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VOL. CLXII ....No. 55,941
NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012
© 2012 The New York Times
AFTER THE DEVASTATION, A DAUNTING RECOVERY
Subway Flooded
— Millions
in the Dark
By JAMES BARRON
The New York region began
the daunting process on Tuesday
of rebuilding after a storm that
remade the landscape and re-
wrote the record books as it left
behind a tableau of damage, de-
struction and grief.
The toll — in lives disrupted or
lost and communities washed out
— was staggering. A rampaging
fire reduced more than 100
houses to ash in Breezy Point,
Queens. Explosions and downed
power lines left the lower half of
Manhattan and 90 percent of
Long Island in the dark. The New
York City subway system — a
lifeline for millions — was para-
lyzed by flooded tunnels and was
expect to remain silent for days.
Accidents claimed more than
40 lives in the United States and
Canada, including 18 in the city.
Two boys — an 11-year-old Little
League star and a 13-year-old
friend — were killed when a 90-
foot-tall tree smashed into the
family room of a house in North
Salem, N.Y. An off-duty police of-
ficer who led seven relatives, in-
cluding a 15-month-old boy, to
safety in the storm drowned
when he went to check on the
basement.
On Tuesday, the storm slogged
toward the Midwest, vastly
weaker than it was when it made
landfall in New Jersey on Mon-
day night. It delivered rain and
high winds all the way to the
Great Lakes, where freighters
were at a standstill in waves two
stories tall. It left snow in Ap-
palachia, power failures in Maine
and untreated sewage pouring
into the Patuxent River in Mary-
land after a treatment plant lost
power.
President Obama approved
disaster declarations for New
York and New Jersey, making
them eligible for federal assist-
ance for rebuilding. “All of us
CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP: KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS; MICHAEL KIRBY SMITH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES; DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
The storm’s fury was evident on Tuesday. At top, the scene in the Breezy Point section of Queens, where more than 100 homes burned down. Above from left: a
Lower Manhattan parking garage; the Atlantic City Boardwalk; the rescue of a 3-year-old on Staten Island; and a boat on train tracks in Ossining, N.Y.
Ohio Working Class May Offer
Key to Second Term for Obama
In Storm Deaths, Mystery, Fate and Bad Timing
cents, people embarking on ca-
reers and those looking back on
them — the ones who paid the
price of this most destructive of
storms. In Franklin Township,
Pa., an 8-year-old boy was
crushed by a tree when he ran
outside to check on his family’s
calves. A woman died in Somer-
set County, Pa., when her car slid
off a snowy road.
There were 18 deaths reported
in New York City, where the toll
was heaviest, and 5 more fatal-
ities elsewhere in the state.
Most of all, it was the trees. Up-
rooted or cracked by the furious
winds, they became weapons
that flattened cars, houses and
pedestrians.
But also, a woman was killed
by a severed power line. A man
was swept by flooding waters out
of his house and through the
glass of a store. The power
blinked off for a 75-year-old wom-
an on a respirator, and a heart at-
tack killed her. Three people,
aged 50, 57 and 72, were found
drowned in separate basements
in the Rockaways.
And the storm left its share of
mysteries.
A parking lot attendant was
found dead in a subterranean
parking garage in TriBeCa, the
precise cause unclear. The body
of an unidentified woman washed
up on Georgia Beach in East
Hampton, on Long Island.
Some people died and no one
By N. R. KLEINFIELD
and MICHAEL POWELL
They stepped in the wrong
puddle. They walked the dog at
the wrong moment. Or they did
exactly what all the emergency
experts instructed them to do —
they huddled inside and waited
for its anger to go away.
The storm found them all.
Hurricane Sandy, in the wily
and savage way of natural disas-
ters, expressed its full assort-
ment of lethal methods as it hit
the East Coast on Monday night.
In its howling sweep, the authori-
ties said the storm claimed at
least 40 lives in eight states.
They were infants and adoles-
By JEFF ZELENY and DALIA SUSSMAN
COLUMBUS, Ohio — As Presi-
dent Obama and Mitt Romney
enter the closing week of the
presidential race, where the 18
electoral votes of Ohio are seen
by both sides as critical to vic-
tory, Mr. Obama’s ability to pre-
vent erosion among working-
class voters may be his best path
to re-election.
In Ohio, according to the latest
poll of likely voters by Quinnipiac
University/New York Times/
CBS News, Mr. Obama runs
nearly even with Mr. Romney
among white voters who do not
have college degrees.
That helps explain why he ap-
pears slightly better positioned
there in the closing week of the
campaign than in Florida and
Virginia, where the polls found
that Mr. Romney holds an advan-
tage of about 30 percentage
points among those voters.
The presidential contest has
become an intense state-by-state
fight, with the climate in Ohio
shaped by months of efforts by
the Obama campaign to portray
Mr. Romney as a job killer who
opposed the president’s decision
to bail out the auto industry.
Mr. Obama, who has a 50 per-
cent to 45 percent edge here, also
appears to be benefiting from an
economic recovery in Ohio that is
running ahead of the national re-
covery.
