September 23, 2005

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  Has the Sky Stopped Falling at Disney? Illustration by Ed Schnurr Mickey may get help from "Chicken Little" and other computer-animated films in restoring the studio's luster for Robert Iger, Disney's president September 18, 2005 Has the Sky Stopped Falling at Disney? By LAURA M. HOLSON Burbank, Calif. ON April 4, 2003, Glen Keane, one of the Walt Disney Company's most respected animators, summoned about 50 of his colleagues to a third-floor conference room on the lot here to discuss the war brewing at the studio. Disney's animators had settled into two opposing camps: those who were skilled in computer animation and those who refused to give up their pencils. Mr. Keane, a 31-year veteran who created the beast from "Beauty and the Beast" and Ariel from "The Little Mermaid," was a Disney traditionalist. But after a series of experiments to see if he could create a computer-animated ballerina, his opposition softened. So he invited the 50 animators to discuss the pros and cons of both art forms, calling his seminar "The Best of Both Worlds." For an hour, Mr. Keane painstakingly ticked through the pluses and minuses of each technique while the other animators listened quietly. After a few tentative questions, the crowd burst into chatter, as animators shouted over one another, some arguing that computers should not replace people while others expressed fears that they would be forced to draw by hand. In a recent interview, Mr. Keane recalled that Kevin Geiger, a computer animation supervisor, then stood up and demanded of him, "If you can do all this cool stuff that you're talking about - that you want to see in animation - but you have to give up the pencil to do it, are you in?" Mr. Keane hesitated before answering: "I'm in." Three weeks later, the company's animators were told that Disney would concentrate on making computer-animated movies, abandoning a 70-year-old hand-drawn tradition in favor of a style popularized by more successful, newer rivals like Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks Animation. The results were nothing short of a cultural revolution at the studio, which is famous for the hand-drawn classics championed by its founder Walt Disney - from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" to "Peter Pan." This Nov. 4, some two and a half years after that decision, Disney will release "Chicken Little," the first of four computer-animated films being developed at the newly reorganized studio. The company is hoping that this movie, along with others like "Meet the Robinsons," "American Dog" and Mr. Keane's "Rapunzel Unbraided," will return a reinvigorated Disney to its past glory. There is a lot more than pride, however, riding on their success. Animation was once Disney's heart, a profitable lifeline that fed the company's theme park, book and home video divisions. And reviving profits is as essential to Disney these days as regaining its storied reputation. Just last week, the company said it expected its studio to lose as much as $300 million in the fourth quarter because of poor performance in its live-action division. Over all, the Disney Company had net income of $2.27 billion in the first three quarters of fiscal 2005 on the strength of its ABC network and its ESPN sports cable channel. "From a psychological standpoint, 'Chicken Little' is very important for Disney," said Hal Vogel, a financial analyst who has covered Disney for years. "Everything is touched by animation and if they don't refresh it, it becomes frayed at the edges." The box office numbers show how far the sky has fallen. The studio reached the height of its most recent popularity with the 1994 release of "The Lion King," which brought in $764.8 million at the worldwide box office. By contrast, the last nine animated movies Disney either made or acquired took in only $758.3 million combined. "The Incredibles," the 2004 film created by Pixar, brought in $630 million - nearly as much as Disney's last eight animated movies. So it should come as no surprise that when Mr. Keane stood up and made his passionate plea in 2003, Disney was in the midst of an identity crisis. It had to reinvent itself - or wither. "When everybody feels pretty good about themselves, and you have Champagne coming out of the water fountain, it's almost like we've got to burn the place down," said Mark Dindal, the director of "Chicken Little," in an interview in August that also included the directors of Disney's three other current animated-film projects. But the competition in animated films is now tougher than ever. It is also fraught with enough sibling rivalry to make the wicked stepsisters in "Cinderella" blush. To begin with, there's Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left Disney in 1994 - after a spat with the chief executive, Michael D. Eisner - to become a co-founder of DreamWorks SKG. The studio's offshoot, DreamWorks Animation, is now one of Disney's fiercest rivals. Then there is Steven P. Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer and the Pixar chief executive who took a swipe at Disney last year, calling its animated sequels "embarrassing." Mr. Jobs also sparred with Mr. Eisner, despite the fact that the two companies have been partners since 1991. (That deal was brokered by Mr. Katzenberg.) Mr. Jobs agreed only recently to resume talks with Disney about a new distribution agreement that would start in 2007. Against such a backdrop, "Chicken Little" is almost certain to be one of the most scrutinized movies of its kind - not only by moviegoers, but also by investors, competitors and fellow animators alike. THIS is not the first time that Disney has faltered. After Walt Disney died of lung cancer in 1966, the studio was in a state of paralysis, as animators second-guessed themselves about what kind of movies Mr. Disney would have made if he were alive. The studio released a string of mediocre films in the 1970's and early 80's. And frustrated young animators, like the director Tim Burton and John Lasseter, who created "Toy Story" at Pixar, where he is now creative director, left Disney. So, by 1984, when Mr. Katzenberg joined Disney to oversee its film business and animation, the studio was in shambles. He is credited with a turnaround, releasing animated blockbusters like "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin" and, most famously, "The Lion King." But in 1994, at the height of Disney's resurgence, Mr. Katzenberg left because Mr. Eisner would not appoint him Disney's president. That year he helped to create DreamWorks SKG, where he set up an animation studio of his own. The move put Disney on the defensive. According to Disney executives, Mr. Katzenberg recruited heavily from the company, driving up salaries. And the studio lost some of its creative spark after his departure. Disney, too, was facing increasing competition: Pixar released its first computer-animated movie in 1995, the hit "Toy Story." By 1998, Disney's animation division had ballooned to 2,200 employees, far more than the company could afford, given that it was churning out fewer blockbusters. In 2001, Disney began laying off animators and closing studios. Ultimately, two out of every three employees in the division would lose their jobs as Disney closed offices in Paris, Orlando, Fla., and Tokyo. David Stainton seemed an unlikely candidate to become president of Walt Disney Feature Animation in 2003. In the early 1990's, he worked in creative development and later ran the Paris studio. Mr. Stainton, who has an M.B.A. from Harvard, was best known for running Disney's television animation division and overseeing the company's direct-to-video and sequels business, both of which were profitable but lacked the sex appeal of original theatrical films. Mr. Stainton, who became Disney's third animation chief in as many years, was not prepared for the trouble he encountered his first week. He said he had been warned then that the movie "My Peoples," a tale of star-crossed lovers that combined live action and animation, needed an overhaul. By contrast, he was told that the computer-animated "Chicken Little" was a winner. "I was sitting there at the screening room watching it and I thought: 'Oh my God! What am I going to do?' " Mr. Stainton, who is 43, recalled in an interview in his office last month. "This is the movie that's working? I honestly almost started to cry." Mr. Stainton shut down "My Peoples." As for "Chicken Little," Mr. Stainton said he told Mr. Dindal, the director who began the project in 2001, that the story line wouldn't work: it was about a young girl who went to summer camp to build confidence so she wouldn't overreact. "Just ripped the Band-Aid off," said Mr. Dindal, describing the conversation with his new boss. "He's kind of like that." Mr. Dindal took a three-month break and revised the script, turning "Chicken Little" into a tale of a boy trying to save his town from space aliens. At the same time, Mr. Stainton was contemplating what to do about the standoff between Disney's two camps of animators: the techies and the traditionalists. When he was hired, Mr. Stainton said, both Mr. Eisner and Richard Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said they wanted Disney movies to be wittier, contemporary computer-animated comedies with a dramatic twist (in other words, said one Disney executive, more like DreamWorks' "Shrek"). But Mr. Stainton said he knew that he needed an influential animator on his side if he were to succeed. "I sort of had an inkling that it would take artists to convince other artists that this was something viable," he said. So, in February 2003, a month after he was hired, he responded enthusiastically when Mr. Keane met with him and Mr. Eisner and presented six hand-sketched scenes for "Rapunzel Unbraided," a heartwarming romance based on the fairy tale. Mr. Stainton and Mr. Eisner told Mr. Keane that they would greenlight the film, but that there was one caveat: it had to be computer-animated. Mr. Keane balked. Mr. Stainton said he replied, "Glen, I'm not asking you to go make a movie with humans that look like 'Final Fantasy,' " referring to the stiff figures in the 2001 computer-animated dud. "I'm asking that you - and I know it doesn't exist out there - I'm asking you to go create it. You have to create something new." "I loved 'Shrek,' " Mr. Keane responded. But the characters, particularly Princess Fiona, looked plastic to him. "Every frame of that film was a bad drawing to me, personally," he said. ONCE word of the meeting got out, the traditional artists rallied around Mr. Keane. "I couldn't walk down the hallway without running into 10 different people and them saying, 'We're praying for you,' " Mr. Keane said. But whether "Rapunzel Unbraided" was made or not, it offered a politically expedient way for Mr. Stainton to force a dialogue. So, on April 4, Mr. Keane held his "Best of Both Worlds" seminar. And at the end of that month Mr. Stainton lobbed another grenade. He told more than 525 employees gathered at a town hall meeting that the studio would stop making hand-drawn movies for the foreseeable future. Those interested in computer-generated animation could sign up for a six-month "C.G. boot camp." "What I was saying to them was, 'You've got to embrace it or there isn't going to be a place for you,' " Mr. Stainton said. Some animators resisted. "There was a period of time here when they were buying computers and we never really saw anything," said Chris Sanders, the director of "American Dog" who created "Lilo and Stitch." "You're like, 'Well, do we have computers?' 'Yes, we do.' 'Really? Where are they?' 'They're around.' 'Where, exactly?' 'Downstairs.' 'So, computer animation, we can we do that?' 'Uh-huh.' 'Like theirs?' 'Uh-huh.' " Mr. Sanders laughed. "It went around like that." The announcement did little to soothe the warring camps. Some traditionalists refused to sit with the computer set at lunch, Disney executives said. They voiced their complaints to Roy E. Disney, then the studio's animation chairman and Disney board member, who was locked in his own battle with Mr. Eisner, having vowed to oust him as chief executive. "There was so much tension and frustration and you couldn't talk about it civilly, it seemed, without people becoming angry," Mr. Keane said. That fall, Disney's animators met again to hash out their differences, this time on neutral territory, at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif. Mr. Stainton still had movies to make. And he gave the green light to "American Dog" and another film, "Meet the Robinsons," a story of an adopted boy who invented a time machine; it is to be directed by Steve Anderson. Of course, there was still "Chicken Little." Mr. Dindal said he threw out 25 scenes. Along with the movie's three credited writers, he talked to six others who helped with character development. The director held nine screenings with children and parents. And he said he received what seemed liked "thousands and thousands" of notes from Mr. Stainton to make the story funnier. Mr. Dindal recalled a screening where he delivered a presentation outlining the movie's main points for about 125 animators. "I said to everyone, you can send any notes you want, but notes that speak to this, what the movie's really about, those are the ones which are going to be helpful," he said. But as much turmoil as there was within the studio, there was plenty outside, too. In November 2003, Mr. Disney quit the Disney board after learning that he would be asked to step down at the next board election. While Mr. Disney did not spend much time on the lot, he was the public face of Disney animation and blamed Mr. Eisner for the studio's shortcomings. Mr. Stainton said that Mr. Eisner had supported his changes. "The whole business between Roy and Michael was very distracting," Mr. Stainton added, "and the ability to sort of put our heads down and just do the work and not involve ourselves was helpful." Disney animation suffered another blow on Jan. 29, 2004, when Mr. Jobs announced that Pixar would end talks with Disney to continue its 14-year partnership and would seek a competitor to distribute its films after the release of Pixar's next movie, "Cars." Six days later, Mr. Jobs criticized Disney's animators, telling Wall Street analysts that Disney's "Treasure Planet" and "Brother Bear" were bombs and calling the studio's sequels "embarrassing." "It was the best thing that could have happened to us," said Mr. Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Weeks later, Mr. Cook met with the animators and told them that it was time to get on with making great movies. "We needed to get ourselves back on track," he said. "They knew it. Enough of the Disney bashing; enough already. The way to stop all that is to win. And that's what we set our sights on." If there is any question about whether there is life for Disney after Pixar, consider the following: Last June, Disney caused a ruckus at the industry's largest computer-animation conference in Los Angeles when it set up a large poster in front of its booth - and facing Pixar's - to advertise the preproduction of "Toy Story 3." Mr. Jobs had sought to make the movie, but Mr. Eisner said no when Mr. Jobs wanted it to count toward the five that Pixar owed Disney as part of its partnership agreement. For many of those in attendance, it was an in-your-face gesture that showed Disney was prepared to go it alone. ("It was not intentional that it faced the Pixar booth, I promise," said Mr. Stainton, a boyish grin sliding across his face.) But it was also part of a larger public relations campaign to show that Disney was viable again. Disney was interviewing new recruits, showing off new technology and even having a party, attended by 200 people, on the roof of the Standard, a hotel in Hollywood. "We need to show people that we're back, that we are right up there doing cutting-edge stuff and stuff that is interesting and looks beautiful to anyone," Mr. Stainton said. "Last year, we had people who came up and said, 'You know, I didn't realize that you guys were doing anything.' Swear to God. People really thought we were out of business." Both Mr. Jobs and now Robert A. Iger, Disney's president who will become chief executive on Oct. 1, are cautiously optimistic that a Pixar-Disney deal can be struck that will solidify what has been a long and profitable relationship. But that won't solve all of Disney's problems. In 1995, only six animated movies were released - half of them from Disney, according to the company. By contrast, nearly 20 animated films are expected to be released in the next two years - three from Disney. That has led some Wall Street analysts to suggest that as animated movies become more mainstream, they will no longer command the huge profits that studios have enjoyed from them. Already this year, both DreamWorks and Pixar experienced higher-than-expected returns of DVD's sold to retailers, suggesting that consumer demand was softening. Piracy is a concern, and movie studios haven't yet devised a way to combat it. And studios may be headed for a showdown with theater owners if they push to distribute their movies simultaneously on DVD and in theaters. But Disney's biggest challenge may be to overcome the notion that, when it comes to animation, many moviegoers may no longer have much confidence in Disney. Indeed, the company's animators today have more in common with their predecessors than their competitors at Pixar and DreamWorks. When animators created "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the studio's first theatrical offering in 1937, it was referred to as "Disney's Folly" before its release. "How hungry were they?" Mr. Dindal said, referring to "Snow White's" animators. "It's fun to be at a place where everybody's hungry for something, as opposed to being well fed." Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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• Storm Lashes Coast, Breaching New Orleans Levees

