WikiLeaks Suspect, Manning, Describes Confinement

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — An Army private charged in the biggest leak of classified documents in United States history testified Thursday that he felt like a doomed, caged animal after he was arrested in Baghdad and accused of sending the military and diplomatic documents to the secret-spilling Web site WikiLeaks.

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

Pfc. Bradley Manning being escorted on Wednesday to a pretrial hearing in Fort Meade, Md.

Pfc. Bradley Manning testified on the third day of a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, outside Baltimore. His lawyers are seeking dismissal of all charges, arguing that his pretrial confinement in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., was needlessly harsh.

Before he was sent to Quantico in July 2010, Private Manning spent some time in a cell in a segregation tent at Camp Arifjan, an Army installation in Kuwait.

"I remember thinking, 'I'm going to die,' " Private Manning, 24, said under questioning by one of his lawyers, David Coombs. "I'm stuck inside this cage. I just thought I was going to die in that cage. And that's how I saw it: an animal cage."

Private Manning is trying to avoid trial in the WikiLeaks case. He argues that he was punished enough when he was locked up alone in a small cell for nearly nine months at the brig in Quantico and had to sleep naked for several nights.

The military contends the treatment was proper, given his classification then as a maximum-security detainee who posed a risk of injury to himself or others.

Earlier Thursday, a military judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepted the terms under which Private Manning would plead guilty to eight charges for sending classified documents to WikiLeaks.

The judge's ruling does not mean the pleas have been formally accepted. That could happen in December.

But she approved the language of the offenses to which Private Manning would admit, which she said would carry a total maximum prison term of 16 years.

Private Manning made the offer as a way of accepting responsibility for the leaks. Government officials have not said whether they would continue prosecuting him for the other 14 counts he faces, including aiding the enemy. That offense carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Under the proposal, Private Manning would admit to willfully sending the following material: a battlefield video file, some classified memorandums, more than 20 Iraq war logs, more than 20 Afghanistan war logs and other classified materials. He would also plead guilty to wrongfully storing classified information.

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Muslims Face Expulsion From Western Myanmar

Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times

A Muslim girl at a camp for displaced people in Sittwe, where Muslims face what some groups are calling ethnic cleansing. More Photos »

SITTWE, Myanmar — The Buddhist monastery on the edge of this seaside town is a picture of tranquillity, with novice monks in saffron robes finding shade under a towering tree and their teacher, U Nyarna, greeting a visitor in a sunlit prayer room.

But in these placid surroundings Mr. Nyarna's message is discordant, and a far cry from the Buddhist precept of avoiding harm to living creatures. Unprompted, Mr. Nyarna launches into a rant against Muslims, calling them invaders, unwanted guests and "vipers in our laps."

"According to Buddhist teachings we should not kill," Mr. Nyarna said. "But when we feel threatened we cannot be saints."

Violence here in Rakhine State — where clashes have left at least 167 people dead and 100,000 people homeless, most of them Muslims — has set off an exodus that some human rights groups condemn as ethnic cleansing. It is a measure of the deep intolerance that pervades the state, a strip of land along the Bay of Bengal in western Myanmar, that Buddhist religious leaders like Mr. Nyarna, who is the head of an association of young monks, are participating in the campaign to oust Muslims from the country, which only recently began a transition to democracy from authoritarian rule.

After a series of deadly rampages and arson attacks over the past five months, Buddhists are calling for Muslims who cannot prove three generations of legal residence — a large part of the nearly one million Muslims from the state — to be put into camps and sent to any country willing to take them. Hatred between Muslims and Buddhists that was kept in check during five decades of military rule has been virtually unrestrained in recent months.

Even the country's leading liberal voice and defender of the downtrodden, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, has been circumspect in her comments about the violence. President Obama made the issue a priority during his visit to the country this month — the first by a sitting American president — and Muslim nations as diverse as Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have expressed alarm.

Buddhists and Muslims in western Myanmar have had an uneasy coexistence for decades, and in some areas for centuries, but the thin threads that held together the social fabric of Rakhine State have torn apart this year.

Muslims who fled their homes now live in slumlike encampments that are short on food and medical care, surrounded by a Buddhist population that does not want them as neighbors.

"This issue must be solved urgently," said U Shwe Maung, a Muslim member of Parliament. "When there is no food or shelter, people will die."

Conditions have become so treacherous for Muslims across the state that Mr. Shwe Maung travels with a security force provided by the government. "They give me a full truck of police," he said. "Two, three or four policemen is not enough."

Leaders of the Buddhist majority in the state say they feel threatened by what they say is the swelling Muslim population from high birthrates and by Islamic rituals they find offensive, like the slaughter of animals.

"We are very fearful of Islamicization," said U Oo Hla Saw, general secretary of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the largest party in the state. "This is our native land; it's the land of our ancestors."

During outbreaks of sectarian violence in June and again in October, villagers armed themselves with swords, clubs and sharpened bicycle spokes that they launched from homemade catapults. In Muslim-majority areas, monasteries were burned. In Buddhist-majority areas, mosques were destroyed. The mayhem was set off by the rape and murder of a Buddhist girl for which Muslims were blamed.

The center of Sittwe, a former British colonial outpost, is now empty of the Muslims who once worked in large numbers as stevedores and at other manual jobs.

"I'm scared to go back," said Aye Tun Sein, who was a teacher at a government school before the upheaval. In his village, Teh Chaung East, a 20 minute drive from Sittwe, he said that no one has a job because no one can leave the village, a collection of shacks and tents.

Political leaders describe the near total segregation of Muslims as temporary, but it appears to be more and more permanent.

"I don't miss them," said U Win Maung, a bicycle rickshaw driver whose house was burned down in June by his Muslim neighbors. "The hatred we have for each other is growing day by day."

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Sewage Flows After Hurricane Sandy Exposing Flaws in System

Uli Seit for The New York Times

Workers this week replacing pumps at the Bay Park sewage-treatment plant in East Rockaway, N.Y., on Long Island, that were damaged by Hurricane Sandy. More Photos »

EAST ROCKAWAY, N.Y. — The water flowing out of the Bay Park sewage plant here in Nassau County is a greenish-gray soup of partially treated human waste, a sign of an environmental and public health disaster that officials say will be one of the most enduring and expensive effects of Hurricane Sandy.

In the month since the storm, hundreds of millions of gallons of raw and partly raw sewage from Bay Park and other crippled treatment plants have flowed into waterways in New York and New Jersey, exposing flaws in the region's wastewater infrastructure that could take several years and billions of dollars to fix. In New York State alone, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has estimated that about $1.1 billion will be needed to repair treatment plants. But officials acknowledge that they will have to do far more.

Motors and electrical equipment must be raised above newly established flood levels, and circuitry must be made waterproof. Dams and levees may have to be built at some treatment plants to keep the rising waters at bay, experts say.

Failure to do so, according to experts, could leave large swaths of the population vulnerable to public health and environmental hazards in future storms.

"You're looking at significant expenditures of money to make the plants more secure," said John Cameron, an engineer who specializes in wastewater-treatment facilities and is the chairman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council. "There is no Band-Aid for this," he added. "This is the new normal."

When the plants are fully functioning, they treat incoming sewage to remove solid waste and toxic substances and kill bacteria before it is discharged into the ocean or a bay. When the plants are shut down, the raw sewage goes into waterways in the same condition as when it comes in. At least six sewage plants in the New York region shut down completely during the storm, and many more were crippled by storm surges that swamped motors and caused short circuits in electrical equipment.

In New Jersey, workers at the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission plant, the fifth largest in the country, had to evacuate as floodwaters surged in and wastewater gushed out.

The Middlesex County Utility Authority plant in Sayreville, N.J., let about 75 million gallons of raw sewage a day flow into Raritan Bay for nearly a week before power was restored, said Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the State Environmental Protection Department.

Operations at both plants have not yet been fully restored.

