Television Review: ‘The Bible’ Mini-Series on the History Channel

Mark Burnett, an impresario of reality television, has surely encountered the question before: How do you make viewers believe what they’re seeing? Did those “Survivor” contestants really eat that stuff? Would any of these seemingly intelligent “Apprentice” candidates actually want to work for Donald Trump?

Mr. Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, gave themselves a chance to tackle the ultimate make-me-believe-it challenge when they decided to produce “The Bible,” a 10-hour dramatization that begins on Sunday on History. Instead of embracing this challenge, they ducked it, serving up a rickety, often cheesy spectacle that is calculated to play well to a certain segment of the already enlisted choir but risks being ignored or scorned in other quarters.

The mini-series certainly seems unlikely to be much of a recruitment tool for Christianity, putting the emphasis on moments of suffering rather than messages of joy, and not just when it comes time for the Crucifixion. In this heavy-handed treatment, having Jesus born in a manger is not enough; the arrival also has to occur during what looks like a typhoon. Because why have a moderate amount of hardship when you can have an excess of it?

The feelings behind the series may be sincere — Ms. Downey has said that she and her husband “felt called to do this” — but the approach here actually shows a lack of faith in the power of the biblical stories. The real Bible is a layered, often lyrical epic in which personal journeys are intertwined with collective ones, and human failings bump up against human strivings.

Mr. Burnett and Ms. Downey, their actors (Ms. Downey herself is one) and especially their adapters don’t have nearly the skill to translate such a thing to the small screen in a way that does justice to its complexity. The best they can do is a black-and-white simplification in which villains often come across as laughable caricatures because the creators are so eager to make sure that everyone realizes that they’re villains.

Mel Gibson, of course, already proved that there is a substantial audience for a suffering-heavy treatment of Christianity with “The Passion of the Christ.” But Mr. Gibson’s movie had the advantage of a narrow focus. By taking on the entire Bible, even at 10 hours in length, Mr. Burnett and Ms. Downey force themselves into a clumsy “Bible’s greatest hits” approach.

This doesn’t serve the source material — so rich in interconnections across time — very well, and it doesn’t make for very involving television. Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel and the other great biblical figures aren’t really developed in a way that illuminates them or makes them linger in our minds; they are simply called forth to perform a set piece or two. It’s like a trip through a Christian theme park. “Next stop on the tour, ladies and gentlemen: the Noah’s ark tableau, followed by the Daniel in the lion’s den diorama.”

That might be tolerable if effort had gone into providing some connective tissue to relate the scenes organically. Instead a bland narration fills the gaps between them, covering leaps of decades or even centuries, not to mention some of Christianity’s pivotal tenets. It is the narrator who announces that God has given Moses the great laws of life, the Ten Commandments, a curiously momentous thing to leave to a voice-over.

The result is a mini-series full of emoting that does not register emotionally, a tableau of great biblical moments that doesn’t convey why they’re great. Those looking for something that makes them feel the power of the Bible would do better to find a good production of “Godspell” or “Jesus Christ Superstar.” And those thinking that the ancient miracles might be better served by the special effects available in 2013 than they have been in previous versions should prepare for disappointment. The Red Sea parts no more convincingly here than it did for Charlton Heston in 1956.

The Bible

History, Sunday nights at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.

Produced for History by Lightworkers Media and Hearst Entertainment & Syndication. Created by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey; Mr. Burnett, Ms. Downey and Richard Bedser, executive producers; Dirk Hoogstra and Julian P. Hobbs, executive producers for History; Keith David, narrator; Hans Zimmer, composer.

WITH: Roma Downey (Mother Mary), Diogo Morgado (Jesus Christ), Darwin Shaw (Peter), Sebastian Knapp (John), Amber Rose Revah (Mary Magdalene), Greg Hicks (Pilate) and Simon Kunz (Nicodemus).

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Chinese TV Special on Executions Stirs Debate

In a live television broadcast that was part morality play, part propaganda tour de force, the Chinese government on Friday displayed four foreign drug traffickers, convicted of murdering 13 Chinese sailors two years ago, being led to their executions.

Although the two-hour TV special came to an end shortly before the men were put to death by lethal injection, the program became an instantly polarizing sensation, with viewers divided on whether the program was a crass exercise in blood lust or a long-awaited catharsis for a nation outraged by the killings. Some critics said the program recalled the days when condemned prisoners were paraded through the streets before being shot.

“Rather than showcasing rule of law, the program displayed state control over human life in a manner designed to attract gawkers,” Han Youyi, a professor of criminal law, wrote on his microblog account. “State-administered violence is no loftier than criminal violence.”

One prominent rights lawyer insisted that the show, on the national broadcaster CCTV, violated the Chinese criminal code by making a spectacle of the condemned.

The program largely focused on Naw Kham, the Burmese ringleader of a drug gang, who was accused of orchestrating the brutal execution of the sailors in October 2011 as they sailed down the Mekong in Myanmar and then making the crime appear to be drug-related. In China, a nation where millions work overseas, often in dangerous corners of the world, the killings were especially unsettling.

Last April, six men accused in the killings, including Naw Kham, were apprehended in Laos by a team of investigators that included officers from China, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Naw Kham and his accomplices were convicted last November during a two-day trial in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan. The men, including a Laotian, a Thai and a third of “unknown nationality,” reportedly confessed to the crime. The two men who escaped execution received long prison terms.

Last month, a Chinese public security official told a newspaper that Beijing had considered using a drone strike to kill Naw Kham but later decided to capture him alive.

Given the considerable viewership on Friday, that decision proved to be a good one.

The program included interviews with triumphant police officers, images of the condemned men in shackles and the sort of blustery talking heads that would be familiar to American cable television audiences. The graphic elements that flashed behind the CCTV news anchor included the tagline “Kill the Kingpin.”

In one segment, Liu Yuejin, director general of the central government’s Narcotics Control Bureau, cast the executions as not only an important victory for a newly confident China but also for ethnic Chinese across the globe. “In the past, overseas Chinese dared not say they were of Chinese origin,” he said. “Now they can hold their heads high and be themselves.” 

Supporters of the program were many, and enthusiastic. One blogger suggested that death by lethal injection was too lenient, adding “These beasts should be pulled apart by vehicles.” 

Shortly before the men were led from their cells to the van that would take them to the death chamber, a reporter asked Naw Kham to talk about his family and then taunted him by showing photos of the victims’ grieving relatives. “I want to raise my children and have them educated,” Naw Kham said with a faint smile on his face. “I don’t want to die.”

Shi Da and Patrick Zuo contributed research.  

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South African Police Drag Man, Who Later Dies

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — His hands are tied to the rear of a police van while his body lay behind it, on the ground. The van speeds off, dragging the slender man along the pavement as a crowd of onlookers shouts in dismay and at least one videotapes the scene. He is later found dead in a police cell.