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  Jim Wilson/The New York Times
  
  At a hospital in Beaumont, Tex., medical personnel set up a barricade to slow the flow of water into the emergency room entrance.
  
  September 24, 2005
  Storm Lashes Coast, Breaching New Orleans Levees
  By JERE LONGMAN and SIMON ROMERO
  
  NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 23 - Hurricane Rita began lashing coastal cities up and down Louisiana and Texas on Friday, with wind-whipped water on the storm's periphery once again flooding a pair of low-lying areas of this stricken city and a mass evacuation in Texas leaving at least 24 elderly passengers dead in a bus fire.
  
  The hurricane weakened to a Category 3, with winds at 120 miles an hour, down from a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm on Wednesday. But it was still bringing destruction.
  
  A storm surge of seven feet pushed water from Lake Pontchartrain through the Industrial Canal and cascaded over a repaired levee into the Lower Ninth Ward, one of New Orleans's most impoverished neighborhoods, which had been devastated nearly a month earlier by Hurricane Katrina and submerged under as much as 20 feet of water.
  
  The damage in New Orleans heightened fears over Hurricane Rita, which forced a chaotic exodus of more than two million residents from the Gulf Coast this week. Cities in southeast Texas braced for the storm to hit by early Saturday.
  
  Meteorologists said the hurricane's projected path had veered slightly to the east, potentially striking land east of Houston and Galveston and closer to Port Arthur and Beaumont, two cities with large oil and chemical complexes. The possibility of damage to pipelines and refineries in Texas added to concern over the tumultuous depletion of gasoline supplies in parts of the state.
  
  "Say a prayer for Texas," said Gov. Rick Perry, who described the storm as a "great test."
  
  The mass evacuations in Texas caused other problems. A bus carrying 38 nursing home residents and six employees from the Houston area caught fire and exploded Friday morning on a highway just south of Dallas. The fire killed at least 24 passengers in the bus, said Don Peritz, a spokesman for the Dallas County Sheriff's Department.
  
  The storm also prompted preparations far from the region. Georgia announced that it would close all public schools on Monday and Tuesday to conserve fuel and help avoid the lines for gasoline that grew after Hurricane Katrina.
  
  Energy markets, frantic with the possibility that Hurricane Rita might wreak havoc on refineries and petrochemical plants, were relieved somewhat at the close of trading Friday when it appeared the storm might veer from the largest complexes along the Gulf Coast. Oil prices fell $2.31 to $64.19 a barrel.
  
  In Washington, where the Bush administration had been criticized for its slow response to Hurricane Katrina, the president visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday. But he canceled a planned trip to Texas, his home state, to avoid interfering with emergency preparations and planned to monitor the storm late Friday from the United States Northern Command in Colorado Springs.
  
  "We're now facing another big storm," Mr. Bush said while at FEMA. "Our job is to prepare for and assist state and local people to save lives and help these people get back on their feet."
  
  Federal officials declared a public health emergency for Texas and Louisiana.
  
  By evening it was the cities along the border of Texas and Louisiana that seemed to be in the storm's direct path. "The core of Hurricane Rita will make landfall along the southwest Louisiana and upper Texas coasts near daybreak," the National Hurricane Center said.
  
  Communities evacuated, and residents huddled in shelters. Port Arthur, normally a town of 60,000 protected by a seawall built to sustain a 16-foot storm surge, was vacant but for a few who refused to leave.
  
  Lake Charles, La., a city of about 72,000 just east of the Texas line, was also effectively empty, from the casino boats floating at the docks downtown to the rooms at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, which evacuated 132 patients on Friday, most on planes flown from the former Chennault Air Force Base.
  
