China Plans on Continuity in Economic Policy in 2013


BEIJING — An annual conference that helps set economic policy in China ended with a lengthy government statement Sunday warning of difficulties in the global economy as well as industrial overcapacity and financial-sector risks at home.


But a review of the two-day conference’s activities, which was released by the official Xinhua news agency, suggested few changes in existing economic policies, calling for continuity for the time being.


The statement endorsed tax cuts, continued curbs on real estate speculation and a broader effort to increase domestic consumption and wean the economy from its dependence on exports and investment.


“The opportunities facing us are no longer the traditional ones of simply entering the international division of labor, expanding exports and accelerating investments, but rather new opportunities forcing us to expand domestic demand, improve innovative capacities and promoting the transformation of the mode of development,” the statement said.


Held in December each year, the Central Economic Work Conference in theory is jointly run by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and by the government’s cabinet of ministers. In reality, the Standing Committee of the Politburo has the power, and all seven of its members attended the conference, together with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who left the standing committee last month but remains in office as prime minister until the National People’s Congress next March.


While China has many economic opportunities, “we must soberly recognize that there are still many risks and challenges confronting our national development,” the overview released by Xinhua said. “Problems with imbalances, ill-coordination and lack of sustainability remain pronounced.”


“The contradiction between downward pressures on the economy and relative overcapacity in production is deepening,” the statement continued. “Business operating costs are rising while innovative capacities are inadequate. There are latent risks in the financial sphere.”


Previous annual conferences have lasted three days. The government issued no explanation of why the conference this year appeared to last only two days, opening Saturday and closing Sunday.


The conference called for the agricultural sector to pay attention to maintaining an adequate food supply for the population, and endorsed continued urbanization, a favorite theme of the incoming prime minister next March, Li Keqiang.


“Urbanization is a historic task of our country’s modernization, and also possesses the greatest potential for expanding domestic consumption,” the statement said.


The statement called for continued but unspecified industrial reforms to address the problem of overcapacity. It was not clear what would be done to address risks in the financial sector, but a government official had said before the conference that China’s leaders were eager to move toward the introduction of a system of bank deposit insurance.


The precise details of discussions at Central Economic Work Conferences sometimes take days or weeks to dribble out.


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Mislabeled Foods Find Their Way to Diners’ Tables





ATLANTA — The menu offered fried catfish. But Freddie Washington, a pastor in Tuscaloosa, Ala., who sometimes eats out five nights a week and was raised on Gulf Coast seafood, was served tilapia.







Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

Consumers are misled most frequently when they buy fish, investigators say, because diners have such limited knowledge about seafood. 







It was a culinary bait and switch. Mr. Washington complained. The restaurant had run out of catfish, the manager explained, and the pastor left the restaurant with a free dinner, an apology and a couple of gift certificates.


“If I’m paying for a menu item,” Mr. Washington said, “I’m expecting that menu item to be placed before me.”


The subject of deceptive restaurant menus took on new life last week when Oceana, an international organization dedicated to ocean conservation, released a report with the headline “Widespread Seafood Fraud Found in New York City.”


Using genetic testing, the group found tilapia and tilefish posing as red snapper. Farmed salmon was sold as wild. Escolar, which can also legally be called oil fish, was disguised as white tuna, which is an unofficial nickname for albacore tuna.


Every one of 16 sushi bars investigated sold the researchers mislabeled fish. In all, 39 percent of the seafood from 81 grocery stores and restaurants was not what the establishment claimed it was.


“This thing with fish is age old, it’s been going on forever,” said Anne Quatrano, an Atlanta chef who opened Bacchanalia 20 years ago and kick-started the city’s sustainable food movement. “Unless you buy whole fish, you can’t always know what you’re getting from a supplier.”


Swapping one ingredient for a less expensive one extends beyond fish and is not always the fault of the person who sells food to the restaurant. Many a pork cutlet has headed to a table disguised as veal, and many an organic salad is not.


The term organic is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, but many other identifying words on a menu are essentially marketing terms. Unscrupulous chefs can falsely claim that a steak is Kobe beef or say a chicken was humanely treated without penalty.


