..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
World
A dating site for finding a 2nd (or 3rd) wife
GAZA CITY
Digital service in Gaza
helps the territorys many
war widows find a husband
BY MAJD AL WAHEIDI
He was looking for a woman with partic-
ular attributes, hopefully a widow of a
man killed in the struggle against Israel,
without children, between 25 and 30,
from southern Gaza. Her requirement
was no less important: She was looking
for a married man.
For Majdi and Ghada Abu Mustafa,
their simultaneous search for a spouse
turned out well, and the pair are now
married.
She is beautiful and a widow of a
martyr at the same time, Mr. Abu
Mustafa said, using the word preferred
by Palestinians for a killed fighter, often
a terrorist to Israelis. She is the second
of his two wives.
When I get wealthy, I will marry the
third wife.
The couple met on Wesal it means
communion or reunion in Arabic a
first-of-its-kind matchmaking website
in Gaza. It has been successful, and not
just because Tinder and other dating
apps are banned or severely frowned on
here.
Its founder knows his demographic
well: residents of the religiously conser-
vative Gaza Strip, with its culture of re-
sistance. Some 1,400 men have been
killed in the three wars with Israel since
2008, leaving many widows who would
like to remarry. Tradition, however, can
make it difficult for them to wed.
Mr. Abu Mustafa, 34, a math teacher,
said he had no specific reasons to get
married again, but said he did wish to
give dignity to a widow. Ms. Abu
Mustafas first husband died during the
conflict between Hamas and Israel in
2012.
Islam permits a man to have up to
four wives.
Our men fight wars and die. Women
stay alive, said the sites founder, Ha-
shem Sheikha. This is why my project
supports polygamy.
Mr. Sheikha, 33, a Palestinian born in
Saudi Arabia, said the site has led to 160
weddings since it started in March, he
said, and more than half the marriage
requests involved men seeking a second
or third wife (though not yet a fourth).
We want to spread joy and connec-
tions between people and help them
with finding love and peace after going
through a lot of suffering, he said.
Women who lost their men during
the last three wars have difficult lives
and few options, said Reham Owda, a
Gaza-based writer and analyst of
womens issues. In most cases the hus-
bands family pressures the woman to
marry the brother in law to control her
life and seize any financial aid she re-
ceives.
Ms. Owda added that if the widows
husband is affiliated with a political
party, it might intervene and pressure
the woman to marry a man from the
same group, and she will often agree be-
cause she is struggling financially and
the group will pay her a salary.
This matchmaking service is pos-
itive because it encourages these wom-
en to choose the potential husband with-
out fear and pressure in this religious
and patriarchal society, Ms. Owda said.
On social media, election news from Cambodias monks
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
BY JULIA WALLACE
Wearing an orange robe and speaking
calmly into his smartphone, the Venera-
ble Luon Sovath eased his way through
the throngs of people gathered outside
Polling Station 867 in Phnom Penh, the
Cambodian capital.
He paused his monologue only to ad-
just his cellphone, talking for hours to
his Facebook followers about what he
saw and heard as Cambodians went to
the polls Sunday in nationwide elections
of local officials.
In a democracy, the people own the
country and have an obligation to come
and vote, he said during his Facebook
Live broadcast. This obligation included
participation by Buddhist monks like
him. Monks are also people, he added.
Luon Sovath, 37, is the most promi-
nent member of a group of monks who
have become citizen journalists, moni-
toring political events and human rights
conditions in Cambodia on social media.
Their efforts are part of a growing cam-
paign by Cambodians who are using the
internet to get around the governments
stranglehold on mass media and civic
life.
Facebook, news apps and political
memes have allowed the monks and the
countrys nascent political opposition to
connect directly with Cambodians who
have scant access to independent news
media.
Facebook changed communication
and politics, because whatever poli-
ticians did, we all knew, Luon Sovath
said. Good or bad, we could know by
Rami Shatali, with three of his four daughters, found his new wife, who was also divorced and with a son, on the Gazan matchmaking service Wesal.
Palestinian couples celebrating at a Hamas ceremony. Part of Wesals success appears
to be how closely it hews to Gazas religious and conservative traditions.
Wesal facilitates marriages not only
for widows, but also for the divorced and
those who have never married.
Part of Wesals immediate success ap-
pears to be how closely it hews to Gazan
tradition, despite the digital medium.
When completing an application, people
must address several questions impor-
tant to those looking for a spouse here:
place of residence, occupation, salary,
marital status, number of children. And
there are some traditional terms that us-
ers must accept: I swear by Allah the
Great that all my information is accu-
rate, and that I wont use this website for
Facebook. Previously, they just showed
the good things on television. The vio-
lence against people, the land abuses,
the forest clearances and the corruption
they did not show on television.
The government of the ruling Cambo-
dian Peoples Party operates or has in-
fluence over all of the countrys televi-
sion stations; the opposition Cambodia
National Rescue Party has spent years
trying to get a license to operate its own
channel, without success.
So those like Luon Sovath who
wanted to bring greater transparency to
Cambodia sought inexpensive and ac-
cessible ways to connect with people
many in poor villages outside the gov-
ernment-controlled networks.
The Cambodian Peoples Party has
many television stations and facilities
already, so we are helping people who
dont have anything, who are poor,
Luon Sovath said.
When a government critic was assas-
sinated last year, another monk with a
wide online following, But Buntenh,
tracked down the killer and where he
lived, breaking the news online before
the police or journalists arrived.
On Sunday, Mr. Buntenh was posting
updates on Twitter from polling stations
and broadcasting election results on his
own Facebook Live stream.
The monks Election Day videos in-
cluded descriptions of polling
procedures, interviews with voters and
exhortations for Cambodians to get out
and vote. At one point during his broad-
cast, Luon Sovath was expelled from a
polling station by police officers and
threatened with legal action. Thousands
of people viewed the encounter online,
showing their support for the monk by
entertainment.
What Wesal does not have is profile
photos or any online chatting functional-
ity, to protect the privacy of women and
because both would be considered
haram, or forbidden under Islamic law,
Mr. Sheikha said.
We are the halal version of American
dating websites, he said, using the word
that connotes what is acceptable under
Islamic tradition.
Though popular, with some 100,000
visitors in a population of two million
people in Gaza, the website is not uni-
versally liked.
The Venerable Luon Sovath broadcasting on Facebook Live on Sunday outside a polling station in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
posting emojis on his live stream.
Previous elections for local officials
have not generated much interest be-
cause the governments political ma-
chine has been so dominant that the re-
sults were a foregone conclusion. But
The Cinderella car in Gaza City is rented out for marriage ceremonies. While mar-
riage rates over all have been on the decline in Gaza, the practice of polygamy is rising.
This website is disgusting. Women
are not a sack of onions, said Lina Zein,
25, a single woman from Gaza City, ex-
plaining that Wesal felt too transac-
tional in its approach to arranging wed-
dings. It limits my ambitions in mar-
riage to someones income.
Amal Seyam, the head of the
nongovernmental Gazas Women Af-
fairs Association, said the service ap-
peared to have come at an opportune
time to take advantage of changes in
Gazan society.
Polygamy has hit high rates in Gaza
over the few past years, seemingly due
the Cambodia National Rescue Party, a
newly formed opposition at the time,
performed well in the 2013 national par-
liamentary elections, setting off waves
of street protests. Though the opposi-
tion has struggled since then to gain a
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WISSAM NASSAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
ghazi refugee camp from an earlier mar-
to an increase in peoples religious incli-
nation, especially after Hamas took
power in 2007, Ms. Seyam said, refer-
ring to the militant group that rules over
Gaza.
Marriage rates over all have been on
the decline in Gaza, and divorce is on the
rise because of high poverty and unem-
ployment rates, said the head of the Su-
preme Sharia Judicial Council in Gaza,
Sheikh Hassan al-Jojo. Hamas itself has
been trying to encourage marriage by
paying the equivalent of $1,500 to any
male who memorizes the Quran, a bit of
cash to help finance the next step in life.
NEOU VANNARIN
political foothold, it is still believed to
have significant support among voters.
Meas Nee, a political researcher in
Cambodia, said that in recent travels
through rural areas of the country, he
noticed a marked increase in villagers
TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 | 3
Sheikh Abdul Khaleq Buhaisi, an-
other official with the Sharia Council,
which has authority over weddings, said
he preferred more traditionally ar-
ranged marriages, often through a khat-
taba a woman who pays home visits
in the company of the grooms mother to
search for brides.
The khattaba inspects the prospec-
tive bride: body shape, skin color, teeth,
hair and other physical features. Tradi-
tionally, the polite way for a grooms
family to signal a proposal request is to
ask to go to the brides familys house for
a cup of coffee.
With the Wesal service, a prospective
groom receives a womans address
when the two have exchanged likes
online. The man then has 48 hours to
propose, something still typically done
over the traditional coffee at her home.
Kholoud Sobouh, 27, said she got tired
of being shown to men who knocked on
her door with their mothers to propose.
Through Wesal, she and her fianc met
in less than 24 hours. She requested an
educated man who didnt smoke and
who could secure a home in Gaza. Her
fianc, Tareq Ms. Sobouh did not want
to give his surname, for fear of being
criticized for meeting her spouse online
said he wanted a tall, light-skinned
woman with religious manners. It will
be the first marriage for both.
Wesal service is the best discovery of
my life, Ms. Sobouh said. I am the one
who will get married, not my family or
the society.
Mr. Sheikha, Wesals founder, says he
wants the site to challenge longstanding
customs surrounding matchmaking in
Gaza, and to give women more agency
in the process. Our website encourages
them to search for husbands by them-
selves, to truly choose and say what
they like in the man, he said. We also
fight old traditions that say divorced
women should not get married.
But while Mr. Sheikha is in favor of
more options for women in the selection
of a spouse, he is not a strong supporter
of the choice to remain single. In addi-
tion to helping widows and the divorced
find husbands, he said he hoped the site
would also address an increase in the
number of spinsters in their 20s and 30s.
The Arabic proverb says living in the
shadow of a man is better than living in
the shadow of a wall, which means that
having a husband is better than staying
unmarried.
Mr. Sheikha said he was looking for a
second wife himself and that he pre-
ferred she be a widow.
The site has also found favor among
divorced men.
Rami Shatali, 38, works in a biscuit
factory, earns less than 1,000 shekels a
month, or not quite $300, and has four
daughters living with him in the Al Ma-
riage that ended in divorce.
His new wife, Majd Shatali, 26, also di-
vorced and with a son, found him on We-
sal in March.
About 400 hundred people attended
their wedding. The first dance was the
couples slow one.
The grooms daughters, along with
the son of the bride, danced happily.
From time to time, relatives of the
groom sprayed glitter and wedding
snow in the air.
I felt like I was the happiest man in
the world on my wedding day, Mr.
Shatali said, because I found a woman
who madly fell in love with me, the one
who could make me forget all about my
pain.
willingness to chat and banter about
politics in public, the type of open dis-
course that once made many people un-
comfortable.
The people are eager to see change,
Mr. Nee said, adding later, People are
very engaged, and people are not feeling
intimidated.
Unusually large crowds gathered in
Phnom Penh on Sunday afternoon to
watch the votes be counted, and late in
the day the National Election Commit-
tee announced that turnout had been a
record 85.7 percent of 7.8 million regis-
tered voters.
People are more enthusiastic, are
more interested in observing the po-
litical process, and they wanted to wit-
ness the election, said Preap Kol, exec-
utive director of Transparency Interna-
tional Cambodia, an anticorruption or-
ganization.
Late Sunday, before all the results had
been tallied, a government-aligned
news outlet reported that the Cambodi-
an Peoples Party, led by Prime Minister
Hun Sen, had won 1,163 of the local ad-
ministrations, while the Cambodia Na-
tional Rescue Party gained control of
482, or around 30 percent, up from 3 per-
cent. A spokeswoman for the opposition,
Kem Monovithya, said the Cambodia
National Rescue Party believed it had
won 520 local posts and 46 percent of the
popular vote.
The official results are to be an-
nounced no later than June 25.
Observers are watching the returns
closely as an indicator of what to expect
in national parliamentary elections
scheduled for next year.
Neou Vannarin contributed reporting.
 ..
4 | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

world

U.S. offers
Killings dredge up a legacy of racist laws help on Arab
PORTLAND, ORE.
states rift
For decades, Oregon
was a volatile place where
with Qatar
extremists found a home SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