  And in San Augustine Park, 90 miles north of Beaumont, hundreds of people from southeast Texas set up camp in recreational vehicles and tents in the densely forested park run by the Army Corps of Engineers despite warnings of tornadoes, falling trees and rising lake waters. "There aren't any hotels and we couldn't get gas to go any farther north," said one, Dennis Cargill of Orangefield.
  
  In New Orleans, water also topped a levee on the other side of the Industrial Canal, sending it flowing into the Upper Ninth Ward, an industrial and residential area where homes were already marked with the stains of Hurricane Katrina. But officials said no additional loss of life or property was expected in these areas, previously pumped dry, that had been abandoned since the earlier storm.
  
  "This is very dramatic, but I don't consider it an emergency situation," said Stephen Browning, a programs director for the Corps of Engineers, as he inspected the breeches from atop a nearby bridge. Still, the repeat flooding was disheartening for evacuated residents and for some local and state officials, dramatically pointing to the need to shore up the city's levee system in the rebuilding process.
  
  "We have to think about building a safe New Orleans," Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said at a news conference in Baton Rouge, La. "Our plans include building stronger and higher levees to protect all of the city's neighborhoods." By noon Friday, water had nearly reached the window level of some homes in the Lower Ninth Ward as far as three blocks from the topped levee between Claiborne and Florida Avenues.
  
  Early gusts from Hurricane Rita brought winds of 25 miles an hour to 35 miles an hour to New Orleans through Friday afternoon. Rain fell intermittently. Sometimes it drizzled, other times it blew sideways in stinging blasts.
  
  The Army Corps of Engineers said that levee repairs at the 17th Street Canal and the London Avenue Canal were holding and were expected to provide protection against storm surges as high as 10 to 12 feet. Metal pilings, rocks and sandbags were used to temporarily seal breaches made by Hurricane Katrina.
  
  However, some seepage was expected, the corps said, and in the Gentilly and Mirabeau Gardens sections along the London Avenue Canal, water could be seen rising to the tops of tires of cars on some streets. Officials in St. Bernard Parish said it might take two weeks to pump out all the new water.
  
  In Texas, fuel shortages and the closing of airports in Houston added to problems for residents trying to flee from the storm. The Texas National Guard sent 5,000 trucks with gasoline to supply stranded vehicles along the highways leading out of Houston, Beaumont, Port Arthur and Galveston.
  
  Coast Guard helicopters also transported fuel to 11 locations of the Texas Department of Transportation to assist in refueling the gasoline trucks. In Houston, commercial flights from the city's two main airports ceased operations at noon on Friday, with stranded passengers told to seek refuge in shelters around the city.
  
  As the skies darkened over Houston Friday afternoon, the city grew eerily still, with the normally congested streets and highways empty of traffic.
  
  Although the hurricane looked like it would spare the city a direct hit, Mayor Bill White said at a news briefing, "Winds of 50, 60 miles per hour may be better news than 120 miles per hour, but a lot of glass can be broken."
  
  He warned residents against going close to windows to observe the hurricane because the windows could blow out. "There'll be plenty of time to watch on TV rather than get close to the window," Mr. White said.
  
  In the face of recriminations over the massive traffic tie-ups that clogged escape routes for hundreds of miles into Friday, the mayor said he took pride in the effort that had spirited about 2.5 million people out of harm's way.
  
  "I hate traffic more than anybody I've ever met," Mr. White said, but he defended the turmoil as worthwhile in the end. The ghostly streets were a welcome sight on Friday, he said, "that is exactly what we wanted to see at this time."
  
  By early evening police officers were making their last rounds and looking for any signs of looting. Capt. Dwayne Readdy of the Houston Police Department said, "Right now people are being told to shelter in place." He added, "At this point, everybody is beginning to hunker down, even those with less than honorable intentions."
  
  Throughout the day coastal Texas also frantically tried to ready itself for the storm. In Galveston, with the city emptied of most residents, officials moved emergency response operations to a conference center built atop a bunker that was once part of an old coastal defense installation, Fort Crockett. The conference center, part of the San Luis Resort complex, was thought to be the best location in Galveston to ride out the storm, said Steve LeBlanc, the city manager.
  
  About 150 police officers, 60 firefighters, 25 public works officials and 25 city administration officials began filing into the conference center early Friday evening as winds began to lash the city.
  
  With dozens of residents still in Galveston despite a mandatory evacuation, Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said the city had set up a refuge for about 100 residents at the Alamo Elementary School. "There are no doctors, no nurses, no triage," Ms. Thomas said. "It's just a refuge and I would like to make that clear."
  
  Less than a dozen people had shown up at the refuge by late Friday afternoon. Sitting on a cot as he cried, Miguel Rincon said he had terminal cancer and less than two years to live. He came to the school with his sister, Angelina Rincon, 63, and a brother, Raul Rincon, 73, who recently suffered from heat stroke.
  
  "I'd rather be walking on the beach, anything instead of just possibly dying in the storm," said Miguel Rincon, 60, a retired road maintenance worker. "I don't want to die."
  
  Mr. Rincon said his roommate brought him and his siblings to the school after they heard about the refuge center on television. Elsewhere in Louisiana, Governor Blanco said in Baton Rouge that at least 90 percent of residents had complied with areas under a mandatory evacuation order, and 98 percent in Cameron Parish, in the southwestern corner of the state.
  
  "Rita remains a very dangerous storm; her winds are strong; the storm surge will be high," Mrs. Blanco said. "We've already seen what the edges of this storm are doing to New Orleans. Rita is driving waters over or through one of the levees damaged by Katrina."
  
  Jere Longman reported fromNew Orleans for this article, and Simon Romero fromGalveston, Tex. Reporting was alsocontributed byMichael Brick in New Orleans; Thayer Evans in Galveston; Shaila Dewan in Port Arthur, Tex.; Ralph Blumenthal and Maureen Balleza in Houston; William Yardley in Hackberry, La.; Sewell Chan in Baton Rouge, La.; and Eric Schmitt in Washington.
  
  
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• The Disaster Behind the Disaster: Poverty

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  Chris Hondros/Getty Images
  
  Destruction in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina is focusing attention on the geography of poverty.
  
  September 18, 2005
  The Disaster Behind the Disaster: Poverty
  By DANIEL ALTMAN
  
  IN the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, people watching images of poverty along the Gulf Coast may have wondered, "How many poor places like this are there in this country?" The easy answer is, quite a few.
  
  But why poverty persists in certain areas is a complex problem, and what can be done to help isn't always clear.
  
  The Census Bureau defines poverty using a formula based on a family's age profile and its ability to buy a standard basket of necessities. Prices differ across regions, meaning that a family just above the poverty line and living in, say, San Diego may have a harder time making ends meet than one that is just below that line and living in Pascagoula, Miss. Also, not everyone who is poor at one point in a year is poor for the whole year.
  
  Accepting the Census Bureau's measure, there were about 37 million poor people in the United States last year - about one of every eight Americans. The share is only slightly higher in rural areas than in urban areas, according to the Agriculture Department, and these figures have been converging over time.
  
  Poverty tends to be concentrated in certain places, some of which, like Appalachia, are very large; others are no bigger than a few city blocks. To fight poverty, one has to understand its source. Were these places always poor? Did they become collecting bowls for poor people? Or do they make people poor?
  
  "The answer is all of the above," said Rebecca M. Blank, dean of the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Some regions, like Appalachia, have been poor for so long because of well-known historical and geographical factors, she said. Some cities, too, have been victims of long-term trends, like the decline in manufacturing in the Midwest.
  
  In rural areas, the most persistent poverty - above 20 percent of the population for the last four censuses, dating back to 1970 - has been concentrated in a few swaths of the country. The largest section stretches in two directions - from northwestern Louisiana, up the Mississippi and east to North Carolina. The other concentrations are in central Alaska, around the Four Corners area of the Southwest, in southern Texas along the Mexican border, and in the heart of the Appalachians in eastern Kentucky.
  
  Appalachia's problems are well documented. The region isn't flat enough to make farming very profitable, especially when competing with the Plains states, and it's too far from big cities to easily attract businesses.
  
  In the face of such persistent poverty, people often move to seek their fortunes elsewhere - most often in cities. Cities that have jobs to offer can become magnets for the poor, who move in from around the country or around the world, Professor Blank said.
  
  But when cities lose jobs, large portions of their populations can quickly slip into indigence. Detroit, El Paso, Miami and Newark were the biggest centers for urban poverty in 2004. More than 28 percent of their populations lived in poverty - more than twice the national rate. Orleans Parish of Louisiana came in at 23 percent that year.
  
  While upswings in the economic cycle may reduce poverty as a whole, pockets in some urban neighborhoods have been intractable. "We've got answers in the margins, but I can't say anyone has absolutely solved that problem," Professor Blank said. Persuading businesses to operate in poor areas isn't easy, especially when the local populations lack education and skills. And it's hard for people to gain education and skills when there are no jobs. It's a Catch-22.
  
