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SUZYMENKES
A TOUCH
OF DESIRE
PAGE 9
|
FASHION PARIS
HOWLONG?
THE PRIDE OF
TOTTENHAM
PAGE 14
|
SOCCER
TOOZ, BOLDLY
DISNEY RISKS THE
RAINBOWAGAIN
PAGE 17
|
BUSINESS ASIAWITH
THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013
GLOBAL.NYTIMES.COM
As hacking
against U.S.
rises, goals
are unclear
Taking reins,
Xi shores up
support from
within army
SAN FRANCISCO
HONG KONG
Motives in cyberattacks,
and how best to respond,
can be hard to determine
Backing for new leader
is stronger than usual as
Parliament session opens
BY NICOLE PERLROTH,
DAVID E. SANGER
ANDMICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
When Telvent, a company that monitors
more than half the oil and gas pipelines
in North America, discovered last
September that the Chinese had hacked
into its computer systems, it immedi-
ately shut down remote access to its cli-
ents’ systems.
Company officials and U.S. intelli-
gence agencies then grappled with a
fundamental question: Why had the
Chinese done it?
Was the People’s Liberation Army,
which is suspected of being behind the
hacking group, trying to plant bugs into
the system so they could cut off energy
supplies and shut down the power grid if
the United States and China ever con-
fronted each other in the Pacific? Or
were the Chinese hackers just trolling
for industrial secrets, trying to rip off
the technology and pass it along to
China’s own energy companies?
‘‘We are still trying to figure it out,’’ a
senior U.S. intelligence official said last
week. ‘‘They could have been doing
both.’’
Telvent, which also watches utilities
and water treatment plants, ultimately
managed to keep the hackers from
breaking into its clients’ computers.
At a moment when corporate Amer-
ica is caught between what it sees as
two different nightmares — preventing
a crippling attack that brings down the
United States’ most critical systems,
and preventing Congress from mandat-
ing that the private sector spend billions
of dollars protecting against that risk —
the Telvent experience resonates as a
study in ambiguity.
To some it is prime evidence of the
threat that President Barack Obama
highlighted in his State of the Union ad-
dress, when he warned that ‘‘our en-
emies are also seeking the ability to sab-
otage our power grid, our financial
institutions, our air traffic control sys-
tems,’’ perhaps causing mass casual-
ties.
Mr. Obama called anew for legislation
to protect critical infrastructure, which
was killed last year by a Republican fili-
buster after intensive lobbying by the
Chamber of Commerce and other busi-
ness groups.
But the security breach of Telvent,
which the Chinese government has
denied, also raises questions of whether
those fears — the subject of weekly re-
search group reports, testimony and
congressional studies — may be some-
what overblown, or whether the precise
nature of the threat has been misunder-
stood.
U.S. intelligence officials believe that
the greater danger to the country’s in-
frastructure may not even be China, but
Iran, because of its avowal to retaliate
for the Stuxnet virus created by the
United States and Israel and unleashed
BY CHRIS BUCKLEY
As the National People’s Congress
opens, the chief of the Chinese Commu-
nist Party, Xi Jinping, is emphasizing
his role as a champion of the military,
using the armed forces to cement his
political authority and present a tough
stance in growing territorial disputes in
the Pacific region.
Mr. Xi will be appointed president at
the end of the congress, the party-run
Parliament that opens Tuesday for an
annual session lasting 13 days. The 2,987
carefully vetted delegates are also vir-
tually certain to approve another rise in
military spending, after an 11.2 percent
increase to 670 billion renminbi, or $106
billion, in 2012.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the
Parliament, Vice Foreign Minister Fu
Ying, broke with recent precedent and
declined to announce Chinese military
outlays for the year at a news confer-
ence about the Congress session. The
number will be disclosed in a budget re-
leased when the session opens, she said.
‘‘We in China have endured the griev-
ous lessons of having a weak national de-
fense and suffering bullying by others,’’
Ms. Fu said. ‘‘The Chinese people have
ASIF HASSAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A bombing’s aftermath
Sifting through the wreckage onMonday, a day after a car bomb exploded in a ShiiteMuslimneighborhood in Karachi, killing at least 45 people
and wounding 146. The city shut downMonday to mourn victims of the blast, the latest in a series of devastating attacks against Shiites as the country prepares for elections.
In surprising first, baby
deemed cured of H.I.V.
could give a lift to research aimed at a
cure, something that only a few years
ago was thought to be virtually im-
possible, though some experts said the
findings in the baby would probably not
be relevant to adults.
The first person cured was Timothy
Brown, known as the Berlin patient, a
middle-agedmanwith leukemiawho re-
ceived a bonemarrow transplant froma
donor genetically resistant to H.I.V. in-
fection.
‘‘For pediatrics, this is our Timothy
Brown,’’ said Dr. Deborah Persaud, as-
sociate professor at the Johns Hopkins
Children’s Center in Maryland and lead
author of the report on the baby. ‘‘It’s
proof of principle that we can cure H.I.V.
infection if we can replicate this case.’’
Dr. Persaud and other researchers
spoke in advance of a presentation of
the findings on Monday at the Confer-
ence on Retroviruses and Opportunistic
Infections in Atlanta. The results have
not yet been published in a peer-re-
viewed medical journal.
Some outside experts, who have not
yet heard all the details, said they needed
convincing that the baby had truly been
BY ANDREW POLLACK
AND DONALD G. MCNEIL JR.
Doctors announced that a baby had
been cured of an H.I.V. infection for the
first time, a startling development that
could change how infected newborns
are treated and sharply reduce the num-
ber of children living with the virus that
causes AIDS.
The baby, born in rural Mississippi,
was treated aggressively with anti-
retroviral drugs starting around 30
hours after birth, something that is not
usually done. If further study shows this
More than three million
children live with the virus.
works in other babies, it will almost cer-
tainly be recommended globally. The
United Nations estimates that 330,000
babies were newly infected in 2011, the
most recent year for which there is data,
and that more than three million chil-
dren globally are living with H.I.V.
If the report, released Sunday, is con-
firmed, the child born in Mississippi
would be only the second well-docu-
mented case of a cure in the world. That
WANG ZHAO/AFP
Xi Jinping, who is set to become president
of China, favors a strong defense posture.
deep historical memories of this problem,
and so we need solid national defense.’’
Since Mao Zedong rode to victory in a
revolutionary war, the country’s Com-
munist leaders have regarded an utterly
loyal military as the ultimate shield of
their political power. Nearly four
months since his appointment as party
chief inNovember, Mr. Xi has made that
shield his own, with greater speed and
sureness than his recent predecessors.
‘‘Compared with the two previous
leaders at a similar stage, Xi has already
established closer, better relations with
the military. They didn’t come to power
with the same confidence,’’ said Chen
Ziming, a commentator in Beijing who
studies party affairs.
Beyond being the only member of the
powerful seven-member Politburo
Standing Committee to also sit on the
Central Military Commission, Mr. Xi
already leads the military body, which
controls the People’s Liberation Army.
Mr. Xi is taking over from Hu Jintao,
who had to wait two years before his
predecessor, Jiang Zemin, handed him
H.I.V., PAGE 4
How an upsta
rt news outlet got on the court with Kim
NEW YORK
BY BRIAN STELTER
Imagine being the HBO executive who
hears this from one of the channel’s pro-
ducing partners: ‘‘We think there’s an
opportunity for us to get into North Ko-
rea.’’