In cases of blatant mislabeling, a chef or supplier often takes the bet that a local or federal agency charged with stopping deceptive practices is not likely to walk in the door. “This has been going on for as long as I’ve been cooking,” said Tom Colicchio, a New York chef and television personality. “When you start really getting into this stuff, there’s so many things people mislabel.”


At Mr. Colicchio’s New York restaurants, all but about 5 percent of the meat he serves is from animals raised without antibiotics, he said. It costs him about 30 percent more, so he charges more. “Yet I have a restaurant down the street that says they have organic chicken when they don’t, and they charge less money for it,” he said. “It’s all part of mislabeling and duping the public.”


Consumers are misled most frequently when they buy fish, investigators say, because there are so many fish in the sea and such limited knowledge among diners. The Food and Drug Administration lists 519 acceptable market names for fish, but more than 1,700 species are sold, said Morgan Liscinsky, a spokesman with the agency.


Marketing thousands of species in the ocean to a dining public who often has to be coaxed to move beyond the top five — shrimp, tuna, salmon, pollock and tilapia — is not an exact science.


The line between marketing something like Patagonian toothfish as Chilean sea bass or serving langostino and calling it lobster is a fine one.


Robert DeMasco, who owns Pierless Fish, a wholesaler in New York, used a profanity to describe someone who buys farm-raised fish and sells it as wild. “But on some of this, they’re splitting hairs,” he said.


In 2005, a customer sued Rubio’s, a West Coast taco chain, for misleading the public by selling a langostino lobster burrito. The FDA ruled that practice acceptable, which allowed chains like Long John Silver’s and Red Lobster to sell the crustacean called langostino and legally attach the word lobster to it. Maine lobstermen and lawmakers fought the decision unsuccessfully.


Read More..

Mislabeled Foods Find Their Way to Diners’ Tables





ATLANTA — The menu offered fried catfish. But Freddie Washington, a pastor in Tuscaloosa, Ala., who sometimes eats out five nights a week and was raised on Gulf Coast seafood, was served tilapia.







Dustin Chambers for The New York Times

Consumers are misled most frequently when they buy fish, investigators say, because diners have such limited knowledge about seafood. 







It was a culinary bait and switch. Mr. Washington complained. The restaurant had run out of catfish, the manager explained, and the pastor left the restaurant with a free dinner, an apology and a couple of gift certificates.


“If I’m paying for a menu item,” Mr. Washington said, “I’m expecting that menu item to be placed before me.”


The subject of deceptive restaurant menus took on new life last week when Oceana, an international organization dedicated to ocean conservation, released a report with the headline “Widespread Seafood Fraud Found in New York City.”


Using genetic testing, the group found tilapia and tilefish posing as red snapper. Farmed salmon was sold as wild. Escolar, which can also legally be called oil fish, was disguised as white tuna, which is an unofficial nickname for albacore tuna.


Every one of 16 sushi bars investigated sold the researchers mislabeled fish. In all, 39 percent of the seafood from 81 grocery stores and restaurants was not what the establishment claimed it was.


“This thing with fish is age old, it’s been going on forever,” said Anne Quatrano, an Atlanta chef who opened Bacchanalia 20 years ago and kick-started the city’s sustainable food movement. “Unless you buy whole fish, you can’t always know what you’re getting from a supplier.”


Swapping one ingredient for a less expensive one extends beyond fish and is not always the fault of the person who sells food to the restaurant. Many a pork cutlet has headed to a table disguised as veal, and many an organic salad is not.


The term organic is regulated by the Department of Agriculture, but many other identifying words on a menu are essentially marketing terms. Unscrupulous chefs can falsely claim that a steak is Kobe beef or say a chicken was humanely treated without penalty.


In cases of blatant mislabeling, a chef or supplier often takes the bet that a local or federal agency charged with stopping deceptive practices is not likely to walk in the door. “This has been going on for as long as I’ve been cooking,” said Tom Colicchio, a New York chef and television personality. “When you start really getting into this stuff, there’s so many things people mislabel.”


At Mr. Colicchio’s New York restaurants, all but about 5 percent of the meat he serves is from animals raised without antibiotics, he said. It costs him about 30 percent more, so he charges more. “Yet I have a restaurant down the street that says they have organic chicken when they don’t, and they charge less money for it,” he said. “It’s all part of mislabeling and duping the public.”


