IHT Quick Read: Feb. 22

NEWS In Spain, an intensifying investigation aimed at Iñaki Urdangarin, the Duke of Palma and the king’s son-in-law, has placed the palace under siege. Doreen Carvajal reports from Madrid.

At least three car bombs exploded in Damascus on Thursday, including a powerful blast near the downtown headquarters of President Bashar al-Assad’s governing party and the Russian Embassy that witnesses said shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. Anne Barnard and Rick Gladstone report from Tripoli, Lebanon.

The White House is refusing to share fully with Congress the legal opinions that justify targeted killings, wile maneuvering to make sure its stance does not do anything to endanger the confirmation of John O. Brennan as C.I.A. director. Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti report from Washington.

In less than two weeks, Kenyans will line up by the millions to pick their leaders for the first time since a disastrous vote in 2007, which set off clashes that killed more than 1,000 people. Jeffrey Gettleman reports from Malindi, Kenya.

In the latest in a series of abrupt twists in the Oscar Pistorius homicide case, the South African police replaced the lead investigator on Thursday after revelations tha! t he was facing seven charges of attempted murder stemming from an episode in which police officers fired at a minivan. Lydia Polgreen reports from Pretoria, South Africa, and Alan Cowell from London.

In the United States, the fresh round of federal spending cuts scheduled to begin next week would slow economic growth in the next year, though not nearly as much as going over the so-called fiscal cliff might have, economists said. Binyamin Appelbaum and Annie Lowrey report from Washington.

Urban residents in Japan, one of the world’s fastest-aging countries, are increasingly adding rental units to their homes as a way of earning money for retirement. Miki Tanikawa reports from Tokyo.

FASHION In Milan, Karl Lagerfeld sent out the most vital and vibrant Fendi collection for many years. Suzy Menkes reviews from Milan.

ARTS Sergei Polunin and Tamara Rojo both left the Royal Ballet company last year, setting the ballet world reeling. The chance to see them together once more is leaving Covent Garden audiences breathless. Roslyn Sulcas reports from London.

SPORTS The police in Singapore said Thursday that the Asian man thought to be at the cent! er of a g! lobal soccer match-fixing network was now cooperating with them, even as the Italian police said they had made an important breakthrough, detaining a key suspect. Gaia Pianigiani reports from Rome, and David Jolly from Paris.

Fumiaki Tanaka and Shota Horie are likely to become the first Japanese players to participate in the Southern Hemisphere competition known as Super Rugby. Emma Stoney reports from Wellington.

The Latest in the Oscar Pistorius Case

Rendezvous's editor, Marcus Mabry, talks with Lydia Polgreen, South Africa bureau chief, about the twists and turns in the pre-trial hearing of Olympian Oscar Pistorius.

Europe\'s Jobless Youth: Should the Old Make Way

LONDON â€" A British minister has advised people aged over 60 to go to university and update their skills if they want to continue working.

With youth unemployment on the rise across Europe, it might seem an odd time to be encouraging older people to keep working rather than take a well-earned break and free up jobs for a younger generation.

But with pension funds in deficit and the number of over-60s on the rise, governments and individuals are under pressure to accept that a graying work force will have to work longer.

“There is nothing stopping older people applying for university,” David Willetts, Britain’s higher education minister, said this week. “If they can benefit from it, they should have that opportunity.”

The rules have been eased to allow people of any age to take out student loans to help finance their university education./p>

“If people need it in order to keep up to date with changes in their jobs, that is an opportunity they are going to take,” the Daily Telegraph quoted the minister as saying.

The advice comes at a time, however, when growing numbers of young Europeans are emigrating in order to find jobs that are unavailable at home.

“From Ireland to Greece, young Europeans are now the ones desperately seeking exit strategies from economies in free fall,” according to The Guardian.

László Andor, the European Union’s employment commissioner, recently quoted jobless figures indicating that 1 in 4 young people under 25 were out of work, a total of 5.7 million, in the 27 member states.

In a special report on Thursday the EurActiv Web site said the Continent faced a digital brain drain as a consequence of a generation of educated young people leaving Europe to seek work elsewhere.

It said the situation was particularly bad in southern states where unemployment was highest. In countries such as Spain, the mass exodus of young, educated people amounted to a brain drain “the likes of which has not been seen since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.”

For those who stay at home â€" whether they are 25 or 65 â€" there is clearly no guarantee that university degrees will get them jobs.

When a British coffee chain recently advertised for staff at one of its new stores, it received 1,701 applications for just eight jobs. Among the rejected candidates were a number of jobless new graduates.

Should older peope be encouraged to keep working Or should they step aside to widen the job market for jobless newcomers Tell us what you think.

One Last Pas de Deux for Stars of the Royal Ballet

LONDONâ€"On Thursday night at Covent Garden, Sergei Polunin and Tamara Rojo will give their last performance, for the foreseeable future, with the Royal Ballet in Frederick Ashton’s “Marguerite and Armand,” a condensed retelling of the “Traviata” story that was created in 1963 for Margot Fonteyn and her much younger new partner, Rudolf Nureyev.

