China's Rich Youth Spark Bitter Divide - WSJ.com

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By SHAI OSTER

HANGZHOU, China -- When a wealthy street-car racer knocked down and killed a young man from modest origins last May, it ignited the flames of class conflict in this prosperous city in eastern China.

Mr. Hu appeared much heavier at his sentencing than in photos from the accident scene, and also seemed to be missing a distinctive scar on his arm, prompting rumors that Mr. Hu's family had paid for a stand-in.

The 20-year-old driver, Hu Bin, grew up the pampered son of a merchant family rich enough to own multiple cars and apartments along Hangzhou's tree-lined boulevards. The victim, Tan Zhuo, a 25-year-old telecom engineer, came from a gritty rural town where his laid-off parents struggled to pay tuition to fulfill their son's dream of a college education in Hangzhou, one of China's richest cities.

"Rich Boys in Luxurious Racing Cars Turn City Roads into F1 Race Track," blared the headline of a local tabloid a day after the fatal accident, kicking off a wave of public outrage. Photos of the driver in his flashy red Mitsubishi racer near the crumpled body of the victim went viral on the Internet, transforming just another of China's 70,000 annual traffic fatalities into a parable about class injustice that resonated among millions of Chinese.

On the eve of the 60th anniversary Oct. 1 of Communist rule that was supposed to create a classless utopia, China is instead gripped with a renewed sense of anger toward a new elite. The Mandarin phrase, "fen fu," or to hate the rich, has been coined in recent months to capture the public's bitter resentment.

Three decades ago, then-leader Deng Xiaoping launched China's economic miracle under the slogan, "to get rich is glorious." He added a caveat, however: "Let some people get rich first." They did -- but not everyone else followed.

China hasn't recreated its old class system, and even in Mao Zedong's day people resented abusers of power. Mr. Deng's reforms enabled hundreds of millions of people to lift themselves out of poverty. Yet today's richer China is also a more divided China. It is split between poor rural areas and richer cities; between developed coastal regions and poorer inland areas; between the educated and the uneducated. And these growing gaps, widely believed to be at the root of social unrest, are only part of the problem.

Incidents like the traffic accident in Hangzhou expose an equally profound grievance: a feeling that the newly rich, by virtue of their money and political connections, are solidifying their status in Chinese society and blocking the aspirations of those less well off.

With information now flowing instantaneously to more than 300 million Internet users, the foibles of the rich are quick fodder for an angry public. "There is more communication of all kinds," says David Goodman, author of "The New Rich in China." "Alongside the politically powerful, you now have the wealthy, and they're also politically powerful. There's a lot of suspicion against them."

Increasingly, public animosity is focusing on the sons and daughters of the generation of workers who launched Deng's economic reforms, unleashing the country's pent-up capitalist energy. Mr. Hu, the drag-car racer, has become a symbol of the "fu er dai," or rich second-generation. Now mostly in their 20s, they grew up as "little emperors" and are perceived to live in a protected cocoon, subject to different standards of justice than others.

On May 7 at around 8 p.m., Mr. Hu's souped-up Mitsubishi plowed into Mr. Tan on a zebra-striped pedestrian crosswalk near Hangzhou's scenic lake. The impact sent Mr. Tan's body flying some 20 yards. Bystanders and reporters quickly converged on the scene, watching as a half dozen of Mr. Hu's friends gathered to console him. While Mr. Hu sat in the car with his face buried in his hands, his friends smoked cigarettes and joked around as police and ambulance crews arrived.

Photos soon circulated online, sparking a furor of angry comments by Chinese readers outraged at the callous behavior depicted in the pictures.

Under public pressure, Hangzhou police held a news conference the following day, where they estimated the speed of the car was only about 43 miles per hour. They denied allegations that Mr. Hu's car had been illegally modified to give the vehicle more zip -- despite eyewitness accounts that he was traveling at high speed, which would trigger tougher criminal penalties.

The Chinese public smelled a cover-up: Internet blogs buzzed with angry posts. "See how rich parents are going to resolve this for their son!" wrote one.

Some 14,000 comments were left on one blog post alone, analyzing the speed and arc of Mr. Tan's body after he was hit by the car. Others suggested Mr. Hu's family was using connections to lighten the crime. In an unusually brazen challenge, Zhejiang University students issued an open letter to the mayor, demanding a new investigation into their alum's death.

Later that night, hundreds of students and residents gathered for a candlelight vigil at the scene of the accident, where they lay wreaths and lighted candles along the sidewalk. The next morning, police detained the young driver pending further investigation.

On May 11, the day of Mr. Tan's funeral, more than 1,000 mourners lined the streets in a rare public display of solidarity as his hearse passed by. After the outpouring of grief, that evening local police issued a statement promising to thoroughly investigate the accident.

Then, a week after the accident, local police held a second news conference. This time, police admitted their initial speed estimate was wrong, doubled the number and acknowledged that the car engine was retrofitted. Those admissions only further raised suspicions that the driver's parents were using connections to get their son off the hook.

In the face of public indignation, Mr. Hu's family agreed to give Mr. Tan's parents a financial settlement of about $165,000.

Still, public fury was reignited in mid-July after a court sentenced Mr. Hu to three years in prison, widely considered a lenient punishment. In an unusual twist, Mr. Hu appeared much heavier at his sentencing than in photos from the accident scene, prompting Internet rumors that Mr. Hu's family had paid for a stand-in. Chinese authorities have strongly denied this.

The victim's father, Tan Yue, has been outspoken in his criticism of the court's sentencing. He is among those who doubt whether the convicted felon now serving jail time is really Mr. Hu. Mr. Hu's family, through an attorney, declined to comment.

A tall thin man with his son's eyes, Tan Yue says that the accident has drawn so much attention because of the government's mishandling of the investigation. Hangzhou citizens were "angry at these rich second-generation kids drag-racing on their streets," he says. "The government couldn't guarantee their safety to even cross the street. Then, trying to control the media made people angrier."

Before his death, Tan Zhuo was a modern Chinese success story, an example of how someone from a relatively poor family can rise up through hard work and study to win a coveted white-collar job.

He was born in a small town an hour's drive through bamboo forests from Changsha, the capital of central Hunan province, and grew up in a simple three-story cement home built by his parents. His father worked as a manager at a state-run transportation and logistics firm and his mother with a state-run caterer. Both were laid off several years ago and had to scramble to find work doing everything from selling food and underwear to working at a school doing odd jobs.

Tan Zhuo was a promising student, winning third place in a province-level math Olympiad when he was in middle school.

"You have to rely on yourself because I don't have the connections or resources to help you," Tan Yue recalled telling his son, standing in Tan Zhuo's bedroom where his college graduation picture hangs over a wooden bed. "But in this society you don't need money or social standing to make it. You can succeed on your own."

At Zhejiang University, Tan Zhuo majored in telecommunications. His family struggled to pay the annual $1,464 fees for tuition, food and board. But when he graduated in 2006, the family's financial problems melted away. He was recruited by ECI Telecom Ltd., an Israeli telecom firm with research and development facilities in the city, earning about $14,640, or seven times the average annual income in China. He sent money home and planned to buy a house for his parents.