The executive was Michael Lom-
bardo, and the partner was Vice Media,
a New York media company with some-
thing of a daredevil streak. The conver-
sation took place about a month ago,
when productionwas well under way on
‘‘Vice,’’ a newsmagazine that will have
its premiere on HBO on April 5.
The company’s bosses said they were
planning a visit to the secretive country,
centered on an exhibition basketball
game with the flamboyant former bas-
ketball star Dennis Rodman and three
members of the Harlem Globetrotters.
HBO decided to add what Mr. Lom-
bardo said was ‘‘a little bit’’ of extra fi-
nancing, beyond what it had already
agreed to pay for the newsmagazine.
‘‘It felt like something that could be in-
teresting for the show,’’ Mr. Lombardo,
HBO’s president for programming, said
last Friday as he recalled the meeting.
By Friday, the tripwas not just ‘‘inter-
esting,’’ it was international news. Kim
Jong-un had shown up for the exhibition
game in Pyongyang the day before,
making Mr. Rodman and Vice’s film
crew the first Americans known to have
met the North Korean ruler since he in-
North Korean leadership. At the U.S.
State Department, reporters wanted to
know why the government was not vis-
ibly doing more to debrief Mr. Rodman
about his interactions with Mr. Kim, the
dictator whom he pronounced his
‘‘friend.’’
The Vice crew remains in North Ko-
rea; several more days of filming are
scheduled. But Mr. Rodman returned
home over the weekend, and in his first
interview — on ABC’s ‘‘This Week’’ on
Sunday — he said Mr. Kimwas ‘‘a great
guy’’ and said ‘‘he wants Obama to do
one thing — call him.’’ That generated
even more news headlines.
To say this was all part of Vice’s mas-
ter planwould overstate thematter. The
AP
Dennis Rodman, a former N.B.A. player,
said Kim Jong-un was ‘‘a great guy.’’
herited power from his father in 2011.
On television and online, people were
debating which group was benefiting
more from the publicity, Vice or the
KOREA, PAGE 17
HACKING, PAGE 5
CHINA, PAGE 3
BUSINESS ASIA
Japan bank nominee’s pledge
Haruhiko Kuroda, the nominee to
become the next governor of the Bank
of Japan, saidMonday that he would do
‘‘whatever is needed’’ to end deflation
in the Japanese economy.
PAGE 16
Amazon under pressure
A television documentary has moved
union activists in Germany to raise
awareness of working conditions at
Amazon’s distribution centers.
PAGE 16
Call for scripts starring Beijing
A competition is seeking stories and
film proposals fromU.S. screenwriters,
with the catch that they must be about
the Chinese capital.
PAGE 17
VIEWS
Roger Cohen
So-called smart drugs, particularly
Adderall, have become to college what
steroids are to baseball: illicit
performance enhancers for a fiercely
competitive environment.
PAGE 7
Bill Keller
So, while we await the fate of Yellow-
stone Park and food safety here in the
sequester zone, let’s contemplate the
road not taken by the White House —
that is, the high road.
PAGE 6
ONLINE
Another try at an electric car
Long before the Nissan Leaf and the
Chevy Volt were born, India had its
own electric car, the tiny REVAi,
which sold less than 5,000 units
worldwide and was ridiculed on the
BBC show ‘‘Top Gear.’’ But its maker,
Mahindra Reva, is raising its bets, with
an electric four-seater hatchback called
the E2O. India Ink got behind the
wheel.
global.nytimes.com/indiaink
RICCARDOGANGALE/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WORLDNEWS
Kenya votes
Long lines of voters formed in Kenya onMonday for a national
election. At least four police officers were killed in an attack linked to the vote.
PAGE 4
CULTURE
Communing with games
With ‘‘Applied Design,’’ which focuses
on 14 classic video games, theMuseum
of Modern Art in NewYork has begun
‘‘an experiment to isolate the experience
of the interaction itself.’’
PAGE 12
Deadlock ends bid in Seoul
A U.S. entrepreneur tapped by the
president to lead a new technology
ministry has resigned.
PAGE 4
A joker in Italian politics
Beppe Grillo, a comedian turned
activist, spent years poking fun at
politicians. Now, he is one.
PAGE 5
NEWSSTAND PRICES
France ¤ 3.00
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No. 40,428
Business 16
Crossword 15
Culture 12
Fashion 9
Sports 14
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2
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TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
page two
Few illusions
as Afghan
exit nears
For the Europeans, the illusion that
they and the United States would go in-
to the Afghan combat mission together
and leave together has been broken.
‘‘The Americans are throwing down
the gauntlet to the Europeans,’’ said
Markus Kaim, defense expert at the
German Institute for International and
Security Affairs in Berlin.
As the United States rapidly draws
down, another illusion is waiting to be
shattered. It is the ability of the Afghan
National Army, or A.N.A., to take over
the security of the country by the end
of 2014.
NATO continues to heap praise on
the abilities of the Afghan forces be-
cause that would justify ending
NATO’s combat role and because it be-
lieves that Afghanistan must be re-
sponsible for its own security.
‘‘The Afghan security forces have
reached their overall recruiting tar-
get,’’ a NATO official said, speaking on
the condition of anonymity. ‘‘They are
leading 80 percent of operations and
are taking the lead for the security of 87
percent of the population,’’ he added.
A recent report to Congress by the
U.S. Defense Department paints a dif-
ferent picture. It stated that the rate of
attrition in the A.N.A. was very high,
the level of retention was very low, and
the logistic capabilities were inad-
equate.
Between October 2011 and Septem-
ber 2012, the A.N.A. lost 27 percent of
its fighting force, according to the re-
port. The ‘‘attrition rate is higher than
desirable for the Afghan Army,’’ the
NATO official acknowledged.
The retention rate, which refers to
those soldiers who have completed
their three-year enlistment and who
then choose to remain, is even lower.
‘‘On average, the A.N.A. is only retain-
ing 7 percent of its forces,’’ according to
the independent Afghanistan Analysts
Network, which monitors develop-
ments in the country.
Given the problems of attrition, re-
tention and training, NATO defense
ministers last month agreed to in-
crease the A.N.A. to 352,000, up from
240,000, through 2018.
‘‘It is an investment that would be
worth making because it would allow
us greater flexibility as we take down
our troops,’’ said Leon E. Panetta, the
departing U.S. defense secretary. He
did not say which countries would pay
for the extra forces, given that most
NATO countries are cutting their mili-
tary budgets.
The A.N.A.’s difficulties have implica-
tions for human rights conditions and
the rule of law.
Indeed, both Americans and Euro-
peans in 2001 once spoke about build-
ing democracy in Afghanistan. Not
anymore. That illusion has given way
to trying to make the country stable.
‘‘The goals set for Afghanistan proved
impossible,’’ Mr. Cordesman said. No
European leader has disagreed.
Judy Dempsey is editor in chief of Stra-
tegic Europe at Carnegie Europe.
(www.carnegieeurope.eu)
E-MAIL:
jdempsey@iht.com
Judy
Dempsey
LETTER FROM EUROPE
BERLIN
Over the next 12 months,
President Barack Obama will withdraw
more than 34,000 U.S. troops from Af-
ghanistan, halving the American con-
tingent.
By the end of 2014, when NATO’s
combat mission ends and its new train-
ing mission begins, diplomats say that
the United States is planning to have
no more than 10,000 troops available
for Afghanistan.