It's a gut-wrenching video, made all the more disturbing by the fact that the men who carried out the abuse were uniformed South African police officers and the van was a marked police vehicle. The Daily Sun, a South African newspaper, posted video the footage Thursday and it was quickly picked up by other South African news outlets and carried on the Internet. It sparked immediate outrage.

Some of those in the crowd who watched the scene unfold in a township east of Johannesburg shouted at the police and warned that it was being videotaped. The police did not seem at all concerned as they tied Mido Macia, a 27-year-old taxi driver from neighboring Mozambique, to the back of a police vehicle, his hands behind his head, his buttocks on the ground. At least three policemen participated in the incident. Macia was found dead in a police cell late Tuesday in the Daveyton township east of Johannesburg.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the police watchdog agency, said Thursday that a murder probe is underway and that Macia suffered head and other injuries, including internal bleeding.

The graphic footage renewed concerns about brutality, corruption and other misconduct by a national police force whose reputation has suffered in recent years amid reports that many officers lack training. Some have been charged with committing the crimes they are supposed to prevent, including rape and murder.

"We are going to film this," several onlookers shouted in Zulu as the police tormented Macia. One bystander can be heard on the videotape shouting in Zulu: "What has this guy done?"

At first, Macia, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, is dragged along the road by the vehicle at slow speed, the footage shows. He awkwardly tries to keep step even though he is almost horizontal above the ground. Then the van stops, two policemen pick up the legs of the taxi driver and drop them to the ground as the van picks up speed and drives off, beyond the view of the camera.

The police watchdog agency said the incident started just before 7 p.m. on Tuesday when the cab driver was allegedly obstructing traffic with his vehicle. Then, Macia allegedly assaulted a constable and took his weapon before he was overpowered, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said in a statement.

Macia was found dead over two hours later by another policeman, according to the watchdog agency.

In a statement, the police force said National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega "strongly condemned" what happened. The statement said people are "urged to remain vigilant and continue to report all acts of crime irrespective of who is involved."

Phiyega has sought to upgrade the reputation of the South African police. Last month, Phiyega told a group of police officials the standing of the force "has been severely but not irreparably tarnished over the past several years."

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Several Dead in Switzerland Shooting, Police Say

BERLIN (AP) — A shooting at a wood-processing company in central Switzerland on Wednesday left three people dead and seven wounded, some of them seriously, prosecutors said.

The shooting occurred shortly after 9 a.m. at the premises of Kronospan, a company in the small town of Menznau, west of Lucerne.

Three people were killed, among them the suspected assailant, police in Lucerne said in a statement. A further seven were wounded, several of them seriously. Officials gave no further details.

The local Neue Luzerner Zeitung newspaper cited a witness as saying that the shooter opened fire in the company canteen. It was not immediately clear who the shooter was, what the motive might have been or whether the assailant worked for the company.

According to the local town council, Kronospan has some 450 employees.

"At the moment we're all in a state of shock," Urs Fluder, a manager at Kronospan, told Radio Pilatus, a local station. "We will see that the families are properly informed," he added.

Gun ownership is widespread in Switzerland, thanks to liberal regulation — a 2012 referendum to tighten controls failed — and a long-standing tradition for men to keep their military rifles after completing compulsory military service.

An estimated 2.3 million firearms are owned by the country's 8 million people.

But gun crime is relatively rare, with just 24 gun killings in 2009, which works out to a rate of about 0.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. The U.S. rate that year was about 11 times higher.

Still, there have been several high-profile incidents over the years, including the killing of 14 people at a city council meeting in Zug, not far from Lucerne, in 2001.

Last month a 33-year-old man killed three women and wounded two men in a southern Swiss village.

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DealBook: Banks Fear Court Ruling in Argentina Bond Debt

A fierce battle between the government of Argentina and hedge funds and other investors led by a group of hedge funds has already led to the seizure of a naval ship and dragged in the United States Treasury. Now a federal appeals court is hearing the dispute, and how it rules could have a major impact on world debt markets.

The investors — including the hedge fund tycoon Paul E. Singer — sued Argentina seeking payment for $1.3 billion relating to bonds that the country defaulted on in 2001. On Wednesday, the case comes before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which has already sided with the hedge funds on their main arguments.

But the issue that the appeals court is still undecided about is perhaps the most important. It involves devising a method to pressure Argentina to pay up on the disputed bonds. And that has left the investors who hold a majority of Argentina’s foreign debt vulnerable, as well as the banks that process the payments to those investors.

While the hedge funds have grabbed the headlines — winning a temporary court order to seize an Argentine naval ship docked in Ghana, for example — most of the other holders of Argentina’s nearly $100 billion in defaulted debt agreed over the last decade to accept new bonds, taking big losses in the process. The country has since faithfully paid on the exchange bonds.

At the same time, Argentina has vehemently repeated that it will not pay the hedge funds and other holders of its old debt and has passed laws forbidding the government from paying anything to the bondholders who didn’t participate in the exchanges.

But last year, Judge Thomas P. Griesa of the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that if Argentina wanted to pay the holders of the restructured debt, it would have to pay the hedge funds and other holders of the defaulted debt, too. The judge included third-party banks in his injunction, and prohibited them from processing payments to holders of the exchange bonds unless all debt holders were paid.

Large banks, investors and the United States Treasury Department have objected to the judge’s order. In short, they say, using the sanction could cause financial losses for innocent bystanders and lead to unnecessary disruption in the bond markets.

“They are trying to block the payments system,” said Vladimir Werning, executive director for Latin American research at JPMorgan Chase. “This is unprecedented in the New York jurisdiction.”

In an e-mail, Kevin Heine, a spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, which handles bond payments, said the ruling, “will create unrest in the credit markets and result in cascades of litigation, which is precisely the opposite effect that an injunction should have.”

A ruling in favor of the hedge funds would also have ripple effects throughout the debt markets.

“Any time you have something that can change of balance of power, it can matter beyond Argentina,” said Robert Kahn, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Despite the legal worries, investors have so far been keen to hold higher-yielding emerging markets debt, given that interest rates are so low. Apart from Argentine bonds, debt issued by developing countries has performed strongly.

Unlike Argentina, some countries have held their noses and cut deals with holdouts in the past to get on with important economic overhauls, most recently Greece on certain smaller foreign-law bonds.

And in the years since Argentina’s default, most sovereign bonds have special clauses in them that make it much harder for holdouts to succeed. These are called collective action clauses, which state that if a certain majority of bondholders agree to take losses in a bond restructuring, those losses would be forced on all bondholders, even would-be holdouts who don’t agree.

