Clash of Styles in Court Opens Trial in Trayvon Martin’s Death

A Sampling From Opening Statements: Clips from opening arguments by the prosecution and defense teams in the George Zimmerman murder trial in Sanford, Fla.

SANFORD, Fla. — Using George Zimmerman's own words, prosecutors on Monday opened the case against him by portraying Mr. Zimmerman as a gun-toting vigilante who "profiled" Trayvon Martin as someone who was "up to no good" and, with a gun in his waistband, set out to stop him.

"Punks," a prosecutor, John Guy, quoted Mr. Zimmerman as saying, adding the expletives that Mr. Zimmerman used as he spoke to a police dispatcher on the phone. "They always get away. "

"The truth about the murder of Trayvon Martin is going to come directly from his mouth," Mr. Guy told the six-woman jury. "From those hate-filled words that he used to describe a perfect stranger and from the lies that he told to the police to try to justify his actions."

But the defense, choosing evidence over passion in its opening statement, chipped away at the prosecution's narrative. After a halting start, Don West, one of Mr. Zimmerman's lawyers, plunged into a chronological account, heavy on maps and audio recordings, that sought to paint his client as a level-headed man who shot Mr. Martin, not out of malice, but out of fear for his life.

"Trayvon Martin armed himself with the concrete sidewalk and used it to smash George Zimmerman's head; it's no different than if he picked up a brick or bashed it against a wall," Mr. West said, "and the law is very specific as to when you can defend yourself if the other person has a deadly weapon."

Mr. Zimmerman, 29, who was the coordinator for his Sanford neighborhood watch association, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Mr. Martin, 17, an unarmed black high school student from Miami. Mr. Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, told the police that he shot Mr. Martin in self-defense after the teenager attacked him. The shooting, and the fact that Mr. Zimmerman was not charged for six weeks — and only after Gov. Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor — revived calls for racial justice and prompted protest marches here and around the country.

In an opening statement that was heavy on emotion, Mr. Guy portrayed Mr. Zimmerman as a man overly eager to play the role of police officer and too ready to nab a suspect. Rather than stay in his car, Mr. Zimmerman, who was on the phone with a police dispatcher, chose to pursue Mr. Martin, his gun at the ready, said Mr. Guy, who spoke to the Seminole County Court jury for a little over 30 minutes.

The night of the encounter — Feb. 26, 2012 — was dark and rainy, and Mr. Martin, he said, was doing nothing more than ambling home from a 7-Eleven store "armed" with a soft drink and Skittles. He chatted with a young woman from Miami on his cellphone. The woman heard Mr. Martin say, "What are you following me for?" Mr. Guy said. "Then Trayvon Martin's phone went dead. And then Trayvon Martin was dead."

As Mr. Guy described the teenager's death, Mr. Martin's parents dabbed at their eyes. Mr. Zimmerman looked on stone-faced. His parents were not allowed in the courtroom because they are on the defense team's witness list. The parents of a victim are exempt from the witness rule.

Mr. Guy dismissed Mr. Zimmerman's injuries as negligible and picked apart his numerous statements to the police, pointing out a number of inconsistencies. Mr. Zimmerman voluntarily spoke to the police in the hours and days after the shooting, and "that is when he began to spin that tangled web of lies," Mr. Guy said.

Mr. Martin, he said, did not punch Mr. Zimmerman after the defendant hung up with the dispatch officer, did not circle Mr. Zimmerman's car, did not reach for Mr. Zimmerman's gun and did not cover Mr. Zimmerman's nose and mouth with his hand. Mr. Martin's hands had no bruises or blood, he said. In fact, none of Mr. Zimmerman's DNA was found on Mr. Martin, Mr. Guy said.

"The only blood of George Zimmerman's was on the waistband of one of Trayvon Martin's shirts," Mr. Guy said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 24, 2013

An earlier version of this article misquoted a prosecutor, John Guy. He said: "We are confident that at the end of this trial you will know in your head, in your heart and your stomach that George Zimmerman did not shoot Trayvon Martin because he had to. He shot him for the worst of all reasons: because he wanted to.'' He did not say, "We are confident that at the end of this trial you will know in your head, heart and stomach that George Zimmerman did not shoot Trayvon Martin because he had to be shot. He shot him for the words, for all these reasons, because he wanted to.''

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

DealBook: Exit From the Bond Market Is Turning Into a Stampede

Wall Street never thought it would be this bad.

Over the last two months, and particularly over the last two weeks, investors have been exiting their bond investments with unexpected ferocity, moves that continued through Monday.

A bond sell-off has been anticipated for years, given the long run of popularity that corporate and government bonds have enjoyed. But most strategists expected that investors would slowly transfer out of bonds, allowing interest rates to slowly drift up.

Instead, since the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, recently suggested that the strength of the economic recovery might allow the Fed to slow down its bond-buying program, waves of selling have convulsed the markets.

The recent pain has spilled over into stock markets, pushing the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index down an additional 1.2 percent on Monday. But the real pressure has been felt in the bigger and more closely watched bond market. The value of outstanding United States government 10-year notes has fallen 10 percent since a high in early May.

The selling has been most visible among retail investors, who have sold a record $48 billion worth of shares in bond mutual funds so far in June, according to the data company TrimTabs. But hedge funds and other big institutional investors have also been closing out positions or stepping back from the bond market.

"The feeling you are getting out there is that people are selling first and asking questions later," said Hans Humes, chief executive of the hedge fund Greylock Capital.

The anxiety has been heightened by recent instability in the Chinese banking sector, where lending has shown signs of freezing up. That led Chinese stocks down particularly sharply, with the Shanghai composite index ending Monday down 5.3 percent.

But Mr. Humes and many others in the market say they think that the recent swings are driven more by fear than by a rational assessment of what bonds are worth. This could lead to crises for some big investors who took speculative bets, but it makes many analysts skeptical that the panic will lead to any broader instability in the financial system.

"The fundamental story is not so bad — you are not talking about the system teetering on the edge of anything," Mr. Humes said.

It was the strength of the underlying economy that Mr. Bernanke emphasized last Wednesday at a news conference where he explained the central bank's impulse to pull back on its $85 billion a month bond-buying program.

The money the Fed spends on bonds is supposed to bolster the economy, but the cheap money coming from the Fed has also made it less expensive and easier for investors to make large, increasingly speculative bets on bond prices.

The Fed's unusual bond purchases have given it far more influence over the market than at past turning points for interest rates. But Fed officials are clearly unhappy with the extent of the reaction to Mr. Bernanke's statements. On Monday, some top Fed officials made public comments that appeared to be aimed at calming some of the market's wild selling. Narayana Kocherlakota, the president of the regional Fed branch in Minnesota, said in a statement on the bank's Web site that the Fed's recent communications had left the "public with large amounts of residual uncertainty."

Mr. Kocherlakota emphasized that the Fed still planned to support the economy until it grew significantly stronger.

The recent rout follows several years of generally falling interest rates and comfortable bond returns. The belief that the Fed was likely to maintain its stimulus into the foreseeable future caused many investors to continue piling into bonds, even through the first few months of this year. TrimTabs estimates that $1.2 trillion flowed into bond funds over the last four years.

But those good times bred complacency, and Mr. Bernanke's recent comments have caused an abrupt change in perceptions.

The S.& P. 500 recovered from large losses early in the day to finish down 19.34 points, to 1,573.09, on Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.9 percent, or 139.84 points, to 14,659.56. The Nasdaq composite index dropped 1.1 percent, or 36.49 points, to 3,320.76.

In the current fear-soaked atmosphere, market participants are looking over their shoulders, seeking to identify which firms or funds are sitting on big losses and might be forced to sell large lots of bonds. The most obvious contenders are those that bought bonds with borrowed money. In Wall Street parlance, that is called leverage. It can magnify returns when rates are low and prices are rising, but unwinding leveraged trades can deepen losses.

"The fact that we're seeing these violent moves is a reflection that there was leverage there," George Goncalves, a fixed-income strategist at Nomura, said. "This is definitely more than a hissy fit. Some people are being forced to sell."