The damage to the plants did not cause contamination to drinking water, which is run through separate systems, officials said. In some areas, officials imposed restrictions on water use to reduce strains on plants.

Bay Park, a sprawling complex off Hewlett Bay near the New York City border, serves 40 percent of Nassau County.

When the storm arrived, its force blindsided workers. They had spent days shoring up the plant with emergency measures, but did not anticipate the surge.

In less than 30 minutes, engines for the plant's main pumping system were under 12 feet of water, and sewage began to back up and overflow into low-lying homes. In one low-lying neighborhood, a plume of feces and wastewater burst through the street like a geyser.

The plant shut down for more than 50 hours, and about 200 million gallons of raw sewage flowed into channels and waterways.

"Never, ever, ever has this happened before," said Michael Martino, a spokesman for the Nassau County Department of Public Works. On Thursday, Mr. Martino said that the plant was back in operation and that the treatment of sewage was improving day by day.

Two other plants on the South Shore of Long Island, in Lawrence and Long Beach, were knocked out of service by the surge. Both are now working. And the Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant in Queens had significant damage.

Others, including the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant, which serves another 40 percent of Nassau County, and Bergen Point, another large plant in Suffolk County, escaped relatively unscathed.

Still, even those plants may not fare so well in the future, said Mr. Cameron of the Long Island Regional Planning Council.

Almost all facilities in the region are close to sea level and are vulnerable to storm surges, he said. Many were built decades ago to serve fewer people.

Even before the storm, the Bay Park plant in Nassau County needed new equipment.

When it was completed, in 1949, the county's population was half what it is today. The plant now serves 550,000 residents and has struggled to keep up with demand.

During heavy rains, there are occasional sewage leaks, particularly in low-lying areas, residents say. Last year, the county was fined $1.5 million for, among other violations, illegally pumping about 3.5 million gallons of partially treated sewage into East Rockaway Channel. Edward P. Mangano, the Nassau County executive, has invested $70 million to improve the sewage system, but officials said damage from the storm was a major setback.

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Colorado Authorities Seek Way Forward on Marijuana

Rick Wilking/Reuters

In the wake of the marijuana vote in Colorado, location seems to be a bigger factor in the pursuit of minor drug cases than the law. A menu board of choices at a medical marijuana center in Denver.

DENVER — Anthony Orozco, 19, a community college student and soccer player in southeastern Colorado, is facing criminal charges for something that will soon be legal across this state: the possession of a few nuggets of marijuana and a pipe he used to smoke it.

Mr. Orozco said that one day in September he and a few friends were driving in Lamar, on the plains near the Kansas border, when they were pulled over. After the police officer found marijuana in the car, Mr. Orozco was issued a summons for possession and drug paraphernalia — petty offenses that each carry a $100 fine — and given a court date.

"We get treated like criminals," Mr. Orozco said.

But is he one? In the uncertain weeks after Colorado's vote to legalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, the answer in hundreds of minor drug cases depends less on the law than on location.

Hundreds of misdemeanor marijuana cases are already being dropped here and in Washington State, which approved a similar measure. Police departments have stopped charging adults 21 years and older for small-scale possession that will be legally sanctioned once the laws take effect in the coming weeks.

But prosecutors in more conservative precincts in Colorado have vowed to press ahead with existing marijuana cases and are still citing people for possession. At the same time, several towns from the Denver suburbs to the Western mountains are voting to block new, state-licensed retail marijuana shops from opening in their communities.

"This thing is evolving so quickly that I don't know what's going to happen next," said Daniel J. Oates, the police chief in Aurora, just east of Denver.

Regulators in Washington State are also scratching their heads. And they are looking for guidance on how to set up a system of licenses for production, manufacturing, distribution and sales — all by a deadline of Dec. 1, 2013. They say that Colorado, for better or worse, is ahead of most states in regulating marijuana, first for medical use and now recreationally.

"Colorado has a more regulated market, so they will be a good guide," said Brian E. Smith, a spokesman for the Washington State Liquor Control Board. But no place or system, Mr. Smith conceded, can do more than suggest what might work. "There's no real precedent for us to follow," he said.

Washington's law, called I-502, takes effect on Dec. 6, which also leaves a year of limbo during which the state licensing system will not yet exist, but legalized possession will. And there are thorny mechanical questions that must be resolved during that time, like how to balance the state's mandate of "adequate access" to licensed marijuana with its prohibitions on cannabis businesses within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground or child care center.

"Nowhere will it be more difficult to site a licensed cannabis business than in urban areas, particularly in the Seattle metropolitan area," said Ben Livingston, a spokesman for the Center for Legal Cannabis, a recently formed research group.

On Nov. 21, Chief Oates in Aurora sent his officers an e-mail announcing that the city attorney would no longer be prosecuting small marijuana violations for anyone 21 years or older, and that the police would stop charging people for those crimes "effective immediately."

Chief Oates said that the police would enforce city codes regulating medical marijuana growers, and that they would still pursue drug traffickers and dealers.

In northern Colorado's Weld County, the district attorney, Ken Buck, represents a stricter view. After the vote, he said his office would continue pursuing marijuana possession cases, mostly as a way to press users into getting treatment. Right now, 119 people face charges of possessing two ounces or less of marijuana, though many are facing other charges.

"Our office has an obligation to prosecute offenses that were crimes at the time they occurred," Mr. Buck said in a statement.

The response has been complicated even in places like rural Mesa County, where voters rejected the marijuana initiative. The police in Grand Junction, the county's largest city, are no longer citing adults for possession of small amounts. The county's district attorney, Pete Hautzinger, supported that decision, but also decided not to dismiss all of the pending possession cases.

"I do not think I'm wasting my time continuing to enforce the law until it changes," he said.

Kirk Johnson contributed reporting from Seattle.

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U.S. Moves Toward Recognizing Syria Opposition

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Rebels in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, in August. The opposition to the Syrian government is developing a political structure.

WASHINGTON — The United States is moving toward recognizing the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people as soon as it fully develops its political structure, American officials said Thursday.

A decision to recognize the group could be announced at a so-called Friends of Syria meeting that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to attend in Morocco on Dec. 12. It is the most immediate decision facing the Obama administration as it considers how to end the government of Bashar al-Assad and stop the violence that has consumed Syria.

President Obama has not signed off on the move, and the meetings to decide the issue have yet to be held. Debates within the administration concern legal issues about the implications of diplomatic recognition, how such a move might affect efforts to enlist Russian support for a political transition in Syria and, most importantly, the state of the opposition.

Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council have already recognized the opposition, which was enlarged and overhauled at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, last month at the insistence of the United States and other nations. It is formally known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

"They are a legitimate representative of the Syrian people's aspirations," Robert Ford, the American ambassador to Syria, said Thursday at a conference on the Syrian humanitarian crisis. "They are making real progress and I expect that our position will evolve as they themselves develop," he added.

American officials who favor the move are hoping to use formal recognition as a reward to the opposition for uniting opponents of the Assad government inside and outside Syria and fleshing out its political structure so that it can play a credible role if Mr. Assad is ousted.

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces is in the process of developing a series of committees on humanitarian assistance, education, health, judicial and security issues. If opposition leaders are able to present their group at the Morocco meeting as a functioning organization, one senior American official said, recognition by the United States might follow at the gathering, a conference of more than 70 nations that is to be held in Marrakesh.

"We've been looking for them to establish a leadership structure that's clear to everybody, but also discrete committees that can deal with the various issues that they are assuming responsibility for," Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said Thursday. "We don't want to get ahead of the game here."

At an appearance here on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton expanded on Ms. Nuland's remarks. "We have been deeply involved in helping stand them up, and we're going to carefully consider what more we can do," she said at a conference co-hosted by the publisher of the magazine Foreign Policy. "It appears as though the opposition in Syria is now capable of holding ground, that they are able to bring the fight to the government forces."