  The situation is similar in rural areas. The people most likely to leave are those for whom the payoff is biggest. When the most highly skilled workers migrate to the cities, rural poverty deepens.
  
  The question is: Should the government try to improve conditions in persistently poor areas, or should it simply wait for - or even encourage - the population to move away?
  
  "The notion that you're going to move out huge numbers of people easily is just absurd," said David T. Ellwood, dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. "Instead, what you can do is do your best to try and improve the opportunities for people to move up and move out."
  
  Improving education is one way to provide those opportunities, Professor Ellwood said. Beyond that, different strategies can come into play for urban and rural areas. In cities, the way forward may be to match neighborhoods with businesses for which an urban location is a plus, he said, and then to add industry-specific training programs to give local workers the necessary skills.
  
  In rural areas, the savior could be the changing labor market. With growth in the core labor force flattening out in the next couple of decades, and communications technology radically improving, pools of unused workers in remote places could become hot properties, Professor Ellwood predicted.
  
  "The question is, can you find a set of activities where having a ready source of labor, where labor costs aren't very high and there's a real opportunity to do some industry-specific training that can make the area work?" he asked. With time, he said, "there's a very reasonable chance that some of these areas will begin to look like some of the formerly poor areas in the South that are now booming."
  
  That may not offer consolation to people who are poor or hungry now. But there are too many potential solutions to give up on poor areas.
  
  Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

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  Kill the Light, Save a Bird Photographs by James Estrin/The New York Times At left, the Chrysler Building about 11 p.m. on Wednesday, and then an hour later, its lights turned down to aid birds. September 23, 2005 Kill the Light, Save a Bird By JENNIFER 8. LEE Tourists have always flocked to see the bright lights of New York City, but starting this week, the city is dimming parts of its renowned skyline to ward off one group of visitors: migratory birds. The Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, the Citigroup Center, the Morgan Stanley Building and the World Financial Center are among the high-profile high-rises that have agreed to requests from the city and the Audubon Society to dim or turn off nonessential lighting at midnight. Thus the city's skyscrapers will defer to nature at least twice a year: by dimming their lights in September and October, during the peak of the fall migratory season, and again in April and May, during the peak of the spring migratory season. While the Empire State Building's lighting policy to protect migratory birds is decades old, and other buildings have used netting on glass windows so birds do not mistake reflections for sky, this policy will be the first citywide effort to protect migratory birds from crashing into buildings. The voluntary policy is aimed at buildings taller than 40 stories, as well as lower glass buildings that hug the Hudson and East Rivers, which birds use as navigational aides. About five million birds pass through New York City during migration season, according to E. J. McAdams, the executive director of the New York City Audubon Society. The combination of glass, tall buildings and bright light is extremely dangerous for birds, according to Daniel Klem, an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. He says that a conservative estimate is that more than 100 million birds die each year from crashing into glass on structures of all types, even houses. "Here is the bottom line: Birds just don't see glass," said Professor Klem. "The animals are not able to recognize glass as a barrier and avoid it." And lights, particularly those from skyscrapers, distract migratory birds from the visual cues they receive from the stars and the moon, said Douglas Stotz, a conservation ecologist at the Field Museum in Chicago. The bright lights of tall city buildings pull the birds off their migratory path and into urban canyons, especially when skies are foggy or overcast. Then the birds either crash into the building's glass at night because they are attracted to the light, or they circle the buildings until they become exhausted. In the morning, when they try to escape the city, they crash into the glass because they are confused by the reflection of sky. Unless people look carefully, the dead birds can be hard to spot because many of them are small songbirds. "They would be swept up by custodial staff," said Adrian Benepe, the New York City parks commissioner. "I've often seen them on the streets, and wondered, 'Why is this little songbird dead on the street?' " Since 1997, Audubon Society volunteers have collected more than 4,000 dead birds of 100 different species at just a handful of buildings in Midtown and Lower Manhattan. Toronto began a program to dim its lights in 1993, and Chicago started a voluntary program in 1999 that now includes 100 buildings. In Chicago, the Field Museum found an 80 percent reduction in bird deaths when lights were turned off during a five-year study on a single Chicago Building, McCormick Place. "When the lights are on, you get these big bird kills, and when they aren't, you don't," said Judy Pollock, director of bird conservation for the Audubon Society in Chicago. Even with a dimmed skyline, the problem of birds crashing into glass remains. Environmental groups are working with the construction industry to come up with glass that can be seen by birds, potentially by giving the glass a UV coating. Three real estate groups have agreed to promote the program to dim lights among their members: the Real Estate Board of New York, the Building Owners' and Managers' Association, and the Associated Builders and Owners of Greater New York. "We are going to make it a little safer for the birds to visit here," said Steve Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board, which represents many real estate developers. "The response that we have gotten is overwhelmingly, 'Sure.' " Certainly lower electric bills help sell the concept. Call it saving two birds with one stone: preventing fatal bird crashes while conserving energy. Energy savings could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most buildings plan to turn off just their exterior lights, but some will also turn off interior lights and ask their tenants to draw the shades. The only buildings expected to opt out are ones that are contractually obligated to keep advertisements lighted, Mr. Spinola said. Of the city's landmark buildings, the Empire State Building has long been aware of migratory bird problems. For at least 25 years, the building has turned off its decorative lights when large numbers of birds are observed flying around the top of the building during migration season. The circling birds are particularly common during foggy or overcast nights, said Lydia Ruth, a spokeswoman for the building. Employees from the observatory will call down to the building engineers to tell them to shut off the lights. "We don't want to take any chances, and we don't want to cause any bird death," Ms. Ruth said. "But we have people call the next day, 'Why did you turn the lights out early?' You can't keep everybody happy." Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

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• A New Deadly, Contagious Dog Flu Virus Is Detected in 7 States

  
  

  
  

  September 22, 2005

  A New Deadly, Contagious Dog Flu Virus Is Detected in 7 States
  

  By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. and CARIN RUBENSTEIN

  
  

  
  

  A new, highly contagious and sometimes deadly canine flu is spreading in kennels and at dog tracks around the country, veterinarians said yesterday.

  
  

  The virus, which scientists say mutated from an influenza strain that affects horses, has killed racing greyhounds in seven states and has been found in shelters and pet shops in many places, including the New York suburbs, though the extent of its spread is unknown.

  
  

  Dr. Cynda Crawford, an immunologist at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine who is studying the virus, said that it spread most easily where dogs were housed together but that it could also be passed on the street, in dog runs or even by a human transferring it from one dog to another. Kennel workers have carried the virus home with them, she said.

  
  

  How many dogs die from the virus is unclear, but scientists said the fatality rate is more than 1 percent and could be as high as 10 percent among puppies and older dogs.

  
  

  Dr. Crawford first began investigating greyhound deaths in January 2004 at a racetrack in Jacksonville, Fla., where 8 of the 24 greyhounds who contracted the virus died.

  
  

  "This is a newly emerging pathogen," she said, "and we have very little information to make predictions about it. But I think the fatality rate is between 1 and 10 percent."

  
  

  She added that because dogs had no natural immunity to the virus, virtually every animal exposed would be infected. About 80 percent of dogs that are infected with the virus will develop symptoms, Dr. Crawford said. She added that the symptoms were often mistaken for "kennel cough," a common canine illness that is caused by the bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria.

  
  

  Both diseases can cause coughing and gagging for up to three weeks, but dogs with canine flu may spike fevers as high as 106 degrees and have runny noses. A few will develop pneumonia, and some of those cases will be fatal. Antibiotics and fluid cut the pneumonia fatality rate, Dr. Crawford said.

  
  

  The virus is an H3N8 flu closely related to an equine flu strain. It is not related to typical human flus or to the H5N1 avian flu that has killed about 100 people in Asia.

  
  

  Experts said there were no known cases of the canine flu infecting humans. "The risk of that is low, but we are keeping an eye on it," said Dr. Ruben Donis, chief of molecular genetics for the influenza branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is tracking the illness.

  
  

  But with the approach of the human flu season and fears about bird flu in Asia, there is much confusion among some dog owners who have heard about the disease.

  
  

  Dr. Crawford said she was fielding calls from kennels and veterinarians across the country worried that they were having outbreaks.

  
  

  "The hysteria out there is unbelievable, and the misinformation is incredible," said Dr. Ann E. Hohenhaus, chief of medicine at the Animal Medical Center in New York.

  
  

  Dr. Hohenhaus said she had heard of an alert from a Virginia dog club reporting rumors that 10,000 show dogs had died.

  
  

  "We don't believe that's true," she said, adding that no dogs in her Manhattan hospital even had coughs.

  
  

  Dr. Donis of the disease control centers said that there was currently no vaccine for the canine flu. But he said one would be relatively easy to develop. The canine flu is less lethal than parvovirus, which typically kills puppies but can be prevented by routine vaccination.

  
  

  Laboratory tests, Dr. Donis said, have shown that the new flu is susceptible to the two most common antiviral drugs, amantidine and Tamiflu, but those drugs are not licensed for use in dogs.

  
  

  The flu has killed greyhounds at tracks in Florida, Massachusetts, Arizona, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas and Iowa. Tracks and kennels have been forced to shut down for weeks for disinfection.