But large amounts of bonds, those issued more than 10 years ago, do not have collective action clauses. And those that do have the clauses may not act as intended if the holdouts win their Argentina case, said Mr. Werning of JPMorgan.

Right now, a bond with a collective action clause might get restructured if 75 percent of the holders agree to it. If Judge Griesa’s ruling is upheld, more bondholders might be reluctant to enter a restructuring and the required majority might not be achieved. Bondholders might not enter the restructuring because they fear holdout litigation depriving them of payments later on.

“This could adversely affect the level of participation in a swap,” Mr. Werning said.

Still, others contend that the market for sovereign debt may be improved if the judge’s ruling is upheld, with the sanction on payments banks mostly intact. Countries like Argentina, they say, have taken advantage of the fact that there is no bankruptcy regime in the sovereign debt market to allow creditors to recoup money in a default. Indeed, Judge Griesa has said the Argentina case is partly about creating safeguards for creditors in the absence of bankruptcy regime.

But Anna Gelpern, a professor at the Washington College of Law at the American University, said that if the federal court’s rulings are upheld, it might just end up underscoring the limitations of the American courts’ power.

“What if Argentina still doesn’t settle? How does the court look then?” she said. “It can only isolate Argentina and Argentina seems content to be isolated.”

While there is a chance that the appellate court’s decision could be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, it is more likely that its ruling will be the final word on the lower court order.

According to that order, if a bank chose to channel payments from Argentina to the owners of the restructured debt, the bank would not be in compliance with his order. A payments bank, Bank of New York Mellon in the case of Argentine exchange bonds, would then decline to process the exchange bond payments, and the bonds could fall into default, inflicting big losses on their holders.

Some market specialists have raised the prospect that Argentina could keep paying the exchange bondholders by avoiding payments banks that operate in the United States. It could, for instance, swap the exchange bonds for new instruments registered under Argentine law that make payments through an Argentine entity.

But the court may decide that, in such a situation, the exchange bondholders themselves would be breaking its injunction. One of the things the appeals court is looking into is how to determine which third parties should sit outside the reach of the district court’s ruling.

It is not just hedge funds who are hoping to gain from an affirmation of the lower court ruling. This group also includes many individual investors, who are now feeling more optimistic about getting their money back as the case comes before the appeals court.

“We are hopeful the ruling will stay as issued,” said Horacio Vázquez, who helps lead a group in Buenos Aires that represents bondholders.

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/26/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Banks Fear Court Ruling In Argentina Bond Debt.

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DealBook: Barnes & Noble Founder Leonard Riggio to Bid for Bookstore's Retail Business

The founder of Barnes & Noble plans to bid for the retail business of the bookstore chain he started 40 years ago, as the company struggles to deal with the changing competitive landscape.

On Monday, Leonard Riggio told the company’s board that he will make an offer for Barnes & Noble Booksellers, barnesandnoble.com and other retail assets. The proposal would not include the e-book division, Nook Media.

Like many retailers, Barnes & Nobles is dealing with waning profit in its core business, as online players and other competitors gain marketshare. The company recently warned that earnings in the latest quarter would be weak, with losses rising in its Nook Media division.

Conceived as a serious competitor to Amazon.com’s Kindle, the Nook has instead become an also-ran in the race for digital book supremacy. The Kindle remains the top-selling dedicated e-reader, while the iPad consistently leads the competition among tablets.

Amazon’s Kindle app has also maintained a huge lead in popularity, limiting Barnes & Noble’s reach across the broader digital book-selling landscape.

Mr. Riggio, who owns nearly 30 percent of Barnes & Noble, plans to negotiate the price with the board, according to a regulatory filing. The proposal is expected to be mainly in cash.

It is the boldest move yet by Mr. Riggio to try and save the company he built into the nation’s biggest brick-and-mortar bookseller. He has fended off challenges from the likes of the billionaire Ronald Burkle, arguing in large part that the company was well-positioned in the future by betting on the Nook and digital books.

Others believed in the promise of the e-reader as well. Last April, Microsoft paid $300 million for a 17.6 percent stake in the Nook business, valuing it then at $1.7 billion. The technology titan also secured Barnes & Noble’s commitment to produce an e-reader app for its Windows 8 operating system.

And in December, the British publisher Pearson agreed to buy a 5 percent stake for $89.5 million.

Barnes & Noble said in a statement that it has formed a special board committee comprised of three directors — David G. Golden, David A. Wilson and Patricia L. Higgins — to consider Mr. Riggio’s proposal. The trio will be advised by Evercore Partners and the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

The retailer’s board had already been weighing whether to spin off its Nook unit.

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Insurgents Launch 4 Attacks in Afghanistan

KABUL — Afghan intelligence agents on Sunday shot and killed a man in a sport utility vehicle that officials said had been packed with explosives, foiling what they described as an attempt to set off a massive explosion in a neighborhood of narrow streets lined with foreign embassies.

At about the same time, Taliban suicide attackers set off three separate car bombs in two provinces near the capital. But the bombs did minimal damage,  officials said, and the toll from the Sunday violence was low. In addition to the two attackers and the suspect, two security guards and a police officer were also killed and five other people wounded, including one attacker who managed to flee.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the insurgents were behind the three successful bombings. But he disavowed knowledge of the attempt in Kabul, saying Taliban commanders in the city had no plans for an attack on Sunday.

While it is not unusual for the Taliban to deny having a hand in a failed attack, much about the attempted bombing Sunday remained murky, with officials hailing Afghan security forces for acting quickly but offering only the barest details about how the man identified as a bomber was spotted.

The police chief of Kabul, Gen. Mohammed Ayoub Salangi, said the suspect was in a Toyota sport utility vehicle and was trying to pass through a checkpoint when he was recognized by agents from the country’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

The man “was gunned down,” General Salangi said. The agents had to act quickly, he added, saying that there was no time to inspect the vehicle or question the suspect because that would have given him the chance to detonate the explosives.

General Salangi, who in an earlier statement said there were two men in the car, did not say how or why the agents recognized the man. But he added that the car bomb was quickly defused and carted away.

The bombing attempt, in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, led some embassies to did briefly lock down the streets on which they are located and on which they control security. The spot where the man was shot were was less than a mile from the United States Embassy and the headquarters of the American-led coalition, neither of which offered any comment.

Earlier in the day, in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan, a single bomber in a Toyota Corolla directly targeted the Security Directorate, officials said, detonating his explosive-laden vehicle outside a building used by the intelligence agency. Two guards were killed and a third was wounded, said Hazrat Mohammad Mashraqiwal, a police spokesman in Jalalabad.

Later on Sunday, two people in another car laden with explosives tried to enter the district governor’s compound in Baraki Barak district of Logar Province, south of Kabul. But they were stopped by police officers guarding the compound, prompting one man to jump and make a run for it and the other to set off the car bomb, said Abdul Rahim Amin, the governor.

