Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

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SUBJECT: US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES 2008 (90%); ECONOMIC POLICY (89%); ECONOMIC NEWS (89%); PUBLIC POLICY (89%); HOMEOWNERS (76%); GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (75%); JOB CREATION (74%); TAXES & TAXATION (73%); WOMEN WORKERS (73%); STUDENTS & STUDENT LIFE (72%); MILITARY SCHOOLS & ACADEMIES (72%); SMALL BUSINESS (72%); COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS (77%)
PERSON: JOHN MCCAIN (92%)
GEOGRAPHIC: PITTSBURGH, PA, USA (92%) PENNSYLVANIA, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: April 16, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
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PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

862 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 15, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

INSIDE THE TIMES
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 2396 words
Foreign

HAMPERED BY VIOLENCE,

Shoemakers Survive in Iraq

Since the invasion of Iraq, little attention has been paid to the plight of the entrepreneurs, manufacturers and private businessmen who saw their customers frightened into hiding by the violence. Some shoemakers in Baghdad have seen their businesses endure, despite the security risks and the deluge of cheap imports from China and Syria. But they're not doing as well as they were before the war, and many still have invoices for customers who are missing or dead. ''Now I just want to know the smell of a $100 bill,'' said one factory owner. PAGE A6

TWO JOURNALISTS WIN FREEDOM

The American military said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photographer for The Associated Press who had been held by American military officials on suspicions that he was helping insurgents, would be released by an Iraqi judicial panel. Richard Butler, a British photographer working for CBS who was kidnapped two months ago, was freed when Iraqi soldiers raided a house in Basra and found him bound with a bag tied over his head. ''Iraqi Army good?'' an official asked a smiling Mr. Butler. ''Iraqi Army brilliant,'' he responded. PAGE A10

ZIMBABWE'S OPPOSITION LOSES CASE

Zimbabwe's opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, lost its case before the nation's High Court, in which it demanded the immediate release of results of the nation's presidential election. Independent election observers believe the incumbent president, Robert Mugabe, lost the vote by a large margin. The opposition party asked citizens to protest what it said was Mr. Mugabe's illegal hold on power by staying home from work on Thursday. Page A7

BEIJING PLANS TO CLEAR THE AIR

Chinese government officials said they would shut down construction projects in Beijing in order to clear the air in the polluted city before this summer's Olympic Games. A detailed plan released by the government says it will slow down steel production, shut down quarries and close gas stations that do not meet environmental standards. If the air isn't clean enough on the eve of the Games, the government said it would take ''stringent steps'' to make it so. ''We will do everything possible to honor the promise,'' an official said at a news conference. ''Just tell everybody they don't have to worry.'' Page A8

RAINS FUEL VIRUS OUTBREAK IN BRAZIL

An outbreak of the dengue fever virus in Brazil's Rio State has claimed the lives at least 80 people. Health officials in the country say the crisis shows no signs of slowing, and the virus's spread has been hastened by heavy rainfall that has created a fertile breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry the virus. The government has been slow to respond, because officials could not decide whether the mosquito was a city, state or federal issue. PAGE A6

NATIONAL

A FLOOD OF APPEALS AND SCRUTINY FOR FIRMS

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is struggling with the output of prolific immigration lawyers whose hastily written and factually unreliable briefs require that they be disciplined. But the lawyers are symptoms of a systemic problem rather than its cause: People seeking asylum are almost by definition poor, but they are not entitled to lawyers provided by the government. Sidebar, Adam Liptak. PAGE A12

DETROIT CITY COUNCIL SNUBS MAYOR

The standoff between Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, who refuses to resign as he battles charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, and the City Council, which wants him to leave, grows more bitter by the day. Most recently, Council members refused to let Mr. Kilpatrick deliver his annual budget presentation after he had ridiculed them for holding hearings to investigate his conduct. PAGE A15

FINANCING THE PAPAL VISIT

From printing tickets for the papal Masses to organizing street closures, a hefty bill looms for the hosts of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States. The Archdiocese of Washington, which established a foundation to finance the pope's three days in the capital, says it will cost the city at least $3 million. The archdiocese in New York, which plans to appeal to wealthier donors, has not ventured an estimate. PAGE A20

MCCAIN CRITICIZES OBAMA REMARKS

Senator John McCain threw himself into the culture war between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton when he told a gathering of news executives that comments by Mr. Obama about working-class voters were ''elitist'' and a ''fundamental contradiction of what I believe America's all about.'' PAGE A17