Consumers are misled most frequently when they buy fish, investigators say, because there are so many fish in the sea and such limited knowledge among diners. The Food and Drug Administration lists 519 acceptable market names for fish, but more than 1,700 species are sold, said Morgan Liscinsky, a spokesman with the agency.


Marketing thousands of species in the ocean to a dining public who often has to be coaxed to move beyond the top five — shrimp, tuna, salmon, pollock and tilapia — is not an exact science.


The line between marketing something like Patagonian toothfish as Chilean sea bass or serving langostino and calling it lobster is a fine one.


Robert DeMasco, who owns Pierless Fish, a wholesaler in New York, used a profanity to describe someone who buys farm-raised fish and sells it as wild. “But on some of this, they’re splitting hairs,” he said.


In 2005, a customer sued Rubio’s, a West Coast taco chain, for misleading the public by selling a langostino lobster burrito. The FDA ruled that practice acceptable, which allowed chains like Long John Silver’s and Red Lobster to sell the crustacean called langostino and legally attach the word lobster to it. Maine lobstermen and lawmakers fought the decision unsuccessfully.


Read More..

Is Google Abusing Its Market Power? Former Legal Allies Disagree


Left: Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Right: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times


Susan Creighton is now in Google's corner while Gary Reback represents several companies that  have complained to the government about Google.







In the digital economy, 14 years is an eternity. Fast-shifting technology means that companies, once feared and seemingly invincible, fade, while new powers rise to dominance, raising fresh sets of concerns.




Exhibit A: In the spring of 1998, the federal government and 20 states filed a landmark antitrust suit against Microsoft. A few months later, Google was founded.


Now Google is the subject of major antitrust investigations in the United States and Europe.  In the United States, regulators are expected to announce a decision within days to sue or settle, and under what terms. The European decision will come soon as well.


Much has changed over the years, but two lawyers who helped build the case against Microsoft are playing important roles once again. But this time, Gary L. Reback and Susan A. Creighton are on opposite sides.


The two lawyers, and the positions they have taken, point to some striking similarities yet also significant differences between the two high-stakes investigations — and why the pursuit of Google has proved challenging for antitrust officials.


In 1996, Mr. Reback and Ms. Creighton were partners, representing Netscape, the pioneering Web browser company. They wrote a 222-page “white paper,” laying out Microsoft’s campaign to use its dominance of personal computer software to stifle competition from Netscape, the Internet insurgent. After Netscape sent their report to the Justice Department, the head of the antitrust division ordered an investigation.


Mr. Reback is now an attorney at Carr & Ferrell in Silicon Valley, where he represents several companies that have complained to the government about Google. He does not represent Microsoft, though that company is a born-again champion of antitrust action, against its rival Google.


In Google, Mr. Reback sees a familiar pattern — a giant company trying to hinder competition and attack new markets. Google, he says, is unfairly using its dominant search engine to favor the company’s offerings in online shopping, travel and local listings and thus stifle competition from Web sites that rely on Google search for traffic.


“From my perspective, it’s an instant replay of the Microsoft case,” Mr. Reback said in a recent interview, though he would not comment for this article. “It’s the same playbook.”


Not to Ms. Creighton, a partner in the Washington office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, who is in Google’s corner. She has testified before Congress on Google’s behalf and negotiated with the Federal Trade Commission, the agency conducting the antitrust investigation, and where she was a senior official during the Bush administration.


“Google’s conduct is pro-competitive,” Ms. Creighton declared in her Senate testimony last year. “Far from threatening competition, Google has consistently enhanced consumer welfare by increasing the services available to consumers.”


Ms. Creighton hits two main themes in Google’s defense. The first is the consumer benefit of all Google’s free services. The second is that the cost to consumers of switching to Internet alternatives like Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the Expedia travel site or Yelp local listings is “zero,” she said. Or, as Google repeatedly says, competition is “just a click away.”