BY KIRK JOHNSON

The fatal stabbing of two good Sa- Unraveling in the Mideast

maritans who intervened when a man
on a commuter train shouted slurs at
two women both African-American,
one in Muslim dress has reawakened
bitter memories of this states past and
revived a debate over what people here
call the two Oregons, where islands of
tolerance abut places awash in frustra-
tion and rage.
Oregon hasnt resolved its history,
said Dani Ledezma, the interim execu-
tive director of the Coalition of Commu-
nities of Color, a group based in Port-
land. And the harsh language and tone
of national politics, she said, are now ex-
acerbating old wounds. The xenopho-
bia, the racism, the caustic narrative
that has been fomented at the national
level are also having an impact here and
adding to that legacy here in Oregon,
she said.
The Pacific Northwests historical at-
tic is full of artifacts that residents would
just as soon forget, like the lash law.
The legislation was passed in 1844, when
the Oregon Country, as it was called
then, was bigger than Texas encom-
passing what is now part of five Western
states. The law said that any black per-
son, free or slave, would be whipped
twice a year until he or she shall quit the
territory. Later, leaders prohibited
black people from coming to the terri-
tory.
Until the early 2000s, Oregons consti-
tution still contained language exclud-
ing blacks from residency, though its le-
gal clout had been eliminated decades
earlier. The template from the early
days helped foster a volatile political cli-
mate in which extremists of all kinds
could find a home and pick a fight. Along
with racists, utopian communities were
drawn to the region, advocating every-
thing from socialism to free love, and
they found converts and hiding places in
remote coastal coves and mountain
reaches. In the 1920s, Oregons Legisla-
ture, dominated by members of the Ku
Klux Klan, barred Japanese immigrants
from owning or leasing land.
By the 1970s, groups like the Aryan
Nations had arrived, spinning out the
idea of a mythic Cascadia where the old
flames of racial purity would be kept
alive and multiculturalism kept at bay.
Anarchists dug in, too, and still have a
deep presence, regularly turning out
black-shirted and usually masked to
denounce and often clash with the po-
lice.
While many Americans may think
first of the South as the region where the
burden of racial strife weighs heaviest
on the nations soul and psyche, recent
events in Portland serve as a reminder
that old battlefields are everywhere.
The lid is off, said Detective Eliza-
beth Wareing, the bias crimes coordina-
tor at the Seattle Police Department.
A makeshift memorial in Portland, Ore., for two men who were killed on a commuter train last month while trying to stop another man from harassing two young women.
She added that alcohol, drugs and men-
tal illness often played a role in the inter-
actions she investigates.
But she and other experts said that at
the same time, there is less and less evi-
dence that any extremist group old or
new is shaping the messages that are
being expressed. Free-form self-radical-
ization, picking this or that from the
heaping smorgasbord of hate on the na-
tions plate, is becoming the norm.
The suspect in the train attack,
Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, fits no ob-
vious mold in the white-supremacist
world. Last year, Mr. Christian ardently
supported Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, a socialist-leaning Democrat,
in the presidential primaries, according
to his Facebook posts, before turning to
support President-elect Trump in De-
cember. On the train and after his arrest,
according to a police affidavit, Mr. Chris-
tian raged against immigrants, Saudi
Arabia and liberals, and he called him-
self a defender of free speech who could
die in prison a happy man.
He was all over the map, said Randy
Blazak, the chairman of the Oregon Co-
alition Against Hate Crime, a partner-
ship of community groups and govern-
ment. There isnt really a flow chart
that fits how people like Jeremy Chris-
tian come about, said Mr. Blazak, who is hind, at 66.3 percent white.
also a professor of criminology at the Its economic, its criminal justice, its
University of Oregon. segregation, said Ms. Ledezma, of the
On Sunday, thousands of Coalition of Communities of Color, de-
demonstrators gathered in downtown scribing the legacy of racism in Oregon.
Portland, some for a long-planned rally If you look at the housing patterns,
by supporters of President Trump, and there is this lasting legacy of disparity
many more for a counterdemonstration. thats been essentially baked in.
Fearing violent clashes, Portland po- Law enforcement agencies have be-
lice officers were supported by the Ore- gun looking at the ways that hidden ra-
gon State Police, county sheriff deputies cial attitudes can spill out. Police officers
and federal agents. Tensions ran high in Seattle track encounters that on the
through the afternoon, and at least 14 surface do not appear to be about race or
people were arrested as the opposing religion, like traffic accidents that grow
camps jeered and chanted at one an- to include bias elements as tempers
other across a street barrier. Officers flare. The number of these events, police
confiscated numerous weapons, includ- figures show, is up. Instances of hateful
ing sticks, knives and bricks. But the two graffiti are on the rise, too. Portland
groups were kept separate, and mostly residents reported more bias-fueled
dispersed peacefully when their rallies vandalism in the three months after the
ended. presidential election than in any other
At a moment in which many immi- similar period in at least five years, ac-
grants and Muslims feel uneasy, here cording to figures compiled by the city.
and across the nation, and racial slurs The short explanation, said many
spew across social media, the attack on people in law enforcement and civil
the train has put a broader discussion of rights groups who track hate crimes, is a
race in the Pacific Northwest back on collapse of inhibition. More open hate
the agenda. Of the nations 30 largest cit- speech in politics, street
ies, Portland remains the whitest, ac- demonstrations and social media, they
cording to the Census Bureau, with 72.2 said, loosens the floodgates, diminish-
percent of its population classified as ing the sense of impropriety or social ta-
non-Hispanic white. Seattle is not far be- boo.
TERRAY SYLVESTER/REUTERS
The nature of radicalization is
changing, said Oren Segal, the director
of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-
Defamation League, a national civil
rights group. People are borrowing,
picking and choosing elements of vari-
ous extremist ideologies and tactics and
movements or what have you, and cre-
ating their own sort of worldview.
International terrorist groups also
use social media and other digital tools
to influence and recruit followers, but
the stark difference with what some
scholars have called postmodern hate,
is that there is no unifying philosophy to
draw from.
Todays hate is splintered, said Bri-
an H. Levin, a professor of criminal jus-
tice and the director of the Center for the
Study of Hate and Extremism at Califor-
nia State University, San Bernardino.
People are dipping in the ladle and
scooping out what they want.
The geography has shifted, too, he
said: The rise of the alt-right the rac-
ist fringe movement with online roots
has destabilized the old extremist
groups that once flourished in the Pa-
cific Northwest by disavowing the idea
that geography matters. Their mes-
sage has been, Why do we have to settle
for one region? Professor Levin said.
could threaten American
efforts against terrorists
BY GARDINER HARRIS
AND MICHAEL R. GORDON
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson of-
fered on Monday to help resolve an in-
tensifying dispute between Qatar and
four Arab countries that threatens to
complicate the Trump administrations
effort to mobilize coalitions against Iran
and terrorist groups in the Middle East.
We certainly would encourage the
parties to sit down together and address
these differences, Mr. Tillerson said,
adding a reference to the Gulf Coopera-
tion Council, a group of Persian Gulf
countries. If theres any role that we
can play in terms of helping them ad-
dress those, we think it is important that
the G.C.C. remain unified.
Mr. Tillersons remarks came on the
heels of dramatic announcements by
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates that they are sus-
pending diplomatic ties, as well as air
and sea travel to and from Qatar, poten-
tially choking off access to a crucial
United States ally. In its statement,
Saudi Arabia urged all brotherly coun-
tries and companies to do the same.
Qatars Foreign Ministry issued a
statement calling the decisions unjusti-
fied.
The split came two weeks after Presi-
dent Trump visited the Saudi capital of
Riyadh to offer a tight embrace of the
kingdom in hopes that Saudi Arabia
could help lead fellow Sunni Arab na-
tions in a fight against extremism and,
with Israel, present a united front
against Shiite-led Iran.
Indeed, Mr. Trump became so en-
amored of the Saudis that he cast them
as the centerpiece of a possible peace
deal between the Israelis and
Palestinians. But such a deal relied in
There have long been fissures
between the nations.
part on the Arab world uniting behind
the Saudis as an interlocutor, a prospect
made far less likely by Mondays events.
There have long been fissures be-
tween Qatar and other Sunni Arab na-
tions. Qatar, for example, provided fi-
nancial support to the Muslim Brother-
hood in Egypt, which led the former gov-
ernment in Egypt and opposed the
Egyptian militarys takeover as an ille-
gal coup. Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.,
which consider the Muslim Brother-
hood a threat to stability to the region,
supported the Egyptian militarys take-
over.
Mr. Tillerson and Defense Secretary
Jim Mattis, who appeared in their first
joint news conference, in Sydney, after

Bushs climate pact withdrawal holds lessons for Trump

WHITE HOUSE MEMO
WASHINGTON
16 years ago, abandoning
Kyoto Protocol cemented
perception of unilateralism
BY PETER BAKER
The new president decided that the in-
ternational climate change agreement
negotiated by his predecessor was a job
killer that sacrificed American
sovereignty. So he pulled the United
States out while much of the world
jeered.
For President George W. Bush, the
withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in
2001 proved to be a seminal moment, ce-
menting a perception of unilateralism
that alienated overseas allies and fur-
ther pushed away domestic critics. In
the end, even his top advisers came to
regret the move, not so much because of
the merits of the decision, but because of
the way it was handled.
Sixteen years later, another president
has withdrawn from another climate
change pact only to endure another
chorus of catcalls from overseas. For
President Trump, Mr. Bushs experience
offers cautionary lessons some of
which Mr. Trump and his staff seem to
have internalized already, even though
aides said they had not studied or
thought much about the Kyoto prece-
dent.
By coincidence, then, Mr. Trump, in
moving away from the Paris accord, has
taken steps to manage political fallout
that Mr. Bush did not. Mr. Trump gave
foreign allies, domestic advocates and
his own advisers a chance to make their
case directly to him before he made his
decision. He announced the move
openly, in front of the cameras, and ex-
plained his thinking. Immediately after-
ward, he called some of the more ag-
grieved foreign leaders to try to contain
the damage. And he suggested that he
was open to negotiating a new agree-
ment.
Im willing to immediately work with
Democratic leaders to either negotiate
our way back into Paris, under the terms
that are fair to the United States and its
workers, or to negotiate a new deal that
protects our country and its taxpayers,
Mr. Trump said in his speech announc-
ing the decision last week.
Mr. Bush did none of those things, and
his advisers rued that he did not, con-
cluding that he paid the price for the rest
of his presidency. Whether any of that
makes a difference for Mr. Trump re-
mains to be seen. Even with a more elab-
orate, inclusive process and an ex-
pressed willingness to consider alterna-
tives, he does not seem to be winning
over many of his opponents.
That may be because they question
his sincerity after his years of denounc-
ing global warming hoaxsters. Since
Mr. Trump announced the pullout from
Paris, his aides have largely ducked
questions about whether he still consid-
ers climate change to be a hoax.
Pressed repeatedly on that question
on Fox News Sunday, Scott Pruitt, the
administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency, said: The president
has indicated that the climate changes.
Its always changing. Ive indicated the
same. But he did not say whether Mr.
Trump believed that human activity
contributed to that, or whether it should
be curbed as a result.
On CNNs State of the Union, an-
other adviser, Nikki R. Haley, the Ameri-
can ambassador to the United Nations,
gave a fuller answer to the same ques-
tion.
President Trump believes the cli-
mate is changing, she said. And he be-
lieves pollutants are part of that equa-
tion. She added: He knows that the
U.S. has to be responsible with it, and
thats what were going to do. Just be-
cause we got out of a club doesnt mean
that we dont care about the envi-
ronment.
None of Mr. Trumps other actions
since taking office, including a move to
cancel power plant regulations drafted
by the Obama administration, suggest
an interest in tackling climate change,
President Trump before announcing the American withdrawal from the Paris climate
accord last week. Mr. Trumps aides said they had not studied the Kyoto precedent.
even through different means, however.
Just as Mr. Trump came to office after
President Barack Obama had sealed the
Paris pact, Mr. Bush was inaugurated
after President Bill Clinton had agreed
to the climate change accord negotiated
in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Unlike the Paris
deal, which is a nonbinding agreement
that did not require Senate ratification
but included all but two of the worlds na-
tions, the Kyoto accord was a full-
fledged treaty that did not include big
polluters in the developing world like
China and India but imposed binding
limits on the United States and Europe.
Mr. Bush had never supported the
deal, calling it flawed because it did not
include China and India, but as a candi-
date he had promised to impose a cap on
carbon emissions. Less than two
months into his presidency, in the midst
of an energy crisis that produced rolling
brownouts in California, Vice President
Dick Cheney managed an end-around to
reverse that pledge and formally aban-
don Kyoto.
Arguing that new restrictions would
AL DRAGO/THE NEW YORK TIMES
impose an undue burden on the energy
industry, he drafted a letter to Congress
renouncing both Kyoto and the carbon
cap. Mr. Bush agreed to sign it without
first consulting his secretary of state,
national security adviser or E.P.A. ad-
ministrator.
When Condoleezza Rice, the national
security adviser, found out, she called
Colin L. Powell, the secretary of state, at
his office. Alarmed, he told her, Slow
this thing down until I get there, and
rushed downstairs to his car to race over
to the White House.
By the time he made it the few blocks
to the West Wing, it was too late. Mr.
Cheney had left to hand-deliver the let-
ter to Capitol Hill. Its gone, Ms. Rice
told Mr. Powell.
Mr. Powell snapped at the president.
Youre going to see the consequences of
it, he said.
Mr. Bushs rejection of Kyoto in some
ways did not really alter American pol-
icy, since even Mr. Clinton had not sub-
mitted the treaty to the Senate for ratifi-
cation, mindful of a 95-to-0 vote in the
Senate for a nonbinding resolution op-
posing an agreement like it.
But Mr. Bush had not prepared the al-
lies for what was coming, feeding the
impression of a go-it-alone attitude that
would haunt him for years as he sought
international help in Afghanistan and
Iraq. The way they did it was just flip-
ping the bird to the rest of the world,
Christine Todd Whitman, his E.P.A. ad-
ministrator, later said.
Mr. Bush resisted the most expansive
proposals to fight climate change for the
rest of his presidency, and government
scientists felt muzzled during his admin-
istration. But he invested tens of billions
of dollars in developing alternative fuels
and clean energy technology, and he
convened summit meetings of leaders
from major economic powers to collabo-
rate on reducing emissions.
Over the course of his tenure, he be-
came more convinced by the science of
climate change. In his State of the Union
address in 2006, Mr. Bush, a former oil
man, declared that America is addicted
to oil, and in the address a year later, he
called climate change a serious chal-
lenge. In his final two years in office, he
imposed tougher fuel efficiency
standards on automobiles to reduce
tailpipe emissions, and came around on
the idea of a market-oriented cap-and-
trade system, suggesting in a speech
that he would be open to it.
It came too late in his presidency, and
ultimately Mr. Obama proposed and
failed to pass just such a system. Still,
greenhouse gas emissions, which had
risen significantly before Mr. Bush came
to office, stabilized during his eight
years and began falling shortly after he
left, as Mr. Obama took over.
Still, Mr. Bush and his aides
eventually concluded that the way he
backed out of Kyoto was a mistake too
defiant and negative without offering an
alternative. While he was right on Ky-
oto, we were just wrong on the way we
did it, Stephen J. Hadley, then Ms.
Rices deputy and later her successor,
said years later. We lived with that one;
that is really where this Bush unilater-
alism starts from.
talks with their Australian counter-
parts, insisted that the rupture in rela-
tions among the Arab states would not
undermine the fight against the Islamic
State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
I am confident there will be no impli-
cations, Mr. Mattis said.
But the escalating confrontation be-
tween Qatar and other Sunni Arab
states, in fact, presents a fresh and un-
welcome complication for the United
States military, which has made strenu-
ous efforts to forge a broad military co-
alition against the Islamic State.
Adding to the difficulties, American
forces have important commands dis-
tributed across the feuding nations.
The American-led air war command
in the fight against the Islamic State, for
example, is at Al Udeid Air Base in Qa-
tar.
Qatar is also the host for the forward
headquarters of the United States Cen-
tral Command, which oversees all
American military operations in Af-
ghanistan and the Middle East.
Bahrain hosts the United States
Navys Fifth Fleet, while the United
Arab Emirates provides air bases that
are used by the American-led coalition.
Anne Barnard contributed reporting
from Beirut.
CORRECTIONS
An article last Wednesday about the
evolution of beauty misspelled the mid-
dle name of a scientist who came up with
the theory of evolution at the same time
as Charles Darwin. He is Alfred Russel
Wallace, not Russell.
An article on May 30 about Russian
proxy support for fringe political figures
in Central and Eastern Europe mis-
stated the surname of an analyst who
criticized extensive Russian media cov-
erage of a small pro-Russia demonstra-
tion in Prague. He is Roman Maca, not
Mica.
An article on May 29 about Florida
misquoted a lyric from the song Talla-
hassee, by the Mountain Goats. It is
What did I come down here for, not
What did I come done here for.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Bootlegged Nigerian music and thousands of other counterfeit CDs are sold at the popular Alaba International Market in Lagos.
Playing for fame, but little else
NIGERIA, FROM PAGE 1
Nigerias economic malaise as a rallying
cry, arguing that legitimate sales not
only benefit musicians, but they could
also help an economy that has plunged
into recession amid low oil prices.
Were no longer getting revenue
from oil, so were arguing that content is
the new crude, said Aibee Abidoye,
general manager at Chocolate City
Group and 5ive Music, which seeks roy-
alties on behalf of three Lagos-based
record labels.
In recent decades, music from abroad
mainly American and British hip-hop
and R&B often dominated the Ni-
gerian scene. Yet international music
distributors largely ignored the nation
and its nascent middle class as a poten-
tial market. With few ways of buying the
overseas music that was so popular
here, illegal sales flourished.
American artists would come here to
do a show and were stunned to find thou-
sands of people singing their songs back
to them, said Efe Omorogbe, owner of
Now Muzik, a local label.
The open piracy, and few meaningful
efforts to stop it, left little incentive for
anyone to set up legitimate music sales
or invest in streaming services. Local
musicians, struggling to be heard above
the international competition, often
gave away their work.
The music industry has been its own
biggest enemy, said Mr. Omorogbe, a
business partner of the musician 2face
Idibia. Its descended to a point where
people who use your material almost
feel like you should celebrate them.
Theyre doing you a favor.
The appetite for Nigerian music is
clear. International labels such as Sony
Music Entertainment are setting up
shop in Lagos. Musicians like Ms. Shay,
who spent much of her childhood in Brit-
ain with her Nigerian parents, are being
lured back.
Last year, Wizkid, one of Nigerias
most popular artists, reached the top of
the American singles chart for an
Afrobeats collaboration with the Cana-
dian rapper Drake. They released an-
other track this year.
But for many artists, the more popu-
lar they become, the more their music is
stolen. Bootlegged Nigerian music is
stacked alongside the thousands of
other counterfeit CDs at the Alaba Inter-
national Market in Lagos.
There isnt exactly a proper struc-
ture for us to make money, said Falz, a
Nigerian rapper and songwriter.
Apple Music offers streaming in Ni-
geria, but the service has been plagued
with problems because of the nations
currency crisis. Even concerts, prof-
itable for artists anywhere, are being
pared back here as corporate sponsors
feel the pinch of the souring economy.
In Nigeria, musicians have rarely
sought royalty payments. Artists com-
plain that even the nations film indus-
try, known as Nollywood, routinely uses
songs in movies without permission or
payment.
When you create your content and
put it out, its scattered, said Har-
rysong, a Nigerian singer known for his
hit Mandela.
Many musicians pay to have their mu-
sic heard. Popular music blogs like
notjustok.com and naijaloaded.com
collect as much as $120 from unknown
musicians to promote a single song.
Budding musicians also pay to have
their songs featured on latest mix CDs
hawked on the streets.
A collection called Mega Mix con-
tained new pirated songs from well-
known musicians such as Davido and
Wizkid, along with songs from 43 less-
known singers.
The sellers of pirated music know the
artists receive nothing.
To get the songs off the internet, its
free, said Ola Mide, who stared into his
Seyi Shay during a show at the luxury Eko Hotel. She and other big names performed free, hoping to be exposed to a new market.
Sam Seyi, right, and Robin Emmanuel, left, his manager and producer, en route to a
recording studio on Snake Island in Lagos. Im paying my dues, Mr. Seyi said.
laptop at Computer Village as
customers lined up behind him for songs
from local artists like Tiwa Savage,
DBanj and Ms. Shay. Then people
come to me and give me money for
them.
Henry Onunary, another vendor of il-
legally downloaded music, explained
how the musicians might benefit, if at
all. What they get from us, he said, is
popularity.
The Copyright Society of Nigeria has
filed lawsuits, staged protests, hosted
conferences and handed out fliers to
businesses explaining copyright law. Its
leader, Mr. Chukwuji, said the group was
currently battling the nations major
mobile phone company, MTN, which
pays artists to use snippets of their
songs.
Mobile phone use in Nigeria has ex-
ploded in recent years, and ringback
tunes the few bars of music paid for
by customers that play while a call is be-
ing connected are hugely popular. As
a result, MTN, with its skyscraper head-
quarters in Lagos, has become one of
the biggest sources of revenue for Ni-
gerian artists. In fact, Nigerian ringback
tunes like Harrysongs Mandela are
more popular than songs by Snoop
Dogg or other American artists, accord-
ing to MTN.
Music has always been part of the
fabric of Lagos. What has changed is the
ability to monetize it, said Richard
Iweanoge, general manager of con-
sumer marketing at MTN, considered
the largest distributor of online music in
Nigeria. Its a privilege for us as a Ni-
gerian company to support local
artists.
But the copyright society has accused
MTN of not giving artists a fair cut from
the sales. MTN officials acknowledged
that the company recently renegotiated
ringback deals to better favor the
artists.
Things change, Mr. Iweanoge said.
Its always in our interest to make sure
the artist gets a fair share.
Plenty of musicians in Lagos are still
willing to sacrifice money to get noticed.
Across a polluted channel from the La-
gos mainland, past a sugar refinery
belching smoke, is Snake Island, a ser-
pent-shaped piece of land dotted by tilt-
ing tin huts.
Inside one of them, Sam Seyi, 24, was
dreaming of stardom, sitting on a bed
with Winnie the Pooh sheets as he sang
into a microphone. Friends filed into his
generator-powered bedroom studio as
babies screamed and chickens clucked
just outside the open window.
Youve got to believe in yourself, he
sang, eyes closed and arms pumping.
This is my time to make it.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ASHLEY GILBERTSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
news story than it is today.
interests.
Afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in
2013. We should have a speedy with-
drawal. Why should we keep wasting
Army, the security situation in Af-
sanctuaries for Al Qaeda and the Is-
Mr. Seyi, whose stage name is Sam-
Seyi Yango, has paid music blogs to fea-
ture his songs, and spent $16 this year to
be allowed onstage to perform before a
small audience.
Im paying my dues, he said. You
cant expect them to pay you a million
dollars when youre not a superstar.
Across the water, on the affluent Vic-
toria Island, already famous artists
were getting ready to perform in a chan-
deliered banquet hall at the luxury Eko
Hotel. Some of Nigerias biggest music
stars gathered in the green room: Har-
rysong, Falz, Lil Kesh, Vector and the
hip-hop duo Skuki.
None of them were being paid, even
though the audience included hundreds
of paying fans.
The local comedians onstage were the
big draw, and the musicians agreed to
perform for free, hoping to be exposed to
a new market.
Upstairs in a hotel room, a makeup
artist was layering foundation on Ms.
Shay, the room a mess of glittery blue
eye shadow, shimmery lotion, fake eye-
lashes and a pair of Oscar de la Renta
flowery high-heeled shoes carefully po-
sitioned on a shelf. She sneezed inside a
tiny cloud of powdered makeup.
Even Ms. Shay has paid to be heard,
forking over cash to various music
blogs. She once allowed one of her songs
to be used for free as the soundtrack for
a popular video game.
But now fans fawn over Ms. Shay
when she walks into a nightclub, taking
selfies and cooing over her. She lives in
an apartment in a gated community, and
a driver ferries her around town.
Her entourage includes a personal as-
sistant who calls himself a body
man and a wig stylist. She recently
flew to South Africa for performances
and has scored an endorsement deal
with a Chinese telecom company. Her
face has been on Pepsi billboards along
main roads in Lagos. Not long ago, she
was signed to the British-American la-
bel Island Records.
Trying to relax at a Tex-Mex restau-
rant in Lagos after a recent show, Ms.
Shay was sipping a margarita when a
bartender interrupted repeatedly to ask
how his music could get noticed. She
told him to email her a demo.
You have to put in the work, Ms.
Shay advised. Nobody is going to do it
for you.
Troop surge dilemma
now vexes Trump
AFGHANISTAN, FROM PAGE 1
affirm Americas commitment to mutual
defense.
Trump has made it harder, not easier,
to follow the U.S. lead, said Douglas E.
Lute, a former ambassador to NATO
who advised both Mr. Obama and Presi-
dent George W. Bush on Afghanistan.
Questioning U.S. leadership makes it
more difficult for the allies to send
troops into harms way.
While the parallels between the
Trump and Obama administrations are
striking, there are important differ-
ences.
Mr. Trump has shown his generals
more deference than did Mr. Obama. In
2009, Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obamas sec-
retary of state, had a significant voice in
the debate, though she formed an alli-
ance with the defense secretary, Robert
M. Gates, and the regional commander
at the time, Gen. David H. Petraeus.
Now, current and former generals all
but monopolize the debate. The White
House has also delegated military deci-
sions like the recent order by the top
American commander in Afghanistan,
Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., to drop the
most powerful conventional weapon in
the American arsenal on Islamic State
fighters in a tunnel complex there.
The troop numbers under considera-
tion are far more modest. In 2009, Gen.
Stanley A. McChrystal, then the top
commander in Afghanistan, recom-
mended 40,000 to Mr. Obama.
And Mr. Trump did not run for office
promising to turn around the war in Af-
ghanistan, as Mr. Obama did. In fact, Mr.
Trump said next to nothing about the Af-
ghan war during the 2016 campaign. His
views on the subject are best gauged
through his posts on Twitter in 2012 and
2013, when the war was a much bigger
It is time to get out of Afghanistan,
Mr. Trump wrote on Feb. 27, 2012. We
are building roads and schools for peo-
ple that hate us. It is not in our national
Why are we continuing to train these
the back? he wrote on Aug. 21, 2012. Af-
ghanistan is a complete waste. Time to
come home!
I agree with Pres. Obama on Af-
ghanistan, Mr. Trump said on Jan. 14,
our money rebuild the U.S.!
But Mr. Trump is discovering, as Mr.
Obama did, that extricating the United
States is harder than it appears. General
McMaster and other advisers warn that
without reinforcements for the Afghan
ghanistan will get even more precarious
than it is now, potentially creating more
lamic State.
Currently, the international security
force assisting the Afghan Army has
about 13,000 troops, of which about 8,400
are American soldiers. Under an initial
plan, which General Nicholson recom-
American Marines raising the flag in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. A Pentagon
proposal to deploy up to 5,000 additional American troops has run into resistance.
The 34th Oxford Analytica Conference
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TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 | 5
world
mended to Congress in February, the
United States would send 3,000 to 5,000
additional troops, including hundreds of
Special Operations forces.
Such a deployment would allow
American advisers to train and assist
more Afghan forces, and it would place
American troops closer to the front lines
at lower levels in the chain of command.
For both General McMaster and Mr.
Mattis, a retired four-star Marine Corps
general, Afghanistan was a profound ex-
perience but in different ways. Gen-
eral Mattis commanded a brigade in the
early days of fighting after the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks. He earned a repu-
tation as a swaggering warrior who
would turn up in a foxhole with his
troops.
General McMaster headed an anti-
corruption task force that worked
mostly out of the capital, Kabul, after Mr.
Obamas troop surge. He quarreled with
Afghan officials and warlords in an of-
ten-futile effort to make sure billions of
dollars in American aid went to the right
places.
Running an anticorruption task
force in Afghanistan makes being Don-
ald Trumps national security adviser
look easy, said John A. Nagl, a retired
Army lieutenant colonel and an expert
in counterinsurgency strategy.
Both Mr. Mattis and General McMas-
ter are steeped in counterinsurgency
doctrine the strategy that helped lead
Mr. Obama to order a deployment of
30,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2009.
But Mr. Nagl said both had reason to
be more cautious this time: Mr. Mattis
had scars from the heavy losses borne
by the Marines there, while General Mc-
Masters exposure to rampant corrup-
tion would rob him of any illusions that a
few thousand new troops could turn
around Afghanistan.
He understands how arduous, how
grinding, how interminable this is going
to be, Mr. Nagl said. But what is the al-
ternative?
That question is echoing again in the
hallways of the West Wing and the
people asking it have Mr. Trumps ear.
Mr. Bannon, who was a powerful force
behind Mr. Trumps decision to leave the
Paris climate accord, has recovered
some of his influence in the wake of that
debate. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trumps son-
in-law and adviser, remains a crucial
voice, despite his troubles over reported
links to Russia. Though he has not taken
a position on troops, his aides say he
views his role as making sure the presi-
dent gets genuine options.
Other officials may weigh in, too. John
F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Se-
curity and another retired general,
holds weight with Mr. Trump. His son
was killed in combat in Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson may
be exerting behind-the-scenes influence
already. The debate over Afghanistan
abruptly slowed down after officials at
the State Department expressed con-
cern that General McMaster was jam-
ming through a troop decision.
WAKIL KOHSAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE GETTY IMAGES
20-22 September 2017
Christ Church, Oxford UK

