Euro-zone inflation was unchanged in February, easing pressure on the European Central Bank to take further action to support the financial system and growth when its governing council meets Thursday.
Consumer prices grew 0.8% in February from a year earlier in the euro zone, the European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said Friday, well below the ECB’s target of just below 2%. But that was higher than expected, with the consensus…
Read more here: Euro-Zone Inflation Steady
Feb. 27, 2014 5:51 p.m. ET
The Facebook logo Bloomberg
“Who do you like?” asked recent ads on Facebook, FB -0.01% Facebook Inc. Cl A U.S.: Nasdaq $68.93 -0.01 -0.01% Feb. 28, 2014 12:02 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 28.27M P/E Ratio 112.82 Market Cap $175.78 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $1,242,230 02/28/14 The 10-Point: Gerard Baker on … 02/27/14 5 Things to Do to Protect Teen… 02/27/14 Nude Webcams and Diet Drugs: t… More quote details and news » FB in Your Value Your Change Short position featuring young women in alluring poses.
Some of the ads were configured to reach young teens, who were invited to join an app called Ilikeq that let others rate their attractiveness, comment on their photos and say if they would like to date them.
How Ad Targeting Works on Facebook
See a portion of what some advertisers see with Facebook’s ad-creation tool.
That’s how 14-year-old Erica Lowder’s picture ended up on display to adult men online. Users of Ilikeq, one of Facebook’s fastest-growing “lifestyle” apps, were able to click through to the Indianapolis girl’s Facebook page.
“How can Facebook say here’s how we’re going to protect your kids, then sell all these ads to weird apps and sites that open kids up to terrible things?” asked Erica’s mother, Dawn Lowder.
The case offers a glimpse into how young Facebook users are sometimes exposed to ads inappropriate for them. A 14-year-old girl in Washington state said she “liked” an ad that led to the Facebook page of a nude webcam-modeling site. A 17-year-old boy in an Oakland, Calif., neighborhood beset by gun violence repeatedly saw an ad for a concealed-carry handgun holster. (See what it is like to create an ad on Facebook and how targeting works.)
The ads highlight Facebook Inc.’s challenge in policing a social network that has more than a billion users and a million advertisers, by its count. Facebook generated roughly $7 billion in Internet advertising last year, more than any other company except Google Inc. GOOG +0.10% Google Inc. Cl A U.S.: Nasdaq $1220.37 +1.16 +0.10% Feb. 28, 2014 12:02 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 658,259 P/E Ratio 33.45 Market Cap $409.72 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $1,110,730 02/27/14 What WSJ Canada Is Reading Thu… 02/27/14 Google’s Doodles Celebrate Mor… 02/26/14 Boeing Plans to Launch Secure … More quote details and news » GOOG in Your Value Your Change Short position Facebook posted net income of $1.5 billion for 2013, and its shares are near an all-time high.
Facebook said it approved the ads for young teens because it hadn’t categorized Ilikeq as a dating site. It said it has now done so and has disabled Ilikeq ads for those below its minimum age for dating-site ads, 18.
Asked about the ads reaching young teens, a co-founder of Ilikeq, Olda Neuberger, said by email from Prague, Czech Republic, that Ilikeq isn’t a dating site, although online tools show its first two “meta tags”—which website builders set to optimize Internet searches—are “dating” and “free online dating.” Mr. Neuberger said connecting young teens and adults was unintentional and he has now changed the app and website to exclude those under 18.
One issue for the social network—as well as for advertisers and for parents—is that some young teens exaggerate their ages in their Facebook profiles. Thirteen is the minimum age to join Facebook. (Parents, weigh in: What worries you most?)
The situation is compounded by Facebook’s social advertising system, in which users who click to “like” an ad can be featured as having “liked” it in future versions of the ad shown to their Facebook friends. And once they “like” an ad for a Facebook page, they will receive updates from that page.
Advertisers on Facebook can set their ads to reach all users or narrow the focus. Facebook’s website says it can help advertisers target consumers based on an array of user information it collects, such as age, gender, relationship status, politics and type of phone owned.
“We take the quality of ads on Facebook very seriously,” Facebook said in a statement. “Because of the enormous volume of ads under review on a daily basis, we invest significant resources in both automated and manual tools to enforce our policies, along with tools to educate advertisers.”
Facebook said that while its methods were effective at identifying and removing “the vast majority” of prohibited ads before they run, “no system is perfect. When we find or are made aware of prohibited ads, we remove them immediately, as we did for the prohibited ads [cited by The Wall Street Journal].”
In many cases, Facebook said, it will disable an advertiser’s account entirely if it violates the company’s policies.
Once posted, ads can be flagged as inappropriate by users and reviewed again. The system then gets smarter, taking into account past flagged ads, Facebook said. The company said it cracks down on problem areas, such as dating ads using racy photos and headlines. It declined to say how many ads it rejects.
Ads on Facebook for concealed-carry handgun holsters can be seen by teens at the Youth UpRising center in gun-ridden East Oakland in California. Brian L. Frank for The Wall Street Journal
Other online platforms also face challenges policing what are largely self-serve systems for advertisers to build their own ads. Google in 2011 acknowledged it had helped Canadian pharmacies run ads that targeted the U.S., which the Justice Department said led to unlawful importation of prescription drugs into the U.S. Google agreed to forfeit $500 million, a sum representing its revenue from the ads plus revenue received by the Canadian pharmacies from their sales to U.S. consumers. “It’s obvious with hindsight that we shouldn’t have allowed these ads on Google in the first place,” Google said at the time.
Google and Twitter Inc., TWTR -0.86% Twitter Inc. U.S.: NYSE $55.29 -0.48 -0.86% Feb. 28, 2014 12:02 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 3.65M P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap $30.96 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $332,445 02/27/14 Dark Forecast for Twitter’s U…. 02/27/14 J.P.Morgan Hands Debt Capital … 02/26/14 Survey Says: Social Media Gain… More quote details and news » TWTR in Your Value Your Change Short position like Facebook, use a mix of computers and humans to review ads. Google said it doesn’t allow ads for counterfeit goods or handguns. It does display ads for adult webcam sites and concealed-weapon holsters. Google said it removed more than 350 million improper ads in 2013, up 59% from 2012. Twitter said it doesn’t allow ads related to sex, drugs and weapons, among other topics.
WSJD is the Journal’s home for tech news, analysis and product reviews.
Unlike Facebook, Google and Twitter don’t enable advertisers to explicitly target specific age groups, although advertisers on Google can indirectly appeal to certain age groups by taking users’ searches into account. And Twitter has certain age rules: Users have to give their age if they want to see alcohol ads. Twitter doesn’t push ads to users based on their social connections or list friends as having “liked” a product. Google recently began including users’ social connections in some ads.
Some advertisers said Facebook’s targeting system has been a factor in their ads being shown to young teens. “It’s ridiculously complicated,” said Greg Carr, president of Desert Warrior Products, whose ad for AK-47 parts and accessories such as scopes reached young teens. Mr. Carr said he intended it only for those over 18. The ad no longer is displayed to younger people.
Facebook used to limit ads to users 18 and older by default. An advertiser who wanted to reach younger people had to change the setting.
In 2011, it eliminated this restriction for some advertisers, so their ads could be shown to all unless specified. That change was extended to all advertisers in 2012, around the time of Facebook’s initial public offering.
The change meant roughly 10 million U.S. Facebook users aged from 13 to 17 were exposed to a wider range of marketing. Facebook said it made the change because most advertisers wanted to reach users of all ages, and most ads are appropriate for all.
Sophie Bean, 14, of Sequim, Wash., said she was thought she was “liking” a Facebook ad related to fashion modeling. Instead, it promoted a Facebook page that recruited adult webcam models.
“I just thought it was for modeling, and I’m interested in that, and I thought it would help me out,” Sophie said.
Clicking “like” on the ad meant she also had “liked” a Facebook page that contains links to the website of a firm called Internet Modeling. The website says that “generally webcam models are asked to pose nude.”
Sophie wasn’t the only teen connecting with the page, which Facebook statistics show is most popular with users 13 to 17. Clicking on it didn’t pull the teens into nude webcam modeling, but did mean they would receive the page’s updates and could be mentioned in future versions of the ad.
Sophie’s father, Robert Bean, said he found the matter “pretty disgusting.” He said that if Facebook is aware of such ads, “they need to be exposed for dealing with companies like this.”
Internet Modeling, of Tampa, Fla., said the ad was placed by an affiliate marketer—an agent that buys ads for others on Facebook and other sites—in violation of Internet Modeling’s terms of service.
“This seems to be an issue with Facebook accepting and showing such ads to 14 year olds,” the company said in an email. Internet Modeling, which describes itself as an adult talent agency, said it doesn’t intend to advertise to minors and requires that all models be at least 18.
The ad no longer appears on Facebook. The social network said it deleted all ads related to adult services brought to its attention by the Journal.
Facebook is also a hub for diet ads, some of which have reached teens younger than its minimum age for seeing these, which is 18.
Ads for diet products containing a substance called HCG have run on Facebook. HCG, a hormone produced during pregnancy, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a prescription drug for infertility. But the agency, in a 2011 news release headed “HCG Diet Products Are Illegal,” said HCG doesn’t help with weight loss and isn’t approved for over-the-counter sale for any purpose.
