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.