The New York Times Newspaper - September 3 2012, Literatura, Gazety, Magazyny
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VOL. CLXI . . No. 55,883
NEW YORK, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2012
© 2012 The New York Times
U.S. FIRMS READY
IF GREEKS DECIDE
TO DROP THE EURO
TO CALM ISRAEL,
U.S. OFFERS WAYS
TO RESTRAIN IRAN
CONTINGENCY PLANNING
STOPPING SHORT OF WAR
Taking No Chances in
Bracing for Potential
Shock Wave
Effort to Forestall Raid
by Israelis on Iran’s
Nuclear Facilities
By DAVID E. SANGER
and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — With Israel
openly debating whether to
strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities
in the coming months, the Obama
administration is moving ahead
with a range of steps short of war
that it hopes will forestall an Is-
raeli attack, while forcing the Ira-
nians to take more seriously ne-
gotiations that are all but stale-
mated.
Already planned are naval ex-
ercises and new antimissile sys-
tems in the Persian Gulf, and a
more forceful clamping down on
Iranian oil revenue. The adminis-
tration is also considering new
declarations by President Obama
about what might bring about
American military action, as well
as covert activities that have
been previously considered and
rejected.
Later this month the United
States and more than 25 other na-
tions will hold the largest-ever
minesweeping exercise in the
Persian Gulf, in what military of-
ficials say is a demonstration of
unity and a defensive step to pre-
vent Iran from attempting to
block oil exports through the
Strait of Hormuz. In fact, the
United States and Iran have each
announced what amounted to
dueling defensive exercises to be
conducted this fall, each intended
to dissuade the other from attack.
The administration is also rac-
ing to complete, in the next sev-
eral months, a new radar system
in Qatar that would combine with
radars already in place in Israel
and Turkey to form a broad arc of
antimissile coverage, according
to military officials. The message
to Iran would be that even if it de-
veloped a nuclear weapon and
mounted it atop its growing fleet
of missiles, it could be countered
by antimissile systems.
The question of how explicit
Mr. Obama’s warnings to Iran
should be is still a subject of in-
ternal debate, closely tied to elec-
tion-year politics. Some of Mr.
Obama’s advisers have argued
that Israel needs a stronger pub-
lic assurance that he is willing to
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
Even as Greece desperately
tries to avoid defaulting on its
debt, American companies are
preparing for what was once un-
thinkable: that Greece could
soon be forced to leave the euro
zone.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
has looked into filling trucks with
cash and sending them over the
Greek border so clients can con-
tinue to pay local employees and
suppliers in the event money is
unavailable. Ford has configured
its computer systems so they will
be able to immediately handle a
new Greek currency.
No one knows just how broad
the shock waves from a Greek
exit would be, but big American
banks and consulting firms have
also been doing a brisk business
advising their corporate clients
on how to prepare for a splinter-
ing of the euro zone.
That is a striking contrast to
the assurances from European
politicians that the crisis is man-
ageable and that the currency
union can be held together. On
Thursday, the European Central
Bank will consider measures that
would ease pressure on Europe’s
cash-starved
LUKE SHARRETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
IN FULL SWING
With Colorado in play in the election, President Obama spoke to an enthusiastic crowd Sunday in Boulder. Page A8.
The Competitor in Chief
NEWS ANALYSIS
Hitting Pause
In Afghanistan
In Politics, and About Everything Else, Obama Plays to Win
By JODI KANTOR
As Election Day approaches,
President Obama is sharing a
few important things about him-
self. He has mentioned more than
once in recent weeks that he
cooks “a really mean chili.” He
has impressive musical pitch, he
told an Iowa audience. He is “a
surprisingly good pool player,” he
informed an interviewer — not to
mention (though he does) a doo-
dler of unusual skill.
All in all, he joked at a recent
New York fund-raiser with sev-
eral famous basketball players in
attendance, “it is very rare that I
come to an event where I’m like
the fifth or sixth most interesting
person.”
Four years ago, Barack Obama
seemed as if he might be a delib-
erate professor of a leader, may-
be with a touch of Hawaiian mel-
lowness. He has also turned out
to be a voraciously competitive
perfectionist. Aides and friends
say so in interviews, but Mr. Oba-
ma’s own words of praise and de-
rision say it best: he is a perpetu-
ally aspiring overachiever, often
grading himself and others with
report-card terms like “outstand-
ing” or “remedial course” (as in:
Republicans need one).
As he faces off with Mitt Rom-
ney, the Republican presidential
nominee, Mr. Obama’s will to win
— and fear of losing — is in over-
drive. He is cramming for de-
bates against an opponent he has
called “ineffective,” raising
money at a frantic pace to narrow
the gap with Mr. Romney and
embracing the do-anything-it-
takes tactics of an increasingly
contentious campaign.
Even by the standards of the
political world, Mr. Obama’s ob-
session with virtuosity and prov-
ing himself the best are remark-
able, those close to him say. (Crit-
ics call it arrogance.) More than a
tic, friends and aides say, it is a
core part of his worldview,
formed as an outsider child who
grew up to defy others’ views of
the limits of his abilities. When he
speaks to students, he almost al-
ways emphasizes living up to
their potential.
“He has a general philosophy
that whatever he does, he’s going
to do the very best he can do,”
Marty Nesbitt, a close friend,
said in an interview.
Mr. Obama’s aides point to the
seriousness he brings to the
tasks of the presidency — how he
virtually never shows up for a
meeting unprepared, say, or how
he quickly synthesizes complicat-
ed material. When Mr. Obama
was derided as an insufferable
overachiever in an early political
race, some of his friends were in-
furiated; to them, he was revis-
ing negative preconceptions of
what a black man could achieve.
But even those loyal to Mr.
Obama say that his quest for ex-
cellence can bleed into cockiness
and that he tends to overestimate
his capabilities. The cloistered
nature of the White House ampli-
fies those tendencies, said Mat-
thew Dowd, a former adviser to
President George W. Bush, add-
ing that the same thing happened
to his former boss. “There’s a re-
inforcing quality,” he said, a tend-
ency for presidents to think, I’m
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
and GRAHAM BOWLEY
KABUL, Afghanistan — An
American commander’s decision
to suspend the training of new Af-
ghan Local Police recruits for at
least a month was the first tap on
the brakes for what has been a
headlong drive to fill out a police
force. From the very beginning,
the program has been one of the
most controversial in the Afghan
security plan.
The suspension, by Maj. Gen.
