Sócrates, Brazilian Soccer Star and Activist, Dies at 57
RIO DE JANEIRO — Sócrates, the soccer great and medical doctor who transcended the sport through his involvement in Brazil’s pro-democracy movement and his outspoken defense of his own bohemian excesses, died on Sunday in São Paulo, Brazil. He was 57.
The cause was septic shock from an intestinal infection, according to a statement from Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, where he was admitted on Saturday.
Sócrates, the captain of Brazil’s team in the 1982 World Cup, had been hospitalized three times in the last four months. In recent interviews, he had described liver problems related to decades of heavy drinking, for which he was sometimes pilloried.
“This country drinks more cachaça than any other in the world, and it seems like I myself drink it all,” he once told an interviewer, referring to the popular Brazilian spirit made from fermented sugar cane. “They don’t want me to drink, smoke or think?”
“Well,” he said, “I drink, smoke and think.”
His exuberant style reflected an expansive and multifaceted career. In addition to playing soccer, he practiced medicine and dabbled in coaching and painting. He also wrote newspaper columns, delving into subjects as varied as politics and economics, and made forays into writing fiction and acting on the stage.
Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira was born on Feb. 19, 1954, in the Amazonian city of Belém do Pará, Brazil. His upbringing was more privileged than that of many Brazilian professional soccer players, who often rise from abject poverty.
Emerging in the 1970s as a promising young player in Ribeirão Preto, in the interior of São Paulo State, he studied medicine while playing for provincial teams before attaining his medical degree at 24. After that, he moved to Corinthians, the famous São Paulo club with a big following among Brazil’s poor.
Known to his fans as Doctor and Big Skinny, a reference to his spindly 6-foot-4-inch frame, Sócrates arrived at Corinthians at a time of intense political activity in São Paulo, a period when anger and resistance were coalescing against the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil.
Sócrates, in addition to organizing a movement advocating greater rights for Corinthians players, spoke at street protests in the 1980s calling for an end to authoritarian rule. That movement helped usher in a transition to democracy.
Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, praised Sócrates in a statement on Sunday.
“Dr. Sócrates was a star on the field and a great friend,” said Mr. da Silva, a Corinthians fan who is being treated for throat cancer at the hospital where Sócrates died. “He was an example of citizenship, intelligence and political consciousness.”
On the field, Sócrates was known as a wily strategist who could elegantly employ his signature move, a back-heel pass. At a time when many players maintained a clean-cut appearance, Sócrates had a beard and sometimes appeared with his long hair held back in a headband, like the tennis star Bjorn Borg.
Fans of Sócrates mention his name in the same breath as Brazilian soccer greats like Pelé, Ronaldo and Romário. But unlike those players, he was never part of a World Cup championship team.
The team he captained in 1982 was considered among the best to play the game, but it lost to Italy, 3-2, in the second round. In the 1986 World Cup, Sócrates missed a penalty kick in a quarterfinal loss to France.
Revered for his rebellious irreverence and his “heel of gold,” he deplored the way Brazilian soccer had evolved in recent years, criticizing the new playing styles as “bureaucratic” and “conservative.”
“Being sensible isn’t always the best thing,” Sócrates told The Guardian in 2010.
While Sócrates often defended his nonconformist style, he struggled publicly with his demons, too.
In televised comments this year, he described his struggle with alcoholism, leading to a broader debate in Brazil over the country’s drinking habits. As recently as August, he said that he had abstained from drinking “so that my liver can unite the conditions to be balanced.”
He is survived by his wife and six children, The Associated Press reported.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Derek Boogaard: Blood on the Ice
Derek Boogaard: Blood on the Ice
‘I DIDN’T SEE it coming at all. I was in a bad position and he hit me hard, hardest I’ve ever been hit. I instantly knew it was broken. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I went straight on the ice. And I felt where it was, and my hand didn’t rub my face normally. It was a little chunky and sharp in spots and there was a hole there about the size of a fist.” — TODD FEDORUK, former N.H.L. enforcer
The fist belonged to Derek Boogaard. Whenever he opened his right hand, the fingers were bent and the knuckles were fat and bloody with scar tissue, as if rescued a moment too late from a meat grinder. That hand was, until the end, what the family worried about most with Boogaard. How would he write when he got old?
When Boogaard closed his right hand, though, it was a weapon, the most feared in the N.H.L. The thought of Boogaard’s right fist kept rival enforcers awake at night. It made them alter their strategy and doubt their fighting acumen. And, in the case of Todd Fedoruk, that fist shattered his face and dropped him to the ice, all while officials and teammates watched, an arena full of hockey fans cheered and Boogaard’s Minnesota Wild teammates banged their sticks against the boards in appreciation.
No single punch announced the arrival of a heavyweight enforcer the way it did on Oct. 27, 2006. Fedoruk, 6 feet 2 and 235 pounds, had built a career as a nuisance and willing combatant. Trying to avenge a hit that the 6-8 Boogaard had laid on an Anaheim Ducks teammate, Fedoruk chased Boogaard down the ice. He baited him with tugs on his jersey.
Seven seconds after their gloves dropped, the damage was done. Surgeons inserted metal plates and a swath of mesh to rebuild the right side of Fedoruk’s face. His career was never the same.
Message sent. Players around the league took notice of the Boogeyman.
“I knew sooner or later he would get the better of me,” said Georges Laraque, long considered the toughest man in hockey. “And I just — I like my face, and I just didn’t want to have it broken.”
Boogaard was 24, in his second N.H.L. season. He was already established as a fan favorite in Minnesota and a man to avoid everywhere else in the dangerous, colorful and sometimes unhinged world of hockey enforcers.
“I never fought mad. Because it’s a job, right? I never took it personally. Lot of times when guys fight, you just ask the other guy politely. Because the job is hard enough. Why make it harder by having to insult anyone? We know what the job is.”
— GEORGES LARAQUE,
former N.H.L. enforcer
There has been fighting in hockey for about as long as there have been pucks. Early games, on frozen ponds and outdoor rinks, were often scrumlike affairs with little passing. Without strong rules, scores were settled with swinging sticks and flying fists.
