IHT Quick Read: June 8

Europe’s reaction Friday to news of a sweeping international digital surveillance program by the U.S. government ranged from the outrage of citizens and politicians to the muted envy of some law enforcement agencies on this side of the Atlantic. Privacy is an emotional issue in Europe, where memories of state-sponsored snooping by communist and fascist regimes still linger. And so the revelation Thursday that the U.S. National Security Agency had obtained routine access to e-mail, Web searches and other online data from many of the biggest U.S. Internet companies â€" whose users stretch far beyond U.S. shores â€" prompted hand-wringing about America’s moral authority. “If the U.S. complains about foreign governments spying and then it turns out it is doing the same thing â€" well, what are you complaining about?” said Yaman Akdeniz, a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University in Turkey, where anger over restrictions on civil liberties has fueled anti-government protests. Eric Pfanner reports from Serraval, France and James Kanter reports from Brussels.

On a normal day, Taksim Square is a mess of buses and crowds, a tangle of plazas, streets, shops and taxi horns. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is determined to clean it up and make it into a pedestrian zone, with a new mall, mosque and tunnels for traffic to move underground. The outrage in response has filled the square with noisy, angry, determined protesters. At midday, the muezzin’s call to prayer now mixes with the chants of union workers and bullhorn speeches from the Anti-Capitalist Muslims. At night, drummers and singers agitate the throngs until dawn. After Egypt’s Tahrir Square and New York’s Zuccotti Park, Taksim is the latest reminder of the power of public space. The square has become an arena for clashing world views: a leader’s top-down, neo-Ottoman, conservative vision of the nation as a regional power versus a bottom-up, pluralist, disordered, primarily young but not exclusively secular vision of the country as a modern democracy. Michael Kimmelman reports from Istanbul.

The parade of foreign executives who flew into dirt-poor Myanmar over the past year in the hopes of tapping into what is described as Asia’s last major frontier market often came away skeptical, befuddled or outright disappointed. ‘‘Look, listen, learn â€" and leave,’’ was the catchphrase that described trips here by executives who saw firsthand the lack of electricity, terrible roads, an eager but very undereducated work force and overwhelmed government officials. Yet two years after Myanmar’s civilian government came to power, the country now appears to be tiptoeing into another stretch of its journey from military dictatorship to democratic market economy. Flirtations by foreign investors are turning to commitments, vague promises into dollars. Some of the world’s most prominent multinational companies â€" Coca-Cola, Unilever, General Electric, Philips, Visa â€" have started doing business in the country. Thomas Fuller reports from Naypyidaw, Myanmar.

ARTS

“Signac. Les couleurs de l’eau” (The colors of water), on view in Giverny at the Musée des Impressionnismes through July 2, is one of those unforgettable shows that radically change an artist’s image. Paul Signac comes out as one of the greatest painters active in the late 19th and early 20th century. No other show dealing with Impressionism and its offshoots has revealed so many little-known pictures. That alone makes it the artistic coup of the year. Born in 1863, Signac who was younger than Claude Monet by 23 years, felt compelled to become a painter on discovering the pictures of the grand master of Impressionism on the premises of a magazine, “La Vie Moderne.” “What appealed to me in this artist,” Signac later wrote to Maximilien Luce, “was the revolutionary aspect of his oeuvre.” Souren Melikian reports from Giverny, France.

SPORTS

In the first men’s semifinal at Roland Garros on Friday, the French fans got a dream match. In the second, the one the locals had anticipated even more than the epic between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, they got a nightmare. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was trying to become the first Frenchman to make the final at Roland Garros since 1988 â€" and the first to win it in 30 years. But David Ferrer gave Spain the final it had wished for. Ferrer beat Tsonga, 6-1, 7-6 (3), 6-2, to reach his first Grand Slam final. Ferrer’s victory set up the first all-Spanish final at the French Open since 2002. Ferrer went down on his back in delight when the match ended. Nadal holds a 19-4 career edge over Ferrer, who has not beaten Nadal since the quarterfinals of the 2011 Australian Open. Nadal, a seven-time champion here, has won the last eight meetings, all on clay. Judy Batista reports from Paris.

Masters of the Universe Gather in Watford

LONDON â€" As glamorous cosmopolitan venues go, Watford, England, belongs at the homely end of the scale. Davos it ain’t.

Yet this week the dormitory commuter town just to the north of London’s urban sprawl is playing host to a galaxy of global luminaries gathered for the latest meeting of the secretive Bilderberg Group.

The annual assembly that brings together politicians, business leaders, media moguls, top academics and even royalty is a favorite target of conspiracy theorists for whom secretive equals sinister.

This year’s lineup includes Gen. David Petraeus; Mario Monti, the former Italian prime minister; Eric E. Schmidt of Google; and Peter D. Sutherland, the chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

There is the usual bevy of bankers and, of course, Henry A. Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state, without whom no Bilderberg gathering would be quite complete.