Ms. Rojo and Mr. Polunin’s few performances in these roles have been sold out for monthsâ€"and not just because they are both major stars. It is also because they both left the Royal Ballet, albeit for very different reasons, just months apart last year. And in Mr. Polunin’s case, it initially seemed unlikely that he would ever return.

The Ukrainian-born Mr. Polunin had come to the Royal Ballet School at 13, joined the company at 17, and was promoted to principal at 19â€"the youngest ever at the Royal Ballet. When he walked out abruptly in January 2012, the ballet world reeled in shock. Mr. Polunin, the just 22, was routinely declared to be the biggest talent the company had seen in a long while, lauded for the beauty and purity of his technique, the passion and ardor of his dancing.

But despite his triumphs and his scheduled debuts in major ballets that season, Mr. Polunin suddenly quit, grumbling about the grueling demands of rehearsal, the lack of freedom, his missed childhood, the pressures of expectation and the toll taken by ballet on his body. His resignation made headlines around the world, and he fuelled them by talking about his love of tattoos ( he is a part-owner of a tattoo parlour in north London) and his dislike of the Royal Ballet style of management.

Just as the shock of Mr. Polunin’s departure was fading, Ms. Rojo announced that she too was leaving. Her reason was rather more con! sideredâ€"she had been appointed the new director of the English National Balletâ€"although there had been rumors that she, too, was dissatisfied at the Royal Ballet. “It was clear her wings had been officially clipped,” wrote Luke Jennings of the ballerina’s last few months with the company, in last weekend’s “Observer.”

Ms. Rojo’s appointment was no surprise to ballet world insiders who knew that she had long aspired to run a company, and had offered her candidature for the top Royal Ballet job when Monica Mason announced she would retire in 2012. (The position went to Kevin O’Hare, a former dance and the company’s administrative director.

Meanwhile Mr. Polunin seemed to decide that he wanted to dance after all, and found a home with the Stanislavsky Ballet in Moscow, and a mentor i its director, Igor Zelensky, a former Kirov and New York City Ballet principal. The announcement that he would return to the Royal Ballet as a guest artist was nonetheless unexpected, suggesting that he has a better relationship with Mr. O’Hare than he did with Ms. Masonâ€"and perhaps indicating how important his partnership with Ms. Rojo in “Marguerite and Armand” had been to him.

In the event, Mr. Polunin and Ms. Rojo didn’t disappoint. Their reappearance at Covent Garden was heralded with universally ecstatic reviews, and Mr. Polunin lauded for a new maturity in his portrayal of the young Armand. “A performance of such dramatic intensity that the audience sat in silence, as if afraid to breathe,” wrote Sarah Crompton in “The Daily Telegraph.” of the opening night on Feb. 12.

Someone may well have forgotten to breathe on Friday! , when I ! saw Ms. Rojo and Mr. Polunin in the ballet. Moments after Marguerite slumped lifeless in Armand’s arms, an audience member close by fainted, with a resounding crash to the floor. Was it the effect of Mr. Polunin’s visible anguish as he cradled the limp body Ms. Rojo’s gorgeously dramatic death The unforgettable intensity of their performance made it seem perfectly possible.

IHT Quick Read: Feb. 21

NEWS In a little-noticed trial in a small courtroom in Cyprus, a 24-year-old man provided a rare look inside a covert global war between Israel and Iran, admitting that he is an operative of the militant group Hezbollah, for which he acted as a courier in Europe and staked out locations that Israelis were known to frequent. Nicholas Kulish reports from Limassol, Cyprus.

The chief executive of an American tire company touched off a furor in France on Wednesday as he responded to a government plea to take over a Goodyear factory slated for closing in northern France. Liz Alderman reports from Pais.

A potentially lucrative market beckons Iceland if the country can find a way to export and transmit electricity across 1,000 miles of frigid sea to the European Union. Andrew Higgins reports from Krafla, Iceland.

China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the murders of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper. Jane Perlez reports from Beijing.

The recent flooding in Jakarta has exposed the city’s weak infrastructure and provided a test for its new leader, Joko ! Widodo. Sara Schonhardt reports from Jakarta.

The Daily Mail set out after the British historical novelist Hilary Mantel for what the tabloid said was “an astonishing and venomous attack” on the Duchess of Cambridge. John Burns reports from London.

Spain is no longer under imminent threat from financial markets, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told lawmakers Wednesday, but instead is on track to repair its public finances, as shown by an “unprecedented” decline in its budget deficit last year. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.

Promises of lower taxes and tax amnesties have taken hold among many of Italy’s party parties as a key election looms. Elisabetta Povoledo reports from Rome.

President Obama hopes to introduce an emissions trading system in the United States, but a similar scheme in Europe has not had the intended effect of encouraging companies to reduce pollutants. Stanley Reed reports from London.

Porto Nuova, a large redevelopment in Milan with 30 skyscrapers, a giant park and other amenities, will soon have new shops for some of the city’s best-known fashion labels. J J. Martin reports from Milan.

ARTS The Jewish Museum of Vienna has come under fire for its delay in returning many items looted by the Nazis. Patricia Cohen reports.

SPORTS Giampaolo Pozzo owns soccer teams in Italy, Spain and England, with players shuttling back and forth. That method has brought success to Watford, the English club. Rob Hughes writes from London.