As Taiwan\'s Links With Mainland Grow, So Do Concerns

TAIPEI - The 188-second flurry of fireworks that shot out at midnight from Taipei 101, the world's second-tallest building, drew a large crowd of 800,000 and marked the start of 2013 on the island republic.

But another event last night, this one in Taipei's Liberty Square, next to the politically symbolic Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, told a very different story: of deep-running fears here that the People's Republic of China, the Communist Party-run Chinese mainland, is slowly engulfing the Republic of China, or democratic Taiwan â€" indirectly, through ever-deepening economic integration and purchases of the island republic's free and vibrant media by Taiwanese businessmen with large financial stakes in China, who want to see unification happen soon.

So the demonstration, by the Anti Media Monster Youth Alliance, part of the Anti Media Monopoly Movement, w as significant, if far smaller than the crowd at the fireworks (accounts vary, but the protesters may have numbered up to 1,000, the China Post reported.)

At stake is nothing less than Taiwan's future, say the students, who have a Facebook page and whose symbol is a Tyrannosaurus dinosaur. Their slogan: “You're very big, but I'm not afraid” (in Chinese: “ 你好大, æˆ'不怕.”) There is also a slide show of the protest.

Under the circumstances, it was simply “boring and low-class” to celebrate New Year's Eve as normal, a student who took part in the protest told the Taipei Times, somewhat acidly.

“F reedom of speech is important for everybody and is a basic element of democracy,” said the political science graduate, surnamed Chou, the Taipei Times reported. “We may not have so much freedom of speech after 2013 if nobody pays attention to it. That would be tragic,”

At center stage in the drama roiling Taiwan, which may well color politics and society this year, is the controversial businessman Tsai Eng Meng, founder of Want Want Group, a snack and drinks conglomerate with major investments in China.

One of Taiwan's richest men, Mr. Tsai has steadily expanded his media empire through his Want Want China Times, which now includes newspapers and television and is run by his son, Tsai Shao-chung.

The students, and their supporters in larger society, accuse the Tsais of turning their media into “personal loudhailers” pushing China's interests in Taiwan and forcing journalists to write articles that contravene principles of fairness and free speech.

So the prospect that a group of investors including the Want Want China Times will buy Taiwan's Next Media group, which contains the biggest-selling Taiwan newspaper, Apple Daily, owned by the Hong Kong media owner Jimmy Lai, who has long been critical of the Communist Party-run mainland, is really alarming some. The deal, which is being scrutinized by Taiwan regulators, may go through as early as the end of February, according to Apple Daily sources. Critics warn it would give Mr. Tsai and his group a nearly 50 percent monopoly of Taiwan media.

Mr. Tsai has made no bones of his belief that democratic Taiwan needs to unify with authoritarian China.

“Whether you like it or not, unification is going to happen sooner or later,” he predicted in an interview last year with the Washington Post, arguing unification will only be good for Taiwan. M r. Tsai also appeared to deny the occurrence or severity of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.

What are the analysts saying?

“The stand-off in the 2012 Anti-Media Monopoly Movement involves on one side Taiwan's democracy activists who have been enabled by media pluralism and freedom of expression, and on the other by opportunistic Taiwanese anti-democratic corporate interests that may well be proxies for PRC authoritarianism and the Chinese party-state's territorial claims over Taiwan,” wrote Mark Harrison, a Taiwan specialist at the University of Tasmania, in an article published in The China Story.

While opinion polls show that only a tiny minority of people in Taiwan wa nt a swift merger with China, Mr. Tsai says he can't wait: “I really hope that I can see that,” he told the Washington Post.

Why does this all matter? Well, it matters a lot to some people in Taiwan, who treasure their freedom. To the world, which watches as China rises, it matters too â€" a unified China would be a behemoth with around $3.7 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

As a video from Radio Free Asia shows, Asia last year was the site of some dramatic changes â€" and saw the growth of freedoms.

The student protestors gathered in Liberty Square last night as the firework show at Taipei 101, themed “Dance to the Future,” burst into color, want Taiwan to remain part of that trend.

As economic integration between Taiwan and China deepens through deals such as last week's U.S. $906 million purchase of China's First Sino Bank by Taiwan's Fubon Financial, which “caps a record year for cross-strait acquisitions as economic integration between Taiwan and the mainland deepens,” as Bloomberg Business reported, resisting mainland China-led change is getting harder and harder, the students feel.

Is China Retaliating Against Western Journalists?

The forced departure of a New York Times correspondent from mainland China on December 31, after authorities failed to issue him a visa, led the newspaper to publicly call on Beijing to issue the journalist a visa, as well as to issue long-delayed press credentials to its new Beijing bureau chief.

Chris Buckley, a 45-year-old Australian who has worked as a journalist in China since 2000, left Beijing with his partner and their daughter for Hong Kong on Monday, The Times reported.

The Times' Beijing bureau chief, Philip P. Pan, has been awaiting credentials since March. Normally both the visa and the credential process takes weeks or months.

Beijing's failure to provide Mr. Buckley a visa in time for the year-end deadline raised worries that Chinese authorities were continuing a cold war against news organizations that had published re ports that displeased Community Party leaders.

As our colleague Mark McDonald reported last week in his article on tightening Web censorship in China, since the day The Times published a investigation into the riches of the family of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao both its English-language Web site and its Chinese-language site have been blocked in China.

“The visa troubles come amid government pressure on the foreign news media over investigations into the finances of senior Chinese leaders, a delicate subject. Corruption is widely reported in China, but top leaders are considered off limits,” The Times reported.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mr. Buckley had been “expelled” from China, but in an interview with the South China Post as he landed in Hong Kong, Mr. Buckley said he did not use that word.

Many companies, not just news organizations but also technology giants like Google, have faced the challenge of how to work in China without getting on the wrong side of Chinese authorities.

Do you think the actions against the journalists are retaliation for reporting Chinese authorities found unpalatable? What options do Western media have to cover China accurately?

Letter From the American West: Gun Debate Misses the Mark

TUCSON, Arizona - In the Philippines, as in most places, gun violence has some definition to it; you can calculate odds in any given situation. In Manila and Mindanao, just recently, my street-smarts alarm barely buzzed.Then I came home to Arizona.

As the NRA says, guns don't kill people - people kill people. And with so many unbalanced individuals packing heat, you never know what to expect.

Two Januarys ago here, an assassin in a Safeway grocery store parking lot shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in the head and killed six others. Millions were raised for a National Institute for Civil Discourse. Bill Clinton and the elder George Bush, honorary chairmen, flew to Tucson for the speeches.

Discourse is no more civil today, but assault weapons sell more briskly than ever. The NRA wants not only to post rent-a-cop commandos at schools but also to arm tea chers.

Rosanne Thompson pierced the lunacy in a letter to the Arizona Daily Star: “I am a teacher â€" and I consistently misplace my keys, glasses, book bag, paper, pens. And you want me to carry a gun?”

What about Salpointe, the Catholic high school here? Guns for nuns?

No one is likely to ban guns in what used to be the Wild West, with so much flying lead deep in its culture. But you'd think a little sense would apply.

Sure, respect the Second Amendment. People should have all the muskets and muzzle-loaders they want. But in 1791 the point was to keep militiamen ready to beat back the British. Anyone who now thinks he can overthrow government with a personal armory (as attractive as that sometimes sounds) probably should be limited to peashooters.

The French, to name one example, bear plenty of arms. I'm careful d uring wild boar season not to snuffle under my olive trees in a brown fur coat. Otherwise, I don't worry. In France, you can't drop in to a gun show and buy a jeep-mounted sniper cannon that turns deer into pink slime.

European kids are taught at a young age to respect weaponry, and laws limit anyone's ability to pump automatic fire into a crowd. Yet, still, tragedies happen.

The gun debate in America seems to miss reality. Being armed may help on occasion but seldom protects against serious threat. As a reporter, I've happened upon hostile soldiers, terrorists and bandits. In no situation could I have shot myself to safety. On the contrary, with a gun on my hip I could hardly pass as a peaceable noncombatant.

After the Giffords shooting, one sensible witness said he had a gun, with a clear shot at the killer. But, he added, had he drawn it in the confusion, security people would likely have blasted him on the spot.

If an upstate New York psychopath t argets firemen, armed guards are not likely to save them. Weapons on fire trucks or, worse, where kids go to school only further sicken a society.

If authorities can't screen out all the crazies, at least they can limit their firepower. In an America plagued by unstable psyches and overstocked armories, it is as the NRA says. People, not guns, kill. That's the problem.

