IHT Quick Read: Feb. 13

NEWS In his State of the Union address, President Obama pledged to fight for a higher minimum wage, more government investment in schools and clean energy, and deficit reduction through spending cuts and tax increases. Mark Landler reports from Washington.

Whether or not Xi Jinping gets tough on North Korea could tell the United States what kind of leader he will be, and what kind of relationship he envisions with Washington. Jane Perlez reports from Beijing.

“It wasn’t one thing, but a whole combination of them” that caused Pope Benedict XVI to resign, a Vatican expert said. Scandals have battered he papacy relentlessly. Rachel Donadio reports from Vatican City.

Created five years ago to focus on training the armed forces of dozens of African nations and strengthening social, political and economic programs, the U.S. Pentagon’s Africa Command now finds itself on a more urgent mission: confronting a new generation of Islamist militants who are testing the United States’ resolve to fight terrorism without being drawn into a major conflict. Eric Schmitt reports from Niamey, Niger.

Seven top industrial nations, including the United States and Germany, pledged on Tuesday to let foreign exchange markets determine the value of their curren! cies. The statement eased fears in Japan, where officials had been under fire from some officials in Europe and the United States who said they were unfairly bringing down the yen’s value. James Kanter reports from Brussels and Annie Lowrey from Washington.

The Spanish Supreme Court ruled unexpectedly Tuesday that the previous government had gone too far in its pardon of Alfredo Sáenz, the chief executive of Banco Santander, reinstating his criminal record and throwing into question his continued tenure at the bank. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.

Giuseppe Orsi of the the Italian state-controlled defense group Fnmeccanica was arrested in an investigation centered on the sale of helicopters to the Indian government. David Jolly reports.

Ryanair, based in Dublin and Europe’s largest budget airline by number of passenger, said it had been informed at a meeting Tuesday with officials of the European Commission that Brussels “intends to prohibit” the airline’s nearly €700 million, or $942 million, bid for Aer Lingus. The company said its proposed concessions and remedies did not go far enough to allay antitrust concerns. Nicola Clark reports from Paris.

ARTS Valery Gergiev, the Russian conductor, is preparing to open the Mariinsky 2, his ! new theat! er for opera and ballet in St. Petersburg. Alison Smale reports.

FASHION In New York, collections are either beautiful expressions of a designer’s vision or forgettable shows suitable for those continuous loops in city cabs. Suzy Menkes reviews the shows.

SPORTS Wrestling, one of the earliest and most elemental Olympic sports, was dropped from the Summer Games on Tuesday in a stunning and widely criticized decision by the International Olympic Committee. Jeré Longman reports.

Jürgen Klopp has built a soccer club in Dortmund that consistently wins on an affordable payroll,so it is no surprise that many think he may soon head to one of the bigger clubs in Europe. Rob Hughes writes from London.

Is There Another Way Forward Over North Korea

BEIJING â€" Another nuclear test in North Korea. More United Nations-led sanctions. Increasing militarization in the Northeast Asia region, with South Korea planning to deploy cruise missiles capable of striking the north and North Korea threatening unspecified “second and third measures of greater intensity” against the United States as punishment for persistent American “hostility,” with Tuesday’s nuclear test just a first measure, North Korea said.

Is escalation the only way forward in Northeast Asia Could there, should there, must there be another way

In editorials and “View Points” articles by China’s state news agency, Xinhua, a different argument is being made to the West’s pressure and sanctions (though as my colleague Jane Perlez wrote, the debate in China about what to do about North Korea is increasingly shaded with different opinions and not everyone here, even policymakers, agrees what to do.)

The “root cause” of the crisis is not being addressed, runs this argument. North Korea has no sense of security in the region. And until that is addressed, nothing will improve.

Surrounded by hostility from South Korea and Japan, faced with a militarily superior U.S., North Korea is “desperate,” Xinhua says. “Disastrous fallout” could be the result, said an article in the Global Times newspaper, attributed to Xinhua, titled: “Time to address root causes of nuclear crisis on Korean Peninsula.”

