BEIJING — The Chinese government on Wednesday began to require cellphone users to furnish identification when buying SIM cards, a move officials cast as an effort to rein in burgeoning cellphone spam, pornography and fraud schemes. Wholesale Chanel Sunglasses The requirement, which has been in the works for years, is not unlike rules in many developed nations that ask users to present credit card data or other proof of identification to buy cellphone numbers. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that about 40 percent of China’s 800 million cellphone users were currently unidentified. Those users will be ordered to furnish identification by 2013 or lose their service, according to The Global Times, a state-run newspaper. A government center that deals with cellphone complaints said that the average Chinese cellphone user received a dozen spam messages a week, and that three of every four users received messages that involved fraud, China Daily, another state newspaper, reported Wednesday. Wholesale Dior Sunglasses Some analysts, however, questioned whether the new requirement would substantially reduce illicit messages. Instead, they warned that the regulation potentially gives the government new tools to locate and punish individuals who send cellphone messages that censors deem unacceptable. The Chinese central government has steadily tightened its censorship of the Internet and wireless communications since 2008, blocking increasing numbers of Web sites, social networking services like Facebook and Twitter and, most recently, shutting down microblogs that it regards as subversive. The new regulation will be carried out largely by the three government-controlled companies — China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom — that provide cellular service. Wholesale LV Sunglasses “Is China prepared for this?” David Bandurski, an author and media analyst at the University of Hong Kong’s China Media Project, asked in a telephone interview. “Does it have the legal framework and the institutions in place to guarantee they can do this and still protect the privacy of consumers?” “People are basically providing their phone numbers and ID numbers” to the mobile carriers, he said. “Those are the two most important pieces of information that most people have.” In an article posted Wednesday on the China Media Project’s Web site, a legal researcher at the government-sponsored Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhou Hanhua, expressed doubts that requiring users to register their names with the companies would control spam. Limited Offering The rules, he wrote, would probably initially create a black market in legally registered SIM cards that could be used for spam, and then spur hackers to find ways to circumvent the registration requirement. “Technology innovation will soon trump the government’s control,” he wrote. Others were less concerned. A professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Zeng Jianqiu, said that real-name registration was essential if services now common in other nations, like payment by cellphone, were to become established in China. Privacy “is a problem that needs to be considered seriously,” he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “The regulators and mobile operators also need to find ways to protect personal information. But I think some, like China Mobile and Telecom, are already doing this.” Ed hardy Swimwear Under the new policy, convenience stores and street vendors who have been selling anonymous SIM cards were to suspend sales on Wednesday, until they are trained to register their customers. Foreigners will also be required to furnish a passport or other identification when establishing cellphone service.

FLORENCE, Italy — For 500 years, Michelangelo’s “David” has stood as a symbol of Florentine independence and virtue. So when a report commissioned by the federal government emerged this month claiming that Italy — and not the city — was the statue’s rightful owner, local tempers flared. The sculpture, Mayor Matteo Renzi retorted, had always, and would always, “belong to Florence.” “The ‘David’ is not an umbrella,” to be haggled over, he said. “It’s a monument in which the city of Florence still sees its identity.” carrera sunglasses Civic pride aside, the dispute over “David” has also brought to light a question increasingly raised by many local governments: Who should benefit from Italy’s cultural patrimony? In 2009, more than one million people saw “David,” which is housed in the Accademia Gallery, the country’s fourth most visited cultural site. Tickets sales topped $7 million. The proceeds went into the federal Culture Ministry coffers. The ownership issue — and related requests to have a stake in profits from “David” — dates from previous administrations. But the turning point came earlier this year when the Culture Ministry commissioned a pair of lawyers to peruse existing documents and determine the rightful owner. In a nine-page document written in dense legalese, the lawyers concluded that “David” belongs to the nation, the