  
  

  In Chestnut Ridge, north of New York City, about 88 dogs became sick by early September, and 15 percent of those required hospitalization, said Debra Bennetts, a spokeswoman for Best Friends Pet Care, a chain of boarding kennels. The kennel was vacated for decontamination by Sept. 17.

  
  

  About 17 of the infected dogs were treated at the Oradell Animal Hospital in Paramus, N.J., where one died and two more were still hospitalized, a staff veterinarian said.

  
  

  The Best Friends chain owns 41 other kennels in 18 states, and no others have had an outbreak, Dr. Larry J. Nieman, the company's veterinarian, said.

  
  

  In late July, at Gracelane Kennels in Ossining, N.Y., about 35 dogs showed symptoms, said the owner, Bob Gatti, and he closed the kennel for three weeks to disinfect.

  
  

  About 25 of the dogs were treated by an Ossining veterinarian, Glenn M. Zeitz, who said two of them had died.

  
  

  "The dogs came in very sick, with high fevers and very high white blood cell counts," Dr. Zeitz said, making him suspicious that they had something worse than kennel cough.

  
  

  A spokesman for the New York City Health Department said that there were "a few confirmed cases" in New York but that the city was not yet tracking the disease.

  
  

  Veterinarians voluntarily sent samples to the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at the Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine, which was the only laboratory doing blood tests.

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  • Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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  Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China's Court System Du Bin for The New York Times Qin Yanhong confessed to a murder under coerced police interrogation in 1998 and was sentenced to death. He was freed in 2002. September 21, 2005 Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China's Court System By JOSEPH KAHN ANYANG, China - For three days and three nights, the police wrenched Qin Yanhong's arms high above his back, jammed his knees into a sharp metal frame, and kicked his gut whenever he fell asleep. The pain was so intense that he watched sweat pour off his face and form puddles on the floor. On the fourth day, he broke down. "What color were her pants?" they demanded. "Black," he gasped, and felt a whack on the back of his head. "Red," he cried, and got another punch. "Blue," he ventured. The beating stopped. This is how Mr. Qin, a 35-year-old steel mill worker in Henan Province in central China, recalled groping in the darkness of a interrogation room to deduce the "correct" details of a rape and murder, end his torture and give the police the confession they required to close a nettlesome case. On the strength of his coerced confession alone, prosecutors indicted Mr. Qin. A panel of judges then convicted him and sentenced him to death. He is alive today only because of a rare twist of fate that proved his innocence and forced the authorities to let him go, though not before a final push to have him executed anyway. Justice in China is swift but not sure. Criminal investigations nearly always end in guilty pleas. Prosecutors almost never lose cases brought to trial. But recent disclosures of wrongful convictions like Mr. Qin's have exposed deep flaws in a judicial system that often answers more to political leaders than the law. "Our public security system is the product of a dictatorship," Mr. Qin wrote his family when he was on death row. "Police use dictatorial measures on anyone who resists them. Ordinary people have no way to defend themselves." The viability of China's Communist Party depends more than ever on its ability to create a credible legal system. The party needs the law to check corruption, which has eroded its legitimacy. The authorities want people to turn to the courts, rather than take to the streets, to resolve social discontents that have made the country more volatile than at any time since the 1989 democracy movement. The law, in other words, has become a front line in China's struggle to modernize under one-party rule. Yet Mr. Qin's persecution and similar miscarriages of justice that have come to light this year suggest that China is struggling with a fundamental question of jurisprudence: Do officials serve the law, or do laws serve the officials? Or, to put it another way, is the Communist Party creating rule of law or rule by law? Twenty-seven years after Deng Xiaoping declared at the outset of China's economic reforms, that "the country must rely on law," the Communist Party realizes that it cannot effectively govern a thriving market-oriented economy unless people trust in law. Hundreds of thousands of new lawyers, stronger courts and a blizzard of Western-inspired codes protect property, enforce contracts and limit police powers. Disgruntled peasants, displaced urban homeowners and newly wealthy entrepreneurs demand that the authorities respect constitutional rights long treated as notional. Even inside the system, some policemen, prosecutors and judges have tried making the law into a more independent force. But the transition has been arduous, and the outcome remains uncertain. Beijing draws the line at legal challenges to senior officials or important government agencies. The courts rarely if ever rule in favor of political protesters. Even in business cases, political influence often proves decisive. Criminal law poses one of the biggest challenges - and most pointed sources of discontent. The police and courts still rely mainly on pretrial confessions and perfunctory court proceedings to resolve criminal cases instead of the Western tradition of analyzing forensic evidence and determining guilt through contentious court trials. China's criminal laws forbid torture and require judges to weigh evidence beyond a suspect's confession. But lawyers and legal scholars say forced confessions remain endemic in a judicial system that faces pressure to maintain "social stability" at all costs. The police and government officials in Anyang, the northern Henan county seat where Mr. Qin was interrogated, and authorities in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, declined repeated written requests to discuss his case. But Mr. Qin, his family members and several people involved in his defense said the case showed how political motives and collusion among police, prosecutors and the courts could make the law a source of terror for people who lack the power or money to defend themselves. A Suspect Investigation Just after noon on Aug. 3, 1998, Jia Hairong, a 30-year-old peasant woman, was found murdered on her family's farm in the village of Donggaoping, an hour's drive from Anyang, according to court documents. Her pants had been cut off with a razor blade. She was raped and strangled, her body stashed behind tall cornstalks. The police found a plastic alarm clock and the razor blade at the scene. They determined that both items were stolen from a nearby home just before the assault. Court documents do not make clear whether physical evidence - fingerprints, blood, semen, traces of clothing - could have identified the killer. If there were such forensic leads, they were not followed. Instead, the police relied on the accounts of three children who were playing outdoors in Qinxiaotun, a village about a mile east of Donggaoping, the records show. The children recalled seeing Mr. Qin, who lives in Qinxiaotun, walking from the direction of Donggaoping that afternoon. Around midnight on Aug. 4, four officers arrived at the steel plant where Mr. Qin worked nights and took him away for questioning. Mr. Qin is a tall, shy, doe-eyed man who rarely travels farther than a bicycle ride from his dirt-floored village home. When he speaks - friends say he generally speaks only when spoken to - he has a heavy local accent that even Anyang residents have trouble understanding. The police would not tell him why he was being detained. But through the early morning hours, he was told to detail how he spent Aug. 1 to 3, and especially the afternoon of Aug. 3. He said he had stayed at home that day before going to work at night. After the police said a witness told them that he walked through the village that afternoon he amended his story, recalling that he visited the family farm, a short distance from home, to fertilize the fields. "The farmland is close, so it is not like leaving home," Mr. Qin said later. "But they thought they had caught me lying." He was handcuffed and shackled. He still had no idea what he was suspected of doing. But he overheard some officers and drivers discussing a local murder. He wondered if his detention had some connection. "I kept asking them what this was all about," Mr. Qin said. "No one would tell me." A senior detective named Shen Jun took charge of his interrogation, court documents show. Mr. Qin described Mr. Shen's approach as polite, even conciliatory at first. The detective said he was investigating the theft of an alarm clock. He said Mr. Qin's fingerprints matched those found on the clock. "He said it was a cheap little alarm clock and that there was no reason to lie," Mr. Qin said. "I should just confess. "Then everyone could go home." Mr. Qin said he hoped his detention really was prompted by a petty theft. But instinct told him not to admit stealing something he did not steal. So the pressure intensified. Mr. Shen organized four teams of two policemen each. The teams interrogated Mr. Qin in consecutive six-hour shifts, day and night, for three days. The questioning quickly turned to torture. Mr. Qin said he was made to sit for many hours on the open metal frame of a chair without a back. His feet and arms were strapped to the chair legs and his body slumped through the frame, forcing the backs of his knees and his lower back against the sharp edges. The technique is known as "tiger stool." Alternately, Mr. Qin's hands were handcuffed behind his back and cinched up until they were above his head and his arms felt as though they would separate from his shoulders. This was referred to as "taking a jet plane." He described the pain as piercing. But he said he suffered even greater agony from lack of sleep. The police poured frigid water on his head and pounded him awake when he nodded off. They referred to this as "circling the pig." By his third day in detention, he said, he felt delirious. "It would take a superman to resist," he recalled. Finally, pressed to specify the color of the stolen alarm clock, he made a guess: "White." An officer whacked his head and asked again, "What color was the clock?" "Red," he offered, but he got another blow. Then he said, "Green." The beating stopped. Soon thereafter, Mr. Shen told Mr. Qin his theft of the alarm clock proved he had killed Ms. Jia. The police now had all the evidence they needed, he said, but Mr. Qin must cooperate fully to avoid the harshest punishment. That meant he must volunteer every detail of the crime, three times over, and confess a complete narrative. Still dazed, Mr. Qin hazarded guesses to every question - was she wearing shorts or long pants? did he strangle her with his hands or with a rope? - until he was allowed to sleep. In the eight months between his arrest and his trial, Mr. Qin wrote a series of anguished letters home, urging his family to disregard the charges. "Every word of the confession is a joke," he wrote in one letter to his older brother in early 1999. "To this day, I have no idea what the victim looks like, and I certainly didn't know the color of her pants." Unwavering Conviction In prison, Mr. Qin tutored himself in criminal law. His letters cited passages that he felt would aid his defense. Article 38 of the Chinese Constitution forbids extracting confessions by torture and "frame-ups." Article 46 of the 1996 revised Criminal Procedure Law declares that "oral confessions" are not sufficient grounds for conviction. Article 12 mandates that suspects must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. His anger convinced his older brother, Qin Yanqing, who became his tireless champion. The elder Mr. Qin petitioned legal officials in Anyang and Zhengzhou to review the case. He exhausted the family savings on travel and lawyer fees. He even sought out Mr. Shen. But the detective expressed unwavering conviction. "I stake my 20 years of leadership experience as a guarantee," the elder Mr. Qin quoted Mr. Shen as telling him. "If your brother did not commit this crime, then I will accept punishment." When the trial opened in April 1999, 50 relatives and villagers went to Anyang to testify on Mr. Qin's behalf. But the three-judge panel ordered the trial closed and excluded them from the courtroom, villagers said. The prosecution brought no witnesses, and Mr. Qin said the judges prevented him from calling any. Mr. Qin vigorously recanted his confession. His lawyer argued that the prosecution's case, which depended wholly on the confession, was invalid. The trial was over before lunch. Six months later, a judge visited Mr. Qin in prison and delivered the verdict: Mr. Qin was guilty of rape and murder, and would be executed. Mr. Qin had a right to appeal. On death row, his cell contained 15 people and one toilet. He said that in his two years there, a dozen cellmates were escorted away in the early morning hours and executed with a bullet to the back of the head. He was spared that fate not by his appeals, or by new DNA evidence, but by a stroke of luck that might count as a miracle. One day in January 2001, a retired soldier named Yuan Qiufu walked into a police station in Linzhou, a town not far from Anyang, and told the officer on duty that he had raped, robbed and strangled 18 women. He provided voluminous details of his killing rampage that included an unerring account of the rape and murder of Ms. Jia and the theft of a green alarm clock. Reversal of Fortune Even in the world's most populous country, such definitive exonerations are not common. But this year alone about a dozen similar reversals of fortune have come to light, suggesting that legal officials and the state media are paying more attention to problems in the judicial system - and that such problems run deep. For example, last May, She Xianglin, a 39-year-old former security guard in Hubei Province, was released from jail after serving 11 years when his wife, whom he was convicted of murdering, returned for a visit. In 1994, she had run away and remarried in another province. The police decided that a body they found must be the wife's and that Mr. She must have killed her. In June, a 30-year-old laborer in Shanxi Province was released from custody after a boy he confessed to killing and dumping into the Yellow River last year came back home. The boy had migrated to a city to find work. In July, three police officers in Yunnan Province were convicted of torturing a man into saying he killed a prostitute. The man had been scheduled to go to trial for murder in 2002 when someone else admitted committing the crime. Official statistics show such abuses are numerous. The Supreme People's Procuratorate, China's Justice Department, said in July that 4,645 criminal suspects had suffered human rights violations, including torture during inquisitions, in the previous 12 months. Top officials are pushing to improve criminal procedures. Some legal scholars say one measure under consideration could give suspects the right to have a lawyer present during interrogations. But such changes, if they come, will take time. China's Communist Party-run legislature has been urged to consider many new protections, like a right to remain silent. But such proposals have gone nowhere because the police steadfastly oppose them. The last time the government overhauled criminal law procedures, in 1996, it toughened an existing ban on forced confessions, while declaring that suspects were entitled to a presumption of innocence. The current publicity campaign effectively acknowledges that the 1996 rules did not have the desired effect. One obstacle is China's long history, in which criminal law was viewed as an extension of the power of the emperor rather than an objective code that applies to everyone. Confession amounted to a submission to authority, while a plea of innocence was viewed as a form of rebellion. The legal code of the Tang Dynasty, for example, specified that guilt could only be finally assigned through confession, and that cases could not be officially recorded without a confession. Li Bin, a defense lawyer and former government prosecutor in Yunnan, who was involved in the trial of the three policemen on charges of forcing a confession, said the problem was systemic. In China's top-down political system, the police, prosecutors and judges respond mostly to incentives from above, Mr. Li said. They pay a much higher price for failing to maintain the appearance of social order than for torturing suspects, he said. "The judicial system is set up to protect the authority of the government," he said. "It is not set up to protect the rights of suspects." 'No Hard Feelings' The disclosure that Mr. Yuan, the serial killer, had murdered Ms. Jia set off alarm bells among Anyang officials. But the concern was the possibility that the wrongful arrest, prosecution and conviction of Mr. Qin could damage careers, Mr. Qin's family members and an investigator in the case who is based in Beijing said. The officials' response was to suppress the new information - and keep Mr. Qin on death row. The investigator talked to the local officials involved, but asked to remain anonymous because of restrictions on speaking with reporters. He said that the authorities in Linzhou, who were handing the case of Mr. Yuan, and those in Anyang, responsible for Mr. Qin's incarceration, agreed between themselves to keep the crucial part of Mr. Yuan's confession secret. Mr. Yuan would be prosecuted for 17 murders instead of 18, leaving Mr. Qin's conviction intact. "Their attitude was that if my brother was released, 20 officials would suffer," said Qin Yanqing, Mr. Qin's elder brother. "But if he was executed, only one person would suffer." The agreement held for more than a year. It came to light only after an official in Linzhou joked about the matter to a reporter for a national legal affairs publication. Although the reporter did not publish an article on the subject, he did alert authorities in the capital, who ordered an inquiry. In May 2002, a provincial-level legal investigation determined that Mr. Qin should be released. He was given a suite at a hotel. The Anyang County police organized a banquet. "When I got back to my room, I cried and cried," he said. "I could not control myself." A few days after his release, Mr. Qin went to the county police station and demanded to see Mr. Shen. The detective rushed out of a meeting to greet him, shaking his hand and apologizing profusely, Mr. Qin recalled. "He said my case had been a severe lesson for them all," he said. But whether they treated it that way is unclear. It took Mr. Qin and his brother several months to negotiate compensation. Local authorities eventually agreed to the equivalent of $35,000 in damages for four years of incarceration on false charges. But the payment came with strict conditions. Mr. Qin had to agree not to talk about the matter with the news media or to petition higher authorities for more money. He initially accepted those terms. But he broke the pledge this year, he said, because the authorities had refused to fully exonerate him. Although he has a notice from the police confirming that he was arrested in error, the notice attributes the arrest to a "work mistake." Mr. Qin has never been declared innocent of murder. "They hope they can just make this disappear with no hard feelings and no problems for anyone involved," he said. The last time Mr. Qin visited the police to press for a full restitution, he discovered that Mr. Shen had been promoted. He is no longer a detective team leader, but Anyang County's deputy chief of police. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