Mr. Hu's life was a marked contrast. He grew up near Hangzhou's West Lake, which is ringed by designer stores, restaurants serving expensive seafood and car showrooms -- including two Ferrari showrooms. His parents were merchants who owned a clothing business. At the time of the accident, Mr. Hu was a sophomore at a teachers college in the city where he majored in physical education.

Apparently, his main love was cars. He mixed with a group of young kids who raced illegally modified sports cars, the kind known as tuners in the U.S., according to local authorities. Mr. Hu's photograph still hangs at the F2 International Racing Club, where he won first place in a go-kart race last winter. His family bought him a red second-hand Mitsubishi sports car, which was covered in car club decals.

At the Hangzhou Motoring Club, a popular hangout for the drag-racing crowd decorated with tires and chrome-plated wheel rims, owner Wang Ke recalls fixing the clutch on Mr. Hu's car. His customers are typically the sons of private business owners and overseas Chinese who have picked up a fascination with refitted cars.

Still, Mr. Wang thinks that the media hasn't been fair to Mr. Hu. "If Hu Bin is rich, then lots of people are rich," he says.

In China, class is a concept loaded with decades of bloody conflict and political turmoil. China's Communist Party rose to power 60 years ago promising a classless workers' utopia.

In the early years after the Communists' rise to power in 1949, as many as a million landlords were killed in what would be the first of many class struggles led by Chairman Mao Zedong as he tried to purge China of its capitalists. The campaigns peaked in the 1966 to 1976 Cultural Revolution when anyone with a wealthy background could be denounced as a counterrevolutionary, bringing China to the brink of civil war.

These days, government propaganda campaigns call for the construction of a "Harmonious Society." Billions of dollars are being promised for health care and education reform in an effort to level the playing field, but criticism of rising corruption and cronyism has proved harder to stamp out.

So far, China's crime rate is lower than in other rapidly developing countries such as Brazil. And the country is more stable than India. But if left unattended, some Chinese commentators fear, the mounting sense of powerlessness could change from focused grievances against corrupt local officials and the nouveau riche to broader complaints about the entire regime.

China's legal system is often part of the problem. Before handing down a sentence, judges in criminal cases typically take into account how much compensation is paid to victims and their families, creating the impression that the rich can literally get away with murder.

In southwestern China's Chongqing municipality in August, a hotel manager accused of beating to death a mother whose young child had picked a plastic flower from the lobby paid 285,000 yuan, or $41,720, to the dead woman's family. In widely reported comments, the unrepentant manager allegedly told a witness after the beating, "at the worst, I would spend two million yuan to buy this person's life." He awaits trial and could face jail time, according to local police.

In Hangzhou, authorities promised to crack down on drag-racing, and even painted big hearts on city crosswalks to encourage safer driving. But just a few weeks after Mr. Hu was sentenced, on a crosswalk not far from the accident scene, a young migrant working as a waitress was struck and killed by a 28-year-old driver in a Porsche SUV.

"Why do you think the children of rich parents act this way?" asked Dai Wangchao, the victim's 21-year-old boyfriend. "Because they think they won't be punished." He added: "If it was the other way around, I would have to spend a long time in prison."

After Mr. Hu's trial, Tan Yue returned to his hometown, carrying a black suitcase containing a handful of his son's academic awards, his driver's license, Communist Party membership card and a few photos. Every time they open the suitcase, both parents start to cry, even holding on to a lint remover, still in its paper box. In line with tradition, Tan Yue was planning on burning these objects, but now thinks he wants to keep them to build a memorial to his son.

He plans to use the compensation money to move into a new home and buy health insurance for himself and his wife. "Everything was that son. Now, we don't have anything," Mr. Tan says.

—Jeremy Chan and Sue Feng contributed to this article.

Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com

Museum Review - Museum of Chinese in America Reopens, Designed by Maya Lin - NYTimes.com

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By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

“Iron Chink” proclaims the raised words on a cast-iron sign, once mounted on a fish-processing machine. In the early 1900s in Seattle the machine had been invented to replace Chinese laborers, who presumably were constructed of weaker mettle.

Now, of course, its casual slur inspires some shock. It is a companion piece to another object, a cap-gun toy from the 1880s, when the “Chinese Question” (as objections to Chinese immigration was called) turned violent: pull the trigger, and a suited gentleman kicks a braided Chinese man in the rear, setting off the miniature explosion.

As you walk through the Museum of Chinese in America, which is reopening in Chinatown on Tuesday in a warm and inviting new space designed by Maya Lin, you can’t see these objects and not be aware of the kinds of challenges these immigrants once faced. Such artifacts also reflect the expanded ambitions of the museum itself: it began as a community institution almost 30 years ago, dedicated to preserving and commemorating the history of Chinatown, but with this $8.1 million transformation it now has a 14,000-square-foot space and national ambitions.

Its goal is to explore the experience of Chinese immigration and the evolution of Chinese communities in the United States, to account for a people’s struggles and triumphs and honor their artistic achievements. One of its galleries is now showing works of four Chinese-American artists.

With these ambitions the institution is joining an ever-lengthening roster of American museums of identity. All of them — whether they deal with Latino-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Nordic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Arab-Americans or African-Americans — are celebrations of hyphenated existence.

And the strange thing is how similar the arcs of their stories are: they recount how after a long period of suffering, prejudice and hatred, a group has carved a distinctive place in the history of the United States, its once scorned identity now a source of strength. Many of these museums also serve as anchors for the community and as educational centers, recounting political morality tales and honoring a shared history. That is certainly the case here as well.

Ms. Lin designed the institution’s main exhibition space to surround a bare-bricked, sky-lighted central area between the two connected buildings that constitute the museum. The central atrium, with a staircase leading down to a floor of offices and classrooms, invokes both a traditional Chinese courtyard and a rough-edged shared urban habitat that recalls yards or alleys over which neighbors shared stories, sometimes leaning out of windows.

The main gallery rooms even have windows looking out over the bricked space, only here each window also functions as a screen on which videos and photographs are projected as autobiographical histories are recounted. The galleries (with exhibition design by Matter Architectural Practice and mgmt. design) are intimate and make it seem as if you were passing through the rooms of a modest home. They lead chronologically from the 19th-century history of China’s encounters with the West to lives of contemporary Chinese-Americans told on a wall of video screens.

This core exhibition, “With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America,” was created by the historian John Kuo Wei Tchen, a co-founder of the museum, along with Cynthia Ai-fen Lee. It depends less on artifacts like the cap gun or the display of irons used by once-familiar Chinese laundry establishments than on the arc of the narrative.

One side of some galleries tells of struggle and hardship, showing images of the riots that led to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, for example, in which unskilled Chinese immigrants were barred. Also on display are the crib sheets an aspiring immigrant once studied to convince officials at Angel Island (the San Francisco counterpart to Ellis Island) that he was more than a “paper son” whose false documents affirmed a connection to someone already in America.