One police officer was wounded in the attack, along with the man who fled.

Earlier in Logar, around dawn, a minivan packed with explosives was set off at a police post near the provincial capital, Pul-e-Alam. One officer was killed and two others wounded, an official said.

Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.

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Iraq President’s Health Is Improving, Doctor Says

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is now able to talk, his doctor said, adding he was hopeful the Kurdish statesman would soon be fit to return to Iraq from Germany, where he has been receiving medical treatment for a stroke.

A peace-maker who often mediated among Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions, 79-year-old Talabani was flown abroad in December in critical condition.

"I am in continuous contact with the German team treating President Talabani," said Najmaldin Karim, who is also governor of the city of Kirkuk.

"He can talk now with the people around him and started to think in a good way. I and the German team are optimistic that he will get much better and can return back to Iraq soon."

During Talabani's absence, Iraq's political crisis has intensified, with thousands of Sunni Muslims taking to the streets in protest against the Shi'ite-led government

The veteran politician often worked to ease tensions in the country's fragile power-sharing government and negotiated between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan region, which are locked in feud over land and oil rights.

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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IHT Rendezvous: North Korea Widens Access to Internet, but Just for Visitors

HONG KONG — North Korea will finally allow people to search the Internet from their mobile devices and laptops within the country’s borders. But if you’re a North Korean, you’re out of luck — only foreigners will be given the privilege.

Cracking the door open ever so slightly to wider Internet use, the government has allowed a company called Koryolink to give foreigners access to 3G mobile Internet service by March 1, The Associated Press reported.

The decision, made public Friday, comes just a month after Google’s chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, visited Pyongyang and prodded officials on allowing Internet access, noting how easy it would be to set up through Koryolink’s expanding 3G network. Presumably, his appeal was directed at giving North Koreans such capability.

“As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth,” Mr. Schmidt told reporters after arriving at Beijing International Airport following his visit to North Korea. “We made that alternative very, very clear.”

Foreigners were only recently given access to cellphones while traveling in the country. Previously, they had to surrender their phones with customs agents.

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Car Bomb in Damascus Kills Dozens, Opposition Says

Sana/European Pressphoto Agency

An injured man was carried near the site of a car bomb explosion in Damascus on Thursday.

In renewed violence reaching the center of the Syrian capital, a car bomb exploded in Damascus on Thursday near the headquarters of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling party, killing more than two dozen people, mainly civilians and but also including security forces, according to opposition sources.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad group based in Britain that has a network of contacts in Syria, reported that at least 31 people were killed by the bomb in the neighborhood of Mazraa.

Syrian state television said two children were wounded, while Al Ikhbariya, a pro-government television channel, showed footage of two dead bodies and body parts in a park.

The area where the bomb exploded was near the headquarters of Mr. Assad’s ruling Baath Party and the Russian embassy. State television and the Syrian Observatory also said that mortar shells exploded near the Syrian Army General Command in the center of the capital, but there were no reported casualties.

The strikes were the latest to extend to the heart of the Syrian capital.

Reports this week appeared to show that rebel shells have reached new areas in Damascus.

Both state media and opposition activists reported on Wednesday that mortar rounds had hit the Tishreen sports stadium in the downtown neighborhood of Baramkeh. The state news agency, SANA, said the explosion killed an athlete from the Homs-based soccer team Al Wathba as he was practicing.

Government forces hit a rebel command center in a suburb east of the capital on Wednesday, injuring a founder of the Liwaa al-Islam brigade, Sheik Zahran Alloush, the brigade said in a statement.

On Tuesday, activists reported that up to seven mortar rounds had been fired by fighters of the Free Syrian Army toward Mr. Assad’s Tishreen Palace in Damascus.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, and it was not known whether Mr. Assad was there at the time. The palace, surrounded by a park, is in a wealthy area that has largely been insulated from the insurgency and it lies less than a mile from the main presidential palace.

Syrian rebels are entrenched in suburbs south and east of the capital, but they have been unable to push far into the center, although they strike the area with occasional mortars and increasingly frequent car bombs.

Such indiscriminate attacks however risk killing passersby, exposing the rebels to charges that they are careless with civilian life and property. Many Damascus residents are undecided about taking sides and fear their ancient city will be ravaged like Aleppo and other urban centers to the north.

At the same time, the government has decimated pro-rebel suburbs with air strikes and artillery, leaving vast areas depopulated or terrorized.

Fighting continued also for control of the main civilian airport in Aleppo on Wednesday.

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Vladimir Pekhtin Resigns From Russian Parliament

MOSCOW — A senior lawmaker from Russia’s ruling party, who is also the chairman of Parliament’s ethics committee, resigned from the legislature on Wednesday after opposition bloggers revealed that he owned more than $1.3 million worth of luxury real estate in Florida, which he did not list on required disclosure forms.

The lawmaker, Vladimir A. Pekhtin, said that he did not want the scandal to taint his party colleagues in United Russia, and announced his departure at a morning parliamentary session.

He said he had not broken any law, but that “there are very controversial documents that have been made public on the Internet,” and it was necessary to clear up “obvious legal misunderstandings.”

“I will give up my mandate, which I always achieved in honest political battle, and my opponents, my rivals, know this,” he said, in comments broadcast on television. “Nevertheless, I will not cling to it. Because I think that my personal matters are secondary to United Russia. Thank you for many years of work, and for your trust.”

Whether he surrendered his seat voluntarily or under pressure from the Kremlin, Mr. Pekhtin’s departure set a precedent in the Russian government, where high-level corruption and lavish spending overseas have developed into a serious political liability. It represents a victory for opposition activists, who have never achieved such a swift response to an exposé.

Officials, meanwhile, have been given a powerful reminder of their own vulnerability, said Mikhail Y. Vinogradov, chairman of the St. Petersburg Politics Fund. He added that it is not yet clear whether this case represents a one-time occurrence or “a change in the rules of the game.”

“This is a way to show that discussion of a ‘battle against corruption’ leaves the majority of officials without protection,” he said. “Naturally, officials’ anxiety over their property will grow for the time being. There won’t be any attempts to torpedo this campaign — they will simply hope that this is just another campaign that will exhaust itself in three or four months. That’s what the representatives of the elite will count on.”

The blogger Aleksei Navalny, who published documents about Mr. Pekhtin’s extensive real estate holdings last week, was jubilant, remarking that “now he can finally move to Miami and live in peace, without having to listen to any complaints.”

“In fairness, one must acknowledge that Mr. Pekhtin’s actions show that somewhere deep inside him there are remnants of a conscience,” he wrote on the Web site of Ekho Moskvy, a radio station. “Maybe other members of United Russia felt this, and that’s the reason they named him to the ethics committee? Let’s watch how the others who are hiding foreign property behave.”