Bringing Sunlight to Africa, and Western Investors

Solar power use in the United States is booming, as we reported a few weeks ago.

In parts of the world where access to any kind of electricity â€" let alone the green kind â€" is scarce, however, the news is not as bright, at least not yet.

Many people in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia still rely on kerosene lamps, torches or candles to see at night, solutions that are polluting, expensive, noxious and, crucially, rarely emit good quality light.

That's where two business students at Stanford University taking a course on extreme affordability saw a sustainable business opportunity.

“It is actually possible to make an economically viable alternative to kerosene,” said Ned Tozun, co-founder of d.light, a company that is bringing rechargeable solar lamps to market in developing countrie s.

The company has been operational for five years and in recent months has manufactured between 200,000 and 300,000 lamps each month, with roughly 98 percent of those going to developing countries, according to Mr. Tozun, who is also the company's president.

Like the CleanStar Mozambique, the project that is bringing clean-burning bio fuel stoves to the kitchens of Maputo, the story of d.light highlights growing investor interest in the junction between development work, renewable energy and profit-driven business.

“What we sold those guys is that fundamentally it is a huge market,” said Mr. Tozun about winning over the first investors for his venture â€" most, but not all of whom, were social impact funds. (Earlier this month, our colleague Stephanie Strom at  DealBook mentioned d.light as one of those for-profits companies that non-profit funds invest in.)

The company designs, manufactures and sells rugged lanterns that can be recharged under the sun during the day, to produce a steady bright light when the sun is down.

Based on the newest battery technology and energy efficient LED bulbs, the lamps are designed and built to withstand years of everyday use (a claim that the company plans to back in 2013 with a two year guarantee on their products). These lanterns can be sold inexpensively enough - in the long-term - to be cheaper than the coal, kerosene or candles that they replace, explained Mr. Tozun in a telephone interview from California.

“If you can put it into the market, it's very scalable and much more sustainable,” said Mr. Tozun.

The market was ready for the rechargeable solar lantern, explained Mr. Tozun, who estimates that renewable energy lighting technology makes up only about 2 percent of the market today.

The company did not make production costs available. However, since the pilot stages of the program, the lamps have always been priced to reflect the eventual large-scale production, explained Mr. Tozun.

Depending on the location, the cheapest lantern sells for as little as $7, while more advanced models, like those that also have a cell phone charging port, can cost up to $30.

“Our customers are very risk averse,” said Mr. Tozun who said that the price of the lamp often represents the cost of several months of kerosene or coal.

The company works with local distributors to convince customers that the investment in the solar lantern is worth it in the long run.

Today, 1.4 billion people live without any access to electricity according, to the World Bank. Another 1.3 billion make do without access to r eliable electricity, meaning that a third of the world's population cannot rely on artificial light.

According to the World Bank studies, it would take $35-$40 billion of new money each year until 2030 to get universal access to electricity.

Unlike some other forms of renewable energy, solar power can easily be harvested off-grid, making it much more readily adaptable for areas with no distribution infrastructure. Since the chargers, the lanterns and the batteries are all one unit, end users invest just once, with no need for upkeep or supplies for several years, according to the company.

The bright, steady lights have many benefits, from more active family households to improved safety.

Last month the company celebrated “10 million lives improved” by its solar lamps, a milestone based on its calculati on of several members of a household benefiting from one lamp.The company says that the lanterns have impacted more than 2.5 million school-age children who can now study at home at night.

“It's not just marketing speak, they really transform peoples lives,” said Mr. Tozun.

What do you think? Do for-profit companies have a role in development work? Are they the most efficient way to get renewable energy to those who need it?

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 31

NEWS Indian women poured their anger into public demonstrations last week, reacting to news of the gang rape of a young woman who had moved to the city from a small village, with a new life in front of her. Many women in India say they are still subject to regular harassment and assault during the day and are fearful of leaving their homes alone after dark. Now they are demanding that the government, and a police force that they say offers women little or no protection, do something about it. Heather Timmons and Sruthi Gottipati report from New Delhi.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Sunday distributed emergency cold-weather supplies to families in a refugee camp where two days earlier a 3-year-old died of exposure to the freezing temperatures. But camp leaders and Afghan government officials criticized t he aid delivery as inadequate to protect residents from the weather and to prevent more deaths. Last winter, more than 100 children died of the cold in refugee camps around Kabul. Rod Nordland reports from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Say what you will about the euro zone's quarreling policy makers. They can claim at least one achievement during 2012: Their common currency still has a heartbeat. On the threshold of 2013, the debate is less about whether the euro will exist and more about how long it will take for the euro zone economy to recover and what must be changed to avoid future crises. Jack Ewing writes from Frankfurt.

A year ago, many people seriously doubted whether the euro would still exist by now. On the thresh old of 2013, the debate is more about how long it will take for the euro zone economy to recover and what must be changed to avoid future crises.

In Germany, the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor, Peer Steinbrück, finds himself facing questions about speaking fees and a comment that Angela Merkel has the advantage of a “women's bonus.” Nicholas Kulish reports from Berlin.

EDUCATION A ratings system that gives lesser-known universities the chance to highlight their qualities by paying a fee creates potential for conflicts of interest, detractors say. D.D. Guttenplan writes from London.

ARTS The year ahead: Experiments in rapidly evolving areas of design for personal use, l ike 3-D printing and other digital production technologies, could eventually benefit millions of people. Alice Rawsthorn on design.

SPORTS Tony Greig, who died Saturday at age 66, did enough as a player to have been the most notable death in the cricket world in 2012.Yet his greater significance lay in the birth of World Series Cricket. Huw Richards writes from Bridgnorth, England.

When Thierry Henry was at Arsenal, he displayed almost feline speed of movement with impeccable ball skills. Theo Walcott is hoping to evolve into his successor. Rob Hughes on soccer.

Our Top 10 of 2012 - European Edition

Our most read and commented on Europe posts ranged from Great Power Politics and the future of European Construction to well, British Royal tops and bottoms. But readers had something to say - and much of it very personal - about just about everything.

The Best and Worst Countries to Be a Woman - and the Worst. In one of our two most-read posts of the year, Europe fared well, but Canada topped the list for the best country in which to be a woman.

In Letter to Friends, Slain U.S. Ambassador Expressed Hope. This was a very personal post by Harvey Morris, our Europe blogger, on his friend J. Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador slain in Benghazi, Libya.

‘Fragile' Australian Radio Hosts Get Counseling After Nurse's Death. This heart-rending story demonstrated how truly small our global village has become, touching on the tragedy of a suicide in Great Britain and a mistake in Australia and engendered worldwide interest, generating more than 200 comments.

U.N. Report from Rio on Environment a ‘Suicide Note'. This was our report on the best of the Web coverage of the Rio+20 talks. A follow up of sorts after the Durban climate conference generated almost 100 comments: Ignoring Planetary Peril, a Profound ‘Disconnect' Between Science and Doha

Why Socialist Europe Is Better for Families than America. This post relating the story of an American mother of two living in France and posted another site started a debate that included more than 150 comments on the relative virtues of the French and American social and economic systems. The comments were among the smartest we've read on the Web.

The Future of the Euro: Jack Ewing Answers Readers' Questions. In answer to our Ask About the Euro post, which generated 50 questions and comments, the IHT's chief European economics correspondent wrote a primer on the currency and its future.

It was one of many posts on our most popular European theme of the year, including this one: Europe's Economy Is Eating Its Young - And Things Are About to Get Worse and this one: Greeks Unite Against Lagarde After ‘Tax-Dodgers' Jibe and this one: Subtext: Germany Threatens Europe, Again.

Olympics Spectacle Stirs Great British Pride. What Did You Think? A lot.

Canada's Latest Iranian Caper. Harvey's posts on Mideast affairs, though not technically about Europe, touched on Europe's most sensitive foreign interests. This one generated near ly 100 comments.

Harvey's analysis of Syria was especially original and insightful, based on his decades of knowledge of the region: What Syria Looks Like From Tehran and a post explaining the roots of Russia's support of Syria,

And then there was this. Topless Royal Photos Expose Public's Bottomless Fascination. What more is there to say.

Happy 2013.

Even Short of Fiscal Cliff, U.S. Economy Expected to Be Affected

Experts Forecast the Cost of Failure to Compromise

Even if President Obama and Republicans in Congress can reach a last-minute compromise that averts some tax increases before Monday's midnight deadline, experts still foresee a significant drag on the economy in the first half of 2013 from the fiscal impasse in Washington.

Shoppers in Atlanta. The confidence of consumers has eroded in the absence of a deal to avert a harsh budget package on Jan. 1.