The most fascinating galleries are compressed displays of how the image of Chinese-Americans was shaped into stereotypes in early 20th-century culture, ranging from Fu Manchu’s villainy to chop suey’s homogenized exoticism. The position of Chinese-Americans became still more complicated when China was an ally during World War II, a Communist enemy in the 1950s and a warily watched trading partner and political rival in the 1980s and ’90s.

The other side of the main galleries contains illuminated panels with brief biographies of individuals who transcended all these obstacles. There is Dr. Faith Sai So Leong (born 1880), for example, who became the first female Chinese dentist in America; Du Lee (born 1879), who organized the Chinese American Citizens Alliance in 1915 “to combat anti-Chinese sentiments”; and Yan Phou Lee (born 1861), who became the first Chinese student elected to Phi Beta Kappa and gave the commencement address when he graduated from Yale in 1887. And, of course, more contemporary Chinese-Americans are here as well, including Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the architect I. M. Pei and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

But despite the museum’s considerable achievement it also harbors a tension that reveals some of the problems with the identity archetype. Like some other identity museums celebrating ethnic groups and communities, this one can too easily slip into the “we,” making it seem as if it were an internal account rather than a public statement. Each gallery includes a poem by Mr. Tchen and a narrative highlighting identity issues.

“Years of floods and droughts push our sons and fathers to leave ancient homes,” we are told of the 19th-century emigrations. “We find work and opportunity, but we also find many enslaved and dispossessed,” we read. “Writers like Jack London call us ‘heathens’ and say we can never become real Americans,” another display says.

And as a kind of haunting theme there is the question: “So are ‘we’ to be included in their sacred ‘We the People’? Or not?”

This approach tends to accent the hardened formula of the identity narrative (and overshadows the museum’s ability to explore more fully the nature of Chinese culture and immigration). Typically, in this account, triumph is reserved for the very end, with the 1960s as a turning point: the civil-rights movement is hailed for weakening the hold of prejudice and loosening the fetters of xenophobia. It is as if identity itself becomes the source of salvation. It may have begun as the instigation for oppression but it ends as a force for liberation. One gallery here contains posters and publications from that era that emphasizes these themes.

There is no question that the ’60s political movements had an effect on the status of all minorities; the identity narrative itself was shaped in that era. But aspects of this exhibition, particularly autobiographical statements that can be read, listened to or watched, reveal that model’s limits.

While the actual texts of some of these accounts are constructed from historical information by contemporary Chinese-American writers, including David Henry Hwang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen and Ha Jin, the nuances they introduce are important. A 19th-century laborer, Ah Quin, speaks of working in Alaska as a cook for miners, sending home $30 every few months. Another 19th-century figure, Wong Chin Foo, makes it clear just how old certain political movements are: “When the Chinese Exclusion Act was renewed in 1892 with even more restrictions on the Chinese here, I helped form ‘The Chinese Equal Rights League.’ Through our efforts, we managed to persuade some congressmen to consider our proposals to grant us the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

And later in the exhibition there are brief written accounts by more recent immigrants, like Sam Wong, whose wandering first took him to Vietnam and Cambodia before “the U.S. welcomed me.”

In these voices, and others, we can hear the mixture of prospects and obstacles that Chinese immigrants encountered. This must have been true even in the worst of times: Chinese laborers sought to come here even after it was clear that nothing like paradise was in store. Many must have recognized degrees of restriction and opportunity and risked their lives to minimize one and maximize the other.

This is an aspect of the history that was once emphasized in older stories of American immigration, demonstrating how opportunities trumped hardships and possibility triumphed over prejudice. There is no point in returning to that model’s glossy idealism, which too easily elided over injustices and failings.

But the first-person stories here suggest that the dominant identity model has its own form of exaggeration, heightening trauma and minimizing promise. The hope is that over time this will be amended (and not just in this museum) with a fuller understanding of both sides of a hyphenated identity.

The Museum of Chinese in America opens to the public Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.; 215 Centre Street, near Grand Street, Chinatown; (212) 619-4785 or mocanyc.org.

Asia Rebounding Quickly, Regional Bank Says - NYTimes.com

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By KEITH BRADSHER

HONG KONG — Asian economies slumped steeply when exports plunged during the winter, but most of the region is now rebounding quickly, the Asian Development Bank said in a report released on Tuesday.

The multilateral institution, based in Manila, declared that economic growth in China would be 8.2 percent this year, 1.2 percentage points higher than the bank’s forecast in March, and 8.9 percent next year.

The bank raised its 2009 growth forecast for India to 6 percent, from 5 percent predicted in March, and for developing Asian countries as a group to 3.9 percent, from 3.4 percent.

“Developing Asia is proving to be more resilient to the global downturn than was initially thought,” the bank said in a statement accompanying its semiyearly assessment.

A common factor among countries doing better than expected is that they have been able to offset weak exports by stimulating domestic demand more than anyone expected. Chinese banks have lent heavily, while the Indian government has gone on a spending spree.

Commercial banks across most of the region also came into the global financial crisis with mostly strong balance sheets, having become much more cautious after the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998.

Taiwan, whose export-dependent economy has limited scope for increasing domestic demand, and Kazakhstan, whose banks lent too much as oil prices soared over the last several years, were among countries that had their growth forecasts downgraded in the report.

The speed of the recovery in Asia has renewed a debate over “decoupling” — the idea that growth in the region is becoming less closely correlated with that of the West. Some commercial banks have promoted the concept to suggest that Asian economies, and their stock markets, have become more stable and worthy of investment.

But Ajay Kapur, chief of global strategy and economics at Mirae Asset Securities, one of South Korea’s biggest financial services companies, said Asian economies might now be showing even wider swings in economic output in response to changes in the West.

“Economies tied to global trade fell harder in the crisis and are bouncing back with more vigor,” he said. “This is the opposite of decoupling.”

Jong-wha Lee, the chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, said the region had shown during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998 that it was too vulnerable to financial instability because of international investment flows.

During the current downturn, he added, the region may have shown that it was too vulnerable to instability in the level of global trade.

At a news conference on Tuesday in Hong Kong to release the report, Mr. Lee called for a series of measures like encouraging more long-term foreign investments and strengthening demand for Asia to limit the region’s reliance on exports.

But he was cautious when asked whether Asian governments should slow their heavy intervention in currency markets, which has held down the value of the Chinese renminbi in particular and has made Chinese and other Asian goods seem very inexpensive when exported to the West.

Currency appreciation is a taboo subject in much of Asia, as exporters are wary of anything that might dent their sales, profits and levels of employment. Mr. Lee encouraged China to allow more “flexibility” in its currency, which closely tracks the dollar and has plunged with the dollar this summer against the euro and many other countries, but he stopped short of saying that flexibility should lead to appreciation.

China has experimented with letting the renminbi fluctuate from day to day, but has halted any broad rise against the dollar for the last 14 months.