6 | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017
world
An Iraqi special forces soldier firing on Islamic State militants in western Mosul. The jihadists seldom seem to pass up the chance to use storms or other heavy weather, when coalition aircraft cannot target them, to press the fight.
On Mosuls front line
MOSUL, IRAQ
As Iraqi forces battle
militants, street fighting
leaves no block unscathed
PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT
BY IVOR PRICKETT
The Islamic States grip on Mosul has
shrunk to a tighter circle of neighbor-
hoods in the western part of the city. But
many civilians are still trapped in those
areas, and the militants are giving no
ground easily.
As we traveled with Iraqi forces
through the Rifai neighborhood last
month, evidence of a brutal street fight
was all around. The destruction was im-
mense, and it seemed not a single house
was free of bullet holes or worse.
While clashes still raged in the last re-
maining pockets of Islamic State control
in Rifai, displaced people began to
trickle out at dusk. The number of peo-
ple who are managing to flee their
homes seemed much lower than during
earlier parts of the battle for the west.
After laboriously clearing Rifai, Iraqi
special forces soldiers took up defensive
positions and waited for their next or-
ders. Then came the Islamic States
counterattack.
Under the cover of a sudden sand-
storm, the jihadists fought the troops for
hours before being driven off. The mili-
tants seldom seem to pass up the chance
to use storms or other heavy weather,
when coalition aircraft cannot target
them, to press the fight.
On the front line the next morning, the
soldiers there told how intense gunfire
during the battle had set their sandbag
walls on fire. They seemed amazed that
the Islamic State remained well
equipped and capable.
At one junction on the edge of Rifai, an
Islamic State sniper had taken up a posi-
Iraqi special forces soldiers treating a girl who was injured when her house was hit by
an airstrike. The civilian toll from the fighting has been immense.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
tion and was shooting at vehicles as they
crossed the road. He fired at a large
group of fleeing civilians, narrowly
missing. The shot flew over their heads,
hitting an upturned car behind them.
The crowd was split, with half running
back to where they had come from.
There was no other way for them to
get to safety, so they waited for a mili-
tary vehicle to cross the road and used
the dust it kicked up as cover to make a
run for it. Women carrying children, rel-
atives carrying the infirm all moved
as quickly as they could. Somehow, they
made it out unhurt.
Little has been left unscathed in these
neighborhoods. Coalition airstrikes are
still being called in frequently in the
middle of densely populated neighbor-
hoods, and the civilian toll has been
enormous. But the Iraqi forces have
seemed reluctant to advance at all with-
out the air support.
When asked why the men didnt just
engage the militant fighters more di-
rectly themselves rather than risk more
civilian lives by using airstrikes, one
young soldier said they wanted to finish
the fight with no casualties on their side.
Maybe this way of thinking points to
the high rate of attrition the Iraqi forces
have had over the last few years of fight-
ing the Islamic State, including a huge
toll on the elite counterterrorism forces
over the past few months of urban fight-
ing in Mosul. Or maybe its an indication
of a fight so bitter that utter destruction
is acceptable as long as the enemy is
beaten.
Ahead lies Mosuls Old City, and per-
haps the worst fight yet. Some of the sol-
diers, as well as one resident who had
managed to flee, spoke of jihadist fight-
ers trying to round up people still living
in the area and forcing them to retreat
with them toward the Old City. Its a
chilling thought, and horrifyingly con-
sistent with how the Islamic State has
fought this battle for months. The mili-
tants last stand may well take place be-
hind a wall of civilians. Civilians fleeing across a junction that an Islamic State sniper was targeting in the Rifai neighborhood. It seems that not a single house is free of bullet holes or worse.
Islamic State fighters reportedly killed in a coalition airstrike in Mosul. Airstrikes are Iraqi soldiers moved through houses in the recently retaken area of Al Saha. Iraqi
still being called in frequently in the middle of densely populated neighborhoods. forces have had a high rate of attrition over the last few years of fighting.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 | 7

Business
Building a comeback
on virtual border wall
After leaving Facebook
amid political criticism,
tech exile has new start-up
BY NICK WINGFIELD
Palmer Freeman Luckey was the kind of
wunderkind Silicon Valley venerates.
When he was just 21, he made an
overnight fortune selling his start-up, a
company called Oculus VR that made
virtual-reality gear, to Facebook for $2
billion in 2014.
But the success story took a sideways
turn this year when Mr. Luckey was
pressured to leave Facebook months af-
ter news spread that he had secretly do-
nated to an organization dedicated to
spreading anti-Hillary Clinton internet
memes.
While Mr. Luckey slammed inaccura-
cies in the articles, the reports proved
toxic in Silicon Valley, where hostility to
President Trump is as pervasive as
overpriced coffee.
The spokesman for a new medium
virtual reality briefly became an ex-
ile.
Now Mr. Luckey is back. Unburdened
by a big companys culture, hes more
freely sharing his politics on social me-
dia. He also contributed $100,000 to Mr.
Trumps inauguration, through one of
his companies, according to Federal
Election Commission records.
And he has a new start-up in the
works, a company that is developing
SIMON DAWSON/BLOOMBERG
surveillance technology that could be
During Marissa Mayers five-year run at Yahoo, internet users shifted attention to Google, Facebook and other rivals. The company will be absorbed by Verizon in the coming week. deployed on borders between countries
and around military bases, according to
three people familiar with the plan who
erties are registered to more than a half-
dozen companies that can be traced to
Mr. Luckey through public business
records. Many of their names, like
Fiendlords Keep, Black Omen and
Wings of Time, relate to a video game
called Chrono Trigger.
Mr. Luckey, 24, lives in a 78-year-old
mansion in affluent Woodside, Calif.,
with a group of friends, according to
public records and Facebook posts by
his roommates. One of his roommates is
his girlfriend, Nicole Edelmann, who
has received attention for her support of
GamerGate, a loose online movement
that has sought to push back against so-
cial progressivism in video games.
Mr. Luckey and Ms. Edelmann are
devotees of cosplay short for costume
play in which people dress as charac-
ters from games and comic books. In
May, they posed for photos at a cosplay
conference in Japan dressed as a char-
acter from the game Metal Gear Solid,
complete with identical bikini tops,
ripped black tights and ammunition
belts.
A person who knows him described
Mr. Luckey as a casual prepper, some-
one who prepares for societal collapse,
though another person said he was sim-
ply a military buff.
Among his assets is about 85 acres of
property in upstate New York, including
a luxury home built atop a decommis-
sioned Atlas missile silo. Tax rolls for
Clinton County, N.Y., list Oculus VR and
Black Omen which Mr. Luckey owns,
according to California records
among the owners of the properties.
Tenants live in the home.
He owns a second property in Chico,
Calif., with decommissioned Titan 1 mis-

Was she worth it?