Appeal on Prosecutorial Immunity A14

Case to Open Environmental Debate A14

Metro

MAYORS AND WAL-MART

Agree on Gun Sales Plan

A group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns that was organized by Michael R. Bloomberg in 2006 said it reached an agreement with Wal-Mart to more closely track the sale of firearms. Under the agreement, Wal-Mart will videotape sales of guns and conduct criminal background checks on store employees who handle guns. The agreement also calls for recording each time the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives links a gun bought at Wal-Mart to a crime. If a customer who buys a gun linked to a crime returns to Wal-Mart to purchase another one, the store can decide whether to complete the transaction. PAGE B3

CONSTRUCTION WORKER DIES IN FALL

A construction worker fell to his death from the 23rd floor of an Upper East Side building when a nylon safety strap intended to secure him to the building failed, the authorities said. Contractors at the site of the 30-story tower had been cited by city inspectors for 25 code violations in the last year. PAGE B3

BUSINESS

WITH HOUSING LOSSES MOUNTING,

Banks Brace for Flood of Bad News

Following Wachovia's decision to slash its dividend and seek about $7.5 billion in fresh financing, Wall Street is anticipating a gruesome earnings season to reveal the heavy toll of the housing and credit market crisis. ''We believe we are at the halfway point'' of the housing crisis, Wachovia's chairman and chief executive said. PAGE C1

PREACHING, FROM THE CONVERTED

Robert K. Steel, the under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, speaks in excitable bursts about the powers that a super regulator might wield over Wall Street one day. The apparent conversion to the merits of regulation of the former Goldman Sachs vice chairman illustrates how the laissez-faire bones of the Bush administration have been rattled by the government-brokered rescue of Bear Stearns and the trauma of the credit crisis. PAGE C1

BRIDGING A CALIFORNIA DIVIDE

Only 350 miles sit between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but a vast cultural divide separates the two. (Hollywood executives tend to prefer their millions in the form of cash, not stock options, for instance.) With so much clamor to distribute short videos via the Internet, executives from the two camps are now circling each other, trying to figure how best to combine forces as their worlds inevitably collide. PAGE C1

THE BLUE-COLLAR BILLIONAIRE

Steven Feinberg, the reclusive, pickup-truck-driving deal maker some people think will save Detroit, famously told his investors ''we despise all the public attention we are getting.'' And he has never granted an interview. Until now. ''I'm embarrassed by it,'' Mr. Feinberg said about the publicity his company has received. He refused to be photographed. PAGE C1

BLOCKBUSTER BIDS FOR CIRCUIT CITY

A bid by Blockbuster to acquire Circuit City Stores for more than $1 billion met a befuddled reaction on Wall Street, where investors questioned a union of two troubled companies. Blockbuster is looking to expand its franchise into a one-stop shop for electronics, and Circuit City has seen itssales plummet at the hands of rivals. ''Blockbuster has enough to worry about,'' said a research analyst. ''Nobody likes this deal.'' PAGE C3

Obituaries

POLLY LAUDER TUNNEY, 100

The beautiful socialite and Carnegie heiress had a secret romance and subsequent marriage to the former heavyweight champion Gene Tunney, and was one of the most sensational love stories of the 1920s. PAGE C11

ARTS

INSTEAD OF A CULTURAL LEGACY,

Sarkozy's 'Bling-Bling' Problem

Every French president since the liberation has initiated some legacy-minded cultural program, but President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has hardly mentioned the arts. His fondness for showbiz pals and marriage to Carla Bruni are on track to leave him with a legacy decidedly less sophisticated than that of his predecessors. ''President Bling-Bling'' has become a cliche. ''Sarko l'Americain'' is another common insult. PAGE E1

PRODIGIOUS EFFORT TO RESTORE CHURCH

Conservation is under way on the famous Gothic Revival windows of St. Thomas Church in Manhattan. The most expensive restoration of stained glass ever undertaken in the United States, the job will require three years and $20 million to renew the splendor of 33 windows, the largest of which will each require 4,500 worker hours. ''This isn't your everyday construction job,'' the project manager said. PAGE E1