A Florida outfit that has run Facebook ads in the past uses an “HCG Diet Kits” Facebook page as an online storefront to sell HCG serum and syringes. The page is most popular with Facebook users aged 13 to 24, according to Facebook’s statistics. On Feb. 20, the page posted “Back in stock!” and listed prices for its diet-shots kits to its Facebook following.
Facebook said it doesn’t allow ads for HCG products, has disapproved ads from this page recently, and is reviewing the page because of its ongoing HCG sales.
The social network prohibits ads for gun sales but permits ads for gun accessories, without age limits. These include holsters for concealed handguns.
The ads are a source of concern for adults at Youth UpRising, a teen community center in East Oakland, Calif. Many of the teens in the gun-ridden neighborhood said such ads have become commonplace for them on Facebook.
During recent visits to the center, which provides a safe place in the neighborhood where young people can polish their résumés and learn to avoid credit-card debt, one of the most frequent Facebook ads displayed to teens was for a concealed-carry holster called Versacarry.
Tyrell Cloird, a 17-year-old who spoke of his hope to make a career in auto mechanics, has repeatedly seen ads for the holsters, which hide a handgun under clothes. Beneath was the name of a youth he knew who had “liked” the Versacarry page on Facebook.
Olis Simmons, president and chief executive of Youth UpRising, called it “truly heartbreaking that the same young people dying in our streets” are seeing “adult-themed ads for things such as gun holsters by advertisers looking to make a buck.”
Versacarry’s maker, Sitzco LLC, said in an emailed statement that “we target all legal and responsible concealed-carry firearm owners.”
A spokeswoman for Facebook said it allows such ads so long as they don’t promote the sales of guns themselves.
Write to Jeff Elder at jeff.elder@wsj.com
Continued here: Webcams, Diet Drugs: Facebook Ads Teens Weren’t Meant to See
ATHENS—Greece’s privatization agency said Thursday it received just one offer for a multibillion-euro real-estate project, after the last-minute withdrawal of a rival bidder, raising fresh doubts over whether the long-delayed project would go ahead.
The Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, also known as Taiped, said in a statement that Greece’s Lamda Developments SA, which is controlled by Greek tycoon Spiros Latsis, had been the…
View post: Athens Old-Airport Project Gets One Bidder
NICOSIA—Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said all capital controls on the island would be lifted by the end of the year, a step that would remove a symbol of his country’s isolation from the rest of the euro area.
The controls have been in place almost a year, since Cyprus agreed to a €10-billion bailout from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund in March 2013.
“The timeline is that we’ll lift…
See the original post here: After Crisis, Cyprus Looks Forward
Federal prosecutors charged an alleged British hacker with stealing personal information from the Federal Reserve’s computer systems, part of the government’s beefed-up efforts to rein in cybercrime.
An indictment unsealed Thursday alleges that Lauri Love, 29 years old, worked with a group of hackers to exploit a vulnerability in a software program used by the central bank.
He gained access to the Federal Reserve’s servers…
Read the original post: U.K. Man Charged With Hacking Fed Systems
BRUSSELS—The European Union is set to send up to 1,000 people to the Central African Republic as part of its military mission by the end of April, the operation’s commander said Thursday.
Major Gen. Philippe Pontiès said the total size of the mission will be 800-1,000 people with as many as 700 soldiers or gendarmes deployed on the ground. The balance will be back-office staff. EU officials had previously estimated a mission size of…
Read the original here: EU Sees Central African Force Reaching 800-1,000
A car bomb exploded near the headquarters of Somalia’s intelligence agency Thursday, killing at least 12 people, witnesses and officials said.
The blast was the third deadly attack to hit the Somali capital in as many weeks. Mogadishu has been touted as a success story for the Somali government since its forces regained control of the city from militants in 2011. Still, bombings and kidnappings of government officials remain common…
Excerpt from: Car Bomb Kills 12 in Somalia
TEL AVIV—When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the U.S. next week, he will stop in Silicon Valley for the first time to meet with executives from technology highfliers such as WhatsApp and Apple.
After talks in Washington, the California meetings will offer an opportunity to shift the narrative away from Iran and peace with Palestinians to something less divisive: Israel’s high-tech prowess in areas such as…
Go here to see the original: Israel to Tout High-Tech in U.S.
Feb. 27, 2014 5:31 p.m. ET
Usually, the biggest question ahead of any vote is who is going to win. But for this May’s European elections, there’s another issue: What are the parties and their candidates trying to win?
In the last European election in 2009, the answer to the second question was clear—parties wanted to gain seats in the European Parliament that would help them shape new laws.
This time around, the answer isn’t so obvious.
That’s because mainstream European parties, including the center-left Party of European Socialists and the center-right European People’s Party, or EPP, are for the first time appointing candidates to head their campaigns.
These so-called lead candidates aim to do more than bring out votes across the European Union’s 28 member states. They are seeking a personal prize: to become the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and the only institution with the right to initiate policies.
Until now, the commission president has been selected by the bloc’s prime ministers and presidents in closed-door meetings after parliamentary elections, with the parliament getting only a yes-or-no vote.
Giving voters more say on who gets the EU’s top job seems like a smart move at a time when the bloc is facing a legitimacy crisis after years of economic turmoil. Yet the way this new system is unrolling threatens to confuse voters.
Members of the European Parliament take part in a voting session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week. Reuters
“If you try to introduce an element of direct democracy into the system without doing it properly it will look like a stitch-up,” says Heather Grabbe, director of EU affairs at Open Society Foundations, a pro-democracy pressure group.
The biggest problem with modeling the selection of a new commission president after the way a prime minister is chosen in parliamentary democracies such as the U.K. or Germany is that this new process hasn’t been endorsed by EU leaders. Some, including Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, have openly questioned the link between lead candidates and the top commission job.
That matters because EU leaders still have to nominate the new commission president and send that person and other commissioners for approval to Parliament. While the legislature can block their appointments, there is no legal obligation for leaders to select a winning candidate.
The results of this indecision have been obvious as European parties select their candidates. No high-profile sitting politicians have been willing to give up their current posts for the insecurity of having to win an election and then risk seeing it ignored by EU leaders.
As a consequence, when Europe’s top Socialists travel to Rome this weekend to formally appoint their lead candidate, the only contender will be Martin Schulz, the little-known president of the European Parliament, who faces skepticism even among those in his own party in Germany, the Social Democrats.
At the EPP’s congress in Dublin next week, center-right delegates will choose between former Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Jean-Claude Juncker, the former prime minister of tiny Luxembourg.The EU’s current internal market commissioner, the Frenchman Michel Barnier, has yet to announce his candidacy despite saying he planned to run, and some officials in Brussels are speculating that he may stay out of the race altogether.
The small crop of contenders isn’t the only symptom of the uncertainty over the new system. The candidates themselves have been hazy on what position they’re actually running for.
“Currently we’re talking about president of the European Commission,” Mr. Dombrovskis said last week when asked whether he would be content with another top job at the commission.
Similarly, when Ms. Merkel’s party, the Christian Democrats, endorsed Mr. Juncker earlier this week, it made no mention of the commission.
Yet, despite the lukewarm response to the idea of an elected president, the process may already be too far along to stop. In Rome and Dublin, national party leaders will take the stage alongside their lead candidates—a photo opportunity that may be hard to erase when the election results come out on May 25.
“In my opinion, the train already left months ago,” says Kostas Sasmatzoglou, the EPP’s campaign manager.
Brian Synnott, his counterpart at the European Socialists, said, “This is really happening.”
They have already scheduled two debates between lead candidates that will be shown live on major national broadcasters and believe big channels in Germany and France may even want to stage their own debates.
“When the media starts writing about them, they suddenly have a back story,” Simon Hix, professor of European and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, says of the candidates.
Whether coverage picks up beyond broadsheet newspapers and political television shows will mostly depend on whether national parties embrace their candidates in their own campaigns. The EPP has only about €1.6 million ($2.2 million) to promote its lead candidate, not enough to run TV spots or newspaper ads. The Socialists, says Mr. Synnott, have even less, although he has high hopes for the party’s grass-roots campaigners.
“As of right now, it’s really hard to predict,” says Mr. Hix. “A lot will depend on what happens in the next 10 weeks.”
Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com
See the article here: Ready or Not, Here Comes the Next Leader in Brussels
OTTAWA—Canada’s Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz is threatening railroads with regulations or legislation to clear the grain-shipping backlog, which he blamed partly on increased shipments of crude oil by rail.
Farmers are having a tough time finding enough railcars to transport grain after a bumper harvest last year. Orders with rail operators to pick up 4.6 million tons of oats, wheat, barley and canola have gone unfilled due a shortage of railcars. The backlog is hurting their income and sending oat-futures prices…
See original here: Canada Minister Threatens Legislation to Clear Grain Backlog
TOKYO—Higher demand ahead of a sales tax increase sharply lifted Japan’s industrial output and consumption in January, offering a boost to what has been a sluggish economic recovery.
Manufacturers are stepping up output of goods, such as autos and electronics, as households rush to buy big-ticket items before the government makes almost everything more expensive in April by raising the sales tax to 8% from the current 5% level.