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  Design Shortcomings Seen in New Orleans Flood Walls Aaron Huey/Polaris, for The New York Times A break in the concrete flood wall on the London Avenue Canal in New Orleans. Army Corps of Engineers standards were reportedly not met. September 21, 2005 Design Shortcomings Seen in New Orleans Flood Walls By CHRISTOPHER DREW and ANDREW C. REVKIN NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 20 - Along the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, great earthen levees were ample to hold off much of the surging water propelled by Hurricane Katrina. But concrete flood walls installed over the last several decades along the drainage and barge canals cutting into New Orleans were built in a way that by Army Corps of Engineers standards left them potentially unstable in a flood, according to government documents and interviews. The walls collapsed in several places during the storm. A corps engineering manual cautions that such flood walls "rarely exceed" seven feet because they can lose stability as waters rise. But some of the New Orleans canal walls rose as high as 11 feet above dirt berms in which they were anchored. As a result of federal budget constraints, the walls were never tested for their ability to withstand the cascades of lake water that rushed up to, or over, their tops as storm waves pulsed through the canals on Aug. 29, corps and local officials say. Hurricane Katrina was the first serious test of the flood walls, said Stevan Spencer, chief engineer for the Orleans Levee District, and it "just overwhelmed the system." Since the storm, corps officials have said that there is a simple explanation for the devastation: Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 storm and Congress authorized a flood control system to handle only a Category 3 storm. "Anything above that, all bets are off," said Al Naomi, a senior project manager in the corps's New Orleans district. But federal meteorologists say that New Orleans did not get the full brunt of the storm, because its strongest winds passed dozens of miles east of the city. While a formal analysis of the storm's strength and surges will take months, the National Hurricane Center said the sustained winds over Lake Pontchartrain reached only 95 miles per hour, while Category 3 storms are defined by sustained winds of 111 to 130 m.p.h. This raises a series of questions about how the walls that failed were designed and constructed, as well as whether the soil in some spots was too weak to hold them. Investigations by federal engineers and outside experts are just now beginning. One factor could be height, said Robert G. Bea, a former corps engineer and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is part of a National Science Foundation inquiry into the flood controls failures. The higher the wall, Professor Bea said, the greater the risk it could tip under the ever greater pressure of rising waters. The 2000 edition of the Army Corps of Engineers manual "Design and Construction of Levees" says that the height of flood walls built on levees is an important factor in their ability to withstand a flood. For that reason, the manual says walls like those used in New Orleans "rarely exceed" seven feet. But on two of the three canals where breaks occurred - the 17th Street and London Avenue canals - the concrete sections rise 11 feet above the dirt berms. Each wall resembles a row of teeth set in a jaw. Individual slabs are anchored to a continuous steel sheet buried in the dirt, giving the wall its strength. Above a short foundation, the slabs are linked only by rubbery gaskets that allow the concrete to expand and contract without cracking. Hassan S. Mashriqui, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert on storm surges, said the segmented nature of the walls could be an additional problem, since any weak point could cause a catastrophic failure. "Since they're not tied together you get a little bit of a gap and that's what water needs to make it fail," Dr. Mashriqui said. Other questions surround the walls' design, known as an "I-wall" for its slim cross section that fits easily into densely developed areas. The corps manual for flood control construction suggests a different design for walls higher than seven feet - walls shaped like an inverted T, with the horizontal section buried in the dirt for extra stability. But that option was never considered, corps engineers said, because "T walls" were more expensive, required a broad base of dense soil for support and were not necessarily stronger. The corps and local levee authorities also never tested whether the chosen I-wall design could survive if water flowed over the top and cascaded onto dirt embankments below. Corps officials said they were proscribed from considering stronger wall designs for the canals both by the tight quarters and by federal law, which requires that they seek and study only the level of flood control authorized by Congress. "Our hands are tied as to looking at higher-level events," Mr. Naomi said. Mr. Naomi said that the recommendations in the flood control engineering manual were "general guidance," and that conditions at a particular site could justify deviations. He defended the walls, saying: "The flood walls have functioned over the years very successfully and without incident. The design works. It has worked in other locales. And will likely continue to be used as long as you do not subject it to pressures that it was not designed to handle." The broken walls, which were long seen as a second choice to earthen levees, are testament to 40 years of fiscal and political compromises made by elected officials, from local levee boards to Congress and several presidential administrations, as they balanced costs and environmental concerns with the need to protect a city that lies largely below sea level and is still subsiding. Ever since Hurricane Betsy flooded parts of New Orleans in 1965, the federal government has financed a hurricane defense system designed to guard against an equivalent storm. But as the threat of a more intense hurricane became better understood in recent years, government financing for flood prevention in New Orleans did not keep pace with a growing alarm among many local residents, scientists and even the corps's own engineers. Standing next to the shattered remains of one of the concrete walls last week, Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, a New Orleans councilwoman, said, "In my opinion, they were playing Russian roulette with people's lives." "Do you realize that if those walls had held, we'd have just had a little cleaning job?" said Ms. Hedge-Morrell, whose district between downtown and the lakefront was covered with 10 feet of water from the breaks of flood walls. "We would not have this massive loss of life and destruction." On Tuesday, streams of dump trucks hurriedly dumped loads of gravel into the breaches in New Orleans's flood defenses, in case Hurricane Rita shifts toward here later this week. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a surge from Lake Pontchartrain poured into the main parts of the city through breaks on the walls lining the 17th Street and London Avenue canals, which normally carry runoff pumped out of the city into the lake. A separate surge from the Gulf of Mexico overwhelmed the walls along the Industrial Canal, inundating the Lower Ninth Ward. Officials say that break may have been caused by a barge that broke loose from its moorings. When the hurricane hit, the only earthen levees that failed in a way that produced substantial flooding were on the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a man-made ship canal east of the city. These levees, which were not as high as those on the river or Lake Pontchartrain, let in the floodwaters that ravaged eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. A surge from Lake Pontchartrain was the catastrophic situation that the corps had been guarding against since Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago. Initially, the corps wanted to build a giant barrier to keep water from the Gulf of Mexico from reaching Lake Pontchartrain and flooding the canals. That project was delayed by lawsuits from environmental groups that contended the corps had failed to study ecological effects. By the late 1970's, the corps abandoned that approach and began raising levees along the lake and the Mississippi and adding flood walls on the canals. In the mid-1990's, engineering professors at Louisiana State began publicizing computer models that showed how a Category 5 storm could kill tens of thousands of people and flood the French Quarter. Corps officials in Louisiana pushed local officials to help seek more money from Congress, both to finish existing upgrades and to start bolstering the city against bigger threats. Joseph Suhayda, who was one of the Louisiana State professors, said corps officials privately urged him to "raise the consciousness" about the dire threats. But upgrading the flood control system never became a major priority for corps officials in Washington, local and federal officials say. Corps veterans said it was not surprising that federal engineers did not issue more vocal warnings. "I don't think it was culturally in the system for the corps to say 'this is crazy,' " said William F. Marcuson III, the former director of the Waterways Experiment Station for the corps in Vicksburg, Miss., and president-elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers. "The corps works for Congress," Mr. Marcuson said, "and when the boss says design for a Category 3 storm, culturally the corps is not going to go back and say this is wrong." Investigations into how the walls failed are just now beginning. Col. Richard Wagenaar, commander of the corps district in New Orleans, said the soil behind the flood walls could have been weakened after they were topped by the storm surge, or the walls could have simply given way as the water - and the pressure - mounted against them. Indeed, as several engineers said, while a dirt levee of similar height might eventually be topped as well, and possibly eroded, only the walls were vulnerable to a sudden collapse. The determination of how the walls fell will bear on how officials decide to remake the flood control system. Max Hearn, executive director of the Orleans Levee District, said that if the federal government was now ready to pay for Category 5 protection, it seemed unlikely that the flood wall system could be upgraded to that level. But Mr. Hearn said the only answer might be the construction of flood gates designed to limit a hurricane surge in Lake Pontchartrain - the same idea that was considered and dropped in the 1970's. Christopher Drew reported from New Orleans for this article and Andrew C. Revkin from New York. Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