Mr. Ford and other experts attending a conference organized by the Middle East Institute and International Relief and Development, two nongovernment organizations, described a deepening humanitarian crisis because of the Syrian conflict. The number of internally displaced people in Syria has soared to about 2.5 million, according to Kelly Clements, a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

The number of refugees has also climbed. About 140,000 Syrians have registered for assistance as refugees in Jordan, some 25,000 of whom are in refugee camps. There are also believed to be more than 100,000 additional Syrian refugees who have not registered. In Turkey, there are 125,000 Syrian refugees in camps and another 75,000 who are not residing in camps, she said. In Lebanon, there are an estimated 135,000 Syrian refugees, none of whom live in refugee camps.

In Iraq, some 60,000 Syrians have registered as refugees, half of whom live in camps. More than 35,000 additional Iraqis who fled the conflict in Iraq for Syria have since returned to Iraq.

The Assad government, Mr. Ford said, has often interfered with the delivery of humanitarian assistance. He also said that Iran had helped the Assad government track down opposition figures who are voicing their view on the Internet.

Mr. Ford indicated that the subject of providing arms to opposition fighters was also being reviewed, but said that any discussion of arms needed to be part of a broader strategy for a political transition if Mr. Assad leaves power. "Arms are not a strategy; arms are a tactic," he said.

He suggested that the government was still able militarily. "There is no sign of any kind of political deal to be worked out between the opposition groups and the regime," he said. "The fighting is going to go on."

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U.S. Is Weighing Stronger Action in Syrian Conflict

Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Rebels in northern Syria celebrated on Wednesday next to what was reported to be a government fighter jet.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, hoping that the conflict in Syria has reached a turning point, is considering deeper intervention to help push President Bashar al-Assad from power, according to government officials involved in the discussions.

While no decisions have been made, the administration is considering several alternatives, including directly providing arms to some opposition fighters.

The most urgent decision, likely to come next week, is whether NATO should deploy surface-to-air missiles in Turkey, ostensibly to protect that country from Syrian missiles that could carry chemical weapons. The State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, said Wednesday that the Patriot missile system would not be "for use beyond the Turkish border."

But some strategists and administration officials believe that Syrian Air Force pilots might fear how else the missile batteries could be used. If so, they could be intimidated from bombing the northern Syrian border towns where the rebels control considerable territory. A NATO survey team is in Turkey, examining possible sites for the batteries.

Other, more distant options include directly providing arms to opposition fighters rather than only continuing to use other countries, especially Qatar, to do so. A riskier course would be to insert C.I.A. officers or allied intelligence services on the ground in Syria, to work more closely with opposition fighters in areas that they now largely control.

Administration officials discussed all of these steps before the presidential election. But the combination of President Obama's re-election, which has made the White House more willing to take risks, and a series of recent tactical successes by rebel forces, one senior administration official said, "has given this debate a new urgency, and a new focus."

The outcome of the broader debate about how heavily America should intervene in another Middle Eastern conflict remains uncertain. Mr. Obama's record in intervening in the Arab Spring has been cautious: While he joined in what began as a humanitarian effort in Libya, he refused to put American military forces on the ground and, with the exception of a C.I.A. and diplomatic presence, ended the American role as soon as Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was toppled.

In the case of Syria, a far more complex conflict than Libya's, some officials continue to worry that the risks of intervention — both in American lives and in setting off a broader conflict, potentially involving Turkey — are too great to justify action. Others argue that more aggressive steps are justified in Syria by the loss in life there, the risks that its chemical weapons could get loose, and the opportunity to deal a blow to Iran's only ally in the region. The debate now coursing through the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A. resembles a similar one among America's main allies.

"Look, let's be frank, what we've done over the last 18 months hasn't been enough," Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, said three weeks ago after visiting a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. "The slaughter continues, the bloodshed is appalling, the bad effects it's having on the region, the radicalization, but also the humanitarian crisis that is engulfing Syria. So let's work together on really pushing what more we can do." Mr. Cameron has discussed those options directly with Mr. Obama, White House officials say.

France and Britain have recognized a newly formed coalition of opposition groups, which the United States helped piece together. So far, Washington has not done so.

American officials and independent specialists on Syria said that the administration was reviewing its Syria policy in part to gain credibility and sway with opposition fighters, who have seized key Syrian military bases in recent weeks.

"The administration has figured out that if they don't start doing something, the war will be over and they won't have any influence over the combat forces on the ground," said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer and specialist on the Syria military. "They may have some influence with various political groups and factions, but they won't have influence with the fighters, and the fighters will control the territory."

Jessica Brandt contributed reporting from Cambridge, Mass.

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President Obama Asks Congress to Keep Tax Cuts for Middle Class

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama, joined by taxpayers at the White House, spoke Wednesday on his plans for taxes, part of a high-profile effort.

WASHINGTON — President Obama surrounded himself with taxpayers on Wednesday to pitch his plan to preserve current rates for the middle class and raise them for the wealthy. A day before, he met with small-business owners for the same purpose. On Friday, he plans to fly to Pennsylvania to tour a factory to make the same point.

As the president and Congress hurtle toward a reckoning on the highest federal budget deficit in generations, Mr. Obama says he wants a "balanced" approach to restoring the nation's fiscal order. But the high-profile public campaign he has been waging in recent days has focused almost entirely on the tax side of the equation, with scant talk about his priorities when it comes to curbing spending.

Mr. Obama has embraced specific cuts to the federal budget in the past and has committed to an agreement with Congress that will include deep reductions in spending. But it would be easy for those who listen to his public pronouncements lately to miss it. In public statements since his re-election, he has barely discussed how he would pare back federal spending, focusing instead on the aspect of his plan that plays to his liberal base and involves all gain and no pain for 98 percent of taxpayers.

Republicans and even some Democrats have expressed frustration that Mr. Obama has avoided a serious public discussion on spending with barely a month until deep automatic budget cuts and tax increases are scheduled to take effect. While the president's aides said it was important to engage the public on taxes, others say he has not prepared the country for the sacrifice that would come with lower spending.

"The problem is real," said Erskine B. Bowles, who was co-chairman of Mr. Obama's deficit reduction commission. "The solutions are painful, and there's not going to be an easy way out of this."

After meeting with White House officials this week, Mr. Bowles said he believed "they were serious about reducing spending" but added that "we need to talk more about the spending side of the equation."

Republican leaders were more scathing, saying the president was more interested in campaigning than sitting down to resolve difficult issues. They said they were willing to raise tax revenue by closing loopholes and limiting deductions, but Mr. Obama has not reciprocated with more restraint of entitlement programs.

"We have not seen any good-faith effort on the part of this administration to talk about the real problem that we're trying to fix," said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader. "This has to be a part of this agreement or else we just continue to dig the hole deeper, asking folks to allow us to kick the can down the road further. And that we don't want to do."

Although Mr. Obama has not scheduled a new meeting with Congressional leaders, he will dispatch top advisers to Capitol Hill for talks on Thursday. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Rob Nabors, the White House legislative director, will pay separate visits to Senators Harry Reid of Nevada and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Democratic and Republican leaders, and Representatives John A. Boehner of Ohio and Nancy Pelosi of California, the Republican speaker and Democratic minority leader.

Mr. Obama met privately on Wednesday with the chief executives of 14 major corporations like Goldman Sachs, Home Depot, Marriott, Coca-Cola, Pfizer and Yahoo to discuss the fiscal situation.

"He seemed flexible, but he said taxes should go up on the top 2 percent," said one executive who did not want to be named. Most of the executives said they were not opposed to tax increases as part of a deal but stressed that a quick resolution could help the economy.

White House officials rejected Republican suggestions that Mr. Obama has not been serious enough about tackling the growth of entitlement spending. "He is committed, every time he talks about this, to a balanced approach that includes both, you know, revenues, spending cuts and savings through entitlement reforms," said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.

