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ART AUCTIONS
PRINTS GAIN
NEW CACHET
SEEKING LIGHT
ELECTRICITY AS
NIGERIA’S HOPE
DJOKOVIC WINS
MURRAY FALLS
IN AUSTRALIA
PAGE 7
PAGE 8
PAGE 10
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CULTURE
|
OPINION
|
SPORTS
....
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2015
Greek banks
find solvency
may depend
on E.C.B.
With budget,
Obama tries
to narrow
income gap
But aggressive posture
of new government may
reduce readiness to help
WASHINGTON
BY LANDON THOMAS JR.
BULENT KILIC/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Devastation in the Syrian town of Kobani, a result of the Islamic State siege. ‘‘We don’t care about money or buildings, only victory,’’ a resident said. ‘‘We were not broken by ISIS.’’
Pride in victory outweighs Kobani’s grief
KOBANI, SYRIA
Residents repel ISIS
and now hope to carve
out a Kurdish homeland
BY TIM ARANGO
Lasheen Abdulla steered her white
minivan through the streets of her
hometown, past the charred husks of
car bombs, the shattered storefronts,
the unexploded mortar shells. Across
the gray of destruction were streaks of
color: the purple sheets hung to hide the
Kurdish snipers who, for months,
defended this city from the extremists
of the Islamic State.
She pointed to the spots where her
city’s martyrs fell — five over there,
near the bullet-pocked wall of a girl’s
school, six at a heap of rubble that used
to be an open-air vegetable market. In
recent days, the ruins have yielded
corpses of Kurdish fighters, their heads
severed. Even children’s dolls were
found decapitated, a symbol, Ms. Abdulla said, of the cruelty of their enemy.
‘‘When you see your hometown destroyed like this, you feel destroyed
from within,’’ said Ms. Abdulla, 43, who
remained in Kobani for the entire siege.
She has washed many bodies of Kurdish
fighters for burial, and said she had
three in the house where she has been
staying.
The devastation of this city, wrought
by the Islamic State siege and the AmerOUTRAGE IN JAPAN OVER ISIS VIDEO
After the apparent killing of a journalist,
the public is still backing the prime
minister’s stand against ISIS. PAGE 5
ican-led air campaign that ultimately
expelled the militants, is so thorough
that it manages to feel unreal, like a
movie set.
Even so, now that the city has been
liberated, pride in victory outweighs
grief over the losses for the Kurds who
live here. As the battle unfolded, with its
outcome uncertain, Kobani had taken
on mythic status — Kurds called it their
Stalingrad — as a place from which the
Kurds hope to carve a homeland from
the turmoil of the Middle East.
‘‘All I can feel now is happiness be-
KOBANI, PAGE 5
In January 2013, as Cypriot banks faced
collapse, Jens Weidmann, Germany’s
powerful representative at the European Central Bank, made it clear how
unhappy he was with the Cyprus bank
bailout.
It was not the E.C.B.’s job to ‘‘fund the
gap of any bank runs,’’ Mr. Weidmann
told its Governing Council, according to
confidential minutes of the meeting, citing both the Cyprus rescue and the
Greek bank bailout in 2012.
As depositors yank their savings from
Greek banks, the question is being
asked if the European Central Bank
would bail them out again. The question
gained urgency late last week as the
new Greek government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras abruptly cut off talks
with the country’s lenders.
On Wednesday, the E.C.B. is to meet
to decide whether it should approve a
move by the Greek central bank to
provide emergency loans to some of the
country’s largest banks. Such shortterm financing, which is more expensive than traditional loans, is provided
only as a last resort, when banks are
bleeding deposits and cannot gain access to funds from their usual lenders.
And while Greece’s banks are in far
better shape than they were two years
ago, the fear that Mr. Tsipras’s government could be even more radical than
advertised has sparked a mini-run, with
bankers and analysts estimating that as
much as 14 billion euros, or $15.8 billion,
has been pulled from the banks in the
past month.
Bankers say that these outflows accelerated late last week following aggressive anti-Europe comments by
Greece’s new government ministers.
‘‘People are not so much afraid of the
banks,’’ said Gikas Hardouvelis, who
was, until last week, the Greek finance
minister. ‘‘They are afraid that the Syriza
GREECE, PAGE 15
As Ebola fades, the focus turns to life
MONROVIA, LIBERIA
New cases in Liberia,
an epidemic center, now
number in single digits
BY NORIMITSU ONISHI
JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES — AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A wedding reception in Monrovia, Liberia, which just months ago was ravaged by Ebola.
As fear of the virus decreases, Liberians are slowly returning to their daily rhythms.
Life is edging back to normal after the
deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.
At the height of the epidemic, Liberians met horrific deaths inside the bluepainted walls of the Nathaniel V. Massaquoi
Elementary
School,
as
classrooms became Ebola holding centers and the education of a nation’s children, shuttered in their homes for
safety, was abruptly suspended.
Now, parents are streaming into the
schoolyard once again, not to visit their
stricken loved ones, but with their restless children in tow to register for the
start of classes in a delayed and
shortened academic year.