SAN FRANCISCO
Marissa Mayer made
$239 million in presiding
over Yahoos decline
BY VINDU GOEL
When a withered Yahoo is absorbed by
Verizon Communications in the next
week or so, it will be the end of an era for
one of the pioneering names of the inter-
net age.
It will also conclude the remarkable
five-year run of Yahoos chief executive,
Marissa Mayer, who was paid nearly a
quarter of a billion dollars a generous
sum even by Silicon Valleys lofty
standards while presiding over the
companys continued decline.
Ms. Mayer, now 42, was hailed as a
savior when she left Google for Yahoo in
2012. But during her tenure, Yahoo was
hit by two of the biggest privacy
breaches in history. Advertisers, Ya-
hoos bread and butter, fled the service.
Users shifted ever more attention to
Google, Facebook and other rivals. Ya-
hoos staff shrank by almost 50 percent.
The company ended up so weakened
that its board had little choice but to sell.
Everyone acknowledges that it was
a difficult situation to come into, said
Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Re-
search who has studied Yahoo for years.
But the company was not run well un-
der her tenure.
So why did Ms. Mayer receive more
than $900,000 a week? The answer, like
so many things about Yahoo, is surpris-
had been stumbling for years.
When Ms. Mayers early efforts to
turn around Yahoos business and spin
off the Alibaba shares failed to bear
fruit, another hedge fund manager, Jeff-
rey C. Smith of Starboard Value, led a
campaign to push for her ouster. Mr.
Smith eventually garnered four board
seats so he could keep the pressure on.
Yahoo declined to comment for this
article, citing the shareholder vote on
Thursday to approve the Verizon deal.
Ms. Mayer and the board chairman,
Maynard Webb, who approved her pay
packages, also declined interview re-
quests. So did Mr. Smith.
MS. MAYER HAS come under more scru-
tiny than most Silicon Valley chief exec-
utives, in part because of the Super-
woman image she cultivated in an in-
dustry dominated by men: the Stanford-
trained computer scientist and tireless
manager who still wrote code for fun
while raising three young children and
looking stylish in Oscar de la Renta.
She was an attractive, high-visibility
C.E.O. trying to bring some excitement
and glamour to Yahoo, said Martha Jo-
sephson, a senior partner at the recruit-
ing firm Egon Zehnder, who helped Ms.
Mayer find several of her top execu-
tives. As hard as the job was, she didnt
get a break. If she were an ugly man,
shed be a hero.
On July 16, 2012, the day she was hired,
Yahoos share price was $15.65. On Fri-
day, it closed at $50.60. The stocks per-
formance has topped other venerable
tech companies like Microsoft, Oracle
and Cisco Systems, and matched the
gains of Alphabet, the parent company
of Google, Yahoos most direct competi-
lion, that it received as part of a deal
struck in 1996, shortly after Yahoo was
founded.
The surging value of those invest-
ments not any brilliant business
moves by Ms. Mayer is why Yahoos
shares went up. Its like someone com-
ing into an oil company, and all of a sud-
den oil prices go up and the stock goes
up, said Charles M. Elson, the director
of the Weinberg Center for Corporate
Governance at the University of Dela-
ware. Was the return based on what
she did?
Still, managing those investments
was a key reason that Yahoos board
hired Ms. Mayer. Mr. Loeb had accused
Yahoos previous leaders of mishandling
both their core business and the Alibaba
relationship. When he and two allies
gained seats on the board in 2012, they
wanted a new chief executive who
would fix both problems.
Ms. Mayer delegated the Alibaba is-
sue, hiring an experienced dealmaker,
Jacqueline Reses, to be the companys
principal liaison to Alibaba and its lead-
ers, Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai. Ms. Reses
helped the Chinese company navigate
its initial public offering. She also
By Wall Streets most basic
yardstick, she earned every
penny she got: Yahoos share
price more than tripled during
her tenure.
renegotiated an agreement, struck just
before Ms. Mayer arrived, that would
have forced Yahoo to sell an additional
asked for anonymity because it is still sile silos, according to records.
confidential. They said the investment Mr. Luckey also owns several military
fund run by Peter Thiel, a technology vehicles and, through various compa-
adviser to Mr. Trump, planned to sup- nies, three helicopters, and he received
port the effort. a student pilots license last year, ac-
In an emailed statement, Mr. Luckey cording to Federal Aviation Administra-
confirmed that he was working on a de- tion records.
interests. fense-related start-up. While Mr. Luckey became a tech icon
Ms. Mayer, who oversaw search at We are spending more than ever on for reviving interest in virtual reality, his
Google, also assigned more than 1,000 defense technology, yet the pace of inno- politics burst into view in September
people to Yahoos search products, vation has been slowing for decades, he when The Daily Beast published an arti-
which it had largely abandoned in 2009 wrote. We need a new kind of defense cle saying he had quietly funded a pro-
when it sold its search operations to company, one that will save taxpayer Trump nonprofit, Nimble America.
Microsoft. The team was asked to pur- dollars while creating superior technol- After the article ran, Mr. Luckey said
sue her great white whale: a per- ogy to keep our troops and citizens on Facebook that he was sorry his ac-
sonalized search product that could safer. tions were hurting Oculus. He said he
leapfrog Apples Siri, Googles Assistant The new business is the latest note in had given the nonprofit $10,000 because
and Microsofts Cortana. Little came of the charmed and very unconventional he believed it had fresh ideas on how to
the effort. life of Mr. Luckey. He stood to receive communicate with young voters
Yahoo did acquire advertising tech- hundreds of millions of dollars from the through the use of several billboards.
nology and built a new ad system from sale of Oculus to Facebook, he said in He said news articles, some of which ac-
scratch, but marketers never embraced court in January during a trial involving cused him of funding the creation of rac-
it. a dispute between Oculus and a game ist memes, had distorted his views.
publisher. The precise amount he left the He was gone from Oculus by March.
YAHOOS BOARD recognized Ms. Mayers company with is unclear. An Oculus spokeswoman said Mr. Luck-
failure to meet business targets and He has accumulated a lot of toys with eys departure had not been connected
docked her bonuses and stock awards in that Facebook money. Most of his prop- LUCKEY, PAGE 8
four of the five years she was in charge.
But under terms of her original employ-
ment agreement, it also granted her
new shares annually, easing the sting.
The biggest financial price she paid
for her mistakes came this year, when
she gave up her cash bonus for 2016 and
equity awards for 2017 about $14 mil-
lion as a penalty for managements
failure to act on evidence of the theft of
data from 500 million accounts in 2014.
That incident, along with the 2013
breach of one billion accounts,
prompted Verizon to renegotiate its
original purchase agreement with Ya-
hoo, shaving $350 million from the $4.83
billion price.
Even Ms. Mayers handling of the Al-
ibaba investment came in for second-
guessing. Yahoo spent so much time de-
vising its original plan to spin off the
stake in a tax-free transaction that the
Internal Revenue Service changed its RAMIN TALAIE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

ingly complicated. It is rooted partly in
the never-lose structure of modern ex-
ecutive compensation packages, but
also in two farsighted investments made
long ago by one of Yahoos founders,
Jerry Yang.
By Wall Streets most basic yardstick
Yahoos stock price Ms. Mayer
earned every penny she got. Yahoos
share price more than tripled during her
tenure. After the $4.5 billion sale to Veri-
zon, shareholders will still own an in-
vestment company with $57 billion of
stock in two Asian internet companies,
Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.
Ms. Mayers pay was mostly in stock
and stock options, and she reaped the
rewards alongside the other
stockholders.
The only sign you can point to when
evaluating a company over a long peri-
od of time is how shareholders have
done in the exchange, said David Wise,
who heads North American sales at
Korn Ferry Hay Group, a firm that ad-
vises companies on executive pay pack-
ages. Over the last five years, Yahoo
shareholders couldnt have done a lot
better than this.
More than most chief executives, Ms.
Mayer was working for those
shareholders.
She was essentially hired by one
hedge-fund manager, Daniel S. Loeb,
who got her predecessor fired and won
three seats on Yahoos board in 2012. Mr.
Loeb was particularly interested in find-
ing a way to unlock the value of Yahoos
stake in Alibaba, which was already
shaping up to be one of Chinas leading
internet companies. He pushed the
board to recruit a star like Ms. Mayer to
get people excited about a company that
tor.
As Yahoo shareholders profited, so
did Ms. Mayer. By the time the deal
closes, she will have made about $239
million, based on Fridays share price,
according to calculations by Equilar, a
provider of executive compensation
data.
Such stock-heavy compensation
structures are the norm in corporate
America, where boards of directors seek
to align an executives financial incen-
tives with gains for shareholders.
To lure Ms. Mayer from Google and
compensate her for options she forfeited
there, Yahoos board offered her a lucra-
tive employment agreement. She ini-
tially received restricted stock worth
$35 million and stock options worth $21
million, based on 2012 stock prices for
Yahoo, along with a cash salary and bo-
nus. Although she gave up a portion of
those stock grants after failing to meet
performance targets, the rise in Yahoos
share price more than offset the losses.
She received further stock grants in lat-
er years, adding to her overall compen-
sation.
Yet most of Ms. Mayers paycheck ul-
timately came from the gains in Yahoos
Alibaba and Yahoo Japan investments,
over which she had little control. Thanks
to an investment made in 2005, Yahoo
had a 24 percent stake in Alibaba, which
today is Chinas leading e-commerce
company.
When Alibaba first sold shares to the
public in 2014, Yahoo sold 140 million
shares in the offering. It hung on to 384
million shares, which are now worth
about $48 billion.
Yahoo also owns about 36 percent of
Yahoo Japan, now worth about $9 bil-
122 million shares in the offering. Those
extra shares are now worth $15 billion.
Ms. Mayer, meanwhile, focused on
turning around Yahoos internet busi-
ness. It had missed the mobile revolu-
tion and was experiencing steady de-
clines in its display and search advertis-
ing. There, her record is decidedly
mixed.
Yahoo had no real strategy for reach-
ing customers on mobile devices when
she arrived a sure route to obsoles-
cence as smartphones became the prin-
cipal internet device for most people.
Through a combination of acquisi-
tions and hiring, she vastly expanded
Yahoos mobile team, which initially
produced some buzzy hits like the Yahoo
Weather app and Yahoo News Digest,
along with more prosaic updates of core
Yahoo features like fantasy sports and
email. Yet Ms. Mayer largely failed in
her quest to make Yahoo a daily habit
for more users in online video, search
and messaging.
Ms. Mayer also made a bold bet on so-
cial media, buying the money-losing
blogging site Tumblr for $1.1 billion in
2013. But she did little with the acquisi-
tion and was eventually forced to write
down much of the purchase price.
One of her biggest mistakes was hir-
ing a former colleague from Google,
Henrique de Castro, to be chief operat-
ing officer and oversee Yahoos advertis-
ing efforts. But Ms. Mayer fired him just
14 months later, resulting in a $58 million
severance payout. All told, he received
about $108 million, according to court
documents. Two lawsuits have sought to
recover some of that money, arguing
that Ms. Mayer and the board overpaid
him and failed to protect shareholders
views on such deals, forcing the com- Palmer Luckey, a founder of Oculus VR, demonstrated a virtual reality headset and
pany to start over. controllers during a media event in 2015. He sold the start-up to Facebook in 2014.
Given those missteps, was Ms. Mayer
overpaid?
For the existing amount of compen-
sation, could Yahoo shareholders have
done better? Mr. Wieser of Pivotal Re-
search said. Or for the same outcome,
could they have paid less? Ultimately
its a hard question to answer.
Peter Monaco, who was a vice presi-
dent for engineering at Yahoo for three
years before leaving for Facebook last
September, said Ms. Mayer does not get
enough credit for transforming Yahoos
culture.
She eliminated the dead wood, drove
out the politics, put in place compensa-
tion policies that rewarded high achiev-
ers and energized people to create great
products again, he said.
Arguably, Yahoo was unfixable. The
companys DNA and technology were
built around its original identity as a
web portal a powerful position in the
early 2000s but increasingly outmoded
in the mobile era, as apps and phone
platforms like iOS and Android became
the gateways to the internet.
Given the hand she was dealt, I
doubt anyone could have done a better
job transforming the culture and
making Yahoo healthy again, Mr. Mon-
aco said.
Ms. Mayer, who once made the trek to
the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africas
highest peak, said last year that fixing
Yahoo was like climbing a mountain. InterContinental London Park Lane
Its a tall mountain to climb and we
started, obviously, very low on the October 1719, 2017
mountain, she told Charlie Rose. oilandmoney.com
Unlike Kilimanjaro, though, the Ya-
hoo challenge proved insurmountable.
 ..
10 | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