Officials to Close Calais Camp of Migrants Headed to Britain - NYTimes.com

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By NADIM AUDI and CAROLINE BROTHERS

CALAIS, France — French officials this week will shut down a camp on the northern French coast where hundreds of Afghans, Pakistanis and other illegal migrants have gathered for years in the hope of making clandestine journeys across the English Channel.

The camp, labeled “the jungle” by migrants and this city’s residents alike for its location among the thorn bushes and sand dunes of Calais, has been a source of tension since late 2002, when migrants started to camp out around the port after the closing of a Red Cross center in nearby Sangatte.

The move to eliminate the tents and ramshackle housing around the port is designed to halt migrants without papers from getting into Britain, and to crack down on the smuggling networks that assist them.

“Smugglers will not lay down the law,” France’s immigration minister, Eric Besson, said last Wednesday, adding that the camp would be closed by the end of this week. He first announced the plan in April, responding to complaints from local businesses.

The closing of the camp, which may begin as early as Tuesday, is taking place as European countries increasingly use force to crack down on unwanted migrants. On July 12, Greece eliminated a makeshift camp in the port city of Patras; in May, Italy struck a controversial accord with Libya allowing it to turn back migrants’ boats in the Mediterranean. The European Union estimates that 500,000 people cross its borders without papers each year.

In an interview on Monday, Pierre Bousquet, the prefect for the Pas-de-Calais region, who is directing the operation to shut the camp, said a riot police contingent that rotates permanently through Calais had been reinforced, giving him some 500 officers to ensure that the clearance operation went smoothly.

“I hope to end this situation in a dignified and honorable manner,” he said.

The number of migrants in the camp swelled to around 1,400 in August, according to Vincent Lenoir at Salam, an aid group whose volunteers have operated a soup kitchen for the migrants over the past seven years. But the number of migrants has dropped to under 300 currently, Mr. Bousquet said, in part because officials have swept some of the areas where they gather.

Frustrated at the difficulties of getting to Britain — attractive because of its large communities of Africans and South Asians and its underground economy — more migrants are now trying to reach Scandinavia, according to asylum data from the United Nations refugee agency and national ministries.

On Monday, migrants in Calais said that they were aware of the imminent police crackdown but that they were unsure what they should do. Many said that they had fled strife in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Pakistan and Iran, and that they had nowhere else to turn.

Mohammed Bashir, 24, a teacher from Logar Province in Afghanistan, said he had been at the camp for a month. “Let the police come,” he said. “Where are we going to run away? There is nowhere to go.”

Moustafa Tcharminian, a 38-year-old from Tehran, moved from the camp to under a bridge recently. He said that closing the camp would have an impact on the migrants now in Calais because they would be put in detention or deported. But he insisted that it would have little impact on the smugglers. “The smugglers are in love with money,” he said. “They will keep sending people and lying to them, telling them to go.”

Asked whether the closing of the Calais camp would send migrants elsewhere in Europe, Mr. Bousquet, the official, conceded that the issue of how to deal with the migrants was a broader problem. “I am at the end of the chain,” he said.

Interviews with residents of Calais, which has seen migrants flock to the region since Poles came to work the mines in the 1920s, indicated that few believed that a police action would put an end to clandestine arrivals in the port, from which England is visible across the water, about 20 miles away.

“They’re only taking the problem somewhere else,” said Fabrice Lecoustre, 52, a cafe owner in the center of the city. “Where are they going to go now? Downtown? At least in Sangatte they had showers and toilets.”

Nadim Audi reported from Calais, and Caroline Brothers from Paris.

Ousted Leader, Manuel Zelaya, Returns to Honduras - NYTimes.com

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By ELISABETH MALKIN

MEXICO CITY — Three months after he was expelled in a dawn coup, the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, sneaked back into his country on Monday, forcing world leaders gathered in New York to refocus their attention on the political stalemate to the south and presenting a new challenge to the de facto government.

After what he described as a 15-hour trek through the mountains, taking back roads to avoid checkpoints, Mr. Zelaya and his wife took refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. He did not say which country he crossed into Honduras from.

At the embassy, he gave a series of interviews with the international news media, saying that he hoped to begin meeting with “prominent Hondurans” and members of the de facto government that ousted him to find an end to the crisis that has engulfed the country since he was exiled on June 28.

“We ask those in the coup government to think and to come to dialogue with us,” he told Al Jazeera’s English network.

His return appeared to have caught the de facto government by surprise. Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed president by Congress, at first denied that Mr. Zelaya had returned, calling the reports “media terrorism.”

But on Monday evening, after imposing a nationwide curfew, he acknowledged Mr. Zelaya’s presence but said it “changes nothing of our reality.” He called on Brazil to hand Mr. Zelaya over for arrest and trial.

“We are waiting for him,” Mr. Micheletti said in a news conference earlier in the day. “A court is ready to proceed against him legally, and a jail is also ready.”

The de facto government has said that Mr. Zelaya would be arrested if he tried to return, citing 18 charges against him, including treason.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday evening that the two sides must find a way to talk. “It’s imperative that dialogue begin,” she said. “It’s also imperative that the return of President Zelaya does not lead to any conflict or violence, but instead that everyone act in a peaceful way to try to find some common ground.”

President Óscar Arias of Costa Rica, who has led the international negotiations on Honduras, offered to go to Honduras to mediate if he were asked.

Mr. Arias and Mrs. Clinton were meeting in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting there.

Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, also in New York, denied that Brazil had helped plan the return of Mr. Zelaya and his wife, Xiomara Castro, to Honduras. He said they had arrived at the embassy through “their own peaceful methods.”

Mr. Amorim did not say whether there was a time limit on Mr. Zelaya’s stay in the embassy, but he stressed that the Organization of American States should renew efforts to negotiate a solution. “If the O.A.S. doesn’t work to give guarantees to a democratically elected government, in the case of a coup like this, then what is the O.A.S. for?” he said.

Delegates from the organization met late Monday in Washington to discuss the crisis.

Mr. Zelaya has accepted a proposal offered by Mr. Arias that would restore him to the presidency with limited powers and grant an amnesty on all sides. Mr. Micheletti has rejected it.

As the talks have stalled and the international community has turned its attention elsewhere, Mr. Zelaya has grown impatient.

Since the coup, he has tried to return to Honduras at least twice. A week after the coup, he tried to fly into the Tegucigalpa airport, but soldiers massed on the tarmac and blocked his plane from landing.

In July, he set up camp with his supporters just over the border in Nicaragua, and stepped briefly into Honduran territory before returning to Nicaragua. Rumors that Mr. Zelaya was already in the country, or was about to return, have circulated through the capital repeatedly since then.

The curfew was announced just 30 minutes before it took effect at 4 p.m. Monday, sending residents of the capital rushing to get home and tying traffic in knots, residents said.

At the time of his removal, Mr. Zelaya was planning a nonbinding referendum that his opponents said would have been the first step toward allowing him to run for another term in office, which is forbidden under the Honduran Constitution. Mr. Zelaya has denied any attempt to run for re-election.