About 5,000 will focus on counter-
terrorism operations. The remainder
are expected to join the NATO training
mission. The size of that mission, yet to
be finalized, is expected to be between
8,000 and 12,000 troops.
‘‘This is the planning assumption,
but no decision has been taken,’’ said
Oana Lungescu, a NATO spokeswom-
an.
The number of U.S. troops that will
be earmarked for Afghanistan after
2014 shows how much the United
States needs to save money and how
urgently it wishes to close this particu-
lar chapter.
Mr. Obama confirmed the U.S. inten-
tion to pull out, and soon, during his
State of the Union address. ‘‘By the end
of next year, our war in Afghanistan
will be over,’’ he said. Victory was not
mentioned, nor was an end to fighting
in Afghanistan.
The Europeans, especially Germany,
with 4,400 troops in Afghanistan, fear
that they will be much more vulnerable
to attacks by insurgents without a
strong U.S. presence.
Until now, the United States has been
providing its European allies with lo-
gistics and intelligence, air protection
and evacuation for the wounded.
Thomas de Maizière, the German de-
fense minister, has repeatedly asked
the United States what support would
be available during the transition from
the combat to the training mission.
‘‘The administration’s game is to
rush the transition,’’ said Anthony H.
Cordesman, a security expert at the
Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington. ‘‘It is a reflec-
tion of the U.S.’s different priorities and
different strategies. The Europeans
should understand that,’’ he added.
MOHAMMED BALLAS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Checkpoint clash
Israeli soldiers detaining a Palestinian protester north of Jenin, West Bank, during a rally held to support Palestinian prisoners on hunger strikes in
I
sraeli jails. Several such rallies have been held over the past week, and the increasing unrest in theWest Bank has raised fears in Israel of a new Palestinian uprising.
Turf bat
tles behind real battles
move the reinforcements, Mr. Nasr as-
serts, the president undercut the lever-
age needed to effectively pursue
negotiations with the Taliban.
‘‘As we went from ‘fight and talk’ to
‘talk while leaving,’ the prospect of a
good outcome began to grow dimmer,’’
he writes.
Instead of taking risks in war or to
pursue a peace settlement, he writes,
the White House ‘‘was happy with the
narrative of modest success in Afghan-
istan and gradual withdrawal.’’
Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy nation-
al security adviser, vigorously disputed
Mr. Nasr’s interpretation of events.
It was not customary to include State
Department officials in presidential
videoconferences with Mr. Karzai, Mr.
Rhodes said. And the secrecy that sur-
rounded preparations for presidential
trips to Afghanistan, he added, made it
impractical to take the special envoy
and other interagency staff.
Setting a withdrawal date from Af-
ghanistan, Mr. Rhodes said, was essen-
tial to signal that the U.S. commitment
was not open-ended and to send the
message that it was time for the
Afghans to step up.
Now dean of the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity School of Advanced Internation-
al Studies in Washington, Mr. Nasr got
his start in academia and never seriously
contemplated a career in government.
Mr. Nasr was asked by Mr. Holbrooke to
join Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy brain
trust during her 2008 primary campaign.
He then went to the State Department.
Mr. Nasr said that he refrained from
publishing his new book before the U.S.
election in November to avoid the im-
pression that he was trying to meddle in
the political debate. ‘‘I did not want it to
be a political book,’’ he said.
Having returned to university life, Mr.
Nasr said he thought it was important to
provide his analysis of policy decisions
to counter the view that the time for an
activist foreign policy had past.
And his verdict on the United States’
handling of the war he worked on is
harsh. ‘‘The precepts were how tomake
the conduct of this war politically safe
for the administration rather than to
solve the problem in a way that would
protect America’s long-run national se-
curity interests,’’ he said.
WASHINGTON
Ex-adviser’s book faults
caution and politics in
Obama foreign policy
BY MICHAEL R. GORDON
A new book by a former senior U.S. State
Department policy expert paints a
sharply critical picture of the Obama ad-
ministration’s handling of foreign policy,
detailing destructive turf battles and
policy debates that challenge the White
House’s claimthat itsmanagement of the
Afghan war is a vital accomplishment.
Written by Vali Nasr, an academic
whowas recruited by the envoyRichard
C. Holbrooke to work in the State De-
partment, the book, ‘‘The Dispensable
Nation,’’ is to be published in the United
States next month. A lengthy excerpt
from the book was published on Mon-
day by Foreign Policy magazine.
Part diplomatic memoir, part policy
analysis, the book is a survey of foreign
affairs during the Obama administra-
tion. Mr. Nasr portrays the White
House’s handling of foreign policy as
overly cautious, sometimes disengaged
and at times even politicized — an ap-
proach he asserts has led to a general
waning of U.S. influence abroad.
His chapters on Afghanistan and Pa-
kistan are likely to receive special atten-
tion, as they cover the two years when
Mr. Nasr had a ringside view of the ad-
ministration’s policy making as a senior
adviser for Mr. Holbrooke, the U.S. gov-
ernment’s first special envoy for Af-
ghanistan and Pakistan.
Power struggles exist in all presiden-
tial administrations. ButMr. Nasr writes
that the ones betweenwhat he describes
as politically minded aides at the White
House and the State Department were
particularly pernicious, especially since
they centered on decisions about an
Afghan conflict that President Barack
Obama once called a ‘‘war of necessity.’’
Some of the disputes took the form of
bureaucratic maneuvers. Turf-con-
scious White House aides, Mr. Nasr
writes, excluded Mr. Holbrooke from
videoconferences that Mr. Obama had
withPresident HamidKarzai of Afghan-
CHRISTOPHER GREGORY/THE NEWYORK TIMES
Vali Nasr is an academic who was recruited to work in the U.S. State Department. His new
book, ‘‘The Dispensable Nation,’’ is part diplomatic memoir and part policy analysis.
istan, and he was left behind on a presi-
dential trip to Kabul, undermining his
credibility with the Afghans.
After Mr. Holbrooke’s death in 2010,
he writes, White House officials made it
clear that John Podesta, chief of staff to
President Bill Clinton, was not an ac-
ceptable choice for envoy. Hillary Rod-
ham Clinton, then secretary of state,
had been considering him to fill Mr. Hol-
brooke’s post. Mr. Podesta was con-
sidered to be too high-profile and poten-
tially difficult for the White House to
manage, Mr. Nasr states.
The subtext for the squabbling was a
deeper battle for influence over policy
on Afghanistan and Pakistan. During
the early months of Mr. Obama’s first
term, Mr. Holbrooke set up the office of
the Special Representative for Afghan-
istan and Pakistan, which is still lodged
in an inauspicious suite of offices near
the State Department cafeteria.
Mr. Nasr writes that the White House
staff, which firmly controlled policy on
Iran and the Arab-Israeli issue, was nev-
er comfortable with the arrangement, all
the more so since senior members of Mr.
Obama’s national security staff had been
active members of his campaign team,
where they had done battle against Mrs.
Clinton during the primaries.
‘‘Turf battles are a staple of every ad-
ministration, but the Obama White
House has been particularly ravenous,’’
he writes. ‘‘Those in Obama’s inner
circle, veterans of his election cam-
paign, were suspicious of Clinton. Even
after Clinton proved she was a team
player, they remained concerned about
her popularity and feared that she could
overshadow the president.’’
Reflecting on the White House staff,
Adm. MikeMullen, who served as chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs until September
2011, observed ‘‘they want to control ev-
erything,’’ Mr. Nasr recounts.