Mr. Navalny published the property records last Wednesday, a day after Mr. Putin proposed legislation that would bar senior Russian officials from holding bank accounts or owning stock outside the country.

The proposal did not prohibit officials from owning real estate overseas, but signaled a Kremlin crackdown on their lavish spending abroad, so the revelations about Mr. Pekhtin came as an ill-timed embarassment.

The records showed the lawmaker’s name on the deeds of at least three properties in Florida, including a South Beach apartment bought last year for nearly $1.3 million, in a building where Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, also owns a unit.

Late last year, the newspaper Vedomosti published a report on a huge mansion outside St. Petersburg and other properties which Mr. Pekhtin had not disclosed.

Mr. Pekhtin initially shrugged off the reports, telling the newspaper Izvestiya that he had “practically no” real estate holdings outside Russia, though his grown son did. Within a matter of hours, however, he announced that he was temporarily relinquishing his position as chairman of the parliamentary ethics committee until his name was cleared by an investigation.

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Pekhtin cast the scandal as a salvo in a larger standoff between social forces in Russia.

“In this case, our opponents are not interested in Pekhtin,” he said, according to  Interfax. “They need to discredit the Parliament, the authorities, which are represented by every person sitting in this hall, and every one of us may turn out to be a target for them. As an honest person, I do not want and cannot make peace with this, and I do not want the shadow of unfounded allegations to fall on our party.”

After Mr. Pekhtin made his announcement, fellow lawmakers gave him a standing ovation and warmly applauded. Many went out of their way to praise his decision. But Sergei Mironov, head of the minority A Just Russia party, said he expected Mr. Pekhtin’s decision marked the beginning of a process, not the end.

“Pandora’s box has been opened,” said Mr. Mironov, in comments broadcast on Channel One. “I don’t doubt that the sixth sitting of the State Duma will have a record number of early terminations of deputies’ authority. For me it is completely obvious that, if there were not some real facts there, the deputy would not have voluntarily given up his authority.”

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Activists Say Syrian Missile Strike Kills 8

BEIRUT (AP) — A Syrian missile strike leveled a stretch of buildings and killed at least eight people in the city of Aleppo, anti-regime activists said Tuesday.

Videos posted online showed scores of men searching the destroyed buildings in the Jabal Badro neighborhood for the dead and wounded. One man swung a sledgehammer to break through concrete while a bulldozer hauled off rubble. In another video, a man covered in grey dust struggled under pile of concrete.

The Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Center reported at least eight dead in the attack late Monday night, saying the strike appeared to be from a ground-to-ground missile.

Aleppo activist Mohammed al-Khatib said via Skype that the death toll could rise further as residents search the site for more bodies.

"There are still many martyrs under the rubble. ... There are still lots of people missing from the area," he said.

He said the strike appeared to be from a large ground-to-ground missile because of the scale of the destruction and because residents did not report hearing a fighter jet, as they usually do during airstrikes.

Although President Bashar Assad's forces regularly shell and launch airstrikes on areas held by anti-government rebels, their use of large missiles has been limited.

In December, U.S. and NATO officials confirmed rebel reports that Syrian forces had fired Scud missiles at rebel areas in northern Syria. That was the last confirmed use of such weapons.

Also Wednesday, rebels clashed with government forces near Aleppo's international airport and the Kweiras military airport nearby, the Observatory said. Clashes have halted air traffic to the two airports for weeks, since rebels launched their offensive to try to capture them.

The Observatory also reported government shelling and airstrikes and clashes between government forces and rebels east and south of the capital, Damascus.

The Syrian state news agency said the army had carried out "successful operations against terrorists" in Aleppo, mentioning a number of neighborhoods that did not include Jabal Badro.

Syria refers to rebels seeking to topple Assad as "terrorists" and blames the conflict on an international conspiracy to weaken the country.

The U.N. says some 70,000 have been killed since Syria's uprising against Assad's rule began in March 2011.

On Monday, U.N. investigators called on the Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, after issuing a report that accused elements on both sides of committing atrocities.

The 131-page report by the U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry on Syria detailed deepening radicalization by both sides, who increasingly see the war in sectarian terms and rely on brutal tactics to advance their cause, spreading fear and hardship among civilians.

The report accused both sides of atrocities, but said those committed by rebel fighters have not reached the "intensity and scale" of the government's violations.

The report also accused both sides of using child soldiers, citing the presence of fighters younger than 18 on the government side and under 15 among the rebels.

The commission said it will submit a new, confidential list of Syrians suspected of committing crimes against humanity to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, next month.

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Chávez Returns to Venezuela After Cancer Surgery in Cuba

Jorge Silva/Reuters

Supporters of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, outside a military hospital where he was taken following his return to Caracas on Monday.

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez made a surprise return to Venezuela on Monday, 10 weeks after leaving for cancer surgery in Cuba, sparking celebration among his supporters.

VTV, the government television station, said that he arrived at 2:30 a.m. He was taken to a military hospital in Caracas.

"We have arrived again in Venezuela," said a post at 3:42 a.m. on Mr. Chávez’s long-dormant Twitter account. "Thank you, my God!! Thank you, beloved people!! We will continue treatment here."

Mr. Chávez, 58, has been out of sight and silent since his Dec. 11 surgery, plunging the country into increasing uncertainty.

Unlike returns from Cuba, the government did not televise his arrival or release video or photographs nor did he address the country.

Officials said on Friday that because of a breathing tube in Mr. Chávez’s throat he had difficulty speaking. Also on Friday, officials released photographs of Mr. Chávez for the first time since his surgery. The photographs showed him lying in a hospital bed flanked by two of his daughters.

"We are very happy," Vice President Nicolás Maduro said in an early morning telephone call to the government television station.

"He is an example of permanent battle and here we have him in Caracas, in our Caracas, in our Venezuela, here he is, our commander."

However, when he was asked by a television announcer for information on Mr. Chávez’s condition, Mr. Maduro declined to provide details.

A short time later, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas led a celebration in response, calling members of the station staff onto a set and chanting "He returned! He returned!"

Another post on the president’s Twitter account thanked the Cuban leaders Fidel and Raúl Castro and added, "Thanks to Venezuela for so much love!!!"

"I am holding tight to Christ and confident in my doctors and nurses," a third post said. "We will live and we will win!!!"

Monday’s posts were the first on Mr. Chávez’s Twitter account since Nov. 1.

He was re-elected Oct. 7 but on Dec. 8 he shocked the nation by announcing that his cancer had returned and he would have to go to Cuba for emergency surgery. He left on Dec. 10 and had the operation the next day.