opinion

How the 67 war came home to me

begin. What I remember from those is easily the most hard-line, racist ad- though I have a Jerusalem ID, it takes
ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER JR., Publisher A.G. SULZBERGER, Deputy Publisher Hanan Ashrawi days is my parents generations sense ministration in the history of Israel. me at least an hour to travel through
DEAN BAQUET, Executive Editor MARK THOMPSON, Chief Executive Officer
of collective loss and insecurity. The results are evident in East Jeru- several checkpoints from Ramallah to
JOSEPH KAHN, Managing Editor STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON, President, International
What took place nearly 20 years later, salem, which has been subjected to a Jerusalem to visit family. This used to be
TOM BODKIN, Creative Director PHILIPPE MONTJOLIN, Senior V.P., International Operations
in 1967, was not the Naksa, or setback, as triple siege of settlements, military a 15-minute trip.
RAMALLAH, WEST BANK On June 5, 1967, I the leaders of other Arab countries checkpoints and a separation and an- Resistance comes at a high price.
SUZANNE DALEY, Associate Editor JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DEMARTA, Senior V.P., Global Advertising
was a student at the American Univer- called it, but a resounding defeat, an- nexation barrier that is, in effect, an Nonviolent and peaceful protests are
ACHILLES TSALTAS, V.P., International Conferences
JAMES BENNET, Editorial Page Editor
sity of Beirut majoring in English litera- other disaster of tremendous propor- apartheid wall. As Israel pushes out the met with violent responses and pun-
CHANTAL BONETTI, V.P., International Human Resources
JAMES DAO, Deputy Editorial Page Editor
ture. That morning, I woke early to tions. June 1967 ushered in half a cen- citys Palestinian residents by har- ished by excessive prison sentences. In
CHARLOTTE GORDON, V.P., International Consumer Marketing
finish a research paper on James tury of oppression, injustice and the assing them, confiscating their IDs, the five decades of occupation, many
HELEN KONSTANTOPOULOS, V.P., International Circulation
Joyces Ulysses. As had been my captivity of an entire people. For me, the demolishing their homes and denying hundreds of Palestinian civilians have
HELENA PHUA, Executive V.P., Asia-Pacific
habit, I turned on the BBC News. I occupation brought with it an immense them services, the whole history of been killed, even children, when they
SUZANNE YVERNS, International Chief Financial Officer
discovered, to my horror, that war had burden, but equally a sense of challenge Palestinian presence in Jerusalem is stand up to soldiers with guns.
broken out back home. and responsibility. being systematically erased. Palestinians desire peace, but peace
Word soon reached me and my sister My own return to Ramallah via Jor- The Gaza Strip has been turned into a cannot exist as long as the occupation
Nadia, who was also a student in Beirut, dan in 1973 was an ordeal, culminating huge prison camp, where 1.8 million and the denial of Palestinian rights
that our house in Ramallah had been in a prolonged interrogation, a strip Palestinians are subjugated in dire continue. We have been engaged in a
MORE AGONY IN BRITAIN shelled, and the fate of our family was search and the confiscation of my be- living conditions. peace process since 1991, when we first
unknown. For a week, we were gripped longings by the Israeli Army. I arrived Although Israel met with Secretary of State James
These are trying times for Britain. Two grotesque with shock and anxiety, alleviated only to discover that the landscape had For every withdrew its Baker. In that first encounter, the Pales-
The latest terror attacks within two weeks. An important and when our sister Muna, then in the changed and the mind-set of the Palestinian occupying forces tinian delegation raised a host of issues,
outrage has United States, was able to contact the people with it. Under a harsh regime of touched by in 2005, it main- including human rights abuses and
unexpectedly close election Thursday on how to exit American Consulate in Jerusalem and military checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, tained a suffocat- settlement construction. Secretary
not disrupted Europe. The issues involved stopping terrorism relay the information to us that our deportations, home demolitions and the conflicts ing blockade by Baker assured us: Begin negotiations
the democratic without sacrificing democratic values, ending a long family was safe and our house was still sheer intimidation, Ramallah was no aftermath, the air, sea and land. and the settlements will stop. Neither
process or relationship with the least damage to both sides standing. longer the bride of Palestine, as it had occupation Gazans have his, nor any American administration
Like other parts of historic Palestine, once been known, but a violated city. is personal. endured a series since, has made good on that promise.
democratic would be enough for any nation, much less one as however, our hometown was then occu- In those days, Israel had banned the of Israeli military From its inception, the peace process
values. emotionally battered as this one. pied by the Israeli military. It took my Palestine Liberation Organization from assaults that served to promote Israels interests and
The latest outrage, the attack in central London, father more than six years to get the the occupied territories, but those of us have left thou- security, not to recognize the Palestin-
family reunification permit that enabled who participated in the political leader- sands dead, a majority of them civilians. ian peoples rights and humanity, nor to
provoked strong reactions from both candidates. me to return home. ship of the first intifada, which began in The occupation has imposed on guarantee an independent state. During
Enough is enough, said Prime Minister Theresa That week in June marked the start of 1987, prepared a document calling on the Palestinians a system of economic my negotiations with the American
May, adding that there had been far too much toler- an intensely personal journey, linking P.L.O. to take the initiative and detailing dependency, with all transactions sub- delegation, I heard repeatedly that the
our parents story to my own trauma of a peace offensive based on interna- ject to Israeli whim. Israel also controls special relationship between Israel
ance of extremism in Britain. All communities must
1967. In the war of 1948 that led to the tional law. During a meeting in Algiers all the natural resources of the West and the United States would always
come together, declared the Labour leader, Jeremy founding of Israel, my parents along in 1988, the P.L.O. agreed to the principle Bank, including the water supply, and prevent any kind of accountability for
Corbyn. Both said that the election should proceed with thousands of others, all Palestinian of partition. Not long afterward, the allocates just 14 percent of the aquifers Israel, let alone the adoption of any
and that the attacks could not be allowed to disrupt Muslims and Christians had been organization settled for 22 percent of water to Palestinians, while the rest is sanction. We Palestinians, on the other
driven out of their home in Tiberias, on historic Palestine in hope of peace. The appropriated by Israel and its settle- hand, constantly had to prove our seri-
the democratic process. the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, enormity of the sacrifice, and the magni- ments. While most Palestinians in ousness of intent, and often faced
That both Mrs. May and Mr. Corbyn have not simi- where my father was then stationed as a tude of the compromise, have never towns, villages and cities like mine can threats and blackmail.
larly politicized these horrible events is reassuring. doctor in the Palestine Army. been fully appreciated by the interna- barely get drinking water, let alone We asked the Americans for their own
In total, about 800,000 Palestinians tional community. water for their crops, Israeli settlers vision for peace, but we never saw any
Surely the temptation to do so is there. were dispossessed and expelled. Be- Today, Palestinians are left in control lounge by swimming pools and on wa- American document before it had been
Yet despite the provocation, it is essential that nei- cause of the Nakba, or catastrophe, of of barely 18 percent of the occupied tered lawns. cleared with the Israeli delegation.
ther candidate succumb to the temptation of pledging 1948, those Palestinians and their territory which means just 18 percent We Palestinians must also contend Ultimately, Israel got incentives and
or imposing the sorts of draconian measures sug- descendants are refugees scattered of that 22 percent of historic Palestine with daily humiliations and inducements rather than blame when it
across the region and the world, dream- because of continued Israeli settlement inconveniences caused by the restric- undermined the process, reneged on
gested by some commentators, such as locking up ing of their right to return. Many still construction and land theft. There are tions of movement and services im- agreements or redefined the parame-
Muslims. Disrupting democracy and undermining its have the keys and deeds to homes in some 650,000 settlers now living on posed by Israels control of borders and ters by creating new facts on the
values is surrendering to just what the terrorists Palestine. Palestinian land, in violation of interna- the settler-only roads and infrastruc- ground.
My parents briefly took refuge in tional law. Some of them are among the ture that carve up the West Bank. The As President Trump takes on the
want. Amman, Jordan, before returning to my most radical and violent elements of majority of Palestinians who do not challenge of making a deal, he must
The political fallout for Thursday remains to be fathers ancestral home in Ramallah, Israeli society, yet they are powerful have Jerusalem IDs are forbidden to draw the proper conclusions from the
seen. The prevailing wisdom when Mrs. May called where my earliest childhood memories partners in a coalition government that enter occupied East Jerusalem. Even failures of the past. That involves a
recognition that ending the occupation
the election on April 18, reversing her earlier insist-
and respecting Palestinians inalienable
ence that she would not, was that she would win by a rights are central to any peace agree-
landslide over a disjointed Labour Party. And what- ment.
ever the outcome, there is little likelihood that Britain As I recount this history, I am re-
minded of an incident during the first
will reverse position and stay in the European Union. intifada in 1987. As I was leaving our
But her lackluster campaign, a flip-flop on social pol- house in Ramallah with friends to take
icy and failure to participate in a political debate, part in a demonstration against the
occupation, my daughter Zeina, who
combined with a better-than-expected performance
was 6 at the time, asked if she could
by Mr. Corbyn (of whom awfully little was expected, come. I refused, explaining that it was
to be sure) have steadily trimmed her partys margin too dangerous and she was too young.
in the polls. But by the time I grow up, she
pleaded, the occupation may have
The Tories are still expected to come out ahead, ended and therell be no more
though the failure of so many pundits to anticipate the demonstrations.
victories of Brexit or Donald Trump have made many Instead, my experience of living
under occupation has become the reali-
people understandably chary of predictions. ty, too, for my daughters, and even my
Add to these uncertainties a new wild card ter- grandchildren. The Israeli authorities
rorism, and a shaken citizenry. One week ago Mrs. revoked both of my daughters Jerusa-
Mays prospects looked certain. But as a former prime lem IDs, which prevented them from
living in their homeland and deprived
minister, Harold Wilson, once famously noted, a week me and our family of the joy of being
is a long time in politics. part of our grandchildrens lives.
Every Palestinian generation inherits
the yearning for freedom from the
previous generation and the struggle
to achieve it. We will continue to seek a
ROCKETING TO THE SUN AND ITS SECRETS just peace that will provide future gen-
erations with the historic redemption
Like the countless stars that come and go, flaring and that should be theirs.
NASA is dying across the universe, the sun still holds many
launching the mysteries. That should change markedly next year HANAN ASHRAWI, a Palestinian lawmaker
first satellite when NASA launches the first satellite aimed at our
and a member of the Palestine Libera-
tion Organizations executive commit-
aimed at own star to reveal the secrets of the suns atmosphere, tee, is the author of several works of
our own star the corona.
PIERRE GUILLAUD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
literary criticism and the memoir This
to uncover Palestinians surrender to Israeli soldiers in June 1967 in the occupied territory of the West Bank. Side of Peace: A Personal Account.
The corona is where supersonic releases of energy,
the mysteries called solar winds, burst forth and disrupt activities
of its on Earth, from farmers fields to electric power grids.
atmosphere. The corona fuels primal questions that scientists
yearn to answer soon from 92.96 million miles afar.
How can the sun generate these million-miles-per-
hour winds powerful enough to escape its gravita-
Making ignorance great again
tional pull? And how can the corona, at 3.5 million form, and try to devise a plan that were even more dire than those from tive; the magic of the marketplace can
degrees Fahrenheit, be a far more infernal presence made sense? Of course not. In fact, the C.B.O.) solve all problems. But then they claim
than the surface of the sun below, at a mere 10,000 House leaders made a point of ram- But Mulvaney and his party dont that these magical markets would roll
ming a bill through before the Congres- study issues, they just decide, and over and die if we put a modest price
degrees? sional Budget Office, or for that matter attack the motives of anyone who on carbon emissions, which is basically
That defies the laws of nature, stressed Nicola anyone else, could assess its likely questions their decisions. what climate policy would do. This
Fox, mission project scientist of whats called the impact. Which brings us back to climate doesnt make any sense but its not
Parker Solar Probe. Its like water flowing uphill.
Paul Krugman When the budget office did weigh in, policy. supposed to. Republicans want to keep
its conclusions were what you might On climate change, influential con- burning coal, and theyll say whatever
For answers, she said, humans must reach and touch expect: If you make huge cuts in Med- servatives have for years clung to helps produce that outcome.
the sun through the seven-year, 24-orbit mission, icaid and reduce subsidies for private what is basically a crazy conspiracy And as health care and climate go,
insurance all so you can cut taxes on theory that the overwhelming scien- so goes everything else. Can you think
seeking solar secrets at the furnace door. Donald Trump just took us out of the the wealthy a lot of people are going tific consensus of any major policy area where the
No astrophysicist is more curious about the an- Paris climate accord for no good rea- to lose coverage. Is 23 million a good that the earth is G.O.P. hasnt gone post-truth? Take
swers than Eugene Parker, the brilliant pioneer of the son. I dont mean that his decision was estimate of those losses? Yes it Climate is a warming due to budgeting, where leaders like Paul
heliosphere who was laughed at when he theorized
wrong. I mean, literally, that he didnt might be 18 million, or it might be 28 casualty in the greenhouse-gas Ryan have always justified tax cuts for
offer any substantive justification for million, but surely it would be in that war on truth. emissions is a the rich by claiming the ability to
the existence of the solar wind in 1958. But Dr. Park- that decision. Oh, he threw around a range. hoax, somehow conjure up trillions in extra revenue
ers work envisioned nonstop torrents of charged few numbers about supposed job So how did the administration re- coordinated by and savings in some unspecified way.
losses, but nobody believes that he spond? By trying to shoot the messen- thousands of The Trump-Mulvaney budget, which
plasma particles and mammoth magnetic fields knows or cares where those numbers ger. Mick Mulvaney, the White House researchers around the world. And at not only pulls $2 trillion out of thin air
complex stealth dynamics eventually confirmed by came from. It was just what he felt like budget director, attacked the C.B.O., this point this is effectively the main- but counts it twice, takes the game to a
early satellite research. doing. declaring that it did a miserable job stream Republican position. new level, but its not that much of a
And heres the thing: What just of forecasting the effects of Oba- Do G.O.P. leaders really think this departure.
To withstand 2,500-degree temperatures in its
happened on climate isnt an unusual macare. (It got some things wrong, but conspiracy theory is true? The answer, But does any of it matter? The presi-
sweeping orbital loops between the sun and Venus, case and Trump isnt especially overall did pretty well.) He also ac- surely, is that they dont care. Truth, as dent, backed by his party, is talking
the satellite will be shielded by an eight-foot-wide disc unusual for a modern Republican. For cused the office headed by a former something that exists apart from and nonsense, destroying American credi-
todays G.O.P. doesnt do substance; it Bush administration economist chosen in possible opposition to political con- bility day by day. But hey, stocks are
made of carbon composite. At a distance of 3.9 million
doesnt assemble evidence, or do anal- by Republicans of political bias, and venience, is no longer part of their up, so whats the problem?
miles from the suns surface, it will operate seven ysis to formulate or even to justify its smeared its top health expert in partic- philosophical universe. Well, bear in mind that so far Trump
times closer than any previous space device . policy positions. Facts and hard think- ular. The same goes for claims that trying hasnt faced a single crisis not of his
As the probe takes on a grand cosmic question of ing arent wanted, and anyone who So, Mr. Mulvaney, wheres your to rein in emissions will do terrible own making. As George Orwell noted
tries to bring such things into the assessment of Trumpcare? You had economic damage and destroy millions many years ago in his essay In Front
how stars work, the only certainty is that the sun will discussion is the enemy. plenty of resources to do your own of jobs. Such claims are, if you think of Your Nose, people can indeed talk
prove to be anything but unremarkable. Consider another huge policy area, study before trying to pass a bill. What about it, completely inconsistent with nonsense for a very long time, without
Im sure that there will be some surprises, pre- health care. How was Trumpcare put did you find? (Actually, the White everything Republicans supposedly paying an obvious price. But sooner
together? Did the administration and House did do an internal analysis of an believe about economics. or later a false belief bumps up against
dicted Dr. Parker, patient as ever about the suns its allies consult with experts, study earlier version of Trumpcare, which After all, they insist that the private solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
yielding its secrets. There always are. previous experience with health re- was leaked to Politico. Its predictions sector is infinitely flexible and innova- Now theres a happy thought.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 | 11

opinion

Learning fairness from monkeys

Nicholas Kristof
Monkeys were taught in an experiment
to hand over pebbles in exchange for
cucumber slices. They were happy with
this deal.
Then the researcher randomly of-
fered one monkey in sight of a second
an even better deal: a grape for a
pebble. Monkeys love grapes, so this
fellow was thrilled.
The researcher then returned to the
second monkey, but presented just a
cucumber for the pebble. Now, this offer
was insulting. In some cases the mon-
key would throw the cucumber back at
the primatologist in disgust.
In other words, the monkeys cared
deeply about fairness. What mattered to
The data on inequality is, of course,
staggering. The top 1 percent in America
owns more than the bottom 90 percent.
The annual Wall Street bonus pool alone
is more than the annual year-round
earnings of all Americans working full
time at the federal minimum wage of
$7.25 an hour, according to the Institute
for Policy Studies. And whats becoming
clearer is the fraying of the social fabric
that results.
Payne challenges a common percep-
tion that the real problem isnt inequal-
ity but poverty, and hes persuasive that
societies are shaped not just by disad-
vantage at the bottom but also by in-
equality across the spectrum. Address-
ing inequality must be a priority, for we
humans are social creatures, so that
society becomes dysfunctional when we
see some receiving grapes and others
cucumbers.
The dysfunction affects not only those
at the bottom, but also the lucky ones at
the top. Consider baseball: Some teams
widest gaps in income, including the
United States, generally have worse
health, more homicides and a greater
array of social problems.
People seem to understand this truth
intuitively, for they want much less
inequality than we have. In a study of
people in 40 countries, liberals said
C.E.O.s should be paid four times as
much as the average worker, while
conservatives said five times.
In fact, the average C.E.O. at the
largest American public companies
earns about 350 times as much as the
average worker.
Presented with unlabeled pie charts
depicting income distributions of two
countries, 92 percent of Americans said
they would prefer to live with the mod-
est inequality that exists in Sweden.
Republicans and Democrats, rich and
poor alike all chose Sweden by simi-
lar margins.
Inequality affects our actions and
our feelings in the same systematic,