true legal successor of the Florentine Republic, which commissioned the statue in 1501. Wholesale sunglasses Completed by 1504, it was immediately hailed as a masterpiece (Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century Italian painter and architect, wrote that “whoever has seen this work need not trouble to see any other work executed in sculpture, either in our own or in other times”) and placed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, then — as now — the civic heart of the city. It remained there until 1873, when it was transported to the Accademia, which belonged to the newly created Kingdom of Italy, the predecessor to modern Italy. (A copy of the statue was placed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, also known as Palazzo Vecchio, at the beginning of the 20th century.) A base was constructed for the massive work, and in 1877 the city lent the national government money to complete the structure. At the time, the city could have advanced its ownership rights but did not, the lawyers wrote in the report. Therefore, they said, the city has no grounds for a claim. sunglass But the mayor has his own documents up his sleeve. For one, Florence had been the capital of Kingdom of Italy from 1865 to 1870, and “David,” he said, was part of a package deal that the kingdom gave the city after transferring the capital to Rome. Proof of ownership, he said, is in a June 9, 1871, document that authorizes the transfer to the city of several buildings, including the Palazzo Vecchio. The lawyer’s report says that there is no specific mention of “David” in such documents, “even though by this time it had assumed enormous, even symbolic, value.” In an odd twist, Italian news outlets also reported that Simone Caffaz, the president of the Fine Arts Academy of Carrara, where the marble used for “David” was quarried, believed that Carrara had the right to make its own claims on Michelangelo’s work. cheap sunglasses “If the state and the city actually ever bring this issue to court, it will be terrible publicity for Florence,” fretted Gabriele Toccafondi, a member of Parliament and the local leader of the center-right People of Freedom Party. “People will see this as a sort of commedia all’Italiana.” Mr. Renzi, the mayor, insists that his claim for “David” does not have the bottom line as its bottom line. Still, eight million tourists a year do have an impact on the city, he said in an interview in his office in the Palazzo Vecchio. Countless tourists “come into the city each day, and we offer them services,” he said. But the millions spent in the city’s museums go straight to the federal government, he added. “This is a new instance of David versus Goliath,” he said. “Our battle is for a different way of managing the cultural patrimony of a city that lives off culture.” sunglasses Officials from the Culture Ministry counter that counting ticket receipts is misleading. Only two government-owned cultural sites in Italy actually make money — the Colosseum and the Milan site of Leonardo’s “The Last Supper” — while the rest are in the red, they said. What the city fails to mention, moreover, is tourism-related activities and business, said Roberto Cecchi, director general of the Culture Ministry. Citing a recent study the ministry carried out on the Colosseum, Mr. Cecchi said that for every euro the nation earned in ticket sales at the site in 2009, local businesses reaped many times more in sales. “That’s the sector we should be developing,” he said. In Florence, Mr. Cecchi added, an accord is currently being worked out for a single ticket that would grant access to both city and federal museums. “It’s an integrated model” that could be one step toward greater cooperation, he said. sunglass hut But for critics like Mr. Renzi, who at 35 is a rising star of the Italian center-left, the Culture Ministry is besieged by an elephantine bureaucracy and an outmoded view of its mandate that effectively resists any attempt at modernization. “Culture in Italy is in the hands of people who may know everything about Vasari” but are afraid to open up to change, he said. His administration, on the other hand, “wants to view culture as economic development,” offering improved services, like longer opening hours for museums, so that the city can be more competitive for tourist dollars, he said. Last year, the ministry created a new division — a directorate of museums — to make better use of the commercial potential of its cultural heritage. But resistance has been very vocal, both from within the ministry ranks, as well as from members of the cultural intelligentsia who fear over-commercialization. aviator sunglasses On a recent August weekday, dozens of tourists gaped and gawked at “David,” towering in his tribune at the Accademia. Seeing “David” had definitely been “the highlight of this trip,” said Sorcha O’Keefe, a primary school teacher from Cork, Ireland. But the squabble over “David” made little sense to her. “I can’t see that it would matter who officially owns it, as long as it is there for everyone to enjoy,” she said.