“At a superficial level, it was Pyongyang that has repeatedly breached UN resolutions and used its nuclear program as a weapon to challenge the world community, which was considered to be unwise and regret! table,” the article said.

“In reality, the DPRK’s defiance was deeply rooted in its strong sense of insecurity after years of confrontation with South Korea, Japan and a militarily more superior United States.”

In another article, Xinhua anticipated more strong condemnation from the West, and tougher sanctions. But: “The struggle of hardness hitting hardness will undoubtedly escalate the situation on the Korean peninsula. It will make the problem more complicated and harder to solve,” it said.

The answer, then, would entail a change of direction from the West. But is such a position merely self-serving, to be expected from China, North Korea’s main ally, which wants the north as a buffer state between it and South Korea, where American troops are stationed

Perhaps. Yet here’s another voice, this one from a different direction, saying something quite similar.

“Are more sanctions really goig to make North Korea cry uncle” asked Spencer H. Kim in an opinion piece in The Korea Times in late December, before Tuesday’s nuclear test but at a time when the test had been widely expected.

“Look at a map; it has a long border with China. If China and North Korea want to tango, then we are powerless to turn off the music,” wrote Mr. Kim in “Sympathy for the devil ― how best to deal with NK.” The Korea Times identifies Mr. Kim as chairman of CBOL Corporation, a California aerospace company, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a non-resident fellow at Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

“Let us ask some probing questions of ourselves and perhaps even look at history a bit from the other guy’s eyes,” wrote Mr. Kim.

Following South Korea’s engagement-based “Sunshine Policy” of the late 1990’s, in the early 2000’s things were impr! oving for! North Korea in terms of internationalization, Mr. Kim wrote. An October 2000 joint communique between North Korea and the White House even resolved to “fundamentally improve” relations and “formally end the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement with permanent peace arrangements,” Mr. Kim wrote.

“In Pyongyang’s eyes, however, George Bush then slammed on the brakes, even naming North Korea part of an “Axis of Evil,” he wrote.

Security is a major issue. But don’t leave that in China’s hands, wrote Mr. Kim. “The North Koreans want lasting security but don’t want to have to learn how to speak fluent Chinese to get it.”

“Upon reflection, it is time to talk, and keep talking until the deal is done.”

To Build Lasting Peace in Mali

LONDON â€" Clashes between Islamic fighters and French troops in the Malian city of Gao may suggest that, after a swift campaign to liberate the north, France could be in Mali for the long haul.

“From the moment France committed itself, it became responsible for what happens in that country,” Vincent Desportes, a retired French general and military theorist told the magazine L’Express. “If France leaves too soon and the situation deteriorates, Paris will get the blame.”

Confronted with the specter of “mission creep”, François Hollande, the French president, said on Monday that French forces were moving from a phase of liberating Mali to one of securing it, in order to ensure that “no corner of Malian territory remains under the control of theterrorists.”

In the best-case scenario, the Islamist militants would be ousted from Mali, a trained African force would move in to support the Malian army, and France would withdraw to celebrate a job well done.

However, there are concerns that the military option might not be enough to prevent a resurgence of the Islamist threat in the absence of political change in the fragile Saharan state.

According to Helen Clark, head of the United Nations Development Program, which has been operating in Mali for more than three decades, the country needs a very clear time table for national dialogue, constitutional reform and improved governance.

“You have to do this first, otherwise Mali will fall over again,” Ms. Clark told Rendezvous in an interview.

The former New Zealand prime minister was in Britain to give a lecture to conflict experts at Oxford University, where she warned! that Mali’s road back from a combination of violent conflict and constitutional crisis was not an easy one.

“It will require international support for some time, including for resuming development progress,” she said. “Long-term stability for Mali requires dedication to inclusive governance and to inclusive and equitable development across the country.”

The U.N. agency would support the election process and prepare a development program for the north of the country.

“In the North, state authority and services must be re-established, infrastructure rehabilitated, and livelihoods restored,” she told the Oxford audience. “Reestablishment of the rule of law will also be vital to putting the country back on track.”

Ms. Clark said two decades spent building democracy and pursuing development in Mali had been derailed by a combination of factors that included an existing conflict in the north of the country, a military coup, and the spillover of the upheaval in neighborin Libya.