The poll found that nearly half
of all white voters without college
degrees here say the economy is
improving, and most give Mr.
Obama some credit. Only about a
quarter of those voters in Virgin-
ia and Florida say their economy
is getting better.
The polls, along with inter-
views with strategists and sup-
porters in the three battleground
states, illustrate the dynamic fac-
ing both campaigns in the final
days of the race. The race is es-
sentially tied in Florida and Vir-
Continued on Page A21
For Years, Warnings That It Could Happen Here
On Tuesday, as New Yorkers
woke up to submerged neighbor-
hoods and water-soaked electri-
cal equipment, officials took their
first tentative steps toward con-
sidering major infrastructure
changes that could protect the
city’s fragile shores and eight
million residents from repeated
disastrous damage.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said
the state should consider a levee
system or storm surge barriers
and face up to the inadequacy of
the existing protections.
“The construction of this city
did not anticipate these kinds of
situations. We are only a few feet
above sea level,” Mr. Cuomo said
during a radio interview. “As
soon as you breach the sides of
Manhattan, you now have a
whole infrastructure under the
city that fills — the subway sys-
tem, the foundations for build-
ings,” and the World Trade Cen-
ter site.
The Cuomo administration
plans talks with city and federal
officials about how to proceed.
The task could be daunting, given
fiscal realities: storm surge bar-
riers, the huge sea gates that
Continued on Page A12
By DAVID W. CHEN
and MIREYA NAVARRO
The warnings came, again and
again.
For nearly a decade, scientists
have told city and state officials
that New York faces certain per-
il: rising sea levels, more fre-
quent flooding and extreme
weather patterns. The alarm
bells grew louder after Tropical
Storm Irene last year, when the
city shut down its subway system
and water rushed into the Rocka-
ways and Lower Manhattan.
If the election for President were being
held today, for whom would you vote?
All likely voters, Oct. 23-29
FLORIDA
48% OBAMA
ROMNEY 47%
OHIO
50%
45%
Romney Ads Called False
VIRGINIA
Auto executives rebut claims
in Romney ads that they are
shifting jobs to China. Page A11.
49%
47%
Continued on Page A18
Continued on Page A19
THE NEW YORK TIMES
INTERNATIONAL A4-8
Bahrain Bans All Protests
NATIONAL A14-15
A Push for Same-Sex Marriage
DINING D1-7
The Once and Future Spago
The government described its vow to
take legal action against anyone trying
to organize a demonstration as a tempo-
rary response to recent violence. The
move drew swift condemnation from
human rights groups.
There are four state ballot measures on
same-sex marriage, and gay rights
groups see a good chance of winning at
least one or two.
Wolfgang Puck, a celebrity chef with an
empire built on cookware, knives, fro-
zen food and 101 restaurants worldwide,
has reinvented the Los Angeles spot
that started it all, Spago.
PAGE A14
PAGE D1
PAGE A4
BUSINESS DAY B1-10
Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm
ARTS C1-7
A Company’s Pop Gold Mine
Clinton Visits Balkans
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clin-
ton urged Bosnian leaders to work to-
gether and said their country would lag
if reforms were not made.
Disney will take a commanding position
in the world of fantasy movies with the
acquisition of the film company founded
by George Lucas.
The book “360 Sound:
The Columbia
Records Story” by
Sean Wilentz, cele-
brating the music
company’s 125 years,
is due out this week.
Columbia’s artists
have included Frank Sinatra, left, Janis
Joplin and Aretha Franklin.
PAGE B1
PAGE A6
OBITUARIES B15
Letitia Baldrige Dies
ELECTION 2012 A10-13
Utah Mayor’s Bigger Goal
The etiquette adviser and business ex-
ecutive became a household name as
Jacqueline Kennedy’s White House
chief of staff. She was 86.
Mia Love, right,
will be the first
black female Re-
publican in the
House if she de-
feats Utah’s lone
Democratic con-
gressman next
week, but she says
the only history
she wants to make is “getting our coun-
try on track.”
PAGE C1
PAGE B15
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23
SPORTSWEDNESDAY B11-14
Drug Ban Cuts Breeders’ Field
Maureen Dowd
PAGE A23
A ban on furosemide, a diuretic sold as
Lasix or Salix, has been criticized by
some trainers and will lead to smaller
fields in Breeders’ Cup races.
U(D54G1D)y+[!,!@!#!$
PAGE A10
PAGE B11
A2
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012
N
Inside The Times
INTERNATIONAL
NATIONAL
BUSINESS
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
Retired Diplomat Says U.S.
Stirs China-Japan Tensions
A longtime Chinese diplomat
warned that the United States was
using Japan as a strategic tool in its
effort to mount a comeback in Asia,
a policy that the diplomat said was
serving to heighten tensions be-
tween China and Japan. PAGE A3
Rwanda Leader Sentenced
Rwanda’s high court sentenced a
leading opposition politician to eight
years in prison, in a case widely
viewed as a test of the nation’s dem-
ocratic limits and the independence
of the judiciary. PAGE A3
Taliban Hits ‘Safe’ Region
By contesting areas of Bamian
Province in Afghanistan, insurgents
have added to the sense that Kabul
is encircled and that no place in the
country is beyond their reach.
