the slope where she had just made

history behind her, Shiffrin threw an

arm around each parent, handed over a

cellphone and smiled for another

pic-ture This was important

The photo, a twinkling image from the

mountains of southern Russia late on a

Friday night, will look good in the family

FINISHING 4TH, AND STILL HAPPY

There is a good chance Andi Langenhandoes not remember me But for a few mo-ments early in the Olympics, he providedsome much-needed inspiration

Ill, freezing and questioning my cision to make the trip, I waited for Lan-genhan, a German luger, to walkthrough the mixed zone, where report-ers can speak to the athletes after theirraces My assignment was to find thefourth-place finisher, and Langenhanhad missed a medal by 558-thousandths

de-of a second, so he was my target

Many athletes in this situation canbarely hide their disappointment anddish out bromides about their respectfor those ahead of them

Langenhan was different He saidthat he had hoped to win a medal butthat he was pleased that he had im-proved on his fifth-place finish at theVancouver Games Bouncing with en-ergy, he seemed eager to start trainingfor the 2018 Games

‘‘The little man in my head alwayssays go on, go on, go harder, for sure,’’

Langenhan, 29, said after the men’ssingles competition ‘‘But I know I can

do it All the other guys who are known who come to the top 10 can reach

un-a medun-al for sure, un-and everybody is ting older and knows what to do.’’

get-It dawned on me that if Langenhancould see the bright side in his dispirit-ing near miss, then I should be able to dothe same Thanks to Langenhan, mystride gained a step, and my gloom lif-ted.KEN BELSON

PUTTING IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE

Yuzuru Hanyu had just become the firstJapanese man to win a gold medal in fig-ure skating It was an unlikely victory

Three years earlier, Hanyu had beenskating at his home rink in Sendai, nearthe epicenter of the devastating earth-quake and tsunami that struck north-east Japan

As the ice rumbled and pipes burst,Hanyu fled the rink, running outside inhis skates, ruining his blades

It might have been tempting to

ascribe some civic inspiration to hisgold-medal-winning performance ButHanyu, 19, self-aware beyond his years,was not a man of sentimentality Heknew the limits of sport just as he hadreached its zenith

After his victory, Hanyu was solemninstead of celebrative He expressedgratitude to those who had lent his ca-reer financial and spiritual support Atthe same time, he hinted that he feltguilty for leaving home to train in

Toronto He knew that his victory couldnot really help anyone recover inSendai He felt helpless, he said, as if hewere ‘‘not making any contributions.’’

But now he had a gold medal It was atleast a starting point ‘‘Perhaps,’’

Hanyu said, ‘‘there is something I can

A PERFECTLY TIMED LUNGE

Gold gets the glory, but sometimes it isthe fight for the lesser medals that im-presses the most

In the finals of the men’s 1,000-metershort-track race, two Russians, VictorAhn and Vladimir Grigorev, took thelead by the third lap and never lost it

Sjinkie Knegt of the Netherlands, whowas in last with five laps to go, slippedinto third with two laps remaining, but

in the crucial final turn of the last lap, hewas edged to the outside of the track bySin Da-woon of South Korea The phrase

‘‘at the wrong place at the wrong time’’

was never more apt

Knegt and Sin bumped each other abit, and then it was a three-stride dash

to the line Just before they crossed,Knegt jutted out his right leg And thatwas the difference — a perfectly timedlunge of the foot

Until that moment, Knegt was bestknown as the skater disqualified fromthe European championships for mak-ing an obscene gesture — a kind of

double-gun anti-salute, if you will — hind Ahn’s back as the two crossed thefinished line Now, he’ll be rememberedfor something else: being the first ath-lete from the Netherlands to win amedal of any kind in short track At anews conference afterward, Knegtbeamed, as elated as any third-place fin-

AT 40, AS HUNGRY AS EVER

There’s an old Norwegian fairy tale inwhich a huge, snarling troll challenges alost little boy to an eating contest.They sit down at a table for porridge,and the boy somehow matches the trollspoon for spoon, and then bowl for bowl.And then the boy pulls ahead, puttingaway a bathtub’s worth of porridgewhile the troll struggles to take anotherbite The boy wins (and the troll soondies a gruesome death)

How did he do it? Well, it was a bit of acheat: The boy dumped the porridge in-

to a bottomless bag secretly taped to hisstomach But that’s not the point

‘‘The point is, he never seems full;he’s always hungry,’’ said Ole KristianStoltenberg, one of Norway’s most

‘‘And that’s Bjorndalen.’’

At the Sochi Games, Ole EinarBjorndalen, the undisputed king ofbiathlon, won two gold medals, the 12thand 13th Olympic medals of his career

If it’s possible to strut on try skis, Bjorndalen did as he flew pastthe competition in race after race, hispoles jauntily jutting out behind him likeFred Astaire’s umbrella

cross-coun-At 40, Bjorndalen is old enough to bethe father of some of the biathletes hedominated in the Sochi Games.Benjamin Weger, a 24-year-old Swissbiathlete, remembers the first time he

Bjorndalen ‘‘That was really a greatfeeling to compete with him,’’ he said

‘‘That moment was so great.’’

Weger didn’t seem too upset at beingtrounced by his boyhood idol ‘‘For me,biathlon is Bjorndalen, and Bjorndalen

is biathlon,’’ he said

Bjorndalen assumed folk-hero status

so long ago that now, as he entersmiddle age, even his injuries have as-sumed a mythic grandeur In 2011, re-ports said he hurt his back while he washelping a friend chop firewood

Si-mostranda, Norway, there’s a 10-footbronze statue of him racing on skis.King Harald V attended the unveiling.The statue’s dimensions — Herculeanthighs, broad shoulders — are gener-ous Bjorndalen is surprisingly small,more elfin than titan When he takes therifle off his back and removes the laurelsfrom his neck, he could pass as afriendly high school gym teacher.But Bjorndalen is adored like few oth-

er winter athletes In Sochi, he was one

of the few foreigners whom Russianfans unequivocally embraced

‘‘He’s so amazing; he’s so mined,’’ said Tiril Eckhoff, 23, a team-mate on the Norwegian team ‘‘He’s soold, too.’’

deter-In this age of tarnished heroes, one who wins gold medals into his 40shas to be looked at askance Is he dop-ing?

any-Stoltenberg, the Norwegian tator who has long tracked Bjorndalen’severy race, seemed offended by thequestion

commen-‘‘If he tested positive for doping, Iwould quit my work,’’ Stoltenberg said

He seemed to mean it

The biathlon press corps has shownBjorndalen a reverence that wouldmake world leaders seethe with envy.After Bjorndalen won his first goldmedal of these Games, a reporterasked him what amounted to ‘‘You’renot the type of athlete to give up, areyou?’’

At another news conference, after other gold medal, a reporter wanted toknow what it felt like to win moremedals than any Winter Olympian be-fore him

an-Bjorndalen sighed ‘‘Your first feeling

is tiredness,’’ he said

JOSH HANER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Danny Davis snowboarding on the slopes above the Alpine venues at Rosa Khutor, Russia It was one way that Davis, of the United States, unwound after competing in the halfpipe.

BERNAT ARMANGUE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sjinkie Knegt of Netherlands, right, finished third in the men’s 1,000-meter final at the Sochi Games, becoming the first Dutch skater to win an Olympic medal in short track.

FINAL MEDAL STANDINGS FOR 2014 GAMES

VADIM GHIRDA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Yuzuru Hanyu with the Japanese flag after he won gold in men’s figure skating Hanyu, who grew up in Sendai in northeastern Japan, was solemn instead of celebrative in victory.

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