Usually the preserve of banks and hedge funds, leverage even spread into retail-focused bond funds in recent years when rates were at very low levels. Since 2008, about one-fifth of the exchange-traded funds that invest in longer-term bonds were leveraged, according to Savita Subramanian, an equity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The signs of stress have also been evident in the more ordinary exchange-traded funds, or E.T.F.'s, that hold bonds. These E.T.F.'s are very easy to sell at moments of panic, but the operators of the E.T.F.'s have found it harder to sell off the actual bonds. This has caused the value of the E.T.F.'s to sink further than the value of the underlying bonds.

On Friday, a municipal bond E.T.F. that is popular with retail investors fell 3.7 percent below the value of the bonds it was supposed to be holding, the so-called net asset value, according to ETF Global. On average over the last two months, the E.T.F., which trades under the ticker symbol MUB, was only 0.6 percent below the value of its net asset value.

"It's a self-fulfilling cycle until everyone gets exhausted," said Peter Tchir, the founder of TF Market Advisors. "We don't think we've seen the capitulation we need to hit bottom yet."

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

DealBook: U.S. Civil Charges Against Corzine Are Seen as Near

Federal regulators are poised to sue Jon S. Corzine over the collapse of MF Global and the brokerage firm's misuse of customer money during its final days, a blowup that rattled Wall Street and cast a spotlight on Mr. Corzine, the former New Jersey governor who ran the firm until its bankruptcy in 2011.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulated MF Global, plans to approve the lawsuit as soon as this week, according to law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case. In a rare move against a Wall Street executive, the agency has informed Mr. Corzine's lawyers that it aims to file the civil case without offering him the opportunity to settle, setting up a legal battle that could drag on for years.

Without directly linking Mr. Corzine to the disappearance of more than $1 billion in customer money, the trading commission will probably blame the chief executive for failing to prevent the breach at a lower rung of the firm, the law enforcement officials said. If found liable, he could face millions of dollars in fines and possibly a ban from trading commodities, jeopardizing his future on Wall Street.

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Corzine denounced the trading commission for planning to file what he called an "unprecedented and meritless civil enforcement action."

The aggressive action would stand in contrast to the government's investigations so far into the 2008 financial crisis, many of which produced symbolic fines. In the case of Lehman Brothers, which imploded at the height of the crisis, no employee has ever been charged with civil or criminal wrongdoing.

An MF Global case, expected to be filed in federal court, could become something of an experiment for federal regulators under pressure to adopt a harder line against Wall Street. It would also thrust the trading commission — the financial industry's smallest regulator — onto a bigger stage.

A case would darken the cloud over the legacy of Mr. Corzine, 66, who as a onetime Democratic governor and senator from New Jersey and a former chief of Goldman Sachs has long been a confidant of leaders in Washington and on Wall Street.

But it would also suggest that authorities have all but removed a greater threat: criminal charges. After nearly two years of stitching together evidence, criminal investigators have concluded that porous risk controls at the firm, rather than fraud, allowed the customer money to disappear, according to the law enforcement officials with knowledge of the case.

Still, the spokesman for Mr. Corzine, Steven Goldberg, said that the trading commission's anticipated lawsuit "is not surprising considering the political pressure to hold someone liable for the failure of MF Global," the largest Wall Street bankruptcy since the 2008 financial crisis. Lawmakers and even some agency officials, he noted, have publicly condemned the firm.

"If the C.F.T.C. brings this enforcement action, Mr. Corzine would welcome the opportunity to litigate this matter in an impartial venue, free from politically influenced prejudice and unfounded assertions, which have been frequently repeated despite the lack of a factual basis," Mr. Goldberg said.

The trading commission has not told other top executives that they will be sued, according to lawyers briefed on the case. The regulator appears more likely to take aim at lower-level employees tasked with protecting customer accounts.

The agency faces a lower threshold for proving its charges than criminal authorities do. Prosecutors must prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, but the agency would only have to show a preponderance of the evidence.

Yet the trading commission is not expected to accuse Mr. Corzine of authorizing the breach of customer money, the officials with knowledge of the case said. Instead, the agency is likely to say that he failed to sufficiently supervise the firm and is subject to so-called control person liability, a legal provision that allows for the punishment of executives for the bad acts of lower-level employees.

As MF Global teetered on the brink of collapse, employees in Chicago transferred customer money to plug holes in the firm's own accounts, causing a shortfall for clients like hedge funds and farmers whose funds vanished into banks and clearinghouses. The money might have never disappeared if the banks had not pocketed the customers' money.

"During the difficult final week, Mr. Corzine was never informed, nor was he ever given reason to believe, that customer funds were at risk or were being used improperly," Mr. Goldberg said. "Justice would not be served if Mr. Corzine were to be blamed for alleged mistakes that were made without his knowledge."

Some internal e-mails lend support to Mr. Corzine's defense. An e-mail reviewed by The New York Times indicates that an employee in the firm's Chicago office, Edith O'Brien, explicitly stated to Mr. Corzine that money was a "house wire," meaning that it came from the firm's own accounts, not from customers. Ms. O'Brien, who oversaw the transfer of customer money during the firm's final week, has been a focus of the investigation since its onset.

For months, she declined to cooperate with authorities without receiving immunity from criminal prosecution. Federal authorities hesitated to grant her request, according to the officials close to the case, but started to reverse course this spring when they invited her to an interview.

For now, Ms. O'Brien is likely to receive immunity from criminal prosecution, but she or her direct bosses could still face a civil action from the trading commission, the officials said. Ms. O'Brien has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

A spokesman for the F.B.I. in Manhattan declined to comment. The trading commission also declined to comment.

MF Global filed for bankruptcy on Halloween 2011. Months later, the trading commission's investigation escalated even as criminal scrutiny petered out. Early this year, people involved in the case said, the regulator deposed Mr. Corzine.

The investigation presented a test for the agency's enforcement division, which has adopted a more aggressive stance under David Meister, a former federal prosecutor who joined the agency in 2010.

Ultimately, Mr. Meister's team warned Mr. Corzine's lawyers that it planned to recommend an enforcement action against him. The division, according to people with knowledge of the case, planned to accuse the executive of a "failure to exercise adequate supervision," stemming from a breakdown in the firm's internal controls.

Mr. Goldberg said the allegation would be "nothing more than another example of Monday morning quarterbacking," a defense first raised when MF Global's bankruptcy trustee sued Mr. Corzine and his aides in April.

According to the lawsuit, an October 2010 internal report warned Mr. Corzine about certain "high risk" areas stemming from the lack of controls.

While such warning signs could support the trading commission's case, it plans to level a second charge that could be more difficult to prove. In claiming "control person liability," the agency must show that Mr. Corzine had control over Ms. O'Brien or any other employee who may have transferred customer money. It also must prove that he either "did not act in good faith" or knowingly "induced" an employee to break the law. While Mr. Corzine is thought to have received e-mails with estimates of customer money, authorities appear to lack a smoking gun.

The agency has successfully relied on the statutes that cover failure to supervise and control person liability in previous cases, but it has never used them in such a prominent action.

Mr. Goldberg said that regulators "regularly reviewed MF Global and had never found fault with its systems and procedures for maintaining customer funds."

Since the collapse of the firm, Mr. Corzine has kept a low public profile. Lately, however, he has ventured out a bit. He recently visited Central America for a humanitarian project involving children, for example. And last week, he was seen at an old haunt in Lower Manhattan, Esquires of Wall Street, an 81-year-old barbershop that Mr. Corzine has frequented since his days at Goldman.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Taliban Strike Near Palace Inside Kabul

Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Afghan security forces stood guard as smoke rose from the entrance gate of the presidential palace in Kabul on Tuesday.

KABUL, Afghanistan — At least three suicide bombers launched a sophisticated attack on the heart of the Afghan government early Tuesday morning, using at least two land cruisers similar to those used by international soldiers here, fake badges and vehicle passes, which allowed at least one to get inside the heavily guarded area, according to Kabul's deputy police chief.