PAGE A4
Polish Report Causes Furor
An official report, which was later
partly retracted, said that traces of
explosives were found in the wreck-
age of the airplane that crashed in
western Russia in 2010, killing Presi-
dent Lech Kaczynski and much of
the country’s senior leadership, re-
viving suspicions among some in
Poland that the crash was not an ac-
cident.
PAGE A6
Mythic Creature Faces Test
The decline of the wild axolotl, a
feathery-gilled salamander, has
been precipitous, and its extinction
would end one of the few natural
links Mexicans still have with the
city that the Aztecs built. PAGE A7
Oklahoma Law Will Make
Guns a Common Sight
In a state with 142,000 men and
women licensed to carry concealed
weapons, Oklahomans may take ad-
vantage of the law by displaying
their handguns while they shop for
groceries, eat at restaurants and
walk into banks. PAGE A14
Alabama’s Constitution
What appeared to be a simple act of
reformist editing has led to deeper
debates over the state of Alabama’s
obligations to provide public educa-
tion, the disposition of several past
court rulings and the degree to
which racist language can be surgi-
cally removed from a document con-
structed primarily on the ground of
racism.
PAGE A15
A Clash Across Europe
Over the Value of a Click
European newspaper and magazine
publishers are pushing for legisla-
tion that would require search en-
gines and aggregators to pay to ac-
cess their content. PAGE B2
Fiat Keeps Factories Open
Defying the worst European auto
sales in 20 years, the chief executive
of Fiat said that he would not close
any of the carmaker’s underused
factories in Italy and vowed to re-
peat the turnaround he led at Chrys-
ler.
PAGE B3
BP Shows Profitability
The oil giant BP returned to profit-
ability with a better-than-expected
third-quarter profit, prompting it to
raise its dividend by more than 12
percent, to 9 pence (14.4 cents) a
share as the company’s share price
rose more than 3.4 percent in trad-
ing in London. PAGE B10
UBS to Cut 10,000 Jobs
UBS, the Swiss bank, announced
plans on Tuesday to eliminate up to
10,000 jobs and cut costs in a major
overhaul that will squeeze its earn-
ings in the short term. PAGE B10
‘‘
To describe it as
looking like pictures we
have seen at the end of
World War II is not over-
stating it.
’’
MAYOR MICHAEL R.
BLOOMBERG,
visiting Breezy Point, Queens,
where more than 100 homes
were destroyed by fire. [A19]
DINING
Neighbors Won’t Give
Candy Like This
Just because mass-market candy is
the norm for Halloween, that does-
n’t mean it is the only option. The
candy universe is large and diverse,
and there are more sophisticated
forms of life out there, Melissa Clark
writes. A Good Appetite. PAGE D1
Making Good Impressions
About a month into the restaurant
Talde’s run, the dining room ticked
along briskly. On a visit this fall, the
service seemed to have lost its way
and the flavors had grown vague,
Pete Wells writes. Restaurant Re-
view. PAGE D6
A Different Shade of Risotto
As more varieties and better quali-
ties of brown rice become increas-
ingly common, it’s growing clear
that you can do pretty much any-
thing you want with this less pro-
cessed version of the world’s sec-
ond-most-popular grain (after corn).
This includes making risotto, Mark
Bittman writes. How to Cook Every-
thing.
PAGE D3
NEW YORK
Money Flows Into Queens
To Bolster a Republican
Republicans have high hopes for
Eric Ulrich, a 27-year-old city coun-
cilman, but first he must defeat Jo-
seph P. Addabbo Jr., the incumbent
state senator for southwestern
Queens. PAGE A16
OBITUARIES
SPORTS
Terry Callier, 67
He was a Chicago singer and song-
writer who in the 1970s developed an
incantatory style that mingled soul,
folk and jazz sounds around his
meditative baritone, then decades
later was rescued from obscurity
when his work found new fans in
Britain. PAGE B15
Storm’s Effect on Marathon
Is Being Assessed
New York Marathon race officials
are looking into whether any parts
of the course are impassable and are
assessing how runners will get to
the race, given the storm-compro-
mised transit system. PAGE B11
N.C.A.A. Overhauls Rules
The N.C.A.A. adopted new rules re-
garding recruiting violations and
scandals and will scrap its current
enforcement structure of major and
secondary violations. PAGE B13
Jets Will Have to Decide
Coach Rex Ryan, General Manager
Mike Tannenbaum and quarterback
Mark Sanchez will be judged on
whether they can lead the Jets to a
Super Bowl. PAGE B13
Corrections
FRONT PAGE
An article on Tuesday about
United States intelligence reports
on security in eastern Libya be-
fore the Sept. 11 attack against
the American diplomatic mission
in Benghazi included an incorrect
quotation from a State Depart-
ment transcript of a briefing on
Oct. 10. In the briefing to report-
ers, Patrick F. Kennedy, an under
secretary of state, described the
assault by militants as a
“massed” attack, not a “masked”
attack. (The State Department
pointed out its error on Tuesday
and has since corrected the tran-
script.)
article on Monday about an
I.B.M. breakthrough on chip de-
sign defined incorrectly Moore’s
Law, an observation on technol-
ogy advances named for Gordon
Moore, a co-founder of Intel.