JOKES MAY NOT A GREAT WORK MAKE

If Leno and Letterman regularly scored the ratio of hits to quips archived by ''The New Century,'' Paul Rudnick's new bill of short plays about gay men and the women who love them, much of America would be hospitalized with laughter burn. But the people portrayed are cliches, Ben Brantley writes, and the question arises as to whether a fat column of great one-liners adds up to more than the sum of its jokes. PAGE E1

STYRON'S LIFE IN GOOD COMPANY

Michiko Kakutani writes that the most memorable entries in William Styron's newly published collection of personal essays deal not with confessionals, but with old-fashioned reminiscing about people the author once knew. His drinking companions Truman Capote and James Baldwin, for instance. Or his friend John F. Kennedy, who on a boating jaunt in the summer of 1963 offered Mr. Styron a contraband Havana-made Partagas cigar. PAGE E1

Ginia Bellafante: Deion Sanders' Reality TV Show E6

Bernard Holland: Kathleen Battle at Carnegie Hall E1

Science Times

PLAGUES OF NEW YORK

A New-York Historical Society exhibition titled ''Plague in Gotham!'' focuses on the dreadful year of 1832, when New York City was being ravaged by an outbreak of cholera that left more than 3,500 people dead. The ensuing panic saw well-heeled New Yorkers fleeing to the safety of the countryside and exposed the city's fault lines on issues of race and class. But it also helped scientists identify the bacterium that caused the disease -- and eventually learn how to prevent it. PAGE F4

EASING HOME WIND-POWER

Experts say the convergence of political, technical and ecological factors has caused a surge in the use of wind turbines on residential properties, especially in the Northeast and California. ''''Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas,'' said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. ''Now, it's a lot more mainstream.'' Page F3

WHAT CONSTITUTES ACCEPTABLE RISK?

The Large Hadron Collider is set to go online this summer, and it will smash protons together to simulate the conditions at the beginning of the universe. Some critics have said the collider could accidentally create a black hole that could engulf the earth, and while experts say that's highly unlikely, scientists are debating what constitutes an acceptable risk, and who gets to determine what meets the qualifications. PAGE F2

DRILLING HIS WAY INTO HISTORY

Hubert R. Herring's great-grandfather, G. V. Black, is considered by many to be the ''father of modern dentistry.'' According to Mr. Herring, his ancestor -- with his floor-length white beard and pedal-operated drill -- helped elevate dentistry into a profession in the 1800s, and helped shift the concerns of dentists from reparative care to preventive care. So now you know whom to thank. Or blame. PAGE F2

Sports

ONCE AT THE TOP OF THE CARD,

A Fighter Now Sits Atop the Polls

Vitali Klitschko , the 6-foot-7 Ph.D. and former heavyweight boxing champion, is eyeing a new title -- mayor of Kiev in Ukraine, where he is polling 15 points ahead of the closest challenger. But can a boxer run for office on an anticorruption platform? ''My biggest goal right now is to help create a modern, democratic Ukraine,'' Klitschko said. ''To me, there is no fight more important than that.'' PAGE D2

BRINGING SCHOOLYARD TO THE GARDEN

There wasn't a rule in the N.H.L. playbook banning players from waving their arms and sticks in the face of a goalie to block his view of the action, because there probably never had to be. But there is now, following New York Rangers left wing Sean Avery's antics against New Jersey Devil goalkeeper Martin Brodeur in a playoff game Sunday at Madison Square Garden. Commissioner Gary Bettman says the tactic will result in an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the future. PAGE D1

Editorial

WHEN DRUG COSTS SOAR

It doesn't take a health policy expert to recognize that something has gone terribly wrong when patients have to pay thousands of dollars a month for drugs that they need to maintain their health -- and possibly save their lives. PAGE A22

THE TROUBLE WITH SALMON

The federal government was right to shut down commercial salmon fishing in the Northwest. It is the only hope for salmon recovery. Now, Congress needs to expose the destructive and politically driven policies that helped create this crisis. PAGE A22

HOW NOT TO DEVELOP NEW JERSEY

A New Jersey housing task force, loaded with builders and their supporters, has released recommendations that would roll back environmental protections and lead to even greater traffic congestion. It is time to go back to the drawing board. PAGE A22

Op-Ed

DAVID BROOKS

Senator Barack Obama stuffed his speech on the economy on Monday with the textbook cliches Democratic consultants tell their candidates to use when talking about trade -- warnings about Chinese perfidy and lead paint in toys. But instead of following those cliches into the realm of economic populism, he hedged. PAGE A23