Eager to learn and to play with her
friends again, Florence Page, 11, bounded
ahead, brimming with pent-up energy, as
her mother, Mabel Togba, paused to look
warily into the school building through
its padlocked metal screen doors.
‘‘They still haven’t told us that Liberia is free of Ebola, so I’m still afraid,’’
said Ms. Togba, 42. ‘‘But it’s better than
to leave my children at home doing
nothing.’’
New Ebola cases in Liberia, where
streets were littered with the dead just a
few months ago, now number in the
INSIDE TO DAY ’S PA P E R
ONLINE AT INY T.COM
Vaccine critics on the defensive
The Super Bowl spectacle
As officials in 14 states grapple with an
outbreak of measles, the parents at the
heart of the anti-vaccine movement in
the United States are being faulted for a
public-health crisis. WORLD NEWS, 6
Full coverage of Super Bowl XLIX from
Glendale, Ariz., where the Seattle
Seahawks and the New England Patriots
faced off on Sunday for football’s mostcoveted prize. nytimes.com/football
Egypt frees and deports journalist
Special-care residents forced out
The Egyptian authorities on Sunday
released and deported an Australian
journalist jailed for more than a year in
a case that had been criticized by
human rights groups. WORLD NEWS, 6
John Cosentino has spent 36 years at a
Brooklyn institution. Now the state is
moving disabled residents out. The
change is painful. nytimes.com/nyregion
An overnight stay at Hotel 22
A $3 tip on a $4 coffee? Take a hint
In the United States, increasing
varieties of digital payment options are
expanding when and how much people
are encouraged to tip. BUSINESS, 14
A bus route in Silicon Valley has become
a well-known overnight shelter for the
homeless. A video journalist rode Line
22, documenting its passengers through
the night. lens.blogs.nytimes
Pakistan’s competing narratives
Dust obscures glimpse of big bang
I believe Pakistan must face its inner
demons, but my beliefs cannot stand in
the way of inconvenient truths, Bina
Shah writes. OPINION, 8
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have been fighting since the 1980s. The conflict has recently escalated. WORLD NEWS, 3
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IN THIS ISSUE
No. 41,021
Books 7
Business 13
Crossword 12
Culture 7
Opinion 8
Sports 10
A push to be forgotten worldwide
A case that originated in France
against Google has raised the question
of whether Europe can impose its strict
privacy laws on sites that operate
elsewhere. BUSINESS, 13
A team of astronomers, after
announcing last spring the discovery of
long-sought evidence for what kicked off
the big bang, now concedes that more
work is needed. nytimes.com/science
The Johnny Appleseed of pickling
Tara Whitsitt rides around the United
States in a bus, earning a living largely
by holding workshops in which she
teaches old-fashioned methods of food
preservation. nytimes.com/nyregion
single digits, according to the World
Health Organization. In neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, the other two
nations in the Ebola hot zone, new cases
have fallen sharply in the last month,
dropping to fewer than 100 in a week at
the end of January — a level not seen in
the region since June.
With a virus as deadly as Ebola, officials warn that the epidemic will not be
over until cases reach zero in all three
countries. But after nearly 9,000 deaths
from the disease, the W.H.O. announced
last week that it was focusing on a goal
that had seemed out of reach for much
of last year: ending the Ebola epidemic,
no longer simply slowing its spread.
Here in Monrovia, the capital, ambulances and body collection vehicles that
EBOLA, PAGE 4
$4 trillion plan would hit
overseas corporate profits
and assist middle class
BY JONATHAN WEISMAN
President Obama will propose a 10-year
budget on Monday that stabilizes the
federal deficit but does not seek balance, instead focusing on policies to address income inequality as he adds
nearly $6 trillion to the debt.
The $4 trillion budget would hit corporations that park profits overseas, raise
taxes on the richest of the rich and lift
the incomes of the middle class through
new spending and tax credits. He will
challenge the Republican Congress to
answer his emphasis on wage stagnation, according to congressional aides
briefed on the details.
The central question Mr. Obama will
pose is this: Should Washington worry
about what may be the defining economic dilemma of the era — the rising
gap between the rich and everyone else
— or should policy makers address a
mountain of debt that the White House
hopes to control but not reduce.
The president’s budget — thicker
than a phonebook in multiple volumes
— will be just the starting point for that
OTTO KITSINGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Obama wants the debate to be
more about inequality than reducing debt.
discussion with the newly elected Republican Congress, a document representing Mr. Obama’s aspirations, not
the final word. Criticism of the president’s intentions arrived, even before
the budget was presented.
‘‘We’re six years into the Obama economic policies, and he’s proposing more
of the same, more tax increases that kill
investment and jobs, and policies which
are hardly aspirational,’’ Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman
of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in an interview over the weekend.
Mr. Obama’s spending-and-taxes
plan foresees a $474 billion deficit, which
would be 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product, a level most economists see
as manageable, according to budget
documents obtained by The New York
Times. The deficit number would creep
up each year, to $687 billion by 2025. But
measured against the economy, the deficit would remain stable.
The debt, while growing every year,
would remain around 75 percent of the
gross domestic product. That is a level
BUDGET, PAGE 6