The N.H.L., formed in 1917, considered a ban on fighting. It ultimately mandated that fighters be assessed a five-minute penalty. That interpretation of justice, now Rule 46.14, still stands. It has never been much of a deterrent.
The best way to protect top players from violent onslaughts, teams have long believed, is the threat of more violence, like having a missile in a silo. Teams employ on-ice bruisers, the equivalent of playground bodyguards. Hurt one of us, and we will send out someone bigger, tougher to exact revenge.
“Having another player in the bench that is willing to come over and willing to punch you is a good deterrent for other violence on the ice — as crazy as that sounds,” said Matt Shaw, an assistant coach for the N.H.L.’s San Jose Sharks.
Teams did not hesitate to promote the prospect of a ruckus. Fighting was not just necessary, they believed, but also part of hockey’s allure. Nearly half of N.H.L. games, 600 or more in a typical season, pause for a two-man brawl.
“I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out,” the comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to say. Everyone still gets the joke.
Imagine in football, if a linebacker hit a quarterback with what the quarterback’s team believed was too much force. The equivalent to hockey’s peculiar brand of justice would be if those teams each sent a player from the sideline — someone hardly valued for his skill as a player, perhaps rarely used — and had them interrupt the game to fight while teammates and officials stood back and watched.
In football, as in most sports, such conduct would end in ejections, fines and suspensions.
In hockey, it usually means five minutes in the penalty box and a spot in the postgame highlights.
Fighting is not tolerated in most hockey leagues around the world. It is not part of college hockey in the United States and Canada, nor international tournaments like the Olympics.
‘I DIDN’T SEE it coming at all. I was in a bad position and he hit me hard, hardest I’ve ever been hit. I instantly knew it was broken. I didn’t lose consciousness, but I went straight on the ice. And I felt where it was, and my hand didn’t rub my face normally. It was a little chunky and sharp in spots and there was a hole there about the size of a fist.” — TODD FEDORUK, former N.H.L. enforcer
The fist belonged to Derek Boogaard. Whenever he opened his right hand, the fingers were bent and the knuckles were fat and bloody with scar tissue, as if rescued a moment too late from a meat grinder. That hand was, until the end, what the family worried about most with Boogaard. How would he write when he got old?
When Boogaard closed his right hand, though, it was a weapon, the most feared in the N.H.L. The thought of Boogaard’s right fist kept rival enforcers awake at night. It made them alter their strategy and doubt their fighting acumen. And, in the case of Todd Fedoruk, that fist shattered his face and dropped him to the ice, all while officials and teammates watched, an arena full of hockey fans cheered and Boogaard’s Minnesota Wild teammates banged their sticks against the boards in appreciation.
No single punch announced the arrival of a heavyweight enforcer the way it did on Oct. 27, 2006. Fedoruk, 6 feet 2 and 235 pounds, had built a career as a nuisance and willing combatant. Trying to avenge a hit that the 6-8 Boogaard had laid on an Anaheim Ducks teammate, Fedoruk chased Boogaard down the ice. He baited him with tugs on his jersey.
Seven seconds after their gloves dropped, the damage was done. Surgeons inserted metal plates and a swath of mesh to rebuild the right side of Fedoruk’s face. His career was never the same.
Message sent. Players around the league took notice of the Boogeyman.
“I knew sooner or later he would get the better of me,” said Georges Laraque, long considered the toughest man in hockey. “And I just — I like my face, and I just didn’t want to have it broken.”
Boogaard was 24, in his second N.H.L. season. He was already established as a fan favorite in Minnesota and a man to avoid everywhere else in the dangerous, colorful and sometimes unhinged world of hockey enforcers.
“I never fought mad. Because it’s a job, right? I never took it personally. Lot of times when guys fight, you just ask the other guy politely. Because the job is hard enough. Why make it harder by having to insult anyone? We know what the job is.”
— GEORGES LARAQUE,
former N.H.L. enforcer
There has been fighting in hockey for about as long as there have been pucks. Early games, on frozen ponds and outdoor rinks, were often scrumlike affairs with little passing. Without strong rules, scores were settled with swinging sticks and flying fists.
The N.H.L., formed in 1917, considered a ban on fighting. It ultimately mandated that fighters be assessed a five-minute penalty. That interpretation of justice, now Rule 46.14, still stands. It has never been much of a deterrent.
The best way to protect top players from violent onslaughts, teams have long believed, is the threat of more violence, like having a missile in a silo. Teams employ on-ice bruisers, the equivalent of playground bodyguards. Hurt one of us, and we will send out someone bigger, tougher to exact revenge.
“Having another player in the bench that is willing to come over and willing to punch you is a good deterrent for other violence on the ice — as crazy as that sounds,” said Matt Shaw, an assistant coach for the N.H.L.’s San Jose Sharks.
Teams did not hesitate to promote the prospect of a ruckus. Fighting was not just necessary, they believed, but also part of hockey’s allure. Nearly half of N.H.L. games, 600 or more in a typical season, pause for a two-man brawl.
“I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out,” the comedian Rodney Dangerfield used to say. Everyone still gets the joke.
Imagine in football, if a linebacker hit a quarterback with what the quarterback’s team believed was too much force. The equivalent to hockey’s peculiar brand of justice would be if those teams each sent a player from the sideline — someone hardly valued for his skill as a player, perhaps rarely used — and had them interrupt the game to fight while teammates and officials stood back and watched.
In football, as in most sports, such conduct would end in ejections, fines and suspensions.
In hockey, it usually means five minutes in the penalty box and a spot in the postgame highlights.
Fighting is not tolerated in most hockey leagues around the world. It is not part of college hockey in the United States and Canada, nor international tournaments like the Olympics.
Anti-Abortion Groups Are Split on Legal Tactics
Anti-Abortion Groups Are Split on Legal Tactics
A widening and emotional rift over legal tactics has split the anti-abortion movement, with its longtime leaders facing a Tea Party-like insurrection from many grass-roots activists who are impatient with the pace of change.