No country has recognized the de facto government of Mr. Micheletti. President Obama and other leaders in the hemisphere have insisted that Mr. Zelaya be returned to office, contending that he was removed in a coup. The United States, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have all suspended aid to Honduras in protest.

But the Micheletti government has stood fast, insisting that Mr. Zelaya was removed from office legally. Mr. Micheletti has promised to hand over power to a new president who will be elected in national elections scheduled for Nov. 29.

Alexei Barrionuevo contributed reporting from New York.

Uneasy Engagement - China Spreads Aid in Africa, With a Catch - Series - NYTimes.com

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By SHARON LaFRANIERE and JOHN GROBLER

WINDHOEK, Namibia — It is not every day that global leaders set foot in this southern African nation of gravel roads, towering sand dunes and a mere two million people. So when President Hu Jintao of China touched down here in February 2007 with a 130-person delegation in tow, it clearly was not just a courtesy call.

And in fact, China soon granted Namibia a big low-interest loan, which Namibia tapped to buy $55.3 million worth of Chinese-made cargo scanners to deter smugglers. It was a neat illustration, Chinese officials said, of how doing good in Namibia could do well for China, too.

Or so it seemed until Namibia charged that the state-controlled company selected by China to provide the scanners — a company until recently run by President Hu’s son — had facilitated the deal with millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks. And until China threw up barriers when Namibian investigators asked for help looking into the matter.

Now the scanners seem to illustrate something else: the aura of boosterism, secrecy and back-room deals that has clouded China’s use of billions of dollars in foreign aid to court the developing world.

From Pakistan to Angola to Kyrgyzstan, China is using its enormous pool of foreign currency savings to cement diplomatic alliances, secure access to natural resources and drum up business for its flagship companies. Foreign aid — typically cut-rate loans, sometimes bundled with more commercial lines of credit — is central to this effort.

Leaders of developing nations have embraced China’s sales pitch of easy credit, without Western-style demands for political or economic reform, for a host of unmet needs. The results can be clearly seen in new roads, power plants, and telecommunications networks across the African continent — more than 200 projects since 2001, many financed with preferential loans from the Chinese government’s Exim Bank.

Increasingly, though, experts argue that China’s aid comes with a major catch: It must be used to buy goods or services from companies, many of them state-controlled, that Chinese officials select themselves. Competitive bidding by the borrowing nation is discouraged, and China pulls a veil over vital data like project costs, loan terms and repayment conditions. Even the dollar amount of loans offered as foreign aid is treated as a state secret.

Anticorruption crusaders complain that secrecy invites corruption, and that corruption debases foreign assistance.

“China is using this financing to buy the loyalty of the political elite,” said Harry Roque, a University of the Philippines law professor who is challenging the legality of Chinese-financed projects in the Philippines. “It is a very effective tool of soft diplomacy. But it is bad for the citizens who have to repay these loans for graft-ridden contracts.”

In fact, such secrecy runs counter to international norms for foreign assistance. In a part of the world prone to corruption and poor governance, it also raises questions about who actually benefits from China’s projects. The answers, international development specialists say, are hidden from public view.

“We know more about China’s military expenditures than we do about its foreign aid,” said David Shambaugh, an author and China scholar at George Washington University. “Foreign aid really is a glaring contradiction to the broader trend of China’s adherence to international norms. It is so strikingly opaque it really makes one wonder what they are trying to hide.”

Until recently, wealthy nations could hardly hold themselves out as an example of how to run foreign aid, either. Many projects turned out to be tainted by corruption or geared to enrich the donor nation’s contractors, not the impoverished borrowers. But over the past 10 or 15 years, some 30 developed nations under the umbrella of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (O.E.C.D.) have made a concerted effort to clean up their assistance programs.

They demanded that foreign money be awarded and spent transparently, using competitive bidding and outlawing bribery. Increasingly, they also are also pushing to give borrowers more choice among suppliers and contractors, rather than insisting that funds be recycled back to the donor nation’s companies.

China, which is not a member of the O.E.C.D., is operating under rules that the West has largely abandoned. It mixes aid and business in secret government-to-government agreements. It requires that foreign aid contracts be awarded to Chinese contractors it picks through a closed-door bidding process in Beijing. Its attempts to prevent corrupt practices by its companies overseas appear weak.

Some developing nations insist on independently comparing prices before accepting China’s largesse. Others do not bother. “Very often they are getting something they wouldn’t be able to get without China’s financing,” said Chris Alden, a specialist on China-African relations with the London School of Economics and Political Science. “They presume that the Chinese are going to give value for money.”

Development experts say they have tried to convince the Chinese government that better safeguards and a more open process will enhance its efforts to gain influence and business. If its projects collapse because of kickbacks or inflated costs, they argue, China will end up exporting not only goods and services, but a reputation for corruption that it is already battling at home.

But Deborah Brautigam, the author of a coming book on China’s economic ties with Africa titled “The Dragon’s Gift,” says Beijing is hesitant to hobble its companies with Western-style restraints before they have become world-class competitors.

Thinking Business, Not Ethics

“The Chinese are kind of starting out where everyone else was years ago, and they see themselves as being at a disadvantage,” Ms. Brautigam said. “The Chinese don’t particularly want a big scandal. That doesn’t further their interests. They just want their companies to get business.”

Sometimes they get both. In 2007, the Philippines was forced to cancel a $460 million contract with the Beijing scanner company, Nuctech Company Ltd., to set up satellite-based classroom instruction after critics protested the company had no expertise in education.

It also canceled a $329 million contract awarded to ZTE Corporation, a state-controlled Chinese communications company, after allegations of enormous kickbacks. ZTE denied bribing anyone, but the controversy has lingered. Last month an antigraft panel recommended filing criminal charges against two Philippines officials in connection with the contract.

A Manila-based nonprofit group, the Center for International Law, has mounted a legal challenge against still another Chinese contract in the Philippines, to build a $500 million railroad. Professor Roque, who leads the center, contends that the price of China’s state-owned contractor “was simply plucked out of the sky.” Officially, China’s directive to its companies is toe an ethical line overseas.

“Our enterprises must conform to international rules when running business, must be open and transparent, should go through a bidding process for big projects and forbid inappropriate deals and reject corruption and kickbacks,” Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, told a group of Chinese businessmen in Zambia in 2006.

But China has no specific law against bribing foreign officials. And the government seems none too eager to investigate or punish companies it selects if they turn out to have engaged in shady practices overseas.

Indeed, it has an added incentive to look the other way because of the state’s ties to many foreign aid contractors — connections that sometimes extend to families of the Communist Party elite.

In January, for example, the World Bank barred four state-controlled Chinese companies from competing for its work after an investigation showed that they tried to rig bids for bank projects in the Philippines. But two of those companies remain on the Chinese Commerce Ministry’s list of approved foreign aid contractors, according to its Web site.