Moore’s Law holds that the chip
industry doubles the number of
transistors it can build on a single
chip at routine intervals of about
two years — not intervals of
about 12 to 18 months.
An article on Tuesday about an
executive shake-up at Apple de-
scribed incorrectly an element of
Apple’s Game Center app that in-
volves so-called skeuomorphic
design. It is a simulation of a felt-
covered table, not the thread of a
leather binder.
OP-ED
Thomas L. Friedman
PAGE A23
ARTS
A Tiny Space Big Enough
To Fit Outsize Emotions
The comedy “Bad Jews” stars Tra-
cee Chimo as a young woman who is
beaten to the punch regarding a
family heirloom, Charles Isherwood
writes. Theater Review. PAGE C1
Visionary in Math’s Realms
“The Fractalist” is a memoir by the
pioneering mathematician Benoit B.
Mandelbrot, who is said to have re-
vitalized visual geometry and
coined the term “fractal” to refer to
a new class of mathematical shapes
that uncannily mimic the irregular-
ities found in nature.
PAGE C1
ONLINE
VIDEO
Janine di Giovanni, a Times
contributing reporter, gets a rare
glimpse at the grinding urban war-
fare in Homs, Syria.
nyt.com/world
BUSINESS DAY
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Crossword
C2
Obituaries
B15
TV Listings
C6
Weather
B16
Commercial
Real Estate Marketplace
B6
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THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012
N
KOSUKE OKAHARA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
One of the uninhabited, disputed islands in the East China Sea known as the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan.
Ex-Envoy Says U.S. Stirs China-Japan Tensions
By JANE PERLEZ
and KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG — A longtime
Chinese diplomat warned Tues-
day that the United States is us-
ing Japan as a strategic tool in its
effort to mount a comeback in
Asia, a policy that he said is serv-
ing to heighten tensions between
China and Japan.
The retired diplomat, Chen
Jian, who served as an under sec-
retary general of the United Na-
tions and as China’s ambassador
to Japan, said the United States
should restrain Tokyo and should
focus its diplomatic efforts on
bringing about negotiations be-
tween China and Japan over the
disputed islands in the East Chi-
na Sea known as the Diaoyu by
China and the Senkaku by Japan.
In an unusually biting assess-
ment of the United States, Mr.
Chen said: “It is in the U.S. in-
terest to quarrel with China, but
not to fight with China.”
While Mr. Chen has retired
from China’s diplomatic service,
his remarks were particularly
significant because they repre-
sent the most detailed public ex-
position of China’s views at a
time when Chinese officials have
been wary of making comments
because of the approaching Com-
munist Party Congress, which is
scheduled to begin in Beijing on
Nov. 8.
In the speech, which was or-
ganized by the Chinese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and was at-
tended by half a dozen Chinese
diplomats, Mr. Chen held out an
olive branch by urging that dis-
cussions between Japan and Chi-
na should start on ways to reduce
the risk of clashes between Chi-
nese and Japanese patrol vessels
that have gotten perilously close
off the islands in the last month.
But the thrust of his speech
was more hard-hitting, particu-
larly regarding the United States.
Some in China and Japan see the
issue of the islands “as a time
bomb planted by the U.S. be-
tween China and Japan,” he said.
“That time bomb is now explod-
ing or about to explode.”
Mr. Chen accused the United
States of encouraging the right
wing in Japan, and fanning a rise
of militarism.
“The U.S. is urging Japan to
play a greater role in the region
in security terms, not just in eco-
nomic terms,” he said during his
speech at the Foreign Corre-
spondents’ Club in Hong Kong.
That “suits the purpose of the
right wing in Japan more than
perfectly — their long-held
dream is now possible to be real-
ized.”
The United States has said
that, in the event of conflict, the
disputed islands are covered by
its mutual defense treaty with Ja-
pan, a position that China has se-
verely criticized since the latest
dispute flared last month.
Mr. Chen described what he
called the intervention of the
United States in territorial dis-
putes in the South China Sea —
where China has been at odds
with another American ally, the
Philippines — as a way for the
United States to expand its influ-
ence and restrain the influence of
China.
“Will these countries misjudge
and draw China and the United
States into a confrontation?” Mr.
Chen asked. “The danger is ap-
parent, and China needs to be
aware of that.”
Mr. Chen, who is now dean of
the School of International Stud-
ies at Renmin University in Bei-
jing, offered a lengthy list of sug-
gestions and assurances for how
China hopes to resolve tensions
with its neighbors.
“China does not seek to pro-
voke incidents, and will not be
the one to do so first,” he said. He
said that China had only sent ad-
ministrative vessels to the dis-
puted islands, not warships from
its navy.