Whenever possible, he notes, Mrs.
Clintonwent directly toMr. Obama to get
around the ‘‘BerlinWall’’ of his staffers.
The bigger problem, according to Mr.
Nasr’s account, is the toll it took on
policy. Early on in the Obama adminis-
tration, the Holbrooke team wanted to
initiate negotiationswith the Taliban, but
the idea of such a diplomatic outreach
was not endorsed for more than a year.
ThoughMr. Holbrooke had not favored
Mr. Obama’s ‘‘surge’’ of troops into Af-
ghanistan, once it was decided hewanted
to use the military buildup to create new
leverage for the potential negotiations.
But when Mr. Obama announced in
June 2011 that he was beginning to re-
ONLINE:
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
F.B.I. to help investigate American’s death
‘‘The tactics the Chinese communist party uses to persecute their perceived
enemies are very similar to those the USSR used in their lost battle over
Spain 60 years ago.’’
REX CHEUNG—PHILADELPHIA
ihtrendezvous.com
IN OUR PAGES
✴
100, 75, 50 YEARS AGO
1913Wilson Takes Oath As President
WASHINGTON
Mr. WoodrowWilson was
to-day [March 4] inaugurated as Presi-
dent of the United States, andMr. Taft,
for the first time in twenty-eight years,
left public office to become a private cit-
izen. Mr. Taft, in cheery vein, laughing
and chatting with friends, left the fa-
mous White House, and President
Wilson, of serious vein, with a thin face
which shows already signs of the re-
sponsibility attached to the headship of a
nation of nearly 90,000,000 people,
entered. In striking contrast with the un-
exampled blizzard which spoilt Presi-
dent Taft’s inaugural procession four
years ago, beautiful weather prevailed,
and it was amid a flood of sunshine that
the new President and his predecessor
rode from the Legislative Buildings to
lunch together at the official residence of
the Chief Executive. This was before the
great procession, which lasted from 2
p.m. until nearly 6 p.m. For the most part
the ceremonial, though not lacking in
pomp and spectacular display, was
marked by Democratic simplicity.
1938 Soviet Army Coup Revealed
MOSCOW
The story of a military putsch
to seize power in the Soviet Union,
which was nipped within a few days of
fulfillment, was spread today [March 4]
on the record of the biggest treason trial
in Bolshevik history. According to the
evidence of A. P. Rosenholtz, Foreign
Trade Commissar, Marshal Mikhail
Tukhachevsky and seven other generals
executed last June had planned to take
over the Kremlin onMay Day, 1937. The
plan was first postponed, Rosenholtz,
who is one of the twenty-one defendants,
said because Tukhachevsky was appoin-
ted Soviet delegate to the London coron-
ation. Tukhachevsky assured him, the
Foreign Trade Commissar said, that the
army leaders were all reliable, and
Gamarnik, before his suicide, added that
the O.G.P.U. would be paralyzed on the
appointed day by General Gorbachev,
then commander of the Moscow garris-
on.
1963 The Plot to Kill de Gaulle
PARIS
Three ringleaders in the ma-
chine-gun attack against President
Charles de Gaulle last summer were
sentenced to death tonight [March 4] by
a special military court. The condemned
men are Lt. Col. Jean-Marie Bastien-
Thiry, 35, Lt. Alain de Bougrenet de la
Tocnave, 37, and Jacques Prevost, 31. All
14 men on trial were found guilty of par-
ticipating in the attempt to assassinate
Gen. de Gaulle Aug. 22. However, five
defendants were tried in absentia, and
by law, their cases must be reconsidered
before a court if they are captured.
Three of the men tried in absentia were
also condemned to death. The other sen-
tences ranged from three to 15 years in
prison.
Biden poise
d to extend his foreign policy clout
WASHINGTON
BY MARK LANDLER
When Secretary of State John Kerry
was scrambling last week to prevent the
leader of the Syrian opposition from
boycotting a meeting with him in Rome
— a snub that could have spoiled his
maiden voyage as the United States’
chief diplomat — he leaned on an old
Senate colleague to help him out: Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
After Mr. Kerry extracted an agree-
ment from the Syrian opposition leader,
Moaz al-Khatib, to show up, Mr. Biden
sealed the deal with a follow-up call. The
vice president, who had met Mr. Khatib
at a security conference in Munich,
praised him for his courage, told him
how important the meeting was and
promised to stay in touch, according to
the White House.
It was a classic example of how Mr.
Biden has used personal relationships
to amass influence in the Obama admin-
istration — a talent that current and
group in 2009, he warned them ‘‘you’re
not going to like this,’’ before laying out
Mr. Obama’s demand, largely rebuffed,
that Israel stop building Jewish settle-
ments in the West Bank. Officials said
that this time he would be more concili-
atory, presaging a less confrontational
approach during the president’s visit.
In addition to pushing for a faster time-
table for withdrawing troops from Af-
ghanistan, he was also among those who
opposed supplyingweapons to the rebels
in Syria — a proposal developed by Dav-
id H. Petraeus, the former director of the
C.I.A., and supported by Hillary Rodham
Clinton, then the secretary of state.
Mr. Obama gave Mr. Biden his own
turf in the first term by handing him the
Iraq portfolio, and the vice president
helped engineer the brisk U.S. with-
drawal from that war. But with Iraq re-
ceding as an issue for the United States,
the question is, What turf might Mr.
Biden try to claim now?
China offers a tantalizing possibility,
given that he has cultivated ties to its in-
coming leader, Xi Jinping. Mr. Biden
spent hours with Mr. Xi, the Chinese
vice president, in China in 2011, and
again last year when he played host to
him inWashington.
With Mr. Xi slated to become presi-
dent at the end of the National People’s
Congress in Beijing, Mr. Obama will be-
come his official counterpart. But Mr.
Biden’s relationship with Mr. Xi, offi-
cials said, would give himan insight into
China’s leadership that could expand
his role informally.
Mrs. Clinton and the former Treasury
secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, each
staked their claim to China through an
annual meeting known as the Strategic
and Economic Dialogue. While that dia-
logue is expected to continue, neither
Mr. Kerry nor the new Treasury secre-
tary, Jacob J. Lew, has the China experi-
ence that they did.
‘‘There is reasonable speculation
about whether Kerry and Lew are going
to be Hillary-Geithner redux,’’ said Jef-
frey A. Bader, a senior director for Asia
at the National Security Council from
2009 to 2011.
AP
Mr. Biden’s portfolio may widen thanks to
personal ties and the departure of rivals.
former officials predicted would allow
him to further expand his influence on
foreign policy during President Barack
Obama’s second term.
Mr. Biden was shifting to another part
of theMiddleEast onMonday, setting the
stage for Mr. Obama’s first presidential
trip to Israel later this month, in a speech
to the annual conference of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influ-
ential pro-Israel lobbying group.
When Mr. Biden last spoke to the
 ..
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013
|
3
THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES
Wor
ld News
asia africa
BRIEFLY
Asia
Taking reins, Xi shores up support frommilitary
CHINA, FROMPAGE 1
chairmanship of the Central Military
Commission. Mr. Jiang dealt gingerly
with the military in his first years as
leader, Mr. Chen said, overshadowed by
the party patriarch Deng Xiaoping.
Since succeeding Mr. Hu as party
chief and military chairman in Novem-
ber, Mr. Xi has visited army units or met
commanders and troops at least nine
times, according to state news reports.