NEW DELHI — India’s Parliament approved a final, critical piece of a long-delayed landmark civil nuclear agreement on Monday, a pact regarded as a cornerstone of a Bush-era effort to transform the relationship between the United States and the world’s largest democracy. But even as supporters praised a historic victory, the end result is probably not what the United States had hoped for, nor does it seem likely to signal a new era in relations between the United States and India. Ed hardy Womens Swimwear Indeed, some analysts say the compromises needed to move Monday’s legislation through India’s contentious Parliament could undermine the practical impact of a political, diplomatic and economic accord that took years to negotiate. The legislation still requires the signature of the president, a ceremonial gesture that is virtually guaranteed. With President Obama scheduled to make his first visit to India in early November, both governments are trying to strengthen a relationship sometimes described as a natural and strategic alliance of democracies. But drawing closer has proved complicated as differences remain on issues like trade and climate change, as well as how to effectively deal with Pakistan. ED Hardy Sunglasses The nuclear issue, putatively about India’s future, has set off weeks of bitter political debate in New Delhi and tapped into Indian nationalism and public suspicion of foreign corporate interests, while dredging up a very different chapter in the countries’ relations: the 1984 Union Carbide industrial disaster at Bhopal, which killed thousands. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, accused of toadying to the United States, appeared before the lower house of Parliament last week to deny that his allegiance was anywhere but with India. “We kind of assume that we will be the dominant partner in any partnership,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a former envoy to Sri Lanka who also served as an American diplomat in India. “India does not make that assumption.” carrera sunglasses Mr. Singh, who announced the nuclear deal in a 2005 joint statement with former President George W. Bush, has an expansive vision of the role of nuclear energy, to which the deal is limited, as a power source for India’s future. For decades after its 1974 nuclear weapon test, India had refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and was subjected to a three-decade American moratorium on nuclear trade. But the deal with the United States opened a controversial back door for India to join the nuclear club while also opening an Indian market estimated at $150 billion to foreign energy companies, once blocked by the moratorium. Wholesale sunglasses Now the question is whether any foreign or even Indian energy company will be willing to enter the market to provide the expertise India needs to expand, because of the liability guidelines codified in the legislation in case of a nuclear accident. Existing international conventions place liability solely with the operator of a nuclear reactor while immunizing suppliers. But the Indian law bucks international norms and makes suppliers potentially liable, too. “This makes the fruits of the Indo-U.S. deal go to waste,” said G. Balachandran, a security analyst in New Delhi with a specialty in nuclear issues. He added: “It may well be the end of civil nuclear growth in India.” India currently has 19 nuclear reactors, and the government wants to attract foreign and domestic suppliers to build more. International conventions largely abide by a principle in which liability is “channeled” strictly to the operator of a reactor rather than the long list of suppliers. sunglass During the debate before Monday’s vote in the upper house of India’s Parliament, the government’s point man, Prithviraj Chavan, said the law would make India the only country in the world that placed some liability on suppliers. “The suppliers are not happy,” Mr. Chavan said. The government originally proposed legislation more palatable to suppliers, but opposition parties had demanded tougher provisions, particularly after the ghost of the Bhopal disaster inflamed the debate. In Bhopal, thousands of people were killed after a leak in December 1984 at the Union Carbide pesticide factory unleashed a poisonous cloud over the city. India sought $3.3 billion in damages from Union Carbide, since purchased by the Dow Chemical Company, but would later settle for $470 million. Much of the money has not been distributed, and many victims have gotten only nominal payments. cheap sunglasses In June, India’s court system announced light criminal sentences for eight former executives of Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary, one of whom had since died. Meanwhile, Warren M. Anderson, the former chairman of Union Carbide, has never been prosecuted, and he still lives in the United States, which has declined to extradite him. After the issue resurfaced, the public was outraged, and the Bhopal tragedy again dominated the Indian media. Then on Aug. 19, an Indian news channel reported that a senior American official had cautioned a top Indian official in an e-mail that the “noise” over the Dow Chemical Company could hurt investment in India. The official, Mike Froman, a deputy national security adviser, issued a statement denying that he was making any sort of threat, but the episode further inflamed the nuclear debate. sunglasses The Bharatiya Janata Party, the main opposition, insisted on language that left open the possibility that suppliers could be sued in the case of an accident. On Monday, Arun Jaitley, the B.J.P. leader in the upper house, scoffed at the notion that foreign energy companies would stay away. He said India’s appetite for new nuclear reactors would create a “buyer’s market” and the law would provide leverage for the government. He said the law abided by the principle of channeling by holding only the operator liable for claims from accident victims. The difference, he said, is that the law allows an operator to sue a supplier under certain circumstances. Had the law not been changed, he said, it would have been “a suppliers’ immunity law.” sunglass hut Indian business groups and even the government’s own Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which operates the existing reactors, have warned that such liability language was problematic and could dissuade private suppliers. India already has a separate bilateral agreement with Russia, and liability is less central an issue since Russian companies are state-owned. Yet Russia also has expressed concern. Private companies in other countries, including France, which also has a bilateral agreement with India, could be more exposed. “It really increases the exposure of Indian and international suppliers,” said Ashley J. Tellis, a former American diplomat involved in negotiating the framework of the United States-India deal. “The net effect is that it is going to restrict the prime minister’s options and it could even be fatal to his vision of expanding the nuclear power sector in India.” aviator sunglasses

