ROGER COHEN THE PRICE FOR AN IRAN DEAL SCIENCE FICTION A BEST-SELLING SERIES IN CHINA OFFICE CUBICLES THE POWER SEATS IN PUBLISHING? PAGE 7 PAGE 8 PAGE 15 | OPINION | CULTURE | BUSINESS .... TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014 Climate tools seek to bend nature’s path on warming Militants in Egypt say they will ally with ISIS UTRECHT, THE NETHERLANDS CAIRO From reflective droplets above to minerals below, geoengineering takes off Agreement has potential to knit together conflicts spanning Arab region BY HENRY FOUNTAIN BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK The solution to global warming, Olaf Schuiling says, lies beneath our feet. For Dr. Schuiling, a retired geochemist, climate salvation would come in the form of olivine, a green-tinted mineral found in abundance around the world. When exposed to the elements, it slowly takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Olivine has been doing this naturally for billions of years, but Dr. Schuiling wants to speed up the process by spreading it on fields and beaches and using it for dikes, pathways, even sandboxes. Sprinkle enough of the crushed rock around, he says, and it will eventually remove enough carbon dioxide to slow the rise in global temperatures. ‘‘Let the earth help us to save the earth,’’ said Dr. Schuiling, who has been pursuing the idea single-mindedly for several decades and at 82 is still writing papers on the subject from his cluttered office at the University of Utrecht. Once considered the stuff of wild-eyed fantasies, such ideas for countering climate change through geoengineering are now being discussed seriously by scientists. The National Academy of Sciences is expected to issue a report on the subject this year. That does not mean that such measures, which are considered controversial across the political spectrum, are likely to be adopted anytime soon. But the effects of climate change may become so severe that they could attract even more serious consideration. Some scientists say significant research into engineering the earth should begin now. Dr. Schuiling’s idea is one of several intended to reduce levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, so the atmosphere will trap less heat. Other approaches, potentially faster and more feasible but riskier, would create the equivalent of a sunshade around the planet by scattering reflective droplets in the stratosphere or spraying seawa- They have slaughtered hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police officers, recruited experienced fighters and staged increasingly sophisticated raids from the Western Desert to the Sinai Peninsula. They have beheaded informants and killed an American in a carjacking, Western officials familiar with intelligence reports say. On Monday, the leaders of Egypt’s most dangerous militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, also pledged obedience to the organization that calls itself the Islamic State, becoming its first significant international affiliate in the bet that the link will provide new money, weapons and recruits to battle the government in Cairo. The affiliation could pull the militant group away from an almost exclusive focus on attacking military and security forces toward the Islamic State’s indiscriminate mass killings of civilians. The pledge alone could undermine the government’s efforts to win the trust of Western tourists, a vital source of hard currency. The decision expands the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, into the most populous and historically most influential Arab state, a milestone achievement six weeks into an American-led bombing campaign against its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. It is the latest manifestation of a swirling descent into violence around the region amid the dashed hopes for democracy of the Arab Spring uprisings three years ago. In practical terms, the Islamic State could also share resources — including its wealth of stolen money and oil, and stores of seized weapons — to add new fuel to the Egyptian group’s insurgency at a critical point. In recent weeks, Ansar Beit alMaqdis has come under a withering crackdown by the Egyptian military, which has begun the evacuation and destruction of hundreds of homes in an attempt to eradicate the group from its havens in the northern Sinai. But at the same time the group has far exceeded the confident