In the late 1990s, Microsoft had its version of both arguments. Microsoft bundled a free Web browser into its Windows operating system — an added feature at no cost, surely a consumer benefit. In its trial testimony, Microsoft showed that millions of people had downloaded the competing Netscape browser onto Windows — a rival product just a double-click away.


But in the trial, the evidence taken as a whole portrayed a wide-ranging effort by Microsoft to crush Netscape. It is not an antitrust violation for a powerful company to gain a dominant share of one market and then expand into other markets. The legal issue is the tactics the dominant company employs to expand its empire.


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Egypt Votes on Constitution; Muslim Brotherhood Expects Approval





CAIRO — Supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsi sparred on Sunday over the preliminary results of a referendum on a draft constitution, which Egyptians moved toward approving in voting marked by long lines but low voter turnout.




The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that supports Mr. Morsi, said that around 57 percent of those who cast ballots in the first round on Saturday voted in favor of the proposed constitution, whose drafting was dominated by Islamists. The figure was based on unofficial tallies. A second round of voting is scheduled for this Saturday in rural areas, where the draft constitution is likely to win stronger support.


While the Brotherhood hailed the “political maturity” of voters, opposition leaders disputed the unofficial results and said the voting was marred by irregularities. Each side sought to frame the results as favorable.


Although many people here predicted that the charter would be approved, the turnout was just 31 percent, according the Brotherhood’s estimates. That immediately raised doubts about whether a document intended to express a consensus on Egypt’s identity and lay the foundation of a new government had won legitimacy in the referendum.


Some also said that the low turnout and relatively narrow approval margin dented assumptions about the strength of the Brotherhood, whose extensive grass-roots network had yielded a string of electoral victories since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February 2011.


Some Brotherhood officials seemed surprised by the results. “It’s certainly below a lot of expectations,” said Gehad el-Haddad, a senior Brotherhood official. He and others said the polarizing political fight between Mr. Morsi’s supporters and opponents was to blame, causing a broad disillusion with politics and prompting what Mr. Haddad called Egypt’s “silent majority” to stay home.


Still, he argued that the high proportion of “no” votes came not from a rejection of the draft constitution, but rather from anger — justified or otherwise — at the Brotherhood.


“The evaluation was not on the product,” he said. “It was on the producers.”


Resentment against the Brotherhood grew in recent weeks after Mr. Morsi issued a decree insulating his decisions from judicial scrutiny and then hastily called a referendum on the constitution. Many Egyptians also blamed the Brotherhood for deadly clashes outside the presidential palace two weeks ago.


The voting on Saturday was largely peaceful, a respite after weeks of turmoil and a toxic political debate over the constitution.


The arguments started again on Sunday. A coalition of human rights groups called for a revote, saying there were thousands of complaints of violations at the polls and inadequate supervision by judges. The Brotherhood-sponsored Freedom and Justice Party also cited allegations of misbehavior by opponents at polling places, but said that in general the voting was a success. The Egyptian election commission said it would release official results after the second round.


Some opposition figures were hailing the results of the referendum as a small victory for non-Islamist political groups. Amr Hamzawy, the founder of the liberal Free Egypt Party, asserted in a message on Twitter that the relative closeness of the outcome ended the notion that the Brotherhood was unbeatable at the polls. “Saying that democratic currents have no popularity, and that the Brotherhood and their allies monopolize popular will and have the license of the boxes fell yesterday, once and for all,” Mr. Hamzawy wrote.


But analysts said that the voting had left an uncertain landscape. A much better showing for the draft constitution in the next round would probably strengthen Mr. Morsi’s hand. But if current voting patterns continue, Mr. Morsi would just as surely face steep challenges in governing. The Brotherhood could also be seen as more vulnerable in parliamentary elections due after the constitution is adopted.


Mr. Morsi’s problems could start with the charter itself. If it passes narrowly with only about one-third of eligible voters turning out, the document would have legal legitimacy, “but it’s difficult to argue it would have popular legitimacy,” said Zaid al-Ali, who has tracked Egypt’s constitution-writing process for the International Institute for Democratic and Electoral Assistance, based in Sweden. “Politically, it will be a hot potato for a long time to come,” he said.


Many countries require that constitutional referendums exceed a minimum turnout threshold to be valid, out of a belief that the fundamental nature of constitutions means that they must command broad popular support.