KYOTO, Japan — The demonstrators appeared one day in December, just as children at an elementary school for ethnic Koreans were cleaning up for lunch. The group of about a dozen Japanese men gathered in front of the school gate, using bullhorns to call the students cockroaches and Korean spies. Inside, the panicked students and teachers huddled in their classrooms, singing loudly to drown out the insults, as parents and eventually police officers blocked the protesters’ entry. Wholesale LV Sunglasses The December episode was the first in a series of demonstrations at the Kyoto No. 1 Korean Elementary School that shocked conflict-averse Japan, where even political protesters on the radical fringes are expected to avoid embroiling regular citizens, much less children. Responding to public outrage, the police arrested four of the protesters this month on charges of damaging the school’s reputation. More significantly, the protests also signaled the emergence here of a new type of ultranationalist group. The groups are openly anti-foreign in their message, and unafraid to win attention by holding unruly street demonstrations. Since first appearing last year, their protests have been directed at not only Japan’s half million ethnic Koreans, but also Chinese and other Asian workers, Christian churchgoers and even Westerners in Halloween costumes. In the latter case, a few dozen angrily shouting demonstrators followed around revelers waving placards that said, “This is not a white country.” Limited Offering Local news media have dubbed these groups the Net far right, because they are loosely organized via the Internet, and gather together only for demonstrations. At other times, they are a virtual community that maintains its own Web sites to announce the times and places of protests, swap information and post video recordings of their demonstrations. While these groups remain a small if noisy fringe element here, they have won growing attention as an alarming side effect of Japan’s long economic and political decline. Most of their members appear to be young men, many of whom hold the low-paying part-time or contract jobs that have proliferated in Japan in recent years. Ed hardy Swimwear Though some here compare these groups to neo-Nazis, sociologists say that they are different because they lack an aggressive ideology of racial supremacy, and have so far been careful to draw the line at violence. There have been no reports of injuries, or violence beyond pushing and shouting. Rather, the Net right’s main purpose seems to be venting frustration, both about Japan’s diminished stature and in their own personal economic difficulties. “These are men who feel disenfranchised in their own society,” said Kensuke Suzuki, a sociology professor at Kwansei Gakuin University. “They are looking for someone to blame, and foreigners are the most obvious target.” They are also different from Japan’s existing ultranationalist groups, which are a common sight even today in Tokyo, wearing paramilitary uniforms and riding around in ominous black trucks with loudspeakers that blare martial music. ED Hardy Caps This traditional far right, which has roots going back to at least the 1930s rise of militarism in Japan, is now a tacitly accepted part of the conservative political establishment here. Sociologists describe them as serving as a sort of unofficial mechanism for enforcing conformity in postwar Japan, singling out Japanese who were seen as straying too far to the left, or other groups that anger them, such as embassies of countries with whom Japan has territorial disputes. Members of these old-line rightist groups have been quick to distance themselves from the Net right, which they dismiss as amateurish rabble-rousers. “These new groups are not patriots but attention-seekers,” said Kunio Suzuki, a senior adviser of the Issuikai, a well-known far-right group with 100 members and a fleet of sound trucks. Ed hardy Womens Swimwear But in a sign of changing times here, Mr. Suzuki also admitted that the Net right has grown at a time when traditional ultranationalist groups like his own have been shrinking. Mr. Suzuki said the number of old-style rightists has fallen to about 12,000, one-tenth the size of their 1960s’ peak. No such estimates exist for the size of the new Net right. However, the largest group appears to be the cumbersomely named Citizens Group That Will Not Forgive Special Privileges for Koreans in Japan, known here by its Japanese abbreviation, the Zaitokukai, which has some 9,000 members. The Zaitokukai gained notoriety last year when it staged noisy protests at the home and junior high school of a 14-year-old Philippine girl, demanding her deportation after her parents were sent home for overstaying their visas. More recently, the Zaitokukai picketed theaters showing “The Cove,” an American documentary about dolphin hunting here that rightists branded as anti-Japanese. ED Hardy Sunglasses In interviews, members of the Zaitokukai and other groups blamed foreigners, particularly Koreans and Chinese, for Japan’s growing crime and unemployment, and also for what they called their nation’s lack of respect on the world stage. Many seemed to embrace conspiracy theories taken from the Internet that China or the United States were plotting to undermine Japan. “Japan has a shrinking pie,” said Masaru Ota, 37, a medical equipment salesman who headed the local chapter of the Zaitokukai in Omiya, a Tokyo suburb. “Should we be sharing it with foreigners at a time when