While negotiators in the capital focus on keeping Bush-era tax rates in place for all but the wealthiest Americans, other tax increases are expected to go into effect regardless of what happens in the coming days. For example, a two percentage point jump in payroll taxes for Social Security is all but certain after Jan. 1, a change that will equal an additional $2,000 from the paycheck of a worker earning $100,000 a year.

Many observers initially expected the lower payroll-tax deduction rate of 4.2 percent to be preserved. But in recent weeks, as it became clear that political leaders were prepared to let that rate rise to 6.2 percent, economists reduced their predictions for growth in the first quarter accordingly.

Largely because of this jump in payroll taxes, Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at IHS Global Insight, is halving his prediction for economic growth in the first quarter to 1 percent from an earlier estimate of just over 2 percent. That represents a significant slowdown in economic growth from the third quarter of 2012, when the economy expanded at an annual rate of 3.1 percent.

Mr. Obama has pushed to preserve Bush-era tax rates on income below $250,000 a year but Republicans have held out for a higher threshold, perhaps in the neighborhood of $400,000 a year. Republicans also favor deeper spending cuts to curb long-term budget deficits - a move many Democrats oppose.

While hopes dimmed Sunday afternoon that a deal could be reached before Jan. 1, most observers said they did not expect the full impact from more than $600 billion in potential tax increases and spending cuts to swamp the economy right away. Indeed, a compromise could be struck in the coming weeks that heads off the worst of the fallout.

In the event no compromise is found, however, the Congressional Budget Office and many private economists warn that the sudden pullback in spending and the rise in taxes would push the economy into recession in the first half of the year. Under this outcome, Mr. Gault said, the economy could shrink by 0.5 percent over all of 2013.

With the clock ticking, some observers bolstered their criticism of Washington. “If we have a recession, it's unforgivable,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist at the Economic Outlook Group. “For the first time in modern history, we will have a self-inflicted recession in the U.S.”

Despite Washington's history of delaying fiscal compromises to the last possible minute - as in the fight over raising the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011 - investors had assumed until very recently that a deal would be completed before year-end.

But last week, stocks sold off as hopes for a quick compromise faded. More pressure on shares is expected beginning on Monday, especially if the fight does indeed slip into 2013. If anything forces politicians to act, Mr. Baumohl said, it could be a sell-off on Wall Street. “The politicians need to be pressed by markets to be forced to the table,” he said.

Payroll managers at many companies are also watching the negotiations closely but have already prepared systems for the two percentage point change in payroll taxes, said Scott A. Schapiro, a principal at KPMG.

“We're primarily closed down from Christmas to New Year's,” he said, “but our payroll folks are working. Payroll has to be around.”

“This is one of the most obvious effects of the fiscal cliff,” Mr. Schapiro added, “because it will affect all taxpayers.” The Social Security payroll tax applies to the first $113,700 of annual income, he said. It was first cut by Congress in late 2010 to help give the economy a jolt, and was extended again last year to cover 2012.

Another big question mark is whether unemployment benefits for more than two million jobless Americans will be extended beyond Jan. 1. While there is still the possibility these payouts for the long-term unemployed will be preserved as the negotiations go down to the wire, failure to extend them would deliver another sizable blow to a still-fragile economy, experts said.

“This is not just an inside-the-Beltway-game,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley. “Both the payroll tax increase and the change in unemployment benefits would hit hand-to-mouth consumers hard. This has consequences for the whole economy.”

Consumer spending is especially critical right now, because many businesses have pulled back already, citing the fiscal impasse in Washington as a prime concern. Until recently, consumers have been more optimistic about the economy, although sentiment has eroded in recent weeks as anxiety increased about just what policy makers would do in terms of taxes and spending.

If it were not for the uncertainty in Washington and the fallout from the fiscal impasse, Mr. Reinhart said, the economy would be growing at an annual rate of 2 percent to 2.5 percent. Instead, he estimated growth in the fourth quarter of 2012 at just under 1 percent, and said he expected it to edge up only slightly to around 1 percent in the first half of 2013. Unemployment, now at 7.7 percent, is about 0.3 percentage point higher than it otherwise would be, he added.

To be sure, the impact from some other scheduled changes will not be felt right away - and could still be reversed if a deal is completed in the coming weeks. For example, automatic spending cuts set to hit the Pentagon budget as well as nonmilitary programs are spread out between now and the end of the 2013 fiscal year in September, giving legislators time to change course and head off any major impact.

But the longer the standoff continues, the deeper the economic damage, experts said. “Because the politicians couldn't get out of the way,” Mr. Reinhart said, “growth in the last quarter of 2012 and the first two quarters of 2013 will be below trend. There is a real cost of not coming to the table.”

A version of this article appeared in print on December 31, 2012, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Experts Forecast the Cost Of Failure to Compromise.

Will Turkey Squander Its Opportunity to Lead?

Instead of Turkey leading the post-Arab Spring Middle East, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is setting a new standard of intolerance. Fourteen months after he touted Turkey as an example for the region, Mr. Erdogan is polarizing politics in his country and squelching dissent.

Turkey is, at last, in a unique and enviable position on the world stage: sitting astride Europe, Asia and the Middle East, culturally as well as politically, and relatively strong economically. As post-Mubarak Egypt grapples with old demons in new forms, Syria approaches a bloody denouement and Saudi Arabia and Iran offer little in the way of viable paths to progress, this could be Turkey's moment.

However, experts and human rights groups say leaders in the region need to tolerate more dissent, not less. And Turkey appears to be heading in the wrong direction.

Mor e than 10,000 members of Turkey's Kurdish minority â€" who account for 18 percent of the country's population â€" languish in the country's jails on various terrorism charges. And Turkey now has more journalists in jail â€' 49 â€' than any other nation, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That is more than Iran, which has jailed 45, or China, which has imprisoned 32.

On Dec.7th, Mr. Erdogan threatened the makers of Turkey's most popular soap opera - “Magnificent Century” -  for the second time in a month. He complained that the series, which exaggerates the palace intrigue, romance, and sex life of Suleiman the Magnificent, a revered 16th century Ottoman leader, was historically inaccurate and called for the series creators to be “taught a lesson.”

More alarmingl y, the daily Hurriyet reported that the ruling party is laying the groundwork for a new law that “aims to forbid humiliation of historical figures or perversion of real facts.” As Dan Bilefsky reported here, the new law would apply to works of fiction as well.

Culture wars, of course, are fought in every country. And the portrayal of revered historical figures, from Abraham Lincoln to Suleiman the Magnificent, can spark angry debate. But what is so troubling about Mr. Erdogan's behavior is the heedless example it sets at a vital time in the region - and the world.

To be fair, Turkey endured decades of Western-backed military rule and is a re latively new democracy. The Kurdish insurgency has claimed 40,000 lives since 1984. And other nations transitioning to democracy - or facing insurgencies - have struggled with dissent, with leaders seeing dissent as disloyal rather than legitimate.

Tom Carothers, an expert in transitions to democracy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said some countries, such as Brazil, Ghana and Mongolia, have welcomed a shift to bracing debate. But others, particularly countries with no history of strong opposition parties, struggle to accept it. In the end, according to Mr. Carothers, it often comes down to the disposition of individual leaders.

“Putin can't stand dissent,” he said, referring to the Russian leader. “Yeltsin could.”

While Mr. Erdogan's actions rankle Turks, the stakes are far higher in Egypt, where Mr. Erdogan has some sway and vital precedents are being set. So far, in terms of the news media, Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi is proving more tolerant of dissent in some ways than his Turkish counterpart.

While Mr. Morsi's rushed Constitution has created deep division, he has generally allowed open political debate and a basic level of press freedom in Egypt. Since the dispute over the country's Constitution began, Mr. Morsi's opponents have freely and fiercely criticized him in the Egyptian media.

On the other hand, as Nathan Brown, a professor at George Washington University and an Egypt expert, says, Mr. Morsi's supporters have savagely beaten his opponents in the streets.

“In Egypt, the rules of political discourse and contestation are unclear and contested,” Mr. Brown said in an email exchange. “Where shrill speech ends and seditious speech begins is being worked out in practice - and in very harsh practice.”

Experts on Turkey say that Mr. Erdogan's tone and tactics are lamentable because they are unnecessary. He remains genuinely popular in the country and is lik ely to be elected president when his second - and he says final - term as prime minister ends in 2015. Instead of keeping a promise to try to resolve the country's Kurdish insurgency, he is sowing division over social issues.