For decades, established anti-abortion leaders like National Right to Life and Catholic bishops have pushed for gradually chipping away at the edges of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, with state laws to impose limits on late-term abortions, to require women to view sonograms or to prohibit insurance coverage for the procedure.
But now many activists and evangelical Christian groups are pressing for an all-out legal assault on Roe. v. Wade in the hope — others call it a reckless dream — that the Supreme Court is ready to consider a radical change in the ruling.
The rift widened last month over a so-called personhood amendment in Mississippi that would have barred virtually all abortions by giving legal rights to embryos. It was voted down but is still being pursued in several states.
Now, in Ohio, a bill before the state legislature that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, usually six to eight weeks into pregnancy, is the latest effort by activists to force a legal showdown. The so-called heartbeat bill is tearing apart the state’s powerful anti-abortion forces.
Ohio Right to Life, which has been the premier lobby, and the state Catholic conference have refused to support the measure, arguing that the court is not ready for such a radical step and that it could cause a legal setback. But the idea has stirred the passions of some traditional leaders, even winning the endorsement of Dr. John C. Willke of Cincinnati, the former president of National Right to Life and one of the founders of the modern anti-abortion movement.
“I was Mr. Incremental,” Dr. Willke, 87, said of his career promoting the more modest restrictions. “But after nearly 40 years of abortion on demand, it’s time to take a bold step forward.”
Dr. Willke, who in 1971 created what became Ohio Right to Life, called his onetime organization out of touch with the “unrestrained enthusiasm” that the heartbeat bill has unleashed and that he said is emerging in many other states.
Mark S. Gietzen, director of the Kansas Coalition for Life, called the bill “the most exciting thing that has happened in the pro-life movement since Roe v. Wade,” adding that a heartbeat bill modeled on Ohio’s would be introduced when the Kansas Legislature convenes in January.
Defenders of abortion rights, in turn, call banning abortions at the first sign of a heartbeat a patently unconstitutional proposal that is doomed to failure.
The refusal of Ohio Right to Life to get behind the heartbeat proposal has led to bitter dissent. In the last two weeks, six county chapters have angrily withdrawn from the organization including, on Thursday, the Cincinnati chapter, the state’s oldest and largest.
“Step-by-step measures haven’t stopped the killing,” said Linda J. Theis, president of Ohio ProLife Action, a new group that was formed in October to press for the heartbeat bill, and that has absorbed the breakaway chapters. “It’s hard to be against a bill that says that once a baby’s heart is beating, you shouldn’t take his life.”
The bill is awaiting action in the heavily Republican Senate. If it passes, which some expect to happen this winter, Gov. John R. Kasich, a conservative Republican, seems likely to sign it.
Officially, National Right to Life, the umbrella group for state chapters, has taken no position on the heartbeat bill or on the fracturing of the movement. The national spokesman, Derrick Jones, said, “This isn’t really something we want to get into.”
James Bopp Jr., a lawyer in Indiana who is general counsel to National Right to Life but did not speak for the organization, condemned both the personhood and the heartbeat proposals as futile and likely to backfire. But he played down the current split.
“There has always been a division between those who want to concentrate on what will make a difference, and those who are more interested in making a statement that makes them feel better,” he said.
The heartbeat bill, if not as sweeping as personhood, has a more visceral public appeal, its promoters argue, and avoids some of the pitfalls of the personhood proposal, posing no threat to contraception or critical medical care. In theory, the law would prevent a large majority of abortions, perhaps 80 to 90 percent, by Dr. Willke’s calculation. Doctors who perform abortions in violation would be subject to a felony charge, fines and loss of their medical license, but the women would not face charges. The bill would allow an abortion if a woman’s life or a major bodily function were in danger. Abortions for victims of rape or incest would not be allowed.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court established a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, currently around 24 weeks into pregnancy. Proponents of the heartbeat bill acknowledge that federal courts would be obliged to declare it unconstitutional. Their hope is that the Supreme Court would take it on and that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who would likely provide the swing vote, is open to rethinking Roe.
A widening and emotional rift over legal tactics has split the anti-abortion movement, with its longtime leaders facing a Tea Party-like insurrection from many grass-roots activists who are impatient with the pace of change.
For decades, established anti-abortion leaders like National Right to Life and Catholic bishops have pushed for gradually chipping away at the edges of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, with state laws to impose limits on late-term abortions, to require women to view sonograms or to prohibit insurance coverage for the procedure.
But now many activists and evangelical Christian groups are pressing for an all-out legal assault on Roe. v. Wade in the hope — others call it a reckless dream — that the Supreme Court is ready to consider a radical change in the ruling.
The rift widened last month over a so-called personhood amendment in Mississippi that would have barred virtually all abortions by giving legal rights to embryos. It was voted down but is still being pursued in several states.
Now, in Ohio, a bill before the state legislature that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, usually six to eight weeks into pregnancy, is the latest effort by activists to force a legal showdown. The so-called heartbeat bill is tearing apart the state’s powerful anti-abortion forces.
Ohio Right to Life, which has been the premier lobby, and the state Catholic conference have refused to support the measure, arguing that the court is not ready for such a radical step and that it could cause a legal setback. But the idea has stirred the passions of some traditional leaders, even winning the endorsement of Dr. John C. Willke of Cincinnati, the former president of National Right to Life and one of the founders of the modern anti-abortion movement.
“I was Mr. Incremental,” Dr. Willke, 87, said of his career promoting the more modest restrictions. “But after nearly 40 years of abortion on demand, it’s time to take a bold step forward.”
Dr. Willke, who in 1971 created what became Ohio Right to Life, called his onetime organization out of touch with the “unrestrained enthusiasm” that the heartbeat bill has unleashed and that he said is emerging in many other states.