The Taliban sent a statement taking responsibility for the attack and saying the targets were the Ariana Hotel, which they said is the C.I.A. base in Kabul, and the presidential palace.

The attack came just days after the Taliban opened an office in Doha, ostensibly for starting negotiations about a peace process. It raised questions anew about divisions within the Taliban and whether there is any broad commitment to peace.

There were casualties, but the numbers were unknown, said the deputy police chief, Gen. Daoud Amin. For the first half-hour of the attack, which began about 6:30 a.m. local time, gunfire could be heard across the Green Zone diplomatic area of Kabul, the location of the presidential palace and the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force.

It was unclear exactly how far the attackers had gotten into the Green Zone, but the gunfire and explosions could be heard throughout the area.

"Three suicide bombers were driving a land cruiser packed with explosives with a fake vehicle pass and they wanted to enter the presidential palace area but they were stopped at the gate," the police chief, Gen. Ayoub Salangi, said in a brief telephone call. "We don't know their main target."

Once the guards realized that the pass was fake, the suicide bombers got out of the explosive-laden car and one of them detonated it. The others got into a firefight with the guards, General Salangi said. However, people in the Afghan security forces who asked not to identified said that there were two vehicles and that they got through a heavily guarded gate used only by ministerial-level officials.

Sharifullah Sahak, Sangar Rahimi and Habib Zahori contributed reporting.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

Game 6: Blackhawks 3, Bruins 2: In a Stunning Finish, a Fifth Stanley Cup for the Blackhawks

Charles Krupa/Associated Press

The Blackhawks' captain, Jonathan Toews, scored one goal and assisted on another.

BOSTON — The Chicago Blackhawks completed perhaps the most improbable Stanley Cup clinching comeback in history on Monday night. Trailing the Boston Bruins, 2-1, with 76 seconds left, the Blackhawks erupted for two goals 17 seconds apart to stun the Bruins, 3-2, and win their second Cup in the last four seasons and fifth over all.

Milan Lucic put the Bruins ahead, 2-1, with 7 minutes 49 seconds left in regulation, seemingly forcing a Game 7 in Chicago on Wednesday. But then lightning struck. With 1:16 left, Bryan Bickell finished a feed from Jonathan Toews, knocking the puck past goaltender Tuukka Rask. Then, with 59 seconds to go, Dave Bolland shot a rebound off the goal post past the sprawling Rask.

"How can you call that?" Toews said, beaming, in the moments after victory. "We knew we needed just one bounce there. Obviously, that was a big goal for them to go up 2-1. But you never know what can happen, so you don't stop playing until the end."

The TD Garden crowd, roaring in celebration, suddenly fell silent. The only cheers came from the 200 friends and family chartered in by the Blackhawks. As they watched, the 34 ½-pound silver chalice was wheeled out and presented by Commissioner Gary Bettman to Toews, who raised it over his head in triumph. He became the first captain in the 87-year history of the Blackhawks to lift the Cup twice.

Bolland and Bickell's goals ended this almost unbearably tense series, in which three games went into overtime. Patrick Kane was voted the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' most valuable player, becoming the third straight American to receive the honor. Kane scored 9 goals and 10 assists in the postseason.

"These are the feelings you live for," Kane said as he celebrated with his family on the Garden ice.

It was the Blackhawks' fifth championship, joining their triumphs in 1934, 1938, 1961 and 2010.

The Blackhawks' lightning-strike goals brought to an end a classic series among the two Original Six teams. The Bruins came out hard and kept charging, overwhelming the Blackhawks in the first period.

But they scored only once, with a goal from the third line  —  Chris Kelly, Tyler Seguin and Daniel Paille. They practically owned the Blackhawks, penning them in their own end for long stretches and swarming goalie Corey Crawford. Finally, at 7:19, the three combined to score, Paille to Seguin to Kelly, who finished a backhand feed for his second goal of the finals, and of the playoffs.

The Blackhawks did not mount a real threat until the fifth minute of the second period. But they made it count on a goal from Toews, motoring at full speed after an undisclosed injury that knocked him out of Game 5 on Saturday.

Players dropped left and right as they put everything on the line in what amounted to a championship game. Patrice Bergeron played a full game despite grimacing on the bench from a series of injuries that did not become known until after the game ended. He sustained a broken rib in Game 5 and had to be hospitalized, and then he revealed he played with a separated shoulder during Monday night's game.

Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw played despite taking a hard shot to the face. He carried the Cup around the ice afterward while bleeding through his stitches. Blackhawks defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson left the ice for a short time after blocking a shot. Bruins forward Jaromir Jagr was rattled by a check from Bolland and missed most of the second period. Nathan Horton and Marian Hossa played on through nagging injuries, as they have throughout this series.

The Blackhawks became the first team of the N.H.L.'s salary-cap era to win the Stanley Cup twice. After their 2010 victory, General Manager Stan Bowman had to trade away or decline to re-sign nine players from the championship roster, because their rising salaries would have pushed the team over the cap.

Coach Joel Quenneville is also a holdover from 2010, and his Blackhawks teams have excelled at postseason crunchtime. Their record in Games 5, 6 and 7 of playoff series since he became the coach in 2009 is 19-4.

The Blackhawks rolled to the Stanley Cup. They set an N.H.L. record by going unbeaten in the first 24 games of the 48-game season, half the schedule. They went on to win the Presidents' Trophy as regular-season champions, and on Monday became the first top regular-season team to win the Stanley Cup since the 2008 Detroit Red Wings.

They kept rolling in the first playoff round, beating Minnesota in five games. But in the second round, they fell behind the Red Wings, 3 games to 1, and won three straight games, two on the road, to overcome the deficit. Brent Seabrook scored the series winner in overtime.

In the conference finals, the Blackhawks ousted Los Angeles, the defending Cup champions, in five games. Then came the Bruins, a team they had not faced in a playoff series since 1978, and never in the Cup finals.

It was a series worthy of two big cities with long love affairs with hockey. Bruins flags and sweaters were everywhere in Boston, as Blackhawks flags and sweaters were in Chicago. The Michael Jordan statue in front of  United Center wore a Blackhawks jersey. At the Boston Public Garden, the "Make Way for Ducklings" statuettes wore little Bruins sweaters.

12.07 | 0 komentar | Read More

The Tax Haven Team in Monaco

MONACO — Monaco may seem almost comically tiny, less a real country than a glorified safe deposit box festooned with palm trees and Lamborghini dealerships, but it teems with interesting statistics. Population: 35,427. Number of nationalities represented: 125. Unemployment rate: 0 percent. Income tax rate: 0 percent.

Number of soccer-team-owning Russian billionaires feuding with French soccer officials: one.

That would be Dmitri Rybolovlev, a potash fertilizer tycoon who in 2011 expressed his support for his adopted country by buying a majority stake in its struggling soccer team, A.S. Monaco, and proceeding to aggressively vacuum up expensive European players.

Deep-pocketed foreign owners, like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and the Qatar Investment Authority at Paris St.-Germain, are a euro a dozen over here these days. But Monaco is different from other countries. Rybolovlev can offer players not just hefty wages, the chance to hobnob with other rich sportspeople, and the excitement of living in a sunny place that takes just 45 minutes to walk across (more, if you stop for lunch): he can offer them liberation from the petty annoyance of income tax.

This is a happy prospect no matter what you earn; it begins to look like bliss when you count your income in millions. And it puts the rest of the French league at a significant disadvantage. While Monaco basks in its special tax status, players for French teams are subject to the kind of high tax rates that recently motivated the actor Gérard Depardieu to renounce his citizenship, acquire a Russian passport and lumber screaming for the non-French hills of Belgium.

"Frankly, you can say that it is unfair, that everyone must be on the same level," said a Monaco government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen criticizing his country. "Because of its tax situation, Monaco is in a very special position."

"Special" is one way of putting it. It's like having a major league baseball team in the Cayman Islands.

The French soccer league has grumbled about Monaco's exceptional situation in the past. But now, alarmed by the team's sudden winning streak and unnerved by its 158 million-or-so dollar acquisition of three great players — João Moutinho and James Rodríguez from Porto and Radamel Falcao from Atlético Madrid — it finally did something. In March, it decreed that starting next June, any team playing in the French league would have to be based in France and subject to French taxes.