In June, he sparked a furor when he called abortion “murder,” reigniting a debate that has largely quieted since abortion was legalized in Turkey in 1983. Last month, he called for the re-imposition of the death penalty, which his own government banned in 2004. The comment sparked tension with jailed Kurds, in particular, who could potentially face the death penalty.

All the while, the Obama administration continues to support Mr. Erdogan, according to Turkish analysts.

While human rights and press freedom groups question whether Mr. Erdogan's Turkey is, in fact, a model for the region, the United States remains silent.

“I was in Washington last week and no one gives a damn about whether or not the quality of Turkish democracy has declined,” Soli Ozel, a professor of international affairs at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, said in a telephone interview. “So long as it does not hurt essential American interests - and I don't think it will - nobody is going to talk about it.”

David Rohde is a columnist for Reuters, former reporter for The New York Times and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. His forthcoming book, “Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East” will be published in March 2013.

Republicans Consider Changing Electoral Vote Counting to Improve Presidential Odds

WASHINGTON - Not too long ago, political analysts assumed the Republicans had a clear advantage in the Electoral College, the system according to which each state, based on population, is given electors that in almost all cases are awarded on a winner-take-all basis, determining who will be the president of the United States. Today, it's the Democrats who have the edge.

Start by looking at the past seven presidential elections, three won by Republicans, four by Democrats. Then put most states that went for one party in five of these seven elections into the red column for Republican, blue for Democrat and purple or toss-up for the others.

Three are caveats: North Carolina and Virginia voted Republican until recently; the trends, however, are so pronounced that they are more purple than red. Conversely, West Virginia voted Democratic in three of these contests, but has moved safely into the red ranks.

BLUE: The District of Columbia and 20 states, main ly on the coasts and in the progressive upper Midwest, with 256 electoral votes, are the Democrats' base.

RED: 23 states, with 188 electoral votes, including much of the South, the Plains and Rocky Mountains states, are reliably Republican.

There are seven purple states - Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire - with 94 electoral votes.

The upshot: In any normal election cycle, the Republicans have to win Florida and Ohio and at least three of the other five. Or they have to turn around some blue states, such as Pennsylvania and Iowa.

In the my latest Left From Washington, I write about how some Republicans
in states where Republicans control the state government are considering changing how those states assign their electoral votes, instead of the winner-take-all system used in most states, they would emulate Maine and Nebraska, where some of the state's electoral votes are awarded based on which presidenti al candidate carried a district.

As I write:

They see a possible test case in Pennsylvania, where Mr. Obama won the popular vote by more than five percentage points, rolling up huge margins in Philadelphia and its suburbs and in Pittsburgh. Mr. Romney, however, carried 13 of the 18 congressional districts. If this new system were in effect, the Republicans would have gotten 13 of the state's 20 electoral votes while getting trounced in the popular vote. If this occurred in mainly Republican states, it would erase the Democrats' Electoral College advantage.

Politics do shift. In 1988, the Republicans won California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Connecticut, Maryland and Vermont; all now are considered safely part of the blue base.

How to Blog Asia for the MSM

If you're a close reader of IHT Rendezvous, you're jonesing for a fix of Mark McDonald right about now. Our peripatetic Asia blogger's last day writing was Wednesday. He's moving on to other assignments. We'll miss him.

Since Rendezvous launched in January, Asia has been one of the two main focuses of our coverage and our audience. Indeed, before the Great Firewall began the shutout of nearly all content from The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Rendezvous, China was Rendezvous' third country by audience - we had more readers only in the United States and Canada.

Moreover, China posts dominate our Top 20 most read and most commented on posts.

The driving force behind that coverage has been Mark McDonald. From Hong Kong, he produced some of our most commented on and most read posts of 2012. Here are our Asia Top 10 of 2012.

When Rendezvous launched, our goal was to connect and engage with intelligent readers with a passionate interest in global affairs. We aimed to host the International Herald Tribune's corner of the global conversation taking place on the Web, reporting on things that mattered to those readers - and pointing to the best of others' reporting on them: from politics and economics to sports and the arts.

Basically, what the IHT has been doing for 125 years.

Mark has been a crucial part of our success in curating our piece of the global conversation. His news acumen, developed over nearly half a century of reporting, editing and teaching, coupled with his take-no-prisoners analysis, have made the Web pages of Rendezvous both wondrously broad and deeply provoking.

He has authored many of our most trenchant posts and, without a doubt, sparked our mo st intense discussions. Whether writing about Jeremy Lin, the Chinese-American N.B.A. wonder, Chinese Web censorship, the true cost of U.S. military drone strikes, China's high-pressure annual college entrance exam or natural disasters in the Philippines, Mark has engaged and enlightened readers.

Didi Kirsten Tatlow, an insightful and well-connected journalist based in Beijing will pick up where Mark left off. In her weekly contributions to Rendezvous, Didi has already demonstrated what she can do: from telling the harrowing story of how a reporter interviews a dissident to how mainland Chinese saw - literally - November's historic Party Congress, from the stakes in the confrontation over the East China Sea islands to the personal side of raising children or buying a puppy in Beijing.

We can't wait to see how she will deepen our understanding of China on a daily basis.

< p>Mark will remain in the pages and Web pages of the IHT. And occasionally visiting us here on RDV. We'll be following him. And I suspect many of you will be too.

Trending in Asia in 2012: Our Top 10

Our most popular Asia posts of 2012, by the number of readers and/or the number of comments:

China Calls for ‘No Delay' on Gun Controls in U.S. This recent post on China's reaction to the Newtown shooting tragedy brought nearly 200 comments, some enraged at China's hypocrisy, some enraged at the American gun lobby and a few saying that China, despite any hypocrisy, wasn't wrong.

China Demands Apology From U.S. This post, about Chen Guangcheng, the 40-year-old human rights lawyer held up in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing before leaving for New York, also generated nearly 200 comments.

The Best Countries to Be a Woman - and the Worst. After the recent events in India around the murder and rape of a woman the debate that ensued in the discussion of this post - whether India really was as bad for women as the poll respondents (experts in gender relations) said; worst than Saudi Arabia and China - takes on a new light.

From Milk to Peas, a Chinese Food-Safety Mess. Many of the 125 comments on this post came from outraged readers in China complaining about their government's failure to safeguard their lives and their children's.

Watch Your Language! (In China, They Really Do). Before China shut out most content from The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and Rendezvous , China was the third country that Rendezvous' readers came from, outranked only by the United States and Canada. Ironic.

East Asia's Sea Disputes: Scar Tissue from War Wounds. This analysis, way back in August, about Chinese activists being arrested by the Japanese coast guard for planting flags on one of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, was just one of many seeking to explain a host of Asian territorial disputes, and the rising stakes.

A Telling Language Lesson in Hong Kong. When Leung Chun-ying, the new chief executive of Hong Kong, made his ina ugural speech in Mandarin rather than Cantonese, it generated nearly 100 comments that showed the depth of the divide that still separates Hong Kong and the mainland. (As did this post, one of Rendezvous' first, way back in January.)

It was not all geopolitics. This post on basketball phenom Jeremy Lin, Did ESPN Cross the Line Into Racism? received more than 100 comments, many touching on the role and view of Asian-Americans in the U.S. and globally. But our first post on Mr. Lin was back on February 5: Asian-American Christian Basketball Star.

And this story generated nearly 100,000 pageviews. Finally, Outrage in China Against Bear Farming. Similarly, this story received more than 100 comments. The Slaughter of Elephants in Vietnam Is Nearly Complete.

‘Gangnam Style' Becomes Most-Watched Video Ever on YouTube - 805 Million Views. Of course, K-Pop star Psy's video has since surpassed the billion-view mark. But the comments and the ones on an earlier post, showed the ambivalence many Asians felt toward the image of Asian men they said Psy was portraying.

European Union to Accentuate the Positive in 2013

LONDON - With the prospect of more troubles ahead for the European Union in 2013, officials have launched a campaign to remind its 500 million citizens of the benefits of belonging to the 27-nation alliance.

Next year has been designated the European Year of Citizens by the decision-makers in Brussels, who have highlighted a range of advantages, from freer cross-border travel to cheaper cross-border phone calls, to convince a sometimes skeptical public that membership has been worthwhile.

It might seem like a hard sell after a year in which the Union limped from crisis to crisis over a debt mountain that threatened the survival of the euro, the currency shared by 17 E.U. states.

Action by European leaders eventually succeeded in keeping Greece within the eurozone amid fears that a Greek exit - a “Grex it” - could spark the collapse of the single currency.