Mark S. Gietzen, director of the Kansas Coalition for Life, called the bill “the most exciting thing that has happened in the pro-life movement since Roe v. Wade,” adding that a heartbeat bill modeled on Ohio’s would be introduced when the Kansas Legislature convenes in January.
Defenders of abortion rights, in turn, call banning abortions at the first sign of a heartbeat a patently unconstitutional proposal that is doomed to failure.
The refusal of Ohio Right to Life to get behind the heartbeat proposal has led to bitter dissent. In the last two weeks, six county chapters have angrily withdrawn from the organization including, on Thursday, the Cincinnati chapter, the state’s oldest and largest.
“Step-by-step measures haven’t stopped the killing,” said Linda J. Theis, president of Ohio ProLife Action, a new group that was formed in October to press for the heartbeat bill, and that has absorbed the breakaway chapters. “It’s hard to be against a bill that says that once a baby’s heart is beating, you shouldn’t take his life.”
The bill is awaiting action in the heavily Republican Senate. If it passes, which some expect to happen this winter, Gov. John R. Kasich, a conservative Republican, seems likely to sign it.
Officially, National Right to Life, the umbrella group for state chapters, has taken no position on the heartbeat bill or on the fracturing of the movement. The national spokesman, Derrick Jones, said, “This isn’t really something we want to get into.”
James Bopp Jr., a lawyer in Indiana who is general counsel to National Right to Life but did not speak for the organization, condemned both the personhood and the heartbeat proposals as futile and likely to backfire. But he played down the current split.
“There has always been a division between those who want to concentrate on what will make a difference, and those who are more interested in making a statement that makes them feel better,” he said.
The heartbeat bill, if not as sweeping as personhood, has a more visceral public appeal, its promoters argue, and avoids some of the pitfalls of the personhood proposal, posing no threat to contraception or critical medical care. In theory, the law would prevent a large majority of abortions, perhaps 80 to 90 percent, by Dr. Willke’s calculation. Doctors who perform abortions in violation would be subject to a felony charge, fines and loss of their medical license, but the women would not face charges. The bill would allow an abortion if a woman’s life or a major bodily function were in danger. Abortions for victims of rape or incest would not be allowed.
In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court established a right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, currently around 24 weeks into pregnancy. Proponents of the heartbeat bill acknowledge that federal courts would be obliged to declare it unconstitutional. Their hope is that the Supreme Court would take it on and that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who would likely provide the swing vote, is open to rethinking Roe.
Leaders Piece Together an Effort to Keep the Euro Intact
Leaders Piece Together an Effort to Keep the Euro Intact
PARIS — European leaders are working overtime on a tentative deal to try to save the euro, which they hope to complete at a crucial summit meeting in Brussels this week. But rather than one transformative leap, the deal will have several moving parts, together meant to show resolve to protect Italy and Spain, revise the economic governance of the euro zone and prevent further debt crises, officials involved in the talks say.
Important disagreements persist, and the two primary leaders of the euro zone, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will meet on Monday in Paris to try to hammer out a joint proposal for the summit meeting. That gathering begins on Thursday evening, and is considered a last chance this year to set the euro right, even as some investors and analysts are beginning to predict its collapse.
“The survival of the euro zone is in play,” one senior European official said. “So far it’s been too little, too late.”
The emerging solution is being negotiated under great pressure from the markets, the banks, the voters and the Obama administration, which wants an end to the uncertainty about the euro that is dragging down the global economy.
In the process, European leaders will begin to change the fundamental structure of the union, creating a form of centralized oversight of national budgets, with sanctions for the profligate, to reassure investors that this kind of sovereign-debt crisis is finally being managed and should not happen again.
The immediate focus of worry is on Italy and Spain, which have been buffeted by market speculation even as they move to fix their economies. That process took an important step on Sunday, as Italy’s cabinet agreed to a package of austerity measures to put the country in line for aid that would improve its financial stability.
The new euro package, as European and American officials describe it, is being negotiated along four main lines. It combines new promises of fiscal discipline that will be embedded in amendments to European treaties; a leveraging of the current bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to perhaps two or even three times its current balance; a tranche of money from the International Monetary Fund to augment the bailout fund; and quiet political cover for the European Central Bank to keep buying Italian and Spanish bonds aggressively in the interim, to ensure that those two countries — the third- and fourth-largest economies in the euro zone — are not driven into default by ruinous interest rates on their debt.
After consecutive, expensive failures to stabilize the markets and protect the euro, the broad plan emerging this week may have a better chance at succeeding, analysts say, in part because it weaves together measures that deal with the various issues of the euro, particularly the provision of a central authority that can monitor and override national budget decisions if they break the rules.
Still, even if all the parts are agreed upon in the meetings, which are bound to be fraught, the fundamental imbalances in the euro zone between north and south and between surplus countries and debtor ones will not go away. The euro will still be a single currency for 17 disparate nations in the European Union.
One dividing line is that the Germans, along with the Dutch and the Finns, remain adamantly opposed to what some consider the simplest solution: allowing the European Central Bank to become the euro zone’s lender of last resort and to buy sovereign bonds on the primary market, in unlimited amounts. Mrs. Merkel is also dead-set for now against collective debt instruments, like “eurobonds,” that would put taxpayers, particularly German ones, on the hook for the debt of others, which her government regards as illegal.
So Mr. Sarkozy and other European leaders are working on a less elegant and more phased way to create a pool of bailout money that is large enough to convince the markets there is little chance of a default on Italian and Spanish bonds, which should drive down rates to sustainable levels, European and American officials say.
Mrs. Merkel says it is time to get the euro’s fundamentals right. She is insisting on treaty changes to promote more fiscal discipline, including a limit on budget deficits, with outside supervision and surveillance of national budgets before they become dangerous, and clear sanctions for countries that fail to adhere to the firmer rules. Berlin wants the new standards backed up by the European Court of Justice or perhaps the European Commission, with the power to reject budgets that break the rules and return them for revision.
