obama steps up russia sanctions in ukraine crisis - The New York

VOL. CLXIII . . . No. 56,447 © 2014 The New York Times FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

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This article is by Mark Landler,Annie Lowrey and Steven LeeMyers.

WASHINGTON — PresidentObama expanded sanctionsagainst Russia on Thursday,blacklisting a bank and severalwealthy businessmen with closeties to President Vladimir V.Putin, as the United States strug-gled to forestall further Russianincursions into Ukraine.

Among those targeted wereSergei B. Ivanov, the president’schief of staff; Gennady N. Tim-chenko, a billionaire investorwith links to Mr. Putin; and YuriV. Kovalchuk, whom the adminis-tration described as the personalbanker for Russian leaders, in-cluding the president.

Mr. Obama also opened thedoor to more sweeping measuresagainst core parts of the Russianeconomy, including the oil andnatural gas industries, which ac-count for much of Russia’s ex-ports. He said the actions coulddisrupt the global economy, butmight be necessary because ofwhat he described as menacingmovements by the Russian mil-itary near eastern and southernUkraine.

Administration officials insist-ed that the new sanctions wouldhave more bite than the initialones Mr. Obama announced onMonday. But it remains unclearwhether they will be enough toput a brake on Mr. Putin, whobrushed aside the previous meas-

OBAMA STEPS UP RUSSIA SANCTIONSIN UKRAINE CRISIS

WEIGHS WIDER ACTIONS

Bank and Businessmen

With Ties to Putin

Are Targeted

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

President Obama said Russiarisked international isolation.

Continued on Page A12

By THOMAS ERDBRINK

TEHRAN — Suffering in aneconomy dragged down by yearsof mismanagement and the ef-fects of international sanctions,Iran’s increasingly impoverishedmiddle class voted in huge num-bers last summer for PresidentHassan Rouhani, who promisedto reignite growth by restoringties with the rest of the world.

But more than six months afterMr. Rouhani took office, hopes ofa quick economic recovery arefading among ordinary Iranians,business owners and investors,while economists say the govern-ment is running out of cash.

Although Mr. Rouhani hasmanaged to stabilize the nationalcurrency, halt inflation and forgea temporary nuclear deal thatprovides some relief from sanc-tions, delivering on his promisesof economic growth has provedfar more difficult. On taking of-fice, he discovered that the gov-ernment’s finances were in farworse condition than his prede-cessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,had ever let on. Now, with a lackof petrodollars and declining taxrevenues, Mr. Rouhani has littleoption but to take steps that inthe short-run will only increasethe pain for the voters who puthim into office.

With the start of the Iraniannew year, on Friday, the govern-ment will begin phasing out sub-sidies on energy, the start of aprocess that will send the pricesof gasoline and electricity, andother utilities, soaring by nearly90 percent, economists say.

The shortage of funds is alsoforcing the government to winddown a system of $12 monthlypayments to nearly 60 millionIranians, with only the poorest el-igible to reapply.

In return, Mr. Rouhani’s gov-ernment can promise only a re-duction in the inflation rate to 25percent next year, from 42 per-cent last year and 32 percent cur-rently.

That was hardly the payoff thatFarshid Farshi, a sketch artist,was expecting when he voted forMr. Rouhani in June. Mr. Farshiand his wife, a hairdresser, gath-

In Iran, HopesFade for SurgeIn the Economy

Consumers Will Be Hit

as Subsidies End

Continued on Page A8

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — Bring-ing an end to a closely watchedmilitary sexual misconduct trial,a judge on Thursday reprimand-ed Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclairfor, among other offenses, mis-treating an Army captain whowas his mistress, but did not sen-tence him to jail time and allowedhim to remain in the military.

General Sinclair was also or-dered to forfeit $5,000 a month inpay for four months, but will beallowed to keep his pension andother benefits.

The decision by the judge, Col.James L. Pohl, was a sweepingvictory for the defense: A pleaagreement reached by GeneralSinclair’s lawyers and militaryprosecutors this week called forcapping prison time at 18 monthsand did not ensure that he could

keep his pension.It was also a stinging defeat for

the Army, whose case startedcoming apart after prosecutorsconcluded that the captain mighthave lied at a January pretrialhearing. The case then collapsedlast week when Colonel Pohlfound that political considera-tions might have improperly in-fluenced the prosecution.

As a result of that finding, de-fense lawyers and prosecutorsreached an agreement this weekin which General Sinclair pleadedguilty to lesser offenses in ex-change for dismissal of muchmore serious sexual assault

Sexual Misconduct Case Ends With No Jail Time for General

Continued on Page A19

FORMER NAVY ATHLETE ACQUITTED

A former Naval Academy footballplayer was found not guilty of sex-ual assault. Page A19.

ELLEN OZIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, with his lawyers after his sentencing, was reprimanded and ordered to forfeit $20,000 in pay.

By CARL HULSE and ASHLEY PARKER

WASHINGTON — Americansfor Prosperity — the groupbacked by David H. and CharlesG. Koch that has been pouringmillions of dollars into compet-itive Senate races to the risingalarm of Democrats — was alsoamong the politically activegroups on the ground in thismonth’s special House electionon Florida’s Gulf Coast.