His activities included a brief trip on a
new naval destroyer that is deployed in
the South China Sea, and meeting com-
manders of the Second Artillery Corps,
which manages China’s strategic mis-
siles, including nuclear weapons.
Mr. Xi has also assumed charge of a
secretive civilian-military group steer-
ing strategy in maritime disputes, par-
ticularly the clash with Japan over a
cluster of islands in the East China Sea,
Western analysts say.
The Chinese military owes its para-
mount loyalty to the party and its leader,
not the civilian government. In private,
Mr. Xi has said absolute military obedi-
ence to the party is essential to ensuring
the Chinese Communist Party is not
wiped out like its Soviet counterpart.
‘‘Any paramount leader needs the
support of the P.L.A. and makes ges-
tures in that direction. I think that’s
what Xi’s doing,’’ Andrew Scobell, a se-
nior political scientist for the RAND
Corp. who studies Chinese security
policy, said of the People’s Liberation
Army. ‘‘It’s kind of like how a kid holds
on to a security blanket. The party is
more secure than it thinks, but it needs
that security blanket of the P.L.A.’’
Mr. Xi’s background also helps to ex-
plain his relative easewith generals, said
Mr. Chen, the analyst. The son of a revo-
lutionary leader, Mr. Xi worked early on
as an aide to a general, Geng Biao, who
served as defense minister in 1981-82.
Many Western experts believe real
Chinese military spending is higher
than the public number by a large de-
gree. A Pentagon annual report to Con-
gress last year estimated that China ac-
tually spent $120 billion to $180 billion on
its armed forces in 2011. Richard A.
Bitzinger, a researcher at the Nanyang
Technological University in Singapore,
said he believed the public military
budget was now reasonably accurate.
Even with generous budget in-
creases, Mr. Bitzinger said, China’s mil-
PHNOMPENH
Khmer Rouge trial on hold
amid translators’ strike
Cambodian translators angry that they
have gone without pay for three
months stopped working at the U.N.-
backed genocide trial of former Khmer
Rouge leaders onMonday, a new set-
back for an international justice effort
that has been hobbled by conflicts with
the Cambodian government.
A Khmer Rouge tribunal spokesman,
Neth Pheaktra, said that about 30 Cam-
bodian staff members from the transla-
tion section announced they were going
on strike just before the court was to
hear testimony from a foreign expert.
Testimony that had been scheduled to
be given this week and next has been
postponed until the dispute can be re-
solved, he said.
Mr. Neth Pheaktra said local staff
members who worked at the tribunal
have not been paid since December be-
cause the countries that have agreed to
fund the tribunal have not contributed
on time. Foreign workers are paid
through a separate budget.
(AP)
KUALA LUMPUR
Malaysia sends troops
to end Borneo standoff
Malaysia sent hundreds of soldiers to
Borneo onMonday to help deal with
Filipino intruders who have killed eight
police officers in the bloodiest security
emergency inMalaysia in years.
Nineteen Filipino gunmen have also
been killed since Friday in skirmishes
that shockedMalaysians unaccus-
tomed to such violence in their country,
which borders insurgency-plagued
southern provinces in the Philippines
and Thailand. The main group of in-
truders comprises nearly 200 members
of a Philippine Muslim clan, some bear-
ing rifles, who slipped past naval
patrols last month, landed at a remote
Malaysian coastal village in the Lahad
Datu district of eastern Sabah State
and insisted the territory was theirs.
Army reinforcements from other
states inMalaysia were being deployed
to Sabah and would help the police bol-
ster public confidence by patrolling
parts of the state’s eastern seaboard,
said Sabah Police Chief Hamza Taib.
(AP)
DHAKA, BANGLADESH
Blast near Indian leader’s hotel
The police saidMonday that a small
homemade bomb exploded outside a
hotel in the Bangladeshi capital where
President PranabMukherjee of India
is staying. A local police official, Biplab
Sarker, saidMr. Pranab was not in the
Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel when the
explosion happenedMonday. He said
no one was hurt.
(AP)
ANDYWONG/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Military delegates to the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Monday. The son of a revolutionary general, Xi Jinping has fostered ties with the People’s Liberation Army.
itary strength remains far behind that of
the United States, which has a military
budget about five times higher than
China’s official figures. ‘‘There’s a lot of
progress in modernizing the P.L.A., but
a lot of it is just a high-tech veneer that
goes over a system that is still pretty
conservative,’’ he said.
Mr. Xi has signaled that he wants to
shake off the inefficiency and corrup-
tion that have undermined the military.
Since taking the top party post, he has
repeatedly demanded ‘‘battle readi-
ness’’ from the military and sent ships
and aircraft to assert China’s claims
over islands also claimed by Japan.
Mr. Xi’s comments were a call for vi-
gilance from the military, not war foot-
ing, said several experts. ‘‘He’s not
beating the drums for an imminent
battle. It’s all about training,’’ said Den-
nis J. Blasko, a former U.S. military at-
taché in Beijing and author of the book
‘‘The Chinese Army Today.’’
In the view of army commanders,
China remains plagued by enmity and
hazards and is the target of military bel-
ligerence, not its initiator. ‘‘The United
States and Japan are worried that we
will catch up, and are doing their utmost
to contain China’s development, and by
no means should we be fooled,’’ said Liu
Yuan, a Chinese general, in comments
published last month by Global Times, a
popular Chinese newspaper.
China’s first security priority should
be ‘‘vigilance against and prevention of
the West’s strategy of infiltration and
subversion,’’ Qi Jianguo, a P.L.A.
deputy chief of staff, told a party news-
paper, The Study Times, in January.
Themain risk posed by China’s mix of
military swagger and insecurity is not a
deliberately initiated conflict, analysts
say. Rather, combined with poor com-
munication between the opaque mili
-
tary and civilian bureaucracies, it could
lead to missteps that spiral into danger-
ous confrontation.
‘‘They’ve got a system of governance
that originated in the caves of Yan’an,’’
from where Mao commanded his revo-
lutionary war, said David Finkelstein,
director of China Studies at CNA, a
group in Alexandria, Virginia, that
provides analysis to the U.S. govern-
ment andmilitary. ‘‘Frankly, China’s na-
tional security interests have expanded
faster than the capacity of their extant
institutions to manage.’’
Jane Perlez contributed reporting from
Washington.
ONLINE:
IHT RENDEZVOUS
Advocates for change were vocal
before the Parliament session, Didi
Kirsten Tatlowwrites.
ihtrendezvous.com
Australia disasters laid
at climate ch
ange’s feet
SYDNEY
stretch out across decades and dramat-
ically alter the landscape. According to
the report, however, the frequency and
ferocity of recent extreme weather
events indicates that those trends are ac-
celerating and unlikely to abate unless
serious steps are taken to prevent further
changes to the planet’s environment.
At least 123weather records fell during
the 90-day period encompassing this
past summer, according to the report. In-
cluded on that list were milestones like
the hottest summer on record, the hot-
test day for Australia as a whole and the
hottest seven consecutive days ever re-
corded. To put it into perspective, in the
102 years since Australia began gather-
ing national records, there have been 21
days where the country averaged more
than 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit),
and eight of those days occurred in 2013.
Will Steffen, who wrote the report,
said that the findings were consistent
with an overall global acceleration of
weather factors like rising tempera-
tures and more intense storm systems
attributed by scientists to human-
caused climate change.