She would like the treaty changes to be accepted by all 27 members of the European Union, but failing that, she said she would accept treaty changes within the euro zone, with other countries who want to join in the future, like Poland, free to commit to the tougher rules now. Many countries, and not only Britain, are opposed to institutionalizing a two- or even three-tier European Union, fearing that their interests will be sacrificed and their voices diminished.
PARIS — European leaders are working overtime on a tentative deal to try to save the euro, which they hope to complete at a crucial summit meeting in Brussels this week. But rather than one transformative leap, the deal will have several moving parts, together meant to show resolve to protect Italy and Spain, revise the economic governance of the euro zone and prevent further debt crises, officials involved in the talks say.
Important disagreements persist, and the two primary leaders of the euro zone, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will meet on Monday in Paris to try to hammer out a joint proposal for the summit meeting. That gathering begins on Thursday evening, and is considered a last chance this year to set the euro right, even as some investors and analysts are beginning to predict its collapse.
“The survival of the euro zone is in play,” one senior European official said. “So far it’s been too little, too late.”
The emerging solution is being negotiated under great pressure from the markets, the banks, the voters and the Obama administration, which wants an end to the uncertainty about the euro that is dragging down the global economy.
In the process, European leaders will begin to change the fundamental structure of the union, creating a form of centralized oversight of national budgets, with sanctions for the profligate, to reassure investors that this kind of sovereign-debt crisis is finally being managed and should not happen again.
The immediate focus of worry is on Italy and Spain, which have been buffeted by market speculation even as they move to fix their economies. That process took an important step on Sunday, as Italy’s cabinet agreed to a package of austerity measures to put the country in line for aid that would improve its financial stability.
The new euro package, as European and American officials describe it, is being negotiated along four main lines. It combines new promises of fiscal discipline that will be embedded in amendments to European treaties; a leveraging of the current bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to perhaps two or even three times its current balance; a tranche of money from the International Monetary Fund to augment the bailout fund; and quiet political cover for the European Central Bank to keep buying Italian and Spanish bonds aggressively in the interim, to ensure that those two countries — the third- and fourth-largest economies in the euro zone — are not driven into default by ruinous interest rates on their debt.
After consecutive, expensive failures to stabilize the markets and protect the euro, the broad plan emerging this week may have a better chance at succeeding, analysts say, in part because it weaves together measures that deal with the various issues of the euro, particularly the provision of a central authority that can monitor and override national budget decisions if they break the rules.
Still, even if all the parts are agreed upon in the meetings, which are bound to be fraught, the fundamental imbalances in the euro zone between north and south and between surplus countries and debtor ones will not go away. The euro will still be a single currency for 17 disparate nations in the European Union.
One dividing line is that the Germans, along with the Dutch and the Finns, remain adamantly opposed to what some consider the simplest solution: allowing the European Central Bank to become the euro zone’s lender of last resort and to buy sovereign bonds on the primary market, in unlimited amounts. Mrs. Merkel is also dead-set for now against collective debt instruments, like “eurobonds,” that would put taxpayers, particularly German ones, on the hook for the debt of others, which her government regards as illegal.
So Mr. Sarkozy and other European leaders are working on a less elegant and more phased way to create a pool of bailout money that is large enough to convince the markets there is little chance of a default on Italian and Spanish bonds, which should drive down rates to sustainable levels, European and American officials say.
Mrs. Merkel says it is time to get the euro’s fundamentals right. She is insisting on treaty changes to promote more fiscal discipline, including a limit on budget deficits, with outside supervision and surveillance of national budgets before they become dangerous, and clear sanctions for countries that fail to adhere to the firmer rules. Berlin wants the new standards backed up by the European Court of Justice or perhaps the European Commission, with the power to reject budgets that break the rules and return them for revision.
She would like the treaty changes to be accepted by all 27 members of the European Union, but failing that, she said she would accept treaty changes within the euro zone, with other countries who want to join in the future, like Poland, free to commit to the tougher rules now. Many countries, and not only Britain, are opposed to institutionalizing a two- or even three-tier European Union, fearing that their interests will be sacrificed and their voices diminished.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Income Taxes for Wealthy May Increase in Albany Deal
Income Taxes for Wealthy May Increase in Albany Deal
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders, seeking ways to shore up a state budget strained by the weak economy, are ironing out the details of a deal that would raise income taxes on the wealthy and cut them for the middle class.
Top aides to the officeholders planned to meet through the weekend, as New York State lawmakers prepared to return to Albany next week for a special session of the Legislature that the governor appeared likely to call.
Members of the Democratic majority in the State Assembly were notified that they should be ready to return to the capital on Tuesday. Negotiations were still in the preliminary stages on Friday, and rank-and-file lawmakers had not yet been briefed on the discussions. But several people who were briefed said it was possible that a deal could be reached within days.
As of Friday, Mr. Cuomo and the legislative leaders had not yet agreed on the specifics of any agreement. But people briefed on their talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private, said the leaders were discussing the creation of new tax brackets that would allow them to apply higher tax rates to the state’s top earners. The new brackets are likely to be temporary; their duration was still unclear on Friday.
Any deal that includes a tax increase would be a shift in Mr. Cuomo’s position. He ran for governor last year on a platform of opposing all tax increases, and he has refused pleas from fellow Democrats to support extending the state’s so-called millionaires’ tax past its scheduled expiration on Dec. 31.
But with the Occupy Wall Street movement drawing more attention to the issue of economic inequality and with the faltering economy widening next year’s projected state budget gap to as much as $3.5 billion, Mr. Cuomo refused for the first time this week to rule out seeking any increase in taxes in the coming year, and in recent weeks he has repeatedly expressed a desire to bring more “fairness” to the tax code.
The leaders were discussing establishing one or more new tax rates for the highest-earning New Yorkers, which would still be lower than their rate this year, when there is a temporary surcharge in place, but higher than it would have been if the surcharge were allowed to end. New rates could go into effect at the start of next year.
A portion of the revenue generated from high-income residents would be used to lower the tax rate for middle-income ones, which could make it easier for Mr. Cuomo to sell the deal to Republicans who have opposed tax increases.