For "any team," read "Monaco."

"Monaco belong at the top level of French football," the league's president, Frédéric Thiriez, said at the time. "It is therefore all the more important that the club adheres to French rules, especially in relation to tax, so that every club in the league is on a level playing field."

Among other things, Thiriez said, Monaco had backpedaled on its promise to acquire a certain percentage of French players, who are required to pay French taxes even if they live in Monaco. Monaco has also focused its purchases on European clubs other than French ones, upsetting rival French clubs by failing to share its wealth through transfer fees.

"The problem has been considerably exacerbated by the financial crisis, the drop in TV rights in France, the arrival of a shareholder with apparently unlimited resources at the head of Monaco and, above all, a transfer strategy oriented 80 percent toward foreigners," Thiriez said.

Not surprisingly, A.S. Monaco was not pleased by the league's decision. Nor did the team like the French Football Federation's proposed compromise that would allow the club to pay a one-time fee of 200 million euros, or about 263 million dollars, to the other clubs in exchange for being allowed to stay in Monaco. Extortion, the team said. "The position of the club is very clear: A.S.M. F.C. considers that such a demand is not only outrageous, but also totally unacceptable."

With negotiations, such as they were, at an impasse, the team appealed to the Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, arguing that the league's new residency requirement violated "several fundamental principles of French and European law." These include, the team said, "the principles of free movement, free competition, free access to sporting competitions, and also the Franco-Monégasque tax convention signed on the 18 February 1963."

A ruling is not expected for at least several months, but the issue is laced with bad feeling. Some rival teams, upset that Monaco has put itself in prime position to seize one of France's two assured spots in the lucrative Champions League, have talked of boycotting Monaco if it fails to move to France. Others have expressed sympathy for a team that could excite television fans, rouse French soccer from its prolonged malaise and bring in revenue, if not necessarily at home.

That is another issue: some critics believe that Monaco is a silly place to have a world-class team in the first place. Its grand stadium, Stade Louis II, has room for 18,500 spectators, but even with blocs of tickets handed out to businesses, the games rarely draw more than 7,000.

"The problem is that they just don't have a fan base," said Philippe Auclair, who writes about French soccer and is not a fan of Monaco. "The 73 fans they do have are going to be angry with me, but they are an artificial club. Football clubs are generally born from youth associations, parish teams or groups of fellow workers rooted in a community. But what community is there in Monaco apart from millionaire tennis players and tax evaders?"

One option would be to look for fans outside Monaco, in southeastern France, he said, "but those fans can't stand Monaco anyway." Completely false, people in Monaco say. For one thing, the team has been around for nearly 100 years, some of them pretty glorious. In 2004, it made the Champions League final, losing to Porto, 3-0. When France won the World Cup in 1998, four of the players on the national team were from the Monaco team.

"A.S.M. F.C. has been affiliated to the French Football Federation since 1919 and has, over a long period of time, invested significant sums into French football," Rybolovlev said recently. "The club has contributed many players to the French national team and proudly represented French football in European competitions. I therefore do not understand the lack of recognition of this contribution from the French football authorities."

Speaking after the Europa League final recently, Michel Platini, the president of UEFA, which governs European soccer, said he felt puzzled by France's attitude toward Monaco. "I find it a little difficult to understand," Platini said, according to The Guardian. "It's as if French football always liked Monaco so long as they didn't win."

Jérôme de Bontin, a former A.S. Monaco president who is the general manager of the New York Red Bulls, said that the team was crucial to Monaco's sense of itself — and to its ruler, Prince Albert II, a passionate soccer fan. "Now, with the support of the new owner, we have the opportunity again to have a flag carrier, a good ambassador for the principality," he said.

Without the chance to earn much stadium revenue, Monaco is entitled to advantages elsewhere, de Bontin said. He attributed France's attitude to ingrained jealousy and suspicion.

"The socialist government seems to have targeted the rich," he said. "There seems to be this new philosophy in France that it's no longer a good thing to be successful."

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

The Lede: Latest Updates on Snowden’s Asylum Pursuit

Two days after the United States charged him with espionage, Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has admitted to disclosing classified information about the country's government surveillance programs, left Hong Kong and is now seeking asylum in Ecuador, the foreign minister of Ecuador posted on Twitter. As our colleagues Keith Bradsher and Ellen Barry report, Mr. Snowden took a flight to Moscow, where he remained at the airport on Sunday. The Lede will be providing live updates.

8:29 P.M. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Will Face Press Monday

A press conference tomorrow by Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño Aroca, is not about Edward J. Snowden, but about Mr. Patiño's trip to Asia, a spokesman for the foreign ministry has told my colleague William Neuman. He will discuss Mr. Snowden only if he is asked by the press.

The point may seem moot — questions on Mr. Snowden will likely be more frequent than, say, inquiries about Mr. Patiño's favorite restaurants in Hanoi, where the press conference will be held. But perhaps it indicates that the Ecuadorean government is not gathering the press for an official announcement.

In the case of Julian Assange who has taken refuge, from efforts to extradite him to Sweden to answer allegations of sexual abuses, in Ecuador's embassy in London, Ecuadorean lawmakers took a little time to officially approve his request for asylum.

— Ravi Somaiya

7:24 P.M. In Interview, Assange Describes WikiLeaks' Role

Our colleague Scott Shane interviewed Julian Assange on Sunday about the role that he and other members of the WikiLeaks organization have been playing in Mr. Snowden's departure from Hong Kong.

Mr. Assange, who has resided in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for a year because of his fugitive status, said his group had arranged for Mr. Snowden to travel via a "special refugee travel document" issued by Ecuador last Monday — days before the United States announced the criminal charges against him and revoked his passport. Mr. Assange said he believed that Ecuador was still considering Mr. Snowden's asylum application.

"He left Hong Kong with that document," Mr. Assange said.

Mr. Assange told Mr. Shane that he had raised Mr. Snowden's case with Ecuador's foreign minister in a meeting at the embassy last Monday.

Mr. Assange said it was unclear whether Mr. Snowden's passport was revoked before he left Hong Kong. But, he said, Mr. Snowden was informed of the revocation when he landed in Moscow. He said it was uncertain whether and where Mr. Snowden might be able to travel from Moscow using the Ecuadorean document, which he described as a "safe pass."

"Different airlines have different rules, so it's a technical matter whether they will accept the document," he said.

He added that the rights of refugees to travel were guaranteed by various international treaties.

Mr. Assange said that when he sought refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy to avoid being sent to Sweden for questioning in a sexual offense investigation, Ecuador gave him "initial protection" immediately and followed up two months later with a formal grant of asylum. He suggested that a similar process might be in effect with Mr. Snowden.

Mr. Assange remains in the embassy a year later, since the British authorities have not permitted him to leave without risking arrest and transfer to Sweden. He has said he is concerned less about the inquiry than the possibility that Sweden might subsequently send him to the United States to face possible charges in connection with WikiLeaks' disclosures.

Whether Mr. Snowden could end up in a similar predicament — perhaps accepted by Ecuador or another country but unable to get there — remains to be seen.

— Scott Shane

6:28 P.M. Snowden Is Elusive, Even Within Airport

None of the world's news media, gathered at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, have yet laid eyes on Edward J. Snowden, which has prompted some Kremlinology, my colleague Ellen Barry reports.

The Web portal Gazeta.ru reported that around 1:30 a.m., a light was on at the second floor of the Ecuadorean Embassy, and that security appeared to be heightened.

Russian news outlets have reported that Mr. Snowden will spend the night at a capsule hotel in the airport. Roman Alekseyev, a manager who answered the phone at the hotel on Sunday, said he could not release any information about the report that Mr. Snowden was there. Rooms at the hotel would cost about 5,500 rubles (about $170) for a 12-hour stay in a double, he said. Mr. Alekseyev said that because the hotel is in the airport's transit zone, it has a special legal status and is not considered Russian territory.