Mr. Chen said major changes
in Chinese foreign policy were
unlikely to follow the selection of
a new leadership team at the Par-
ty Congress. “I think it’s going to
be a smooth change, and the
main tenets of our foreign policy
will remain very much the same,”
he said.
By far the biggest threat to sta-
bility in the region are the islands
where Japan and China are at
odds. Little more than rocky out-
crops in shark-infested waters,
pan restored diplomatic relations
in 1972, the leaders of the two
countries decided to shelve the
question of sovereignty of the is-
lands until a future date.
The Obama administration has
stated that even though it would
come to Japan’s side in the event
of conflict over the islands, it
takes no position on the sover-
eignty of the islands.
The issue burst into the open
last month when the Japanese
government announced it was
purchasing several of the islands
from a private family that has
owned them for some years. Chi-
na denounced the purchase as
“nationalization” of the islands.
The government of Prime Min-
ister Yoshihiko Noda argued that
it bought the islands to prevent
them from falling into the hands
of Shintaro Ishihara, a right-wing
politician who last week an-
nounced he was leaving office as
the governor of Tokyo.
Because the islands were
transferred from one Japanese
entity to another, Mr. Noda’s gov-
ernment says that the status quo
has not changed, and that there is
no need to open negotiations with
China over the issue at this time.
Japan and China have both had
patrol vessels near the islands
and each other in recent days.
The Japanese Coast Guard and
the Chinese State Oceanic Ad-
ministration each said in sepa-
rate statements on Tuesday that
their vessels had demanded that
the other side’s ships should
leave the area.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of
China and Mr. Noda are sched-
uled to attend a meeting in Laos
next week. The Japanese news
media reported Tuesday that
there were no plans for the two
men to hold a formal talks to re-
solve differences, although they
might have an informal meeting
on the sidelines.
Viewing American
ambitions as an
important contributor
to an Asian dispute.
Japan won the islands as the
spoils of war in the Sino-Japa-
nese War in 1895. The United
States took over administration
of the islands at the end of World
War II.
China expected that Japan as a
defeated nation would have to
give up the islands, and that they
would be returned to China. But
the islands were not returned,
rankling China and Taiwan ever
since — a rare issue on which
those two agree.
The San Francisco Peace Trea-
ty between Japan and the Allies
in 1951 did not clearly establish
sovereignty of the islands.
In 1972, the United States re-
turned the disputed islands to Ja-
pan, and Japan has administered
them since. When China and Ja-
Outcry in Japan Over Diversion of Post-Disaster Aid Funds
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — Japan has funneled
much of the money it promised to
disaster-ravaged communities
into an array of unrelated
projects, recent independent au-
dits have shown, sparking out-
rage among a public already
wary of the government and its
response to last year’s devastat-
ing earthquake and tsunami and
the nuclear crisis that followed.
An accounting released last
week by Japan’s Board of Audit,
an independent agency, also re-
vealed that about half of the
country’s reconstruction budget
of 19 trillion yen (nearly $239 bil-
lion) has yet to be spent amid
confusion and indecision over re-
building strategies in the wake of
the catastrophes in March 2011.
The audits have cast a harsh
light on the bureaucratic morass
slowing Japan’s reconstruction
effort, made worse by outlays of
money to the unrelated projects
seen by many as a throwback to
the country’s days of unre-
strained pork-barrel spending.
The revelations are an embar-
rassment for Prime Minister Yo-
shihiko Noda, whose Democratic
Party promised to make public
spending more transparent when
it came to power in 2009.
Among the projects that se-
cured a slice of the reconstruc-
tion budget, according to the
agency, are 330 million yen
(about $4.1 million) in fixes to a
sports stadium in central Tokyo;
500 million yen (almost $6.3 mil-
lion) to build roads in Okinawa,
over 1,000 miles from the disaster
zone; and 2.3 billion yen (almost
$29 million) toward measures to
protect Japan’s whaling fleet
from environmental activists.
A separate audit by Yoshimitsu
Shiozaki, an expert in urban plan-
ning who looked at 9.2 trillion
yen’s worth (over $115 billion) of
spending, found that a quarter of
that amount was allocated to
projects unlikely to directly bene-
fit anyone in the disaster zone.
The local news media have re-
ported on details of the spending
with increasing fervor. Some re-
ports say that subsidies were giv-
en to a contact lens factory in
central Japan, also beyond the
disaster zone, for example, and
that 500 million yen (about $6.3
million) was allocated to help ex-
plore exporting nuclear technol-
ogy to Vietnam.
Meanwhile, many communi-
ties directly affected by the disas-
ters are still chasing finances.
Iwate prefecture received appli-
cations worth 25.5 billion yen
(about $320 million) from locals
seeking to rebuild their small
businesses. But with a budget of
only 15 billion (about $188 mil-
lion) for subsidies, the prefecture
was forced to reject many of the
applications, according to the
public broadcaster, NHK. Across
the disaster zone, 60 percent of
such applications were rejected,
NHK said.
Many hospitals in the area re-
main closed, unable to pay for
new equipment.
