obama steps up russia sanctions in ukraine crisis - The New York
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VOL. CLXIII ... No. 56,447 © 2014 The New York Times FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 U(DF463D)X+#!?!,!=!& This article is by Mark Landler, Annie Lowrey and Steven Lee Myers. WASHINGTON — President Obama expanded sanctions against Russia on Thursday, blacklisting a bank and several wealthy businessmen with close ties to President Vladimir V. Putin, as the United States strug- gled to forestall further Russian incursions into Ukraine. Among those targeted were Sergei B. Ivanov, the president’s chief of staff; Gennady N. Tim- chenko, a billionaire investor with links to Mr. Putin; and Yuri V. Kovalchuk, whom the adminis- tration described as the personal banker for Russian leaders, in- cluding the president. Mr. Obama also opened the door to more sweeping measures against core parts of the Russian economy, including the oil and natural gas industries, which ac- count for much of Russia’s ex- ports. He said the actions could disrupt the global economy, but might be necessary because of what he described as menacing movements by the Russian mil- itary near eastern and southern Ukraine. Administration officials insist- ed that the new sanctions would have more bite than the initial ones Mr. Obama announced on Monday. But it remains unclear whether they will be enough to put a brake on Mr. Putin, who brushed aside the previous meas- OBAMA STEPS UP RUSSIA SANCTIONS IN UKRAINE CRISIS WEIGHS WIDER ACTIONS Bank and Businessmen With Ties to Putin Are Targeted DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES President Obama said Russia risked international isolation. Continued on Page A12 By THOMAS ERDBRINK TEHRAN — Suffering in an economy dragged down by years of mismanagement and the ef- fects of international sanctions, Iran’s increasingly impoverished middle class voted in huge num- bers last summer for President Hassan Rouhani, who promised to reignite growth by restoring ties with the rest of the world. But more than six months after Mr. Rouhani took office, hopes of a quick economic recovery are fading among ordinary Iranians, business owners and investors, while economists say the govern- ment is running out of cash. Although Mr. Rouhani has managed to stabilize the national currency, halt inflation and forge a temporary nuclear deal that provides some relief from sanc- tions, delivering on his promises of economic growth has proved far more difficult. On taking of- fice, he discovered that the gov- ernment’s finances were in far worse condition than his prede- cessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had ever let on. Now, with a lack of petrodollars and declining tax revenues, Mr. Rouhani has little option but to take steps that in the short-run will only increase the pain for the voters who put him into office. With the start of the Iranian new year, on Friday, the govern- ment will begin phasing out sub- sidies on energy, the start of a process that will send the prices of gasoline and electricity, and other utilities, soaring by nearly 90 percent, economists say. The shortage of funds is also forcing the government to wind down a system of $12 monthly payments to nearly 60 million Iranians, with only the poorest el- igible to reapply. In return, Mr. Rouhani’s gov- ernment can promise only a re- duction in the inflation rate to 25 percent next year, from 42 per- cent last year and 32 percent cur- rently. That was hardly the payoff that Farshid Farshi, a sketch artist, was expecting when he voted for Mr. Rouhani in June. Mr. Farshi and his wife, a hairdresser, gath- In Iran, Hopes Fade for Surge In the Economy Consumers Will Be Hit as Subsidies End Continued on Page A8 By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Bring- ing an end to a closely watched military sexual misconduct trial, a judge on Thursday reprimand- ed Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair for, among other offenses, mis- treating an Army captain who was his mistress, but did not sen- tence him to jail time and allowed him to remain in the military. General Sinclair was also or- dered to forfeit $5,000 a month in pay for four months, but will be allowed to keep his pension and other benefits. The decision by the judge, Col. James L. Pohl, was a sweeping victory for the defense: A plea agreement reached by General Sinclair’s lawyers and military prosecutors this week called for capping prison time at 18 months and did not ensure that he could keep his pension. It was also a stinging defeat for the Army, whose case started coming apart after prosecutors concluded that the captain might have lied at a January pretrial hearing. The case then collapsed last week when Colonel Pohl found that political considera- tions might have improperly in- fluenced the prosecution. As a result of that finding, de- fense