…
View post: Japan Data Aid Growth Picture
MADRID—Spain has raised €1.3 billion ($1.78 billion) from the sale of a 7.5% stake in Bankia SA, marking a first step in the government’s attempt to recover the money it poured into the lender at the heart of the country’s 2012 banking crisis.
The Spanish government sold its 7.5% stake to institutional investors at a price of €1.51 per share, a…
Follow this link: Spain Moves to Recover Bankia Money
ROME-—Italy’s government has approved a new decree providing financial support to the city of Rome, an official said Friday.
Cabinet undersecretary Graziano Delrio said details would be released later, but that the sum involved would be the same as the €475 million ($650 million) in aid pledged by the previous government’s so-called “Save…
Continued here: Italy Approves Financial Aid for Rome
Feb. 28, 2014 7:38 a.m. ET
Muslims travel past a road barrier next to a security checkpoint in northern Rakhine state, Myanmar, in September. Aid group Doctors Without Borders is reportedly being forced to halt operations in the troubled state. Associated Press
YANGON, Myanmar—Doctors Without Borders is being forced to stop caring for sick people in a Myanmar state torn by sectarian violence, in a move linked to the humanitarian group’s work with the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, reports said Friday.
Myanmar’s presidential spokesman Ye Htut told the Myanmar Freedom newspaper that the group’s contract in Rakhine state wouldn’t be extended because it hired “Bengalis,” the term the government of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar uses for Rohingya, and lacked transparency in its work.
He criticized the group over its handling of patients following an attack in the remote northern part of the state last month. The government has vehemently denied allegations that a Buddhist mob rampaged through a village, killing women and children.
Doctors Without Borders said it treated 22 injured and traumatized Rohingya. The United Nations says more than 40 Rohingya were killed, but the government says only one Buddhist policeman died.
Ye Htut told the 7 Day newspaper that the group’s “presence has more negative impact than benefit” and that its contract wasn’t renewed because the group’s work “could heighten tension and jeopardize peace and tranquillity in the region.”
Attempts to reach Ye Htut for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
The international aid organization, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 and is also known by the French initials MSF, had no immediate comment.
Myanmar, a nation of 60 million, only recently emerged from a half-century of military rule. Since then, ethnic tensions have swept Rakhine state, raising concerns from the U.S. and others that the bloodshed could undermine democratic reforms. Up to 280 people have been killed and tens of thousands more have fled their homes, most of them Rohingya.
Since the violence erupted in June 2012, Doctors Without Borders has worked in 15 camps for the displaced people in Rakhine state. For many of the sickest patients, the organization offers the best and sometimes only care, because traveling outside the camps for treatment in local Buddhist-run hospitals can be dangerous and expensive. The aid group has worked to help smooth the referral process for emergency transport from some camps.
Due to increasing threats and intimidation from a group of Rakhine Buddhists who have been holding near daily protests against Doctors Without Borders, the organization has said its activities have been severely hampered and that it hasn’t received enough government support.
The group has been present for nearly 20 years in Rakhine state, assisting with everything from child and maternal health to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria among all ethnic groups, including Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.
Nationwide, MSF has long filled a gap in Myanmar’s neglected and woefully underfunded health sector. It is the main provider of HIV drugs in the country, supplying more than 30,000 patients with lifesaving medication that would otherwise be unavailable through the government. It also treats more than 3,000 tuberculosis patients, many of whom are also infected with HIV.
The U.S. on Friday identified the humanitarian and human-rights crisis in Rakhine state as one of the most pressing issues facing the country as it tries to implement economic and political reforms.
Authorities have “made no meaningful efforts to help Rohingya and other Muslim minority people displaced by violence to return to their homes and continued to enforce disproportionate restrictions on their movement,” the U.S. State Department said in its annual global reports on human rights.
It said the policy has further entrenched the increasingly permanent segregation of the two communities.
Many of the country’s 1.3 million Rohingya—identified by the U.N. as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world—have been living in the country for generations but the government insists they are here illegally. Almost all have been denied citizenship, rendering them stateless. Systematic and discriminatory policies limit their freedom of movement, access to health care, right to worship and have children.
Read this article: Aid Group Forced From Myanmar State
NEW DELHI—During his short stint as the top elected official of the state of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal used the street-fighting tactics he learned as an anticorruption activist to take on the police force and federal government.
Next in his sights: India’s national political establishment.
The graft-busting protester-turned-politician and…
More: ‘Common Man’ Candidate Seeks to Shake Up India Vote
PARIS—French President François Hollande’s grand plan for an economic turnaround sailed into choppy waters Friday as business leaders and labor unions clashed over how to ensure the measures would boost investment and jobs.
The government has tasked negotiators, who met for the first time Friday, with defining “concrete commitments” for businesses to make on investment and jobs in exchange for the promise of a cut in labor…
Read more here: Businesses, Unions Spar on Hollande Plan
BRUSSELS—The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. military are prepared to wait until Afghan President Hamid Karzai exits office later this year before making decisions on a troop presence, according to a planning process described by officials Thursday.
The scenario differs from a few months ago, when officials said they needed an immediate decision by Mr. Karzai on a security agreement or would be forced to plan for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from the country. Mr. Karzai has refused to sign the…
Follow this link: Coalition Set to Delay Afghan Decision
Hong Kong police issued a third photo of the suspects sought in a knife attack on a Hong Kong journalist earlier this week that has sent shockwaves through the city.
Kevin Lau, the former editor of respected Chinese-language Ming Pao, was slashed with a knife half-a-dozen times Wednesday near a restaurant he was known to regularly frequent. Just weeks before the attack, Mr. Lau had been abruptly dismissed from his Ming Pao post to…
Go here to read the rest: Stabbed Hong Kong Editor Improves
China’s top legislative body designated two new national days aimed at highlighting Japanese aggression during World War II.
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress approved proposals designating Sept. 3 as “War Against Japanese Aggression Victory Day” and Dec. 13 as a day of remembrance for victims of the Nanjing Massacre, according to state media.
Japanese troops captured Nanjing on Dec. 13, 1937,…
Read the original here: China Sets Two New National Days
Updated Feb. 28, 2014 9:42 a.m. ET
Armed men wearing camouflage but bearing no identifying insignia were occupying the perimeter of Simferopol Airport in the pro-Russia region of Crimea, Ukraine. Photo: Getty Images
Armed men occupied two key airports in Ukraine’s restive pro-Russia region of Crimea on Friday, a move that Ukraine’s interior minister called an “armed invasion” by Russia.
Meanwhile, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, whose ouster a week ago set off the chain of events that has led to the instability in Crimea, said in a news conference in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don that he thought Ukraine must remain united and that military action there was “unacceptable.”
“I believe any military actions in this situation are unacceptable. Any. I am not going to ask for military support,” he said.
Stirring already heightened tension between the country and its powerful neighbor, soldiers wearing camouflage and bearing automatic weapons took up positions at Belbek Airport in Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and at the airport in Simferopol, the region’s capital, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
Russia’s fleet denied soldiers from its base were involved in blocking the Sevastopol airport and the spokesman for the country’s Defense Ministry couldn’t immediately be reached. Mr. Avakov said the soldiers’ uniforms bore no identifying marks “but they don’t hide their affiliation with the Russian armed forces.”
Later, Ukraine’s National Security Council chief, Andriy Paruby, said the events in Crimea wasn’t the work of Crimeans themselves.
“This is either small extremist-separatist groups or military personnel from the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” he said.
Update on events in Ukraine. Also, Switzerland’s cabinet Friday ordered a freeze on assets linked to ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych and 19 members of his entourage believed to be held in the Alpine country. Photo: Getty.
Ukraine’s ousted President Viktor Yanukovych speaks at a news conference in Rostov-on-Don, a city in southern Russia about 600 miles from Moscow. AP
Unmarked military vehicles lined the road leading to the Sevastopol airport. Soldiers there refused to identify themselves and stopped anyone from approaching the airport.
In a news conference, Mr. Yanukovych blamed the worsening situation in Crimea on those who overthrew him.
“I believe everything that is now happening in Crimea is an absolutely natural reaction to the bandit coup that has occurred in Kiev,” he said.
He insisted once again that he remains Ukraine’s legitimate leader and that he would continue to fight to be restored to power.
He had no information about the actions by armed men in Crimea and appeared increasingly disconnected from events in his homeland. He said he was “surprised” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has maintained public silence on Ukraine but said he hoped to find out more on Russia’s position when he meets with Mr. Putin “as soon as he has time.”
The autonomous former Russian region of Crimea has become the center of resistance to Ukraine’s new leadership since Mr. Yanukovych’s departure. The airport occupations come a day after gunmen took control of the region’s parliament and executive buildings in Simferopol and replaced the Ukrainian flag with a Russian one.
A Russian incursion into Crimea would ratchet up the pressure on the fledgling government in Ukraine, swept into office after months of protests against official corruption and Russian dominance.
It isn’t clear whether the move constitutes the initial phase of a larger military action or if Russia could be trying to forestall efforts by central Ukrainian authorities to exert control on the autonomous region.
Most of the population there is ethnic Russian and the new local government, installed overnight, has declared its allegiance to the ousted president, making it the only region of Ukraine to officially do so.