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• September 21, 2005

  World Briefing
  

  
  

  EUROPE

  
  

  GERMANY: PARTY BACKS MERKEL Angela Merkel, who is trying to become the next chancellor despite a disappointing election result on Sunday, received a boost from her party, the Christian Democratic Union, which reaffirmed her as its parliamentary leader by a nearly unanimous vote. There has been criticism of her campaign, and she could still suffer a loss of support in the party in the weeks ahead, especially if she proves unable to put together a coalition to form a new government. Richard Bernstein (NYT)

  
  

  CROATIA: ARREST IN BLAST AT BRITISH EMBASSY A Croatian security guard who was the only person wounded Monday in an explosion at the British Embassy in Zagreb, the capital, was arrested after admitting that he had planted the bomb. Interior Minister Ivica Kirin said the police had ruled out any involvement by a terrorist group but gave no explanation for a motive.

  
  

  Nicholas Wood (NYT)

  
  

  FRANCE: CASH INCENTIVES TO HAVE THIRD BABIES France, which has a birthrate of 1.9 children per couple, among the highest in Europe, plans to announce benefits this week to encourage families to have children, including an increased monthly grant for women who take time off from work to have a third child. John Tagliabue (NYT)

  
  

  AFRICA

  
  

  SUDAN: UNITY CABINET President Omar el-Bashir announced a new power-sharing cabinet, another step forward in a peace deal signed with southern rebels in January. Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz of the governing National Congress Party will remain in the important post of minister of energy and mining, but after tough negotiations the government agreed to give another influential position, that of minister of foreign affairs, to Lam Akol of the former rebel group the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. Marc Lacey (NYT)

  
  

  MIDDLE EAST

  
  

  HARIRI INQUIRY MOVES TO SYRIA In a heavily guarded motorcade with helicopters overhead, Detlev Mehlis, the head of a United Nations inquiry into the Beirut car bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February, crossed the Lebanon-Syria border to begin interrogating Syrian officials. He is expected to interview Ghazi Kanaan, the interior minister who until 2002 was the chief of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, and Rustum Ghazali, his successor. Hassan M. Fattah (NYT)

  
  

  ASIA

  
  

  JAPAN ACCUSES CHINA OF DRILLING IN DISPUTED WATERS In an escalation of their long-running dispute over maritime energy resources, Japan accused China of beginning gas production in a field near their disputed sea border in the East China Sea. Without directly answering the charge, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said China was producing gas in an area that was not in dispute. Japan is concerned that China may draw resources from the Japanese side of the disputed boundary and has criticized China for recently sending warships into the area. Howard W. French (NYT)

  
  

  INDIA: SEPARATIST REBELS GUN DOWN 11 SOLDIERS In the deadliest such incident in recent months in the country's troubled northeast, at least 11 Indian soldiers were killed and 5 wounded in a rebel ambush in Manipur State, the army said. The soldiers were returning to their base when guerrillas began firing at them from a hilltop about 20 miles from the state capital, Imphal. An ethnic separatist group claimed responsibility. Hari Kumar (NYT)

  
  

  UNITED NATIONS

  
  

  ISRAELI ENVOY LEADS ASSEMBLY SESSION Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, became the first Israeli since Abba Eban 52 years ago to preside over the General Assembly when he took the president's chair to introduce the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom. Mr. Gillerman was elected one of the Assembly's 21 vice presidents this year as a delegate from the regional bloc that Israel belongs to, the West European and other states group, which also includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Warren Hoge (NYT)

