IHT Quick Read: April 27

NEWS After years of insisting that the primary cure for Europe’s malaise is to slash spending, the champions of austerity, most notably Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, find themselves under intensified pressure to back off unpopular remedies and find some way to restore faltering growth to the world’s largest economic bloc. On Friday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain, who once promoted aggressive budget cuts, became the latest leader to reject European Union targets for reducing deficits. Andrew Higgins reports from Brussels.

As President Obama wrestles with how to respond to new assessments that Syria appears to have used chemical weapons, leaders in Israel say they will be watching for clues about how he might handle the Iranian nuclear issue in the future. In Syria’s case, Mr. Obama has said that the use of chemical weapons would “change my calculus,” but he has not said how. Even while Israel appeared to be egging on Mr. Obama toward taking action, with officials here saying Tuesday that it appeared sarin gas had been used by the Syrian government, those officials also conceded that none of the military options were good. David Sanger and Jodi Rudoren report from Jerusalem.

In Washington, the biggest immigration overhaul in decades would tighten border security between Mexico and the United States to stem the flow of illegal crossings. But there is another border making the task all the more challenging: Mexico’s porous boundary with Central America, where an increasing number of migrants heading to the United States cross freely into Mexico under the gaze of the Mexican authorities. So many Central Americans are fleeing the violence, crime and economic stagnation of their homes that American officials have encountered a tremendous spike in migrants making their way through Mexico to the United States. Randal C. Archibold reports from Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico.

Smaller companies that provide most of the jobs in Europe face an ever more difficult struggle to win customers and get bank loans, according to a survey from the European Central Bank on Friday that contributed to a picture of spreading economic stagnation in the euro zone. Small and midsize companies in South European countries like Spain and Italy reported the most trouble making a profit, maintaining revenue and getting loans, according to the E.C.B. survey of 7,500 firms. Underscoring the plight of people in Southern Europe, the Spanish government said Friday that economic growth in coming years could be even worse than previously thought. But the survey also pointed to signs of trouble in Northern Europe, further raising expectations that the E.C.B. might be all but compelled to cut its main interest rate in the coming week. Jack Ewing reports from Frankfurt, Germany.

After opening hundreds of stores in China in recent years, some watch companies are facing an inventory glut and cutting back their retailing presence there. The downsizing comes as shipments of timepieces to China from Switzerland, the world’s dominant luxury watch production center, have fallen below the levels of two years ago, after setting a record in 2012. Swiss watch exports to mainland China dropped 26 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, to 323 million Swiss francs, or $343 million, according to data released in the past week by the Swiss Federation of the Watch Industry. Exports to Hong Kong fell 9 percent, to 910 million francs. Raphael Minder reports from Basel, Switzerland.

ARTS The performance artist Marina Abramovic is collaborating on a new work, “Boléro,” which will have its premiere on Thursday at the Palais Garnier on a program that includes Maurice Béjart’s “Firebird” and versions of “Afternoon of a Faun” by Nijinsky and Jerome Robbins. It might seem strange for Ms. Abramovic, 66, the groundbreaking artist who almost single-handedly brought performance art to the general public’s attention, to be working on a dance. But on her second day of rehearsals in Paris, she was embracing the role with her characteristic enthusiasm. Roslyn Sulcas reports from Paris.

SPORTS The juggernaut meets the road warriors as rugby’s Heineken European Cup reaches its semifinal stage this weekend. No team has ever made the final four more impressively than the French club Clermont Auvergne, which won all six pool matches â€" including home and away defeats of the reigning champion, Leinster â€" then smashed compatriot Montpellier, 36-14, in the quarterfinals. It also has a qualified version of home advantage Saturday, when it plays Munster on French soil at Montpellier. Huw Richards reports.

The Beauty Market Resists Recession

LONDON â€" If you’re of a sensitive disposition, turn away now. Today we’re looking at the phenomenon of fish pedicures.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, these are treatments increasingly available at beauty salons in which clients voluntarily plunge their feet into tanks of tiny fish to have them nibble off the dead skin.

The procedure may be at the yucky end of the eternal quest for youth and beauty, but it has caught on in Europe in recent years, thanks to celebrity endorsements and media coverage.

Now, France’s environmental safety agency, Anses, has issued a warning that, while being chewed by fish might be good for your feet, it could also be bad for your health.

There was a potential risk of contamination from the transmission of human or fish pathogens, according to a report this week, although the agency acknowledged it had no documented cases of infection.

Noting that the treatment, banned in a number of U.S. states but offered by several hundred spas in France, was largely unregulated, it called for more studies to determine the health risks.

The French report focused on the toothless garra rufa, the fish of choice in a procedure imported from Asia. The use of other toothed varieties potentially posed an even greater threat, the agency warned.

The boom in the fishy foot fad appears to provide further evidence that, in a period of much-publicized belt-tightening, European consumers are not prepared to scrimp on their beauty treatments.

In an article this week on the growing popularity of Botox and dermal filler treatments, Fergus Walsh, the BBC’s medical correspondent, said, “The cosmetic procedures industry is booming,”
which, he continued, “in the teeth of a recession it is all the more astonishing.”

A Mintel market research report in 2011 indicated that the anti-aging products market in Europe was one sector that had not been dented by the onset of economic hard times.

One reason might be that men and women feel under even more pressure to look good in order to find and keep jobs in a tighter employment market. But they could be gambling with their health.

Britain’s state-funded National Health Service this week warned of the potential risks of cosmetic procedures, ranging from dermal fillers to breast implants, on which Britons alone spent the equivalent of $3.5 billion in 2010.

It said the proliferation of unlicensed injectable anti-wrinkle treatments was a “crisis waiting to happen.”

Noting that the so-called cosmetic interventions sector had grown 300 percent in five years, it warned that possible side effects ranged from scarring to infection and even blindness.

Bruce Keogh, the service’s health director, called for tougher regulation and said, “We recognize that Europe is looking at this but in the meantime I don’t think we can wait.”

A footnote on those fish: the British health service, in an online advice page in 2011, ridiculed the more alarming media warnings about fish pedicures.

It said the Health Protection Agency had assessed the health risks as extremely low in a report that had set out “good practice” guidelines for fish spas.

“While the report did acknowledge that the risk of infections could not be completely ruled out,” the NHS Web site said, “it is important to view this in context and not be reeled in by fishy headlines.”

What do you think? Are beauty procedures worth the money, and the potentials risks, or should we learn to grow old gracefully? Let us know your thoughts.