“This is an armed invasion and occupation,” Mr. Avakov said in a message posted on his Facebook FB +0.07% Facebook Inc. Cl A U.S.: Nasdaq $68.99 +0.05 +0.07% Feb. 28, 2014 12:02 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 28.21M P/E Ratio 112.81 Market Cap $175.78 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $1,242,230 02/28/14 The 10-Point: Gerard Baker on … 02/27/14 5 Things to Do to Protect Teen… 02/27/14 Nude Webcams and Diet Drugs: t… More quote details and news » FB in Your Value Your Change Short position page. “It is a direct provocation of armed bloodshed in the territory of a sovereign state.”
Ukraine’s president, Oleksandr Turchynov, on Friday called an emergency meeting of the country’s security chiefs to discuss the situation. The country’s parliament later appealed to Russia, the U.S. and the U.K. to uphold a 1994 sovereignty pact in which Ukraine agreed to give up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in return for Russian guarantees to acknowledge Ukrainian territorial integrity.
An armed man patrols at the airport in Simferopol, Crimea, on Friday. Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili
Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya said he had requested an explanation from Russia’s Foreign Ministry but hadn’t received a reply.
The country’s new economy minister said that the territorial integrity of Ukraine will be maintained with military force if necessary, calling the occupation of the airports “absolutely unacceptable.”
“The economy cannot operate in these conditions…so we need to take the situation under control,” Pavlo Sheremeta said in an interview with the BBC.
At Belbek Airport, Mr. Avakov said armed military units connected to Russia’s fleet had blocked access to the terminal and that the airport was now closed. He said Ukrainian soldiers and border guards remained inside the airport and Interior Ministry troops had set up a perimeter, but there had been no conflict.
Russian news agency Interfax cited a spokesperson for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet as saying: “No divisions of the Black Sea Fleet are in the area of Belbek airport and are especially not blocking the airport…Given the volatile situation evolving in the area of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, as well as places where military personnel and their families reside, the base has strengthened its antiterrorism security.”
In Simferopol, Mr. Avakov said that around midnight, 100 people who identified themselves as Cossacks—civilian Russian traditionalists who often work closely with police—tried to break through a fence onto the airport grounds, but were driven away by airport security.
Then, at 1:30 a.m., several trucks carrying more than 100 armed soldiers in unmarked camouflage uniforms arrived and took up positions inside the airport’s restaurant. When told by Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops that they had no right to be there, Mr. Avakov said the soldiers said they had been instructed not to negotiate.
They appeared to be patrolling the grounds of the airport. Avakov said the Interior Ministry was reinforcing its units around the airport and that the situation was becoming “increasingly tense.”
Despite the standoff, he said Simferopol airport was operating normally.
A separatist Crimea could wind up like other Moscow-backed breakaway regions across the former Soviet Union, such as Transnistria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. All are contested territories that Russia’s neighbors accuse the Kremlin of using as levers to pressure them.
On Friday, a bill was submitted before Russia’s parliament calling for easing the process for foreign territory to join Russia and for Ukrainian nationals to gain Russian citizenship.
With gunmen occupying the government buildings in Simferopol, the Crimean regional parliament convened an emergency session on Thursday to appoint Sergei Aksyonov —the leader of the Russian Unity party, which promotes Russian interests—as the new regional prime minister. The legislature also called a May 25 referendum on the region’s status, raising the prospect that Crimea, which until 1954 was part of Russia, might seek greater autonomy or even secede from Ukraine.
On Friday, Mr. Aksyonov said the region was under the “full control,” of local officials and that government services were functioning normally.
“The lives and safety of Crimeans are in no danger,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the city council in Simferopol, Alla Goreva, said that officials were urging residents to limit traffic within the city and that on Thursday, armed men in military uniforms had set up checkpoints on the roads around the peninsula.
“We are trying to keep the peace, but things are fragile,” she said.
Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com
View original post here: Armed Men Occupy Two Airports in Ukraine’s Crimea
Panama and a consortium of European construction firms, which have been locked in a bitter dispute over cost overruns on a multibillion-dollar project to expand the Panama Canal, say they have reached a preliminary deal to end the spat and ensure final completion of the work.
A final agreement still needs to be signed but both sides said this could happen as early as this weekend. Panama says the deal will allow for the expansion of…
Originally posted here: Deal Reached on Panama Canal Expansion
Feb. 26, 2014 12:46 p.m. ET
Paco De Lucía performs on stage during the 2012 London Jazz Festival. Getty Images
12/1/1947 — 2/26/2014
Paco de Lucía merged Spanish folk music with jazz and pop to bring flamenco to a world audience.
The Andalusian guitarist died Mexico at age 66, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
Widely acclaimed as a virtuoso player, Mr. de Lucía put the spotlight on flamenco guitar as solo instrument rather than an accompaniment to the traditional Spanish dance.
He began recording flamenco in his teens. When in the 1970s Mr. de Lucía started to incorporate jazz into his music, it sparked controversy but also garnered new audiences.
Mr. de Lucia performed and made notable jazz recordings with Chick Corea, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin and collaborated with many others.
In the 1970s, Mr. de Lucía and a longtime collaborator, the gypsy singer Camarón de la Isla, helped spark a Spanish “New Flamenco” movement with a series of albums. In 1975, Mr. de Lucía released his breakthrough recording, “Entre dos Aguas,” a rumba-influenced song featuring bongos.
Mr. de Lucía appeared as a masked guitarist in the video of Bryan Adams’s 1995 “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman.”
He was born Francisco Sánchez Gómez in Algeciras in the Spanish province of Cádiz, and grew up playing guitar in the streets and in bars. His father, also a flamenco guitarist with gypsy heritage, took him out of school to focus on practicing.
Mr. de Lucía once said, “I learned the guitar like a child learns to speak.” By the time he was 11, he was performing on the radio.
“What I have tried to do is to have a hand holding on to tradition, and the other scratching, digging in other places trying to find new things that I could bring to flamenco,” he told the Boston Globe in a 1993 interview.
His hometown, Algeciras, announced it would observe a period of official mourning.
Read this article: Flamenco Guitar Master Paco de Lucía Dies in Mexico
Feb. 26, 2014 5:28 p.m. ET
Boston
The immensely gifted Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos is not yet a household name in this country, but word of his talents is spreading. On Sunday, Mr. Kavakos and his frequent accompanist, the Italian pianist Enrico Pace, give the first of three recitals at Carnegie Hall in New York, where they will perform Beethoven’s 10 violin sonatas over three consecutive evenings. The concerts are the culmination of a series of individual recitals they have performed throughout North America in recent seasons. But the Carnegie programs are also cornerstones of the hall’s three-week “Vienna: City of Dreams” festival.
“We violinists don’t have the huge repertoire that pianists have,” Mr. Kavakos, age 46, said last Sunday, shortly before an all-Beethoven recital with Mr. Pace in the New England Conservatory of Music’s gemlike Jordan Hall. He was explaining the centrality of Beethoven’s sonatas, especially when performed in toto—he and Mr. Pace have also recorded them all for Decca. “You have a sequence and an evolution, and the change is absolutely fascinating from beginning to end. Here we have 10 different worlds. They all have the same face— Beethoven’s, yes—but all the different talents and problems of this man are put into the music. Any cycle in its totality is a fantastic journey for both those who play it and those who listen to it, and you approach more humanly the composer after an experience like this.”
Mr. Kavakos, a native of Athens who still makes his home there, is at his most eloquent when playing his 1724 Stradivarius—his tone glowing from within, like red gold, his phrasing molten. But he is also an impassioned, thoughtful speaker, his English honed while studying at Indiana University.
Listeners may find Beethoven’s sonatas irresistible, but their power over violinists is even greater, because in these pieces the role of the instrument began to change—from junior partner, to equal, to superior. “Whichever genre Beethoven touched, he took it to the next step,” Mr. Kavakos said in his dressing room, wearing blue jeans and a fashionable white shirt, his lanky frame complemented by thick, shoulder-length black hair. “The role of the violin grows even from the first sonata, but especially from the fourth—and in the last few, it goes even beyond that. In the ‘Spring’ Sonata, the violin plays the tune before the piano does. That’s a big step, one that practically never happened before.”
And Mr. Kavakos sees yet more here, a window into depths the composer would plumb later in his career. “Beethoven’s personality is really growing in these pieces,” he said. “When you look at the last one, the Op. 96, you can already feel what’s coming with the late quartets a dozen years later. Yet when you hear the first sonata, you cannot imagine that. The last sonata is one in which everything is questioned. There is no hiding in this music. It’s like the quintessence of Greek philosophy—not to give the answer, but rather to pose the right questions. Beethoven’s later music is not the music of answers; it’s music of questions. This is not music you can just enjoy. It provokes the listener. Even today, it still challenges the mind. There’s always an open end, and that’s fantastic.”
Though some Greek classical musicians have achieved international renown—most notably the soprano Maria Callas and the conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos —the country does not regularly produce such stars. Yet Mr. Kavakos comes from a musical family. His father was a violinist, his mother a pianist. And his brother is principal cellist of the opera in Athens. But the family’s musical tradition extends even further back. “My grandfather played folk violin—and also lute,” Mr. Kavakos said. “And my father started in my grandfather’s band as a folk musician. Then at some point, my grandfather said, ‘No, you should study in the conservatory.’ It was there that my father met my mother. Later, he formed a quartet.”