Vozdushny Ekspress, the capsule hotel where Snowden may or may not be napping. RT @RT_russian: (ФОТО) http://t.co/rgD87NMvlm

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 23 Jun 13

The latest, unconfirmed reports in the airport also suggested that Mr. Snowden might be in the V.I.P. hall, which is also behind passport control.

— Ravi Somaiya

5:05 P.M. Snowden Shouldn't Be Allowed to Travel, Official Says

A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the United States was advising governments that Mr. Snowden "should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States."

"The United States has been in touch via diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries in the Western Hemisphere through which Snowden might transit or that could serve as final destinations. The U.S. is advising these governments that Snowden is wanted on felony charges, and as such, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States."

— Steven Lee Myers

4:45 P.M. Lawmakers Threaten 'Consequences' for Putin

Lawmakers in the United States accused Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, on Sunday of being complicit in Mr. Snowden's decision to fly from Hong Kong to Moscow, and warned of possible harm to relations between the two countries if he was not handed over.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Mr. Putin was "aiding and abetting Snowden's escape."

"Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States, whether it is Syria, Iran, and now, of course, with Snowden," Mr. Schumer said on CNN's "State of the Union." "That's not how allies should treat one another, and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship."

Mr. Schumer did not say specifically what those consequences might be. Since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency last year, relations between the United States and Russia have soured significantly, and few new avenues of cooperation have emerged. Moreover, Mr. Putin has accused the United States of supporting his political rivals in Russia, though Washington denies this.

When Mr. Obama entered the presidency, he vowed to hit a "reset" button on relations with Russia in the hopes of turning around years of mutual rancor and suspicion.

Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, suggested that Mr. Snowden's arrival in Russia could snuff out with the last vestiges of those early hopes.

"The president should be in contract with Putin saying that this whole reset button with Russia that's off if Putin allows him to leave the country and does not send him back to the United States," he said.

He added, referring to Mr. Snowden: "This guy is a traitor, he's a defector. He is not a hero."

Representative Peter T. King speaking about Mr. Snowden on Fox News on Sunday.

3:51 P.M. Russian Official: Revoked Passport Will Not Stop Travel

Russian law enf official tells Ifax that Snowden's lack of a passport will not prevent his travel to Latin America. http://t.co/eg3dvZHWbT

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 23 Jun 13

Ellen Barry, a Moscow correspondent for The Times, posted a report from Interfax, the Russian news agency, on Twitter that quotes a Russian law enforcement agency official saying Mr. Snowden would not be prevented from leaving Russia because he has no passport.

Obama administration officials confirmed that Mr. Snowden's American passport was revoked Saturday in an effort to prevent him from traveling. It was not clear whether the passport was revoked before he left Hong Kong.

"As is routine and consistent with U.S. regulations, persons with felony arrest warrants are subject to having their passport revoked," Jennifer R. Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a statement. "Such a revocation does not affect citizenship status. Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States."

Citing the Privacy Act, Ms. Psaki said she could not specifically discuss Mr. Snowden's passport.

A Russian law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to Interfax, said Mr. Snowden would be allowed to continue on his journey even if the United States authorities had annulled his passport.

If his American passport was really invalidated, "the authorities of that country could give him a refugee document or supply him with Ecuadorean citizenship in a special procedure," the official said. "With these documents, he could definitely continue his path to Latin America."

David H. Laufman, a former federal prosecutor, said it appeared that the administration had flubbed Mr. Snowden's case in at least two ways.

"What mystifies me is that the State Department didn't revoke his passport after the charges were filed" on June 14, Mr. Laufman said. "They missed an opportunity to freeze him in place."

He also said he was puzzled by the decision to unseal the criminal charges on Friday, possibly prompting Mr. Snowden to flee. The standard practice in such cases is to unseal the charges only after the defendant is in custody, he said.

— Ellen Barry, Steven Lee Myers and Scott Shane

3:38 P.M. N.S.A. Chief Says Snowden Caused 'Irreversible Damage'

Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, on ABC's "This Week."

In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, accused Mr. Snowden of leaks that have done "irreversible damage" to American intelligence efforts against terrorism and other threats.

"This is not an individual who in my opinion was acting with noble intent," General Alexander said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos.

He said the agency was working on building safeguards against leaks by computer systems administrators, the job that Mr. Snowden held while working for the contractor Booz Allen Hamilton at an N.S.A. station in Hawaii. He said the agency had changed passwords and was implementing a "two man rule" to reduce the chance that a lone dissenter like Mr. Snowden could make off with sensitive data.

ABC News provided a rush transcript of the interview.

On the CBS program, "Face the Nation," Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she did not believe that Mr. Snowden was a whistle-blower.

"I want to get him caught and brought back for trial," she said, in part to preclude more disclosures by him. She said intelligence officials had told her that Mr. Snowden "could have over 200 separate items" of classified documents.

— Scott Shane

2:23 P.M. Snowden's WikiLeaks Companion

As Mr. Snowden waits in an airport transit terminal in Moscow, planning his next steps, he is being counseled by a close adviser to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder.

WikiLeaks said in a statement on Sunday that the adviser, Sarah Harrison, traveled with Mr. Snowden when he left for Moscow from Hong Kong, where he has resided since first revealing classified documents about United States government surveillance this month.

On Sunday, WikiLeaks said Mr. Snowden was bound for Ecuador from Moscow, and the Ecuadorean ambassador confirmed that he had requested asylum there. Mr. Assange, who has been trying to gain asylum in Ecuador, has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London for about a year amid British attempts to extradite him to Sweden.

Ms. Harrison is a British citizen who is working with the WikiLeaks legal defense team, the WikiLeaks statement said. She has also worked at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Center for Investigative Journalism in Britain, the statement said.

In a video from last year, Ms. Harrison is shown announcing the release of a cache of e-mails from high-ranking Syrian government officials obtained by WikiLeaks.

Ms. Harrison discussing Syrian government e-mails.

1:36 P.M. Video of Ecuador Foreign Minister Meeting With Assange

A video showing Ecuador's foreign minister meeting last week with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Britain's Press Association posted a video on YouTube showing Julian Assange meeting last week with Ricardo Patiño Aroca, Ecuador's foreign minister, at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. The report did not say whether Mr. Assange discussed Mr. Snowden's possibly seeking asylum in Ecuador.

On Saturday, Mr. Assange issued a statement, asking for support for Mr. Snowden.

On Sunday, after Mr. Snowden left Hong Kong, Mr. Aroca posted on Twitter that Mr. Snowden was seeking asylum in Ecuador.

1:34 P.M. WikiLeaks Says Snowden Is Bound for Ecuador

WikiLeaks has released a statement saying that Mr. Snowden "is bound for the Republic of Ecuador."

The statement:

Mr. Edward Snowden, the American whistle-blower who exposed evidence of a global surveillance regime conducted by U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies, has left Hong Kong legally. He is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks.

Mr. Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr. Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed.

Former Spanish Judge Mr. Baltasar Garzon, legal director of WikiLeaks and lawyer for Julian Assange, has made the following statement:

"The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden's rights and protecting him as a person. What is being done to Mr. Snowden and to Mr. Julian Assange — for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest — is an assault against the people."

12:58 P.M. Snowden Has Requested Asylum in Ecuador, Minister Says

On Twitter, Ricardo Patiño Aroca, the foreign minister for Ecuador, posted that Mr. Snowden had submitted a request for asylum.

The Government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Edward J. #Snowden

— Ricardo Patiño Aroca (@RicardoPatinoEC) 23 Jun 13

Earlier on Sunday, the Ecuadorean ambassador arrived at the airport in Moscow and told reporters that he would be meeting with Mr. Snowden.

Ecuadorean ambassador arrives at Moscow airport hotel, tells journalists he expects to meet Edward #Snowden – Reuters

— James Glynn (@jamesglynn) 23 Jun 13

11:57 A.M. Hong Kong Is Likely to Have Consulted With Beijing

A person knowledgeable about the Hong Kong government's handling of Mr. Snowden said Sunday evening that he was sure that Hong Kong officials had consulted with the Chinese government on how to handle the case. The rough consensus in Beijing is that Mr. Snowden's presence in Hong Kong posed a threat to Chinese-American relations after President Xi Jinping has tried to improve them, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

Yet public opinion in Hong Kong and mainland China has made it impossible simply to send him back to the United States, the person said.