But that is only partial consolation for a European population facing another year of the kind of tough austerity programs that sparked strikes and protests in the most indebted states in 2012.

The Brussels bureaucrats offer a longer-term view, pointing out that tangible progress has been made in the 20 years since the creation of European Union citizenship that has improved the lives of millions.

“Nowadays traveling abroad entails cheaper travel costs, hassle-free border crossings, package holiday guarantees, access to healthcare systems and cheaper calls when you phone home,” according to the European Commission. “These are just some of the benefits derived from E.U. citizenship.”

Large numbers of Europeans have certainly taken advantage of free movement between member states to improve their job prospects outside thei r home nations. More than 12 million Europeans lived in a member state other than their own, according to data from 2010, before austerity began to bite.

Anecdotal evidence is that growing numbers of Europeans are now on the move, including French millionaires escaping tax hikes at home and young jobless Spaniards heading to find work in Germany.

Europe may have escaped a “Grexit” in 2012 but a new crisis is looming with the prospect of a “Brexit”, as Britain's Conservative-led government prepares to spell out its position on its future relations with its European partners.

Prime Minister David Cameron, under pressure from the Euroskeptic wing of his party, is expected next month to reaffirm that he will seek to claw back powers that have been passed to Europe and that he is prepared to hold a national referendum on continued E.U. membership after the next British elec tion.

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, which brings together the alliance's political leaders, has warned that the British move threatens the future of the Union.

“If every member state were able to cherry-pick those parts of existing policies that they most like, and opt out of those that they least like, the union in general, and the single market in particular, would soon unravel,” he told The Guardian.

Is Europe over the worst? Or will continuing economic weakness and a potential “Brexit” threaten its prospects in 2013? Tell us what you think. And, if you're a European, let us know if E.U. membership has proved to be a benefit or a hindrance.

France\'s 75 Percent Tax Rate Struck Down on Constitutional Grounds

France's Constitutional Council overturned a 75 percent tax rate on incomes above "1 million euros, or $1.3 million on Saturday.

“The decision, in response to a motion by opposition conservatives, is a huge blow to Socialist President Francois Hollande who had made the 75 percent rate his flagship tax measure as he sought to make the rich be seen to contribute more towards reducing the budget deficit,” Reuters reported.

The government had estimated the 75 percent tax rate could raise around 300 million euros a year as it battles to bring down the public deficit to below a European Union ceiling of 3 percent next year in the face of stalled growth.

The Constitutional Council, which rules on whether laws are constitutional, said in a statement that the way the upper rate was set to be imposed was unfair in the way it would affect different households< /p>

“The Constitutional Council announced it was overturning the 75 percent bracket on income over 1 million euros ($1.32million) because it represented a ‘breech of equality of taxes.' ” France24, the television broadcaster, reported.

Mr. Hollande said the rate would only be temporary, to help reduce France's deficit. Most surprising to many was that French incomes are so relatively low that the rate would have to be paid by an estimated 1,500 people. (THe government estimated it would have provided an additional "210 million euros per year in revenue.

Rendezvous reported on actor Gerard Depardieu's run-in with France's prime minister and translated his cri de coeur into English as he declared his intention to renounce his French citizenship.

We've also followed closely other European countries' efforts to get more revenue from the rich, whether individuals or corporations.

Are you cheering the French Constituional Court's decision? Or do you think this is one more instance of the rich getting off scot-free?

The One-Two Punch of Chinese Web Censorship

After months of tightening restrictions on private and commercial Internet users, Beijing issues new rules for users and companies.

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 29

NEWS Officials appealed for calm as protesters gathered after the death of the student who was attacked by a group of men in New Delhi. Heather Timmons and Sruthi Gottipati report from New Delhi.

The Chinese government issued new rules on Friday requiring Internet users to provide their real names to service providers, while assigning Internet companies greater responsibility for deleting forbidden postings and reporting them to the authorities. Keith Bradsher reports from Hong Kong.

Almost 40 years after Britain joined the forerunner of today's European Union, the debate over the country's future in the Union has quickened with a warning from a top E.U. official that any moves to renegotiate the terms of British membership could wreck the bloc. Stephen Castle reports from London.

Maria Bashir, the only woman serving as chief prosecutor in any of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, does more than just walk the line between the progressive and the conservative - she has, uncomfortably, come to personify it. Graham Bowley reports from Herat, Afghanistan.

A former Greek finance minister appeared to be implicated Friday in the tampering of the so-called Lagarde list of Greeks with Swiss bank accounts after prosecutors revealed that three of his relatives had been removed from the list. Niki Kits antonis reports from Athens.

Ireland has embraced a novel strategy to help reduce its staggering deficit: charging households and businesses for the environmental damage they cause. Elisabeth Rosenthal reports from Dublin.

ARTS A program this month at the Paris Opera Ballet brings to mind how William Forsythe's “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” began a new era for ballet 25 years ago. Roslyn Sulcas writes from Paris.

Michael Haneke's “Amour” and David O. Russell's “Silver Linings Playbook” differ in many ways, but in each movie, a home plays a critical role. Manohla Dargis on film.

SPORTS Havard Rugland knows next to nothing about American football, but his video of kicking tricks impressed a former N.F.L. player and attracted the Jets' interest. David Picker reports.

Rafael Nadal's comeback has been postponed again after six months away from competitive tennis, and this time he said the crux of the matter was not his troublesome left knee. Nadal announced Friday that he had withdrawn from the Australian Open, which begins Jan. 14, because of a stomach virus. Chris Clarey reports.

The Norwegian Football Wonder

Our colleague David Picker writes about Havard Rugland, a Norwegian with a good foot who knew nothing at all about American football, but - thanks to his viral video - has a tryout for the New York Jets football team.

Using tools not typically associated with athletic prowess - YouTube, Facebook, Skype and Gmail - Rugland parlayed a homemade video that went viral into a tryout as a placekicker with the Jets last week. He might be the first professional prospect to replace college football experience with social media savvy.

In the four-minute video, posted in mid-September under the title “Kickalicious,” the left-footed Rugland pulls off some of the most amusing tricks with a football since Lucy began duping Charlie Brown. And sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, it was viewed for the millionth time.

In one clip Ru gland kicks the ball from a dock to someone in a canoe floating about 25 yards away. Twice. In another, he kicks the ball into the arms of someone standing through a car's sunroof. That might not seem so spectacular, except the car is cruising along a country road. The most eye-popping trick is saved for last. Rugland punts one ball high into the air and then quickly kicks a second ball off a tee. The balls collide in midair.

For those who don't know, Lucy and Charlie Brown are archetypal characters from the beloved American cartoon strip, Peanuts.

Read David's article, where he interviewed the 28-year-old by telephone from his home in Aalgaard, a small town near the southwestern coast of Norway. Then come back and tell us what you think the chances are of the unknown Nor dic making a go of it in the National Football League. And do you think the videos are real? The Times couldn't confirm them independently.

Home for the Holidays, or Not: The Ultimate Holiday Escape

Thank you for your responses to our call for expat holiday posts. We received funny and sad, heart-wrenching and heart-warming posts and comments.

This is our last December holiday post. Now on to New Year - at least the Western, Julian one). Send us your guest posts about either where you plan to ring in 2013 or where you spent your most memorable new year's eve.

Christmas for me is stressful enough that I spend it out of the country whenever possible. Spain or Mexico, with beautiful lights and Christmas markets in cathedral squares, are good compromises - I get the pretty parts of the season, but whatever commercialism is happening is in a language I don't speak. But the best bet is somewhere in the developing world where December 25th is a holiday for only a handful of people.

That's where I spent Christmas last year.

Forbesganj is almost at the Nepali border, in the northeast corner of Bihar, India's poorest state. It's an overnight train ride from Calcutta then a three-hour 4X4 ride from Katihar, on bumpy roads and dirt tracks, dodging cows, dogs, donkeys, buses and pedestrians. Tourists don't come here, and my four-woman group is on a mission for an NGO, doing outreach in a nearby village. We're based in Forbesganj, staying in the hotel - there's one - using the internet café - there's two - and making daily trips out to the village.

Everywhere we go, we are stared at. Not with hostility, or even much curiosity. “As if we are zebras,” I email my mother.

When we walk down the street, eyes follow us, the looks on local faces saying something like, Huh, would you look at that. Zebras. We don't get many zebras around here.

We sit on the hotel roof terrace and drink chai, brought up from the stand on the street below by a young boy who comes back later to pick up the cups. As we drink, men gather on the second floor balcony outside the movie theatre across the street, level with our terrace, an d observe us. The zebras are drinking tea.