His long absence has left the country in the grips of uncertainty. He was unable to return to be sworn in for the start of his new term on Jan. 10. The country has been run since his departure by Vice President Nicolás Maduro, National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and a group of government ministers.

The opposition has protested vehemently, charging that the arrangement is unconstitutional and asking for more detailed information about the president’s health. In recent days, a group of 21 students had chained themselves together in protest in front of the Cuban embassy in Caracas.

The government has never said what type of cancer Mr. Chávez has or where exactly in his body it occurred, although they have said that his recent surgery, his fourth since June 2011, was followed by complications, including bleeding and a severe lung infection.

On Friday Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is married to one of Mr. Chávez’s daughters, said the president was undergoing palliative treatment. He did not elaborate.

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Blasts Across Baghdad Kill at Least 15 People

A wave of attacks targeting Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad on Sunday killed at least 15 people and wounded more than 50, a security source confirmed.

Four car bombs exploded in Sadr City, targeting civilians in a market, at a bus station and on a major road, killing seven civilians and wounding more than 30 others, according to officials and a security source.

Car bombs also struck in Husseiniya, Al Ameen and Kamaliya, leaving a total of at least seven dead and 32 injured in those areas.

In the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada, close to the Babil Hotel, a roadside bomb killed one person and wounded five others.

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Wrestling Group’s President Quits After Olympic Omission

PHUKET, Thailand (AP) — The president of the international wrestling federation has quit in the wake of the IOC's decision to remove the sport from the 2020 Olympics.

Raphael Martinetti's resignation was announced Saturday at the FILA executive committee meeting in Phuket. The Swiss had been in the position since 2002.

On Tuesday, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee dumped wrestling from its guaranteed berth in future Summer games, forcing the sport to compete for a spot on the program.

U.S.A. Wrestling executive director Rich Bender said Martinetti's departure "provides international wrestling with an opportunity to change and improve," giving the sport a chance "to create a fresh new relationship" with the IOC.

Wrestling will still be on the program at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

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DealBook: Confidence on Upswing, Mergers Make Comeback

The mega-merger is back.

For the corporate takeover business, the last half-decade was a fallow period. Wall Street deal makers and chief executives, brought low by the global financial crisis, lacked the confidence to strike the audacious multibillion-dollar acquisitions that had defined previous market booms.

Cycles, however, turn, and in the opening weeks of 2013, merger activity has suddenly roared back to life. On Thursday, Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by Warren E. Buffett, said it had teamed up with Brazilian investors to buy the ketchup maker H. J. Heinz for about $23 billion. And American Airlines and US Airways agreed to merge in a deal valued at $11 billion.

Those transactions come a week after a planned $24 billion buyout of the computer company Dell by its founder, Michael S. Dell, and private equity backers. And Liberty Global, the company controlled by the billionaire media magnate John C. Malone, struck a $16 billion deal to buy the British cable business Virgin Media.

“Since the crisis, one by one, the stars came into alignment, and it was only a matter of time before you had a week like we just had,” said James B. Lee Jr., the vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase.

Still, bankers and lawyers remain circumspect, warning that it is still too early to declare a mergers-and-acquisitions boom like those during the junk bond craze of 1989, the dot-com bubble of 1999 and the leveraged buyout bonanza of 2007. They also say that it is important to pay heed to the excesses that developed during these moments of merger mania, which all ended badly.

A confluence of factors has driven the recent deals. Most visibly, the stock market has been on a tear, with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index this week briefly hitting its highest levels since November 2007. Higher share prices have buoyed the confidence of chief executives, who now, instead of retrenching, are looking for ways to expand their businesses.

A number of clouds that hovered over the markets last year have also been removed, eliminating the uncertainty that hampered deal making. Mergers and acquisitions activity in 2012 remained tepid as companies took a wait-and-see approach over the outcome of the presidential election and negotiations over the fiscal cliff. The problems in Europe, which began in earnest in 2011, shut down a lot of potential transactions, but the region has since stabilized.

“When we talk to our corporate clients as well as the bankers, we keep hearing them talk about increased confidence,” said John A. Bick, a partner at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, who advised Heinz on its acquisition by Mr. Buffett and his partners.

Mr. Bick said that mega-mergers had a psychological component, meaning that once transactions start happening, chief executives do not want to be left behind. “In the same way that success breeds success, deals breed more deals,” he said.

A central reason for the return of big transactions is the mountain of cash on corporate balance sheets. After the financial crisis, companies hunkered down, laying off employees and cutting costs. As a result, they generated savings. Today, corporations in the S.& P. 500 are sitting on more than $1 trillion in cash. With interest rates near zero, that money is earning very little in bank accounts, so executives are looking to put it to work by acquiring businesses.

The private equity deal-making machine is also revving up again. The world’s largest buyout firms have hundreds of billions of dollars of “dry powder” — money allotted to deals in Wall Street parlance — and they are on the hunt. The proposed leveraged buyout of Dell, led by Mr. Dell and the investment firm Silver Lake Partners, was the largest private equity transaction since July 2007, when the Blackstone Group acquired the hotel chain Hilton Worldwide for $26 billion just as the credit markets were seizing up.

But perhaps the single biggest factor driving the return of corporate takeovers is the banking system’s renewed health. Corporations often rely on bank loans for financing acquisitions, and the ability of private equity firms to strike multibillion-dollar transactions depends on the willingness of banks to lend them money.

For years, banks, saddled by the toxic mortgage assets weighing on their balance sheets, turned off the lending spigot. But with the housing crisis in the rearview mirror and economic conditions slowly improving, banks are again lining up to provide corporate loans at record-low interest rates to finance acquisitions.

The banks, of course, are major beneficiaries of megadeals, earning big fees from both advising on the transactions and lending money to finance them. Mergers and acquisitions in the United States total $158.7 billion so far this year, according to Thomson Reuters data, more than double the amount in the same period last year. JPMorgan, for example, has benefited from the surge, advising on four big deals in recent weeks, including the Dell bid and Comcast’s $16.7 billion offer for the rest of NBCUniversal that it did not already own.

Mr. Buffett, in a television interview last month, declared that the banks had repaired their businesses and no longer posed a threat to the economy. “The capital ratios are huge, the excesses on the asset aside have been largely cleared out,” said Mr. Buffett, whose acquisition of Heinz will be his second-largest acquisition, behind his $35.9 billion purchase of a majority stake in the railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe in 2009.

While Wall Street has an air of giddiness over the year’s start, most deal makers temper their comments about the current environment with warnings about undisciplined behavior like overpaying for deals and borrowing too much to pay for them.

Though private equity firms were battered by the financial crisis, they made it through the downturn on relatively solid ground. Many of their megadeals, like Hilton, looked destined for bankruptcy after the markets collapsed, but they have since recovered. The deals have benefited from an improving economy, as well as robust lending markets that allowed companies to push back the large amounts of debt that were to have come due in the next few years.