Raymond Thomas III, the head of
the American Special Operations
command here, came to light on
Saturday and was rooted in an in-
tense surge of insider killings by
Afghan forces against their West-
ern trainers, including a stretch
of one week in August in which
five Special Operations trainers
were gunned down, officials said.
But it was also a reflection of
growing concerns that the entire
effort to train Afghan forces — a
linchpin of American plans to
leave Afghanistan by 2014 that in-
cludes the much larger Afghan
Army and National Police pro-
grams — had grown so quickly
countries.
[Page
B1.]
JPMorgan Chase, though, is
taking no chances. It has already
created new accounts for a hand-
ful of American giants that are
reserved for a new drachma in
Greece or whatever currency
might succeed the euro in other
countries.
Stock markets around the
world have rallied this summer
on hopes that European leaders
Continued on Page A5
School Choice
Is No Cure-All,
Harlem Finds
By KYLE SPENCER
When it came time to pick a
Harlem middle school for her
daughter, Eula Guest did her re-
search. She inquired with friends,
principals and PTA presidents,
and talked to students inside art
studios and auditoriums. “I got
down to the nitty-gritty,” she said.
“I asked about everything.”
Eventually, she chose Freder-
ick Douglass Academy II, a mid-
dle and high school with a robot-
ics class, a college-readiness pro-
gram and lots of tutoring for stu-
dents in need of extra support.
The latest grade reported in the
city’s guidebook said the middle
school had earned an “A.”
It did not say that more re-
cently, it had earned a “C,” and
the year that Ms. Guest’s daugh-
ter, Shassee, applied for admis-
sion, it was stumbling its way to
an “F.” Last year, a few months
after Shassee entered sixth
grade, the Education Department
announced it wanted to close the
academy’s middle school, citing,
among other things, low stand-
ardized test scores.
“They tell you, be an active
partner in your child’s education,
be active about choosing a
school,” said Ms. Guest, who
owns a video marketing firm with
her husband.
“You abide by the rules, and
then they try to change the rules.
Continued on Page A6
Continued on Page A7
BARTON SILVERMAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Retirement Party Will Have to Wait
After saying this U.S. Open will be the last tournament of his
career, Andy Roddick rolled on to the fourth round. Page D1.
Continued on Page A9
A Picasso Online for Just $450? Yes, It Is a Steal
inal” and “authentic” and attrib-
uted to titans of the art world are
offered at closeout prices by
online galleries and auction sites.
And every day people buy them.
That these works are some-
times fake or misleadingly la-
beled is no surprise to art experts
and to foundations that monitor
online art sales. But fraud has
saturated certain sectors of the
art market, experts say.
“In every country that I visit,
even Abu Dhabi, I’m approached
by artists or estates who are des-
perate about the fake situation,”
said Véronique Wiesinger, the di-
rector and senior curator of the
Alberto and Annette Giacometti
Foundation in Paris. “We count-
ed the other day 2,005 fake Giaco-
metti sculptures for sale” on just
one Web site, she added.
Many reputable online sellers,
of course, deliver precisely what
they advertise. “There is a lot of
buying online, and most people
are satisfied,” said Alan Bam-
berger, an art consultant and ap-
praiser.
Over the last few years the In-
ternet has broadened the art
market far beyond the exclusiv-
ity and opaque jargon of its
moneyed enclaves and has
helped turn the slogan “art for
everyone” into reality. But it has
also become a sort of bazaar,
where shoppers of varying so-
By PATRICIA COHEN
Bargain hunting online? How
about an original Rembrandt for
$900 (“you can clearly tell its age
by the paper,” the seller of this
etching attests), or a signed piece
in ink by Matisse for $1,250. (The
artist’s work is, the online seller
notes, “radical and unprecedent-
ed in the history of Western art.”)
Yes, Sotheby’s can command
more than $100 million for a Pi-
casso at auction. But shoppers on
the Web can find an “original”
painting by that master for a
mere $450 — less than a pair of
designer shoes.
Every day works labeled “orig-
J SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rev. Sun Myung Moon Dies at 92
The founder of the Unification Church, the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon, center, with his wife, Hak Ja Han, in 1997. Page A17.
Continued on Page A14
Continued on Page A3
INTERNATIONAL A4-7
Charges Dropped for Miners
NEW YORK A13-16
An Enduring Party Machine
SPORTSMONDAY D1-8
A Girl Calling Signals
ARTS C1-8
Little Feet in the Spotlight
NATIONAL
South African prosecutors dropped
murder charges against 270 miners ac-
cused under an obscure legal doctrine in
shootings by the police.
With Vito J. Lopez resigning under fire
as Brooklyn Democratic leader, cries for
reform are heard, but he is likely to be
succeeded by a protégé.
Erin DiMeglio, a senior at South Planta-
tion High, took two snaps in a season-
opening victory and is believed to be the
first girl to play quarterback in a Florida
high school football game.
Young girls nationwide are taking part
in dance competitions, a huge unregu-
lated industry that feeds into America’s
taste for pageantry and has spawned a
reality TV show, “Dance Moms.” Some
say they fill an educational gap while
others are raising questions.
PAGE A4
PAGE A13
PAGE D1
Pakistan Blasphemy Case Turns
BUSINESS DAY B1-6
Twitter and Freedom of Speech
PAGE C1
The Muslim cleric who said a Christian
girl desecrated a religious text is ac-
cused of falsifying evidence.
Twitter’s chief lawyer thinks fighting for
freedom of expression gives the compa-
ny a competitive advantage.
PAGE A4
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19
Muslims at Catholic Colleges
Paul Krugman
PAGE B1
PAGE A19
NATIONAL A11-12
Behind ‘No Easy Day’
Muslims from abroad are thriving at
Catholic colleges, saying that they are
more comfortable in the relatively reli-
gious setting and that fellow students
are tolerant of their faith.
Summer Box-Office Doldrums
Ticket sales at North American cinemas
declined an estimated 3 percent com-
pared with the summer of 2011.
PAGE B1
An e-book contends a Navy SEAL mem-
ber wrote about the Osama bin Laden
mission because of a slight.