Some members of Egypt’s constitutional assembly seemed to agree in principle. Mr. Ali said that several members had told him that they would not be satisfied unless half of eligible voters — not just half of those casting ballots — registered approval. One member was quoted in state news media saying a two-thirds majority in favor was needed for legitimacy. But no such requirements were imposed.


A narrow outcome would oblige the president to “spend a large proportion of his time defending its legitimacy, rather than discussing specific policies,” Mr. Ali said.


Some saw the voting as a referendum not just on the charter, but also on the president’s record after five months in office. “I read this as a strong vote against the dismal, confused performance of the Morsi administration,” said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo, about the low turnout and high proportion of “no” votes. Of the president’s Islamist allies, Mr. Shahin said, “I think they thought they were on their way to really secure some kind of comfortable majority for the constitution, which did not happen.”


Whether that assessment is borne out remains to be seen. But Mr. Shahin said that the results so far already showed the need for Mr. Morsi to change his approach to his opponents, who have faulted him for failing to build consensus around contentious decisions. He said that Mr. Morsi’s government needed a transformation of “mentality”: from a state run by the Muslim Brotherhood to a “state that runs an entire country with its all political and social segments.”


Mr. Shahin laid equal blame on the opposition, for resorting to obstructionism rather than compromise at crucial junctures. He called some of the opposition leaders “irresponsible” and said they had engaged in a “massive campaign of disinformation” about the constitution, aided by segments of the news media.


Late on Sunday, opposition leaders signaled that they intended to keep the pressure on Mr. Morsi, calling simultaneously for a large protest on Tuesday, for voters to turn out heavily in the second round next Saturday and for the election commission to consider voiding the first round because of the irregularities.


David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.



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Sidney Gilman’s Shift Led to Insider Trading Case





Speaking in front of a packed convention hall in Chicago, a top Alzheimer’s researcher, Sidney Gilman, presented the results of a drug trial that had the potential to change the fate of elderly patients everywhere.







Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Dr. Gilman’s lifestyle was a well-kept secret among colleagues at the University of Michigan medical school.






But as he worked through the slides, it became clear to the audience on that day in July 2008 that the drug was not delivering and that its makers, Elan and Wyeth, could lose out on blockbuster profits. Along with other Wall Street analysts in the front rows, David Moskowitz zapped messages to clients to dump shares of the companies. “I can remember gasping” at the results, Mr. Moskowitz said.


Little did anyone in the room know that 12 days earlier, Dr. Gilman had e-mailed a draft of the presentation to a trader at an affiliate of one of the nation’s most prominent hedge funds, according to prosecutors, allowing the fund, SAC Capital, and its affiliate to sell over $700 million of Elan and Wyeth stock before Dr. Gilman’s public talk.


Last month, the trader was arrested on insider trading charges after Dr. Gilman agreed to cooperate with prosecutors to avoid charges.


While he appeared a grandfatherly academic, Dr. Gilman, 80, was living a parallel life, one in which he regularly advised a wide network of Wall Street traders through a professional matchmaking system. Those relationships afforded him payments of $100,000 or more a year — on top of his $258,000 pay from the University of Michigan — and travels with limousines, luxury hotels and private jets.


The riddle for Dr. Gilman’s longtime friends and colleagues is why a nationally respected neurologist was pulled into the high-rolling life of a consultant to financiers and how he, by his own admission, crossed the line into criminal behavior.


“My first reaction was, ‘That can’t possibly be right,’ ” said Dawn Kleindorfer, a former student of Dr. Gilman’s at Michigan.


What is clear is that Dr. Gilman made a sharp shift in his late 60s, from a life dedicated to academic research to one in which he accumulated a growing list of financial firms willing to pay him $1,000 an hour for his medical expertise, while he was overseeing drug trials for various pharmaceutical makers. Among the firms he was advising was another hedge fund that was also buying and selling Wyeth and Elan stock, though the authorities have given no sign they have questioned those trades.