“You have to give them the ability to say, ‘This was not a tax increase; this was a tax cut,’ ” one person briefed on the discussions said.
As is often the case with Albany deal-making, it remained possible that the negotiations would fall apart and that the governor would seek changes to the tax code in next year’s regular legislative session, which begins next month.
One major unresolved issue was how much extra revenue the state would seek to raise from the tax changes, which in turn would determine the tax rate for the new high-income tax brackets and the cut for middle-class earners.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to comment on Friday. Michael Whyland, a spokesman for the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said that Assembly Democrats were “committed to working with the governor to bring fairness to our tax code.” Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, said, “Our members believe that the governor’s economic program deserves a fair hearing, especially if he’s talking about Senate Republican priorities like cutting taxes and creating private sector jobs.”
Several Senate Republicans said this week that they were open to revising the tax brackets, but many are leery of any form of tax increase.
State Senator Carl L. Marcellino, a Long Island Republican, said he believed lawmakers should “seek out every other possibility that we can to reduce spending,” instead of raising taxes.
“If we raise taxes on the people who own businesses and who provide the jobs, more of them will leave,” Mr. Marcellino said.
Democrats are embracing the idea of a more-progressive state tax code. The Senate Democratic leader, John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, urged Mr. Cuomo on Friday to call the Legislature back.
“The state’s deficit has gotten worse, which demands immediate and dramatic action,” Mr. Sampson said.
Danny Hakim contributed reporting.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders, seeking ways to shore up a state budget strained by the weak economy, are ironing out the details of a deal that would raise income taxes on the wealthy and cut them for the middle class.
Top aides to the officeholders planned to meet through the weekend, as New York State lawmakers prepared to return to Albany next week for a special session of the Legislature that the governor appeared likely to call.
Members of the Democratic majority in the State Assembly were notified that they should be ready to return to the capital on Tuesday. Negotiations were still in the preliminary stages on Friday, and rank-and-file lawmakers had not yet been briefed on the discussions. But several people who were briefed said it was possible that a deal could be reached within days.
As of Friday, Mr. Cuomo and the legislative leaders had not yet agreed on the specifics of any agreement. But people briefed on their talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private, said the leaders were discussing the creation of new tax brackets that would allow them to apply higher tax rates to the state’s top earners. The new brackets are likely to be temporary; their duration was still unclear on Friday.
Any deal that includes a tax increase would be a shift in Mr. Cuomo’s position. He ran for governor last year on a platform of opposing all tax increases, and he has refused pleas from fellow Democrats to support extending the state’s so-called millionaires’ tax past its scheduled expiration on Dec. 31.
But with the Occupy Wall Street movement drawing more attention to the issue of economic inequality and with the faltering economy widening next year’s projected state budget gap to as much as $3.5 billion, Mr. Cuomo refused for the first time this week to rule out seeking any increase in taxes in the coming year, and in recent weeks he has repeatedly expressed a desire to bring more “fairness” to the tax code.
The leaders were discussing establishing one or more new tax rates for the highest-earning New Yorkers, which would still be lower than their rate this year, when there is a temporary surcharge in place, but higher than it would have been if the surcharge were allowed to end. New rates could go into effect at the start of next year.
A portion of the revenue generated from high-income residents would be used to lower the tax rate for middle-income ones, which could make it easier for Mr. Cuomo to sell the deal to Republicans who have opposed tax increases.
“You have to give them the ability to say, ‘This was not a tax increase; this was a tax cut,’ ” one person briefed on the discussions said.
As is often the case with Albany deal-making, it remained possible that the negotiations would fall apart and that the governor would seek changes to the tax code in next year’s regular legislative session, which begins next month.
One major unresolved issue was how much extra revenue the state would seek to raise from the tax changes, which in turn would determine the tax rate for the new high-income tax brackets and the cut for middle-class earners.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to comment on Friday. Michael Whyland, a spokesman for the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, said that Assembly Democrats were “committed to working with the governor to bring fairness to our tax code.” Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, said, “Our members believe that the governor’s economic program deserves a fair hearing, especially if he’s talking about Senate Republican priorities like cutting taxes and creating private sector jobs.”
Several Senate Republicans said this week that they were open to revising the tax brackets, but many are leery of any form of tax increase.
State Senator Carl L. Marcellino, a Long Island Republican, said he believed lawmakers should “seek out every other possibility that we can to reduce spending,” instead of raising taxes.
“If we raise taxes on the people who own businesses and who provide the jobs, more of them will leave,” Mr. Marcellino said.
Democrats are embracing the idea of a more-progressive state tax code. The Senate Democratic leader, John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, urged Mr. Cuomo on Friday to call the Legislature back.
“The state’s deficit has gotten worse, which demands immediate and dramatic action,” Mr. Sampson said.
Danny Hakim contributed reporting.
Police Officers Find That Dissent on Drug Laws May Come With a Price
Police Officers Find That Dissent on Drug Laws May Come With a Price
PHOENIX — Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers one moment and sit around in boredom the next. It was during one of the lulls that Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent, made some comments to a colleague that cost him his career.
Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.
Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”
After his dismissal, Mr. Gonzalez joined a group even more exclusive than the Border Patrol: law enforcement officials who have lost their jobs for questioning the war on drugs and are fighting back in the courts.
In Arizona, Joe Miller, a probation officer in Mohave County, near the California border, filed suit last month in Federal District Court after he was dismissed for adding his name to a letter by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is based in Medford, Mass., and known as LEAP, expressing support for the decriminalization of marijuana.
“More and more members of the law enforcement community are speaking out against failed drug policies, and they don’t give up their right to share their insight and engage in this important debate simply because they receive government paychecks,” said Daniel Pochoda, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is handling the Miller case.
Mr. Miller was one of 32 members of LEAP who signed the letter, which expressed support for a California ballot measure that failed last year that would have permitted recreational marijuana use. Most of the signers were retired members of law enforcement agencies, who can speak their minds without fear of action by their bosses. But Mr. Miller and a handful of others who were still on the job — including the district attorney for Humboldt County in California and the Oakland city attorney — signed, too.