Despite his family history, Mr. Kavakos—who bows with his right hand but is otherwise left-handed—maintains that no professional expectations were placed on him. “I was not really encouraged to be musician,” he said, “but I wanted it. As a small child, my favorite thing was to listen to my father practice. So they saw I had a musical ear, and I received a violin as a Christmas present. It was my favorite toy. I was allowed to play with it for about a year. And then, at 6, I had to get into the serious learning—position and intonation and producing some kind of sound. When you start on a string instrument, producing sound is just hell. The torture starts straight away. But I was very devoted and committed to it. And after I started, my father was quite tough with me, so it was difficult.”
His family’s folk tradition is now nearly lost. Mr. Kavakos never heard his grandfather play. More important, his father abandoned performing folk music once he began pursuing a classical career. “My father entered the conservatory playing the violin on the chest, not on the shoulder,” Mr. Kavakos said. “But then he changed. And after that, my grandfather did not play in front of him anymore. He played only the lute from then on. The way the wrist moves is completely different between folk and classical violin. They are totally different technically. I can only imitate folk style, not truly play it, because my father never showed me how.”
Naturally gregarious, Mr. Kavakos speaks freely—sometimes perhaps too freely—about many topics, including politics and social issues. But his enthusiasm for music and its power to enrich trumps all else: “When the playing is a distillation of enough personal experience and study and research, and when one is honest on stage and doesn’t show off, then the connection with an audience is a great one for an artist. Concerts should be like a communion, like a world church. We live in a time of constant noise, bombarded by ads and useless information, and our brain has to process this whether we want it to or not. Yet music can bring hundreds of people together in silence, just listening. When there is this opportunity to have this communion, then this is different from a nice show. It is like the magnetism between two poles.”
Mr. Mermelstein writes for the Journal on classical music, film and television.
More: Have 1724 Stradivarius, Will Travel
Milan
A new generation of Italian designers is bringing sexy back to Milan Fashion Week.
Up-and-coming fashion houses such as Marco De Vincenzo, Fausto Puglisi, Au Jour Le Jour featured short skirts and plenty of skin in the Milan collections, which wrapped up Monday. They teased up their looks with glittery surfaces and images of…
More here: Young Designers Bring Sexy Spirit to Milan
NASA scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets around distant stars, including four alien worlds roughly the size of Earth that might be the proper temperature for liquid water to form and, therefore, potentially suitable for life.
The discovery, based on two years of data collection on 150,000 or so stars by the agency’s orbiting Kepler space telescope, brings the confirmed count of planets outside our solar…
Read the original: NASA Scientists Discover 715 New Planets
CLASH IN CRIMEA: People clashed with a police officer, left, in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered surprise military exercises for 150,000 troops in Russia, including some based less than 200 miles from Ukraine, where the ouster of the president has left a political vacuum. Andrew Lubimov/Associated Press
Read this article: Photos of the Day: Feb. 26
BEIJING—China’s central bank engineered the recent decline in the country’s currency as part of its efforts to prepare the tightly tethered yuan for wider trading, according to people familiar with the central bank’s thinking.
By guiding the yuan weaker, Beijing intends to thwart short-term speculators betting on a continued rise and to introduce greater two-way volatility into its trading, these people say.
The move is the…
Visit link: China Guides Yuan Lower
LONDON—The leader of Northern Ireland’s devolved administration threatened to quit Wednesday unless the British government launched an inquiry into a form of amnesty that allowed a man suspected of killing four soldiers in an Irish Republican Army bombing in 1982 to walk free.
However, in a sign that First Minister Peter Robinson’s call may be answered, Prime Minister David Cameron said there would be a review of the case.
The…
The rest is here: Northern Ireland Head Threatens to Quit
Drug use is suspected in the deaths of two former U.S. Navy SEALs who worked as security guards on a container ship moored in the Seychelles, police said late Tuesday.
The two men, identified as Jeffrey Reynolds and Mark Kennedy, both 44 years old, were found dead last week in their cabin on the Maersk Alabama, operated by Danish…
Here is the original post: Drug Use Suspected in Container-Ship Deaths
PARIS—President François Hollande’s target of bringing down unemployment drifted further out of sight Wednesday, as figures showed that the number of jobless people kept rising at the start of this year to reach a record high.
The number of Category A job seekers—defined as registered job seekers who are fully unemployed—rose 0.3% in January from December to 3.32 million, the highest level since comparable records began in 1996, Labor…
Here is the original post: French Unemployed at Record High
WASHINGTON-Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. is considering providing Ukraine $1 billion in loan guarantees and additional financial support through a new International Monetary Fund bailout package following the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych last week.
Mr. Kerry’s comments at the State Department Wednesday were the first made by a U.S. official outlining the scope of support the Obama administration may provide…
See the original post: U.S. Weighs Loan Guarantees for Ukraine
FRANKFURT—Germany needs to focus on cost-effective renewable energy sources and start drilling for shale gas to avoid sapping its wealth while cutting carbon emissions, said energy expert Daniel Yergin.
Europe’s largest economy is pursuing one of the world’s most ambitious climate-protection strategies, aiming by midcentury to nearly eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve this it plans to drop all nuclear and most…
More: Yergin: Germany Needs Cost-Effective Renewables
SRINAGAR, India—An Indian official says an army soldier fired indiscriminately at his colleagues at an army camp in the Indian portion of Kashmir, killing five of them before fatally shooting himself.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nitin Nahar Joshi said Thursday that the incident happened Wednesday night in northern Ganderbal region. He didn’t give a reason for the attack.
Indian soldiers posted to Kashmir work under stress because…
Read more here: Indian Soldier Kills Five Colleagues, Self
KUALA LUMPUR—Strengthening economic ties and advancing peace efforts in the southern Philippines are likely to dominate President Benigno Aquino III’s agenda as he began his first official visit to Malaysia on Thursday.
Mr. Aquino, on a two-day trip to the Philippines’ western neighbor, is likely to invite Malaysian investments into Mindanao, the resource-rich southern Philippine region that has been marred by separatist conflict for…
More: Aquino Seeks Malaysian Investment
NEW DELHI—India’s naval chief resigned Wednesday, taking “moral responsibility” for a series of accidents that struck the navy the past year, including a submarine mishap Wednesday that has left two crew members missing.
The resignation and the accidents come as India—the world’s biggest importer of weapons—is working to upgrade its defense capabilities to face a more assertive China, as well as its longtime rival,…
Original post: India’s Naval Chief Resigns After Latest Mishap
TOKYO—The top executive of Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank said he’s making a stronger push to broker real estate deals with Asian investors as Japan’s improving economy has sparked a resurgence in interest in the country’s property market.
Japan’s real-estate industry has benefited from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic and monetary policies, known as Abenomics, as the Bank of Japan has expanded its purchase of Japanese real-estate…
Read the original here: Japan Bank Taps Appetite for Tokyo Real Estate
The junior partner in Cyprus’s governing coalition withdrew its support for the government late Wednesday in protest over peace talks aimed at unifying the Greek and Turkish communities on the divided island.
The move by the center-right Democratic Party, or Diko, was expected and doesn’t directly imperil the government of President Nicos Anastasiades, who was elected to a five-year term in February last year. However, the departure of Diko does deprive the coalition of a majority in Cyprus’s Parliament, while the…
Excerpt from: Cyprus Coalition Partner Withdraws Support for Government
BEIRUT—Hezbollah threatened to retaliate for an Israeli airstrike that damaged one of its bases near Lebanon’s frontier with Syria, raising the specter of a wider conflict along the country’s already-volatile southern and eastern borders.
The Shiite militant and political group said Wednesday that Israeli warplanes struck one of its positions late Monday near the eastern town of Janta in the Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria….
View post: Hezbollah Threatens to Retaliate Israeli Strike
BEIRUT—Syrian government forces ambushed and killed 175 rebels near Damascus, according to state news media reports which alleged the fighters were part of a new offensive to squeeze the capital and pressure the regime to accept a political solution to the war.
There were conflicting reports on the death toll and who was killed Wednesday in a desert area on the fringes of the rebel-held suburb of Eastern Ghouta. Regime forces have…
More: Syrian Forces Kill Dozens in Ambush
KABUL—The top candidates in Afghanistan’s presidential race—with no clear front-runner and the election five weeks away—are holding backroom discussions about forming coalitions in a bid to court the country’s largest ethnic group, people close to the discussions say.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai—who is barred by term limits from running again—will step down after the April 5 election, which if successful would mark the first…
Go here to see the original: Afghan Candidates Discuss Ways to Court Pashtun
Ukraine’s prospective Western benefactors suggested Wednesday that it could take months before a major aid package arrives, even as a sinking currency highlighted fast-eroding confidence in the economy following the ouster of the country’s president.
As Russia announced military exercises of 150,000 troops, some less than 200 miles from Ukraine, banks in Ukraine said they were being deluged with inquiries about switching savings into…
Follow this link: West Deliberates as Ukraine Economy Sinks
ROME—The Eternal City, now teetering on the brink of a Detroit-style bankruptcy, has served Italy’s new prime minister his first major political headache.