The situation was compounded by a severe drought that threatened 3.5 million Malians with food shortages in 2012.

Mali was the regional country most vulnerable to the Islamist incursion because of continuing north-south tensions that were being resolved elsewhere in the Sahel, she told Rendezvous.

The U.N. development chief is not alone in believing that the outside world should look for more than a military solution in Mali.

As my colleagueEric Schmitt writes from the neighboring state of Niger, the Pentagon’s Africa Command is in the region to play a “soft power” role in strengthening social, political and economic programs as well as training regional armed forces.

At an international conference on assisting Mali in Brussels last week, Joe Costello, the Irish trade minister, said good progress had been made in stabilizing the security situation, “but now it is vitally important that the provision of humanitarian aid and the political process keep pace.”

When Spell-Check Can\'t Help

[PLEASE NOTE: After Deadline will be on vacation for two weeks and will return on Tuesday, March 5.]

My recent diatribes about relative pronouns, agreement and the perils of “like” have not exhausted the menu of favorite grammar gaffes. Danglers and the subjunctive will get their turn soon. But for this week, I’ll shift from grammar to word use, with the latest in our file of sound-alike mix-ups.

Fortunately many of these recent lapses were caught and fixed online or for later print editions â€" but not before they caused groans or chuckles among sharp-eyed readers and colleagues. Put them on your better-check-twice list.

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It’s easy to make fun of Ryan Seacrest â€" for his ubiquity on te show business landscape, for his over-weaning ambition, for his role in unleashing the Kardashian clan on America and for his relentless pursuit of celebrities as they head into award shows (captured most memorably a few years ago when he was shown on camera practically chasing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie down the red carpet as they seemed determined to avoid him and his E! camera crew).

“Over-weaning” might describe an overly aggressive effort to shift babies or young animals off mother’s milk. Here, we meant “overweening.” (Spell-check should have helped on this one, but I think the hyphen in the original confused it.)

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Studying the python lifestyle is critical to success. Hunters must know that the best time to find one is the morning after the temperature drops into the 60s or below. The snakes surface to warm up in the sun. They stay close to water, so canals and levies are a good bet. They like rock piles.

We get this wro! ng surprisingly often. “Levies” are taxes; we meant “levees.”

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This is pure speculation but the singer/actor might have chosen the suit â€" from Mr. Ford’s spring line, its fit similar to those he made for the latest Bond film â€" because it indirectly complimented his forthcoming album, “The 20/20 Experience.”

We meant “complemented”; it was later fixed.

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But Wednesday’s hearing distinguished itself from the usual mandatory civic gathering. “In most instances, a public hearing is conducted to illicit commentary, both pro and con,” Mr. Freeman said in a telephone interview. “There would be few objections to better service.”

“Illicit” is an adjective meaning “improper.” We wanted the verb “elicit.”

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So far, defense budgets have not been squeezed by the Medicare vice.

In American English, the spelling for the tool is “vise,” not “vice.”

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p>“The principle function of the state and its officials is to protect its citizens,” said Judge Miguel Angel Gálvez before finding that there was sufficient evidence to try Mr. Rios Montt, 86, and another former general, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez.

This is the one spelled “principal.”

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More often then not the spark was lost in the transition from sketch to masterwork, and the names of artists whose best work remained unvalued and invisible faded from history.

Just a typo, perhaps, but one that slips through surprisingly often. Make it “than.”

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Bill Pullman is Dale Gilchrist, the reserved but kindly president, who has an adoring second wife, Emily (Jenna Elfman), and four children from his first marriage who get into hairbrained scrapes â€" particularly Skip (Josh Gad).

Here’s one where spell-check should have helped; did we ignore its warning We meant “harebrained.”

 In a Word

This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.

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Almost one million of these $35 machines have shipped since last February, capturing the imaginations of educators, hobbyists and tinkerers around the world.

This intransitive use of “shipped” has a flavor of jargon. Better to say “have been sold” or “have been ordered” or even “have been shipped to stores.”