The government has been
forced to defend some of its
spending. Earlier this month,
Yukio Edano, the trade minister,
grilled by opposition lawmakers
at a parliamentary committee,
said that helping businesses and
building up infrastructure across
Japan would help lift the entire
economy, eventually bringing
benefits to the disaster zone.
Mr. Noda, acknowledging pub-
lic anger, promised Monday to
“wring out” spending on unrelat-
ed projects. But it is unclear how
far the government will go to
changing laws that authorize
spending on such projects.
Despite the government’s ex-
planations, anger remains high.
“Exploiting the construction
effort is treacherous to the first
degree,” the daily Tokyo Shimbun
said in a recent editorial.
Said Masako Mori, an opposi-
tion lawmaker, “The government
has lost all public trust.”
Rwanda Opposition Leader Sentenced in Case Tied to Genocide
KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) —
Rwanda’s high court on Tuesday
sentenced a leading opposition
politician to eight years in prison,
in a case widely viewed as a test
of the nation’s democratic limits
and the independence of the judi-
ciary.
The opposition leader, Victoire
Ingabire, had faced six charges
and was found guilty of two: con-
spiring to harm the country
through war and terror, and mini-
mizing the 1994 genocide that
tore apart the nation.
She was accused of transfer-
ring money to Hutu rebels and of
questioning why no Hutu victims
were mentioned alongside Tutsi
victims in a genocide memorial.
More than 800,000 people were
killed in the country when a
Hutu-led government and ethnic
militias went on a 100-day killing
rampage in April 1994, indiscrimi-
nately killing Tutsis and moder-
ate Hutus.
Ms. Ingabire, a Hutu, returned
to Rwanda in January 2010 from
exile in the Netherlands to take
part in presidential elections but
was barred after being accused
of crimes linked to genocide deni-
al. The vote was won overwhelm-
ingly by President Paul Kagame.
Iain Edwards, Ms. Ingabire’s
British lawyer, argued that the
evidence against her was fab-
ricated and that some of the
charges were against Rwanda’s
Constitution.
Mr. Kagame’s final presidential
term expires in 2017. He has led
his country’s
recovery from
the 1994 geno-
cide, receiving
praise for his
efforts to trans-
form Rwanda
into a middle-
income country
by 2020.
But critics
accuse him of
being authori-
tarian and
trampling on news media and po-
litical freedoms. He rejects the
accusations.
“Political space in Rwanda
barely exists, I would say, for op-
position parties in the real sense
of the word,” said Carina Tert-
sakian, a senior researcher with
Human Rights Watch.
Phil Clark, a lecturer at the
University of London’s School of
Oriental and African Studies, said
the prosecution of Ms. Ingabire
sent a message to other Rwan-
dan political groups.
“I think this verdict will cer-
tainly cause concerns that if they
contest they may find very seri-
ous charges brought against
them as well,” he said. “It sends a
warning to other parties who
may want to run in future elec-
tions.”
Victoire
Ingabire
A4
N
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012
Taliban Hit
A Region Seen
As Safest
For Afghans
By GRAHAM BOWLEY
BAMIAN, Afghanistan — The war
has finally found Bamian, a remote cor-
ner of Afghanistan that for a decade had
enjoyed near immunity to Taliban vio-
lence.
As the American troop surge peaked
over the past two years, Taliban insur-
gents began contesting parts of this
central province, flowing in from more
embattled areas of the country. And
now, a series of deadly strikes in recent
months has intimidated residents and
served notice that roads are unsafe and
government officials are targets.
That it has happened in Bamian —
known for its rugged beauty, nascent
skiing industry and the ancient Buddha
statues that once kept vigil here — has
added to the sense that nowhere in Af-
ghanistan can be considered safe. And
that, Afghan and Western analysts say,
is a crucial part of the Taliban’s strategy
in coming here.
“Bamian was the safest province in
the country,” said Mohammed Natiqi, a
Kabul-based military analyst. “The in-
surgents are trying to find a toehold
there by destabilizing it to show their
presence all over the country.”
Despite years of international mil-
itary efforts, the Taliban have continued
to show that they can drift away from
Western forces and carry out attacks
elsewhere. And now that the surge is
over, and the force of 68,000 American
troops is scheduled to withdraw by the
end of 2014, the Taliban’s resilience has
raised stark fears about what will hap-
pen next.
By contesting the roads into Bamian,
the insurgents have added to the sense
of encirclement of the Afghan capital,
Kabul. These barren valleys and high
passes are just a few hours from Kabul
by car, but now the roads are nearly im-
passable for foreigners and dangerous
for most Afghans.
On the roads into Bamian, the Taliban
now regularly descend from the hills at
night in shows of strength, setting up
their own checkpoints after local police
officers have left. They take those op-
portunities to rob, or kill, travelers, local
officials say. And they regularly carry
out deadly incursions into Bamian itself,
particularly in a section of its northeast.
Such attacks, including the abduction
and killing of the provincial council
chief last year on the main road to Ka-
bul and the deaths of 14 coalition and Af-
ghan soldiers over a few weeks this
summer, are collectively the worst
spasm of violence in the region’s rocky
valleys since the Taliban’s fall in 2001.