White House officials pointed to $340 billion in health care entitlement program savings and $272 billion in reductions to other mandatory programs over 10 years in a previous presidential budget proposal. "Even though that budget proposal's been out there for a long time, a lot of people aren't aware of that," Mr. Carney said. " He called it "another piece of evidence that the president has been willing to make tough choices."

One reason a lot of people may not be aware of the cuts Mr. Obama has proposed is that he does not talk about them often. In his first postelection news conference, he focused on tax increases on the wealthy and used the term "spending cuts" just once without elaborating.

By focusing on taxes, Mr. Obama has put Republicans on the defensive. At Wednesday's event, he challenged them to extend Bush-era tax cuts for family income under $250,000 since both sides agree those should continue. Doing so would effectively mean tax cuts on income over $250,000 would expire at the end of the year since Mr. Obama would not sign a separate bill extending them.

The president's public lobbying seemed to crack through the solid Republican opposition this week when a prominent conservative, Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, urged his party to seek such a quick deal with Mr. Obama extending middle-class tax cuts. Mr. Boehner pushed back against Mr. Cole on Wednesday, saying that would hurt small businesses and the economy.

At the same time, Mr. Obama evidently sees no percentage in talking in detail about spending cuts, acutely aware that his liberal base is unenthusiastic about paring back entitlement programs. Senator Richard J. Durbin, a longtime Illinois ally and the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said this week that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security should not be part of current budget talks.

As the two sides continued to shadowbox, Mr. Bowles was skeptical, putting the chances of a deal by the end of the year at one in three. "I believe the probability is that we are going over the cliff," he said, "and I think that will be horrible."

Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting from Washington, and Nelson Schwartz from New York.

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Cost of Coastal Living to Climb Under New Flood Rules

New York and New Jersey residents, just coming to grips with the enormous costs of repairing homes damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, will soon face another financial blow: soaring flood insurance rates and heightened standards for rebuilding that threaten to make seaside living, once and for all, a luxury only the wealthy can afford.

Homeowners in storm-damaged coastal areas who had flood insurance — and many more who did not, but will now be required to — will face premium increases of as much as 20 percent or 25 percent per year beginning in January, under legislation enacted in July to shore up the debt-ridden National Flood Insurance Program. The yearly increases will add hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to homeowners' annual bills.

The higher premiums, coupled with expensive requirements for homes being rebuilt within newly mapped flood hazard zones, which will take into account the storm's vast reach, pose a serious threat to middle-class and lower-income enclaves. In Queens, on Staten Island, on Long Island and at the Jersey Shore, many families have clung fast to a modest coastal lifestyle, often passing bungalows or small Victorian homes down through generations, even as development turned other places into playgrounds for the well-to-do.

While many homeowners are beginning to rebuild without any thought to future costs, the changes could propel a demographic shift along the Northeast Coast, even in places spared by the storm, according to federal officials, insurance industry executives and regional development experts. Ronald Schiffman, a former member of the New York City Planning Commission, said that barring intervention by Congress or the states, there would be "a massive displacement of low-income families from their historic communities."

After weeks of tearing debris from her 87-year-old, two-story house on the bay side of Long Beach, N.Y., Barbara Carman, 59, said she understood the need to stabilize the flood insurance program, but she compared coming premium increases to "kicking people while they're down."

Ms. Carman and her husband, who had hoped to retire in a few years, were reconsidering whether they could afford to remain on the coast on fixed incomes. But she said she feared that even selling their home could be hard.

"Only wealthy people could afford it, I guess, not middle-class people," she said. "You're going to price us out of here."

The heightened financial pressure has emerged as an unintended consequence of efforts to stop the government subsidization of risk that has encouraged so many to build and rebuild along coasts increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather. Supporters of the effort acknowledged that it would squeeze lower-income residents but said it was vital for the insurance program to reflect the risk of living along the shore.

"The irony is, if we allowed market forces to dictate at the coast, a lot of the development in the wrong places would never have gotten built," said Jeffrey Tittel, director of the Sierra Club's chapter in New Jersey. "But we didn't. We subsidized that development with low insurance rates for decades. And we can't afford to keep doing that. Should a person who lives in an apartment in Newark pay for someone's beach house?"

Because private insurers rarely provide flood insurance, the program has been run by the federal government, which kept rates artificially low under pressure from the real estate industry and other groups. Flood insurance in higher-risk areas typically costs $1,100 to $3,000 a year, for coverage capped at $250,000; the contents of a home could be insured up to $100,000 for an additional $500 or so a year, said Steve Harty, president of National Flood Services, a large claims-processing company.

Premiums will double for new policyholders and many old ones within three or four years under the new law.

Across the board, rates will begin rising an average of 20 percent after Jan. 1, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency; rate increases had previously been capped at 10 percent. For properties older than the flood insurance program, where premiums cost half as much as for newer buildings, those discounts are being phased out, through yearly rate increases of 25 percent.

Second homes and businesses will see these increases next year without exception. Primary homes will lose their discounted rates if repairs cost more than half the value of the home, if the home has had recurring flood damage or if the owner refuses an offer of money to help elevate or relocate the building — the exact situations being confronted by many homeowners affected by Hurricane Sandy. The discounted rates disappear if owners sell, let their policies lapse or make major improvements.

The practice of grandfathering is also being discontinued: homes that were built in areas deemed safe at the time, but later added to flood hazard areas, will no longer be treated as though they are on high ground.

At the same time, avoiding the expense of flood insurance will become harder for middle-class homeowners, many of whom have historically dropped their policies after a few uneventful years even though it is required for homeowners with federally backed mortgages who live in flood-prone areas. Lenders who do not enforce the requirement will face higher penalties.

Charles V. Bagli and Sarah Maslin Nir contributed reporting.

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News Analysis: With Focus on Talking Points, Benghazi Attack’s Big Issues Fade

WASHINGTON — Three days after the lethal attack on the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, Representative C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, asked intelligence agencies to write up some unclassified talking points on the episode. Reporters were besieging him and other legislators for comment, and he did not want to misstate facts or disclose classified information.

More than 10 weeks later, the four pallid sentences that intelligence analysts cautiously delivered are the unlikely center of a quintessential Washington drama, in which a genuine tragedy has been fed into the meat grinder of election-year politics.

In the process, the most important questions about Benghazi, where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed on Sept. 11, have largely gotten lost: Were requests for greater security for diplomats in Libya ignored? Even if Al Qaeda's core in Pakistan has been decimated, what threat is posed by its affiliates and imitators in other countries where they have taken refuge? How can crucial diplomacy be conducted amid the dangerous chaos that has followed the toppling of dictators across the Arab world?

Instead, it is the parsing of the talking points — who wrote them, altered them, recited them on television or tried to explain them — that could decide the fate of a leading candidate for secretary of state, Susan E. Rice, currently the United Nations ambassador. On Wednesday, for the second time in two weeks, Ms. Rice received a hearty endorsement from President Obama in the face of a continuing battering on Capitol Hill.

"Susan Rice is extraordinary," he said in response to a reporter's question as he met at the White House with his cabinet for the first time since the election. "Couldn't be prouder of the job that she's done."

Now the talking points could also affect the chances of a top candidate for C.I.A. director, Michael Morell, the agency's acting director, who on Tuesday accompanied Ms. Rice to a briefing for some of her most vocal Senate critics and misspoke about changes in the original draft of the talking points.

Intelligence officials said Wednesday that Mr. Morell's flub, which prompted a sharply worded statement from three Republican senators, was an insignificant mix-up: He said the F.B.I. had taken out a specific reference to Al Qaeda, when in fact that change was made by the C.I.A. The F.B.I. had added another phrase to the same sentence.

"This was an honest mistake, and it was corrected as soon as it was realized," one official said. "There is nothing more to this."