Japanese are suffering?” While the Zaitokukai has grown rapidly since it was started three and a half years ago with just 25 members, it is still largely run by its founder and president, a 38-year-old tax accountant who goes by the assumed name of Makoto Sakurai. Mr. Sakurai leads the group from his tiny office in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district, where he taps out announcements and other postings on his personal computer. carrera sunglasses Mr. Sakurai says the group is not racist, and rejected the comparison with neo-Nazis. Instead, he said he had modeled his group after another overseas political movement, the Tea Party in the United States. He said he had studied videos of Tea Party protests, and shared with the Tea Party an angry sense that his nation had gone in the wrong direction because it had fallen into the hands of leftist politicians, liberal media as well as foreigners. “They have made Japan powerless to stand up to China and Korea,” said Mr. Sakurai, who refused to give his real name. Mr. Sakurai admitted that the group’s tactics had shocked many Japanese, but said they needed to win attention. He also defended the protests at the Korean school in Kyoto as justified to oppose the school’s use of a nearby public park, which he said rightfully belonged to Japanese children. Wholesale sunglasses Teachers and parents at the school called that a flimsy excuse to vent what amounted to racist rage. They said the protests had left them and their children fearful. “If Japan doesn’t do something to stop this hate language,” said Park Chung-ha, 43, who heads the school’s mothers association, “where will it lead to next?”

SEOUL, South Korea — A special train believed to be carrying the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, entered China around midnight on Wednesday, South Korean officials said, setting off speculation over what might have compelled him to travel to his isolated government’s closest ally while former President Jimmy Carter was visiting at the North’s invitation. carrera sunglasses After watching Mr. Kim’s movements for the past few days, the South Korean authorities said his train had crossed the border with China, traveling from the North Korean town of Manpo to Jian in China, according to an official at the presidential Blue House in Seoul. Two South Korean intelligence sources who, like the presidential aide, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter, said Mr. Kim might be taking his son with him to introduce him formally to Chinese leaders. South Korean news outlets raised the same possibility. Mr. Kim is grooming his youngest son Kim Jong-un, as successor, according to South Korean officials. North Korea is to convene a congress of its ruling Workers’ Party early next month, where Mr. Kim is expected to rally popular support for his succession plans. Wholesale sunglasses If confirmed, this would be Mr. Kim’s sixth trip to China, his impoverished country’s largest trading partner and aid provider. His last trip was in May, when he met President Hu Jintao during a five-day visit. North Korea and China usually do not confirm a trip by Mr. Kim until it is over. Reports of Mr. Kim’s travels came a day after Mr. Carter arrived in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. It would be highly unusual for Mr. Kim to leave while an important guest was visiting. Officially, Mr. Carter is visiting Pyongyang on a private humanitarian mission to win the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, who was sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor in a North Korean prison and fined some $700,000 for entering the country illegally. There is speculation that North Korea might also try to use Mr. Carter as a conduit to ease tensions with the United States. sunglass There was no indication on Thursday from North Korea on whether Mr. Carter had met Mr. Kim or secured Mr. Gomes’s release. News of the possible trip by Mr. Kim led to rampant speculation in South Korea. Possible motives cited by analysts in Seoul included the North’s need for Chinese aid because of flooding and the possibility of a decline in Mr. Kim’s health, which might have forced aides to take him to China for treatment. Many intelligence officials believe Mr. Kim had a stroke in 2008. Around the time that Mr. Kim’s train crossed the border, North Korean media reported that China would provide emergency flood relief. cheap sunglasses With North Korea’s relations with the South and the United States at a low point, “China is the only one Kim Jong-il can go to to seek aid,” said Kim Keun-sik, an analyst at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “He badly needs aid before the party meeting to make it a national festival, as it is meant to be.” Even so, leaving North Korea without meeting Mr. Carter would be a notable breach of diplomatic etiquette, the analyst said. “A possible political message of this is that North Korea gives its priority to China over the United States,” he said. China’s Foreign Ministry had no comment on the visit. Two teachers told The Associated Press that Mr. Kim spent 20 minutes Thursday at Yuwen Middle School in Jilin, in the northeast, where his father, Kim Il-sung, attended classes from 1927 to 1930. sunglasses A secretary who answered the phone Thursday afternoon said “an important person” visited but said she did not know who it was. Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People’s University in Beijing, said a visit by Kim Jong-il could offer a diplomatic respite from the pressure being exerted by South Korea and the United States. John Delury, senior fellow of the Center on U.S.-China Relations of the Asia Society in New York, said Mr. Kim’s reported trip begged for explanation. “Some will say the trip is related to North Korean succession, but why seek Beijing’s blessing for transferring power to his son in a last-minute trip before the momentous Korean Workers’ Party meeting expected in early September, rather than do so more discreetly during his previous trip in May?” he said. sunglass hut Mr. Delury also was skeptical that Mr. Kim would have gone to China in person to seek a breakthrough in the stalled six-nation talks on ending his country’s nuclear weapons programs. “That’s what diplomats are for,” he said.