"We can't force him to leave, the best we can do is induce him to leave," said the person, adding that Mr. Snowden had decided to leave on his own.

The basic issue for Beijing was that public opinion in Hong Kong and mainland China was clearly shifting toward protecting him from the United States. Mainland Chinese officials "will be relieved he's gone — the popular sentiment in Hong Kong and China is to protect him because he revealed United States surveillance here, but the governments don't want trouble in the relationship," the person said.

The result had been a policy driven by expedience, in which Beijing and Hong Kong both wanted Mr. Snowden to leave even though officials in both places deeply and sincerely appreciated what he had done to expose American intelligence activities on their soil. "It may not be the most honorable thing, but it is true," the person said.

The Hong Kong government was dismayed that the United States chose to include espionage in its charges against Mr. Snowden, because that created clear complications under the bilateral agreement between Hong Kong and the United States for the surrender of fugitives. The agreement specifically excludes the surrender of fugitives from political cases.

"If they really want him back, they wouldn't have put that in — they would have just put that he stole something," said the person knowledgeable about the government's handling of the case.

Another person in Hong Kong with a deep understanding of Hong Kong's relationship with Beijing agreed that the mainland Chinese government and the Hong Kong government were both hoping Mr. Snowden would leave, although both were reluctant to take any direct action to push him out. "It saved both sides possible embarrassment if he left," said the second person, who was not involved in the Snowden decision but knew intimately the institutional framework in which the decision was made.

Hong Kong's laws prescribe that the Chinese government control Hong Kong's foreign policy. So no decision to let Mr. Snowden leave would have been made without consulting the Chinese government, said the second person, who also insisted on anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities. "This must have been done in full consultation with Beijing," the second person said.

By exposing American surveillance in Hong Kong and mainland China, Mr. Snowden has already done much for China, while holding on to him could have created a serious diplomatic problem, the second person said. "Beijing has gotten the most they can out of the Snowden situation," the second person said.

— Keith Bradsher

11:58 a.m. Russian News: Snowden Checked Into Moscow Airport Hotel

As goose chase continues, Ifax reports that Snowden will remain in airport transit area bc he doesn't have a visa. http://t.co/gG97DoWOAu

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 23 Jun 13

Ellen Barry, our correspondent in Moscow, posted on Twitter a report from Interfax, a Russian news service, that said Mr. Snowden would remain in the airport transit area because he does not have a visa.

According to the Interfax report, Mr. Snowden will leave Moscow on a plane bound for Cuba, but there were no details about when the plane is supposed to depart.

The next flight to Havana from Moscow is scheduled to leave Monday at 2:05 p.m. Moscow time.

Mr. Snowden had checked into a hotel in Sheremetyevo's Terminal E.

"He cannot leave the terminal because he does not have a Russian visa," a source told Interfax. The source said that Sarah Harrison, an employee of WikiLeaks who is traveling with Mr. Snowden, has a Russian visa.

Russia Today, Russia's English-language television station, reported that Mr. Snowden had been visited in the airport by officials from the Ecuadorean Embassy, including a doctor.

#Snowden has been examined by doctor from Ecuador embassy at Moscow airport – RT source http://t.co/iWpyC5cic6

— RT (@RT_com) 23 Jun 13

The Russian news media have reported that Mr. Snowden might ultimately try to fly to Ecuador or Venezuela.

Embassy of Ecuador cars parked outside Moscow airport, Snowden reportedly inside #snowden http://t.co/UbLvxzvJU9 http://t.co/PTkSxfeBvc

— Joanna Ruck (@joannaruck) 23 Jun 13

Update: It seems that some officials from the Ecuadorean Embassy have had trouble locating Mr. Snowden.

Ecuadorian ambassador inside Sheremtyevo airport rather confused: "Do you know where he is?" "We thought you did?"

— Miriam Elder (@MiriamElder) 23 Jun 13

11:31 A.M. Guardian Columnist: Snowden's Final Destination Unknown

Glenn Greenwald, the columnist for The Guardian who initially broke the news of Mr. Snowden's disclosures, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Mr. Snowden's ultimate destination was "up in the air."

"Where he's ultimately headed is unknown," Mr. Greenwald said. He said that Mr. Snowden was "forced to flee" because the Obama administration "is engaged in an unprecedented war against whistle-blowers."

Pressed about why the former N.S.A. contractor thought that oversight by Congress and other checks on the agency were inadequate, Mr. Greenwald said Mr. Snowden brought a folder he had labeled "N.S.A. Lying to Congress" to their first meeting. Mr. Greenwald noted that James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, has admitted that his statement in March to Congress that N.S.A. was not collecting data on millions of America was false.

Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on the same program that it "defies logic" that Mr. Snowden, after criticizing surveillance in the United States, would flee to more authoritarian countries like Cuba, Russia or Venezuela.

Mr. Rogers said Mr. Greenwald had mischaracterized a still-secret ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as proving that the N.S.A. was violating the law. In fact, he said, the court found that the N.S.A. had "overcollected" information for technical reasons and that the agency had moved to fix the problem.

"This is judicial review, and there was judicial pushback," Mr. Rogers said. He said Congress, too, was informed of the over-collection, and that those internal checks had worked as designed to keep the agency under tight control.

— Scott Shane

10:53 A.M. Video: ABC News Report of Snowden's Departure

VIDEO: ABC News coverage of Edward J. Snowden's departure from Hong Kong.

10:40 A.M. Hong Kong's Official Statement on Snowden's Exit

The official statement from the Hong Kong government released Sunday announcing Mr. Snowden's departure.

Mr. Edward Snowden left Hong Kong today (June 23) on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel.

The U.S. government earlier on made a request to the HKSAR government for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr. Snowden. Since the documents provided by the U.S. government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR government has requested the U.S. government to provide additional information so that the Department of Justice could consider whether the U.S. government's request can meet the relevant legal conditions. As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.

The HKSAR government has already informed the U.S. government of Mr. Snowden's departure.

Meanwhile, the HKSAR government has formally written to the U.S. government requesting clarification on earlier reports about the hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies. The HKSAR government will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.

10:52 A.M. Chinese Statement on Reports of U.S. Surveillance

On Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to reports that Edward J. Snowden had left Hong Kong, and voiced "grave concern" about allegations, attributed to Mr. Snowden, that the National Security Agency had hacked Chinese telecommunications systems and a Web site operated by Tsinghua University in Beijing. A spokeswoman said that China had already raised those allegations with the United States.

In a statement on the ministry's Web site, the spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said of Mr. Snowden's departure: "We have seen the reports, but still have no understanding of the specific situation and are continuing to monitor developments."

Ms. Hua did not comment directly on whether the Chinese government had played any role in hastening Mr. Snowden's departure, but she cited the "one country, two systems" principle whereby Beijing gives Hong Kong considerable autonomy to make many of its own administrative decisions.

"The central government has consistently respected the Hong Kong special administrative region government in handling matters according to the law," she said, referring to the central authorities in Beijing.

In a comment on the reports of American hacking of Chinese Web sites, Ms. Hua said: "We express grave concern about the recently disclosed cases of the U.S. government agency in question engaging in cyber attacks against China, and this again demonstrates that China is a victim of cyber attacks."

"We have already made representations to the U.S. side about this," she said.

— Christopher Buckley

10:15 A.M. Senator Warns Russia Not to Harbor Snowden

In Washington, a leading Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said there would be "consequences" should Russia elect to shelter Mr. Snowden.

"I believe he hurt our nation, he compromised our national security program," Mr. Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday." "The freedom trail is not exactly China-Russia-Cuba-Venezuela, so I hope we'll chase him to the ends of the Earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there'll be consequences if they harbor this guy."

"If they want to be part of the world community, the W.T.O., they want a good relationship with the United States, they should hold this fellow and send him back home for justice," he said, referring to the World Trade Organization.