To be great, be good
Susan E. Rice
WASHINGTON Four and a half months is
not long, but President Trump has
accomplished an extraordinary
amount in a short time. With shocking
speed, he has wreaked havoc: hobbling
our core alliances, jettisoning Ameri-
can values and abdicating United
States leadership of the world. Thats a
whole lot of winning for Russia and
China.
This work began promptly on Jan.
23, when the United States withdrew
from the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
leaving key allies empty-handed, fear-
ful of the strategic benefit that will
inevitably accrue to China. Then the
secretary of state made plain that
American values now take a back seat
to security interests, even though
those interests are enhanced by our
partnerships with democracies that
respect human rights and undermined
by regimes that repress their citizens.
Witness the brutal crackdown on oppo-
sition elements in Egypt and Bahrain
after President Trump told their lead-
ers that the United States no longer
cares how they treat their people.
The presidents budget would slash
funding for the United States Agency
for International Development and the
State Department by nearly 30 per-
cent, rendering our embassies vulnera-
ble to attack and shuttering vital pro-
grams that advance our interests. The
budget would also starve the United
Nations and its peacekeeping opera-
tions of essential support. This will
condemn the United States to pariah
status at this important, if flawed,
institution, where our leadership has
been unrivaled.
At NATO, the presidents reckless
refusal to reaffirm our commitment to
the defense of our allies under Article
5, while hectoring them publicly about
their military spending, made our
allies conclude they must go it alone.
Nothing could have thrilled President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia more, or
done more damage to the strength and
unity of the Western world. And now
the president has pulled the United
States out of the Paris climate agree-
ment, putting us at odds with virtually
the entire world. Europe and China
stand together on the Paris accord,
while the United States is isolated.
This last, disastrous decision is the
coup de grce for Americas postwar
global leadership for the foreseeable
future. It was not taken from us by any
adversary, nor lost as a result of eco-
nomic crisis or collapse of empire.
America voluntarily gave up that
leadership because we quit the field.
How consequential is this choice?
The network of alliances that distin-
guishes America from other powers
and has kept our nation safe and
strong for decades is now in jeopardy.
We will see the cost when next we
need the world to rally to our side.
Contrary to the view of this White
House, we do not live in a zero-sum
world. We live in a world where our
security and
prosperity are
The president maximized when
has given up others enjoy the
the United same. Todays
States world threats terror-
leadership. We ism, nuclear
must rebuild it proliferation,
disease, climate
and fast. change, violent
cartels are not
amenable to
simple military solutions, nor can they
be tackled by any one country acting
alone. They require effective collective
action, and thus, willing partners.
When the United States called after
the Sept. 11 attacks, NATO answered,
and for nearly 16 years the alliance has
fought alongside us to defeat Al Qaeda
and strengthen the Afghan govern-
ment. Over 65 countries joined the
fight against the Islamic State, and we
rely on their enduring commitment to
roll back terrorist havens. And when
Russia illegally annexed Crimea and
invaded Ukraine, the United States led
the effort to impose sanctions on Rus-
sia.
It wont be long before a fresh crisis
arises. In 2014, I saw President Barack
Obama successfully coax our allies to
help contain and eradicate the Ebola
outbreak in West Africa. If there is a
flu pandemic that requires a similar
coordinated international response,
will our European friends heed Presi-
dent Trumps call? Or if China takes
them was not just what they received
but also what others got.
Monkeys arent the only primates
instinctively offended by inequality. For
example, two
aggressive action in the South China Inequality scholars exam-
Sea, threatening our Asian allies as drives all ined data from
well as our own freedom of navigation, millions of
primates nuts.
will our Western allies risk the eco- flights to identify
nomic repercussions of confronting what factors
China to stand beside an America resulted in air
First president who refuses to affirm rage incidents. One huge factor: a
our NATO commitments? first-class cabin.
Our friends profound disappoint- An incident in a coach section was
ment with the United States is a meas- four times as likely if the plane also had
CHRIS GASH
ure of the damage already done to a first-class cabin; a first-class section
Americas global standing by this increased the risk of a disturbance as pay players much more disparately predictable fashion again and again,
administration. Most Americans surely much as a nine-hour delay did. than others do, and one might think that Payne says. Inequality divides us,
still see the benefits of the United When there is a first-class section, it is pay inequality creates incentives for cleaving us into camps not only of in-
States being the strongest, most at the front of the plane and economy better performance and more wins. come but also of ideology and race,
trusted and respected country in the passengers typically walk through it to In fact, economists have crunched the eroding our trust in one another. It
world. So, we must take steps now to reach their seats, but in some flights the data and found the opposite is true. generates stress and makes us all less
recover and regroup. boarding is in the middle of the plane. Teams with greater equality did much healthy and less happy.
Congress must insist, on a bipartisan The researchers found that an air-rage better, perhaps because they were more Think of those words in the context of
basis, that the United States continue incident in coach was three times as cohesive. politics today: Doesnt that diagnosis of
to play its traditional leadership role, likely when economy passengers had to Whats more, it turned out that even stress, division and unhappiness strike
by fully funding both defense and our walk through first class compared with the stars did better when they were on a familiar chord?
foreign assistance programs. Congress when they bypassed it. teams with flatter pay. Higher inequal- So much of the national conversation
should ensure the United States meets Keith Payne, a professor of psychol- ity seemed to undercut the superstar now is focused on President Trump, for
its obligations to the United Nations. It ogy at the University of North Carolina players it was meant to incentivize, understandable reasons. But I suspect
must also scrutinize foreign military at Chapel Hill, tells of this research in a which is what you would expect if you that he is a symptom as well as a cause,
sales to align our policies with our brilliant new book, The Broken Lad- believed that the chief effect of pay and that to uncover the root of our na-
values. der, about how inequality destabilizes inequality was to reduce cooperation tional dysfunctions we must go deeper
societies. Its an important, fascinating and team cohesion, Payne notes. than politics, deeper than poverty,
Congressional delegations, gover-
read arguing that inequality creates a Something similar emerges in na- deeper than demagoguery, and confront
nors and mayors can reassure our key
public health crisis in America. tional statistics. Countries with the the inequality that is America today.
allies that the American people still
value them and that we do not intend
to cede our global leadership. We must
make clear to our foreign partners that
this present policy is an aberration, not
the new normal.
American corporations and civil
society groups can assist by demon-
strating that the United States remains
committed to its integration into the
global economy and to our democratic
principles. In the absence of White
House leadership, the American people
should act as informal ambassadors,
via contacts through tourism, study-
abroad programs and cultural ex-
changes.
We can all contribute to showing
other nations that we hold dear Ameri-
cas place at the forefront of moral and
political leadership in the world. And
we must remain steadfast until, once
again, we have a president willing to
lead in accordance with American
interests, traditions and values.
SUSAN E. RICEwas the national security
adviser from 2013 to 2017 and the
United States ambassador to the
United Nations from 2009 to 2013.

On the other side of terrors boom

KAYYEM, FROM PAGE 1
The measure of success in counter-
terrorism efforts is not simply whether
an attack occurred or not. Another
measure must be whether fewer peo-
ple died or were harmed because of the
actions of police, fire fighters, emer-
gency managers, public health officials
and the voluntary efforts of the public.
Based on that standard, was the Bos-
ton Marathon attack a success? Yes,
from the viewpoint of the terrorists.
But only three people died at the finish
line; not a single person of the 100s
taken to area and out-of-state hospitals
was lost because of the quick reaction
of those on the ground. Success, in
some ways, from the viewpoint of the
city and country.
Right of boom policies are not
merely luck; they are the product of
sophisticated planning and heeding the
lessons learned from previous attacks.
Many of those lessons were imple-
mented on Saturday night. The
coordinated attacks in Paris in 2015
showed that authorities needed to
more effectively communicate with
citizens about ongoing attacks; the
quick notifications by the Metropolitan
Police Saturday night informed the
public of a dangerous situation and
urged them to get to safety. The 2016
Orlando Pulse attack, after which
distraught family members spent
hours looking for those who may have
been in the bar, forced a new emphasis
on the importance of family unifica-
tion; almost immediately, London
police directed those who had been out
that night to contact family and friends
so that they would not place unneces-
sary burdens on public safety. In the
aftermath of the Boston Marathon
attack, when the identity of the
assailants was unknown, investigators
sought pictures and videos from the
public to try to piece together who had
placed the explosive backpacks at the
finish line; within a few hours, London
officials were crowdsourcing the inves-
tigation, providing instructions to the
public on how to upload photos of the
scene to a secure website.
Challenges remain, but each event
provides valuable insights to prepare
for the next event. Any successful
terror attack is
going to elicit
Right of boom fear, but fear is
planning can intensified when
seem defeatist the conse-
or less quences of the
aggressive than attack are not
saying that minimized and
managed effec-
we will stop tively. Admitted-
all the terrorists. ly, right of boom
It shouldnt. planning can
seem defeatist or
less aggressive
than saying that we will stop all the
terrorists. It shouldnt.
Prime Minister May will need to
answer questions about how her aus-
terity planning as Home Secretary in
David Camerons government reduced
police presence on the streets. In the
United States, those response capaci-
ties are also at risk as the Department
of Justice takes aim at cities that pro-
vide sanctuary to unlawful immi-
grants. The Trump Administration is
seeking to limit first responder mone-
tary support to mayors who support
safe-havens. Whatever you think of the
policy of sanctuary cities, it will be
irrelevant at the panicked moment
when you are looking for your daugh-
ter or husband after an attack.
The scale of the problems we contin-
ue to face from terrorism like the
strategic question of how to eradicate
violent extremism over time or the
tactical question of how to stop a van
on a busy road from plowing down
pedestrians on any given weekend
night will require coordinated di-
plomatic, intelligence, law enforce-
ment, military and first responder
efforts.
And it will require communities to
expose radicalization in their midst
and companies to limit the spreading
of hate on their platforms.
Right of boom planning is no more
fatalistic than aggressively treating the
growth of a cancer cell or building a
sea wall as the oceans rise. They are
all an acknowledgment that the harm
has happened, but that we ought to try
to command the depth of the loss. Our
efforts to stop all bad things from Were there to be only one
happening noble in theory, unrealis- Toric Chronomtre
tic in practice must always be mir- Manufactured entirely
rored by our efforts to respond suc-
in Switzerland
cessfully and learn to do better the
parmigiani.com
next time.
Because there will be a next time.
And our success will be judged by how
well we prepared for the other side of
ATELIER PARMIGIANI LE STUDIO PARMIGIANI LE STUDIO PARMIGIANI
the boom.
97 Mount Street, Mayfair Miami Design District Jardins du Palais Royal
JULIETTE KAYYEM is a former assistant London W1K 2TD 140 N.E. 39th Street, PC #108, Miami, FL 125 126 Galerie de Valois, Paris 1er
secretary of homeland security at the Tel. +44 (0) 20 7495 5172 Tel. +1 786 615 96 56 Tel. +33 (0) 1 40 13 93 93
Department of Justice, a lecturer at the
Harvard Kennedy School and the au-
thor of Security Mom: My Life Protect-
ing the Home and Homeland.