The Namibia controversy is especially delicate because until late last year, the contractor’s president was Mr. Hu’s son, Hu Haifeng. The younger Mr. Hu is now Communist Party secretary of an umbrella company that includes Nuctech and dozens of other companies. As soon as allegations against the company surfaced this summer, China’s censors swung into action, blocking all mention of the scandal in the Chinese news media and on the Internet.

“This is a signal to everyone to back off,” said Russell Leigh Moses, an analyst of Chinese politics in Beijing. “Everyone goes into default mode, because once you get the ball rolling, no one knows where it will stop. No one wants their rice bowl broken.”

Nuctech has denied any wrongdoing in court papers filed here in Windhoek. A spokeswoman said the company had no comment because the matter was unresolved. China’s Commerce Ministry and other government agencies did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Namibia’s anticorruption investigators allege that Nuctech funneled $4.2 million in kickbacks to a front company set up by a Namibian official, who split the funds with her business partner and Nuctech’s southern Africa representative, a Chinese citizen.

A Deal Ends in Arrests

China has promoted Nuctech as one of its global “champions.” In 10 years the company has gained customers in more than 60 countries, marketing advanced-technology scanners that help detect contraband or dangerous materials inside cargo containers. Nuctech’s spokesman says it is the only Chinese company that makes such equipment.

The Namibian government was interested in equipping its airports, seaports and border posts with scanners to comply with stricter regulations on international commerce. On a state visit to China in 2005, Hifikepunye Pohamba, Namibia’s president, visited Nuctech’s headquarters and factory, according to court testimony. The following year, Nuctech sent a representative, Yang Fan, to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital.

Hu Jintao’s visit to Windhoek a few months later opened up an option for finance. “China says the sky is the limit. Just say what you want,” said Carl Schlettwein, the permanent secretary of the Namibian Finance Ministry, who participated in the negotiations.

At first, Mr. Schlettwein said, the talks stalled because Namibia was unwilling to grant China access to its substantial mineral deposits in exchange for lines of credit. Once China dropped that condition, Namibia agreed in principle to a $100 million, 20-year-loan at a 2.5 percent interest rate, then well below the market. “Purely from a financial point of view, it was a fine deal,” Mr. Schlettwein said.

Namibian officials decided to draw on the credit line to finance most of the cost of the scanners. Mr. Schlettwein, who negotiated the scanner contract, said he wanted to seek competitive bids from scanner suppliers around the world, but Chinese negotiators refused.

“They said ‘that is not our system,’ “ he said. “ ‘We tell you from whom you buy the equipment.’ All of us, including the minister, were very worried about the nontransparent way of doing things,” he said, but reasoned that the Chinese government “will not unduly cheat us.”

Last March, less than a week after the Finance Ministry paid Nuctech an initial $12.8 million, Mr. Schlettwein’s unease turned to distress.

A Windhoek bank official, following the strictures of Namibia’s new money-laundering act, called to ask why Nuctech had deposited $4.2 million in the account of a consulting company set up by Tekla Lameck, a Namibian public service commissioner.

Mr. Schlettwein, who says that he has never met Ms. Lameck and that she had nothing to do with the scanner purchase, alerted Namibia’s anticorruption commission. In July, Ms. Lameck, her business partner and Nuctech’s representative in Windhoek were arrested on suspicion of violating Namibia’s anticorruption law. All three have denied wrongdoing.

Investigations Galore

Investigators charge that Nuctech agreed to hire Ms. Lameck’s consulting company, Teko Trading, in 2007, a month after President Hu’s visit. Nuctech agreed to pay Teko 10 percent of the contract if the average price of one scanner was $2.5 million. If the price was higher, Nuctech would pay Teko 50 percent of the added cost. A subsequent agreement fixed the amount of commissions at $12.8 million, according to court records.

At his bail hearing last month, Yang Fan, Nuctech’s representative, said his company hired Teko because “Teko explained how to do business here in Namibia.” He did not elaborate. But in 2007, another Namibian official complained to the anticorruption commission that Ms. Lameck had introduced herself to the Chinese Embassy in Windhoek as a representative of Swapo, Namibia’s governing political party. She claimed that no business could be done in Namibia without Swapo’s involvement, the complainant said.

Investigators have been seeking Nuctech’s explanation of the affair for more than two months. There is little sign the company has complied with their requests, although investigators say they remain hopeful.

Namibia’s chief national prosecutor, Martha Imalwa, traveled to Beijing in July, hoping to question officials from Nuctech and another company involved in a separate inquiry. But according to her deputy, Danie Small, Ms. Imalwa was allowed to present questions only to the international division of China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate.

A court has temporarily frozen $12.8 million in Nuctech’s assets while the inquiry continues. Meanwhile, at Namibia’s Finance Ministry, Mr. Schlettwein is belatedly trying to determine what other buyers paid for comparable scanners. When he asked South African officials for pricing information, he said, he was told Nuctech’s contract there is also under investigation.

Perhaps predictably, competitors say Namibia agreed to pay far too much. Peter Kant, a vice-president at Nuctech’s American rival, Rapiscan Systems, said that comparable equipment and services costs about $28 million, or $25 million less than Nuctech’s contract.

Mr. Schlettwein last month tried to send a letter through official channels to Rong Yonglin, Nuctech’s chairman, to ask that the contract be renegotiated. But a Chinese Embassy official in Windhoek refused to accept the correspondence, saying he knew no one with that name.

Stephen Castle contributed reporting from Brussels, and Carlos H. Conde from Manila. Jonathan Ansfield contributed research from Beijing.

Flu Worries Weaken Tourism to Saudi Holy Sites - WSJ.com

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Fewer Travelers Are Expected for This Year's Pilgrimage to Mecca, as Governments Watch Carefully for Signs of H1N1

By ASHRAF KHALIL

CAIRO -- Fears among Muslims world-wide that this year's pilgrimage high season in Saudi Arabia will become a breeding ground for the new H1N1 flu has Saudi tourism officials worried.

"We're receiving cancellations from all over the world," said Waleed Abu Sabaa, head of the Hotels and Tourism Committee for the Mecca Chamber of Commerce and the owner of a company that controls 20 hotels in Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of Islam. "It's tough. It's very tough."

The pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, is mandatory for all Muslims once in their lives, if they are physically and financially able, and takes place during a specific time in the Islamic calendar -- this year, between Nov. 25 and Nov. 30. An average of three million Muslims arrive in that month alone to perform the Hajj. Pilgrims also flock to Mecca and Medina year-round for the Umrah, an optional pilgrimage often made during the sacred month of Ramadan, which ended Sunday.

Early estimates based on pilgrims already traveling to Saudi to perform Umrah rituals suggest a plunge in visitors this year, travel officials say, though it is still too early to conclusively tell just how this year's Hajj numbers will be affected by the flu. That is partly because pilgrims have delayed making reservations, holding off until the last minute to decide on whether to go.

To date, at least 3,205 people world-wide have died from the virus, according to the World Health Organization.