But such earnest attempts to lower the political temperature have so far failed. As so often in Washington, the clashes over Benghazi have a semi-hidden personal element that adds to the emotion. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who led the initial lambasting of Ms. Rice, had been subjected to withering criticism by her in 2008 when he was running for president. And senators considering Ms. Rice's future are quite aware that her main rival for the job of secretary of state is their colleague Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts.

For now, the focus of Congress and the news media is mostly on language. For weeks after the Benghazi attack, Republicans accused Mr. Obama and his aides of avoiding labeling it "terrorism" for fear of tarnishing his national security record in the weeks before the Nov. 6 election. Since his re-election, that issue has faded, and the debate has shifted to the talking points.

The facts about the talking points, like those about the Benghazi attack itself, have dribbled out slowly and awkwardly from intelligence officials who generally do not relish airing their internal deliberations. But there is now a fairly clear account.

The C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies rarely prepare unclassified talking points; more often, policy makers submit proposed public comments, and intelligence analysts check them for classified information or errors of fact. But in the storm of news media coverage after the killings in Benghazi, C.I.A. officials responded quickly to Mr. Ruppersberger's request on Sept. 14.

C.I.A. analysts drafted four sentences describing "demonstrations" in Benghazi that were "spontaneously inspired" by protests in Cairo against a crude video lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. (Later assessments concluded there were no demonstrations.) The initial version of the talking points identified the suspected attackers — a local militant group called Ansar al-Shariah, with possible links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an offshoot of the terrorist network in North Africa.

Jeremy W. Peters and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

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Medicare Is Faulted in Electronic Medical Records Conversion

The conversion to electronic medical records — a critical piece of the Obama administration's plan for health care reform — is "vulnerable" to fraud and abuse because of the failure of Medicare officials to develop appropriate safeguards, according to a sharply critical report to be issued Thursday by federal investigators.

Mike Spencer/Wilmington Star-News, via Associated Press

Celeste Stephens, a nurse, leads a session on electronic records at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator for Medicare.

The use of electronic medical records has been central to the aim of overhauling health care in America. Advocates contend that electronic records systems will improve patient care and lower costs through better coordination of medical services, and the Obama administration is spending billions of dollars to encourage doctors and hospitals to switch to electronic records to track patient care.

But the report says Medicare, which is charged with managing the incentive program that encourages the adoption of electronic records, has failed to put in place adequate safeguards to ensure that information being provided by hospitals and doctors about their electronic records systems is accurate. To qualify for the incentive payments, doctors and hospitals must demonstrate that the systems lead to better patient care, meeting a so-called meaningful use standard by, for example, checking for harmful drug interactions.

Medicare "faces obstacles" in overseeing the electronic records incentive program "that leave the program vulnerable to paying incentives to professionals and hospitals that do not fully meet the meaningful use requirements," the investigators concluded. The report was prepared by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare.

The investigators contrasted the looser management of the incentive program with the agency's pledge to more closely monitor Medicare payments of medical claims. Medicare officials have indicated that the agency intends to move away from a "pay and chase" model, in which it tried to get back any money it has paid in error, to one in which it focuses on trying to avoid making unjustified payments in the first place.

Late Wednesday, a Medicare spokesman said in a statement: "Protecting taxpayer dollars is our top priority and we have implemented aggressive procedures to hold providers accountable. Making a false claim is a serious offense with serious consequences and we believe the overwhelming majority of doctors and hospitals take seriously their responsibility to honestly report their performance."

The government's investment in electronic records was authorized under the broader stimulus package passed in 2009. Medicare expects to spend nearly $7 billion over five years as a way of inducing doctors and hospitals to adopt and use electronic records. So far, the report said, the agency has paid 74, 317 health professionals and 1,333 hospitals. By attesting that they meet the criteria established under the program, a doctor can receive as much as $44,000 for adopting electronic records, while a hospital could be paid as much as $2 million in the first year of its adoption. The inspector general's report follows earlier concerns among regulators and others over whether doctors and hospitals are using electronic records inappropriately to charge more for services, as reported by The New York Times last September, and is likely to fuel the debate over the government's efforts to promote electronic records. Critics say the push for electronic records may be resulting in higher Medicare spending with little in the way of improvement in patients' health. Thursday's report did not address patient care.

Even those within the industry say the speed with which systems are being developed and adopted by hospitals and doctors has led to a lack of clarity over how the records should be used and concerns about their overall accuracy.

"We've gone from the horse and buggy to the Model T, and we don't know the rules of the road. Now we've had a big car pileup," said Lynne Thomas Gordon, the chief executive of the American Health Information Management Association, a trade group in Chicago. The association, which contends more study is needed to determine whether hospitals and doctors actually are abusing electronic records to increase their payments, says it supports more clarity.

Although there is little disagreement over the potential benefits of electronic records in reducing duplicative tests and avoiding medical errors, critics increasingly argue that the federal government has not devoted enough time or resources to making certain the money it is investing is being well spent.

House Republicans echoed these concerns in early October in a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services. Citing the Times article, they called for suspending the incentive program until concerns about standardization had been resolved. "The top House policy makers on health care are concerned that H.H.S. is squandering taxpayer dollars by asking little of providers in return for incentive payments," said a statement issued at the same time by the Republicans, who are likely to seize on the latest inspector general report as further evidence of lax oversight. Republicans have said they will continue to monitor the program.

In her letter in response, which has not been made public, Ms. Sebelius dismissed the idea of suspending the incentive program, arguing that it "would be profoundly unfair to the hospitals and eligible professionals that have invested billions of dollars and devoted countless hours of work to purchase and install systems and educate staff." She said Medicare was trying to determine whether electronic records had been used in any fraudulent billing but she insisted that the current efforts to certify the systems and address the concerns raised by the Republicans and others were adequate.

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After Hurricane Sandy, Fighting to Save the Flavor of New York

Evan Sung for The New York Times

Gargiulo's is one of several Coney Island restaurants that are more than mere dining establishments. "They're community centers," the chef Michael Lomonaco said.

GO ahead. Ask Antoinette Balzano. Ask her why Totonno's, the pizzeria in Coney Island, matters.

"Here's what we mean to the city," she said the other day, her voice rising with emotion. Ms. Balzano, one of the heirs to the pizzeria, pointed at a black-and-white photograph, leaning on a tabletop, showing a blunt-faced, apron-clad man who looked like a retired boxer. It was a portrait of her grandfather Anthony (Totonno) Pero, who hatched the Brooklyn landmark in 1924 after years making pies at the legendary Lombardi's on Spring Street.

"He left Naples," she said. "He came here on a boat, left everybody behind. This man. This man. He brought pizza to this country, my grandfather did."

Ms. Balzano was cold, angry and fed up. It was an overcast Monday in November, a full three weeks after Hurricane Sandy had blasted into Brooklyn, and she was waiting for an engineer to show up to survey the damage.

As she paced, swaddled in a puffy coat inside the pizzeria, where particles in the air made her cough and chairs were stacked up after having been tossed around like toys from a Barbie tea party, she got on the phone with an insurance company to express her displeasure.

"Is this a joke?" she said. "You guys run some operation, let me tell you."

No matter whom she spoke with, it seemed as if each person failed to comprehend what Totonno's signified. To Brooklyn. To New York. To America.

"Nobody knows that this is insane," she said.

Hurricane Sandy shredded the Atlantic Seaboard, flattening entire neighborhoods in New York and New Jersey, and it will take a long time to tally the full measure of that devastation. In a symbolic way, though, the storm's assault on restaurants like Totonno's tore at the very heart of the New York experience.

Totonno's is just one of scores of beloved haunts, old and new, that have been struggling in and around the city, in areas like Brighton Beach and Howard Beach, Red Hook and Hoboken. These are the restaurants where toasts are raised to newlyweds, where candles are blown out on birthday cakes, where locals unload their troubles at the bar, and where street food is occasionally elevated to art — or at least a rowdy, pugnacious history lesson.