‘‘Over the last 50 years, we’ve seen a
doubling of the record hot days, we’re
getting twice as much record hot weath-
er than we did in the mid-20th century,’’
he told the ABC. ‘‘In fact, if you look at
the last decade, we’re getting three
times asmany record hot days aswe are
record cold days, so the statistics are
telling us too that there’s an influence on
extreme events — they’re shifting.’’
Climate scientists have long been hes-
itant to link individual weather events
directly to climate change. Australian
climate scientists in particular have
been cautious to connect the two in part
because of the country’s naturally oc-
curring cycles of drought and floods,
which are already extreme when com-
pared with much of the rest of the
world.
The sheer intensity and frequency of
these recent weather events, however,
seems to be stripping away some of that
reticence. The report released Monday,
which carries the added weight of hav-
ing been carried out by a government
body, could signal the beginnings of a
shift in those considerations. The Cli-
mate Commission is an independent
panel of experts that issues reports on
behalf of the government but is not sub-
ject to its direction or oversight.
‘‘Statistically, there is a 1-in-500
chance that we are talking about natur-
al variation causing all these new re-
cords,’’ Mr. Steffen, who is director of
the Climate Change Institute at Aus-
tralian National University, told The
SydneyMorningHerald. ‘‘Not toomany
people would want to put their life sav-
ings on a 500-to-1 horse.’’
Normal cycles of drought
and floods are growing
more severe, report says
BRIEFLY
Africa
BY MATT SIEGEL
Climate change was unquestionably a
major driving force behind a string of
extreme weather events that altern-
ately scorched and soaked large swaths
of Australia this summer, according to a
report issuedMonday by the Australian
government’s Climate Commission.
A blistering four-month heat wave cul-
minated in January in bush fires that tore
through the eastern and southeastern
coasts of the country, where most Aus-
tralians live. Those record-setting tem-
peratures were followed by torrential
rains and flooding in the more densely
populated states of NewSouthWales and
Queensland that left at least six people
dead and caused roughly 2.4 billion Aus-
tralian dollars, or $2.43 billion, in damage
along the eastern seaboard.
PARIS
A North Africa Qaeda leader
is probably dead, France says
The head of France’s joint chiefs of
staff saidMonday that it was ‘‘prob-
able’’ that Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, a se-
nior leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, had been killed in military
operations by French and Chadian
forces in northernMali.
But the military official, Adm. Édou-
ard Guillaud, also said claims by Chadi-
an officials that their forces had killed
Mr. Zeid could not be confirmed be-
cause ‘‘we haven’t recovered the
body.’’
Speaking on Europe-1 radio, Admiral
Guillaud also noted unverified chatter
on Internet jihadist forums saying that
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who is said to
have commanded a deadly raid on a
gas-processing complex in the Algerian
desert in January, was alive. A Chadian
military chief claimed that Mr. Bel-
mokhtar, too, had been killed in fighting
in northernMali.
(AP)
LONDON
British foreign secretary
meets with officials inMali
WilliamHague, the British foreign sec-
retary, was inMali onMonday for talks
with members of the Malian govern-
ment about the political process in the
country.
Mr. Hague met with President Dion-
counda Traoré and Prime Minister Di-
ango Cissoko, along with the foreign
minister. The foreign secretary also
planned to meet with the commander of
the African-led intervention force and
the deputy commander of the Euro-
pean Union’s training mission to the
Malian armed forces.
On his arrival onMonday, Mr. Hague
saidMali was ‘‘at the heart of’’ com-
plex political and security challenges
with regional implications, according to
a British statement.
(AP)
GREGWOOD/AFP
Dead sheep in New South Wales, where
bush fires raged in January. The same
month, flooding killed at least six people.
The report from the Climate Commis-
sion, titled ‘‘TheAngry Summer,’’ argues
that the traditional cycles of drought and
flooding rains to which Australians have
long been accustomed are growing expo-
nentially more severe as a result of what
Tim Flannery, the commission’s leader,
called a ‘‘climate on steroids.’’
‘‘I think one of the best ways of think-
ing about it is imagining that the base
line has shifted,’’ he told the Australian
Broadcasting Corp. ‘‘If an athlete takes
steroids, for example,’’ he said, ‘‘their
base line shifts, they’ll do fewer slow
times and many more record-breaking
fast times.’’
‘‘The same thing is happeningwith our
climate system. As it warms up, we’re
getting fewer cold days and cold events
and many more record hot events.’’
Australia has historically experienced
intense climatic variations that can
 ..
4
|
TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2013
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
world news
asia africa united states
Bid to aid
polar bears
joins U.S.
and Russia
MOSCOW
Deadlock
in Seoul
ends bid for
tech ministry
SEOUL
Amid frosty relations,
nations team up to push
highest level of protection
U.S. entrepreneur quits
as assembly stalls plans
for agency reorganization
BY DAVIDM. HERSZENHORN
With relations between Russia and the
United States increasingly frosty be-
cause of entrenched disagreements over
Syria, child adoptions, missile systems
and other issues, the two countries have
quietly joined forces to help polar bears.
Russia and the United States, two of
the five countries where polar bears
live, are now the main allies pushing for
greater protection for the bears under a
global treaty on endangered species,
which is being reviewed this week at a
conference in Bangkok.
‘‘It really seems that both countries
werewilling to put aside their differences
in order to work together to help save the
polar bear,’’ said Jeffrey Flocken, North
American regional director for the Inter-
national Fund for Animal Welfare.
Russia’s decision to cooperate with
the United States not only defies a re-
cent wave of anti-Americanism in Rus-
sia, but it also reverses Moscow’s oppo-
sition to a similar U.S. proposal at the
endangered species conference three
years ago. The impetus for this shift
may be the increasing danger to polar
bears and the return to the presidency
of Vladimir V. Putin, who often ex-
presses his personal affection for wild-
life and has declared 2013 to be the
‘‘Year of the Environment’’ in Russia.
Scientists and wildlife conservation
groups say the world’s polar bear popu-
lation, estimated at 20,000 to 25,000, is in
grave peril because of climate change,
which is depleting ice levels, and in-
creased hunting and trade in skins and
parts.
‘‘We call this current situation cata-
strophic, because polar bears are now
impacted from all sides,’’ said Nikita
Ovsyannikov, the deputy director of the
Russian polar bear preserve on Wran-
gel Island, in the Chukchi Sea northwest
of Alaska.
‘‘Both our countries recognize the
danger, and they understand that mea-
sures have to be taken,’’ Mr. Ovsyan-
nikov said by telephone from the confer-
ence in Bangkok.
The U.S.-Russian proposal would
grant polar bears the highest level o
f
BY CHOE SANG-HUN
A South Korea-born American entre-
preneur, tapped by President Park
Geun-hye to lead South Korea’s science
and technology ministry, resigned on
Monday, blaming political gridlock that
has delayed his confirmation hearing at
the National Assembly.
The choice of Jeong H. Kim, the pres-
ident of New Jersey-based Bell Labs
whose immigrant success story in the
United States has been widely reported
in his birth country, as South Korea’s
newly created ‘‘minister of creative fu-
ture and science’’ had been the high-
light of Ms. Park’s reorganization of the
government.
Mr. Kim, 52, is the first non-Korean
citizen appointed to a cabinet post in
South Korea. He was also asked to head
a powerful new government agency,
which Ms. Park considered a key to
bringing about a new economic boom
through innovations in information and
communications industries in one of the
world’s most wired countries.