lawyers and prosecutors reached an agreement this week in which General Sinclair pleaded guilty to lesser offenses in ex- change for dismissal of much more serious sexual assault Sexual Misconduct Case Ends With No Jail Time for General Continued on Page A19 FORMER NAVY ATHLETE ACQUITTED A former Naval Academy football player was found not guilty of sex- ual assault. Page A19. ELLEN OZIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, with his lawyers after his sentencing, was reprimanded and ordered to forfeit $20,000 in pay. By CARL HULSE and ASHLEY PARKER WASHINGTON — Americans for Prosperity — the group backed by David H. and Charles G. Koch that has been pouring millions of dollars into compet- itive Senate races to the rising alarm of Democrats — was also among the politically active groups on the ground in this month’s special House election on Florida’s Gulf Coast. But its agenda had little to do with the fate of David Jolly, the Republican candidate who won that race. The group’s ground troops — including those who knocked on doors, ran phone banks and reached out through social media to gauge ways to motivate voters — were part of a much greater project, with a prize much larger than a con- gressional seat. Americans for Prosperity turned the Florida contest into its personal electoral laboratory to fine-tune get-out-the-vote tools and messaging for future elec- tions as it pursues its overarch- ing goal of convincing Americans that big government is bad gov- ernment. As the group emerges as a dominant force in the 2014 mid- term elections, spending up to 10 times as much as any major out- side Democratic group so far, of- ficials of the organization say their effort is not confined to hammering away at President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. They are also trying to present the law as a case study in govern- Koch Group, Spending Freely, Hones Attack on Government Continued on Page A3 By ANDREW KEH Construction has barely begun on the 2,250 promised affordable housing units. Just one of the 15 proposed towers has even start- ed to take root. The leafy plazas remain mere sketches on paper. Except for the glittering Bar- clays Center, which opened in 2012, the giant Atlantic Yards project has moved at a glacial pace, to the frustration of many in Brooklyn. But now, those im- patient souls can search for sol- ace in the project’s latest amen- ity: a locked, windowless, cinder- block room tucked near the arena’s first aid office and a sushi stand. The humble space on the arena’s main concourse is called the meditation room, a place ap- parently intended for quiet re- flection amid the din of Nets home games. It is, perhaps, the least the de- velopers could do. With the big- ticket items still unfulfilled, the opening of the meditation room means they have lived up to this small promise, laid out in Section E of Part VII of the lengthy com- munity benefits agreement. Very few Nets fans have heard of the room, and even fewer use it, at least not for meditation. It appears to sometimes double as a storage room; several pieces of luggage sat in the corner on a re- cent night. The room has been mostly ig- nored since its official opening last week, but a few fans have stopped to puzzle over it. “Why would you want to do that when you came here to watch a game?” Roger Kunch, a Nets fan from Long Island, said when informed of the room’s ex- istence. The meditation room counts Arena’s Meditation Room Raises Its Own Existential Questions MICHELLE V. AGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES At Barclays Center’s new addition, one might well ponder: What is the sound of an empty room? Continued on Page B14 This article is by Jad Moua- wad, Christopher Drew and Nico- la Clark. Airlines routinely use satellites to provide Wi-Fi for passengers. But for years they have failed to use a similar technology for a far more basic task: tracking planes and their black-box flight record- ers. Long before Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8, the global airline industry had so- phisticated tools in hand to follow planes in real time and stream data from their flight recorders. But for a variety of reasons, mostly involving cost and how in- frequently planes crash, neither the airlines nor their regulators adopted them. One of the haunting questions about Flight 370 — how authori- ties could lose track of a Boeing 777 jetliner in age when an iPhone can be located in mo- ments — persisted on Thursday as Australian officials said satel- lite cameras had spotted objects floating in the southern Indian Ocean that might be parts of the missing airliner. [Page A10.] Authorities counseled caution about the sighting, however, and the first Royal Australian Air Force plane to fly over the esti- mated location of the objects re- turned to base without spotting anything that fit the description — a reminder of how baffling the