Few suffered as much at the Taliban’s
hands as the Hazara, the moderate Shi-
ite ethnic minority that makes up most
of the population in Bamian Province.
They were massacred by the thousands
during the civil war and the ensuing
reign of the Taliban, who are mostly eth-
nic Pashtuns.
MAURICIO LIMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A boy took his donkey along the edge of a potato field in central Bamian Province, Afghanistan, on a road that leads to the nation’s largest iron ore mine.
Before their ouster, the Taliban also
destroyed Bamian’s most famous land-
marks, two giant Buddhas that had
gazed across the rough plains from
their honeycomb sandstone hills for
1,500 years. Their ruins stand as a re-
minder of the cycles of devastation that
have swept this region.
In the years since, the Hazaras have
established an island of relative stabil-
ity behind Bamian’s high mountain bor-
ders. Fields of potatoes and wheat
stretch across basins and adorn hill-
sides. And though the population as a
whole is quite poor, education levels for
girls are among the highest in the coun-
try.
The provincial capital, a bazaar town
of stalls and marketplaces where farm-
ers sell watermelons and plums, and its
surrounding areas have remained most-
ly peaceful, officials say. But even here,
the insurgents have sympathizers. And
the people of Bamian worry that the vio-
lent tremors that have begun here point
to more troubling times ahead.
According to Mohammad Aziz Sha-
faq, head of Bamian’s provincial council,
fear has begun constricting both their
livelihoods and lives.
Ordinary people “cannot feel safe to
go to their farms and do their work,” he
said. “Businessmen do not feel safe
sending supplies in and out of the prov-
ince because they fear they will be con-
fiscated by illegal armed men and insur-
gents.”
In July, gunmen killed an American
engineer traveling on the Kabul-
Bamian road. In September, five Haz-
aras were killed on another connecting
road through Wardak Province. The
main Hazara political leader has been
targeted in attacks. And this month, a
girls’ school was set on fire, and the con-
voy of one of President Hamid Karzai’s
deputies was attacked.
Residents in Bamian have held pro-
tests, gathering in front of the gover-
nor’s office to demand action. As the
noose tightens, even the police have
sought help in traversing this newly
dangerous landscape.
“We have asked the central govern-
ment to provide us with helicopters,”
said Ahmad Alia, a spokesman for the
Bamian police chief. “Local government
officials are not traveling by ground
Taliban who are behind the attacks. In
some cases, criminal groups are at work
extorting local businessmen and kid-
napping traveling traders. They, too,
have been energized by the coming
Western withdrawal.
Hajji Ashuqullah Wafa, a member of
Parliament from Baghlan, said militant
groups enjoy the patronage of local war-
lords who are intent on destabilizing the
government and are preparing for a
time after 2014 when coalition combat
forces are gone and they can extend
their sway more widely throughout the
region.
“They are people who benefit from
fighting and war,” he said.
For residents here, the most serious
signs of encroachment came this sum-
mer when two roadside bombs hit Af-
ghan police patrols, and then the long-
standing New Zealand peacekeeping
force lost five of its personnel in two at-
tacks.
In one of the attacks, about 40 New
Zealand soldiers were drawn into an un-
expectedly fierce and prolonged gun
battle when they responded to calls for
help from Afghan intelligence forces
raiding a compound outside the village
of Baghak, in the northwest.
“Even the locals were surprised at
how it spiraled,” said Maj. Gen. David
Gawn, commander of the joint forces of
New Zealand.
As they consider this violence, Af-
ghan officials concede that they are fac-
ing resilient enemies with an ability to
move from regions to the south and east
of the country, eluding security forces
concentrated there.
“While our other activities were go-
ing on in the south, problems increased
in some parts of the north and our ene-
mies concentrated on the north,” said
Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a Defense
Ministry spokesman, describing the Af-
ghan security forces’ experience at a re-
cent news conference.
“Then we concentrated on the north
and west, and that helped the situation
become more stable, but then our ene-
mies focused on the east,” he continued.
“At the beginning of the year, we also
concentrated on the east, and the ene-
mies were able to take advantage of
some vacuums, especially in some cen-
tral parts and the points which connect
to Bamian.”
Coalition commanders contend that
Bamian’s instability actually is an in-
dication of success of a sort: they have
said that coalition and Afghan forces
are compressing the fighting space and
pushing desperate insurgents to more
remote areas, like Bamian.
In fact, the real effects of the surge
and the continuing drawdown of the
war in these final years may not be
known for some months, other analysts
say. They suggest that the new troubles
and insurgent advances in Bamian may
be a disturbing revelation that the Tali-
ban fighters are not as weakened as
some hope.
“It is another step forward in their
general expansion in the north,” said
Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Af-
ghanistan Analysts Network, a re-
search organization in Kabul, who said
the surge had not changed conditions as
much as the international coalition
would have liked.
He added, “ISAF claiming security
improvement is a narrative that is not
always covered by reality.”
Adding to the sense that
insurgents are closing in
on the Afghan capital.
anymore, and they want to have heli-
copters so they can go to Kabul or other
provinces.”