U(D54G1D)y+@!_!#!#!$
PAGE A12
PAGE A11
A2
THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2012
ØØ
N
Inside The Times
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
‘‘
I like the fact that
there’s faith, even if it’s not
my faith, and I feel my
faith is respected,
’’
MAHA HAROON,
a Muslim born in Pakistan, on
her decision to attend Creigh-
ton University, a Catholic col-
lege in Nebraska. [A12]
ARTS
Time to Eat and Run
To a New Channel
In the world of lifestyle television,
few people get as much attention as
Anthony Bourdain. His globe-trot-
ting travel and food show “Anthony
Bourdain: No Reservations,” is en-
tering its ninth and final season as
its host heads to a new show on
CNN. PAGE C1
‘Coma’ Begins on A&E
“Coma,” a mini-series on A&E, re-
visits the Robin Cook medical thrill-
er with a cast of veteran actors and
a high-budget look, but the implausi-
ble story still has the rickety feel of a
cheap summer novel, Neil Genzlin-
ger writes. PAGE C1
A Commando's Own Story
In “No Easy Day,” a member of the
Navy SEALs team that killed Osa-
ma bin Laden recounts his story.
The emphasis of the book, written
with Kevin Maurer, is not on spilling
secrets, but on explaining an elite
soldier's rigorous mind-set and
showing how that toughness is cre-
ated, Janet Maslin Writes PAGE C1
The appeal of electronic dance music, obvious at festivals and raves, is making its D.J.’s a new
force in the film industry. Above, the band M83 at Central Park on August 8.
ARTS, PAGE C1
INTERNATIONAL
NATIONAL
BUSINESS
Afghan Villagers Accuse
Militias of Killing Civilians
Villagers near Kunduz, Afghanistan,
say a pro-government militia killed
11 people in the second recent case
of reprisal killings of Afghans be-
lieved to be Taliban sympathizers.
In
both cases, residents complained
that the militias received support
and protection from American Spe-
cial Operations forces, which the
United States military has denied.
PAGE A4
No Sign of Amazon Deaths
Venezuelan officials who traveled to
the Amazon to investigate a report
of a mass killing in an indigenous
community have found no evidence
of any killings, government officials
said over the weekend. PAGE A5
Rebel Bombs in Damascus
Rebels set off two bombs among a
cluster of military buildings in the
Syrian capital, Damascus, as the
new United Nations envoy for Syria
pointedly refused to call for Presi-
dent Bashar al-Assad to give up
power. PAGE A6
Israel Evacuates Settlers
Following a court order, Israeli au-
thorities evacuated 47 families from
the Migron settlement, which the
Supreme Court ruled had been built
on land owned by Palestinians.
PAGE A7
Tutu Calls for Trial
The Nobel laureate Desmond M.
Tutu called for former President
George W. Bush and former Prime
Minister Tony Blair of Britain to face
prosecution at the International
Criminal Court for their role in the
2003 invasion of Iraq.
PAGE A7
In the Land of Laid Back
The Bans Are Piling Up
In southern California, a region once
known for its sunny, freewheeling
disposition, cities, school districts
and even libraries have been outlaw-
ing chunks of what used to pass for
birthright at a startling clip.
PAGE A11
Rain Hits Too Late for Crop
Farmers from Missouri to Ohio wel-
comed the rain from the remnants of
the hurricane, but they said it came
too late to save much of this year’s
corn crop.
PAGE A11
Doubts That Bank Leader
Can Convince Investors
Some analysts say Mario Draghi,
the European Central Bank’s presi-
dent, may have a difficult time con-
vincing investors that the bank will
take decisive action against the euro
debt crisis. PAGE B1
Getting in Front of Apple
Tech companies are running elabo-
rate product announcements this
week, hoping to grab the news me-
dia’s attention before Apple shows
off its new device on Sept. 12.
PAGE B1
Recovery for Magazine
Since losing financial support from
its publisher in 2009, the Southern
lifestyle magazine Garden & Gun
has made an impressive recovery,
adding more than 20,000 subscribers
in 2011.
PAGE B1
NEW YORK
A New Library Built
For Bronx College
The new North Hall and Library
at Bronx Community College is the
first big, new building on the Univer-
sity Heights campus since 1970, as
well as the first it has had built for its
own use, instead of inheriting as a
hand-me-down. City Room, David W.
Dunlap. PAGE A15
Something Borrowed . . .
A wedding in a Long Island hotel
was nearly over when the maître
d’hôtel noticed someone was at-
tempting to steal a white box in
which the guests had deposited en-
velopes, many filled with cash, in-
tended for the newlyweds.
PAGE A16
ONLINE
VIDEO
A varied glimpse into the
hundreds of dance competitions for
children across America, which tap
into an abiding national affection for
pageantry and contests.
nytimes.com/arts
SPORTS
Bridge
C6
Crossword
C6
Obituaries
A16-17, A20
TV Listings
C8
Weather
B6
Classified Ads
D2
Commercial Real Estate Market-
place
B5
At Open, Roddick Enjoys
A Last Laugh in His Career
Andy Roddick, the face of men’s ten-
nis in the United States for over a
decade, has a bounce in his step
even as his career draws to a close.
On Tennis, Karen Crouse. PAGE D1
OBITUARIES
Errors and Comments:
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call(212) 556-7652.
Newspaper Delivery:
customercare@nytimes.com or call
1-800-NYTIMES
(1-800-698-4637).
Gen. William W. Momyer, 95
A celebrated World War II fighter pi-
lot, he helped plot postwar tactics for
the Air Force and commanded aerial
combat and bombing operations
during the early years of the Viet-
nam War.
PAGE A16
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THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2012
N
A Picasso Online for Just $450? Yes, It Is a Steal
From Page A1
phistication routinely encounter
all degrees of flimflammery, from
the schemes of experienced grift-
ers to the innocent mistakes of
the unwitting and naïve. A recent
study by statisticians at George
Washington University and the
University of California, Irvine,
estimated that as many as 91 per-
cent of the drawings and small
sculptures sold online through
eBay as the work of the artist
Henry Moore were fake.
The Giacometti Foundation
and the Picasso estate view the
problem of bogus art sales as so
acute that this year they helped
found a new association, the In-
ternational Union of Modern and
Contemporary Masters, to pro-
mote legal protections “against
the circulation of counterfeit
works of art.”
Art is legitimately sold on the
Internet at a wide spectrum of
sites, including those run by indi-
vidual artists; established galler-
ies that have expanded online;
and new galleries that represent
the work of emerging artists. A
byproduct of so many reputable
businesses’ selling art through
the Web these days, experts said,
is that it has become easier for
those that are less reputable to
pass off forgeries.
Fakes can take many forms.
