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INTERNATIONAL

THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2008

By David Pogue High-definition camcorders
BUSINESS

His plan for meeting on crisis shifts debate onto European turf
By Mark Landler
WASHINGTON: President Nicolas Sarkozy of France left the summit meeting of 20 nations
on the financial crisis last weekend in Washington declaring that it had changed
the world. Then he went home and announced that he was holding another summit meeting
in a few weeks on the same topic. Sarkozy did not tell President George W. Bush or
other leaders about his plans while he was here, according to European and American
officials. A senior European diplomat said that he found the whole exercise “amazing,”
while an American official said “amazing” was a charitable description. French
officials said the Paris meeting, which is scheduled for Jan. 8 and 9 is to be co-hosted
by the former British prime minister Tony Blair, was merely a conference — one
intended to bring together political leaders and prominent thinkers to discuss issues
like globalization and the values of capitalism. But the dispute epitomizes what
has become an increasingly tense trans-Atlantic contest over summitry and the global
economy. While much of this is posturing and preening by ambitious leaders, it also
reflects an underlying debate about how to fix a fractured world economy. “Sarkozy
claimed he put a bell on the American cat,’’ said Simon Johnson, former chief
economist of the International Monetary Fund. “He said the U.S. had agreed to a
whole range of negotiations. But he didn’t come in and negotiate these things.
Then he went home and claimed victory.” Sarkozy has made clear that he is determined
to keep the initiative on what the French regard as a long-overdue discussion of
American-style capitalism and its excesses. After the meeting concluded on Saturday,
he was not shy about proclaiming that the era of American hegemony
SUMMIT, Continued on Page 13

Sarkozy puts Paris accent on summitry



By Mitt Romney Let Detroit go bankrupt
V IEWS


Should cholesterol drugs be in every medicine cabinet?
H E A LT H & S C I E N C E


The surge in high-seas hijacking
Somali pirates have seized at least 36 ships this year. At least 14 ships with 243
crew are still held, including these 4:

He accepts strictures in event senator gets secretary of state nod
By Peter Baker, Helene Cooper and Brian Knowlton

Bill Clinton eases path to cabinet for Hillary

Jason R. Zalasky/U.S. Navy

Jason R. Zalasky/U.S. Navy, via Reuters

SEPT. 24: FAINA
The ship was carrying 33 T-72 tanks, grenade launchers and ammunition destined for
the port of Mombasa, Kenya. Pirates have demanded $20 million in ransom.

NOV. 13-14: TIANYU 8
The Chinese fishing boat was reported seized off Kenya. The crew included 15 Chinese,
one Taiwanese, one Japanese, three Filipinos and four Vietnamese.

William S. Stevens/European Pressphoto Agency

Martin Pawils/The Associated Press

NOV. 15: SIRIUS STAR
The Saudi supertanker, the biggest ship ever hijacked, was carrying as much as as
two million barrels of oil when it was captured off the coast of East Africa.

NOV. 18: THE DELIGHT
The Hong Kong-f lagged ship, operated by an Iranian company, had 25 crew members
aboard and 36,000 tons of wheat when it was taken off the coast of Yemen.

Spate of piracy draws Indian counterattack
By Hari Kumar, Alan Cowell and Caroline Brothers
NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy reported Wednesday that it had sunk a pirate ship in a
fierce overnight battle, punctuating a two-week stretch in which at least eight ships
have been hijacked around the Indian Ocean. The spree of lawlessness has focused
worldwide attention on a simmering, frightening and costly problem. The Indian account
of the nighttime drama late Tuesday underscored growing international concern at
the audacity with which armed pirates, mostly based in Somalia, range across vast
areas of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, attacking at will. The attacks have
led to payouts estimated at more than $25 million to hijackers. They have caused
shipping companies to cancel voyages or redirect them to more costly routes, and
they threaten to drive up insurance costs, which would almost certainly be passed
on to consumers. “Over the past six to nine months, this is totally unprecedented,”
Brendan Flood, a marine underwriter for the specialist insurer Hiscox in London,

Navy sinks one vessel in fierce nighttime battle
said of the number of ships being hijacked. Peter Hinchliffe, the London-based maritime
director of the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents ship owners worldwide,
called the situation ‘‘a real 21st-century nightmare.’’ The recent attacks
include a Saudi-owned supertanker fully loaded with two million barrels of oil that
was seized by pirates off Somalia on Saturday. At least 92 ships have been attacked
in and around the Gulf of Aden so far this year, more than triple the number in 2007,
according to the International Maritime Bureau. A minimum of 14 of ships, with more
than 250 crew members, are still in the control of hijackers. They include a Ukrainian
freighter — loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition —
that has been held hostage since late September. There was no immediate word Wednesday
on the status of negotiations for the release of the enor-

Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy, left, and George W. Bush in Washington last week.
CURRENCIES New York Wednesday, 2 p.m. ¤1= £1= $1= $1= Full currency rates $1.2605
$1.5083 ¥96.795 SF1.2095