‘‘I left behind what I have built in the
United States and returned home so I
could devote the rest of my life to the
country where I was born,’’ Mr. Kim
said in a news conference on Monday,
announcing his resignation. ‘‘But as I
watched the confusion over the govern-
ment reorganization bill, my dreams
were also shattered.’’
Mr. Kim’s surprise announcement
came as a monthlong political negoti-
ation on Ms. Park’s government reor-
ganization bill had bogged down at the
National Assembly over the portfolio of
the new ministry, a mammoth agency
that would absorb science, technology
and other major innovation-related op-
erations from other ministries.
The main opposition Democratic
United Party accusedMs. Park of trying
to use the newministry as a political tool
to control the broadcasting sector in a
society where allegations of govern-
ment influence on broadcast journalism
have been a volatile political issue, caus-
ing prolonged strikes by unionized tele-
vision reporters and producers.
Opposition lawmakers have also
raised questions aboutMr. Kim’s suitab-
ility as a cabinet member, noting that
Mr. Kim had once served on the Extern-
al Advisory Board at the C.I.A. and as a
director at In-Q-Tel, a venture capital
firm set up with C.I.A. funding.
In South Korea, whose political arena
and blogosphere can be viciously di-
vided and fervently nationalistic, critics
of Ms. Park raised fears that Mr. Kim
might even work as a U.S. spy in the
South Korean cabinet. They raised
questions about whether a Korean-
American who took an oath of allegi-
ance to the United States and served on
a nuclear submarine as a U.S. Navy of-
ficer can be trusted to be a patriotic pub-
lic servant in South Korea, while others
argued that the country must move be-
yond myopic nationalism to recruit tal-
ents among Korean expatriates.
‘‘It’s deeply regrettable that he was
frustrated by the political reality in our
country and had to resign,’’ Ms. Park
said Monday during a nationally tele-
vised speech. ‘‘We must recruit Korean
talents abroad for our national develop-
ment. To do so, we must create a politic-
al environment where such talents re-
turn home and do their best.’’
Mr. Kim emigrated to the United
States with his parents when he was 14.
Although he was not as big a household
name in South Korea as Ban Ki-moon,
who serves as the U.N. secretary gener-
al, his life story has been widely praised
in South Korea, whose news media
closely follow the achievements of
Korean expatriates. He founded Yurie
Systems, a technology company named
after one of his two daughters, and sold
it to Lucent Technologies for $1 billion in
1998.
With his appointment to the cabinet
last month, Mr. Kim resigned as presi-
dent of Bell Labs and regained South
Korean citizenship. As doubts raged
over his background, he even offered to
forfeit his U.S. citizenship to prove his
dedication to his birth country.
In her speech, Ms. Park invited the op-
position leadership to her office to break
the deadlock on her government reor-
ganization bill, which left many of the
cabinet posts in her week-old govern-
ment unapproved at Parliament. She
denied that she intended to control the
news media by transferring some of the
regulatory policies on cable, satellite and
Internet television from the Korea Com-
munications Commission, where some
of the commissioners are appointed by
the opposition, to the newministry.
In South Korea, where ‘‘people watch
television on their mobile phone,’’ she
said that to promote a ‘‘creative econo-
my,’’ it was essential to integrate
policies on telecommunications and
broadcasting by bringing them together
in one government agency.
The opposition rejected her invita-
tion, calling Ms. Park high-handed and
too uncompromising.
WILL BOASE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Prime Minister Raila Odinga of Kenya casting his vote in Nairobi on Monday. Analysts say Mr. Odinga, a leading contender for president, is not expected to win on the first ballot.
In Kenya,
long voting lines, and violence
In northeastern Kenya, near the bor-
der with Somalia, there was a small ex-
plosion at a polling station, and a gren-
ade was thrown into a police camp.
Early reports indicated there were few,
if any, casualties in the incidents.
Top Kenyan politicians were urging
voters to remain calm and avoid the
mayhem that erupted at the end of 2007
and early 2008 when a disputed election
ignited ethnic grievances and set off
clashes that killed about 1,000 people.
‘‘We must keep the peace,’’ said Wil-
liam Ruto, after voting Monday in his
hometown, Eldoret. Mr. Ruto is running
for deputy president and has been
charged by the International Criminal
Court with crimes against humanity
connected to the violence in the last
election.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga, one of
the leading contenders for president,
brimmed with confidence as he stepped
into a cardboard ballot box in a Nairobi
slum and cast his vote. ‘‘Today,
Kenyans have a date with destiny,’’ he
said.
Kenya is one of the most industrial-
ized countries in Africa, a beachhead for
Western interests and a close U.S. ally,
but its history has been haunted by in-
tense and often violent ethnic politics.
Mr. Odinga, an ethnic Luo, has said he
was cheated out of victory in 2007.
His main rival is Uhuru Kenyatta, a
Kikuyu and the son of the first Kenyan
president. Mr. Kenyatta has also been
charged by the International Criminal
Court with crimes against humanity, ac-
cused of bankrolling Kikuyu death
squads that murdered scores of Luo ci-
vilians in 2008. The Kikuyu-Luo political
feud goes back decades to Kenya’s inde-
pendence fromBritain in 1963.
Many analysts predicted that neither
Mr. Odinga nor Mr. Kenyatta would win
more than 50 percent of the vote, which
would lead to a runoff in April.
The votingMonday seemed to be pro-
ceeding smoothly in some areas but was
bumpy in others, with polling stations
not opening on time. There were also
problems with the new biometric voter
identification process. The new digital
equipment was not working at many
polling stations, and officials had to re-
vert to printed voting lists, which are
thought to be more susceptible to cor-
ruption.
This election is the most complicated
Kenya has ever held. A host of new posi-
tions have been created, like governor-
ships, senate seats and county women’s
representatives, in an attempt to
change the winner-take-all nature of
Kenyan politics. In some places, the
sheer number of ballots caused long
delays.
‘‘The cracks are beginning to show,’’
Mr. Odinga said Monday morning. But
he added he was still confident that, this
time, he would win.
NAIROBI
At least 4 police officers
killed in Mombasa in
attack linked to election
BY JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Millions of Kenyans poured into polling
stations across the country on Monday
in a crucial, anxiously awaited national
election, and early reports said some vi-
olence erupted in the coastal region
around Mombasa, recalling far greater
bloodletting in the last national vote five
years ago.
Across the land, the turnout appeared
to be tremendous. Starting hours before
dawn, lines of voters wrapped in
blankets and heavy coats stretched for
about a kilometer and a half, or nearly a
mile, in some places.
But inMombasa, on the IndianOcean,
at least four police officers were
butchered with machetes in an
overnight attack that the authorities be-
lieve was carried out by the Mombasa
Republican Council, a fringe separatist
group that opposes the elections and be-
lieves the Kenyan coast should be a sep-
arate country.
News reports put the death toll higher,
with Reuters quoting senior police offi-
cials as saying that nine security of-
ficers, two civilians and six attackers had
died. Other reports put the tally at 12.
Some Western election observers in
Mombasa, the biggest Kenyan coastal
city, have pulled back to their hotels be-
cause of security concerns.
Scientists say the polar bear
population is in grave peril.
protection under the treaty, called the
Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora, by banning international com-
mercial trade in skins, furs and other
items made from bears. And it is one of
the most contentious issues at
the
Bangkok conference.
Two other countries — Canada and
Denmark, representing Greenland —
oppose such a ban, setting the stage for
a showdown that could hinge on the po-
sition of Norway, the fifth countrywhere
polar bears live, which has not yet an-
nounced publicly how it plans to vote.