Most common are unauthorized
reproductions that violate an art-
ist’s copyright or trademark. Oth-
er times the reproduction has
been authorized, but someone
adds the artist’s signature — ei-
ther forged or copied — to trans-
form a cheap poster into an ex-
pensive “signed” limited edition.
Finally, there are out-and-out
forgeries sold as the work of an
artist.
Last month David Crespo, the
owner of a gallery in Madison,
Conn., was charged with selling
fake Picasso drawings that he
had been duped into buying on
the Internet years earlier. Mr.
Crespo had paid nearly $50,000
for a supposed set of Picasso
drawings from a seller known as
Collectart4less, according to
court papers. After discovering
that they were reproductions, he
sold several to unsuspecting buy-
ers for hundreds of thousands of
dollars, prosecutors say, provid-
ing false documents attesting to
their authenticity and prov-
enance. (Mr. Crespo has pleaded
not guilty to the charges.)
Online art is often accompa-
nied by a “certificate of authen-
ticity” or a registry certificate.
But these are generally not worth
much as a measure of authentici-
ty, experts say, unless they have
been signed by an artist or his or
her authorized dealer.
The registry certificates are
often sold by online businesses
that give out certificates attest-
ing that someone has registered
a work — not that the art is au-
thentic. At one site, for example,
National Fine Arts Title Registry,
anyone who fills out a form and
pays $10 can print out a certif-
icate minutes later.
Trawling eBay and other Web
sites for fakes is a daily activity
at the Calder Foundation in Chel-
sea, said its chairman, Alexander
S. C. Rower, who is Alexander
Calder’s grandson. At the founda-
tion recently, Mr. Rower ex-
plained the myriad ways that
buyers and sellers were de-
ceived. Using an iPad, he pointed
to an image of a 12-inch-high
sculpture of an elephant balanc-
ing on its upraised trunk a wire
with a red sun on one end, and a
crescent and a yellow half-star on
the other. “This is one of the ugli-
est things I’ve ever seen in my
entire life,” Mr. Rower said.
Several galleries around the
world advertise it as a limited
edition by Calder, although the
artist had nothing to do with it.
Employees of eBay do not vet
merchandise sold on its site,
though the company does investi-
gate complaints of counterfeits,
said Amanda Christine Miller, a
spokeswoman. Mr. Rower said
that eBay was prompt in remov-
A Google image search reveals that multiple galleries are selling a black elephant sculpture
online that the Calder Foundation says is not a work by Alexander Calder.
MARA LAVITT/NEW HAVEN REGISTER
The gallery owner David Crespo, who is involved in a case concerning fake Picasso drawings.
ing fakes.
James Stow, who buys and
sells art online, using his Florida
kitchen as the packing and ship-
ping department, frequently
posts articles on his Facebook
page schooling amateur collec-
tors on how to avoid being swin-
dled. A recent one was titled
“Buying Old Masters Prints-
Etchings on the Internet? Are
You Kidding . . . ”
He is not.
Among the art and collectibles
Mr. Stow recently listed on eBay
was a “Rembrandt ‘The Hog’
tinguish between a genuine etch-
ing and a faked copy.
(Etchings printed from Rem-
brandt’s original copper plates
vary enormously in quality and
value, depending on whether
they were made more recently,
using worn plates, or printed dur-
ing the artist’s lifetime; the older
ones can fetch more than
$1,000,000. Mr. Stow is selling an-
other Rembrandt etching for
$2,600.)
For the caretakers of estates,
protecting an artist’s legacy can
be expensive. Ms. Wiesinger said
the Giacometti Foundation spent
more than 40 percent of its oper-
ating budget in 2011 on tracking
fakes, up from 25 percent in 2004.
And the foundation last year be-
gan awarding 10,000 euros (about
$12,000) to institutions or individ-
uals who bring public attention to
the prevalence of fakes and forg-
eries.
In Mr. Rower’s view, sellers,
frequently hobbyists, are often as
uninformed as buyers. He no-
ticed, for example, that people
were mistakenly selling tear-
drop-shaped candy bowls as Cal-
ders because they saw on them
the letters “C” and “A,” in a ver-
sion of Calder’s characteristic ini-
tialing. It turns out the “C” and
“A” stand for “copper alloy.”
You would think that the rep-
utations of those who repeatedly
sell fakes online would suffer. But
Mr. Bamberger, who runs the
Web site artbusiness.com, said
consumers generally did not base
their assessments of sellers on
the authenticity of the art, be-
cause they may not know the dif-
ference. Rather, customers tend
to look at whether a seller packed
carefully, shipped on time and an-
swered questions promptly.
Do those three things well, Mr.
Bamberger said, and chances are
that people buying art on the In-
ternet will give you high marks.
Barry Werbin, an art lawyer in
New York whose father was a
fine-art dealer, says customers
who buy art online are out of
their minds. Buying art in per-
son, with expertise, is hard
enough, he said. But people hear
about astonishing finds at garage
sales or watch television series
like “Antiques Roadshow” and
feel that same kind of good for-
tune can strike them online.
“It gets everyone riled up and
makes for great television,” he
said, “but such finds are very far
and few between.”
Of course, some buyers may be
fully aware that they are buying
fakes, ones that look delightfully
realistic and spruce up their
homes. But Mr. Bamberger said
many people who bought art over
the Internet were, at heart, bar-
gain hunters, delighted to think
they were getting a deal.
“If you’re going to buy a fake
and you believe it’s real,” he said,
“then you’re going to be happy
with it.”
Fraud has saturated
areas of the art
market, experts say.
Etching” for $249.99.
How could it be so inexpen-
sive? Mr. Stow said the etching
had been trimmed so that there
was no mark from the original
copper plate, a distinguishing
feature that many experts use to
authenticate a work.
And how does he know it is
real? “I looked it up in the cata-
logue raisonné,” the definitive
compilation of an artist’s work,
Mr. Stow said.
He added that he relied on his
20 years of experience to dis-
A4
N
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2012
South Africa
Lifts Charges
Of Murder
In Mine Strike
By LYDIA POLGREEN
JOHANNESBURG — Prosecu-
tors provisionally dropped mur-
der charges against the 270 jailed
miners who had been accused
under an obscure legal doctrine
of killing 34 of their own col-
leagues when the police opened
fire on them while engaged in a
wildcat strike.
The police fired live ammuni-
tion into a crowd of about 3,000
platinum miners armed with
clubs and machetes while trying
to disperse the illegal strike on
Aug. 16. When the firing stopped,
34 miners were dead and South
Africa was outraged by the blood-
iest confrontation between the
police and civilians since the end
of apartheid. The police have
claimed they acted in self-de-
fense.