For many New Yorkers, they are the places that left the first emotional imprint of what dining ought to feel like. Ask someone from Nebraska — or France, Brazil or Japan — to free-associate a bunch of dishes that come to mind when hearing the phrase "New York food," and there is a high probability that pizza and hot dogs will top that list. And when one longs for pizza and hot dogs, yearnings naturally turn to Coney Island, where two places that helped popularize them, Totonno's and Nathan's, were so ravaged by the storm that they have temporarily shut down.

If you're a Brooklynite, your mental list of food memories probably encompasses the marinara sauce at Randazzo's Clam Bar and the freshly made sandwiches at Jimmy's Famous Heros, both fixtures in Sheepshead Bay, or the lobster fra diavolo served in the buzzing banquet halls of Gargiulo's, which has been the special-occasion Windsor Castle of Coney Island since 1907.

Long before Brooklyn became an internationally recognized gastronomic brand, such places taught the borough how to eat. "These are the stalwarts of Brooklyn dining, as far as I'm concerned," said Michael Lomonaco, the Bensonhurst-bred executive chef at Porter House New York, who knows about loss, having headed the team at Windows on the World, atop the World Trade Center, on Sept. 11, 2001. "These restaurants are very close to me."

All were savaged by Sandy.

If you want to know why these establishments matter, ask Darren Aronofsky, the director behind movies like "Requiem for a Dream," "The Wrestler" and "Black Swan." Mr. Aronofsky grew up in Manhattan Beach. He remembers dropping into Jimmy's to get supplies before heading off to Mets games. He remembers watching the folks behind the counter squirting on the oil and vinegar, laying on the sliced onions, wrapping each sandwich in wax paper.

"That place is a classic," he said. "Whenever you went on a trip anywhere, you'd always get Jimmy's heroes."

Mr. Aronofsky can't help but rhapsodize about Totonno's, too — how, even when there is a long line of drooling customers, the conjuring of dough always comes to a halt when the fresh ingredients run out. The pies always had "that burnt taste, which was just so remarkable," he said. "It changed my perception of what pizza could be."

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General Allen Investigation Narrows Focus

WASHINGTON — Two and a half weeks after Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta announced an inquiry into e-mail exchanges between Gen. John R. Allen of the Marines and a socialite in Tampa, Fla., some 15 investigators working seven days a week in the Pentagon inspector general's office have narrowed their focus to 60 to 70 e-mails that "bear a fair amount of scrutiny," a defense official said.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Gen. John R. Allen testifying before the House Armed Services Committee in March. He is being investigated over e-mails he sent to Jill Kelley, who was also an acquaintance of David H. Petraeus.

Tampa Bay Magazine, via Associated Press

Jill Kelley with her husband, Scott.

The official did not disclose the content of the e-mails, but senior Pentagon officials have described the voluminous correspondence between General Allen, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, and the socialite, Jill Kelley, as potentially "inappropriate communication." Law enforcement officials say the e-mails number in the hundreds and cover a period of two and a half years starting in 2010, when General Allen was the deputy commander of Central Command, based in Tampa.

The investigation, which is delaying and could derail General Allen's appointment to be the NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, is on a fast track but is unlikely to be completed before the end of the year. Investigations of senior officers in the inspector general's office usually take about seven months on average, although normally there are only two or three investigators assigned to a case.

The defense official, who asked not to be named because of the nature of the inquiry, said investigators were trying to determine whether the e-mails violated Defense Department policy, government regulations or military law. They were discovered in the course of an F.B.I. investigation into anonymous e-mails to Ms. Kelley warning her to stay away from David H. Petraeus, then the C.I.A. director. The F.B.I. found that the e-mails had been sent by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus's biographer; he admitted to having had an affair with Ms. Broadwell and resigned on Nov. 9.

Like General Allen, Mr. Petraeus, a retired four-star general, was a social acquaintance of Ms. Kelley when he was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, headquarters of the Central Command.

The e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley were sent to the Pentagon by the F.B.I. on Nov. 11. "They just forwarded the evidence," the official said, referring to the F.B.I. "People have to go through and decide if they fit one of three potential violations." Those violations include misconduct, which could range from inappropriate language on a government computer to adultery, prohibited under military law; more than an incidental use of government property for personal matters; and security breaches.

The defense official said there was no evidence so far that there had been security violations. General Allen, who is in Kabul planning the drawdown of American forces from Afghanistan, is cooperating with the investigation and has said through associates that he did not commit adultery. The inquiry does not appear to have progressed to interviews with General Allen, 58, who is married and the father of two, or Ms. Kelley, 37, the wife of a cancer surgeon and the mother of three.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who has been nominated to succeed General Allen as part of a regular military rotation, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate before the end of the year and to be in Kabul by February. General Allen is expected to return to the United States at that time, but it is unclear what he will do.

There have been conflicting accounts of the nature of the e-mails between him and Ms. Kelley. A law enforcement official has described some of them as sexually explicit. Pentagon officials briefed on the matter say they have been told that half a dozen are embarrassing. But General Allen's associates say they are innocuous and contain little beyond language like "you're a sweetheart."

Although Ms. Kelley's e-mail correspondence with General Allen has not been made public, dozens of her e-mails to Mayor Bob Buckhorn of Tampa have been released under Florida's public record laws and refer to her friendship with both General Allen and Mr. Petraeus.

A year ago, after inviting the mayor to a birthday party for one of her children, she added a casual P.S.: "I'll be in DC this weekend with Petraeus, but let's set up a double date when I return!" Last January, she wrote to a mayoral aide, "I'm up in DC having dinner tonight with Gen. Petraeus and Gen. John Allen."

Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

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Mexico Seeks to Recast Relationship With U.S.

Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times

Students in a class this month at the aeronautical university in Querétaro, Mexico, a city that has emerged as a hub for the industry in recent years.

QUERÉTARO, Mexico — They came looking for Andrés Cobos Marín, 22, with promises of financial security, a leg up over his peers, the life of his dreams.

But these were not the sort of recruiters who have made Mexico infamous, scouting hired guns and drug couriers for the criminal underworld. Quite the contrary, they were out hunting for talented young engineers with a knack for designing turbines and the like for this city's growing aerospace industry.

"The companies are looking for us; we don't have to go looking for them," said Mr. Cobos, who starts work in January at a Spanish company even before he graduates next year.

It is the flip side of the Mexico that the world is familiar with: the one in which drug barons hang bodies from bridges, evade the law in elaborate hideaways and funnel billions of dollars in narcotics across the border and around the world.

In this other Mexico, taking hold in several pockets of the country like this one, high-skilled jobs are plentiful, industrial plants churn out increasingly sophisticated products and families adopt shades of middle-class life, with flat-screen televisions, new cars and homes a cut or more above those of their parents.

This more prosperous, parallel universe is what Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, highlighted when he met with President Obama on Tuesday as he seeks to shift relations with the United States toward improving the economy and loosening up trade.

Mr. Peña Nieto, who takes office on Saturday, discussed a range of issues with Mr. Obama, including negotiations on Mexico's role in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement being worked out among Asian and Western Hemisphere nations.

Mr. Peña Nieto's advisers are careful to say that they will continue to work closely with the United States on fighting drugs and organized crime, and he has promised Mexicans that he will reduce drug violence.

But Mr. Peña Nieto, who visits Canada on Wednesday, has made it clear that Mexico's poor image abroad has slowed its growth. His team plans a strong push to "modernize" trade deals, speed up or add new crossings at the border for commerce, court foreign investment to take advantage of vast, newly discovered shale gas fields near the United States border and generate more quality jobs like the ones here in Querétaro.

"In the next years, the great challenge is to succeed in making these kinds of examples multiply very quickly," Mr. Peña Nieto said this month.