The European Union, which controls
the largest bloc of votes at the treaty
conference, has put forward two alter-
native proposals to improve protections
for polar bears without formally shifting
their status and banning commercial
trade. The United States is opposing
those alternatives.
Only Canada, which has the world’s
largest polar bear population, still per-
mits overseas trade in bear skins and
parts.
Mr. Ovsyannikov said that even in
sanctuaries, scientists were observing a
general weakening in the polar bear
population, including lower reproduc-
tion rates and higher mortality.
‘‘The situation of polar bears is get-
ting more and more similar to the story
of the Great Auk,’’ said Mr. Ovsyan-
nikov, referring to the Arctic bird that
became extinct in the mid-19th century.
‘‘We start thinking and start discussing
what actions we have to take when it is
too late.’’
Thailand vows to ban ivory
The prime minister of Thailand has
pledged to end the nation’s ivory trade,
responding to growing calls from inter-
national wildlife groups desperate to
stop the slaughter of African elephants,
Dan Levin reported fromBeijing.
In a speech Sunday at the opening of
the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species conference in
Bangkok, the prime minister, Yingluck
Shinawatra, promised to amend the
kingdom’s laws, which critics say in-
clude loopholes that have allowed
smugglers to ferry African tusks to Thai
markets and onward, often to China, the
world’s top destination for illegal ivory.
‘‘We will work towards amending the
national legislation with the goal of put-
ting an end to ivory trade and to be in line
with international norms,’’ Ms. Yingluck
said. She did not give a timeline for
amending the legislation, a point of con-
cern for conservationists, who note that
Thailand has been promising to change
its laws for several years, to little effect.
MARKODJURICA/RETUERS
Casting a ballot in Gatundu, Kenya. Voting in the national election began hours before
dawn, with long lines of voters wrapped in heavy coats reported at some polling stations.
Baby deemed cured of H.I.V. in a startling first
H.I.V., FROMPAGE 1
infected. If not, this would be a case of
prevention, something already done for
babies born to infected mothers.
‘‘The one uncertainty is really definit-
ive evidence that the child was indeed
infected,’’ said Dr. Daniel R. Kuritzkes,
chief of infectious diseases at Brigham
andWomen’s Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Persaud and some other outside
scientists said they were certain the
baby — whose name and gender were
not disclosed — had been infected.
There were five positive tests in the
baby’s first month of life — four for viral
RNA and one for DNA. And once the
treatment started, the virus levels in the
baby’s blood declined in the pattern
characteristic of infected patients.
Dr. Persaud said there was also little
doubt that the child experienced what
she called a ‘‘functional cure.’’ Now two
and a half years old, the child has been
off drugs for a year with no sign of func-
tioning virus.
The mother arrived at a rural hospital
in the autumn of 2010 already in labor and
gave birth prematurely. She had not seen
a doctor during the pregnancy and did
not know she had H.I.V. When a test
showed themothermight be infected, the
hospital transferred the baby to the Uni-
versity of Mississippi Medical Center,
where it arrived at about 30 hours old.
Dr. Hannah B. Gay, an associate pro-
fessor of pediatrics, ordered two blood
draws an hour apart to test for the pres-
ence of the virus’s RNA and DNA.
The tests found a level of virus at
about 20,000 copies per milliliter, fairly
low for a baby. But since tests so early in
life were positive, it suggests the infec-
tion occurred in the womb rather than
during delivery, Dr. Gay said.
Typically a newborn with an infected
mother would be given one or two drugs
as a prophylactic measure. But Dr. Gay
said that based on her experience, she
almost immediately used a three-drug
regimen aimed at treatment, not pro-
phylaxis, not even waiting for the test
results confirming infection.
Virus levels rapidly declined with
treatment andwere undetectable by the
time the baby was a month old. That re-
mained the case until the baby was 18
months old, after which the mother
stopped coming to the hospital and
stopped giving the drugs.
When the mother and child returned
five months later, Dr. Gay expected to
see high viral loads in the baby. But the
tests were negative.
Suspecting a laboratory error, she
orderedmore tests. ‘‘Tomy greater sur-
prise, all of these came back negative,’’
Dr. Gay said.
Dr. Gay contacted Dr. Katherine
Luzuriaga, an immunologist at the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts, who was
working with Dr. Persaud and others on
a project to document possible pediatric
cures. The researchers, sponsored by
amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Re-
search, put the baby through a battery
of sophisticated tests. They found tiny
amounts of some viral genetic material
but no virus able to replicate, even lying
dormant in so-called reservoirs in the
body.
There have been scattered cases re-
ported in the past, including one in The
New England Journal of Medicine in
1995, of babies clearing the virus, even
without treatment.
Those reports were greeted skeptic-
ally, particularly since testing methods
were not very sophisticated back then.
But those reports and this new one
could suggest there is something differ-
ent about babies’ immune systems, said
Dr. Joseph McCune of the University of
California, San Francisco.
One hypothesis is that the drugs
killed off the virus before it could estab-
lish a hidden reservoir in the baby. One
reason people cannot be cured now is
that the virus hides in a dormant state,
out of reach of existing drugs. When
drug therapy is stopped, the virus can
emerge from hiding.
‘‘That goes along with the concept
that, if you treat before the virus has had
an opportunity to establish a large
reservoir and before it can destroy the
immune system, there’s a chance you
can withdraw therapy and have no vi-
rus,’’ said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the di-
r
ector of the National Institute for Al-
In the United States, transmission
from mother to child is rare — several
experts said there were only about 200
cases a year or even fewer — because
infected mothers are generally treated
during their pregnancies.
If the mother has been treated during
pregnancy, babies are typically given
six weeks of prophylactic treatment
with one drug, AZT, while being tested
for infection. In cases like the Missis-
sippi one, where the mother was not
treated during pregnancy, standards
have been changing, but typically two
drugs are used.
But women in many developing coun-
tries are less likely to be treated during
pregnancy. And in South Africa and oth-
er African countries that lack sophisti-
cated testing, babies born to infected
mothers are often not tested until after
sixweeks, saidDr. Yvonne Bryson, chief
of global pediatric infectious disease at
the University of California, Los
Angeles.
Dr. Bryson, who was not involved in
the Mississippi work, said she was cer-
tain the baby had been infected and
called the finding ‘‘one of themost excit-
ing things I’ve heard in a long time.’’
Studies are being planned to see
whether early testing and aggressive
treatment can work for other babies.
While the bone marrow transplant that
cured Mr. Brown is an arduous and life-
threatening procedure, the Mississippi
treatment is not and could become a
new standard of care.
While it might be difficult for some
poorer countries to do, treating for only
a year or two would be cost effective,
‘‘sparing the kid a lifetime of antiretro-
viral therapy,’’ said Rowena Johnston,
director of research at amfAR.
Now two and a half years old,
the child has been off drugs
for a year with no sign of
functioning virus.
lergy and Infectious Diseases. Adults,
however, typically do not know they are
infected right as it happens, he said.
Dr. Steven Deeks, professor of medi-
cine at the University of California, San
Francisco, said that if the reservoir nev-
er established itself, then he would not
call it a true cure, though this was some-
what a matter of semantics. ‘‘Was there
enough time for a latent reservoir, the
true barrier to cure, to establish itself?’’
he said.
Still, he and others said, the results
could lead to a new protocol for quickly
testing and treating infants.
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