His conversion to Wall Street consultant was not readily apparent in his lifestyle in Michigan and was a well-kept secret from colleagues. Public records show no second home, and no indication of financial distress. Nevertheless, he was willing to share a glimpse of his lifestyle with a 17-year-old student whom he sat next to on a flight from New York to Michigan a few months ago, telling her how his Alzheimer’s research allowed him to enjoy fine hotels in New York and limousine rides to the airport.


“I wouldn’t say he was egotistical because he didn’t come across as obnoxious, but he definitely mentioned the kind of lifestyle that he had,” said the student, Anya Parampil, who had been upgraded to first class.


Dr. Gilman’s role in the case involving SAC Capital has largely been overshadowed by the possibility that investigators may be narrowing in on the firm’s billionaire founder, Steven A. Cohen. Mr. Cohen and his firm have not been accused of wrongdoing in acting on the insider information.


Colleagues now say Dr. Gilman’s story is a reminder of the corrupting influence of money. The University of Michigan, where he was a professor for decades, has erased any trace of him on its Web sites, and is now reviewing its consulting policy for employees, a spokesman said.


The case also turns the spotlight back onto the finance world’s expert networks, which match sources in academia and at publicly traded companies — like Dr. Gilman — with traders at hedge funds and financial firms.


The networks have been a central target of prosecutors in the sprawling insider trading investigations that have resulted in dozens of convictions in recent years.


Some networks have closed, and many are shifting their focus outside the financial world, hoping to make up revenue by consulting for corporate America.


Days after the charges were filed, Dr. Gilman retired and has gone into seclusion at his home on a wooded lot overlooking the Huron River on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, which is listed in public records as worth $400,000. He declined to open the door to a reporter last week, directing questions to his lawyer. “I can’t discuss it,” he said. “I’m sorry.”


Stephanie Steinberg contributed reporting.



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School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians


T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times


Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination. More Photos »







ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras.




Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing.


“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”


Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.


A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.


After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.


Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them.


“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.”


Ms. Eady and a few dozen other parents say a public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that.


Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga.


Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Mr. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose.


“There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said.


“The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said.


The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums.


The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community.


The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky” are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy.


Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the program, and Mr. Broyles has threatened to sue if the board does not address their concerns.


The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said.


“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.”


Ms. Eady is not convinced.


“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”


Russell Case, a representative of the Jois Foundation, said the parents’ fears were misguided.


“They’re concerned that we’re putting our God before their God,” Mr. Case said. “They’re worried about competition. But we’re much closer to them than they think. We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”


Read More..

School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians


T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times


Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination. More Photos »







ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras.




Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing.


“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”


Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.


A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.


After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.


Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them.


“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.”


Ms. Eady and a few dozen other parents say a public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that.


Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga.


Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Mr. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose.


“There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said.


“The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said.


The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums.


The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community.


The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky” are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy.


Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the program, and Mr. Broyles has threatened to sue if the board does not address their concerns.


The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said.


“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.”


Ms. Eady is not convinced.


“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”


Russell Case, a representative of the Jois Foundation, said the parents’ fears were misguided.


“They’re concerned that we’re putting our God before their God,” Mr. Case said. “They’re worried about competition. But we’re much closer to them than they think. We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”


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Using Facebook to Announce Bad News


Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times


When his father died, Doug Anter of Royal Oak, Mich., called key family members, then put the news on Facebook.







LIKE many women these days, Aran Hissam, 35, of Melbourne, Fla., posted the news that she was pregnant on Facebook. On the morning of an ultrasound last year, she debated on the site whether to learn the baby’s sex, musing “to peek or not to peek?”




When she failed to post an update later that day, friends started to contact her. Ms. Hissam decided to return to Facebook to share the news that her unborn baby, a girl, had been found to have fetal hydrops and given no chance of survival.


“I wanted to communicate the news to get people off my back,” Ms. Hissam said in a telephone interview recently. Although her husband was at first surprised that she would share such emotional news publicly, she said, Facebook seemed like one of the least difficult ways to get the word out.


“It was too draining to actually call everybody, because I couldn’t emotionally speak about the same thing over and over,” Ms. Hissam said, adding that she continued to post updates about her daughter, who was born at 35 weeks and lived for 15 hours, and it became a form of therapy for her. (She also later wrote a book about her loss.)