The outrage grew when pros-
ecutors announced last week that
under a legal doctrine known as
“common purpose,” the miners
would be charged with murder-
ing their colleagues. Under the
doctrine, which was frequently
used in the waning days of apart-
heid to charge members of pro-
testing crowds with serious
crimes committed by a few indi-
viduals, people in a mob can be
charged as accomplices.
In a hastily arranged news
conference Sunday, officials from
the National Prosecuting Author-
ity said that they would await the
outcome of further investigations
into the shootings, but they did
not rule out bringing murder
charges again.
“Final charges will only be
made once all investigations
have been completed,” Nomgco-
bo Jiba, the acting national di-
REUTERS
Men gathered on Sunday by the bodies of victims of a weekend assault in the village of Kanam. The villagers blamed one of the militia groups known as arbakai.
Afghans Protest Vengeful Militias
By ABDUL MATIN SARFRAZ
and ROD NORDLAND
KANAM, Afghanistan — On
the bed of this village’s only pick-
up truck, three bullet-riddled
bodies were laid out on Sunday,
hastily wrapped in sheets. Be-
hind the truck, several cars, their
hatchbacks propped open as
they bounced down the dirt
roads, carried one or two bodies
each. All 15 of the village’s vehi-
cles, most of them shabby and
old, joined the grim convoy,
stuffed with 200 distraught rela-
tives and 11 of their dead.
The villagers headed south to
the provincial capital, Kunduz, to
stage a protest over the killings,
which Afghan officials and sur-
viving villagers say were carried
out by pro-government militia-
men as a reprisal for a Taliban
assassination of a member of
their militia. The bodies of the 11
victims, all young or middle-
aged men, were carried along as
grisly proof.
It was the second time in a
body outside Kanam. Mr. Jalil
belonged to a group led by a pair
of commanders known by their
nicknames, Qaderak and Faizak.
Early Sunday morning, Mir-
jan, 50, a farmer who like many
Afghans goes by one name,
heard a knock on his door. “My
son got up to answer the door
and as soon as he opened it we
heard a burst of gunshots,” he
said. “I found him lying in a pool
of blood.” Mr. Mirjan said he
peeked outside and saw heavily
armed men prowling through the
village, shooting any man they
saw.
The status of arbakai militia-
men is a delicate issue. The term
refers to unpaid militiamen who
have organized themselves,
sometimes as former insurgents,
sometimes as armed robbers,
but in other cases as a self-de-
fense force and vigilantes. Many
of them in Kunduz and other
areas have begun to receive
arms and other support from
Villagers Accuse Pro-Government Forces of Killing 11 Men
A law that once
quashed dissent
under apartheid
is used again.
month that one of the contro-
versial militia groups, known as
arbakai, had carried out reprisal
killings of people believed to be
Taliban sympathizers.
In both cases, residents com-
plained that the groups received
support and protection from
American Special Operations
forces, which the United States
military has denied. The Special
Operations units train arbakai
militiamen only when they are
enrolled in official programs for
recruits of the Afghan Local Po-
lice, American officials insist.
That training program has re-
cently been suspended, however,
in the wake of a series of so-
called insider killings of Ameri-
can and other international coali-
tion soldiers by members of the
Afghan security forces and re-
cruits. In the past month, 15 co-
alition service members have
been killed that way, including
five members of Special Opera-
tions units, according to the
American military.
In much of Kunduz Province,
in northern Afghanistan, the
arbakai militias support the gov-
ernment against what had been
a growing presence of Taliban in-
surgents, especially in Pashtun
areas. Many residents complain
that the groups often operate
outside the law, extort unofficial
taxes from local residents and
are prone to act on the basis of
ethnic loyalties.
Gov. Anwar Jegdalak of Kun-
duz called the attackers in
Kanam members of “irresponsi-
ble armed militias” who had ac-
cused the villagers here of co-
operating with the Taliban and
sheltering them. Officials said “a
large group” of gunmen carried
out the attack; villagers said
they counted 20 to 30.
Kanam is one of many small
pockets of ethnic Pashtun people
in Kunduz, where the police and
militias are dominated by ethnic
Tajiks, who make up the majority
of residents. Many of those
groups are led by former war-
lords and aligned with their for-
mer militia commanders, who
now hold high government posi-
tions.
According to villagers, the
Taliban abducted an arbakai
fighter named Abdul Jalil, killed
him and on Saturday dumped his
rector of prosecutions, told re-
porters. “The murder charges
against the current 270 suspects
will be formally withdrawn provi-
sionally in court.”
Prosecutors also said they had
not ruled out charges against the
police.
“The actions of the police will
be sorted out still,” Johan Smit, a
provincial prosecutor in the re-
gion where the strike took place,
told reporters. “We’re not ignor-
ing that.”
The murder charges against
the miners, who remain in jail
pending a hearing this week, had
caused considerable consterna-
tion among the top leaders of the
African National Congress, who
were already being criticized for
acting too slowly to end the wild-
cat strike peacefully and not re-
sponding quickly enough once
the killings took place.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe
said last week that the decision to
charge the miners with murder
“has induced a sense of shock,
panic and confusion within the
members of the community and
the general South African public,”
and demanded an explanation
from prosectors.
Lawyers for the jailed miners
sent a letter to President Jacob
Zuma demanding that he inter-
vene. Mr. Zuma had earlier creat-
ed a commission of inquiry with
broad powers to investigate the
shooting.
The miners went on strike in
Marikana, a town 80 miles north-
west of Johannesburg, in early
August to demand higher wages
from the company that owns the
mine, Lonmin of London.
The strike and the govern-
ment’s iron-fisted response laid
bare the frustration with the slow
pace of transforming South Afri-
ca’s economy, deepening the
sense among many of the na-
tion’s poor and jobless that the
A.N.C. and its allies have become
too cozy with big business, dis-
connected from the masses who
put them in office.
The sight of heavily armed po-
lice officers shooting into a charg-
ing crowd of workers at the strike
— a scene replayed endlessly on
television — reminded many
South Africans of the days when
the police opened fire on protest-
ers during the apartheid era.
Then when prosecutors said
they would charge the miners in
the murder of their colleagues, le-
gal experts and Cosatu, the feder-
ation of trade unions that is one
of the A.N.C.’s main allies, de-
nounced the move as “absurd.”