12 | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017
tech
Clockwise from top left: Qualcomm Quick Charge USB-C; Anker PowerPort 4; Anker PowerDrive 2; and the iClever Dual USB Travel Wall Charger.
Keeping your phone juiced
Ask the Wirecutter
BY DAMON DARLIN
We cant live without our cellphones,
and they cant live without battery
power. So how best to keep them
charged? Nick Guy, senior staff writer
for The Wirecutter, The New York
Timess site that evaluates products,
plugged several phones into chargers
and came up with some answers.
WHEN I TYPE WALL CHARGER IN AMAZON, I
GET 32,819 RESULTS. HELP ME SORT IT OUT.
The huge number of options out there
for chargers can seem overwhelming.
But its not so bad once you know what
to look for.
Our top pick for a wall charger is
Ankers PowerPort 4. It has four USB
ports, each of which can provide up to
2.4 amps.
Most devices you own cant draw
more amperage than that, so this
charger will charge most devices at top
speed, including larger phones and
tablets.
The exceptions are newer devices
compatible with USB-C PD and Qual-
comm Quick Charge, but those tech-
A living room on wheels
As driverless cars develop,
companies and designers
are dreaming big
BY ERIC A. TAUB
Swiveling seats? Movies projected
across the windshield? Social media
feeds on the windows? As driverless car
technology develops, companies, de-
sign institutes and researchers are ask-
ing the question: What does the car of
the future look like on the inside?
With companies like Google, Uber
and others racing ahead to develop fully
autonomous vehicles, the era of the
driver hunched over the steering wheel
may eventually give way to a living
room on wheels. But with long develop-
ment lead times, designers are already
thinking about how such technology will
change the interiors of cars.
When people are in an autonomous
vehicle, their expectations will shift,
said Hakan Kostepen, executive direc-
tor for strategy and innovation at Pana-
sonics automotive systems unit, a ma-
jor industry supplier. They will want
their personal space to become one of
smart mobility, connecting them and
relevant information to act upon.
When cars are fully autonomous, how
we sit, inform and entertain ourselves
will be up for grabs. If steering wheels
are no longer needed, how do we best
configure seating positions? What
should be done with the space now occu-
pied by a dashboard, once a vehicle han-
dles all driving tasks and even decides
when it needs to be serviced?
Those are all challenges being taken
up by the automotive industry and the
schools that supply them with the next
generation of designers.
At ArtCenter College of Design in Los
Angeles one of the worlds premier
automotive design schools 14 stu-
dents recently worked on creating new
concepts for a vehicle interior whose oc-
cupants would no longer be shackled by
the need to drive.
Participants were picked from multi-
ple disciplines, including product de-
nologies arent quite ubiquitous yet.
I LUG MY CHARGER AROUND. COULD I CARRY
IT IN MY POCKET? WOULD IT WEIGH DOWN A
PURSE OR BAG?
The PowerPort 4 would fit in a bag, but
it might be just a hair big for a pocket.
We like iClevers Dual USB Travel Wall
Charger as a more portable option. It
has only two ports, but its only about
an inch and a half square by just over
an inch thick, so its pretty compact.
I RECENTLY READ THAT PUBLIC CHARGING
STATIONS CAN BE DANGEROUS TO USE BE-
CAUSE THEY COULD SUCK DOWN DATA. IS
THAT A CONCERN?
I dont see it as a huge concern, but
yes, its certainly possible for people to
transfer information to or from your
device from a public USB port. Having
your own charger definitely eliminates
this concern, because that information
cant travel over a power outlet alone.
And you get the added bonus of
charging multiple devices at once
without being that person at the air-
port hogging all the outlets.
WHAT CAR CHARGERS DO YOU RECOMMEND?
Our pick is Ankers PowerDrive 2,
which has two high-speed 2.4-amp
ports and is only $10. There are ac-
tually a fair number of good chargers
sign, transportation and graphics. To
fuel their discussions, specialists in the
fields of sound composition, olfactory
reaction and even animal behavior were
brought in. Visual strategists from
NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory paid
a visit as well.
The proposals, which were reviewed
by executives from the carmaker BMW,
the electronics firm Nvidia and IBMs
Watson artificial intelligence division,
varied wildly.
In one concept, social media feeds
were displayed on the windows and an
all-glass roof, creating what is known as
an augmented reality projection, pro-
viding contextual information on pass-
ing landmarks and approaching sights.
As the vehicle would drive by a restau-
rant, reviews of the eatery would be dis-
Windshields could become
displays for movies, and
windows could show information
about passing landmarks.
played and an online reservation form
would appear on the building.
Video games would be integrated into
the passing environment. Players could
fire digital weapons at buildings, and
then, via a projection on the glass, see
the structure go up in digital flames.
Another group envisioned a vehicles
interior as a constantly changing envi-
ronment, using variable lighting and
temperatures to fit the evolving moods
and desires of each occupant, as deter-
mined through a sensor analysis of
physiological and emotional states.
A third proposal contemplated the use
of virtual reality and motion-sensing
seats to give occupants the feeling of
driving a sports car, even when they
were simply riding in a tame autono-
mous vehicle.
The concepts are not wholly pie in the
sky graduates of the ArtCenter have
gone on to design vehicles like BMWs i3
electric car and Teslas Model S but
nevertheless are a step beyond what is
being developed by vehicle
manufacturers and suppliers, who must
around that price, but we like Ankers
because of the companys 18-month
warranty and the little status light that
lets you know when it is plugged all
the way in.
YOU GUYS LIKE A LOT OF ANKER PRODUCTS.
WHAT ABOUT AMAZON BASICS OR MONO-
PRICE?
Anker has really been knocking it out
of the park for the past few years with
powerful, well-designed stuff thats
really affordable.
Amazon Basics and Monoprice, an
American maker of electronics and
accessories, both tend to have good,
inexpensive products as well, but when
it comes to cables they are often, if not
always, white-label products that the
seller simply slaps its name on. We
used to recommend Monoprice cables,
but the models would change too fre-
quently; you might order a cable one
day and see a different design in the
store the next.
YOU EVEN HAVE A RECOMMENDATION FOR
THE CORD THAT CONNECTS YOUR CHARGER
TO A DEVICE?
Yes! Again, we pick Anker here. Its
PowerLine Lightning and Micro USB
cables are strong, inexpensive, come in
a number of lengths and colors and,
once again, theres that warranty.
take cost, brand reputation and con-
sumer acceptance into account.
Panasonic is one such company, and it
is considering ideas like altering a vehi-
cles internal lighting depending on its
occupants moods or allowing a child
passenger to start a search to find a
nearby parking spot.
Like students at the ArtCenter, Pana-
sonic is also looking at using the wind-
shield as an overlay for additional infor-
mation or advertisements. The com-
pany declined to say how much it was
spending on researching vehicle
interiors, but said it was a substantial
amount.
BMW is experimenting with keeping
instruments at a low height. When nec-
essary, the driver or responsible party
would interact with controls through a
holographic projection that would ap-
pear to hover closer to eye level in
space, meaning they would not need to
take their eyes off the road while adjust-
ing the temperature or changing radio
stations.
To confirm that a command was regis-
tered, the driver would receive haptic
feedback transmitted in space, but while
it would feel as if one were touching a
button on an Android smartphone, the
user would not physically be touching
anything.
When the vehicle is in fully autono-
mous mode, the windshield could be
turned into a wide-screen display, allow-
ing passengers to watch a movie; the-
ater-like seats would vibrate in sync
with sound effects.
Speakers embedded in each seat
would also include noise-cancellation
technology to ensure that only the per-
son watching could hear the soundtrack,
music or phone call in progress. When
the driver has to take control of the vehi-
cle, rear seat passengers could be enter-
tained using a large screen lowered
from the roof.
In an autonomous vehicle, we can
push technology into the background
and only make it present when its
needed, said Holger Hampf, BMWs we actually want it? Mr. Kostepen of
head of user experience.
One thing the carmaker does not envi-
sion: swiveling, rear-facing seats.
MICHAEL HESSION / THE WIRECUTTER
Anyone who has ever had a busted
cable will appreciate being able to get
it swapped out without hassle.
IVE USED SO MUCH SUGRU FIXING THOSE
THINGS.
Ive seen plenty of that, and plenty of
people who just let the exposed cabling
show through. The strain relief the
part where the cable itself meets the
plug end on these cables is stronger
than most. Anker says it can withstand
up to 5,000 bends.
HOW DO YOU TEST THE CHARGERS?
Thankfully all the testing has been
straightforward. Plug it in and it
charges at full speed or, rarely, it does-
nt. No sparks or smoke. Of course we
take considerations such as port
positions and overall design into ac-
count, too. A charger doesnt need to
be a design piece, but why settle for an
ugly one?
WHATS THE STRANGEST ONE YOUVE SEEN?
There are a few clever car chargers
that have charging units on the end of
a long cable, so they can reach to the
back seat and keep your passengers
charged. I dont have kids, but I imag-
ine that could be superuseful for when
theyre watching videos and playing
games.
When you reverse the seats you can in-
duce motion sickness, Mr. Hampf said.
Panasonic and BMW are far from the
only companies developing the future of
automobile interiors.
Valeo, a France-based automotive
supplier to General Motors and other
companies, has 14,000 engineers work-
ing on future vehicle projects, drawing
in employees from its visibility, comfort
and driving, and thermal systems
groups to reimagine interiors. It spent
1.6 billion euros, or $1.75 billion, on such
research and development last year
alone.
The company wants to use light to
alert and affect passengers a glowing
orange light on the right-hand side of the
vehicle would point passengers to an on-
coming danger, while a blue light would
combine with air-conditioning to help
make the interior feel cooler.
Using artificial intelligence, a vehicle
would learn its passengers preferences
in terms of language, climate and enter-
tainment and then modify itself accord-
ingly, said Guillaume Devauchelle, Va-
leos vice president for group innovation
and scientific development. The car
could potentially even understand that a
passenger had just been to the gym and
adjust the cabin temperature accord-
ingly.
Similarly, Bosch, a major German au-
tomotive supplier, believes cars will
eventually be shared rather than indi-
vidually owned, and so the company is
working on systems that will allow vehi-
cles to automatically personalize them-
selves.
An eye scan, fingerprint or smart-
phone connection will signal who is get-
ting into the vehicle, so that it can adjust
its climate, seating position, favored ra-
dio stations and other attributes auto-
matically.
One major question, however, is al-
ready being confronted: While much is
doable, should it be done?
On paper, it seems great that I can
read email on my cars window, but will
Panasonic said. A car has to maintain
its brand DNA even when it is fully au-
tonomous.
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Drone, at $499,
good for beginners
Tech Fix
BY BRIAN X. CHEN
If you thought those drones buzzing
around on the beach were annoying,
just wait and see what happens when
they become cheaper than iPhones.
Whether you like it or not, con-
sumer-market drones miniature
remotely controlled aircraft may be
on the cusp of going mainstream as
they plummet in price. DJI, the worlds
largest consumer drone maker, based
in Shenzhen, China, will soon release
Spark, its first $499 drone. Thats
roughly half the price of the most
popular drones on the market, or
three-quarters the cost of an iPhone,
which starts at about $650.
I tested Spark over several days this
week and found it surprisingly capable
for a low-cost drone. Unlike most ex-
pensive drones, which operate with a
physical remote control, this machine
was designed to work primarily with a
smartphone app; you can also make
hand gestures to move Spark or make
it take your selfie. It shoots superb
high-definition video, weighs about a
quarter of a pound and is so compact
you could stuff it in a tote bag.
I was able to confidently fly Spark,
the first drone I had ever used, after
several sessions, a testament to its
overall ease of use.
Unsurprisingly, Spark isnt perfect.
Its app can be tough to grasp without
reading an instruction manual. The
battery lasts only about 15 minutes,
and there are some bugs in the soft-
ware that could send your drone flying
off erratically.
Yet I wouldnt hesitate to recom-
mend Spark for people who are curious
about trying drones for taking aerial
photography or for experiencing the
sheer joy of flying an object. Consider-
ing how small and lightweight this
drone is, Spark will also make a great
stocking stuffer this holiday season.
Heres what you need to know about
what youre getting from a budget
drone.
EASY SETUP, ROUGH START
There are a few basic components to
Spark: propellers, motors, a camera
and a battery. To set up the drone, slide
the battery into the bottom of the
device. Then install the smartphone
app on your phone, scan a bar code on
the carrying case to register the drone,
turn on the gadget and connect to it via
Wi-Fi. From there, you use the app to
change settings on the drone and make
it take off.
Inside DJIs app for controlling
Spark, there are virtual joysticks for
making the drone rotate or move up,
down, forward or backward. Initially,
the app may seem confusing to use. It
took me three sessions, or 90 minutes
of flight time using two batteries, to get
the hang of it. The app buttons are not
intuitive about what they do or how to
use them. In the end, I had to flip
through a 50-page instruction manual
to learn how to better operate Spark.
There is an option to skip using the
app altogether by enabling PalmCon-
trol, a mode that lets the drone re-
spond to your hand gestures. To enable
this, hold your palm flat toward the
camera, and the drone will lock in on
your hand and follow it around as you
move. You can hold out your thumbs
and index fingers to form a frame
around yourself to make the drone
automatically take a selfie of you.
Wave your hand at the drone and it
will ascend and fly backward.
Spark was ultimately inconsistent
with reacting to hand gestures. Some-
times it responded quickly, but often
the drone failed to recognize the ges-
tures and continued to hover.
PROS AND CONS
Spark has several features that make it
well suited for those who are new to
drones. The killer feature is a menu of
shortcuts called QuickShot: These are
Michael Perry, an executive at DJI, the Chinese company that makes Spark, at a prod-
uct introduction event for the relatively low-cost drone in New York last month.
..
automated motion sequences for shoot-
ing some neat drone videos. You select
a subject (like a human or a dog) to
record, choose a QuickShot mode and
tap a button to commence the se-
quence.
One QuickShot mode called Circle
makes the drone automatically circle a
subject while recording video of it. My
favorite QuickShot mode was Rocket,
which caused the drone to lift dozens
of meters into the air while continuing
to shoot video of me and a friend from
overhead. The recording was a delight
to watch and share on Instagram.
Typically, you would need a lot of
skill flying drones to shoot these types
of videos adequately. By including
these automated video-recording
sequences in its app, DJI has made
Spark very accessible as an aerial
photography tool.
There are downsides, of course. One
of the QuickShot modes, called Helix,
did not work properly in my tests.
Helix is supposed to cause the drone to
fly upward and spiral around the sub-
ject.
But in three different test locations,
activating Helix caused the drone to fly
upward and so far away that it lost its
Wi-Fi connection with the smartphone.
(This may have been related to inter-
ference caused by nearby Wi-Fi
routers.) The drone is programmed to
return home, or land where it took off,
whenever it loses connection with a
smartphone but nobody would
blame you if you chased after it out of
anxiety.
Downside to the Spark drone: Some
control functions can be hard to master.
By far Sparks most annoying fea-
ture is its carrying case. The case
snugly fits the drone, two batteries and
some extra propeller blades, but it
lacks room for the propeller guards,
which are essentially bumpers that
help prevent the spinning propellers
from cutting people or objects.
DJI said that because the propeller
guards are optional accessories that
are sold separately, the compact case
has no room for them. But to me, this
was an oversight: Any beginner should
equip the propeller guards, and they
should be part of the overall package
and fit inside the case.
That brings up another issue with
Spark: The $499 price tag is mislead-
ing when you add the extra accessories
you are likely to need. After buying the
propeller guards ($19), you probably
also need at least one extra battery
($49) and the battery charging station
($69). In the end, youll probably spend
roughly $640 just to make flight ses-
sions last half an hour, given the de-
vices 15-minute battery life.
Even so, $640 is still cheaper than an
iPhone or a high-end Android device
like the Google Pixel (also priced at
about $650), which makes it a compel-
ling potential gift for tech and photog-
raphy enthusiasts. Spark is a solid
product for a relatively low cost, and it
seems inevitable that drones will be-
come more commonplace at parks,
beaches and tourist attractions.
Perhaps the most intriguing ques-
tion is whether a new etiquette will
form around these flying cameras,
which may be noisy and intrusive of
peoples privacy.
There was one thing I learned the
hard way: Dont fly a drone at a dog
park. While some dogs enjoyed chas-
ing Spark, the drone frightened two
pups so much that they darted into the
street.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DJI

14 | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017
Culture
Sgt. Pepper turns 50
A new deluxe version
of the Beatles album is
still full of joy and whimsy
BY JON PARELES
A half-century after its release, the
Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts
Club Band is a relic of a vanished era.
Like a Faberg egg or a Persian minia-
ture, it speaks of an irretrievable past,
when time moved differently, crafts-
manship involved bygone tools and art
was experienced more rarely and with
fewer distractions.
Its an analog heirloom thats still
resisting oblivion perhaps because,
even in its moment, it was already
contemplating a broader sweep of
time. The music on Sgt. Pepper
reached back far before rock as well as
out into an unmapped cosmos, while
its words seesawing between Paul
McCartneys affability and John
Lennons tartness offered compas-
sion for multiple generations.
We simply cant hear Sgt. Pepper
now the way it affected listeners on
arrival in 1967. Its innovations and
quirks have been too widely emulated,
its oddities long since absorbed.
Sounds that were initially startling
the Indian instruments and phrasing of
George Harrisons Within You With-
out You, the tape-spliced steam-organ
collage of Being for the Benefit of Mr.
Kite, the orchestral vastnesses of A
Day in the Life have taken on a
patina of nostalgia. Sgt. Pepper and
its many musical progeny have blurred
into a broader memory of psychede-
lia, a sonic vocabulary (available to
current music-makers via sampling)
that provides instant, predigested
allusions to the 1960s. Meanwhile, the
grand lesson of Sgt. Pepper that
anything goes in the studio has long
since been taken for granted.
Sgt. Pepper has been analyzed,
researched, oral-historied and dis-
sected down to the minute differences
between pressings, and because the
Beatles industry never misses an
anniversary, it has been repeatedly
reissued. The 50th-anniversary deluxe
version is exhaustive. It has been
remastered once again to give the
album a broader soundstage and
crisper detail, giving more separation
to individual voices and instruments.
(For the older blend, it also includes
the mono mix from 1967.) The new box
rightfully incorporates Strawberry
Fields and Penny Lane, the master-
pieces recorded alongside Sgt. Pep-
per but released before the album. It
also has outtakes, comprehensive
reading material, video clips from 1967
and a documentary about making the
album. (The anecdotes are now famil-
iar because the film was done for the
albums 25th anniversary.)
Sgt. Pepper was not universally
adored when it appeared. The New
York Times panned it, not entirely
incorrectly, as busy, hip and clut-
tered. As pop tastes have swung
between elaborate musical edifices and
back-to-basics reactions, Sgt. Pepper
has been by turns embraced, reviled
and simply ignored.
But now that rock itself is being
shunted toward the fringes of pop, its
a good time to free Sgt. Pepper from
the burden of either forecasting rocks
eclectic future or pointing toward a
fussy dead end. It doesnt have to be
the most important rock & roll album
ever made, as Rolling Stone declared
in 2012, or some wrongheaded counter-
revolutionary coup against real rock
n roll. Its somewhere in between,
juxtaposing the profound and the
merely clever.
Although the album as a whole is
synergistic, song by song its a mix of
milestones, like A Day in the Life and
Within You Without You, with me-
ticulously wrought baubles like
Salma Hayek and the horrible dinner
The actresss lead role
in her new film was
written expressly for her
BY KATHRYN SHATTUCK
If the new movie Beatriz at Dinner
about a Mexican-born masseuse and
healer invited to dine at her rich
clients home, where the guests include
a billionaire real estate developer with
a passion for big-game hunting
seems tailor-made for Salma Hayek,
thats because it was.
Two weeks before her birthday in
September 2015, Ms. Hayek spent the
day with Miguel Arteta, the films
director, and Mike White, its screen-
writer, and they furiously discussed
the dentist who had slaughtered Cecil
the Lion, and this thing about killing
for fun, she said.
After which the men told her they
had a project for her. But it hadnt been
written yet.
Two weeks later, she received an
email from Mr. White saying: Happy
birthday. The script.
Above, the Beatles (clockwise from top left, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney) promoting Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. Below,
from left, a recording session for the album at Abbey Road studios in London and the LPs cover.
Lovely Rita and Good Morning
Good Morning. Two of its most re-
markable songs, Strawberry Fields
and Penny Lane, arent even on the
album. But with 50 years of hindsight,
Sgt. Pepper remains a joyful, whim-
sical and revelatory experiment. Even
the albums slightest songs are full of
musical and verbal twists.
For people who, like me, heard the
The film stars John Lithgow as Doug
Strutt, Beatrizs pompous adversary,
who cares not a whit about the envi-
ronmental havoc he and his projects
wreak. When he first meets Beatriz, he
assumes she is part of the wait staff.
As he gloats about killing a rhino,
displaying the carcass on his phone,
her placid demeanor cracks and a war
of wits ensues a tangle of race,
inequality and immigration at its core.
Ms. Hayek, 50 who divides her
time among Paris, London and a Wash-
ington State ranch with rescue animals
is married to Franois-Henri Pi-
nault, the chairman of Kering, the
French luxury goods company, with
whom she has a daughter, Valentina, 9.
In an interview at the Mandarin Orien-
tal in New York, the effusive Ms.
Hayek chatted about culture clashes
and President Trump. These are edited
excerpts from the conversation.
Strutt can be seen as a very
Trumpian character. What point do
you think Mike and Miguel were
trying to make?
I think Trump is the collateral damage
of the times were living in. You know,
album brand-new in 1967, Sgt. Pep-
per remains inseparable from its era.
It was released on June 1, the begin-
ning of the Summer of Love. It was a
time of prosperity, nave optimism and
giddy discovery, when the first baby
boomers were just reaching their 20s
and mind-expanding drugs had their
most benign reputation.
In 1967, candy-colored psychedelic
its not that were living in these times
because of him. No, I think its the eye
opening of an America that was not
clear before.
And the casting of John Lithgow?
I was like, But John is the most lov-
able human being! Have you ever met
him? Its ridiculous. Sweet. [Makes
kisses.] Hes almost Mexican. And hes
so big, but hes so angelic and lovely
and kind and generous and a gentle-
man. And Miguel had a point. You
dont want somebody that moves like a
villain because its not about demoniz-
ing that other human being, who also
has a belief system.
Whats it like presenting this film
amid the debate around immigration
from Mexico, your home country, and
the presidents desire to build a wall?
I think the most important thing that
this film can do is promote the conver-
sation between two Americas, because
I want to understand how the people
that think very differently than me
think. We are spending so much time
talking about the wall when the real
issue is immigration reform. We
APPLE CORPS LTD
pop and rock provided a short-lived
but euphoric diversion from conflicts
that would almost immediately resur-
face: the Vietnam War and Americas
racial tension. Sgt. Pepper remains
tied to that brief moment of what many
boomers remember as innocence and
possibility the feeling captured
perfectly in Getting Better, even as
Lennon taunts, It cant get no worse.
CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Salma Hayek of Beatriz at Dinner.
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
JOHN PRATT/KEYSTONE, VIA GETTY IMAGES
APPLE CORPS LTD
Yet for the Beatles, that instant of
cultural innocence was a strategic
artistic opening. By 1967, the Beatles
were by no means ingenuous. They
had already been through exponen-
tially expanding pop stardom, endless
screaming crowds and the fierce
American backlash against Lennons
flippant 1966 remark that the Beatles
were more popular than Jesus now.
After three years of hectic touring
and recording, and of jaw-droppingly
rapid development as songwriters
amid the tempest, the Beatles decided
to get off the road, where they couldnt
hear themselves play, and to focus on
making studio albums. They took five
months an eternity at the time, now
barely a pause for a new wardrobe and
sponsorship deal to record the Sgt.
Pepper album, Strawberry Fields
and Penny Lane. With Revolver,
they had embraced studio surrealism
and partly jettisoned love songs, and
for its successor they would have more
havent even gotten to the right ques-
tions. And its a very primitive thought
that a wall is going to keep you safe,
because history has proved that it
doesnt. Id like to think that there
would be a greater level of so-
phistication.
You appear to be wearing no makeup
in the film. Did that make you anx-
ious?
No makeup, and they would like me
ugly on purpose. And only tall girls.
Miguel put them in high heels, so that I
am even shorter. It was cold at night
shoots, and I had on so many layers
underneath that the costume could
barely fit me. I loved it. It relaxed me,
gave me a sense of freedom because
you dont have to make any effort. Do
you realize how wonderful that is
that for once youre not supposed to
look this way or the other?
How do you handle expectations of
beauty?
Frankly its not something Im fixated
on, and Ive cut myself some slack.
Sometimes it creeps up on me, and I
hate it, but Im in a place where I have
..
time to think and tinker. Yet they still
worked amazingly fast, harnessing the
eras primitive technology to pack wild
ideas onto four-track tape. Each Sgt.
Pepper song creates its own sonic
realm, far removed from the live Beat-
les two guitars, bass and drums.
They gave themselves a usefully
loose concept. They would become Sgt.
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band,
setting aside all outside expectations of
the Beatles and treating the album as a
performance complete with canned
audience reaction: a theatrical, dis-
tancing device.
While the Beatles had traveled the
world, only Within You Without You
flaunted the exotic. Mostly, Sgt. Pep-
pers band was almost provincially
British: wandering London in A Day
in the Life, telescoping an entire mid-
dle-class English life (complete with
prospective grandchildren) above a
music-hall bounce in When Im 64.
Stalwart British brass answered the
rowdy distorted guitar in Sgt. Pep-
pers Lonely Hearts Club Band;
Shes Leaving Home is a stately
waltz set to a harp and parlor orches-
tra that might have accompanied high
tea. One of the Beatles paths forward
led through an expanded embrace of
the past.
They rejected any generation gap.
The album cover set the 1967 Beatles,
with their mustaches and shiny mock
band uniforms, alongside their suited,
mop-topped pop-star wax statues so
recent, yet so distant and cultural
figures like Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Sonny Liston and W. C. Fields, a right-
ful claim to adult significance. But the
LP was also packaged with cardboard
cutouts a mustache, military stripes
like something for children. While
the Summer of Love nurtured hippie
dreams of creating a new world, the
Beatles reminded listeners of how
entrenched the old one was, and how
comforting.
But at the same time, Sgt. Pepper
gazed forward in sound and sense. The
Beatles and their producer, George
Martin, concocted eerie, unforgettable
sounds from hand-played instruments
and analog tape tricks; Strawberry
Fields, which miraculously inter-
weaves two arrangements of the song
in two keys, remains a marvel of inter-
nal disorientation. And despite all the
vintage references, Sgt. Pepper
situated its songs in the present: some-
times a rushed, workaday world and
sometimes a mind-altered escape. The
albums magnificent, sobering finale,
A Day in the Life, understood and
anticipated the ethical and emo-
tional ambiguities of a world perceived
through mass media, even back when
the news media was just newspapers,
radio and television.
Sgt. Pepper had an immediate,
short-lived bandwagon effect, as some
late-1960s bands sought to figure out
how to make those strange Beatles
sounds, and others got more studio
time and backup musicians than they
needed. Artistic pretensions also
notched up. And the pendulum started
its long-term swings: progressive rock
and corporate rock would be swatted
back by punk and disco, hair metal
would be blasted by grunge and hip-
hop. The studio artifice that Sgt.
Pepper daringly flaunted has long
since become commonplace.
Yet while Sgt. Pepper has been
both praised and blamed for raising
the technical and conceptual ante on
rock, its best aspect was much harder
to propagate. That was its impulsive-
ness, its lighthearted daring, its will-
ingness to try the odd sound and the
unexpected idea. Listening to Sgt.
Pepper now, what comes through
most immediately is not the pressure
the Beatles put on themselves or the
musicianly challenges they sur-
mounted. Its the sheer improbability
of the whole enterprise, still guaran-
teed to raise a smile 50 years on.
a good life, where there is love and
family, and where I dont need to im-
press anyone with my beauty to get
the things that I want. I already have
my husband, and we are in love 11
years. I have my baby, which for some
time I thought I was not going to be
able. I have my wonderful stepchil-
dren, my animals. You know, what do I
care? I want to look pleasant for them,
I want to be healthy. But if I dont work
again, I had a good life.
Whats it like being 50 in Hollywood?
When I was young, I read a play by
Henrik Ibsen called A Dolls House.
And I thought, Its interesting, but
what I really want to know is what
happens to Nora after she leaves the
house. I realized that the best roles for
women are going to come in my 40s
because its when a woman has the
most richness and experience and
wisdom, and also challenges that are
more profound. If you told me today
theres a magic potion that can take
you back to 25, I would never take it.
Because I like me better now. And Im
actually curious to find out who Im
going to be next.