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The Pentagon has created a new Cyber Command, and computer network warfare is one of the few parts of the military budget that is expected to grow.

Recorded announcement; let’s hear it from The Times’s stylebook this time:

[N]ote the plural verb in a construction like She is one of the people who love the Yankees. The test is to reverse the sentence: Of the people who love the Yankees, she is one.

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In 2011, he encouraged Jewis voters in Brooklyn and Queens to vote for a Republican, Bob Turner, instead of a Democrat, David I. Weprin, in order to send a message to President Obama, whom he felt was not supportive enough of Israel. Mr. Turner won, and Mr. Koch believed his strategy had worked.

“Who,” not “whom”; it’s the subject of “was.”

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Three centuries after Columbus is said to have made landfall in the Out Islands in 1492, the indigenous people had been either wiped out or shipped to Hispaniola, and the largely deserted land was settled by British loyalists and their slaves, whose ancestors make up most of the Bahamas’ residents.

We meant “descendants.”

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Mr. Marx acknowledged to me that the cost might well rise to $340 or $350 million.

Make it “$340 million or $350 million.”

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Mr. Neal, a G.E.D. student, was shot, as was Mr. Berry and a maintenance work! er whom t! he authorities described as a bystander.

Make it “as were Mr. Berry and a maintenance worker.”

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Mass kidnappings, too, are not uncommon, either for ransom, robbery, the result of mistaken identity or to terrorize rivals.

Delete “either,” which ordinarily cannot be followed by more than two choices, and make the four possible goals parallel.

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“It was an underdog’s victory, just like the story of Esther and Mordechai,” he said, referencing the biblical protagonists.

This use of “reference” as a verb is unnecessary jargon; say “referring to” or “alluding to.”

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After months of occupation by Islamist fighters, the people of Timbuktu recalled surviving the loss of tranquility.

Per the stylebook, it is “tranquillity,” with two L’s.

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LOS ANGELES â€" Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who retired less than two years ago as the leader of the nation’s largest Rman Catholic archdiocese, was removed from all public duties by his successor, Archbishop José H. Gomez, as the church complied with a court order to release thousands of pages of internal documents that show how the cardinal shielded priests who sexually abused children.

When A news lead like this should have a time element; this one didn’t.

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“I was forced into a difficult decision: Should I go out of business or should I cheat,” he wrote.

No comma after the question mark.

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The ship, which is based in Brooklyn and brings cars and trucks to St. Marc, Haiti, was anchored off Staten Island between the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and the ferry terminal, waiting out a patch of bad weather, said an official of Devon Shipping, Inc, which owns the vessel.

Since we were not writing from Haiti, this should be “takes,” not “brings.”

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Both are wonderful, particularly if you convince Mr! . Wijesin! ghe, who waits tables in a sarong, that you can handle some spice.

The stylebook prefers “waits on tables.”

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Whether feral or domestic, cats are tuned to the hunt, and when they see something flutter, they cannot help but pounce.

From the stylebook:

help (v.). Use the construction help wondering, as in He cannot help wondering. Not He cannot help but wonder.

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In the fall of 2008, Nicole was attending a one-year bible college and working at an ice-cream shop.

Uppercase Bible when, as here, it refers to Scripture.

France Rethinks Its No-School-on-Wednesdays Week

PARISâ€" For the second time in three weeks, primary school teachers here are on strike Tuesday, protesting a plan by the new French government to modify theschool rhythm for the country’s youngest pupils.

As my article today explains, most French public preschools and elementary schools are open just four days a week â€" a vestige of a long-ago era when one day a week was meant to be devoted to the religious teachings of the Roman Catholic church.

Even as France has become more secularâ€" and multicultural â€" over the decades, this midweek break has remained a largely permanent fixture of life here for families with kids under 12 (middle and high-schoolers routinely have class five days a week). Many stay-at-home parents of meansâ€" and not a few doting grandparentsâ€" cherish this day as one for special outings or just to follow their little one’s progress at ballet or judo lessons. But for children in poore urban or rural areas, Wednesday can often be a blur of TV shows, video games or otherwise unstructured and possibly unsupervised hours.