Continued on Page A6
Pakistani Blasphemy Case
Shifts as Cleric Is Arrested
By SALMAN MASOOD
ISLAMABAD — The Muslim
cleric at the forefront of a cam-
paign to prosecute a Christian
girl for blasphemy has suddenly
found himself at risk of facing
the same charges, after one of
his colleagues went to the au-
thorities and accused him of fal-
sifying evidence of burned holy
papers.
The surprise arrest might
change the direction of a case
that has brought the world’s at-
tention to Pakistan’s controver-
was incensed at a desecration
and had passionately exhorted
local residents to protest and de-
mand the harshest of punish-
ments for the accused girl, who
family members and police offi-
cials say is a developmentally
disabled minor. The demonstra-
tions sent hundreds of Christian
families fleeing the neighbor-
hood after threats were reported.
Mr. Chisti, 30, said in an in-
terview Friday that he had been
appointed as a lead cleric in
Mehr Jaffer almost 10 months
ago. During a fiery sermon at
Friday Prayer, he angrily de-
fended himself and urged people
from the neighborhood to stand
by him.
“As long as people are with
me, no one can force me to leave
this neighborhood,” he said in
the sermon. He also said that
several religious leaders were in
contact with him, urging him to
make peace with the neighbor-
hood’s Christian residents. He
denied that he was trying to pro-
voke locals.
Mehr Jaffer remained peaceful
and no protests broke out Sun-
day after the arrest of Mr. Chisti,
residents said. But there were
signs of palpable anger as local
residents said they were unhap-
py over the arrest of their reli-
gious leader.
“After evening prayers today,
around 200 people of the neigh-
borhood committee sat down for
deliberations,” said Mohammad
Zaheer, a resident. “They have
decided that they will show soli-
darity with Khalid Chisti and dis-
tance themselves from Zubair,”
he said, referring to the man who
has testified against the cleric.
Mr. Chisti found his fortunes
A holy man who had
expressed anger at a
desecration is accused
of falsifying evidence.
ANJUM NAVEED/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Girls gathered outside a mosque where the cleric Mohammad
Khalid Chisti was arrested. The police escorted Mr. Chisti, at
left in a blindfold, from a hearing in Islamabad on Sunday.
dren, that was seized from Ms.
Masih.
“I tried to stop him, but he said
that this would strengthen our
case,” Mr. Zubair was quoted by
police officials as saying.
No immediate reason was giv-
en for Mr. Zubair’s testimony.
Such accusations about Mr. Chis-
ti are not new, however; some
neighbors had accused the cleric
of being a troublemaker and of
instigating locals as details of the
case surfaced last month.
But the kind of testimony giv-
en by Mr. Zubair is rare in inci-
dents of accused blasphemy,
where much of the details are
murky or disputed, as people are
generally afraid of inviting the
wrath of religious figures and
leaders who use their pulpits to
whip up a storm of public anger,
often leading to violent protests
and riots. Indeed, even if charges
are dropped against Ms. Masih,
some neighbors believe she will
never be safe. At times, even just
the rumor of blasphemous acts
in Pakistan have led to lynchings
or other violence, particularly
against minorities.
Late last month, a group of in-
fluential Islamic clerics urged
the police to investigate the
charges against Ms. Masih and
prosecute her accusers if the
charges proved to be fabricated.
On Sunday, Mr. Chisti was
brought before a magistrate
blindfolded and with his hands
tied, surrounded by police offi-
cers and commandos. “I have
done nothing wrong,” he said
during brief comments to report-
ers.
sial blasphemy laws, which crit-
ics say are regularly used to ex-
ploit and intimidate minorities.
And it bolstered the possibility of
a speedy release for Rimsha
Masih, the girl awaiting trial in
prison on charges she burned
Muslim sacred documents; her
bail hearing is scheduled to re-
sume Monday.
The cleric, Mohammad Khalid
Chisti, 30, who leads a mosque in
the impoverished Mehr Jaffer
neighborhood on Islamabad’s
outskirts, was arrested by a con-
tingent of police officers late Sat-
urday, presented before a judi-
cial magistrate Sunday morning,
and taken into police custody for
14 days.
Until his arrest, Mr. Chisti had
cast himself as a holy man who
EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
reversing late Saturday when
Hafiz Mohammad Zubair, a mu-
ezzin, or prayer caller, at his
mosque appeared before a mag-
istrate and said that the cleric
had added two pages of the Ko-
ran to a heap of burned pages of
the Noorani Qaida, a holy text
used to teach the Koran to chil-
INTERNATIONAL
A5
THE NEW YORK TIMES
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2012
Ø
N
MEXICO CITY JOURNAL
City’s Aztec Past
Reaches Out to Present
By ELISABETH MALKIN
and SOFIA CASTELLO Y TICKELL
MEXICO CITY — The skeleton
is that of a young woman, per-
haps an Aztec noble, found intact
and buried in the empire’s most
sacred spot more than 500 years
ago. Almost 2,000 human bones
were heaped around her, and she
is a mystery.
There are other discoveries yet
to be deciphered from the latest
excavation site at the heart of
this vast metropolis, where the
Aztecs built their great temple
and the Spanish conquerors laid
the foundation of their new em-
pire.
Before announcing the finding
of the unusual burial site and the
remains of what may be a sacred
tree last month, archaeologists
had also recently revealed a giant
round stuccoed platform decorat-
ed with serpents’ heads and a
floor carved in relief that appears
to show a holy war.
Mexico City might be one of
the world’s classic megacities, an
world is the evidence of a rupture
between civilizations as dramatic
as in Mexico City’s giant central
square, known as the Zócalo,
where the ruin of the Aztecs’
Templo Mayor abuts the ponder-
ous cathedral the Spanish erect-
ed to declare their spiritual domi-
nance over the conquered.
“I think the ideological war
was more difficult for the Spanish
than armed warfare,” said Eduar-
do Matos Moctezuma, the ar-
chaeologist who first led the ex-
cavation of the Templo Mayor.
There are other, older places in
the world where ruins rise from
traffic-clogged streets, where for-
eign invaders ended empires. But
it is different here, academics
say.
“They blew the top of it off;
they didn’t do that to the Colosse-
um,” said Davíd Carrasco, a his-
torian of religions at Harvard
University who has written on
the Aztecs and the excavations at
the Templo Mayor. “In Rome, the
ancient Roman city stands along-
side the medieval and the mod-
ern city.”