On the first day of his premiership, Matteo Renzi had to withdraw a decree, promulgated by his predecessor, that would have helped the city of Rome fill an €816 million ($1.17 billion) budget gap, after filibustering by opposition lawmakers in the Parliament on Wednesday signaled…
See the rest here: City of Rome Risks Bankruptcy After Aid Falls Through
Spain’s regional and central governments may have to refund as much as €13 billion ($17.8 billion) in fuel tax to end-users after the European Union’s highest court said the tax was contrary to European law.
In its ruling Thursday, the European Court of Justice refused to limit the impact of its decision because of concerns about the ruling’s impact on Spain’s fragile financial situation. The court said Spain had been warned…
Link: EU Rules Spain Fuel Tax Unlawful
Lending to the private sector in the euro zone fell again at the start of the year, suggesting that the economic recovery in the region remains weak, data released Thursday by the European Central Bank showed.
On the month, loans to households were flat in January in seasonally adjusted terms after declining by €5 billion ($6.84 billion) in December. Loans to firms declined by €6 billion after an unchanged reading in December….
Read the original here: ECB: Private-Sector Lending Falls Again
BEIJING—Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping presided over the first meeting of a new high-level committee to address Internet security in the country, according to a broadcast on China’s state-run television.
The group, which the broadcast said was set up to address the growing number of cyberattacks and other Internet security issues facing China following revelations by Edward Snowden of the U.S. last year, will work to turn…
Continued here: China’s Xi Presides Over Internet Security Committee
Feb. 27, 2014 4:28 a.m. ET
South Korean Baptist missionary Kim Jung-wook speaks during a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, Feb. 27, 2014. Associated Press
SEOUL—A South Korean missionary held in North Korea appeared on state television Thursday and claimed he worked under Seoul’s orders to topple the North’s regime, the latest apparent stage-managed display of a detained religious worker by Pyongyang.
The Baptist missionary, Kim Jung-wook, said he was arrested in early October while trying to build underground Christian churches in North Korea.
“I wanted to let others know that I’ve done something very wrong,” said Mr. Kim, who appeared to be in good health and wore a suit and tie. Some of the video was shown on South Korean television.
North Korea’s state news agency had reported on the detention of an alleged South Korean spy in November but didn’t name the person or respond to South Korean requests for information.
Mr. Kim said he was caught with Bibles and other religious literature and had received money from South Korea’s intelligence agency.
“I followed instructions from them and arranged North Koreans to act as their spies,” Mr. Kim said, according to the Associated Press, which reported on the event from Pyongyang.
Mr. Kim said he set up and used an underground church in the Chinese border city of Dandong as an intelligence hub for the South’s spy agency. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said it had no relation to Mr. Kim or the alleged underground church.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles North Korea-related issues, urged the North to release Mr. Kim.
“Calling a South Korean citizen engaged in purely religious activities an antistate criminal is hard to fathom,” said spokesman Kim Eui-do.
The televised event makes Mr. Kim the third known missionary currently detained by the North. American missionary Kenneth Bae has been held by North Korea for more than a year and has also appeared in a televised event asking for help. Australian John Short was detained last week while in North Korea, according to his wife. North Korea hasn’t yet displayed Mr. Short or mentioned his detention.
North Korea considers proselytization a threat to state stability and imposes harsh penalties on those it accuses of spreading religion. Mr. Bae was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor last year. Other foreign missionaries have reported torture by their captors in North Korea.
In his appearance, Mr. Kim asked for the North Korean regime’s clemency. Video clips of his alleged North Korean co-conspirators’ confessions were played at the event, according to the AP.
Christian missionaries from the South are known for helping North Koreans flee their country but defectors have said some work inside North Korea.
North Korea’s portrayal of Mr. Kim as an agent of South Korea’s spy agency suggests he could face severe punishment, even though inter-Korean relations have eased recently following high-level dialogue between the two sides.
Foreigners who make confessions while in North Korea usually explain later that they were forced.
Merrill E. Newman, an 85-year-old U.S. citizen who was detained briefly by North Korea late last year said his confession made through the North state media was done only “under some duress.” The Korean War veteran was arrested for allegedly seeking to meet up with former anticommunist fighters inside the country.
Write to Jeyup S. Kwaak at jeyup.kwaak@wsj.com
See the rest here: North Korea Displays Detained Missionary
SEOUL—North Korea on Thursday launched four short-range missiles into the sea off the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula, stirring tensions after a naval incursion earlier this week.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the firings appear to have taken place at 5:42 p.m. at the Kittae-ryong hills in North Korea’s southeastern region but added that it couldn’t provide more details until Friday morning.
Given their range of…
View post: North Korea Launches 4 Missiles
A prolonged dry spell that has left one of the world’s wettest countries thirsting for water has led to a deal resolving a five-year standoff between Malaysia’s wealthiest state, controlled by the opposition, and the federal government.
Water levels in rivers and reservoirs have reached critical lows in Selangor, the country’s most populous state and the one bordering Kuala Lumpur, the largest city. That has squeezed supplies to water treatment plants and forced rationing. At the Sungai Selangor dam, which provides Kuala…
Read the original post: Drought Brings Malaysia Water Clash to End
Italy’s funding costs were near decade lows at a debt auction Thursday, a clear sign of investor confidence in the country after Matteo Renzi’s new coalition government won the backing of the Senate earlier this week, promising radical reform of the Italian economy.
The Italian Treasury sold €9 billion ($12.32 billion) of debt, the maximum amount it had targeted, in 2019- and 2024-dated conventional fixed-rate bonds, or BTPs, and two…
Excerpt from: Italy’s Funding Costs Still Low
SÃO PAULO—Brazil’s economy accelerated in the fourth quarter of the year but growth remains fickle as key parts of the economy continue to sputter.
The growth suggests Latin America’s largest economy was in better shape than had been expected, after preliminary data from the Central Bank of Brazil had indicated that the economy may have flirted…
Go here to read the rest: Brazil’s Economy Picks Up
Updated Feb. 27, 2014 8:02 a.m. ET
Dozens of pro-Russian armed activists took control of the Crimean Parliament this morning, WSJ’s Paul Sonne gives us an update on what it is like on the ground in Simferopol in the south of Ukraine. Photo: AP
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine—Dozens of armed men took control of the parliament and local government offices in the Ukrainian region of Crimea early Thursday, barricading themselves inside and raising a Russian flag above the building.
The commandeering of the building marks a sharp escalation of events in the ethnically Russian-dominated region that has become a flashpoint for a backlash against the pro-Western protesters that drove Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin leader from power on Saturday.
Reporters’ Photos From Ukraine.
Ukraine’s acting interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said on his Facebook page that Ukraine’s military and police had been put on alert.
The occupation comes a day after a tense standoff outside the regional parliament building between thousands of pro-Russian protesters and Crimean Tatars who had largely backed the protest movement that forced President Viktor Yanukovych from power.
Some of the more radical Russian locals in Crimea—a Black Sea peninsula that belonged to Russia until 1954 and remains home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet—are demanding that the autonomous region secede or once again become part of Russia.
Moves to take over the building began after the dueling rallies had ended, when more radical members of the pro-Russian group began building a barricade around the entrance to the parliament using wood and other construction materials from a nearby church that had been undergoing renovations, said Leonid Khazanov, a 57-year-old local artist who said he helped build the blockade.
Pro-Russia activists stand with Crimean and Russian flags in front of the Crimean parliament. European Pressphoto Agency
“We are for Russia,” he said.
During the competing protests, Ukrainian and Crimean flags flew over the building. On Thursday, the Ukrainian flag had been replaced by a Russian one. Signs held up during the previous day’s protest also made up part of the barricade. One read: “Crimea is Russia.”
The chairman of Crimea’s Council of Ministers, Anatoly Mogilyov, said the men then took control of the government offices around 4 a.m. Mr. Khazanov said the group numbered about 50 men, most of whom had military or security backgrounds.
Police officers guard the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol, Ukraine, on Feb. 27. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
“While we cannot say who these people are, negotiations with them will begin,” Mr. Mogilyov said. “Everything is under control. It is a negotiation process.”
He said no one has been harmed and that security personnel were on the scene. Mr. Mogilyov said that all government work had been suspended until the matter is resolved.
“I am deeply convinced that the government of Crimea will settle the situation without consequences for our citizens,” he said.
Witnesses said reporters who attempted to enter the parliament early Thursday were driven back when one of the gunmen threw a flash grenade at them. The building was later surrounded by local police who pushed all bystanders away.
Mr. Mogilyov later broke off talks after the armed men told him they weren’t authorized to negotiate and make demands. He said they gave him their phone numbers so talks could continue later.
On Wednesday, Mr. Avakov said his main task was to prevent the outbreak of armed conflict in Crimea. He said his instructions to all police and security personnel in the region were clear: “Don’t provoke any sort of conflict or armed standoff with civilians at any cost.”