predictions of Egyptian officials as well as the expectations of many Western analysts, raising fears that its fight may just be beginning. Having killed hundreds of soldiers and police officers in violent retaliation for the military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi last year, Ansar Beit alMaqdis has more recently launched increasingly sophisticated and deadly attacks on military camps at both the eastern and western extremes of the country, according to Western officials and Egyptian analysts familiar with intelligence reports. An attack on July 19 in the Western Desert, a vast expanse from west of the Nile to Libya, killed at least 21 soldiers, and another on Oct. 24 in the Sinai Pen- CLIMATE, PAGE 3 ILVY NJIOKIKTJIEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES ‘‘Let the earth help us to save the earth,’’ Olaf Schuiling said of the mineral olivine. Asia strategy NG HAN GUAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS President Obama and President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday as a summit meeting opened and as China acted to tie itself more closely to the region. A TIGHT SCHEDULE PAIRS RITUAL WITH DEAL-MAKING Mr. Obama’s visit focuses on his relationship with Mr. Xi in favor of reaching out to the Chinese public. PAGE 5 BEIJING TAKES STEPS TO INCREASE REGIONAL TRADE The measures amount to a comprehensive vision for binding Asian economies more firmly to China. PAGE 12 MOSCOW TURNS MORE TOWARD ASIA, ECONOMICALLY With its deal to build a pipeline to China, Gazprom has bolstered the Kremlin’s strategic plans. PAGE 12 How a low-tech hacker bedeviled high and mighty In comeback bid, Sarkozy battles voters’ memories ARAD, ROMANIA ST.-CYR-SUR-LOIRE, FRANCE Using mostly guesswork, ‘Guccifer’ raided email and kept the F.B.I. at bay BY SUZANNE DALEY BY ANDREW HIGGINS He reveled in tormenting members of the Bush family, Colin L. Powell and a host of other prominent Americans, and also in outfoxing the F.B.I. and the Secret Service, foiling their efforts to discover even his nationality, never mind his identity. Early this year, however, the elusive online outlaw known as Guccifer lost his cocky composure and began to panic. He smashed his hard drive and cellphone with an axe in the Romanian region of Transylvania. The spasm of precautionary destruction in the garden of his home did not help him much, especially as he left pieces of what would later become evidence scattered in the mud. Two weeks later, on Jan. 22, a global hunt for the renowned and mysterious hacker who first revealed self-portraits painted by George W. Bush and plundered a trove of personal email from politicians, military officers and celebrities finally ended in an early HACKER, PAGE 4 CRISTIAN MOVILA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Marcel-Lehel Lazar, known as Guccifer, the mysterious hacker who first revealed self-portraits painted by George W. Bush. HUNTER OF HACKERS AVOIDS SPOTLIGHT Lawrence Baldwin is no household name, but he has become a go-to guy for banks fighting cybercrime. PAGE 12 ONLINE AT INY T. COM On a recent evening, Nicolas Sarkozy, who since being voted out of office more than two years ago has done nothing to temper his reputation as the bad boy of French politics, was on stage in a gymnasium trying to generate enthusiasm for his latest campaign. Mr. Sarkozy, France’s president from 2007 to 2012, talked of everything from the state of the economy to the respect due to teachers, before ending with a swipe at the pundits lining up these days to say that his comeback is already in trouble. ‘‘Good thing that it’s going so badly,’’ Mr. Sarkozy said, looking over the filled seats pressed up against the stage in this city in central France. ‘‘What kind of a venue would I have needed if things were going well?’’ Perhaps he could not see that, behind the phalanx of television cameras set up on a midcourt platform, the gym was rather empty. Mr. Sarkozy, tanned and dapper, has been holding American-style town hall meetings around the country. His stated goal is the presidency of his center-right party, the Union for a Popular Movement, or U.M.P., for its initials in French. But there is little doubt that this campaign — with stickers that say simply I NSIDE TODAY’S PAP E R New attitude on marijuana Stabbings raise new fears in Israel Under a plan by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, people found with small amounts of marijuana would be issued court summonses but would not be arrested. nytimes.com/nyregion An Israeli woman was killed and an Israeli soldier was wounded in attacks by Palestinians, one in the occupied West Bank and the other in the center of Tel Aviv. WORLD NEWS, 5 Parents in U.S. give testing an F Dozens killed at Nigerian school A suicide bomber dressed as a student detonated explosives in a backpack, killing about 50 students and teachers at a high school. WORLD NEWS, 5 Parents, students and school officials have joined a national protest over the consequences of Common Core testing, involving national standards in more than 40 states. nytimes.com/us Panel seeks tighter rules for banks A sports patriarch dies at 86 A global financial panel has introduced a plan to double the amount of money that large banks would be required to have on hand to absorb losses. BUSINESS, 12 Ernie Vandeweghe played for the New York Knicks in the early 1950s, and his descendants have been world-class athletes. nytimes.com/basketball Resetting U.S.-China relations Progress toward the presidency Republicans still face demographic problems, but their midterm success was not only based on low turnout among Democrats. nytimes.com/upshot NEWSSTAND PRICESINFORMATION, CALL: FOR SUBSCRIPTION Cameroon CFA 2.500 Ecuador US$ 3.35 Hungary HUF 800 00800 Canada 44C$ 4.5048Egypt78 27 EGP 15.00 Israel NIS 13.00/Eilat NIS 11.00 Andorra ¤ 3.50 Antilles ¤ 3.50 Argentina US$ 5.00 Austria ¤ 3.00 Bahrain BD 1.20 Belgium ¤3.00 Bermuda US$ 3.50 Bolivia US$ 2.75 Bosnia & Herzegovina KM 5.00 Bulgaria ¤ 2.55 Lithuania LTL 15 Luxembourg ¤ 3.00 Macedonia Den 150.00 Malta ¤ 3.00 Montenegro ¤ 2.00 Morocco MAD 25 Mexico N$ 26.00 Moscow Roubles 110 Nigeria NGN 390 Northern Ireland £ 1.50 Caymanat Is CI$ 2.00 Estonia ¤ 3.20 Italy ¤ 2.80 or e-mail us [email protected] Chile Ps$ 1,550 Colombia Cps 1,875 Costa Rica US$ 2.50 Croatia KN 20.00 Cyprus ¤ 2.90 Czech Rep CZK 110 Denmark DKr 26 Finland ¤ 3.00 France ¤ 3.00 Gabon CFA 2.500 Great Britain £ 1.80 Greece ¤2.50 Germany ¤ 3.00 Gibraltar £ 1.35 Ivory Coast CFA 2.500 Jordan. JD 1.50 Kazakhstan USD 3.50 Kenya K. SH. 200 Kosovo ¤ 2.50 Latvia ¤ 3.25 Lebanon LP 4,000 ’:HIKKLD=WUXUU\:?b@l@l@b@a" DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES AN EBOLA MYSTERY Doctors have been confounded by the divergent paths of patients whose cases appeared similar. Williams Beyan, 5, shown last month with his father, George, died. But Mr. Beyan and others at the hospital in Suakoko, Liberia, survived. nytimes.com/africa NEWSSTAND PRICES Norway NkrFrance 28 Senegal 2.500 ¤ CFA 3.00 Oman OMR 1.250 Serbia Din 250 Peru US$ 3.50 Slovakia ¤ 3.30 Andorra ¤ 3.50 Poland ZI 12.20 Slovenia ¤ 2.50 Antilles ¤ Spain 3.50 Portugal ¤ 3.00 ¤ 3.00 Qatar QR 10.00 Sweden Skr 28 CFA 2.500 Republic of Cameroon Ireland ¤3.00 Switzerland SFr 4.30 Reunion ¤ 3.50 Syria US$ 3.00 Gabon CFA 2.500 Romania Lei 11.50 The Netherlands ¤ 3.00 Saudi ArabiaIvory SR 13.00Coast Tunisia Din 4.300 CFA 2.500 Turkey TL 6 Ukraine US$ 5.00 United ArabMAD Emirates25 AED 12.00 Morocco Venezuela US$ 2.75 Senegal CFA 2.500 United States $ 3.00 Other US$ 2.00 Tunisia Din(Europe) 4.300 U.S. Military US$ 1.75 Reunion ¤ 3.50 IN THIS ISSUE No. 40,952 Books 9 Business 12 Crossword 11 Culture 8 Opinion 6 Sports 10 CURRENCIES t t t t Euro Pound Yen S. Franc NEW YORK, MONDAY 12:30PM €1= £1= $1= $1= PREVIOUS $1.2420 $1.2450 $1.5860 $1.5870 ¥114.770 ¥114.530 SF0.9670 SF0.9660 Full currenc y rates Pa ge 17 The presidents of the United States and China, meeting in Beijing, must forge a relationship that is positive-sum, not zero-sum, write Wang Dong, Robert A. Kapp and Bernard Loeffke. OPINION, 6 STOCK INDEXES MONDAY s The Dow 12:30pm 17,605.65 s FTSE 100 close 6,611.25 t Nikkei 225 close 16,780.53 OIL +0.18% +0.67% –0.59% NEW YORK, MONDAY 12:30PM t Light sweet crude $77.68 –$1.33 ‘‘My President’’ — is intended as a steppingstone for another run at the Élysée Palace. Mr. Sarkozy is clearly banking that the many failures of the Socialist who beat him, President François Hollande, will inspire some sort of nostalgia for him — or at least a willingness to give him and his conservative agenda another chance. The question is whether voters will forget about, or forgive, his toxic reputation SARKOZY, PAGE 3 JEAN-PAUL PELISSIER/REUTERS There is little doubt that Nicolas Sarkozy wants to return to the Élysée Palace. EGYPT, PAGE 4