But there are still plenty of cautionary tales about the consequences of overpriced, overleveraged takeovers. Consider Energy Future Holdings, the biggest private equity deal in history. Struck at the peak of the merger boom in October 2007, the company has suffered from low natural gas prices and too much debt, and could be forced to restructure this year. Its owners, a group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG, are likely to lose billions.

Even Mr. Buffett made a mistake on Energy Future Holdings, having invested $2 billion in the company’s bonds. He admitted to shareholders last year that the investment was a blunder and would most likely be wiped out.

“In tennis parlance,” Mr. Buffett wrote, “this was a major unforced error.”

Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/15/2013, on page A1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Confidence on Upswing, Mergers Make Comeback.

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DealBook: American and US Airways Announce Merger Agreement

6:35 a.m. | Updated

Ending a yearlong courtship by US Airways, American Airlines agreed to merge with the smaller carrier, paving the way for the creation of the nation’s largest airline.

The boards of the companies have unanimously approved the deal, valued at $11 billion, according to a news release on Thursday morning. A merger would bolster American’s domestic footprint, strengthen its presence in the Northeast and give it a bigger network to attract business travelers and corporate accounts.

Under the terms of the deal, US Airways shareholders would own 28 percent of the combined airline, while American Airlines shareholders, creditors, labor unions and employees would own 72 percent.

The merger would create a company with the size and breadth to compete against United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, which have grown through mergers of their own in recent years and are currently the biggest domestic carriers.

But while United and Delta went through bankruptcies and mergers in the last decade, American has been steadily losing ground while racking up losses that have totaled more than $12 billion since 2001. It was the last major airline to seek court protection to reorganize its business, filing for bankruptcy in November 2011.

The wave of big mergers in the industry has created healthier and more profitable airlines that are now better able to invest in new planes and products, including Wi-Fi, individual entertainment screens and more comfortable seats for business passengers. But some consumer advocates said they worried that reducing the number of airlines would lead to higher fares over the long run and allow airlines to increase revenue by imposing new or higher fees.

The deal, which was completed in recent days, could be formalized as American leaves bankruptcy. W. Douglas Parker, the chairman and chief executive of US Airways, would take over as American’s chief executive. Thomas W. Horton, chairman and chief executive of the AMR Corporation, American’s parent, would be chairman of the combined company, though his tenure could be limited.

The merger still needs to pass several steps. It must be approved by American’s bankruptcy judge in New York. US Airways shareholders would also have to approve the deal.

In addition, it will be reviewed by the Justice Department’s antitrust division, though analysts expect regulators to clear the deal.

If approved, the nation’s top four airlines — American, United, Delta and Southwest Airlines — would control nearly 70 percent of the domestic market.

The merger is a victory for Mr. Parker. Over the last year, he persuaded American’s creditors that the carrier needed to expand its network to compete. In April, he won the critical backing of American’s three labor groups, which defied American’s management and publicly endorsed a deal with US Airways.

The biggest challenge for the merged company, to be called American Airlines, will be to integrate operations over the next couple of years. That is no easy task since airline mergers are often rocky — involving complex technological systems, big reservation networks as well as large labor groups with different corporate cultures that all need to be seamlessly combined.

United angered passengers last year after a series of merger-related computer and reservation mistakes, and late and delayed flights.

Mr. Parker has done this before. In 2005, when he was the head of America West, he engineered a merger with the larger US Airways.

In this case, the merged American Airlines will still be based in Fort Worth and have a combined 94,000 employees, 950 planes, 6,500 daily flights, eight major hubs and total revenue of nearly $39 billion. It would be the market leader on the East Coast, the Southwest and South America. But it would remain a smaller player in Europe, where United and Delta are stronger. The merger does little to bolster American’s presence in Asia, where it trails far behind its rivals.

American has major hubs in Dallas, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. US Airways has hubs in Phoenix, Philadelphia and Charlotte, N.C., and has a big presence at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington.

In reviewing previous mergers, federal regulators have not focused on the overall size of the combined airline but instead looked at whether a merger would decrease competition in individual cities. To do so, regulators examine specific routes, or city-pairs, and look at whether a merger reduces the number of airlines there.

The last time the Justice Department challenged a merger was the proposed combination between United Airlines and US Airways in 2001. It rejected that on the ground that it would reduce consumer choice and possibly lead to higher fares.

Since then, the department has allowed a wave of big mergers that have reshaped the industry, said Alison L. Smith, a former antitrust official and now a partner in the law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

American and US Airways only have about 12 overlapping routes, a figure that is unlikely to set off regulatory opposition, she said. One problem, however, could come up at National Airport, where the combined carriers hold a market share of about 60 percent. There, regulators might request that American give up some takeoff and landing rights before approving the merger.

Regulators sought similar concessions from United at Newark Liberty International Airport after its merger with Continental Airlines.

It is also unclear whether American needs all of its combined hubs. Analysts pointed out that Phoenix was at risk because of its proximity to Dallas, since it makes little sense to have two big hubs so close to each other.

Despite the increased concentration, consumers can still expect to find vibrant competition, said William S. Swelbar, a research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s International Center for Air Transportation.

“We will have four very big, very vigorous competitors in the market,” he said.

Travelers are better served by bigger airlines offering more connecting flights and more destinations, analysts say. Consumers today can easily compare fares and shop for the cheapest flight online, which helps keep airfares in check.

But Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, disagreed. He said consumers would see few benefits to offset the merger’s negative effects — including “reduced competition, higher fares and fees, and diminished service to small and midsize communities.”

Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/14/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Air Carriers Are Said To Agree To a Merger.

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Pope Makes First Public Appearance Since Decision to Resign

Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

Pope Benedict XVI arrived to lead a general audience on Wednesday at the Vatican.

VATICAN CITY — In his first public appearance since the stunning announcement of his resignation two days ago, Pope Benedict XVI said on Wednesday he had made his decision “in full liberty for the good of the church” because he no longer had the strength needed to carry out the duties of the papacy.

Clad in simple, white robes and skull-cap at a general audience in the Vatican, the pope spoke as Christians began the 40-day period of fasting and prayer preceding Easter, which begins on Ash Wednesday. Later he was scheduled to celebrate the Ash Wednesday mass at St. Peter’s, an event described by his aides as likely to be his final major mass in the huge basilica before his retirement on Feb. 28.

The announcement on Monday signalled the first papal resignation in almost 600 years.

A cheering crowd greeted the pope with a standing ovation as he entered the Vatican’s cavernous Paul VI audience hall which has a capacity of around 8,000 people.