There are worries that an outbreak of violence in the region could lead to Russian military intervention. Russian officials have said there are no plans to do so, but others have said Russia has an obligation to protect its military installations and citizens if need be. On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military preparedness testing for 150,000 Russian soldiers, including some stationed around 200 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com and Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com
Visit link: Armed Men Storm Parliament in Crimea
Feb. 25, 2014 5:17 p.m. ET
‘Cartas del Cielo’ (1996-2013) by Gloria Posada Alfonso Posada
Medellin, Colombia
Colombian artist Jorge Julián Aristizábal was 16 when a group of artists and architects converted a small house in his home city of Medellín into a museum of modern art. That was 1978, and Mr. Julián, who is now 52, says: “I grew up with the museum. Like many other artists of my generation, it accompanied me throughout my entire career. It held very important shows to promote young artists, and without the museum it would have taken me much longer to be where I am right now.”
“Coordenadas”
Museo de Arte Moderno, Medellin
(Through March 16)
In 2009, the Museo de Arte Moderno moved to much larger quarters in a former steel mill, built in 1938, and a dramatically contemporary $12 million extension will open next year. In addition, there are plans for a culture center to house the city orchestra and ballet company.
“We are an expression of the transformation of the city,” says María Mercedes González, 36, who has been museum director since 2012, “This could not have been achieved before, when the city was in such difficulties.”
It certainly was. Along with the rest of Colombia, Medellín had been blighted for decades by the bloody infighting of leftist guerrillas and paramilitary groups and, above all, the tyranny of the drug bandits. Even though Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellín drug cartel, was killed by the army in 1993, the violence continued unabated until the presidency of Álvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010. He imposed a ruthless crackdown on the gangs and brought a semblance of peace to the country.
In 2004, Sergio Fajardo became the mayor of Medellín and, convinced that regeneration of the city was one weapon against the criminals, launched a program that saw the building of an extensive metro system, new libraries and schools, parks and friendly, unthreatening, pedestrianized streets.
He also saw the arts as part of that rebirth.
“Mayor Fajardo had a long-term vision of what he wanted to create,” says Ms. Mercedes. “He resisted lobbies to build a museum of industry or one for cars and instead backed the creation of the new museum by endowing us with the old mill because he felt it was the best way to bring life to what had become an abandoned part of the city’s old industrial heart.”
With 80% of the money raised from private industry and the balance from local government, the building was converted to keep its essential character with its metal roof and girders, exposed brick walls and concrete pillars. The name of its original owners, Talleres Robledo, still appears above the pitched front entrance. Two white cubes were added to each side to provide additional gallery space.
In contrast, the extension, designed by Peruvian architects 51-1, is a more ambitious affair. Its angled galleries linked by open stairways are designed to replicate the tumbling mass of the barrios on Medellín’s steep hillsides.
The immediate benefit of the extension will be the liberation of the museum’s collection of about 2,000 works, which have spent much of their time locked away in storage. The works include drawings, videos, paintings and sculptures by artists who are familiar in Colombia, such as Beatriz González (b. 1938), Enrique Grau (1920-2004) and Carlos Rojas (1933-1997). The biggest single collection is that of the Medellín-born expressionist Débora Arango (1907-2005), who in 1987 donated 233 of her fiercely political works.
As the museum’s current exhibition demonstrates, there has been a change in focus from the overtly political themes that typified works from the second half of the 20th century, when violence was at its peak, to a style that Ms. Mercedes describes as being “both more universal and more personal.” The show, “Coordenadas: Historias de la instalación en Antioquia” (through March 16), displays the work of artists from the state of Antioquia, of which Medellín is the capital, between 1975 and 2010.
“The political reality is still strong for us,” says Ms. Mercedes. “But the emphasis is different. For example, Libia Posada, who is also a doctor, addresses the issue of violence to women, and Carlos Uribe is concerned with poverty and inequality. We also find that most of the work today involves installations.
“The museum plans to use the temporary shows like this one to promote young talent. We have five art faculties in the city, so we have a huge responsibility to educate the public.”
Mr. Julián, whose own works display a versatile range from whimsical sketches to complicated installations, agrees: “I truly believe that museums act as a place in which people find a reaffirmation of the society in which they live. They make a huge impact in the community because common people feel somehow that they have been taken into consideration.”
But he strikes a cautionary note. “I wouldn’t say that museums play a huge role in turning the corner from our violent past. I doubt it. I would say that probably they make people feel more proud of their city but nothing more than that. At least not yet.
“But the museum does show that we are a society which is trying really hard to heal, to be better and—why not?—to put itself at the same level of Bogotá and the major museums in Latin America.”
It is international recognition to which the museum aspires. Last year its organizers were delighted that for the first time in 25 years Colombia’s National Salon of Artists chose Medellín to display the talents of the country’s leading artists. And this April the museum is staging an exhibition by the South African William Kentridge that covers much of his output between 1989 and 2012.
“No one would come before,” says Ms. Mercedes. “The Salon was an international platform for the city, and we were able to capture some attention from foreign institutions, galleries and curators, and the press. It was a recognition of the transformation that has taken place here.”
Mr. Holledge is a freelance writer based in the U.K.
Read the original post: A Colombian Gem
BARCELONA—Jan Koum, WhatsApp Inc.’s chief executive, vowed this week to keep his messaging service simple, despite a $19 billion deal to be swallowed up by Facebook Inc.
Sirgoo Lee, co-chief executive of South Korea’s Kakao Corp., is making no such promises. With 133 million registered users, Mr. Lee is rolling out dozens of services—from basic messaging, mobile gaming, Instagram-style photo sharing, and online shopping—all on a…
More here: A WhatsApp Rival That Makes Money
Feb. 25, 2014 5:11 p.m. ET
LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner says the company’s long-term vision is to create economic opportunity for the 3 billion people in the global workforce. Reuters
LinkedIn Corp. LNKD +5.14% LinkedIn Corp. Cl A U.S.: NYSE $209.84 +10.25 +5.14% Feb. 25, 2014 4:00 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 5.86M AFTER HOURS $208.50 -1.34 -0.64% Feb. 25, 2014 7:52 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 10,947 P/E Ratio 874.33 Market Cap $24.06 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $302,982 02/25/14 Boss Talk: LinkedIn Explains W… 02/06/14 LinkedIn Reports Weak Sales Ou… 02/06/14 LinkedIn’s Stock Sinks on Pote… More quote details and news » LNKD in Your Value Your Change Short position wants to be the place where workers of the world unite, but Wall Street isn’t convinced it’s achieving its goals fast enough.
In the past week, the company has unveiled two initiatives that show Chief Executive Jeff Weiner’s ambition to turn the professional networking site into a global bazaar for finding work, recruiting talent and keeping current with industry news.
LinkedIn said last week that its 277 million users can now publish their own articles on the website, a move that potentially transforms a person’s résumé into a portfolio with essays, work samples, video clips and employment history—and fills LinkedIn’s pages with free content.
And on Monday the company unveiled a Chinese-language version of its site. With the new site, LinkedIn aims to bring major Chinese employers and the country’s 140 million professionals onto its networking platform.
LinkedIn’s latest quarterly results showed steady, if slowing, growth. The new initiatives could help the company stretch the amount of time users spend on the site, a measure where it has lagged behind competitors like Twitter and Facebook. According to comScore, visitors spent an average of 23 minutes on LinkedIn during the month of January, a figure that has been largely flat over the last year.
In an interview, the 44-year-old CEO discussed the company’s latest moves, and his vision for a post-résumé world. Edited excerpts:
WSJ: Who are LinkedIn’s potential users in China?
Mr. Weiner: There’s at least three ways to think about economic opportunity in China. One is Chinese citizens—people living in China looking for economic opportunity.
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A second are multinational [corporations] looking to expand their presence and hire the right talent to do that successfully.
And then you’ve got companies that have had significant success in China that are expanding and are looking to identify and hire the right talent to make that expansion successful…It’s not just about multinationals doing business in China but about successful Chinese companies expanding their presence on a global basis.
WSJ: Hiring and recruiting in China is very different from the U.S.; for example, in China, recruiters and professionals are more open about salaries. How will LinkedIn adapt?
Mr. Weiner: That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about Derek Shen, who is our newly announced president of LinkedIn China…that’s what he’s been asked to do here. He’s very much taken a startup mentality and we’re not just going to be localizing in terms of language…but also thinking about how we can best meet the needs of our members in China.
WSJ: Is there concern on the part of the state that Chinese nationals could use LinkedIn as an organizing tool?
Mr. Weiner: We’ve been able to operate now in China for years. Our vision is well aligned with what the Chinese government is trying to accomplish right now: creating economic opportunity in a thriving middle class.
WSJ: Are there any restrictions for how people on mainland China can access the site?
Mr. Weiner: There may be. We’re expecting requests to filter content. We are strongly in support of freedom of expression and we are opposed to censorship but recognize that in order to obtain a license [in China], there will be requests to filter content and that’s going to be necessary for us to achieve the kind of scale that we’d like.
WSJ: Tell me how that works. Will someone from the Chinese government be in regular contact with you about what can and can’t go on the site?
Mr. Weiner: This is the first time we’re available in a local language in China, and we just recently applied for our license, so we’re going to have a much better understanding in the weeks and months ahead.
WSJ: Is the site hosted in China?