Ron Edmonds/AP

mous Saudi-owned supertanker, Sirius Star, which remained at anchor off the coast
of Somalia with its approximately $100 million in oil. In Rome, Prince Saud al-Faisal,
the Saudi foreign minister, confirmed that the owners of the Star were “negotiating
on the issue,” despite the Saudi government’s official opposition to such discussions
with “pirates, terrorists or hijackers,” according to news reports. He did not
elaborate. In a statement Wednesday, Commander Nirad Kumar Sinha, a spokesman for
the Indian Navy, said an Indian frigate, the Tabar, had encountered three pirate
vessels some 320 miles south west of the Omani coast in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday
evening. One ship was apparently a “mother ship” used by pirates to extend their
range, with two speedboats in tow. The suspect vessel matched the description of
a pirate vessel issued by international anti-piracy authorities, Sinha said. He said
the ‘“whole operation lasted four to five hours” and was “the first such
incident in which the Indian Navy sank the pirates’ mother ship.”
PIRATES, Continued on Page 8

WASHINGTON: Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to several restrictions on his
future business and philanthropic activities around the world to pave the way for
his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to serve as secretary of state, Democrats close
to the situation said Wednesday. ‘‘I’m certain President Clinton will do whatever
it takes, which means whatever President-elect Obama wants, to make the nomination
acceptable, if he offers and she accepts,’’ said Lanny Davis, a longtime friend
of the Clintons’ who served as a special counsel in his White House and has consulted
in recent days with the Clinton camp. Because of Bill Clinton’s complicated net
of international business, fund-raising and charitable work — he has raised millions
for his foundation from foreign sources, and often speaks overseas for fees in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars — questions have arisen about potentially serious
conflicts of interest. That gave imporTRANSITION tance to his agreement in Washington
to disclose some major donors to his charitable foundation and to subject his future
foundation activities and paid speeches to ethics reviews. Details of his offer came
from Democrats close to the negotiations, speaking on grounds of anonymity because
of the sensitive nature of the selection process. The former president would also
cede day-to-day responsibility for the William J. Clinton Foundation and would alert
the State Department to his speaking plans and new income sources for as long as
his wife served as secretary of state, according to the Democrats. But he would not
necessarily have to disclose all the contributors to his foundation. The discussions
were progressing even as President-elect Barack Obama was pulling together more of
his team. He has decided to nominate former Senator Thomas Daschle of South Dakota
as secretary of health and human services and is leaning toward former Deputy Attorney
General Eric Holder Jr. as attorney general, people close to the transition said.
But most attention in Washington was focused on the possibility that Obama may bring
Senator Clinton into his cabinet. The concessions suggested that the two camps were
moving closer to an accord that would team up the leading figures of the Democratic
Party just months after they ended one of the toughest, closest presidential nomination
fights in modern times. Although both sides said no offer has been made
CLINTON, Continued on Page 8

Previous
$1.2629 $1.4950 ¥96.975 SF1.2015

Qaeda video paints Obama as hypocrite
In Al Qaeda’s first response to the American election, Osama bin Laden’s top
deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, condemned President-elect Barack Obama as a ‘‘house
Negro’’ who will continue a campaign against Islam begun by President George
W. Bush. U.S. officials dismissed the new video as spin control by a terrorist group.
Page 5

Coming to a zoo near you: Live mammoths (maybe)
By Nicholas Wade
NEW YORK: For the first time, scientists are talking about resurrecting an extinct
species as if this longtime staple of science fiction were a realistic possibility,
saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.
The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one
could obtain hair, horn,
hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years. Though
the stuffed animals in natural history museums are not likely to burst into life
again, these old collections are full of items that may contain ancient DNA that
can be decoded by the new generation of DNA sequencing machines. If the genome of
an extinct species can be reconstructed, biologists can work out the exact DNA differences
with the genome of its nearest living relative. There are now discussions of how
to modify the DNA in an elephant’s egg so that, generation by generation, it would
progressively resemble the DNA in a mammoth egg. The final-stage egg could then be
brought to term in an elephant mother, and mammoths might once again roam the Siberian
steppes. The same would be technically possible with Neanderthals, whose full genome
is expected to be recovered shortly. Ethically, that would be more challenging. A
scientific team headed by Stephan Schuster and Webb Miller at Pennsylvania State
University report in the Thursday issue of Nature that they have recovered a large
fraction of the mammoth genome from clumps of mamMAMMOTHS, Continued on Page 8

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Page 16

OIL New York, Wednesday, 2 p.m. Light sweet crude $54.76



STOCK INDEXES Wednesday The Dow 2 p.m. FTSE 100 close Nikkei 225 close 8,250.00 4,005.68
8,273.22 -2.07% -4.82% -0.66%

IN THIS ISSUE No 39,097
Books 18 Culture & More 18 Health & Science 19 Opinion 6 Business with 12-17

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Debate in the Iraqi Parliament over a three-year security pact with the United States
escalated Wednesday into yelling and physical confrontation. Page 4

Iraqi legislators brawl

Leaders of the three U.S. carmakers went back to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, appealing
this time to the House of Representatives to approve $25 billion of aid. Page 12

Big 3 renew aid plea

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As prospects dim, Germans resist calls to spend more. Page 13 U.S. reports a sharp
decline for consumer prices. Page 13 Europe puts its national treasures online with
digital library. Page 14 Successful transplant is credited to stem cell advance.
Page 8



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A computer-generated image of a mammoth emerging from ice.

Steven W. Marcus/ExhibitEase

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