  
  

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  • Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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•  

  
  

   

  
  

  Storm overcomes New Orleans levee

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Satellite image of Hurricane Rita In pictures Water is pouring over a patched-up levee in New Orleans, increasing fears that rains brought by Hurricane Rita could flood the city again. Army engineers have warned that flood defences damaged by Hurricane Katrina can only cope with 15cm (6in) of rain. A stream of water at least nine metres (30ft) wide was reported to be spilling into the low-lying Lower Ninth Ward. About two million people have fled the Texas and Louisiana coasts ahead of Hurricane Rita's arrival. The storm has weakened to a Category Three hurricane, but still boasts sustained winds of 125mph (201km/h). See Hurricane Rita's predicted path It is expected to make landfall in Texas late on Friday or early on Saturday local time. Hurricane Rita: Places at risk It was centred about 220 miles (354km) south-east of Galveston, Texas, at 1500 GMT, the US National Hurricane Center said, and was roaring towards land at about 10mph (16km/h). The Gulf Coast as far west as Mexico is on alert, with officials warning Rita's course remains unpredictable. Forecasters say the hurricane could weaken to a Category Three when it reaches land. In other developments: President George W Bush is to fly to Colorado to monitor hurricane preparations, instead of an earlier planned visit to San Antonio, Texas National Guard lorries are taking badly-needed fuel to petrol stations and stranded motorists in Texas More than 99% of oil output is shut off in the Gulf of Mexico, and gas production is also severely affected. The exodus from the Gulf Coast has been slowed by huge traffic jams, with some motorists forced to abandon their cars after running out of fuel. Up to 24 elderly evacuees died when the bus they were travelling in caught fire on a gridlocked motorway carrying traffic from Houston to Dallas. THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE Category Five: >155mph (>249kph) Category Four: 131-155mph (210-249kph) Category Three: 111-130mph (178-209kmh) Category Two: 96-110mph (154-177kmh) Category One: 74-95mph (119-153kmh) US National Hurricane Center Television pictures showed the charred shell of the bus, which was hit by a series of explosions apparently caused by oxygen containers for those on board. Officials said congestion within Houston had cleared but vehicles were still stuck bumper-to-bumper on highways further inland. People who have not left the city - among them motorists who turned back after sitting in traffic jams for hours - are now being advised to stay at home. "Those people at risk should not get on the highways to evacuate," Houston Mayor Bill White said. "People should prepare to shelter in place if they have not evacuated." Rising water The few residents who had returned to New Orleans, battered by Hurricane Katrina last month, were ordered to leave ahead of the latest storm. Water levels in New Orleans are rising faster than expected High winds propelled by Hurricane Rita are causing a storm surge in the city, with water levels whipped up above the height of the damaged defences. At least a foot of water is now pouring through the Lower Ninth Ward area, which had only just been pumped dry following the flooding after Katrina. A spokesman for the US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) confirmed that flood waters were over-topping a levee on the Industrial Canal. Col Richard Wagenaar told the BBC the water level in that area was rising much faster and higher than expected. "The water's come up to a much higher elevation than we thought it would this early in the storm," he said. "We were expecting a storm surge of two to five feet tomorrow morning - and right now in places we've got six feet." Col Wagenaar said the priority for the engineers was to strengthen the repairs on Industrial Canal and maintain the patched-up breaches on the 17th Street and London Avenue canals. The BBC's Claire Marshall in New Orleans says some people are reporting floodwater up to waist level in parts of the city, only days after engineers pumped it dry.

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• French Lesson: Taunts on Race Can Boomerang

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  Olivier Laban Mattei/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images
  
  Fleeing a fire, one of a recent series in African neighborhoods of Paris. The French news media, which had been pointing at New Orleans and American racial inequality, were reminded to look at the racial divide in their own country.

  
  

  September 21, 2005

  
  

  French Lesson: Taunts on Race Can Boomerang

  
  

  By JOHN TAGLIABUE

  
  

  
  

  PARIS, Sept. 20 - The French news media were captivated by Hurricane Katrina, pointing out how the American government's faltering response brought into plain view the sad lot of black Americans. But this time the French, who have long criticized America's racism, could not overlook the parallels at home.

  
  

  "It is true that the devastations of Katrina have cruelly shed light on the wounds of America, ghettoization, poverty, criminality, racial and territorial tensions," Le Figaro, the conservative daily, said in an editorial on Sept. 8. "In France, those in disagreement ran to pelt the 'American model' and the neoconservative president. But have they just looked at the state of their own country?"

  
  

  Only four days before, a fire had swept an apartment in south Paris, killing 12 people, most of them black. And just days before that, 17 black people died in a single blaze. Since April, 48 people, most of them children and all of them black, have died in four separate fires in Paris.

  
  

  In neighborhoods like Château Rouge, filled with the hundreds of thousands of nonwhite immigrants, some Arabs but mainly blacks, whom France has absorbed over the years from former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, you feel the anger.

  
  

  "It could be a coincidence," said Sissouo Cheickh, bitterly, "but one question the French have to answer is: of 48 people who died, why were 48 black?"

  
  

  Mr. Cheickh, 28, got a university degree in France, but rather than working for someone else and running into what he and other young blacks say is France's low glass ceiling, he decided to start his own business. Six months ago he scraped together some money and opened a store.

  
  

  "You see these fabrics? All from Africa, from my family," said Mr. Cheickh, who came from Mali, as he gestured toward colorful rolls of cloth.

  
  

  France has long boasted of itself as the cradle of human rights and a bulwark against racism. It regularly denounced racism in the United States, and the road from Harlem to Paris was wide, inviting talented American blacks like the dancer Josephine Baker, musicians like Sidney Bechet and writers like Richard Wright and James Baldwin.

  
  

  But French insistence on the equality of man leaves them in a bind, their black critics say, perpetuating the fiction of a society without minorities.

  
  

  The census in France does not list people by race. Hence, while blacks are thought to number about 1.5 million, of a total population of 59 million, no one really knows the exact number, which is estimated to be far higher.

  
  

  There are virtually no black people in corporate France, and blacks have almost no political representation. No black person sits in the National Assembly or in a regional parliament, and only a smattering are found in city councils. The European Union finances programs for minorities but not in France, because of its refusal to recognize minorities.

  
  

  So, today, blacks are not much on the French agenda. After the recent fires, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed a program of affirmative action and a requirement that résumés conceal a person's ethnic or racial identity. But the rest of the cabinet, including the minister for equal opportunity, rejected the ideas, saying they offended the fundamental principle of equality.

  
  

  "The French like to say, 'Blacks are a social problem, not racial,' " said Gaston Kelman, 52, a native of Cameroon who has written widely on France's black population. "So our institutions have no means to overcome it."

  
  

  Until recently, virtually all blacks were on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Gradually, however, a younger generation is, like Mr. Cheickh, gaining education, starting businesses and gradually giving birth to a black middle class. They feel the discrimination they say is rampant in French society and are beginning to resist.

  
  

  After graduating with a degree in economics and data processing, Claude Vuaki tried his hand at several jobs before deciding to start his own business. Together with his wife, Kibé, he opened a beauty salon in central Paris. But Mr. Vuaki's search for start-up capital was typical of the black experience. "They said right off, no loan, no money," said Mr. Vuaki, 52. He and his wife managed to gather some family savings and self-financed their shop.

  
  

  Now the business is so successful that they plan a second shop, in Nice or Cannes. Mrs. Vuaki travels regularly to the United States to study African-American hairstyles.

  
  

  Still, Mr. Vuaki remains one of a relatively small minority. Most blacks are employed in menial jobs, in construction or transportation. What encourages people like Mr. Vuaki is that the glass ceiling often felt by young blacks who get an education is not discouraging them, but increasingly prompting them to strike out on their own.

  
  

  "A lot of people I know want to create something of their own," he said, often in landscaping, construction and delivery services.

  
  

  Still, Mr. Kelman said this slight opening is not inhibiting many young Africans with an education to strike off for Britain, Canada and the United States, where they think they will find greater opportunities.

  
  

  Asked whether the French people are racist, Mr. Kelman replied: "It's a racism of nuance. Every Frenchman would immediately say, 'One of my closest friends is black.' "

  
  

  Mr. Kelman said government housing and employment policies create an "institutionalized ghetto-building." He described with a laugh a typical job interview for a black candidate. When the boss realizes the candidate is black, he begins praising the sights and sounds of Africa he discovered on his last vacation there: the broad beaches, beautiful greenery, vast sky. Needless to say, the candidate doesn't get the job.

  
  

  In the schools, white pupils are typically encouraged to continue studying while black children are often steered toward vocational studies. The influence of African-Americans, through television, films and sports, is everywhere. Some young blacks turn to Afrocentrism, Mr. Kelman said, others to rappers and others to black Muslim groups. What they don't turn to is mainstream French society.

  
  

  "We're at an impasse," Mr. Kelman said.

  
  

  
  

  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  • Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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