hunt for the missing jetliner has been. The idea of tracking airplanes ‘The Technology Is Out There,’ But Satellites Don’t Track Jets Continued on Page A10 The current leaders of the major parties have neither the clout nor the image of the political kingmaker, a role personi- fied by Robert S. Strauss, who died this week. Washington memo. PAGE A17 NATIONAL A14-19 A Power Shift in Party Politics The chairman of Bloomberg said that the company should have reconsidered some news articles about China because they jeopardized the huge sales poten- tial for its information products in the Chinese market. PAGE B1 BUSINESS DAY B1-8 Bloomberg on China Coverage No. 11 Dayton and No. 12 Harvard scored upsets to advance in the N.C.A.A. men’s tournament. PAGE B9 SPORTSFRIDAY B9-14 Underdogs Have Their Day David Brooks PAGE A23 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23 The massacre of 500 detainees chal- lenges an official account. PAGE A4 Death and Doubt in Nigeria Four gunmen opened fire at a ho- tel in Kabul popu- lar with foreigners and prominent Af- ghans, wounding two people before they were killed by Afghan forces, right. PAGE A9 INTERNATIONAL A4-13 Gunmen Attack Afghan Hotel A Brooklyn Mu- seum exhibition fo- cuses on art that emerged from the push in the 1960s for social change. PAGE C21 WEEKEND C1-28 Civil Rights, And the Arts As independent counsel, he exposed the lawbreaking in the Reagan administra- tion that gave rise to the Iran-contra scandal. He was 102. PAGE B16 OBITUARIES B15-16 Lawrence E. Walsh Is Dead Airbnb, a start-up specializing in short- term housing, may be valued at more than $10 billion as it seeks to raise new money from investors. PAGE B1 High Price for a Web Start-Up Time Warner Cable’s chief is in line for a lucrative severance deal. PAGE B1 6 Weeks of Work, $80 Million The architects for the new Sandy Hook Elementary School made sure residents had a role in the process. PAGE A20 NEW YORK A20-21 In Newtown, a Delicate Design New regulations on sales of ivory, to protect elephants, have caused frustra- tion across several industries. PAGE A15 Limits on Ivory Sales
Transcript of obama steps up russia sanctions in ukraine crisis - The New York
VOL. CLXIII . . . No. 56,447 © 2014 The New York Times FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014
U(DF463D)X+#!?!,!=!&
This article is by Mark Landler,Annie Lowrey and Steven LeeMyers.
WASHINGTON — PresidentObama expanded sanctionsagainst Russia on Thursday,blacklisting a bank and severalwealthy businessmen with closeties to President Vladimir V.Putin, as the United States strug-gled to forestall further Russianincursions into Ukraine.
Among those targeted wereSergei B. Ivanov, the president’schief of staff; Gennady N. Tim-chenko, a billionaire investorwith links to Mr. Putin; and YuriV. Kovalchuk, whom the adminis-tration described as the personalbanker for Russian leaders, in-cluding the president.
Mr. Obama also opened thedoor to more sweeping measuresagainst core parts of the Russianeconomy, including the oil andnatural gas industries, which ac-count for much of Russia’s ex-ports. He said the actions coulddisrupt the global economy, butmight be necessary because ofwhat he described as menacingmovements by the Russian mil-itary near eastern and southernUkraine.
Administration officials insist-ed that the new sanctions wouldhave more bite than the initialones Mr. Obama announced onMonday. But it remains unclearwhether they will be enough toput a brake on Mr. Putin, whobrushed aside the previous meas-
OBAMA STEPS UP RUSSIA SANCTIONSIN UKRAINE CRISIS
WEIGHS WIDER ACTIONS
Bank and Businessmen
With Ties to Putin
Are Targeted
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
President Obama said Russiarisked international isolation.
Continued on Page A12
By THOMAS ERDBRINK
TEHRAN — Suffering in aneconomy dragged down by yearsof mismanagement and the ef-fects of international sanctions,Iran’s increasingly impoverishedmiddle class voted in huge num-bers last summer for PresidentHassan Rouhani, who promisedto reignite growth by restoringties with the rest of the world.
But more than six months afterMr. Rouhani took office, hopes ofa quick economic recovery arefading among ordinary Iranians,business owners and investors,while economists say the govern-ment is running out of cash.
Although Mr. Rouhani hasmanaged to stabilize the nationalcurrency, halt inflation and forgea temporary nuclear deal thatprovides some relief from sanc-tions, delivering on his promisesof economic growth has provedfar more difficult. On taking of-fice, he discovered that the gov-ernment’s finances were in farworse condition than his prede-cessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,had ever let on. Now, with a lackof petrodollars and declining taxrevenues, Mr. Rouhani has littleoption but to take steps that inthe short-run will only increasethe pain for the voters who puthim into office.