The conspiracy theorists would have us believe that the participants belong to a powerful inner circle of unaccountable power brokers who choose the world’s leaders and determine the fate of the global economy.

“Some believe its overarching goal is even more insidious; the complete enslavement of the world’s countries and wholesale slaughter of most of the global population,” according to Derek Rodriguez, writing for truTV’s Conspiratorium â€" motto: “You won’t believe what you don’t know.”

More restrained critics argue that, while the Bilderberg Group may not make formal decisions, it sets a consensus that spreads among business and political elites, molding the global agenda, according to my colleagues Alan Cowell and David M. Halbfinger, writing about a previous annual gathering.

So why has the group picked Watford after venues that have included St. Moritz, Versailles and Baden-Baden?

Local residents are asking themselves the same question and the mayor is getting prickly about the cost of policing the closed and heavily guarded conference site at the Grove, a luxury spa hotel in Watford.

“I think it’s outrageous that the local taxpayer has to pick up the tab for ostensibly a private meeting of trillionaires, probably the most wealthy people in the world,” said Mayor Dorothy Thornhill.

The multinational cast of 140 representatives attending the meeting will not have much opportunity to meet the locals.

The hotel has been fenced off behind what The Guardian described as the Great Wall of Watford to allow delegates to bond in seclusion as they debate issues that include the challenges facing Africa, the politics of the European Union and developments in the Middle East.

So it is unlikely that the meeting’s participants will escape to sample the delights of what Wikitravel, the free travel guide, describes as “still a somewhat dull area to visit,” while acknowledging that “Watford Town Centre comes alive at night particularly on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays.”

The annual invitation-only Bilderberg conferences are named for the Dutch hotel where the first meeting was held in May 1954, to debate issues surrounding the Cold War.

Delegates, drawn from the elites of Europe and North America, promise to keep quiet about what they hear and say in order to allow a free and informal exchange of views about global trends. That has fueled the widespread perception among conspiracy theorists and anti-globalization activists that they are up to no good.

Reporters and protesters are usually left standing at the gate. But this year, for the first time, the organizers have allowed a coalition of pro-transparency campaigners and alternative media to set up a media office in the hotel grounds.

Activists have announced a Bilderberg Fringe Festival, inviting “conscious citizens from all over the world” to head for Watford “and positively influence global powerbrokers to make the right decisions for our future … and have a fantastic party.”

IHT Quick Read: June 7

NEWS The United States government has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas for nearly six years from the nation’s largest Internet companies like Google, Facebook and, most recently, Apple, in search of national security threats, the director of national intelligence confirmed Thursday. The confirmation came the same day it was disclosed that the government had been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans within the country. Charlie Savage, Edward Wyatt and Peter Baker report from Washington.

On Thursday, Syrian rebel groups briefly took control of the only crossing between Israel and Syria. Not far away, Israeli soldiers staged combat exercises to prepare for what some see as an inevitable war with Hezbollah, which has come to the aid of the Syrian government. Jodi Rudoren reports from Elyakim, Israel.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey says the razing of a park in Istanbul would proceed, despite large protests around the country against both the destruction of the park and the current government. Tim Arango and Sebnem Arsu report from Istanbul.

Almost 60 percent of people in the United States say the country should not take a leading role in trying to solve conflicts abroad, a new poll found. Mark Landler reports from Washington, and Allison Kopicki from New York.

For the first time since 1698, a sitting leader of Russia is dissolving his marriage: President Vladimir V. Putin announced on Thursday that he will divorce his wife, Lyudmila, after 29 years of marriage. Ellen Barry and David M. Herszenhorn report from Moscow.

European justice ministers agreed Thursday to a business-friendly proposal over online privacy rules, a signal that lobbying efforts from the technology industry are gaining some traction more than a year after such measures were first proposed. James Kanter reports from Brussels and Somini Sengupta from San Francisco.

As wars wind down, aerospace and military contractors are turning their attention to the thriving market for commercial jets, an AlixPartners study says. Christopher Drew reports.

FASHION Graduate Fashion Week gives young talent from Britain to Taiwan a chance to showcase some of their creations. Suzy Menkes reviews from London.

ARTS The British artist Eileen Hogan likes to work on cycles of paintings related to the same place over long periods of time. An exhibition of her work begins in London on Tuesday. Roderick Conway Morris writes from London.

Over the past 15 years, London has solidified its position in the world of large art fairs. But smaller, specialist art events are also thriving. Ginanne Brownell writes from London.

SPORTS The French desire to compare Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and the 1983 French Open champion Yannick Noah is understandable, but the odds are heavily stacked against Tsonga, who will play David Ferrer in the semifinals on Friday. Christopher Clarey reports from Paris.