Russia joined the W.T.O. two years ago after nearly two decades of talk over its rights practices and trade restrictions.

Another Republican senator, Mike Lee of Utah, also questioned Mr. Snowden's possible choice of destinations. "Mr. Snowden is delusional," he said on Fox, "if he thinks that he's going to find a country with a better human rights record in Moscow or in Havana or in Caracas, and I think he's in for a rude awakening if that's what he's got in mind."

— Brian Knowlton

10:09 A.M. U.S. Dept. of Justice Statement on Snowden

Nanda Chitre, a Justice Department spokeswoman, on Sunday confirmed that Mr. Snowden had left Hong Kong.

"As we stated yesterday, the United States had contacted authorities in Hong Kong to seek the extradition of Mr. Snowden, based on the criminal complaint filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, and in accordance with the U.S.-Hong Kong Agreement for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders," she said. "We have been informed by the Hong Kong authorities Mr. Snowden has departed Hong Kong for a third country. We will continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."

— Charles Savage

9:54 A.M. Video of WikiLeaks Adviser, Sarah Harrison

Mr. Snowden is said to be assisted by Sarah Harrison, who was an adviser to Julian Assange when WikiLeaks released the diplomatic cables three years ago. The WikiLeaks organization said that Ms. Harrison "has courageously assisted Mr. Snowden with his lawful departure from Hong Kong and is accompanying Mr. Snowden in his passage to safety."

She can be seen in this YouTube video giving a talk about Syria at the Frontline Club in Britain last year.

Sarah Harrison speaking last May at a conference about Syria.

10:05 A.M. Black Car Reportedly Picks Up Snowden

Video of flight from Hong Kong to Moscow with Mr. Snowden landing on Sunday.

Witnesses aboard a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow believed to be carrying Mr. Snowden said a black car pulled up beside the plane after it landed in Russia. Russia Today, Russia's English-language television station, later reported that the car belonged to the embassy of Ecuador, though the Interfax news service, citing anonymous sources, reported that representatives from Venezuela met Mr. Snowden after he left the plane. No witnesses have reported seeing Mr. Snowden on the flight or in the airport in Moscow.

9:52 A.M. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Statements on Snowden

In a statement, the WikiLeaks organization said that Mr. Snowden had requested that WikiLeaks "use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety."

Mr. Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr. Snowden arrives at his final destination his request will be formally processed.

Former Spanish Judge Mr. Baltasar Garzon, legal director of Wikileaks and lawyer for Julian Assange, has made the following statement:

"The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr. Snowden's rights and protecting him as a person. What is being done to Mr. Snowden and to Mr. Julian Assange — for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest — is an assault against the people."

The organization also published a statement by its founder, Julian Assange, on Mr. Snowden's behalf, that was made Saturday. The statement said the United States government's decision to charge Mr. Snowden was intended "to intimidate any country that might be considering standing up for his rights."

"That tactic must not be allowed to work," it said. "The effort to find asylum for Edward Snowden must be intensified."

Our colleagues, Ms. Barry and Mr. Bradsher, report that sources said Mr. Snowden's goal was to travel to Venezuela.

9:50 A.M. WikiLeaks Assists and Live Tweets Snowden's Exit

Edward #Snowden has just now landed in Moscow on flight SU 213 http://t.co/Lyvcno0upo … http://t.co/kYJCOQNEhh http://t.co/svGMShQLsn

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 23 Jun 13

Mr. Snowden's exit from Hong Kong on a Moscow-bound airliner, was assisted and live tweeted by people affiliated with WikiLeaks, the organization that released extensive classified American diplomatic communications three years ago. On Twitter, the group posted Sunday that it was assisting Mr. Snowden.

FLASH: WikiLeaks has assisted Mr. Snowden's political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers ans safe exit from Hong Kong. More soon.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 23 Jun 13

Edward Snowden will touchdown in Moscow in under twenty minutes http://t.co/kYJCOQNEhh … http://t.co/svGMShQLsn #snowden

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 23 Jun 13

Edward #Snowden has just now landed in Moscow on flight SU 213 http://t.co/Lyvcno0upo … http://t.co/kYJCOQNEhh http://t.co/svGMShQLsn

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 23 Jun 13

9:27 A.M. Snowden Arrives in Moscow

Snowden's plane is descending, soon to land at Sheremetyevo. https://t.co/cwIfgwQRXn

— Ellen Barry (@EllenBarryNYT) 23 Jun 13

Russian officials have confirmed that a plane believed to be carrying Edward J. Snowden, who departed Hong Kong on Sunday, has landed in Moscow.

It is not clear how long Mr. Snowden will remain in Russia. Russia's Interfax news agency, citing a source with the Russian carrier Aeroflot, reported earlier that he would fly from Moscow via Havana to Caracas, Venezuela. This has not been officially confirmed.

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In the Bible Belt, Offering Atheists a Spiritual Home

Jennifer Zdon for The New York Times

Jerry DeWitt, a former Pentecostal preacher, led a secular service Sunday in Baton Rouge, La. Many atheists miss a sense of belonging, he said.

BATON ROUGE, La. — It would have been easy to mistake what was happening in a hotel ballroom here for a religious service. All the things that might be associated with one were present Sunday: 80 people drawn by a common conviction. Exhortations to service. Singing and light swaying. An impassioned sermon.

There was just no mention of God.

Billed as Louisiana's first atheist service and titled "Joie de Vivre: To Delight in Being Alive," it was presided over by Jerry DeWitt, a small, charismatic man dressed all in black with slick, shiny hair.

"Oh, it's going to be so hard to not say, 'Can I get an amen?' " he said with a smile, warning people that this was going to be more like church than they might expect. "I want you to feel comfortable singing. And I want you to feel comfortable clapping your hands. I'm going to ask you to silence your cellphones, but I'm not going to ask you to turn them off. Because I want you to post."

As Mr. DeWitt paced back and forth, speaking with a thick Southern accent, his breathy yet powerful voice occasionally cracked with emotion. The term may be a contradiction, but he is impossible to describe as anything but an atheist preacher.

Mr. DeWitt acts so much like a clergyman because he was one.

He was raised Pentecostal in DeRidder, La., a small town near the Texas border. In 2011, after 25 years as a preacher, he realized he had lost all connection to the religious point of view that had defined most of his life. He left the church and found himself ostracized in his hometown and from his family. Since then, Mr. DeWitt, 43, has become a prominent advocate of atheism, giving lectures around the region and providing an emotional counterpoint to more academic atheist exponents like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

With Sunday's service — marking the start of Community Mission Chapel in Lake Charles, which Mr. DeWitt called a full-fledged atheist "church" — he wanted to bring some of the things that he had learned from his years as a religious leader to atheists in southern Louisiana.

The percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans appears to be on the rise. A 2012 Pew Research Center study found that while only about 6 percent identified as atheist or agnostic, they were among nearly 20 percent classified as religiously unaffiliated. That was up from 15 percent in 2007, a greater increase than for any traditional faith.

Mr. DeWitt counts himself among the hard-line atheists, but he believes that something may be lost when someone leaves the church — not just the parts about God, but also a sense of community and a connection to emotion.

"There are many people that even though they come to this realization, they miss the way the church works in a way that very few other communities can duplicate," he said in a phone interview. "The secular can learn that just because we value critical thinking and the scientific method, that doesn't mean we suddenly become disembodied and we can no longer benefit from our emotional lives."

Some in the audience had a difficult time coming to atheism. Joshua Hammers, a member of an atheist organization in Lake Charles, said he had been completely separated from his community and social life when he left the Pentecostal church in which he was raised. For him, there was something comfortable, a reminder of childhood, about hearing Mr. DeWitt preach.

"We were at the Reason on the Bayou conference, and everything else was just like a lecture," Mr. Hammers said, referring to a secular rally held in April at Louisiana State University. "Then Jerry got up, and he was just, you know, preaching the message. Most other atheist leaders are academics and intellectuals, and Jerry's not like that. He's just talking to your heart."