BOB HERBERT

Senator Obama brought a load of trouble on himself with comments he made in San Francisco about working-class people. But let's get a little perspective. PAGE A23
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PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (57%)
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LOAD-DATE: April 15, 2008
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Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

863 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
April 15, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Devising Survival At Factory In Iraq
BYLINE: By JAMES GLANZ; Karim al-Hilmi and Jalal Mohidin al-Jaff contributed reporting.
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Foreign Desk; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 1634 words
DATELINE: BAGHDAD
Before April 2003, when the maze of crooked lanes that branch away from Rasheed Street downtown were crammed with hundreds of small leather goods factories, Hassan Attiya, now 43, designed fancy women's shoes under his signature ''Cowboy'' label. And his workers manufactured and sold them by the thousands.

Now Mr. Attiya, humbled by security fears, the shuttering of Iraqi tanning factories that provided his raw materials and an avalanche of cheap imports from China and Syria since the invasion, hangs on in a crumbling former dentist's office with a handful of workers.

If all that were not crushing enough, as widespread violence generated by fighting in the south last month forced Mr. Attiya to close his factory, policemen in Baghdad stopped a car carrying goods he had ordered from Syria. The policemen said they were looking for weaponry, but when the search was over a package containing good-quality faux diamonds for his shoes had vanished. It was worth $1,200, perhaps a quarter of Mr. Attiya's working capital.

''Wallahi,'' Mr. Attiya said in an Arabic expression of woe. ''The business is not as it used to be. It is like the survival of the fittest.''

Still, as grim as Mr. Attiya's fate has been, there is also a gleam of light to be found in his Darwinian metaphor: surrounded this month in his reopened factory by piles of mauve, green, silver, white, gold and black leather shoes with flamboyant curves, in-your-face spike heels and whimsical trimmings, he has somehow survived as a private businessman.

And in the shoe business, at least, Mr. Attiya is not alone, surprisingly, after all the devastation and upheaval in Iraq since 2003, although he says that he has received no help whatever from his seemingly oblivious government or from the Americans.

In the five years since the invasion, a great deal of concern and financial support has been showered on the approximately half-million workers who were idled when American occupation authorities shut down Iraq's enormous Soviet-style factories, called state-owned enterprises.

Much less attention has been given to the far larger number of private businessmen, manufacturers and entrepreneurs whose livelihoods were ruined when the invasion turned society and commerce upside-down.

The disastrous looting that drove some of that collapse makes reliable records hard to find, but a comparison of government and trade union figures suggests that in the leather-goods business alone, from 3,000 to 4,000 private factories employed from 100,000 to 200,000 workers, although not all were full time. Those figures do not count the thick undergrowth of deliverymen, salespeople, restaurateurs and tea hawkers who were supported by that commercial activity.

Nearly all of those leather goods factories closed in 2003, but now there are signs that some of them -- probably no more than 5 to 10 percent, but still accounting for thousands of jobs -- have adapted, sometimes in ways that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Security improvements after the American troop increase last year have helped by making customers more comfortable in some of the markets and allowing sales representatives and delivery vans to travel outside Baghdad.

''It was good for my business,'' said Muhamad al-Sudani, acting director and general manager at the Marakish shoe and slipper factory. But he added: ''It is not as good as it used to be before 2003. Never. I don't expect that.''

Still, conversations with several dozen workers, managers and owners suggest that more than any other factors, persistence and good old entrepreneurial opportunism is what has allowed the local shoe business to maintain its presence.

Majid Mishari, the owner of Marakish, said he could not open his factory's doors at all in 2003 or 2004, and when he tried starting up again for a few months in 2005, thieves or insurgents in the Anbar desert intercepted a $45,000 shipment of leather from Syria.

But Mr. Mishari, who loves his factory's shoes so much that he is given to picking one up and tenderly kissing it, kept at it. He managed to stay open for six months in 2006. And since security began improving early in 2007, he has been open continuously.

If Iraq were fully at peace tomorrow, though, Mr. Mishari would still literally be paying for the violence that has shaken his country for so long. He throws open cabinet after cabinet filled with stacks of what he says are unpaid invoices: many of them are for orders sent to shop owners who were killed or disappeared, or used the war as an excuse for not sending payment, he said.