PARIS — With anger mounting over French deportations of Roma, top officials in the Sarkozy government have vowed to continue sending them back to Romania and Bulgaria, although they met with officials from Romania on Wednesday to coordinate strategies to aid the Roma there. “It’s not a question of expelling Roma because they are Roma,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said in an interview the same day with the radio station RTL. He cited crime statistics showing a 138 percent rise in the number of Romanians arrested in Paris last year, mostly for pickpocket offenses. Burberry Sunglasses His appearance was part of a concerted effort by government officials who took to the airwaves to defend planned deportations of more than 850 Roma, also known as Gypsies, and a crackdown on illicit caravan encampments. That effort coincided with Nicolas Sarkozy’s return from vacation and his first cabinet meeting during a critical period that will define his presidency and his chances for re-election in 2012. The government focus on Roma, who number more than 15,000 in France, has been lambasted as a political tactic by Mr. Sarkozy to shore up his base support on the right. Pope Benedict XVI has urged the French “to accept human diversity,” and in an open letter on Wednesday to European leaders, the Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros condemned the deportations, demanding a more comprehensive strategy. PRADA Sunglasses “The French government was right to call for measures to improve employment and development opportunities for Roma in their countries of origin, in this case Bulgaria and Romania,” Mr. Soros wrote, urging a European plan, in particular, for early-childhood education for Roma children. On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Hortefeux met with Romania’s secretary of state for Roma integration, Valentin Mocanu. The encounter was the first of several planned government exchanges in Paris and Bucharest to coordinate strategies to enhance police cooperation, combat delinquency and increase European aid to integrate Roma in their home countries. “What we decided today was to have better and more accurate public communication in order to allow the public to be better informed about this situation — to avoid igniting xenophobia,” Mr. Mocanu said. He added that the technical elements were still being worked out before an announcement of specific proposals to achieve their goals on Thursday. Oakley Sunglasses Both sides characterized the meeting as cordial and tension free. éric Besson, the French immigration minister, who also took part in the meeting, said the mood was “constructive and friendly” and without reproach from the Romanians. As those talks were taking place, the French continued more flights for Roma, whose departures they classified as voluntary because in return for leaving, the Roma accepted payments of €300, or about $380, per adult and €100 per child. On Wednesday, several dozen people arrived in Bulgaria, where last week there was an uproar after the local news media reported that some of those deported on Friday were actually ethnic Turks. versace sunglasses In fact, the fundamental problems of the Roma in a borderless Europe could ultimately dampen further enthusiasm for admitting Turkey into the European Union. On Wednesday, government officials in Romania and in Bulgaria made an effort to tone down the criticism and harsh rhetoric about the deportations. Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Nikolay Mladenov, appeared on a local station, Nova Televizia, to criticize media coverage. “Bulgaria has the right to deport foreign citizens if they break the rules,” he said. “The current situation in France concerns fewer Bulgarian citizens compared with other countries, and the issue is being blown out of proportion by the media — this is purely an internal French political debate.” POLICE Sunglasses The governments of Bulgaria and Romania have both noted that they have not been invited to a special immigration summit meeting on Sept. 6 that is organized by France. The list of interior ministers invited to the event includes representatives from Italy and Spain — which have much larger Roma populations than France — as well as Germany, Greece, Britain and Canada. Mr. Mocanu, Romania’s secretary of state for Roma integration, said that was an issue he planned to take up with the French authorities this week. Many of the deported Roma, who are vowing to return legally to France after their expulsion, left Bulgaria and Romania after those nations joined the European Union in 2007. They were largely fleeing poverty and discrimination in rural areas of Romania, where last year a study showed that 7 out of 10 Romanians would not accept a Roma as part of their family. They have also been pushed out by economic forces, particularly in Romania, where the government has introduced drastic austerity measures. Givenchy Sunglasses The largest number of Roma have resettled in Spain, with numbers totaling more than 700,000. There the Spanish government has taken a different approach than France, which since Jan. 1 has sent 8,300 Romanians and Bulgarians back to their home countries. Spain created a program last April to invest €107 million over three years in education, health and lodging for Roma women.