Health officials aren't reporting unusually high infection rates in the Mideast. Egypt, the Middle East's most populous country, has reported just two deaths. Authorities in Saudi Arabia, which has reported 28 fatal cases, say they are prepared to conduct the annual ritual safely.

Still, Egypt has postponed the opening of all schools until next month as a precaution, and the health ministry has said it will consider extending that if there is an outbreak. In Oman, officials canceled an annual cultural festival held in January in the capital, Muscat.

Mr. Abu Sabaa said his hotels have already lost $16 million in potential Umrah business. He estimated a 50% drop in attendance so far this year, and said bookings at five-star hotels have been the hardest hit.

Arabian Business magazine, which has dedicated a section of its Web site to swine-flu coverage, estimated businesses in Mecca and Medina are in for some $266 million in lost revenue because of fewer travelers this year.

The Hajj has been banned before because of health concerns. In 1947, Egypt banned its people from going due to a cholera epidemic.

The pilgrimage has long been a breeding ground for illness. The confluence of millions of pilgrims from around the world jammed together in physically exhausting circumstances ensures that many come down with some form of low-grade illness during or just after the experience.

"We call it the Hajj flu. Everybody gets it," says Sayed Moustafa Qazwiny, a Shiite imam from Costa Mesa, Calif., who has led annual Hajj groups to Mecca for more than 15 years. "It's something you just can't escape."

Mr. Qazwiny normally accompanies more than 100 Shiite pilgrims per year. He said he needs at least 70 commitments to make the trip worthwhile, but he is still well shy of that number this year. Five of Mr. Qazwiny's brothers also are imams in the U.S., and "they're having the same problems," he said. He is already preparing a backup plan: a trip to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq.

Saudi Health Ministry officials have repeatedly said they have sufficient stores of antiviral medicine in case of outbreaks. Attempts to contact the ministry for comment were unsuccessful.

Nail al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington, admits that swine flu is a new wrinkle in the logistical challenge Saudi Arabia takes on each year.

"The flu for us was the least of our concerns in the past," says Mr. Al-Jubeir, who said the normal priorities were preventing stampedes and fires as well as diseases other than flu. "Yellow fever, meningitis, a few years ago, polio became an issue with some of the African pilgrims," he says.

Earlier this year, as a preventive step, the Saudis requested all nations sending pilgrims to impose age restrictions, allowing only those between the ages of 25 and 65. Other restrictions agreed to at a July meeting of Arab health ministers were that people with chronic illnesses and pregnant women shouldn't make the pilgrimage.

Iman Samy, vice president of Golden Tours, an Egyptian Hajj-trip organizer, said she expects government officials to be watching for outbreaks. "If we have a lot of cases from the Umrah, I would expect [the Egyptian government] will cancel the Hajj," she said. "Let's just cross our fingers and see what happens."

Tribal Casino Rules Revisited - WSJ.com

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White House Considers Altering Policy to Allow Gambling Far From Reservations

By A.D. PRUITT and PETER GRANT

The Obama administration may make it easier for Indian tribes to build casinos on land far from their reservations, a move likely to spur a wave of new casino development.

The Interior Department, which runs the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is reconsidering a Bush administration directive requiring that off-reservation casino sites be within commuting distance of the reservation. Many tribes, struggling with high unemployment and poverty on their reservations, are looking to casinos for jobs and other economic benefits.

Casino Applications

"It's an important issue. It's a controversial issue and they're rethinking it," George Skibine, a deputy assistant secretary at the bureau, said in an interview last week. He added he expected a decision on whether to change the policy "fairly soon."

Some governors, including Democrat David Paterson of New York and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, have come out in favor of certain projects in recent months.

A reversal would pose more competition to existing casinos that are getting pummeled by the economic downturn. Owners of some of those casinos and their supporters in Congress are putting pressure on the Interior Department to maintain the restrictions on new developments off tribal lands. But have-not tribes are hoping the Obama administration will view casino development as a cheap way to stimulate the economy without tax dollars.

"Some governors have embraced this as a way to close their budget deficits," said Larry Rosenthal, a partner at Ietan Consulting LLC, a lobbying firm that represents Indian tribes.

About 22 Indian casinos on non-reservation land exist, and about 20 tribes have off-reservation plans in the works.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs of Oregon wants to develop a casino along the Columbia River Gorge, and the St. Regis Mohawks has plans for a site in the Catskill Mountains, about 350 miles away from the tribe's reservation -- not within the required commuting distance -- but less than a two-hour drive from New York City.

Some tribes note that the off-reservation sites they have identified are actually on their ancestral lands.

"We'd just be going back home," said Lewis Pitt, spokesman for the Warm Springs tribes in Oregon.

Even if the Obama administration reverses the policy, some tribes will face a rough time developing casinos anytime soon. With casinos across the country running into financial problems, many lenders are loath to finance new projects.

Indian casinos can be particularly problematic when they run into financial trouble. One example: Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, which is in talks with lenders to restructure an enormous debt load.

Moody's Investor Service has warned that lenders have limited recourse because, under U.S. law, they can't seize Indian casino assets in the case of a default or bankruptcy.

The anxieties of Foxwoods creditors were further stoked late last month after the New London Day reported that Michael Thomas, the chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, which controls Foxwoods, sent a letter pledging to protect the payments to the tribal government and tribe members and saying that they would be "paid first."

The council subsequently put Mr. Thomas on administrative leave "pending the outcome of an internal review." It says it is pursuing a "mutually beneficial resolution with its banks and bondholders."

Mr. Thomas couldn't be reached for comment Sunday afternoon.

Despite these concerns, some off-reservation casino projects, especially those near major population centers, have been able to line up financing.

Kien Huat Realty III Ltd., an investment company owned by a Malaysian family that has financed start-ups of major Indian casinos in Connecticut and New York, is acquiring a near 50% stake in Empire Resorts Inc., the company that has been working with the St. Regis Mohawks on plans for a casino in Monticello, N.Y.

About 300 casinos have been developed by tribes since a watershed U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1987 that greatly loosened state restrictions on such operations. In 1988, Congress said tribes could develop off-reservation casinos that were in the best interest of the tribe and not detrimental to the local community.

Some of the tribes that developed casinos early on have joined with Las Vegas and Atlantic City gambling interests to try to block off-reservation gaming.

Last week five senators from Nevada, California and Arizona wrote Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to oppose off-reservation gaming, saying it "violates the spirit" of Indian gaming law.

Yemen’s North Hit by Bloodiest Fighting in Years - NYTimes.com

Image by Erik D via Flickr

By ROBERT F. WORTH

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Yemeni Army fought back a major offensive by rebels in the northern city of Sadah early Sunday morning, killing dozens of insurgents, witnesses and Yemeni officials said.

The battle appears to have been the boldest rebel attack yet in five weeks of renewed fighting in Yemen’s remote and mountainous Sadah Province, near the border with Saudi Arabia. The Houthi rebels have been clashing intermittently with Yemen’s government for five years, and the latest round of fighting, which erupted last month after a yearlong cease-fire, has been the bloodiest so far.