But its agenda had little to dowith the fate of David Jolly, theRepublican candidate who wonthat race. The group’s groundtroops — including those whoknocked on doors, ran phonebanks and reached out throughsocial media to gauge ways tomotivate voters — were part of amuch greater project, with aprize much larger than a con-

gressional seat.Americans for Prosperity

turned the Florida contest into itspersonal electoral laboratory tofine-tune get-out-the-vote toolsand messaging for future elec-tions as it pursues its overarch-ing goal of convincing Americansthat big government is bad gov-ernment.

As the group emerges as adominant force in the 2014 mid-term elections, spending up to 10times as much as any major out-side Democratic group so far, of-ficials of the organization saytheir effort is not confined tohammering away at PresidentObama’s Affordable Care Act.They are also trying to presentthe law as a case study in govern-

Koch Group, Spending Freely,

Hones Attack on Government

Continued on Page A3

By ANDREW KEH

Construction has barely begunon the 2,250 promised affordablehousing units. Just one of the 15proposed towers has even start-ed to take root. The leafy plazasremain mere sketches on paper.

Except for the glittering Bar-clays Center, which opened in2012, the giant Atlantic Yardsproject has moved at a glacialpace, to the frustration of manyin Brooklyn. But now, those im-patient souls can search for sol-ace in the project’s latest amen-ity: a locked, windowless, cinder-block room tucked near thearena’s first aid office and a sushistand.

The humble space on thearena’s main concourse is calledthe meditation room, a place ap-parently intended for quiet re-flection amid the din of Netshome games.

It is, perhaps, the least the de-velopers could do. With the big-ticket items still unfulfilled, theopening of the meditation roommeans they have lived up to thissmall promise, laid out in Section

E of Part VII of the lengthy com-munity benefits agreement.

Very few Nets fans have heardof the room, and even fewer useit, at least not for meditation. Itappears to sometimes double as astorage room; several pieces of

luggage sat in the corner on a re-cent night.

The room has been mostly ig-nored since its official openinglast week, but a few fans havestopped to puzzle over it.

“Why would you want to do

that when you came here towatch a game?” Roger Kunch, aNets fan from Long Island, saidwhen informed of the room’s ex-istence.

The meditation room counts

Arena’s Meditation Room Raises Its Own Existential Questions

MICHELLE V. AGINS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

At Barclays Center’s new addition, one might well ponder: What is the sound of an empty room?

Continued on Page B14

This article is by Jad Moua-wad, Christopher Drew and Nico-la Clark.

Airlines routinely use satellitesto provide Wi-Fi for passengers.But for years they have failed touse a similar technology for a farmore basic task: tracking planesand their black-box flight record-ers.

Long before Malaysia AirlinesFlight 370 vanished on March 8,the global airline industry had so-phisticated tools in hand to followplanes in real time and streamdata from their flight recorders.But for a variety of reasons,mostly involving cost and how in-frequently planes crash, neitherthe airlines nor their regulatorsadopted them.

One of the haunting questions

about Flight 370 — how authori-ties could lose track of a Boeing777 jetliner in age when aniPhone can be located in mo-ments — persisted on Thursdayas Australian officials said satel-lite cameras had spotted objectsfloating in the southern IndianOcean that might be parts of themissing airliner. [Page A10.]

Authorities counseled cautionabout the sighting, however, andthe first Royal Australian AirForce plane to fly over the esti-mated location of the objects re-turned to base without spottinganything that fit the description— a reminder of how baffling thehunt for the missing jetliner hasbeen.

The idea of tracking airplanes

‘The Technology Is Out There,’

But Satellites Don’t Track Jets

Continued on Page A10

The current leaders of the major partieshave neither the clout nor the image ofthe political kingmaker, a role personi-fied by Robert S. Strauss, who died thisweek. Washington memo. PAGE A17

NATIONAL A14-19

A Power Shift in Party PoliticsThe chairman of Bloomberg said thatthe company should have reconsideredsome news articles about China becausethey jeopardized the huge sales poten-tial for its information products in theChinese market. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-8

Bloomberg on China CoverageNo. 11 Dayton and No. 12 Harvardscored upsets to advance in theN.C.A.A. men’s tournament. PAGE B9

SPORTSFRIDAY B9-14

Underdogs Have Their Day

David Brooks PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23The massacre of 500 detainees chal-lenges an official account. PAGE A4

Death and Doubt in Nigeria

Four gunmenopened fire at a ho-tel in Kabul popu-lar with foreignersand prominent Af-ghans, woundingtwo people beforethey were killed byAfghan forces,right. PAGE A9

INTERNATIONAL A4-13

Gunmen Attack Afghan Hotel

A Brooklyn Mu-seum exhibition fo-cuses on art thatemerged from thepush in the 1960sfor social change.

PAGE C21

WEEKEND C1-28

Civil Rights,And the Arts

As independent counsel, he exposed thelawbreaking in the Reagan administra-tion that gave rise to the Iran-contrascandal. He was 102. PAGE B16

OBITUARIES B15-16

Lawrence E. Walsh Is Dead

Airbnb, a start-up specializing in short-term housing, may be valued at morethan $10 billion as it seeks to raise newmoney from investors. PAGE B1

High Price for a Web Start-Up

Time Warner Cable’s chief is in line for alucrative severance deal. PAGE B1

6 Weeks of Work, $80 Million

The architects for the new Sandy HookElementary School made sure residentshad a role in the process. PAGE A20

NEW YORK A20-21

In Newtown, a Delicate Design

New regulations on sales of ivory, toprotect elephants, have caused frustra-tion across several industries. PAGE A15

Limits on Ivory Sales

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