Our mission isn't going terribly well. Even with an interpreter, the concepts we're trying to express are too large, too outside the experience of the people we're hoping to help. Christmas morning dawns chilly and clear, another day of street goats dressed in human sweaters against the cold, thali plates of curry and dal for lunch, chai on the roof while being stared at. We're waiting for an answer from the village to come via phone, an answer we're pretty sure is going to be “no.”

In the evening, the call still hasn't come, and I say, “Hey, let's do something Christmasy, OK?” Back home, when the post-dinner stupor sets in, we either take a walk or go to the movies. And the movie theatre across the street is playing Don II, the Hindi-language blockbuster sequel with Shahrukh Khan, the biggest movie star in the world.

We join the ticket line - Zebras are coming to our movie, say the stares - and the manager rescues us, taking us to his office and issuing us with tickets fetched by his assistant. Men gather at the doorway and stare (Zebras! Right there in the office!) until the manager sweeps a curtain across the opening.

“When does the movie start?” I ask.

“Whenever you are ready,” the manager says.

We are escorted to reserved seats in the balcony, admiring the ornate, pressed-tin ceiling painted purple. After we sit, the doors are opened and the theatre fills up completely, men rushing just a little to sit in the seats immediately around us.

It's an action movie - high speed chases, bank robberies, a hot FBI agent. It's not subtitled. At intermission, our interpreter asks, “Are you understanding any of this at all?”

I say, “The white guys on the boat are angry that Don's closing in on their drug-dealing territory. The hot FBI agent is still in love with Don even though he betrayed her in the last movie, and her nerdy co-worker is se cretly in love with her himself. Don's planning a prison break-out in Singapore with a fake food-poisoning plan, and then he's going to rob the German bank with help from his old crime syndicate.”

The interpreter is astonished. I say, “It's not that hard to follow, it's an action movie!”

After the movie, we go into the street and my colleagues cross to the hotel. I'm hungry again, and there's an egg cart outside the theatre. I point and ask for “one,” guessing I'll find out one what in a minute.

The vendor cracks an egg into a metal tumbler, throws in a handful of chopped coriander and onion and mixes it with a wooden rod. He pours the mix onto the round, blackened metal griddle over a gas flame, deftly flips it once, slides it with a spatula onto a square of newspaper, sprinkles beet salad into the middle and rolls it into a little burrito. It is hot and spicy and herb-filled and delicious. I stand for a moment with the small group of omelet-eate rs, listening as amplified music and megaphone shouting comes down the street. A political demonstration passes us, orange flags and teenagers and young men in matching white-and-orange t-shirts. We all watch as they pass by.

The man next to me jerks his head at me and points to the marchers. He says something in one of the local languages. I nod, and gesture to the parade. “Zebras,” I say. “Don't see many of them around here.”

The Rope, the App and Van Gogh in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM-Consolation for disappointed art lovers who arrive in this city and realize that the Van Gogh Museum is closed for renovation: Follow the red braided rope.

It's affixed to the corner of the old museum building, leading away from the construction site and stretches to Museumplein, Amsterdam's great museum square.

The red rope is part of Amsterdam's most public Van Gogh installation, the Van Gogh Mile. In place until the Van Gogh Museum reopens in spring 2013, it connects the Van Gogh museum with the site of the temporary Van Gogh exhibition, the Hermitage museum, 2.2 kilometers across the historic center of Amsterdam.  The rope is the most visible part of a multidisciplinary art walk designed by Henk Schut for the Van Gogh Museum. The walk guides would-be visitors through Van Go gh's life, thoughts and travels, while directing them to his famous paintings.

“By following the rope, you can let go and you can trust us,” said Mr. Schut, whose installation is inspired by the 900 letters Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo.

A Van Gogh Mile app can be downloaded from a free WiFi spot close to start of the tour and is supported by iPhones, iPads and Android-based phones.

The first digital installment of the tour is activated at the head of the fountain basin on the Museum Square, just in front of the “IamAmsterdam” sign.  A tap on the device and the same place appears on the screen. As if looking through a camera, the monuments and buildings of the Museumplein move as the user moves the device. A sweep of the device downward shows the scene as an expanse of sunflowers in bloom.

“There are moments of poetic license to synthesize, to be i nspired by his letters,” said Mr. Schut.

The augmented reality software transposes the courtyard of an old sanitarium in the south of France where Van Gogh spent some time into the inner courtyard of the Hermitage museum.

At stop along the route in front of the Rijkmuseum, the user flies (with the help of their digital device and some imagination) through open a window to see a Rembrandt painting. An audio clip of a reading of one of the artist's letters describing his reaction to Rembrandt's art comes through the headphones.

The audio for the tour is all from Van Gogh's letters, and is in either English or Dutch. Rather than explain the visual experiences, the snippets provide atmosphere.

David Kat, who co-created the app, describes Van Gogh's letters used in the tour as “handwritten, sketch-like, quick thoughts.”

A third component of the tour ensures that not only smart-phone users benefit fr om the Van Gogh Mile. Loudspeakers hanging from trees, posts and house-fronts along the rope's route broadcast more of Van Gogh's letters. Other public installations, such as a picture frame bearing one of Van Gogh's musings about art near the Amstel Church, are strewn along the path to be discovered by those who take their time in looking around.  By having walkers looking upward at a rope instead of downward at a map, Mr. Schut hopes to make the audience discover Amsterdam the way Van Gogh himself would have on his many solitary walks.

“It is a connection between looking and walking,” said Mr. Schut.

The detour from the Van Gogh Museum to the Van Gogh art at the Hermitage Museum, with its fragmented audio, fantastical images and physical installations is designed to inspire engagement with the artist, not provide biographical information on his life, explained Mr. Schut.

There are already plenty of sources for that.

Moscow Urges Peace Talks on Reluctant Syrians

LONDON - Russia has pushed itself to the forefront of efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis with an end-of-year diplomatic flurry aimed at bringing the Damascus regime and the mainstream opposition to the negotiating table.

A day after urging the government of President Bashar al-Assad to embark on a dialog with opponents, officials in Moscow said Friday that they had invited the head of the opposition Syria National Coalition for talks at which a similar message will be delivered.

As the regime's most powerful remaining ally, Russia has been accused of propping up Mr. Assad by blocking international measures to undermine his rule. The latest diplomatic offensive, however, appears to underline Moscow's fears of a disorderly collapse that could damage Russian interests in the region.

For the initiative to succeed, the Russian government has indicated it will seek Washington's cooperation, although the foreign ministry in Moscow has denied there is a joint Russian-U.S. road map on Syria.

Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said on Friday that he had actively encouraged the Syrian leadership “to maximally put into action its declared readiness for dialogue with the opposition.”

He was referring to talks he had on Thursday with Faisal al-Meqdad, the Syrian deputy foreign minister.

Mikhail Bogdanov, Mr. Lavrov's deputy, said Friday that the government had sent an invitation to Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, the head of an opposition coalition which seeks to overthrow Mr. Assad rather than negotiate with him.

Mr. Lavrov said that Moscow hoped the Syrian opposition would size up the situati on in the country and search for ways to begin a political dialogue with the Assad government.

The diplomatic activity will continue on Saturday with a visit to Moscow by Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations-Arab League peace envoy, who on Thursday supported the establishment of a transitional government in Damascus, perhaps within months.

He did not say what role - if any - Mr. Assad would play in the transitional period. But, as Kareem Fahim and Ellen Barry reported, “his comments suggested that if Mr. Assad remained in the country, he would retain none of his authority.”

Moscow has adamantly refused to use its influence in Damascus to urge Mr. Assad to step down. Mr. Lavrov has said he is not prepared to act as a messenger for those governments that want the Syrian leader to go.

“We are not in the business of regime change,” Mr. Lavrov said in an interview this week.

Those who wanted Mr. Assad to go should tell him directly. “Why shall they use us as a postman?” he said. “If President Assad is interested, this must be discussed directly with him.”

However, Russia has been distancing itself from Mr. Assad in recent months as his hold on power has grown ever more precarious.

Moscow hopes to continue its diplomatic offensive into the New Year with a possible three-way meeting that would involve Mr. Ibrahimi, the Russians and the U.S. State Department's William Burns.

The extent and pace of the Russian initiative appears to indicate Moscow is involved in more than diplomatic grandstanding. But does it stand a better chance of succeeding than earlier peace moves?

That may depend in part on whether Moscow can resolve its differences with an opposition that according to the broadcaster Russia Today, stands for the overthrow of the Assad regime and “the dismantling of all the institutions of power.”