Mexico fell into a deep recession in 2009 when American demand for Mexican-made imports collapsed. But the recovery under President Felipe Calderón has been notable, with growth expected to reach almost 4 percent this year, roughly twice that of the United States.

While Brazil is often thought of as Latin America's economic marvel, Mexico's economy outpaced Brazil's last year and is expected to do so again this year. Business that had fled Mexico in favor of China has started to return, as the wage gap narrows and transportation and other costs rise. Auto manufacturing, for instance, is surging, with several new plants.

The Obama administration is not expected to let up on its security concerns — almost all of the administration members greeting Mr. Peña Nieto were from the security and foreign policy teams — but economic changes have already altered the relationship between the two nations in some concrete ways. Better opportunities for Mexicans at home, not just the flagging United States economy and stricter enforcement at the border, contributed to a significant slowdown in illegal immigration north in recent years.

A senior Obama administration official said Mr. Peña Nieto's team made it clear from the start of talks after the July election that it would emphasize economic progress. But, the official said, "there will also clearly be things that we will want to see Mexico do, like accelerate judicial reforms, like being as open and as forward-leaning as possible on reducing human rights abuses when they occur, like ensuring that they do as much as they say they are going to do on corruption issues."

Still, analysts suggested that Mexico's president-elect was wise to play up a safer theme.

"The way to change the narrative is not to say, 'Security is not as bad as it seems,' " said Christopher Wilson, a scholar at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. "The way to change the narrative is to talk about other things that are going well, and the economy is a good story now."

Still, Mexico is far from realizing the middle-class society envisioned nearly two decades ago when it signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Canada.

A recent World Bank report on the expanding middle class in Latin America noted that although an additional 17 percent of the Mexican population had entered the middle class since 2000, class mobility was still low. Almost 30 percent of Mexican workers toil in the informal economy, without any benefits or protection, for employers who pay no taxes.

Elisabeth Malkin reported from Querétaro, and Randal C. Archibold from Mexico City. Ginger Thompson contributed reporting from New York.

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A Roster's Rebirth: A Year After Plane Crash, Rebuilt Russian Hockey Team Wins Again

Smirnov Vladimir/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

Photographs of the players and coaches who died are displayed at the team's arena, where a memorial bell is rung before each game.

After an airplane crash killed 37 players, coaches and support staff members of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv hockey team on their way to its season-opening game last year, the organization decided not to play the Kontinental Hockey League season with members from its junior club. Instead, Lokomotiv would gradually rebuild with a mix of the prospects and more experienced European and North American players.

When it came time for Lokomotiv to return to the K.H.L., Russia's top league, the team turned to an unlikely candidate to take over as coach: Tom Rowe, an American and a former N.H.L. player.

A onetime Carolina Hurricanes assistant and American Hockey League head coach, Rowe faced the enormous task of leading a rebuilt franchise and trying to restore hope within Yaroslavl, a historic Russian city where hockey has united the community for decades.

"It is unlike anything that I've ever been through before, with the tragedy last year," said Rowe, 56, a Massachusetts native who was the first American-born N.H.L. player to score more than 30 goals in a season. "We don't talk about it too much, but we want to make the team that was here last year proud and continue the tradition that the organization has had since 1959. More than anything, the citizens of Yaroslavl have been incredible. It's not easy, but with their support it has been easier."

Under Rowe's leadership, Lokomotiv has quickly developed chemistry among a team of young Russians, accomplished Scandinavians and locked-out N.H.L. players. Goaltender Semyon Varlamov, who returned to his hometown club from the Colorado Avalanche two months ago, has been a catalyst, compiling a 7-2 record with three shutouts, a 1.63 goals-against average and a league-leading .951 save percentage.

Yaroslavl entered last weekend on a nine-game winning streak, but as Varlamov sat out with a minor injury, Lokomotiv lost to Lev Praha and HC Slovan Bratislava. Still, Lokomotiv is 22-7 and in third place in the Western Conference behind Alex Ovechkin's Dynamo Moscow and Ilya Kovalchuk's SKA St. Petersburg.

"I firmly believe that we're having the season we're having because of the guys last year," Rowe said, referring to those who died in the plane crash.

Yaroslavl, a city of about 600,000 that sits 160 miles northeast of Moscow, continues to mourn, with constant reminders of the lives lost when a failed takeoff resulted in the team plane's crashing into the bank of a Volga River tributary. At Arena 2000 in Yaroslavl, photographs of the players who died are prominently displayed. Before every home game, one of Yaroslavl's traditional bells, which the city has been known for producing since the 17th century, is lowered from above the ice and rung three times in memory of those who died. On the Yaroslavl jersey, a black ribbon inscribed with the date of the accident is yet another reminder.

Yaroslavl returned to the K.H.L. in a road game against Sibir Novosibirsk on Sept. 6, winning by 5-2 and drawing support from opposing fans that has continued.

"The first game that we played, against Sibir on the road, they were chanting 'Lokomotiv,' " defenseman Staffan Kronwall said. "I think all of us had chills during the national anthem, with the opponent's fans' singing our team's name."

The next day, on the anniversary of the plane crash, no league games were played. Memorials and vigils were held instead.

"At the start of the year, it was a little bit somber with the one-year anniversary," said defenseman Mark Flood, one of the team's two Canadians. "Since then, the fans have been incredible. It's a small community, and people come up to us on the street, just thanking us for having a team back. It's pretty neat, and we're all honored to be a part of it."

Rowe said it was still tough to get on the plane for road games.

"Leaving the airport, you think of the poor guys that were flying out that day," he said. "That goes through my mind every time when we're flying."

Honoring the legacy of the Yaroslavl hockey franchise has become a motivational theme for Rowe and his players. Lokomotiv has captured the Russian Super League title three times — in 1997, 2002 and 2003. The season before the plane crash, Yaroslavl was a K.H.L. conference finalist.

Varlamov is part of that legacy.

He moved to Yaroslavl in his early teens and is a product of the organization's rigorous development system. During the 2004-5 season, Varlamov made his debut on Lokomotiv's junior farm club, Lokomotiv-2. He rose to play for the elite team in 2006 and had a pivotal role in the club's run to the Russian Super League finals in 2008 before beginning his N.H.L. career with the Washington Capitals' organization the next season.

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Chinese News Site Cites Onion Piece on Kim Jong-un

BEIJING — How do you say satire in Mandarin?

Not known for its sense of humor, the Chinese Communist Party's official mouthpiece apparently fell for a parody by The Onion, the satirical newspaper and Web site, when it reported Tuesday in some online editions of People's Daily that Kim Jong-un, the young, chubby North Korean ruler, had been named the "Sexiest Man Alive for 2012."

Or did it?

The brief article, accompanied by a 55-photograph slide show, quoted from The Onion as evidence: "With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle and, of course, that famous smile."

The slide show revealed Mr. Kim in a variety of poses, like sitting atop a galloping white horse and greeting throngs of beaming North Korean soldiers.

The headline and slide show became a sensation on the Internet, and people wondered whether People's Daily had been duped by The Onion article, which appeared Nov. 14.

John Delury, a scholar of Chinese and Korean history at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, said, "If it's sincere, then it says something about the gullibility of a certain People's Daily editor."

There were signs that someone at People's Daily might have created the slide show with a subversive wink. The same day, the English-language edition of People's Daily Online ran a 15-photograph slide show under the headline " 'Sex Tape' Official at Work."

The tongue-in-cheek slide show referred to an official in Chongqing, Lei Zhengfu, who was humiliated last week when someone leaked a video online of Mr. Lei having sex with an 18-year-old mistress in 2007. The People's Daily slide show showed Mr. Lei doing his job as an official. Another slide show this month showed women at the 18th Party Congress under the headline "Beautiful Scenery."

The original Onion article, a parody of People magazine's annual "Sexiest Man Alive" feature, listed previous winners as Bashar al-Assad, Bernard L. Madoff and Theodore J. Kaczynski.