LEAP has seen its membership increase significantly from the time it was founded in 2002 by five disillusioned officers. It now has an e-mail list of 48,000, and its members include 145 judges, prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and other law enforcement officials, most of them retired, who speak on the group’s behalf.
“No one wants to be fired and have to fight for their job in court,” said Neill Franklin, a retired police officer who is LEAP’s executive director. “So most officers are reluctant to sign on board. But we do have some brave souls.”
Mr. Miller was accused of not making clear that he was speaking for himself and not the probation department while advocating the decriminalization of cannabis. His lawsuit, though, points out that the letter he signed said at the bottom, “All agency affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.”
He was also accused of dishonesty for denying that he had given approval for his name to appear on the LEAP letter. In the lawsuit, Mr. Miller said that his wife had given approval without his knowledge, using his e-mail address, but that he had later supported her.
Kip Anderson, the court administrator for the Superior Court in Mohave County, said there was no desire to limit Mr. Miller’s political views.
“This isn’t about legalization,” Mr. Anderson said. “We’re not taking a stand on that. We just didn’t want people to think he was speaking on behalf of the probation department.”
Mr. Miller, who is also a retired police officer and Marine, lost an appeal of his dismissal before a hearing officer. But when his application for unemployment benefits was turned down, he appealed that and won. An administrative law judge found that Mr. Miller had not been dishonest with his bosses and that the disclaimer on the letter was sufficient.
In the case of Mr. Gonzalez, the fired Border Patrol agent, he had not joined LEAP but had expressed sympathy with the group’s cause. “It didn’t make sense to me why marijuana is illegal,” he said. “To see that thousands of people are dying, some of whom I know, makes you want to look for a change.”
PHOENIX — Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers one moment and sit around in boredom the next. It was during one of the lulls that Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent, made some comments to a colleague that cost him his career.
Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.
Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”
After his dismissal, Mr. Gonzalez joined a group even more exclusive than the Border Patrol: law enforcement officials who have lost their jobs for questioning the war on drugs and are fighting back in the courts.
In Arizona, Joe Miller, a probation officer in Mohave County, near the California border, filed suit last month in Federal District Court after he was dismissed for adding his name to a letter by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is based in Medford, Mass., and known as LEAP, expressing support for the decriminalization of marijuana.
“More and more members of the law enforcement community are speaking out against failed drug policies, and they don’t give up their right to share their insight and engage in this important debate simply because they receive government paychecks,” said Daniel Pochoda, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is handling the Miller case.
Mr. Miller was one of 32 members of LEAP who signed the letter, which expressed support for a California ballot measure that failed last year that would have permitted recreational marijuana use. Most of the signers were retired members of law enforcement agencies, who can speak their minds without fear of action by their bosses. But Mr. Miller and a handful of others who were still on the job — including the district attorney for Humboldt County in California and the Oakland city attorney — signed, too.
LEAP has seen its membership increase significantly from the time it was founded in 2002 by five disillusioned officers. It now has an e-mail list of 48,000, and its members include 145 judges, prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and other law enforcement officials, most of them retired, who speak on the group’s behalf.
“No one wants to be fired and have to fight for their job in court,” said Neill Franklin, a retired police officer who is LEAP’s executive director. “So most officers are reluctant to sign on board. But we do have some brave souls.”
Mr. Miller was accused of not making clear that he was speaking for himself and not the probation department while advocating the decriminalization of cannabis. His lawsuit, though, points out that the letter he signed said at the bottom, “All agency affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.”
He was also accused of dishonesty for denying that he had given approval for his name to appear on the LEAP letter. In the lawsuit, Mr. Miller said that his wife had given approval without his knowledge, using his e-mail address, but that he had later supported her.
Kip Anderson, the court administrator for the Superior Court in Mohave County, said there was no desire to limit Mr. Miller’s political views.
“This isn’t about legalization,” Mr. Anderson said. “We’re not taking a stand on that. We just didn’t want people to think he was speaking on behalf of the probation department.”
Mr. Miller, who is also a retired police officer and Marine, lost an appeal of his dismissal before a hearing officer. But when his application for unemployment benefits was turned down, he appealed that and won. An administrative law judge found that Mr. Miller had not been dishonest with his bosses and that the disclaimer on the letter was sufficient.
In the case of Mr. Gonzalez, the fired Border Patrol agent, he had not joined LEAP but had expressed sympathy with the group’s cause. “It didn’t make sense to me why marijuana is illegal,” he said. “To see that thousands of people are dying, some of whom I know, makes you want to look for a change.”
Syrians Say They Are Feeling the Grip of Sanctions
Syrians Say They Are Feeling the Grip of Sanctions
DAMASCUS, Syria — The walls are suddenly closing in around enterprising young Syrians who bought into the idea of a modernized economy promised by President Bashar al-Assad — their simplest money transfers are blocked, and their credit cards are useless outside Syria as the growing list of international sanctions darkens their financial future.
The owner of a handicrafts business who this week tried to transfer $450 to the Lebanese bank account of one of her suppliers found the transaction rejected because it originated in Syria. She had to hand-deliver the cash instead. Then a client, an investor for whom she is designing furniture for a new Abu Dhabi hotel, asked her to export whatever was completed immediately, lest the entire shipment get stuck.
“This is not the solution” to end the crisis in Syria, said the woman, pulling her fashionable black wool coat tighter against the sudden winter chill hitting this superficially calm but beleaguered capital. “This is a way to make us starve to punish the president.”
Nearly nine months after a sustained popular uprising erupted against the Assad government, Syria finds itself increasingly isolated, with even onetime allies condemning its use of lethal force. Turkey, the Arab League, the European Union and the United States have all imposed economic sanctions.
The measures are already biting, in ways evident to a reporter during a brief, rare visit allowed by the government, which was seeking to draw attention to its claim that the Arab League sanctions in particular amounted to an “economic war” against Syria.