As a full-time working parent I usually find myself dreading the annual September scramble to arrange a slate of Wednesday activities and childcare for my kids, aged 8 and 4. I also confess to a mix of guilt and relief that they are cooped up at school for eight hours a day â€"at no cost to meâ€" for the rest of the week. When my exhausted third-grader struggles to complete his homework in the evenings, though, I long for a more humane alternative.

Is that what the French reform will achieve Class time is set to be shortened by 45 minutes a day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, but, so as not to leave parents on the hook for finding extra afterschool childcare, kids will be kept on school grounds until at least 4:30 p.m., where they will ostensibly be taking advantage of a slate of new city-funded extracurricular activities.

The reform! puts the onus on municipalities to finance these activities across France. Those who implement the reform in 2013 can receive aid from a 250 million euro fund set aside from the national budget. After this year, only schools in disadvantaged areas will have access to federal funds.

Meanwhile, a half-day of classes will be added on Wednesday, which still leaves parents like me in search of a solution for the rest of that day.

Whether any of this will affect academic performance is still unclear. In a 2009 assessment of high school students in 65 countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, France ranked below a number of countries where children spend significantly less time at school, including Finland, South Korea and Japan, but also below several countries where the average number of class hours per year is higher, such as the United States and Canada.

How is the schol week organized in your country Do you think shorter days and longer weeks are more conducive to learning, or do schoolchildren benefit from having a midweek break

Lively Online Reactions to North Korea\'s Nuclear Test, in China

BEIJING â€" As the world grapples with the news that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test, what is the reaction here in China, often considered North Korea’s one true friend, the ally that was as “close as lips and teeth”

The reaction from China’s foreign ministry appeared muted, no different from statements it has made on the issue in the past. It said it “firmly opposed” the test and called for calm, Xinhua, the state news agency, said.

But online the conversation flowed briskly as the test trended on microblog sites with nearly 40,000 comments tagged to “nuclear test” or “earthquake” by late afternoon, on Sina Weibo, the biggest microblog site. Much of the conversaion was critical - but there were supporters.

Sounding worried, a user called @Bianju fanxin wrote that after China carried out nuclear tests in Lop Nor, its former Central Asian testing site, there was radioactive fallout in cities. With this explosion near the China-North Korea border, “how many Chinese cities will receive contamination” (The test was underground but his concern about radiation was quite widely shared by others.)

Tiankongzhong de qingjiao wrote: “The nuclear test is only 400 kilometers from my hometown,” and followed it with an angry face symbol.

Another, Hongqinshijian-nongtian, wrote: “Oh oh oh, Northeast Asia is unstable again!”

“If Chinese people had the vote, would North Korea dare to do this” wrote @Aji de weibo. “And they still don’t cut off Three Fatty’s milk,” referring to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader and the third-generation leader of the Kim family. “I **!” the person concluded.

Even Hu Xijin, the editor of! the nationalist Global Times newspaper, was critical: “North Korea is going down a wrong road. Its people will pay for the nation’s mistakes. North Korea’s political power must be re-considered.” His comment was forwarded over 2,300 times and drew nearly 1,600 very varied, responses.

One contained an apparent dig at China’s support of North Korea: “Chinese political power must be re-considered even more,” wrote weeks8888.

But North Korea has its supporters, too.

Praising the test, Dujiangji wrote: “For China’s Pacific strategy, a nuclear ally in North Korea is in China’s national interests. Plus, we should study the North Korean people’s unbending and unswerving spirit in the struggle of international relations.”

Dai Xu, whose “verified” Weibo account (the “V” lends users a stamp of authority) identified him as an “active Air Force colonel” and a “military expert,” said: “Blaming North Korea is easy. But every time the international communit blames North Korea it hastens its way forward. Does the world really have no other wisdom other than blame”

He continued: “Why doesn’t anyone ask North Korea why it carries out nuclear tests Why doesn’t anyone think about how North Korea’s nuclear tests are an explosive result of America’s strategy of pressure People should know that blaming won’t work on a country with an extreme lack of sense of security.” The comment was forwarded nearly 230 times.