MOSCOW — Prosecutors in Austria said Tuesday that they had filed a formal indictment against three men in connection with the killing of a Chechen whistle-blower in Vienna last year. But the prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to charge Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, who had earlier been implicated in the crime. In April, Austria’s public prosecutor’s office, citing circumstantial evidence, announced after a yearlong investigation that the whistle-blower, Umar S. Israilov, had been fatally shot during a botched kidnapping ordered by Mr. Kadyrov, accusations that the Chechen leader has repeatedly denied. Wholesale Chanel Sunglasses On Tuesday, Michaela Schnell, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office in Vienna, said that an indictment against three men charged as accessories in the murder had been sent to the Regional Court of Vienna, but that there was “not enough proof” to bring charges against Mr. Kadyrov. “We must be careful as well, because this is the president of Chechnya, and we cannot put him in jail so easily,” Ms. Schnell said by telephone. “We do not have the proof.” She said she could not comment on whether the investigation into Mr. Kadyrov’s involvement had been halted. For much of the past decade, Mr. Kadyrov has been the point man in Russia’s often ruthless efforts to quash a simmering Islamist insurgency that emerged after two wars in Chechnya. With tacit approval from the Kremlin, human rights groups say, Mr. Kadyrov has participated in the kidnappings, torture and murders of suspected insurgents and outspoken critics. Wholesale Dior Sunglasses Mr. Israilov, who once worked as a bodyguard for Mr. Kadyrov, claimed as much in a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights issued after he fled Chechnya for Western Europe in 2006. Suspicions of Mr. Kadyrov’s participation in the murder arose immediately after Mr. Israilov, who was 27, was shot outside a Vienna grocery store in January 2009. Before he was killed, Mr. Israilov, who had been granted asylum in Austria, said an emissary sent by Mr. Kadyrov had traveled to Vienna to threaten him. Mr. Kadyrov’s adversaries have frequently met violent ends, be they human rights workers like Natalia Estemirova, who was kidnapped and murdered in July 2009, or political rivals like Sulim B. Yamadayev, a powerful Chechen military commander, who was shot in Dubai in March 2009. Wholesale LV Sunglasses But Mr. Kadyrov, a brash young leader enamored of guns and fighting sports, has never formally been implicated in the deaths and has always vehemently denied his involvement in them, despite heavy suspicions to the contrary. In the Israilov case, Austrian investigators have said that an aide to Mr. Kadyrov, a former Chechen rebel named Shaa Turlayev, met with some of the suspects before the killing. Three Chechen exiles have been in custody in the case since last year, charged with auxiliary roles in the crime. Otto Kaltenbrunner is accused of handling logistics; Muslim Dadayev is believed to have trailed Mr. Israilov before the crime and to have driven the getaway vehicle; and Turpal Ali Yesherkayev is accused of trying to carry out the kidnapping that led to Mr. Israilov’s death. Limited Offering Investigators believe that a fourth suspect, Lecha Bogatirov, who fled to Russia after the murder, fired the three shots that killed Mr. Israilov. Spokeswomen for Austria’s public prosecutor’s office and the Regional Court of Vienna said that three men were named in the indictment but could not confirm their identities. Christina Salzborn, a spokeswoman for the Regional Court of Vienna, said that the indictment had been passed on to the lawyers of the accused, who had 14 days to appeal the charges.