Mr. Weiner: To date, it has not been. For LinkedIn members outside of China, we will not be serving their data from within China. For Chinese members who live within China, we’ll be serving that data [from China].
WSJ: Will a person’s essay or portfolio eclipse the importance of their résumé?
Mr. Weiner: From my own anecdotal experience, when I’m meeting someone for the first time, they’ll say: ‘Hey I read your latest influencer post and thank you so much for sharing,’ or ‘Here’s what I thought.’
In addition to reflecting who you are as a professional, [an article] is a really compelling way to engage with other people and potentially people that you’re going to do business with. It’s not just about a title and a description of your job. It’s about rich media, it’s about a video of that keynote [speech] you did…it’s about the general contractor uploading not a description of the dream house they just completed, but the pictures. It’s about all the expertise and the experience that you’ve gained in that job that you’re willing to share.
WSJ: Updating your LinkedIn profile is often read as a sign that you’re looking for work. Now you’ve got a reason to update it a lot more. Will that raise some eyebrows among employers?
Mr. Weiner: People are updating their profiles when they’re not just looking for jobs. Because of the way the world works today, people seeking to do business with you are going to be doing a search on your name. Your LinkedIn profile is going to show up at or near the top of the search results. That means you get a chance to put your best professional foot forward, completely independently of whether you’re seeking a job.
WSJ: Is all of this new content going to increase the amount of time individuals spend on the site?
Mr. Weiner: We actually generated more posts in the first two hours of the extension of this platform than the team had forecast for that entire day…We’ve continued to see a steady stream of the volume of posts that has exceeded our expectations and the engagement on those posts are doing very well.
WSJ: Advertising accounts for about a quarter of LinkedIn’s revenue. With more and more content, do you expect ad revenue to increase as a percentage of the total?
Mr. Weiner: It’s certainly possible…I think that will be in part driven through engagement and through efforts like the expansion of our publishing platform. We’ve been having some success with sponsored content and specifically sponsored updates.
WSJ: Give us a glimpse into LinkedIn’s long-term future.
Mr. Weiner: With regard to networks, the goal there is to connect all professionals and we’re about 277 million right now…We believe the immediately addressable opportunity is 600 million professionals.
Longer term, the vision is to create economic opportunity for the 3 billion people in the global workforce.
We’re mapping the global economy…a profile for every member of the global workforce; a profile for every company in the world; every job offered by those companies, whether that’s full time or temporary or for-profit or volunteer; every skill required to obtain those jobs; a presence for every university or higher education organization that can help our membership acquire the skills necessary to obtain those jobs.
Write to Reed Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com
See the rest here: LinkedIn Explains Why It’s Looking to China
In today’s pictures, a farmer walks through a field in India, a militia member trains in the Central African Republic, a float parades during a carnival in France, and more.
Excerpt from: Photos of the Day: Feb. 25
Updated Feb. 25, 2014 10:35 p.m. ET
Airports in much of the world get some snow. But in Nordic countries, where winter can last six months and airplane de-icing starts in August, skill at operating through sleet, snow and frost is vital for business and a point of pride.
Airports in much of the world get occasional snow, and North America has taken a beating this season. But in Nordic countries, where winter can last six months and airplane deicing starts in August, skill at operating through sleet, snow and frost is vital for business and is a point of pride.
Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport sets a goal of never succumbing to winter. “That’s also the sport of it,” says Arlanda operations head Lena Rökaas.
Her team spends months conducting off-season drills. But when her squad’s big day came in December, the Swedish manager worried she and her colleagues wouldn’t be able to handle what was coming at them.
Undaunted, her crew headed out in tight formation as if “getting ready for battle,” Ms. Rökaas says. They plowed relentlessly ahead and protected a perfect 50-year record: Arlanda stayed open despite getting socked by more than a foot of snow.
Swedish crews wax nostalgic about a 1968 blizzard when Arlanda was the only Western European airport operating and arriving planes parked on one of its two runways. “It’s a lovely story,” says Arlanda spokeswoman Susanne Rundström.
Snow plows clear the runway at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport, where airport crews take pride in their 50-year record of keeping the airport open despite long and snowy winters. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Nordics call it “snowhow,” a mix of massive machines, finely honed plowing patterns and constant practice.
“We consider ourselves almost world champions,” says Heini Noronen-Juhola, vice president for aviation and safety at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport. Helsinki has developed more than 20 clearing routines, each linked to specific weather conditions. Ms. Noronen-Juhola considers the playbook “our big secret.”
As at other Nordic airports, Helsinki’s 120 maintenance people spend summers choreographing equipment. They usually clean tarmacs with diagonal rows of vehicles, sometimes referred to as a conga line. Each machine shoves snow to the vehicle behind it and ultimately off the edge of the runway. Drivers follow their maneuvers precisely so air controllers, who also know the routines, can time arriving and departing flights down to the minute.
“It’s like dancing,” says Ms. Noronen-Juhola.
In winter, her crews work round-the-clock shifts, like firefighters, and hustle at the first sight of snow. Helsinki airport last closed in 2003, for 30 minutes, because of snow and air-traffic-control problems. Like other Nordic airports, it frequently cuts capacity and cancels some flights.
Another Nordic secret: pushing producers for absurdly powerful equipment. Oslo Airport runs two of the world’s largest self-propelled snowblowers, built by Norwegian airport-equipment maker Øveraasen AS. Only two other of the TV2000 units operate at airports; they, too, are in Norway.
The 2,000-horsepower machines can shoot 10,000 tons of snow an hour more than 150 feet from the tarmac. “It’s like throwing a car every second,” says Henning Bråtebæk, operations director at Oslo Airport.
Helsinki Airport pushed Finnish snow specialist Vammas in the 1990s to develop some of the first machines able to plow, sweep and blow snow simultaneously. Several of these machines can clear a runway in about 10 minutes, a job that a generation ago took half an hour.
Back then, runway clearing required many different machines. Opening scenes of the 1970 disaster film “Airport” show assorted tractor-size vehicles tackling a blizzard, including some that spit fire to melt ice.
Today, all-in-one cleaners are about as long as a locomotive. Most have two mighty engines, one for motion and the other to sweep and blow. They can run for hours without stopping—and Nordics keep going.
“They don’t go for breaks—there’s big pride in that,” says Ms. Rökaas in Stockholm of her drivers, who mainly use Swiss snow equipment from Aebi Schmidt Holding AG. “Someone goes out and gives them coffee.”
The machines can run for so long that producers have to worry about drivers’ comfort. Vammas boasts that its cabs are so cozy, with their heated seats, frost-resistant windows, stereo speakers and vibration-free suspension, that operators are comfortable in T-shirts.
Over the past decade, combination machines have caught on at airports across Canada and the U.S. After a crippling winter storm in 2011, frequently sweltering Dallas-Fort Worth Airport bought 10 Vammas machines for about $1 million each. Vammas was acquired by Fortbrand Services Inc. of Plainview, N.Y., in 2010. It manufactures Vammas machines in Finland and in the U.S.
“They look very cool,” says airport spokesman David Magaña.
When snow was forecast in December, the airport prepared to unleash its yellow monsters. Unfortunately, what arrived was sleet that landed and froze, creating “a hockey rink from here to Tennessee,” says Mr. Magaña. With snowplows offering little help against ice, nearly 90% of flights were canceled for a day.
Still, versatile Nordic machines have been so popular that other big vehicle makers have jumped in. American truck maker Oshkosh Corp. OSK +0.12% Oshkosh Corp. U.S.: NYSE $56.91 +0.07 +0.12% Feb. 25, 2014 4:03 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 652,944 AFTER HOURS $56.91 0.00 0.00% Feb. 25, 2014 5:06 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 10,498 P/E Ratio 15.22 Market Cap $4.78 Billion Dividend Yield 1.05% Rev. per Employee $625,672 01/22/14 Pentagon’s Truck Giveaway Coul… More quote details and news » OSK in Your Value Your Change Short position , based in wintry Wisconsin, touts its new multifunction machine as “a rolling 81,000-pound Swiss Army Knife.” Product manager Les Crook boasts that its joystick control, covered in buttons for each function, “is just like a Game Boy.”
Not to be outdone, Øveraasen last year unveiled a new product line with the curvy lines of a sports car and cabs that rise like a cherry-picker to give drivers greater visibility. “The futuristic design is a real eye-catcher,” says an Øveraasen brochure. Bård Eker, whose industrial-design firm Øveraasen hired for the new line, says his company refrained from making the look too futuristic for fear of scaring off customers.
While big equipment helps get the job done, veterans say quality snow time is critical. Oslo Airport, for example, gets hit on average 60 days each winter. “We get a lot of practice,” says Mr. Bråtebæk.
But this year, as the U.S. has experienced a Nordic winter, Northern Europe has been unusually warm. That worries Ms. Rökaas in Stockholm. “The worst thing for these people is when there is no snow,” she says of drivers, who she fears might get bored and quit.
As for the future, officials are counting on snow and dreaming up new ways to prepare.
“We would love to have a roof on the airport,” says Ms. Noronen-Juhola in Helsinki. “It’s a great idea.”
Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels@wsj.com
Visit link: At Nordic Airports, Defying the Snow is Good Sport