“Russia's main concern is that such a scenario would only lead to non-stop violence in the Arab republic,” Russia Today said on Friday. “The only solution is to reach a mutually-acceptable compromise between the rivalry parties.”

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 28

NEWS Even as the world makes plans to recapture northern Mali by force, the Islamists who rule the region show no qualms about continuing their harsh application of Shariah law. At least 14 amputations have been performed since the takeover last spring, and Islamists have warned that others “will soon share the same fate.” Adam Nossiter reports from Bamako, Mali.

President Obama planned to meet with Congressional leaders on Friday, and House Republicans summoned lawmakers back for a Sunday session, in a last-ditch effort to avert a fiscal crisis brought on by automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to hit the United States next week. Jonathan Weisman reports from Washin gton.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said Thursday that he would sign into law a ban on adoptions of Russian children by American citizens, retaliating against a new U.S. law that seeks to punish human rights abuses and dealing a serious blow to bilateral relations. David M. Herszenhorn and Erik Eckholm report.

Despite the economic gloom that has enshrouded it, Spain has at least one industrial bright spot: The country and its skilled, if underemployed, work force have again become a beacon for European carmakers. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.

Conditions in Chinese electronics factories have begun to improve since workers' hardships were exposed to a global audience. The shif ts under way may prove as transformative to global manufacturing as the iPhone was to consumer technology, say company executives, worker advocates and even longtime factory critics. Keith Bradsher and Charles Duhigg report.

ARTS Tory Dobrin, the artistic director of the all-male drag company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (known affectionately as the Trocks), dreamed for years of bringing the Soviet-era ballet “Laurencia” to life. Now he has. And while the Trocks have taken on obscure works before, this one posed special challenges. Valerie Gladstone reports from New York.

SPORTS Sled hockey is a sport played by able-bodied people, but it was d esigned for athletes with mobility limitations caused by injuries or conditions like cerebral palsy. The pace is slower than ice hockey's, but the action can be just as ferocious. Dave Caldwell reports from Newington, Connecticut.

Will Japan Unapologize for \'Comfort Women\'?

Tokyo Bureau Chief Martin Fackler writes that Japan's new (and former) prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his conservative government may revise Japan's 1993 apology for forcing thousands of women to be sex slaves in the service of Japanese soldiers.

In May, Rendezvous wrote about the “comfort women” controversy reaching suburban New York.

Now, the refusal of the conservative government's spokesman to say whether Mr. Abe, an ardent nationalist who has criticized the apology in the past, would seek to somehow take it back or otherwise revise it, is seen as confirming some fears that the return of Mr. Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party could roil international relations in Asia in deeply unhelpful ways.

Mark McDonald wrote on Rendezvous la st week that Mr. Abe's return to power in Tokyo (he was prime minister in 2006 and 2007) could further destabilize Japanese-Chinese relations at a time when the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute already has tensions running unusually high.

“The way ahead - combat or compromise - could conceivably hang on one man, Shinzo Abe,” Mark wrote then.

The entire region, along with the United States, is waiting to see which of Mr. Abe's political personalities emerges most forcefully - the conservative, nationalistic politician with a provocative streak when it comes to China, or the pragmatic statesman who would pull himself and his party back from the fire-breathing campaign rhetoric of recent weeks.

Worryingly, Mr. Abe ap peared ready to add a ground dimension to the confrontation at the islands by pledging to station government workers or Coast Guard personnel there.

Mark also quoted media affiliated to the Communist Party of China as saying: “Once Abe takes office, China should let him know about its firm stance. Only with such pressure will Abe hold China in esteem, otherwise he will think China is in a weak position. In recent years, every time Japan has switched to moderate policy toward China, it has been the result of China's strong stance rather than its concessions.”

Martin Fackler wrote Thursday, an assertive, unapologetic Japan could also antagonize much of Asia, especially South Korea, at a time when the United States desperately needs its two closest East Asian allies to work together:

If Mr. Abe revises the apology, the move will run counter to the wishes of the United S tates. American officials say they have urged Mr. Abe to shelve calls to revise the Kono Statement to avoid increasing tensions with South Korea. The United States has been urging the two countries, its closest allies in the region, to increase cooperation as China is asserting more territorial claims and as North Korea appears to be continuing to strengthen its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

The sex slaves issue remains highly emotional in South Korea, a former Japanese colony. On Thursday, the South Korean Foreign Ministry called on Japan not to forget its militaristic past.

Monitoring Mandela, and With Him the Soul of a Nation

PLETTENBERG BAY, South Africa â€" After almost three weeks of treatment for a recurrent lung infection, Nelson Mandela, the 94-year-old icon of South Africa's triumph over apartheid, was discharged from hospital late Wednesday. But a terse statement from his physicians saying he would not return immediately to his remote, rural home at Qunu in the Eastern Cape region raised fresh questions that his family and his associates sought to answer a day later.

Mr. Mandela's health â€" and the very question of his longevity â€" are a national issue reflecting his role as the custodian of his moral legacy. As I write in my latest Page Two column, his survival offers reassurance to many. But there is little doubt about his frailty.

The footage depicting him these days seems to be exclusively from the archives. The precise state of his health remains unclear.
When a television station re- broadcast an interview with his wife, Graça Machel this month, suggesting that his “spirit” and “sparkle” were fading, the alarms spread far beyond South Africa's borders until the channel apologized, saying her remarks dated to 2009.

The terms of Mr. Mandela's discharge from the hospital seemed to reflect those uncertainties.

Mr. Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela, was quoted by the news24 Web site on Thursday as saying he hoped “it won't be too long before he's with us back in Qunu, where he belongs.” But, he said, the trip could be strenuous and Mr. Mandela's physicians would determine “when he will be fit and ready to come back home.”

Mac Maharaj, a spokesman for President Jacob Zuma, said doctors had concluded that Mr. Mandela was better off at his home in Houghton, in Johannesburg's leafy, upmarket northern suburbs, “so that he's close to all the facilities where we can give him high care,” News24 reported.

“Madiba was doing well, but as you know, when you're recovering there are ups and downs, slight ups and downs, and the doctors are looking for a steady progress and that began to be registered over the last few days,” Mr. Maharaj said, using Mr. Mandela's clan name, Madiba.

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 27

NEWS China began service Wednesday morning on the world's longest high-speed rail line, from Beijing to Guangzhou - covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade, Serbia. Keith Bradsher reports from Hong Kong.

Syria's embattled leadership suffered a new setback Wednesday with the defection of its military police chief, the highest-ranking officer to abandon President Bashar al-Assad since the uprising against him began nearly two years ago. Kareem Fahim and Rick Gladstone report.

On the outskirts of Rome is an abandoned building colloquially known as the Salaam Palace, once a sparsely populated she lter where new arrivals from Africa squatted to create their own refuge. Today more than 800 refugees live there, a vivid reminder of what many say is Italy's failure to assist and integrate those who have qualified for asylum under its laws. Elisabetta Povoledo reports from Rome.

Japan's Parliament formally chose the nationalist ex-prime minister Shinzo Abe to lead the country again, ending a three-year break from decades of near-constant rule by his conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Martin Fackler reports from Tokyo.

ARTS On Indian television, mothers-in-law are not a joke - they're the law. In soap operas as in life, the extended family is still the bedrock of Indian society, where modernization meets its match. Alessandra Stanley reports from Mumbai.

The new Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam - shaped like a bathtub, of all things - arrives years behind schedule at the tail end of the money-fueled, headline-hungry, erratically ingenious era of indulgent museum design that began to peter out with the global economy. Why a tub? That, says Michael Kimmelman, is the $170 million (well over budget) question.

SPORTS The resurgence of German soccer began, like the country's economic comeback, after a long slide toward stagnation amid dire prophecies of impending irrelevance. Since then Germany has invested nearly $1 billion in its youth soccer programs, and the products of the new factory system were exhibited in striking fashion this season. Nicholas Kulish reports.

In Soccer as in Life, Will A Resurgent Germany Dominate A Weakened Europe?

Our colleague Nicholas Kulish has written a year-end sports piece sure to get folks thinking. “The resurgence of German soccer began, like the country's economic comeback, after a long slide toward stagnation amid dire prophecies of impending irrelevance,” Nick writes.

It may be hard to believe today, but a decade ago Germany was seen, economically, as “the sick man of Europe.” Nick says the epithet could have just as easily been extended to the country when it came to soccer.

How times have changed. Just as superior soccer nations like Italy and Spain have fallen on dire economic times, Germany - economically and on the soccer field - has roared back, taking advantage in both realms of others' weakness to cement its resurgence, including building a whole new infrastructure to train the next generation of soccer stars.