With the start of the Iraniannew year, on Friday, the govern-ment will begin phasing out sub-sidies on energy, the start of aprocess that will send the pricesof gasoline and electricity, andother utilities, soaring by nearly90 percent, economists say.
The shortage of funds is alsoforcing the government to winddown a system of $12 monthlypayments to nearly 60 millionIranians, with only the poorest el-igible to reapply.
In return, Mr. Rouhani’s gov-ernment can promise only a re-duction in the inflation rate to 25percent next year, from 42 per-cent last year and 32 percent cur-rently.
That was hardly the payoff thatFarshid Farshi, a sketch artist,was expecting when he voted forMr. Rouhani in June. Mr. Farshiand his wife, a hairdresser, gath-
In Iran, HopesFade for SurgeIn the Economy
Consumers Will Be Hit
as Subsidies End
Continued on Page A8
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Bring-ing an end to a closely watchedmilitary sexual misconduct trial,a judge on Thursday reprimand-ed Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclairfor, among other offenses, mis-treating an Army captain whowas his mistress, but did not sen-tence him to jail time and allowedhim to remain in the military.
General Sinclair was also or-dered to forfeit $5,000 a month inpay for four months, but will beallowed to keep his pension andother benefits.
The decision by the judge, Col.James L. Pohl, was a sweepingvictory for the defense: A pleaagreement reached by GeneralSinclair’s lawyers and militaryprosecutors this week called forcapping prison time at 18 monthsand did not ensure that he could
keep his pension.It was also a stinging defeat for
the Army, whose case startedcoming apart after prosecutorsconcluded that the captain mighthave lied at a January pretrialhearing. The case then collapsedlast week when Colonel Pohlfound that political considera-tions might have improperly in-fluenced the prosecution.
As a result of that finding, de-fense lawyers and prosecutorsreached an agreement this weekin which General Sinclair pleadedguilty to lesser offenses in ex-change for dismissal of muchmore serious sexual assault
Sexual Misconduct Case Ends With No Jail Time for General
Continued on Page A19
FORMER NAVY ATHLETE ACQUITTED
A former Naval Academy footballplayer was found not guilty of sex-ual assault. Page A19.
ELLEN OZIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, with his lawyers after his sentencing, was reprimanded and ordered to forfeit $20,000 in pay.
By CARL HULSE and ASHLEY PARKER
WASHINGTON — Americansfor Prosperity — the groupbacked by David H. and CharlesG. Koch that has been pouringmillions of dollars into compet-itive Senate races to the risingalarm of Democrats — was alsoamong the politically activegroups on the ground in thismonth’s special House electionon Florida’s Gulf Coast.
But its agenda had little to dowith the fate of David Jolly, theRepublican candidate who wonthat race. The group’s groundtroops — including those whoknocked on doors, ran phonebanks and reached out throughsocial media to gauge ways tomotivate voters — were part of amuch greater project, with aprize much larger than a con-
gressional seat.Americans for Prosperity
turned the Florida contest into itspersonal electoral laboratory tofine-tune get-out-the-vote toolsand messaging for future elec-tions as it pursues its overarch-ing goal of convincing Americansthat big government is bad gov-ernment.
As the group emerges as adominant force in the 2014 mid-term elections, spending up to 10times as much as any major out-side Democratic group so far, of-ficials of the organization saytheir effort is not confined tohammering away at PresidentObama’s Affordable Care Act.They are also trying to presentthe law as a case study in govern-
Koch Group, Spending Freely,
Hones Attack on Government
Continued on Page A3
By ANDREW KEH
Construction has barely begunon the 2,250 promised affordablehousing units. Just one of the 15proposed towers has even start-ed to take root. The leafy plazasremain mere sketches on paper.
Except for the glittering Bar-clays Center, which opened in2012, the giant Atlantic Yardsproject has moved at a glacialpace, to the frustration of manyin Brooklyn. But now, those im-patient souls can search for sol-ace in the project’s latest amen-ity: a locked, windowless, cinder-block room tucked near thearena’s first aid office and a sushistand.
The humble space on thearena’s main concourse is calledthe meditation room, a place ap-parently intended for quiet re-flection amid the din of Netshome games.