The crucial question for Mr. Assad, the international community and the tens of thousands who rose up against the government, is whether such financial pain will induce the leadership to halt the violent suppression of antigovernment protests.
The sanctions are already unraveling the most significant change of Mr. Assad’s tenure: linking Syria to the global economy, allowing private banks and opening economic opportunity for young people in nation where about three-quarters of the population is under the age of 35.
Optimists think the pressure could work, largely because the biggest tycoons are close to the president, especially his cousin, Rami Makhlouf, and some dozen sons of his father’s closest allies. (Mr. Makhlouf gobbled up so many state enterprises put up for sale that Syrians wryly dubbed the privatization process “Ramification.”)
Pessimists worry that the government, including the scions of the old guard, will let the economy sink further to cling to power.
“Up until the last minute, I did not believe the Arab League would take such a decision,” said Mohammed Ghassan al-Qallaa, the president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, his office filled with Assad paraphernalia, including a small gold bust of Mr. Assad’s father, former President Hafez al-Assad. “It was like a poke in the eye.”
Good statistics remain a rarity here. But trade and investment activity is already off by 50 percent, financial analysts in Damascus said, and estimates on how much the economy will shrink this year range from 12 to 20 percent. The higher estimates kick in if sanctions — like a flight ban still being debated by the Arab League — are toughened.
Layoffs are rampant, with unemployment estimated to have risen to 22 percent. The tourism sector, which amassed about $6 billion in 2010, a boom year, has been decimated.
Hotel managers report occupancy rates of 15 percent or lower, if they will divulge them at all, and numerous restaurants have gone broke. Financial analysts said the luxury Four Seasons chain tried to close its once-booming Damascus hotel, an effort rejected by the government, which owns an estimated 50 percent share.
Sven Wiedenhaupt, the hotel’s general manager, refused to divulge his occupancy figures or how many staff members had been laid off. But he silently cast his head first left, then right to emphasize the absence of anyone in the cavernous, distinctly chilly lobby. “We are still keeping the lights on and trying to remain cutting edge,” Mr. Wiedenhaupt said.
At one hotel in the northern city of Aleppo, the appearance of two German tourists proved so startling that the entire staff, from the manager to the chambermaids, rushed to pose for pictures with them. “It was like they had arrived from another planet,” said a Syrian woman who witnessed the scene and, like others interviewed, requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
DAMASCUS, Syria — The walls are suddenly closing in around enterprising young Syrians who bought into the idea of a modernized economy promised by President Bashar al-Assad — their simplest money transfers are blocked, and their credit cards are useless outside Syria as the growing list of international sanctions darkens their financial future.
The owner of a handicrafts business who this week tried to transfer $450 to the Lebanese bank account of one of her suppliers found the transaction rejected because it originated in Syria. She had to hand-deliver the cash instead. Then a client, an investor for whom she is designing furniture for a new Abu Dhabi hotel, asked her to export whatever was completed immediately, lest the entire shipment get stuck.
“This is not the solution” to end the crisis in Syria, said the woman, pulling her fashionable black wool coat tighter against the sudden winter chill hitting this superficially calm but beleaguered capital. “This is a way to make us starve to punish the president.”
Nearly nine months after a sustained popular uprising erupted against the Assad government, Syria finds itself increasingly isolated, with even onetime allies condemning its use of lethal force. Turkey, the Arab League, the European Union and the United States have all imposed economic sanctions.
The measures are already biting, in ways evident to a reporter during a brief, rare visit allowed by the government, which was seeking to draw attention to its claim that the Arab League sanctions in particular amounted to an “economic war” against Syria.
The crucial question for Mr. Assad, the international community and the tens of thousands who rose up against the government, is whether such financial pain will induce the leadership to halt the violent suppression of antigovernment protests.
The sanctions are already unraveling the most significant change of Mr. Assad’s tenure: linking Syria to the global economy, allowing private banks and opening economic opportunity for young people in nation where about three-quarters of the population is under the age of 35.
Optimists think the pressure could work, largely because the biggest tycoons are close to the president, especially his cousin, Rami Makhlouf, and some dozen sons of his father’s closest allies. (Mr. Makhlouf gobbled up so many state enterprises put up for sale that Syrians wryly dubbed the privatization process “Ramification.”)
Pessimists worry that the government, including the scions of the old guard, will let the economy sink further to cling to power.
“Up until the last minute, I did not believe the Arab League would take such a decision,” said Mohammed Ghassan al-Qallaa, the president of the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, his office filled with Assad paraphernalia, including a small gold bust of Mr. Assad’s father, former President Hafez al-Assad. “It was like a poke in the eye.”
Good statistics remain a rarity here. But trade and investment activity is already off by 50 percent, financial analysts in Damascus said, and estimates on how much the economy will shrink this year range from 12 to 20 percent. The higher estimates kick in if sanctions — like a flight ban still being debated by the Arab League — are toughened.
Layoffs are rampant, with unemployment estimated to have risen to 22 percent. The tourism sector, which amassed about $6 billion in 2010, a boom year, has been decimated.
Hotel managers report occupancy rates of 15 percent or lower, if they will divulge them at all, and numerous restaurants have gone broke. Financial analysts said the luxury Four Seasons chain tried to close its once-booming Damascus hotel, an effort rejected by the government, which owns an estimated 50 percent share.
Sven Wiedenhaupt, the hotel’s general manager, refused to divulge his occupancy figures or how many staff members had been laid off. But he silently cast his head first left, then right to emphasize the absence of anyone in the cavernous, distinctly chilly lobby. “We are still keeping the lights on and trying to remain cutting edge,” Mr. Wiedenhaupt said.
At one hotel in the northern city of Aleppo, the appearance of two German tourists proved so startling that the entire staff, from the manager to the chambermaids, rushed to pose for pictures with them. “It was like they had arrived from another planet,” said a Syrian woman who witnessed the scene and, like others interviewed, requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
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