A Spanish chronicler of the
conquest, Bernal Díaz del Castil-
lo, wrote that “of all these won-
ders” of the Aztec capital,
Tenochtitlan, “all is overthrown
and lost, nothing left standing.”
Since 1790, though, when con-
struction work to pave the Zócalo
unearthed the first giant Aztec
carvings, Tenochtitlan has been
giving up its secrets. Archaeolo-
gists began exploring the Templo
Mayor a century ago, but the dis-
covery of a giant monolith depict-
ing the decapitated, dismem-
bered Aztec moon goddess Coyol-
xauhqui in 1978 led to a full-scale
excavation that continues today.
In the first five years, archaeol-
ogists had uncovered large parts
of the temple that lay underneath
a structure razed by the Spanish
after the 1521 conquest. Past Az-
tec emperors had built new tem-
ples over earlier ones, which un-
wittingly spared the older struc-
tures.
The archaeological project
“wasn’t just that we were going
to find an enormous temple,” Mr.
Matos said. “It was what it meant
within Aztec society. That build-
ing was very important because
for them it was the center of the
universe.”
There is still much more to un-
cover around the Templo Mayor.
The 16th-century Franciscan Fri-
ar Bernardino de Sahagún left a
RODRIGO CRUZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The ruins of the Aztecs’ Templo Mayor, in Mexico City’s fa-
mous Zócalo, where it abuts a Spanish-built cathedral.
Surprises are still
being uncovered in
the Mexican capital’s
superimposed layers.
now a raucous medley of the
mundane. The street vendors
hawking pirated Chinese-made
toys and English-language lesson
CDs from crumbling facades are
merely the loudest. To excavate
under the area’s hotels, diners,
cheap clothing stands and used
bookstores would entail fraught
negotiation.
Along the quieter blocks of the
precinct, handsome colonial
structures are now museums and
government buildings, them-
selves historical landmarks.
Archaeologists believe that the
Calmécac, a school for Aztec no-
bles, extends under the court-
yards of Mexico’s Education Min-
istry building. For now, the only
part of the Calmécac that has
been excavated are several walls
and sculptures on display under
a building housing the Spanish
cultural center, discovered when
it was remodeled.
Still, in a strange sort of pay-
back, the ruins themselves some-
times make it possible for the ar-
chaeologists to enter private
property and begin digging.
Since the 16th century, the city
has pumped water from deep
wells to satisfy its thirst, causing
the clays beneath the surface to
sink as water is sucked from
them, rather like a dry sponge.
But the buildings settle un-
evenly, buckling over the solid
stone Aztec ruins below, lending
many of the sacred precinct’s
streets a swaying, drunken air.
As cracks open and the build-
ings tilt, many of them need res-
toration, which by law allows ar-
chaeologists from the anthropolo-
gy and history institute to keep
watch. If historic remains are
found, the owner must foot the
bill to restore them.
When the cathedral needed to
be rescued in the 1990s, engi-
neers dug 30 shafts to stabilize
the structure and Mr. Matos and
his team descended as far as 65
feet to see what was underneath.
“It’s the vengeance of the
gods,” he said. “The cathedral is
falling and the monuments to the
ancient gods are what’s causing
it to fall.”
Among other things, the ar-
chaeologists found the remains of
Tenochtitlan’s ball court, where
Aztecs played a ritual ballgame
common across ancient Mesoa-
merica. It remains sealed deep
under the cathedral’s apse and
the cobblestone street to its
north.
“That whole part of the city is
like a graveyard of people and of
significant cultural objects,” Mr.
Carrasco said. “And they awaken
every time Mexico reaches for its
future.”
ever-expanding jumble of traffic,
commerce, grand public spaces,
leafy suburbs and cramped
slums. But it is also an archaeo-
logical wonder, and more than
three decades after a chance dis-
covery set off a systematic explo-
ration of the Aztecs’ ceremonial
spaces, surprises are still being
uncovered in the city’s superim-
posed layers.
“It’s a living city that has been
transforming since the pre-His-
panic epoch,” said Raúl Barrera,
who leads the exploration of the
city’s center for the National In-
stitute of Anthropology and His-
tory here.
“The Mexicas themselves dis-
mantled their temples,” to build
over them, he explained, using
the Aztecs’ name for themselves.
“The Spanish constructed the ca-
thedral, their houses, with the
same stones from the pre-His-
panic temples. What we have
found are the remains of that
whole process.”
Perhaps nowhere else in the
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND HISTORY, VIA REUTERS
Archaeologists removed human bones, among nearly 2,000,
including 10 skulls, found recently at the Templo Mayor site.
record of what Mr. Matos calls
the Aztecs’ sacred precinct of
temples and palaces, now a
densely packed square about
seven blocks on each side.
The Sahagún account, com-
piled from Aztecs’ recollections
of their lost city, has proved strik-
ingly accurate. Of the 78 struc-
tures he described, archaeolo-
gists have found vestiges of more
than half.
During the most recent exca-
vation, underneath a small plaza
wedged between the Templo
Mayor and the cathedral, Mr.
Barrera had been looking for the
round ceremonial platform be-
cause it had been described in the
Sahagún record.
Much of what the friar and oth-
er witnesses chronicled now lies
as deep as 25 feet underground.
To get there, Mr. Barrera’s team
must first navigate the electricity
lines and water mains that are
the guts of the modern city and
then travel down through a colo-
nial layer, which yields its own
set of artifacts.
“It is like a book that we are
trying to read from the surface to
the deepest point,” he said.
But despite the guidance from
historical records, Mexico City’s
archaeologists cannot dig any-
where they please.
Part of the sacred precinct is
Venezuela
Finds No Sign
Of Massacre
U.S. Firms Are Prepared if the Greeks Decide to Drop the Euro
to accounts elsewhere more fre-
quently, while making sure it has
adequate money and liquidity in
place so employees and suppliers
are paid without disruption.
FMC, a chemical giant based in
Philadelphia, is asking some
Greek customers to pay in ad-
vance, rather than risk selling to
them now and not getting paid
later. It has also begun to avoid
keeping any excess cash in
Greek, Spanish or Italian bank
accounts, while carefully moni-
toring the creditworthiness of
customers in those countries.
“It’s been a very hot topic,”
said Thomas C. Deas Jr., an FMC
executive who serves as chair-
man of the National Association
of Corporate Treasurers. Mem-
bers of his group discussed the is-
sue on a conference call last
Tuesday, he added.