It is, perhaps, the least the de-velopers could do. With the big-ticket items still unfulfilled, theopening of the meditation roommeans they have lived up to thissmall promise, laid out in Section
E of Part VII of the lengthy com-munity benefits agreement.
Very few Nets fans have heardof the room, and even fewer useit, at least not for meditation. Itappears to sometimes double as astorage room; several pieces of
luggage sat in the corner on a re-cent night.
The room has been mostly ig-nored since its official openinglast week, but a few fans havestopped to puzzle over it.
“Why would you want to do
that when you came here towatch a game?” Roger Kunch, aNets fan from Long Island, saidwhen informed of the room’s ex-istence.
The meditation room counts
Arena’s Meditation Room Raises Its Own Existential Questions
MICHELLE V. AGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
At Barclays Center’s new addition, one might well ponder: What is the sound of an empty room?
Continued on Page B14
This article is by Jad Moua-wad, Christopher Drew and Nico-la Clark.
Airlines routinely use satellitesto provide Wi-Fi for passengers.But for years they have failed touse a similar technology for a farmore basic task: tracking planesand their black-box flight record-ers.
Long before Malaysia AirlinesFlight 370 vanished on March 8,the global airline industry had so-phisticated tools in hand to followplanes in real time and streamdata from their flight recorders.But for a variety of reasons,mostly involving cost and how in-frequently planes crash, neitherthe airlines nor their regulatorsadopted them.
One of the haunting questions
about Flight 370 — how authori-ties could lose track of a Boeing777 jetliner in age when aniPhone can be located in mo-ments — persisted on Thursdayas Australian officials said satel-lite cameras had spotted objectsfloating in the southern IndianOcean that might be parts of themissing airliner. [Page A10.]
Authorities counseled cautionabout the sighting, however, andthe first Royal Australian AirForce plane to fly over the esti-mated location of the objects re-turned to base without spottinganything that fit the description— a reminder of how baffling thehunt for the missing jetliner hasbeen.
The idea of tracking airplanes
‘The Technology Is Out There,’
But Satellites Don’t Track Jets
Continued on Page A10
The current leaders of the major partieshave neither the clout nor the image ofthe political kingmaker, a role personi-fied by Robert S. Strauss, who died thisweek. Washington memo. PAGE A17
NATIONAL A14-19
A Power Shift in Party PoliticsThe chairman of Bloomberg said thatthe company should have reconsideredsome news articles about China becausethey jeopardized the huge sales poten-tial for its information products in theChinese market. PAGE B1
BUSINESS DAY B1-8
Bloomberg on China CoverageNo. 11 Dayton and No. 12 Harvardscored upsets to advance in theN.C.A.A. men’s tournament. PAGE B9
SPORTSFRIDAY B9-14
Underdogs Have Their Day
David Brooks PAGE A23
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23The massacre of 500 detainees chal-lenges an official account. PAGE A4
Death and Doubt in Nigeria
Four gunmenopened fire at a ho-tel in Kabul popu-lar with foreignersand prominent Af-ghans, woundingtwo people beforethey were killed byAfghan forces,right. PAGE A9
INTERNATIONAL A4-13
Gunmen Attack Afghan Hotel
A Brooklyn Mu-seum exhibition fo-cuses on art thatemerged from thepush in the 1960sfor social change.
PAGE C21
WEEKEND C1-28
Civil Rights,And the Arts
As independent counsel, he exposed thelawbreaking in the Reagan administra-tion that gave rise to the Iran-contrascandal. He was 102. PAGE B16
OBITUARIES B15-16
Lawrence E. Walsh Is Dead
Airbnb, a start-up specializing in short-term housing, may be valued at morethan $10 billion as it seeks to raise newmoney from investors. PAGE B1
High Price for a Web Start-Up
Time Warner Cable’s chief is in line for alucrative severance deal. PAGE B1
6 Weeks of Work, $80 Million
The architects for the new Sandy HookElementary School made sure residentshad a role in the process. PAGE A20
NEW YORK A20-21
In Newtown, a Delicate Design
New regulations on sales of ivory, toprotect elephants, have caused frustra-tion across several industries. PAGE A15
Limits on Ivory Sales
C M Y K Yxxx,2014-03-21,A,001,Bs-BK,E2