Most of the insurgents seem to be
moving in across Bamian’s eastern and
northeastern borderlands from the
neighboring provinces of Baghlan and
Parwan, especially Baghlan’s Tala Wa
Barfak district, officials say. These
provinces have a longer history of un-
rest, pointing to a broader problem in
this central region of Afghanistan.
While coalition and Afghan officials
say the insurgency has brought much of
the recent violence, as the central prov-
inces have become arteries to transport
fighters and weapons, it is not just the
Habib Zahori contributed reporting
from Bamian, and an employee of The
New York Times from Kabul, Afghani-
stan.
Citing Violence, Bahrain Bans All Protests in New Crackdown
Immigrants
Have Helped
Set Catalonia
Apart in Spain
By KAREEM FAHIM
CAIRO — Citing recent episodes of
violence, the government of Bahrain
on Tuesday banned all public rallies
and demonstrations, a move that drew
swift condemnation from human rights
groups and opposition activists who
said it was intended solely to stifle crit-
icism of the ruling monarchy in the tiny
Persian Gulf nation.
In a statement, Bahrain’s interior
minister said protests were banned af-
ter “repeated violations” by rally or-
ganizers, including riots, attacks on
property and calls for the overthrow of
“leading national figures.” Legal action
would be taken against anyone at-
tempting to organize a rally, the state-
ment said.
A government spokesman, Fahad al-
Binali, said in an interview that the ban
would be temporary and was intended
to “calm things down” after the recent
deaths of protesters and police officers.
Instead, though, the move seemed
likely to inflame the already dangerous
standoff involving a protest movement
that has been unable to wrest free-
doms from a government that opposi-
tion activists say is methodically block-
ing all avenues for dissent. In recent
weeks, activists have been prosecuted
for postings on social media, and doc-
tors, charged with illegal gathering
and other crimes after treating protest-
ers, have been sent to jail.
“They don’t want people to express
their opinions, their anger,” said Sayed
Hadi al-Mosawi, a member of Al-
Wefaq, the largest opposition group.
“This will not take the country to sta-
bility.”
Since the beginning of the Arab up-
risings almost two years ago, Bah-
rain’s government has struggled to
contain the protests, which are focused
on the ruling Sunni monarchy’s choke-
By RAPHAEL MINDER
BADALONA, Spain — Catalonia’s
gathering drive to separate from Spain
has been a mixed blessing for Enrique
Shen.
It has been good for business. Last
month, before a giant rally in neigh-
boring Barcelona to support independ-
ence, Mr. Shen ran out of the Catalan
flags he sells as a wholesaler because
customers had snapped up about 10,000
of them in just a week.
But as an immigrant who moved here
from Shanghai 20 years ago, he is wor-
ried by the way separatists advance
their case for nationhood with claims to
a distinct Catalan national culture, lan-
guage and identity that set it apart from
Spain. “It’s always best to be part of a
larger country, just like having a bigger
family to help you,” Mr. Shen said.
Immigrants like Mr. Shen illustrate
the complexities of identity in Catalonia,
where they have helped make the econ-
omy both the largest among Spain’s re-
gions and the most diverse, alongside
Madrid, with sizable populations of
Muslims, Sikhs, Chinese and others.
As Catalonia prepares for a regional
election on Nov. 25 that could become
an unofficial referendum on independ-
ence, as many as 1.5 million residents of
the region, out of a total population of 7.5
million, will not be eligible to vote be-
cause they are not Spanish citizens.
While these newcomers have played
little part in the separatist debate so far,
their sheer numbers and their contribu-
tions to Catalonia’s economy have indi-
HASAN JAMALI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Antigovernment protesters with gasoline bombs sat on a roadblock Sunday before a march in Malkiya, Bahrain.
hold on political power and fed by per-
sistent complaints by the island na-
tion’s majority Shiite population of sys-
tematic, apartheidlike discrimination.
Backed by powerful allies, including
Saudi Arabia and the United States,
Bahrain’s government, its critics
charge, has faced little pressure to
change. The Fifth Fleet of the United
States Navy is anchored in Bahrain.
As the crisis has stalled, the standoff
has deteriorated into ever more vio-
lent, sometimes deadly confrontations.
In the last two months, two teenagers
have been killed by the security serv-
ices, and a 19-year-old police officer
was killed in what the authorities said
was an attack on one of their patrols.
Last week, another police officer died
of injuries he sustained in April in what
the government called a “domestic ter-
rorist attack,” a term frequently used
for protests.
In the statement, the interior min-
ister, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-
Khalifa, said that rallies would be
stopped until the authorities could en-
sure that “security is maintained.” It
was unclear how the ban would change
the response by the authorities, since
many of the protests are considered il-
legal by the government and are al-
ready met with force.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International
said in a statement that the ban vio-
lated the right to freedom of expres-
sion and peaceful assembly and “must
be lifted immediately.”
“Even in the event of sporadic or iso-
lated violence once an assembly is un-
der way, the authorities cannot simply
declare a blanket prohibition on all pro-
tests,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the
group’s Middle East and North Africa
deputy director.
Continued on Page A8
A5
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012
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