So Mr. Mishari has improvised, managing to get a rare bank loan for 100 million dinars, about $80,000, and is preparing to sell his house in the Karada neighborhood if his revenues do not allow him to make the payments.

In the old days -- hardly a golden era, given the crippling Western economic sanctions against Iraq -- demand for his products seemed endless, and cash flowed in accordingly, Mr. Mishari said. ''Now,'' he added, ''I just want to know the smell of a $100 bill.''

The outbreak of fresh violence last week has shelved that daydream once again.

Recently, Mr. Attiya was still sending the hangdog driver of the car into the Rasheed Street markets on Wednesday in hopes of buying back his faux diamonds at a discount from the thieves -- a common practice in the crime-ridden streets of Iraq, especially for items that are hard to fence.

The diamonds are set in flashy heart and starburst patterns that do not play well with religiously motivated elements of the insurgency in Iraq. At the height of the insurgency, he said, gesturing toward his shoes, many of which would not look out of place under strobe lights at an after-hours club, ''any woman who wore these would be killed.''

But gradually he realized that even many Iraqi women forced to wear drab hijabs wanted to wear stylish and sexy clothes underneath. Most Iraqi men did not mind it either, Mr. Attiya said.

So, contrary to virtually all conventional understanding of society, culture, religion and commerce in present-day Iraq, his business squeaked by, though in a reduced state. From the 30 to 35 workers he said that he employed before the war, his factory has shrunk to six men laboring in the cramped dentist's office under a beige ceiling fan dating from the 1940s.

In Western marketing parlance, Mr. Mishari and Mr. Sudani have established a niche catering to Iraqis who are willing to pay his going price of 20,000 Iraqi dinars a pair, or about $17, for something a little classier than the synthetic leather shoes from China that generally go for under $10.

Mr. Sudani has adapted in another way, one long familiar in the West but as novel as political ads here: he attacks those Chinese imports as the product of soulless, mechanized assembly lines.

''We have lines of human beings who put their craft into this factory in order to make this product,'' Mr. Sudani said. ''The main thing for my business is that people realize my Iraqi products are good and last a long time and the others are a waste of money.''

Since the imports started appearing after the war, Iraqi consumers have become more sophisticated about the differences in quality, said Amir Abdul Zahra, 40, a trader from Karbala who was at the Marakish factory recently to purchase inventory for his shops.

''After 2003, people were so attracted by the Chinese products,'' Mr. Zahra said. ''But after realizing that these products are not good quality, now they turn to the Iraqi shoes.''

Centered off the old Rasheed Street markets in what had been one of the oldest residential sections of Baghdad before its transformation decades ago, the leather district has a long history of thriving on its own with little government interference or support, said Rahim Nehab, deputy director of the General Trade Union of Leatherworkers.

One advantage the private firms enjoyed was much higher wages than those in state-owned factories. But in part because workers in the private factories are generally paid by the piece, their earning power has fallen. Thamir Jawad Kadham, 44, a modeler at Marakish -- who is missing his front upper row of teeth, which he says were pulled out in torture sessions during a 16-year stint as a prisoner after his capture in the Iran-Iraq war -- said that on a good day before the invasion, he could make the equivalent of $100.

Now, monthly pay for similar work ranges from $150 to $400, which toward the upper end is still enough to modestly support a family here.

Luay Falah, 25, a worker who lives in Shaab, a Shiite-dominated neighborhood near Sadr City, said his earnings were enough to allow him to be married in a few weeks -- as long as he and his wife lived with his parents.

The hard realities of the shoe business have forced some former factory owners to adapt in a way that pains even themselves: turning to the import trade. One of them is Haider H. Jawad al-Madamgha, 46, who shut his factory when the cost for generator fuel became too high and who now makes regular trips to China to order the shoes that sit atop boxes behind the plate-glass windows of his Rasheed Street shop. He does not deny that many of his former colleagues regard him as something of a turncoat.

''That is right,'' Mr. Madamgha said of the influence of his trade. ''By importing Chinese shoes, in a way we are destroying the Iraqi industry.''

But Mr. Madamgha noted that everyone needs shoes, and that Iraqi factories are no longer capable of keeping up with that demand, even if they all work at full capacity. And he called upon another market truism to justify his move.

''If I stop importing Chinese shoes, then Iraqi shoes would be $100 a pair,'' Mr. Madamgha said, before offering a visitor tea.