Facebook, that repository of the mundane (mealtime updates, party reminders and job changes) that people have long used to show the positive sides of their lives, is increasingly also a place they go to break difficult news.


It was where the racecar driver Danica Patrick, 30, announced that she and her husband of seven years, Paul Hospenthal, 47, were “amicably” divorcing. And it is where a portrait photographer and mother of two named Alicia, 35 (who did not want her last name published because of continuing custody issues), posted a few succinct sentences about the breakup of her own marriage recently. People in her social circle were starting to hear rumors about her personal life, she said, and she wanted to address that.


“I didn’t want to start a pity party, but I did want to be honest about what was going on,” Alicia said, adding that making the announcement this way allowed her to control the message as well as avoid putting people on the spot. “One of the beautiful things about Facebook is that it’s passive communication, and it gives people freedom to respond — or not — in whichever way they are most comfortable.”


Posting bad news on a social media site eases the pain for the bearer of bad news and the recipient, because knowing what to say to someone who has just told you bad news can be one of the most socially fraught situations. “If you put the news on Facebook, you’re also maximizing the recipient’s comfort, so they can process the information on their own time,” said Dr. Janet Sternberg, assistant professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University. “It’s really hard to break bad news without crying or falling apart. But we can share painful news in less painful ways.”


Dr. Louis Manza, a professor and chairman of the psychology department at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, said: “From a cognitive perspective, it’s easier to deal with it this way. You post it, come back in eight hours and read all the comments that you get, and don’t have to worry about having a difficult conversation.”


Still, intimates might react poorly to finding out about delicate or tragic situations via pixels.


“Really significant news is best delivered face to face, but sometimes speed is the concern,” said Daniel Post Senning, an etiquette author and a spokesman for the Emily Post Institute. “We’ve definitely crossed a threshold in how we use social media.”


The hand hovering ready to click the “Like” button can also create tremendously awkward situations.


“Ah, yes, the Facebook vocab challenge,” said Mr. Senning, who said it’s O.K. to “Like” negative news. “The ‘Like’ indicates an emotional connection, and indicates that you have read it.”


Doug Anter, 46, a public relations executive in Royal Oak, Mich., was hardly concerned about an excess of “Likes” when thinking about how to spread the word that his father had died in August.


At the time he was also expecting his first child, so he was feeling highly emotional, and phoned key family members before ultimately putting the news about his father on Facebook.


“I could have made countless phone calls, but it was incredibly inefficient, and I would be getting very emotional each time,” he said. After he posted about his father, Mr. Anter said he felt “blessed and fortunate for the outpouring of support” that followed.


But some experts think that putting bad news on Facebook almost inevitably trivializes it, to the sufferer’s further detriment.“If you post about someone’s death or your divorce, it’s not that different from typing, ‘I’m going to Starbucks,’ ” said Dr. Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, Calif. When someone puts bad news on social media, she said, “it’s trying to show bravado, and pretending that you’re not devastated by the news. It isn’t good because if you don’t feel the feelings, it interferes with your grief.”


Dr. Lieberman said that it is far preferable to tell people in person, as “it is very human, very real and you have to deal with your feelings.” In pre-Facebook days, she pointed out, we all had to make 50 difficult phone calls or ask friends and family to help — and we all managed to do it.


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IHT Rendezvous: China Calls for 'No Delay' on Gun Controls in U.S.

HONG KONG — The state news agency in China, the official voice of the government, has called for the United States to quickly adopt stricter gun controls in the aftermath of the shooting rampage in Connecticut that left 28 people dead, including 20 schoolchildren.

According to the state medical examiner who was overseeing autopsies of the children, all of them had been hit multiple times. At least one child had been shot 11 times.

All of the children were in the first grade.

“Their blood and tears demand no delay for U.S. gun control,” said the news agency, Xinhua, which listed a series of shootings this year in the United States.

“However, this time, the public feels somewhat tired and helpless,” the commentary said. “The past six months have seen enough shooting rampages in the United States.”

China suffered its own school tragedy on Friday — a man stabbed 22 children at a village elementary school in Henan Province. An 85-year-old woman also was stabbed.