American companies have ac-
tually been more aggressive
about seeking out advice than
their European counterparts, ac-
cording to John Gibbons, head of
treasury services in Europe for
JPMorgan Chase.
Mr. Gibbons said a handful of
the largest American companies
had requested the special ac-
counts configured for a currency
that did not yet exist.
“We’re planning against the
extreme,” he said. “You don’t lose
anything by doing it.”
From Page A1
will solve the Continent’s debt
problems, but the quickening
tempo of preparations by big
business for a potential Greek
exit this summer suggests that
investors may be unduly opti-
mistic. Many executives are
deeply skeptical that Greece will
accede to the austere fiscal pol-
icies being demanded by Europe
in return for financial assistance.
Greece’s abandonment of the
euro would most likely create tur-
moil in global markets, which
have experienced periodic sell-
offs whenever Europe’s debt
problems have flared up over the
last two and a half years. It would
also increase the pressure on Ita-
ly and Spain, much larger eco-
nomic powers that are struggling
with debt problems of their own.
“It’s safe to say most compa-
nies are preparing,” said Paul
Dennis, a program manager with
Corporate Executive Board, a
private advisory firm.
In a survey this summer, the
firm found that 80 percent of cli-
ents polled expected Greece to
leave the euro zone, and a fifth of
those expected more countries to
follow.
“Fifteen months ago when we
started looking at this, we said it
was unthinkable,” said Heiner
Leisten, a partner with the Bos-
ton Consulting Group in Cologne,
Germany, who heads up its glo-
bal insurance practice. “It’s not
impossible or unthinkable now.”
Mr. Leisten’s firm, as well as
PricewaterhouseCoopers, has al-
ready considered the timing of a
Greek withdrawal — for exam-
ple, the news might hit on a Fri-
day night, when global markets
are closed.
A bank holiday could quickly
follow, with the stock market and
most local financial institutions
shutting down, while new capital
controls make it hard to move
money in and out of the country.
“We’ve had conversations with
several dozen companies and
we’re doing work for a number of
these,” said Peter Frank, who ad-
vises corporate treasurers as a
principal at Pricewaterhouse.
“Almost all of that has come in
over the transom in the last 90
days.”
He added: “Companies are
asking some very granular ques-
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) —
Venezuelan officials who traveled
to the Amazon to investigate a re-
port of a mass killing in an indige-
nous community found no evi-
dence of any killings, the govern-
ment said over the weekend.
Venezuela’s minister for indig-
enous peoples, Nicia Maldonado,
said Saturday that the team of of-
ficials traveled by helicopter to a
remote jungle area where a Yano-
mami Indian group reported last
week that it had received word of
a massacre committed by gold
miners in July.
“No evidence of any death was
found,” Ms. Maldonado told state
television. She said officials had
not found a burned communal
hut, which the indigenous group
said had been reported by people
who visited the community and
talked with residents.
The Venezuelan government
on Sunday released a statement
saying its investigators had
found no evidence to support the
massacre claims, which it called
“information generated by some
media outlets and destabilizing
sectors seeking to generate un-
certainty in the population.”
Leaders of the Horonami Yano-
mami Organization, the commu-
nity group that released the ac-
count last week, could not be
reached for comment on Sunday.
Christina Haverkamp, an in-
digenous rights activist in Ger-
many, said it was possible that
the officials who traveled to the
area simply did not find the cor-
rect community and should keep
investigating. Based on the indig-
enous group’s account, she said,
“I think there were killings.”
“If they want to find the truth,
they will only find the truth to-
gether with the Yanomami,” Ms.
Haverkamp said in a telephone
interview on Sunday.
Ms. Haverkamp, who has
worked among the Yanomami for
two decades, said that finding out
what happened would be compli-
cated in part because the Yano-
mami generally avoid talking
about the dead and typically say
“a lot” to describe any number
greater than three.
PETROS GIANNAKOURIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A flea market in Athens. In a survey this summer, an advisory firm found that 80 percent of cli-
ents polled expected Greece to leave the euro zone, and a fifth of those expected more to follow.
tions, like ‘If a news release
comes out on a Friday night an-
nouncing that Greece has pulled
out of the euro, what do we do?’
In some cases, companies have
contingency plans in place, such
as having someone take a train to
Athens with 50,000 euros to pay
employees.”
The recent wave of prepara-
tions by American companies for
a Greek exit from the euro sig-
scenarios — a single-country
exit, a multicountry exit and a
breakup of the euro zone in its en-
tirety.”
Banks and consulting firms are
reluctant to name clients, and
many big companies also de-
clined to discuss their contingen-
cy plans, fearing it could anger
customers in Europe if it became
known they were contemplating
the euro’s demise.
Central banks, as well as Ger-
many’s finance ministry, have
also been considering the impli-
cations of a Greek exit but have
been even more secretive about
specific plans.
But some corporations are be-
ginning to acknowledge they are
ready if Greece or even addi-
tional countries leave the euro
zone, making sure systems can
handle a quick transition to a new
currency.
In Europe, the holding compa-
ny for Iberia Airlines and British
Airways has acknowledged it is
preparing plans in the event of a
euro exit by Spain.
“We’ve looked at many scenar-
ios, including where one or more
countries decides to redenomi-
nate,” said Roger Griffith, who
oversees global settlement and
customer risk for MasterCard.
“We have defined operating
steps and communications steps
to take.” He added: “Practically,
we could make a change in a day
or two and be prepared in terms
of our systems.”
In a statement, Visa said that it
too would also be able to make “a
swift transition to a new currency
with the minimum possible dis-
ruption to consumers and retail-
ers.”
Juniper Networks, a provider
of networking technology based
in California, created a “Euro
Zone Crisis Assessment and Con-
tingency Plan,” which company
officials liken to the kind of busi-
ness continuity plans they main-
tain in the event of an earth-
quake.
“It’s about having an aware-
ness versus having to scramble,”
said Catherine Portman, vice
president for treasury at Juniper.
The company has already begun
moving funds in euro zone banks
Planning for the
worst and hoping it
is still unthinkable.
nals a stark switch from their
stance in the past, said Carole
Berndt, head of global transac-
tion services in Europe, the Mid-
dle East and Africa for Bank of
America Merrill Lynch.
“When we started giving ad-
vice, they came for the free sand-
wiches and chocolate cookies,”
she said jokingly. “Now that has
changed, and contingency plan-
ning is focused on three primary
Everything you need to
know for your business day
is in Business Day.
The New York Times
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