Will Tracy, its author, said in a telephone interview that he believed People's Daily and The Korea Times, which also picked up the story, did not realize the original was intended as a prank. He said he had thought the list of previous winners, filled with "renowned maniacs," was enough of a red flag.

Mr. Tracy added that The Onion had issued a formal statement. "We are pleased that one of our many fine Communist subsidiaries, the People's Daily in China, has received accolades for its coverage of our Sexiest Man Alive announcement," the statement said. "The People's Daily has served as one of The Onion's Far East bureaus for quite some time, and I believe their reportage as of late has been uncommonly fine, as well as politically astute."

People's Daily could not be reached for comment on Tuesday night.

The online version of People's Daily does not go through the same rigorous editing process as the print edition.

In 2002, Beijing Evening News ran an Onion article that said the United States Congress was considering leaving Washington to look for a new capitol building. In September, the Fars News Agency of Iran, which is semiofficial, published an Onion article that said a Gallup poll had found that more rural, white Americans would vote for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran than President Obama.

When Mr. Tracy was asked Tuesday whether he had any concerns that the misinterpretation of these articles could provoke international incidents, he said, "The Onion fully intends to provoke international incidents."

Christine Haughney contributed reporting from New York.

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Lieberman’s Retirement Is End of ‘Three Amigos’

WASHINGTON — For over a decade, the bipartisan trio of senators traveled the world together, from war-torn Iraq to security conferences in Germany to the remote kingdom of Bhutan. Their hawkish world views often placed them at odds with their respective parties, but together they secured a place at the center of every major foreign policy debate.

Lauren Victoria Burke/Associated Press

From left, Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joseph I. Lieberman in 2010. They have traveled the world together.

Now the senators — John McCain of Arizona, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a triumvirate of frequent fliers dubbed "the three amigos" by Gen. David H. Petraeus — are breaking up the band, as Mr. Lieberman retires in January.

For Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, the loss of Mr. Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent who is the chairman of the homeland security committee, goes beyond personal deprivation and could profoundly affect their ability to influence foreign policy. Though he frustrated many Democrats with his interventionist ideas, Mr. Lieberman gave Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, both Republicans, a veneer of bipartisanship that lent credibility to their policy goals.

An illustration of life without Mr. Lieberman surfaced recently when Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham, along with a new amiga, Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican freshman from New Hampshire, called for a special committee to investigate the deadly attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The push quickly fell flat, and Mr. McCain, who had harshly criticized Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, over the attack, appeared to retreat over the weekend from his original assertion that Ms. Rice was unqualified to be secretary of state.

"I think she deserves the ability and the opportunity to explain herself and her position," Mr. McCain said on "Fox News Sunday," adding, "She's not the problem."

On Tuesday, Ms. Rice plans to travel to Capitol Hill to meet with Mr. McCain, Mr. Graham and Ms. Ayotte on the Libya issue, according to Congressional and administration officials.

The question is whether the group, whose profile rose after the Sept. 11 attacks, will be able to maintain an influential voice without Mr. Lieberman or will become isolated on an island of partisan poking.

"I think it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to defend their positions," said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.

Even Mr. Lieberman seemed skeptical of a one-party band. "I think John McCain and Lindsey Graham will always be leaders on foreign policy," he said in an interview. "But their voices would be stronger if they are part of a bipartisan group."

Mr. Lieberman and Mr. McCain became friendly in the late 1980s when they joined the Senate. "I approached John on the floor and said, 'Hey, I'd like to work with you on some things,' " Mr. Lieberman said.

The two were united on issues like the Bosnian war and efforts to stabilize post-Soviet republics. Their travels began with an annual security conference in Munich, and they added other venues. "We felt if you're going to take a position on what is happening in the Balkans or Asia," Mr. Lieberman said of their dozens of trips, "you better go there and meet and talk to people."

When Mr. Graham was elected to the Senate in 2002, he joined the duo, whose militaristic foreign policy views suddenly had deeper resonance. "The 'amigo' dynamic really began to materialize after 9/11," Mr. Graham said in an interview. "Everything changed about American security threats then." (Mr. McCain declined to be interviewed for this article.)

The three men became even more powerful in 2007 as President George W. Bush pursued his "surge" strategy in Iraq. The Republicans had just lost the House and the Senate, in no small part because of the Iraq war, and both parties were highly skeptical of the president's decision to double down on troop levels in Iraq under General Petraeus. Mr. Lieberman's pressure on the Senate floor day after day helped prevent an earlier withdrawal sought by many Democrats.

13.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Japan Expands Its Regional Military Role

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Coast guard officials from a dozen Asian and African nations, at right, joined a training cruise around Tokyo Bay aboard a Japanese Coast Guard cutter.

TOKYO — After years of watching its international influence eroded by a slow-motion economic decline, the pacifist nation of Japan is trying to raise its profile in a new way, offering military aid for the first time in decades and displaying its own armed forces in an effort to build regional alliances and shore up other countries' defenses to counter a rising China.

Already this year, Japan crossed a little-noted threshold by providing its first military aid abroad since the end of World War II, approving a $2 million package for its military engineers to train troops in Cambodia and East Timor in disaster relief and skills like road building. Japanese warships have not only conducted joint exercises with a growing number of military forces in the Pacific and Asia, but they have also begun making regular port visits to countries long fearful of a resurgence of Japan's military.

And after stepping up civilian aid programs to train and equip the coast guards of other nations, Japanese defense officials and analysts say, Japan could soon reach another milestone: beginning sales in the region of military hardware like seaplanes, and perhaps eventually the stealthy diesel-powered submarines considered well suited to the shallow waters where China is making increasingly assertive territorial claims.

Taken together those steps, while modest, represent a significant shift for Japan, which had resisted repeated calls from the United States to become a true regional power for fear that doing so would move it too far from its postwar pacifism. The country's quiet resolve to edge past that reluctance and become more of a player comes as the United States and China are staking their own claims to power in Asia, and as jitters over China's ambitions appear to be softening bitterness toward Japan among some Southeast Asian countries trampled last century in its quest for colonial domination.

The driver for Japan's shifting national security strategy is its tense dispute with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that is feeding Japanese anxiety that the country's relative decline — and the financial struggles of its traditional protector, the United States — are leaving Japan increasingly vulnerable.

"During the cold war, all Japan had to do was follow the U.S.," said Keiro Kitagami, a special adviser on security issues to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. "With China, it's different. Japan has to take a stand on its own."

Japan's moves do not mean it might transform its military, which serves a purely defensive role, into an offensive force anytime soon. The public has resisted past efforts by some politicians to revamp Japan's pacifist constitution, and the nation's vast debt will limit how much military aid it can extend.

But it is also clear that attitudes in Japan are evolving as China continues its double-digit annual growth in military spending and asserts that it should be in charge of the islands that Japan claims, as well as vast swaths of the South China Sea that various Southeast Asian nations say are in their control.

Japanese leaders have met the Chinese challenge over the islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China with an uncharacteristic willingness to push back, and polls show the public increasingly agrees. Both major political parties are also talking openly about instituting a more flexible reading of the constitution that would allow Japan to come to the defense of allies — shooting down any North Korean missile headed for the United States, for instance — blurring the line between an offensive and defensive force.

The country's self-defense forces had already begun nosing over that line in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Japan backed the United States-led campaigns by deploying naval tankers to refuel warships in the Indian Ocean.

Japanese officials say their strategy is not to begin a race for influence with China, but to build up ties with other nations that share worries about their imposing neighbor. They acknowledge that even building the capacity of other nations' coast guards is a way of strengthening those countries' ability to stand up to any Chinese threat.

"We want to build our own coalition of the willing in Asia to prevent China from just running over us," said Yoshihide Soeya, director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Keio University in Tokyo.

Or, as the vice minister of defense, Akihisa Nagashima, said in an interview, "We cannot just allow Japan to go into quiet decline."

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