SHADAD KOT, Pakistan — Standing waist-deep in rushing waters, municipal workers struggled to fortify embankments protecting this city from floodwaters on Monday after a last warning was issued to residents to flee to higher ground. As an old man recited the Koran near the course of the water, municipal administrator Habib Ahmed Kamboh directed workers here on the edge of town to place heavy rocks to strengthen the mud banks. “The situation is dangerous,” he said. “The water is rising a foot every day and still rising. We will keep struggling.” Wholesale DG Sunglasses The struggle in Shadad Kot was part of focused attention on Sindh Province and Pakistan’s south as the floods that have torn through the length of the country for three weeks finally move toward the Arabian Sea. President Asif Ali Zardari ordered local authorities to save Shadad Kot, a city of 150,000, as floodwaters came within half a mile over the weekend, and several nearby villages were already cut off when a protective embankment began to give way, Yasin Shar, the district coordination officer of Shadad Kot, said by telephone. The town had largely evacuated, and more residents were still leaving, he said. “We are trying to save the embankment and keep on repairing wherever it is damaged, but the water is flowing with a lot of pressure,” Mr. Shar said. “We hope the embankment won’t break. We are praying.” Wholesale Coach Sunglasses Nearly five million people have been displaced from the worst flooding ever recorded in Pakistan. Hundreds of thousands are being housed in orderly tented camps set up in army compounds, schools and other public buildings, but thousands more are living on roadsides and canal embankments, spreading out mats under the trees or making shade over the simple rope beds they brought with them. The town of Sukkur is overflowing with displaced people. On the edge of the town, a group of 15 families with scores of children are camped along the Dadu Canal. Their mood is edgy, and they race in a horde after any vehicle that slows in the hope that it bears food or assistance. One woman showed her fractured arm, the result of a tussle for food. Wholesale ED Hardy Sunglasses “People are looting,” said Shad Mohammad, 28, a shopkeeper and father of five, who came here after his town, Ghospur, was flooded 15 days ago. “People run after trucks snatching things. People come, sometimes the government comes, or charities with food. Sometimes you get something, sometimes not.” The children are often hungry and crying, Mr. Mohammad said. “We don’t know what will happen to us,” he said. “We have lost everything. We have nothing here, just the clothes we are wearing.” Wholesale Ray Ban Sunglasses He and others spoke of their anxiety that because Sindh is so low-lying, it will take months for the waters to subside and for them to return home. And they know they will return to nothing. The water was up to their necks, so their mud-brick houses will have collapsed and their animals drowned, they said. Surviving would be difficult without assistance, and few expressed confidence they would receive much. The older people were more resigned. “We will sit under the sky, and God will provide what he wills,” said Qaim Din, 50, a father of eight, who had to abandon his donkey and a buffalo as the family fled the rising waters. The younger men expressed anger and impatience. “We are not living here happily,” said another man, also named Qaim Din but not related. A fertilizer dealer, he came here after his village 125 miles away was flooded. “We are angry, and they are treating us like animals,” he said. Wholesale D&G Sunglasses He added: “You are talking of anger, we are sometimes thinking of killing this government. If you go further along this road, you will see people, you will see their faces, they are hurting.” Jamshaid Khan Dasti, a member of Parliament from a neighboring constituency in Punjab Province, said, “Food is creating a law-and-order situation because there is no proper system to look after these people.” There were already episodes of looting and burglary, and Mr. Dasti said he had asked the government to deploy paramilitary rangers to prevent the situation from further deteriorating. The majority of the displaced were falling outside the humanitarian net, he said. In his district, 800,000 people were displaced, but only 100,000 were being provided for in camps. Wholesale Oakley Sunglasses “The rest are scattered, stuck in different places, and they don’t have food or water,” Mr. Dasti said. A former prime minister, Zafarullah Khan Jamali, a member of Parliament whose constituency in neighboring Baluchistan was 90 percent underwater, warned that the mood would only worsen. “These people will be out in the streets, this is what I see,” he said. “I have been through many floods, in ’56, ’73, ’76 and 2007, but I have never seen a government less bothered.” He added, “The state is a failure, and the people will come out, and naturally nothing can stop the wave of people.” Asked if he was talking about a revolution, he said: “Yes. We are heading toward that, very fast.”