Services are gaining traction as outlets for organized atheism in places like London, Houston, Sacramento and New York, as well as at universities with humanist chaplains. In a deeply conservative region like the Deep South, they can serve a vital purpose: providing a sense of camaraderie in what many have found to be a hostile environment for nonreligious people.

"Here, we have a very strong sense of community," said Russell Rush, a former youth pastor from DeRidder. "When you go into an actual church, it's almost like having a family reunion. When you leave that lifestyle, and leave that church life behind, a lot of times you can feel ostracized. Things like this let fellow atheists and agnostics know that they're not alone."

Mr. DeWitt sees services like his as giving a human shape to a broad intellectual movement that is in its infancy. He believes that he and the others in the room are building something meant to last.

"Though this movement has had starts and stops throughout world history, right now it's important to remember that we are young," he said after a singalong to a song of that name by the band Fun. "Someday, what you are doing will become normal. Isn't that a feeling?"

12.08 | 0 komentar | Read More

Out of Concrete and Drudgery Come Canoes That Float

Beth Rooney for The New York Times

Luc Heidenreich, left, and Chris Kuester paddled in a race on Saturday at the National Concrete Canoe Competition, which drew 23 teams to Illinois last weekend.

URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — It's not easy making the unsinkable out of the unthinkable.

But at the National Concrete Canoe Competition, civil engineering students use a material that is normally the stuff of dams and parking garages to build a 20-foot-long craft that will float even if completely swamped.

To do so, they replace the gravel and sand of conventional concrete with exotic materials like glass spheres. The result, to judge by the finals of this year's competition, where 23 teams of 10 or more students gathered at the University of Illinois here, is a concrete that is exceedingly light and, with added fibers, strong as well.

But as the team from the University of Texas at Tyler found out, it is not always strong enough.

On Saturday, after two days of being judged on their engineering know-how and the quality of their final product, the students took to the waters of a nearby lake for races that would count for 25 percent of their overall score. Amid the excitement and noise — the Mississippi State team had brought along cowbells for the occasion — there was also heartbreak, when the Texas-Tyler canoe suffered what engineers soberly call catastrophic failure. That is to say, it cracked in half.

"We were just paddling along and suddenly I heard a pop" said Marco Weider, a captain of the team, who with his teammate was able to get the canoe to shore before it broke in two. With the help of students from other teams, they spliced it back together with large amounts of duct tape.

The annual competition has been run by the American Society of Civil Engineers for more than two decades, and is sponsored by companies and trade groups like the American Concrete Institute.

At a time when the nation's approach to science and engineering education has come in for criticism, the contest is a supplement to conventional teaching, giving students a sense of what a civil engineer's life is like after graduation.

"It's an experience these students can get that they can't get in a class," said Corey L. Haeder, one of five judges for the competition and chief engineer of a concrete firm in Maple Grove, Minn. (The engineering society also runs a competition in which teams each design and build a small steel bridge.)

It also looks good on a student's résumé. Sarah Smith, a captain of the Mississippi State team, who just graduated, said she was convinced a main reason she was hired by a civil engineering firm in Jackson, Miss., was because of her concrete canoe work. Her employers, she said, "knew what kind of time and dedication goes into this."

The teams spend most of the academic year designing and building their canoes, treating the task like a real-world project. They start by picking a theme and a name, and then put leaders in charge of areas like structural design and analysis, concrete mix design (kitchen mixers come in handy for making test batches) and construction (the concrete is usually molded in a marathon session that can last the better part of a day). Most teams also put someone in charge of training the engineers to be effective paddlers.

According to Serji Amirkhanian, a judge and a former civil engineering professor at Clemson University who is now a consultant, the best teams do not necessarily have better concrete or structural designs. "It's not a mystery," he said. "The concrete has to be lighter than water."

Rather, the winning teams are usually the best organized. "It takes somebody within the team to take charge," Mr. Amirkhanian said, and persuade others to do the more thankless tasks, especially sanding the surface of the canoe after the concrete has hardened.

"Nobody wants to sand," said Mr. Amirkhanian, who while judging the canoes on Thursday ran his hand along each one to feel how smooth it was. "But you need somebody telling others you have to sand for hours and hours."

Even on a team like that of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which won the title the previous three years and finished in the top five for four years before that, students will try to avoid that particular job. "You'll see people taking out the trash, mopping the floor," said Thomas Wong, a captain. "Anything but sanding."

Still, San Luis Obispo does a lot of sanding — 350 hours, Mr. Wong estimated, out of a total of 6,000 spent on the project — and it shows. Their canoe, called Sentinel after the famous domed rock at Yosemite National Park, looked like it was made of porcelain rather than Portland cement.

It had plenty of other advanced features as well — including seven post-tensioned cables running the length of the hull, to give the concrete more strength. And in keeping with the canoe's theme, the team had created bas-reliefs of the Yosemite landscape on the inside, and cast a pine cone and branch on one of the gunwales.

It was all very elegant, but in the end San Luis Obispo finished fourth. The title was taken by the only Canadian participant, École de Technologie Supérieure, an engineering school in Montreal, that produced a beautiful boat, Savannah with silhouettes of African wildlife on the side.

With its broken boat, Texas-Tyler finished well out of the top five. The team had selected a golf theme, and had cast golf-ball-like dimples on the side of the canoe, but Mr. Weider, the captain, did not think they were the cause of the problem. He said the team had displayed the canoe on Thursday atop a single golf-tee-shaped pedestal (made of concrete, of course) and that may have caused extra stress.

In fact, said César A. Constantino, another of the judges, on Thursday they had noticed that cracks were developing in the boat. "We saw it coming," he said.

But Mr. Weider was almost fatalistic about the damage. "It's concrete," he said. "It's going to crack."

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Bobby (Blue) Bland, Blues Singer, Dies at 83

GRENADA, Miss. — Bobby (Blue) Bland, a distinguished singer who blended Southern blues and soul in songs such as "Turn on Your Love Light" and "Further On Up the Road," died Sunday. He was 83.

Rodd Bland said his father died due to complications from an ongoing illness at his Memphis, Tenn., home. He was surrounded by relatives.

Bland was known as the "the Sinatra of the blues" and was heavily influenced by Nat King Cole, often recording with lavish arrangements to accompany his smooth vocals. He even openly imitated Frank Sinatra on the "Two Steps From the Blues" album cover, standing in front of a building with a coat thrown over his shoulder.

"He brought a certain level of class to the blues genre," said Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell, son of legendary musician and producer Willie Mitchell.

Bland was a contemporary of B.B. King's, serving as the blues great's valet and chauffer at one point, and was one of the last of the living connections to the roots of the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and was an influence on scores of young rock 'n' rollers.

Born in Rosemark, Tenn., he moved to nearby Memphis as a teenager and became a founding member of the Beale Streeters, a group that also included King and Johnny Ace. Upon his induction, the Rock Hall of Fame noted Bland was "second in stature only to B.B. King as a product of Memphis' Beale Street blues scene."

After a stint in the Army, he recorded with producer Sam Phillips, who helped launch the careers of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, in the early 1950s with little to show for it. It wasn't until later that decade Bland began to find success.

He scored his first No. 1 on the R&B charts with "Further On Up the Road" in 1957 and it was around this time he got his nickname, taken from his song "Little Boy Blue" because his repertoire focused so closely on lovelorn subject matter. Beginning with "I'll Take Care of You" in early 1960, Bland released a dozen R&B hits in a row. That string included "Turn On Your Love Light" in 1961.

Some of his best-known songs included "Call on Me" and "That's the Way Love Is," both released in 1963, and "Ain't Nothing You Can Do" in 1964.

"Lead Me On," another well-known song, breaks the listener's heart with the opening lines: "You know how it feels, you understand/What it is to be a stranger, in this unfriendly land."

Bland wasn't as well known as some of his contemporaries, but was no less an influential figure for early rock 'n' roll stars. Many of his songs, especially "Further On Up the Road" and "I Pity the Fool," were recorded by young rockers, including David Bowie and Eric Clapton.

"He's always been the type of guy that if he could help you in any way, form or fashion, he would," Rodd Bland said.

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