There were no fatalities, although Xinhua reported that some of the children had had their fingers and ears cut off. The attacker, a 36-year-old man, was reportedly in custody. There was no immediate explanation for his possible motives.

China experienced a spate of attacks on schoolchildren in 2010, with almost 20 deaths and more than 50 injuries. In the fourth of the assaults, a crazed man beat five toddlers with a hammer, then set himself on fire while holding two youngsters.

In another of those attacks in 2010, Zheng Minsheng, 42, stabbed and killed eight primary school students in Fujian Province. Five weeks later, after a quick trial, he was executed.

My colleague Michael Wines reported at the time: “Some news reports stated that Mr. Zheng had mental problems, but most state media said no such evidence existed. Mental illness remains a closeted topic in modern China, and neither medication nor modern psychiatric treatment is widely used.”

“Most of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men involved in personal disputes or unable to adjust to the rapid pace of social change in China,” The Associated Press reported Saturday, adding that the rampages pointed to “grave weaknesses in the antiquated Chinese medical system’s ability to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness.”

Private ownership of guns — whether pistols, rifles or shotguns — is almost unheard of in China. Handgun permits are sometimes (but rarely) given to people living in remote areas for protection against wild animals.

The Chinese school assaults were carried out with knives, kitchen cleavers or hammers, the usual weapons of choice in mass attacks in China. As a precaution before the recent Communist Party Congress in Beijing, the sale of knives was banned in the central area of the capital.

Dr. Ding Xueliang, a sociologist at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, speaking about the Chinese tragedy, told CNN that “the huge difference between this case and the U.S. is not the suspect, nor the situation, but the simple fact he did not have an effective weapon.

“In terms of the U.S., there’s much easier availability of killing instruments — rifles, machine guns, explosives — than in nearly every other developed country.”

In a blog on the Web site of The New Yorker, the magazine’s China correspondent, Evan Osnos, wrote:

It takes a lot to make China’s government — beset, as it is, by corruption and opacity and the paralyzing effects of special interests — look good, by comparison, in the eyes of its people these days. But we’ve done it.

When Chinese viewers looked at the two attacks side by side, more than a few of them concluded, as one did that, “from the look of it, there’s no difference between a ‘developed’ country and a ‘developing’ country. And there’s no such thing as human rights. People are the most violent creatures on earth, and China, with its ban on guns, is doing pretty well!”

Japan, too, has a near-total ban on private gun ownership, and the infrequent mass attacks there — which included a tragic rampage at a primary school in 2001— typically have involved knives.

“Almost no one in Japan owns a gun,” said Max Fisher, writing in The Atlantic in July. “Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country’s infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.”

In 2006, Japan had two gun-related homicides. “And when that number jumped to 22 in 2007,” Mr. Fisher said, “it became a national scandal.”

“East Asia, despite its universally restrictive domestic gun policies, hosts some of the world’s largest firearm exporters and emerging industry giants: China, South Korea and Japan,” according to GunPolicy.org, a comprehensive global database maintained by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

In recent weeks, Chinese police officials in Jiangsu Province seized more than 6,000 illegal guns from two underground workshops and warehouses; a retired prison guard in Hong Kong was jailed for 18 months for keeping an arsenal of guns, silencers, grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his public-housing apartment; and 17 suspected gun smugglers went on trial in Shanghai as part of a joint investigation with U.S. law enforcement officials.

In the Shanghai case, more than 100 semiautomatic handguns, rifles, shotguns and gun parts were express-mailed to China from the United States. One of the masterminds on the American end was Staff Sgt. Joseph Debose, 30, a soldier with a Special Forces National Guard unit in North Carolina. He pleaded guilty to federal charges in September.

“The defendant traded the honor of his position in the National Guard for the money he received for smuggling arms to China,” said Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “In blatant disregard for everything he was sworn to uphold, the defendant placed numerous firearms into a black market pipeline from the United States to China.”

What’s your view? Would the United States do well to emulate China and Japan, with their comprehensive bans on guns? Or is America a special case because of its Constitutional protections of gun ownership? And apropos of the Fujian attack described above, would you support similarly speedy trials and the death penalty for mass murderers of children?

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