“Where England's soccer analysts bemoan a British league brimming with foreign mercenaries but crowding out local players, German teams have improved with a rising share of domestic players,” Nick writes.

The products of the new factory system were exhibited in striking fashion this season. Germany sent seven professional teams into European competitions, and for the first time all seven advanced to the knockout rounds beginning in the new year.

The three German teams in the hypercompetitive Champions League - Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke - all won their groups. Less noticeable but equally important is the depth and parity in the German game. Teams from the midsize cities Leverkusen (pop. 160,000) and Mönchengladbach (pop. 260,000) were among the four that advanced in the slightly less prestigious Europa League.

The German league has seized the advantage while many clubs in crisis-stricken, austerity-squeezed countries like Spain an d Italy have been unable to deal with deep debts and older stadiums in poor condition. The Spanish team Valencia started the season with an unfinished stadium and no sponsor for the team's jersey, a standard moneymaker in European sports.

Nick concedes in his in-depth analysis that the crowning achievement for German soccer would be a World Cup - and that has not happened since there were two Germanys.

And debt crisis or no, Italy beat Germany in the semifinals of the European Championships title last summer in Poland.

But if investment is the key to future prosperity, and other nations barely have the funds to upkeep the stadiums and teams they have now…the German teams “are preparing for an era of European dominance,” as Emmanuel Hembert, an expert in the business of soccer at the consultancy A. T. Kearney, told Nick. “The time of the German league is coming.”

Do you agree? And will Germany be able to translate its economic dominance into soccer dominance? And what will that do to relations between the members of the eurozone who are more dependent on Germany than ever?

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 26

NEWS The Tea Party might not be over, but it's increasingly clear that the U.S. election last month significantly weakened the movement, which had nearly captured control of the Republican Party through a potent combination of populism and fury. Trip Gabriel reports.

As Russia's middle class becomes a force in commerce, G.M., Ford, Volkswagen and other automakers have been expanding, or plan to expand, in the country with new factories. Andrew E. Kramer reports.

Whether he stays in Damascus or tries to flee, President Bashar al-Assad has no easy options as Syria plunges deeper into chaos. Anne Barnard and Hwaida Said report from Beirut.

How did something as innocuous as the sugary pink polio vaccine turn into a flash point between Islamic militants and Western “crusaders,” flaring into a confrontation so ugly that Pakistani teenage girls - whose only “offense” is that they are protecting children - are gunned down in the streets? Donald G. McNeil Jr. reports.

ARTS As officials plan to expand the Buddenbrookhaus, a museum devoted to Thomas Mann, the challenge is how to make an author of weighty tomes approachable to coming generations weaned on Twitter messages and status updates. Nicholas Kulish reports from Lübeck, Germany.

On stages large and sm all, via new plays but also (very much so) the classics, the theater in London proved time and again in 2012 that it matters. Matt Wolf writes.

SPORTS Syd Fischer, an 85-year-old ocean-racing legend in Australia, is taking yet another shot at winning the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race outright, with his hand on the helm. Christopher Clarey reports.

Buy, Sell, Adopt: Child Trafficking in China

HONG KONG - In announcing the rescue of 89 abducted Chinese children on Christmas Eve, a senior police official said baby boys could now be purchased in China's interior for less than $5,000 - and then resold for three times that amount in the wealthier coastal provinces.

The latest sting operation, which covered nine provinces, led to the arrests of 355 people for child trafficking. In the past two and a half years, according to government statistics, some 54,000 children have been rescued from traffickers.

These splashy announcements about the “busting” of child-trafficking “rings” seem to come with a distressing regularity now in China. In the summer of 2011, a similar bust was proclaimed - also featuring exactly 89 children - with the deputy director of the Public Security Min istry assailing what he called the practice of “buying and selling children in this country.”

In 2009, my colleague Andrew Jacobs reported some of the horrifying details from a series of child snatchings. A 9-month-old baby boy was grabbed by someone in a moving vehicle. A 3-year-old was enticed away by the offer of a slice of mango and a toy car. A shopkeeper's son disappeared when his father turned away for a moment to help a customer.

Almost always, the abducted children are boys.

“Although some are sold to buyers in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam,” Andy reported, “most of the boys are purchased domestically by families desperate for a male heir.”

Su Qingcai, a tea farmer in Fujian Province, admitted buying a 5-year-old boy for the equivalent of $3,500, even though Mr. Su already had a teenage daughter.

“A girl is just not as good as a son,” Mr. Su, then 38, told Andy. “It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you don't have a son, you are not as good as other people who have one.”

In his story in The Times on the latest round of arrests, Andy wrote that “the Chinese government says that 10,000 children are kidnapped each year, but some experts suggest the number may be as high as 70,000.”

The nationwide scourge of child abductions and baby selling in China first came prominently to light 10 years ago, when the police in Guangxi Province discovered 28 baby girls in the back of a long-distance bus.

The babies, all younger than 3 months, had been drugged to keep them quiet. News reports said they had been stuffed into tote bags. A story in the state-run newspaper China Daily was chilling in its matter-of-fact accounting of the incident in May 2002:

One baby died of suffocation. Others were blu e from lack of air. Twenty passengers on the bus were arrested for trafficking. The babies were on their way to Anhui Province after being purchased from a hospital in Guangxi for $12 to $24 each. After they were rescued the children were sent to an orphanage.

The following year, China carried out its first executions of child traffickers.

Child-welfare advocates working in China say some kidnappings are the result of the increasing prices paid for adoptions by foreigners. Abducted kids often end up in orphanages, even though they aren't orphans at all. Paperwork is forged. Identities are erased. The orphanage gets a cut.

It was revealed in 2005 that government officials and orphanage employees in Hunan Province “had sold at least 100 children to other orphanages, which provided them to foreign adoptive parents,” as John Leland reported in The Times.

“For some, it raised a nightmarish question: What if my child had been taken forcibly from her parents?”

Scott Tong, a reporter for the radio program Marketplace, investigated baby buying and selling at Chinese orphanages in 2010. One trafficker, Chen Zhijing, said that during the 1990s she would get a few dollars from an orphanage for bringing in a child.

But then the orphanage began asking for more babies. “It started paying $120 each,” she said. “Then $250. Then $500 by 2005.”

Her son, Duan Yueneng, got involved in the trade, which expanded, and they began buying infants from a supplier hundreds of miles away in southern China.

“We sold babies to orphanages. Others did, too,” he said. “They bought them because foreigners wanted them, and then made big profits when the babies were adopted.”

Mr. T ong said Mr. Duan “reckons he trafficked 1,000 or more. Duan says the orphanages falsified foreign adoption papers for each of the trafficked babies.”

“Sometimes the orphanages listed my sister as the finder, or they just put down a fake name,” Mr. Duan said. “For Americans who adopted babies, let me put it this way: When were the kids really born? Who really found them?”

Local family planning officials in Hunan Province also were known to have forcibly taken babies from their parents for a variety of offenses, as my colleague Sharon LaFraniere has reported. Where those children ended up is unclear.

One man Sharon interviewed, Yuan Xinquan, said his 2-month-old daughter was taken from him when he couldn't pay a fine for having been too young â€" 19 â€" to have married and had a child. Six men jumped from a government van, confronted Mr. Yuan at a bus stop, then took his child.

“He was left with a plastic bag holding her baby clothes and some powdered formula,” Sharon wrote.

“Adoptions from China currently account for more than one-third of all international adoptions to the United States,” said a statement on the Web site of the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, a workload that makes it “one of the largest adoption units in the world.”

Over the years, the consulate said, it has issued more than 70,000 visas to Chinese orphans adopted by Americans.

A total of 2,587 Chinese children went to American homes last year, most of them girls, most between the ages of 1 and 2.

But U.S. adoptions from China are declining, and last year's total was the lowest since 1999. The high point came in 2005, when nearly 8,000 children were adopted by Americans.

In Asia, the U.S. government has no adoption programs with Cambodia and Vietnam, both of which are strengthening their protocols, although Cambodia has indicated that it will resume American adoptions beginning Jan. 1.

Also, India said this month it is refusing new applications from the United States due to a backlog of existing cases.

Americans also go to other Asian countries seeking adoptions, but not nearly the number who apply in China.

According to U.S. government figures, Americans adopted 736 South Korean children last year, about two-thirds of them boys, followed by the Philippines (229, mostly children between 5 and 12); India (226); Thailand (44); Japan (27); and Indonesia (two boys and a girl).