16 | TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017
travel
Feasting on the bounty of the Adriatic
CHOICE TABLES
From Venice to Trieste,
the Italian coast features
seafood in class of its own
BY ROBERT DRAPER
Has anyone ever traveled to Italy to go
on a diet? Like every cartoon, the notion
of the oft-romanticized country as the
tourists pigging-out destination it
provided the Eat in Elizabeth Gilberts
memoir Eat, Pray, Love has some
basis in reality.
Still, the evocation of Italy as one glut-
tonous infinity of pasta, prosciutto, Gor-
gonzola, gelato and bread lasciviously
dunked in saucers of olive oil overlooks
two interrelated facts. First, Italians
have an enviably low adult obesity rate
(10 percent, compared with 34 percent of
Americans). Second, even the most
landlocked villages in Italy are less than
300 miles from a shore, and thus from a
bounty of frutti di mare, or fruit of the
sea.
For those pitiable souls suffering from
a lifelong aversion to seafood, I propose
Italys Adriatic coast as the place to get
over it. Many times over the past two
decades, Ive navigated the trek from
Venice to Trieste, two of Europes most
bewitching cities. It was along this arc
that I came to appreciate how Italys
core culinary principle a reliance on
the freshest of ingredients extends to
the sea. Anyone who thinks that ancho-
vies (alici) taste fishy, or that calamari is
palatable only if its fried, or that the
only worthwhile fish on an Italian menu
is sea bass (branzino), needs to feast on
Adriatic cuisine for a proper disabusing.
Inveterate seafood lovers traveling
along this roughly 100-mile stretch of
coastline have their own educations in
store. Here is where you take a pass on
the familiar medleys of clams, scampi
and swordfish. Gravitate, instead, to
Adriatic delicacies like finger-length
mackerel (sgombri), small spotted
brown octopus (moscardini), turbot
(rombo) and a succulent if unsightly
mud-burrowing crustacean known as
mantis shrimp (canocchie). Hardly by
coincidence, the perfect accompani-
ment to such dishes is from the neigh-
boring vineyards of the Friuli-Venezia
Giulia region, where the countrys best
white wine originates.
ANTICHE CARAMPANE
Among the dozen or so stellar restau-
rants in Venice, the rigor with which this
34-year-old culinary landmark has de-
voted itself to Adriatic frutti di mare is
second to none. I received my first con-
firmation of this one morning in 1996,
when I dropped by to secure a lunch res-
ervation and found the proprietor, Piera
Bortoluzzi Librai, hunched over a bowl
filled with the tiny local shrimp known
as schie, which she peeled with her own
fingers. Ive eaten here at least 20 times
since; not one meal has been less than
outstanding.
Situated a stones throw from the Stua
canal, a zigzagging 10-minute walk from
the Rialto bridge in the San Polo neigh-
borhood, Antiche Carampane is now run
by Pieras son Francesco Agopyan.
While there is no such thing as an un-
discovered Venetian restaurant, this
always-full, 16-table place attracts an
equal proportion of residents and dis-
cerning tourists who have been prop-
erly admonished by the No Pizza, No
Lasagne, No Menu Turistico sign be-
side the front door.
Meals invariably commence with a
complimentary butcher-paper cone
filled with schie, gently fried. After this
come agonizing decisions. From the
well-curated wine list, I chose the ele-
gant white blend Arbis Blanc made by
the famed Friulan brother-sister winery
Borgo San Daniele. The antipasti here
are a must: During my most recent
lunch, I forewent the tempting array of
crudi for a delicious plate of grilled octo-
pus and artichoke. But its the seafood-
based pastas at Antiche Carampane
that have no peer in Venice. Deviating
from my standard choice, the tagliolini
in spider crab sauce, I opted for one of
the restaurants justly famed dishes:
spaghetti in cassopipa, a rich shellfish
sauce laced with anise, cardamom and
other spices.
Objectively speaking, this was a meal,
yet not enough of one, not when the
Adriatic soft-shell crab known as
moeche were available as a secondo. In
any other meal, the sweetish, lightly
sauted crustacean dish would have
been the standout. Here at Antiche
Carampane, it was merely delicious.
Antiche Carampane, San Polo 1911,
Venice, 39-41-5240165, antichecaram-
pane.com. Dinner for two excluding
wine, about $150.
TAVERNETTA AL MOLO
There is not a lot to see in the coastal vil-
lage of Grignano, about 15 miles north of
Trieste. But on a winter evening, the
spectacle of this dockside trattoria with
its lights on was more than enough. The
back page of the handwritten menu of-
fers a few items for those who dont
love fish, just as the wine list concludes
with some reds. The bias here is plain:
You do not come to the Adriatic for beef-
steak and cabernet.
Tavernetta Al Molo is a casual and un-
hurried respite from city dining, one
where the seafood offerings are
straightforward but also precise. Its
wine list includes many nearby
Clockwise from above: the Port of Grignano in Italy; dishes from Ristorante Slauko in Contovello; and Mara Raddi, an owner, in the kitchen of Trattoria Alla Laguna Vedova Raddi in Marano Lagunare.
Above, a seafood medley at Antiche
Carampane in Venice. Top, ravioli at
Tavernetta Al Molo in Grignano.
producers of local white grapes like Vi-
tovska and Malvasia Istriana that pair
brilliantly with fish. The misto marinato
antipasto included a carpaccio of
branzino that was so fresh it might have
leapt directly out of the sea and onto my
plate. For this reason, I elected for my
main course to stay with branzino
grilled whole and then filleted and
was not the least disappointed.
As with Antiche Carampane, howev-
er, the star was the pasta course.
Though the bristling February evening
called out for Al Molos well-regarded
Zuppa della Tavernetta (made with
clams, mussels, scampi and monkfish), I
gravitated instead to the ravioli stuffed
with spigola (a cousin to branzino) be-
neath a ragout of scampi, tomato and
parsley. Coupled with the stony Vi-
tovska of Edi Kante, the dish repre-
sented the quintessence of Italian sim-
plicity.
After the Crema Catalana dessert a
divine apocalypse of custardy richness
I stumbled out to the dock (molo) and
observed the stars flickering over the
quiet sea. I also noticed the outdoor ta-
bles where, some warm evening, I
would surely find myself.
Tavernetta Al Molo, Riva Massimiliano e
Carlotta 11, Grignano, 39-40-224275, tav-
ernettaalmolo.it. Dinner for two without
wine, about $100.
RISTORANTE SLAUKO
Curiously, Triestes most distinguished
restaurants tend not to take advantage
of the citys window onto the sea that of-
fers their most crucial ingredients. For
such a vista, drive a couple of miles
above the city limits to the village of
Contovello, where this honest trattoria
commands an unsurpassed view of the
Gulf of Trieste.
Slauko presents the Adriatic culinary
experience at its most stripped-down. In
contrast to the heavenly expanse of
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREA WYNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
shimmering seascape, the interior is de- pasta and a sprinkling of parsley. creamy feather fluttering down my Ill know better: In Marano Lagunare,
terminedly plain though no matter in As I perused the main courses, Mr. throat, leaving me in a kind of fugue come for the seafood, stay over for the
summer, when the seating is outdoors. Raddi put his hand on my shoulder and state. lagoon cuisine.
There is no wine list, only a dozen or so gently but firmly insisted that I select After departing Vedova Raddi for Trattoria alla Laguna Vedova Raddi, Pi-
bottles of excellent Friulan whites in the the Adriatic sole for its exceptional Venices airport, I learned that another azzetta Garibaldi 1, Marano Lagunare,
lobbys display refrigerator. Nor have I freshness. I did so. Youve had sole be- local restaurant, Tre Canai, specializes 39-20-50670302, vedovaraddi.it. Dinner
ever seen a menu in my half-dozen visits fore, and so have I this was more like a in grilled eel on wooden spits. Next time for two without wine, about $130.
to Slauko. The proprietor, a scruffy but
affable fellow, stands at the table and
tells you what he has available. (Its pos-
sible to call the day before and request
that he look for particular items at the
Trieste seafood market.)
Still, everything at Slauko hits the
mark, largely by staying out of the way
Book your 3 day pass 20%
off on your
of its chief ingredients. During my most
recent visit, the antipasto of grilled ra- pass
zor clams and scallops was on par with a
three-star Michelin delicacy. Accentuat-
ing the flavors was the olive oil that the
owner said he had produced himself
from the rocky Carso hills nearby. The
next dish, a lobster risotto of epic rich-
ness, required no adornment in the
IDEAS COLLIDE
slightest. From the days catch, I se-
lected a grilled whole San Pietro, or
John Dory fish possibly the most un-
sightly flatfish the Adriatic has to offer,
WHERE
but light and submissive in the mouth,
requiring only a little parsley and lemon
to bring out its gentle brininess. The ac-
companying roasted potatoes and as-
paragus could not have been more basic,
or appropriate.
Service at Slauko is, to put it charita-
bly, leisurely. Or so Ive been told by
other diners. From my perspective,
staring out into the yawning azure gulf
with razor clams and a glass of Malvasia
is an experience not to be rushed, or
even ended.
Ristorante Slauko, 453 Contovello, 39-40-
225393. Dinner for two without wine,
about $90.
TRATTORIA ALLA LAGUNA VEDOVA
RADDI
Everything about this lagoon-side
restaurant is a revelation, beginning
with its locale, in the remote and relent-
lessly picturesque town of Marano La-
gunare. Before even walking into the
trattoria one early Sunday afternoon, I
eyed the handsome Roman architecture
along the town square and the fleet of
fishing boats docked in the lagoon and
determined that I would be back for an
extended stay. Then I stepped inside,
and the question became, How soon?
JUNE 15-16-17 / PARIS 2017
Vedova Raddi has been a family-run
restaurant since its opening in 1938, and
among its guests in the 1950s was Ernest
Hemingway. Why its not famous today
can be explained only by its obscure lo-
cation, almost exactly halfway between vivatechnology.com
Venice and Trieste, several miles south
of the national highway.
It is both elegant and unstuffy, and its Something big Entrepreneur France and its vibrant ecosystem
fidelity to seafood both from the Adri- is happening is a French word of startups will be the Silicon
atic and the lagoon is total. The pro- in France Eric Schmidt, Valley of Europe
prietor, Decio Raddi, whose grand- Alphabet Inc John Chambers, Cisco
Mike Butcher, TechCrunch
mother founded the place, showed me to
my table overlooking the water, where I
settled in for what I knew would be a full
afternoon of maritime self-gratification. ORGANIZERS PLATINUM PARTNERS
The antipasto of breaded and broiled
shellfish included a delectable smooth- JUNE 15-16-17 / PARIS 2017
shelled bivalve, fasolari, I had never en-
countered. It appeared as well among
the pasta dishes, along with tiny shrimp
from the Gulf of Trieste and the tiny
Adriatic clam known as peverasse. But I
elected to go with the linguine and
canocchie, which I love for its chewy
richness but tend to avoid when its not
already extracted from its tenacious
shell. This was the way to eat it, peeled
and cut into small bites with homemade