The attack began just before dawn Sunday, witnesses said, as hundreds of Houthi rebels ambushed three military checkpoints and tried to take over the presidential palace in Sadah, the provincial capital.

The rebels appear to have hoped the start of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr and the government’s announcement of a unilateral suspension of fighting on Friday would give them the element of surprise.

But the better-armed military was ready and fought the rebels back, witnesses and officials said. Reports of the death toll varied, with some news agencies saying more than 140 rebels had been killed. There was no word on whether any Yemeni soldiers died.

The foiled ambush came days after a government airstrike in Amran Province, near the border with Sadah, killed dozens of civilian refugees, drawing condemnations from human rights groups. The Sadah conflict has displaced tens of thousands of people, international monitors say, leaving many refugees stranded without adequate food or water.

The Yemeni government says the rebels are preventing civilians from leaving the conflict zone, and has accused them of using civilians as human shields.

Despite their geographical isolation, the rebels have acquired an increasingly sophisticated arsenal, largely by capturing or buying government weapons. In propaganda videotapes, Houthi soldiers can be seen driving Yemeni Army tanks. The Yemeni government has accused the rebels of receiving unofficial support from Iran, but the Houthis deny it. The conflict in Sadah, which began in 2004, has a sectarian element: the Houthis are Zaidis, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that is fairly common in Yemen, and the government has used radical Sunni militants as proxy forces against them.

The government has accused the Houthis of trying to restore the traditional Zaidi-led imamate that largely ruled Yemen until 1962. The Houthis deny it, saying they merely want more autonomy in Sadah and restitution for war damages.

The Sadah conflict has underscored the vulnerability of Yemen. Desperately poor, the country is also facing a separatist movement in the south and a resurgent presence of Al Qaeda that has become a deep concern for the United States. The government’s ability to cope with such challenges has long been limited by Yemen’s deep tribal traditions and its rugged terrain.

Khaled al-Hammadi contributed reporting from Yemen.

One in 4 Afghan Ballots Face Check for Fraud - NYTimes.com

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By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ARCHIE TSE

KABUL, Afghanistan — Nearly one in four votes in last month’s Afghan presidential elections were cast at polling stations now subject to a recount and audit for possible fraud, a huge number that underscores the possibility that President Hamid Karzai could face a runoff, according to an analysis of Afghan national election commission data by The New York Times.

About a third of Mr. Karzai’s 3.1 million votes were cast at polling stations that face a recount and audit of ballot boxes, according to The Times’s analysis of data released by the country’s Independent Election Commission.

The analysis suggests that the magnitude of the fraud review is far greater than what has generally been understood. Last week, election officials said about 10 percent of polling stations would be subject to an examination ordered by the Electoral Complaints Commission, a United Nations-backed organization that is the ultimate arbiter of election results.

But that figure vastly understates the scope of the fraud review, the Times analysis found.

Based on the criteria set by the Electoral Complaints Commission, almost 3,000 of the 23,000 polling stations would be subject to the fraud review. Moreover, those polling stations account for a large proportion of ballots, some 1.35 million of 5.66 million total votes, the analysis showed.

The analysis also shows that slightly more than a quarter-million of Mr. Karzai’s votes came from polling stations where he received exactly 600 ballots and no other candidate received a single vote. Polling stations were generally allocated 600 ballots apiece, though in certain cases they were allowed to borrow ballots from other stations.

All told, Mr. Karzai received nearly a half-million votes from polling stations where at least 100 votes were cast but no other candidate received a single vote.

Mr. Karzai won 54.6 percent of the Aug. 20 vote, according to the preliminary tally. But if his final total falls below 50 percent because votes are thrown out during the review, he will face a runoff election against his most popular challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who won 27.8 percent of the vote.

Mr. Karzai’s vote count appears to be more vulnerable to the review than that of Mr. Abdullah. Only about one in eight of Mr. Abdullah’s votes were from polling stations subject to the recount and audit, the analysis found.

It is impossible to know how many votes for either candidate will ultimately be discarded or whether a runoff will be called.

One reason that such a high percentage of the total reported ballots will be subject to the fraud review is the large number of votes reported by nonexistent polling places, one Western diplomat said.

“The phantom polling centers had a vastly disproportionate number of votes,” the diplomat said, declining to be identified according to diplomatic protocol.

The official expressed concern that the recount and audit would be conducted not by examining every affected ballot box, but by statistical sampling, in which a representative proportion of the ballots are examined and those results used to extrapolate the total.

“That has the risk of underweighting fraudulent districts, and it could give Karzai a first-round victory that he did not earn,” the diplomat said. “Because of the uncertainties, it’s not a process that can reliably end the political crisis.”

Proponents of sampling say that it can be rigorous and statistically sound, and that it will speed the review so that if a runoff is needed the election could be held before harsh winter weather sets in and prevents another national ballot until spring.

The challenge “is ensuring that the sample size is large enough to eliminate the margin of error, so that the sampling is accurate and reflects the overall will of the people,” while promptly adjudicating disputed ballots, said Aleem Siddique, a United Nations spokesman in Kabul.

The Western governments financing Mr. Karzai’s government and supplying troops to battle the growing insurgency had once hoped that the Aug. 20 presidential election — the nation’s first since 2004 — would showcase improvements in the country’s governance.

But the reports of widespread fraud and ballot-stuffing, international observers say, have instead cost the Afghan government standing with its own citizens and weakened support in NATO countries for the eight-year-old war.

Some United States and European officials say the political crisis is also empowering the Taliban, which in many rural regions are already seen as a more effective and less corrupt local administrator than the official government and security forces.

President Obama, who is weighing whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, said Sunday that the election “did not go as smoothly as I think we would have hoped.”

“There are some serious issues in terms of how the election was conducted in some parts of the country,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Mr. Karzai’s campaign aides, who have said it will be almost impossible for a recount to overturn Mr. Karzai’s lead, have lashed out at critics of the election as biased and irresponsible.

At a news conference last week, Mr. Karzai conceded that some government officials had been “partial” to him and some to other candidates, an apparent acknowledgment that fraud had occurred.

But he blamed foreign news media for exaggerating the fraud and said there was little evidence of widespread irregularities. He urged Western governments to “respect the people’s vote.”

In an interview on Saturday, the top officer of the Afghan election commission, Daoud Ali Najafi, said he did not know the total number of votes from polling stations subject to the recount and audit order by the Electoral Complaint Commission.

Two weeks ago, the commission declared that it had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” and ordered a recount and audit of ballot boxes in any polling place that either had 600 or more votes, or had more than 100 votes with 95 percent of the ballots cast for a single candidate.

Asked whether Mr. Karzai could have one million votes subject to the fraud review, Mr. Najafi said, “Maybe.”

Mr. Najafi acknowledged that some voting fraud had occurred, especially in the country’s more dangerous areas. But he said he believed that at some polling stations all 600 votes were legitimately cast for Mr. Karzai or for other candidates.

“It is possible,” he said.

Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Kabul, and Archie Tse from New York. Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.