Before reaching his decision, the pope said he had prayed and examined his conscience for a long time. Referring to the papacy, he said he had been “well aware of the seriousness of this act, but also aware of the fact that I am no longer capable of carrying out Peter’s Ministry with the strength needed.”

“The certainty that the church belongs to God supports and illuminates me, and Christ will always give his guidance and care. I thank you all for your love and prayer with which you’ve accompanied me. Please keep praying for the pope and the church,” he said to loud applause. “I felt it almost physically throughout these days that were not easy for me. Keep praying for me, for the church and for the future pope. The Lord will guide us.”

The pope’s appearances on Wednesday offered his followers a chance to see and hear him before he withdraws into a far more sheltered life in a convent within the Vatican walls where an apartment has been prepared for him.

Still unclear, however, are some of the practical consequences of Benedict’s decision, Vatican officials acknowledged Tuesday, from how the former pope will be addressed, to what to do with the papal ring used to seal important documents, traditionally destroyed upon a pope’s death.

Officials also disclosed on Tuesday that the pope had been fitted with a cardiac pacemaker a decade ago but said this had not been a major health issue and had not contributed to his reasons for resigning.

“There are a series of questions that remain to be seen, also on the part of the pope himself, even if it is a decision that he had made some time ago,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said at a news conference. “How he will live afterward, which will be very different from how he lives now, will require time and tranquillity and reflection and a moment of adaptation to a new situation.”

On Wednesday, thousands of Catholics gathered for a glimpse of the pope, including Francesca Meggiorini, from Verona, who had brought her four children with her because, she said, “this is special. I wanted my kids to be present. The pope was a man whose simple words went straight to the heart. So it’s wonderful for my children to be here. I think this experience will remain in their memory.”

Kevin Murphy, on a pilgrimage from Saint Benedict School in Bury St. Edmunds in eastern England, called Benedict “a great moral and spiritual leader.” And Fabio Semeraro, a ballet dancer from Rome, said he came to see the pope “because it’s an important event. You get attached to a pope, but then again, after there will be another.”

The Ash Wednesday mass, to be held later on Wednesday, usually takes place in a church on the Aventine Hill. But this year it will be conducted in St. Peter’s to allow a greater number of the faithful to attend, Father Lombardi said. Even though the Code of Canon Law allows popes to resign, the occurrence was rare enough to have caught Vatican officials off guard, including on issues like the protocol and potentially awkward logistics of having a former pope and his successor share a backyard.

Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Vatican City, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting from Rome.

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Iran Converts Enriched Uranium to Reactor Fuel, Reports Say

PARIS — As it prepares for two sets of negotiations with outsiders on its disputed nuclear program, Iran said on Tuesday that it was converting some of its enriched uranium into reactor fuel, the state news agency IRNA reported, potentially limiting the expansion of stockpiles that the West fears could be used for weapons.

Iranian officials are to meet on Wednesday in Tehran with Herman Nackaerts, the deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, who has been pressing for access to a restricted military area at Parchin, 20 miles south of Tehran. International inspectors suspect the site may have been used for testing bomb triggers.

Later this month, Iranian negotiators are to meet in Kazakhstan with representatives of six powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — for a further round in a series of long-running and inconclusive talks about curbing Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Western countries suspect that Tehran is seeking to acquire the technology to make nuclear weapons, but Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes such as the creation of reactor fuel for civilian use.

At a news conference on Tuesday in Tehran, Ramin Mehmanparast, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, was asked to comment on a news report that Iranian scientists had converted some uranium enriched to 20 percent purity into fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. The spokesman said the “work is being done” and details had been sent to the I.A.E.A., which is based in Vienna.

Iran’s nuclear program came under added scrutiny on Tuesday after North Korea conducted its third nuclear test since many intelligence officials believe the two countries share nuclear knowledge, though so far there is no hard evidence to substantiate that belief.

Reuters quoted Mr. Mehmanparast as saying: “We think we need to come to a point where no country will have any nuclear weapons.” While all countries should be allowed to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, he said, “all weapons of mass destruction and nuclear arms need to be destroyed.”

Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is believed by Western negotiators and international inspectors to be of far lower purity than is required to make nuclear weapons. But, diplomats in Vienna said on Tuesday, enriched uranium converted into reactor fuel is more difficult to enrich to a higher degree of purity. “It’s a step away from weaponization,” one diplomat said, speaking in return for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.

Some analysts argue that, by slowing the growth of its stockpile, Tehran could delay the moment when it acquires sufficient 20 percent enriched uranium to trigger a response by Israel, which has signaled readiness to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

The likely outcomes of the forthcoming sets of negotiations remain unclear.

Mr. Mehmanparast, the Iranian spokesman, said the talks with the I.A.E.A. team in Tehran on Wednesday had “bright” prospects if the I.A.E.A. negotiators recognized Iran’s rights, IRNA said.

But Yukiya Amano, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said Monday that “the outlook is not bright” for obtaining permission to visit the Parchin site. Mr. Amano’s remarks contrasted with a more optimistic tone from the agency less than a month ago, when his deputy, Mr. Nackaerts, expressed hope that the negotiations on Wednesday would agree an inspection plan.

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Pope Benedict XVI Says He Will Resign

Samantha Zucchi Insidefoto/European Pressphoto Agency

Pope Benedict XVI blessing members of the Order of the Knights of Malta at the Vatican on Saturday.

ROME — Citing advanced years and infirmity, Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stunned the Roman Catholic world on Monday by saying that he would resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries.

A profoundly conservative figure whose papacy was overshadowed by clerical abuse scandals, the pope, 85, was elected by fellow cardinals in 2005 after the death of his predecessor, John Paul II.

After examining his conscience “before God,” he said on Monday, “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of his position as head of the world’s Roman Catholics.

Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said Benedict would continue to carry out his papal duties until Feb. 28 and that a successor could probably be elected by Easter which falls this year on March 31. But, he added, that date was “not an announcement, it’s a hypothesis.”

While there had been questions about Benedict’s health and infirmity, the timing of his announcement — even by the Vatican’s official account — sent shock waves across the globe, even though Benedict had in the past endorsed the notion that an incapacitated pope could resign.

“The pope took us by surprise,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, who explained that many cardinals were in Rome on Monday for a ceremony at the Vatican and heard the pope’s address. Italy’s outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti said he was “very shaken by the unexpected news.”

The announcement plunged the Roman Catholic world into frenzied speculation about his likely successor and seemed likely to inspire many contrasting evaluations of a papacy that was seen as both conservative and contentious.

The pope made his initial announcement in Latin but his statement was translated into seven languages — Italian, French, English, German, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.

“In today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me,” the pope said.

“For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom, I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter.”

Elected on April 19, 2005, Pope Benedict said his papacy would end on Feb. 28. At a news conference, the Vatican spokesman said the pope did not express strong emotion as he made his announcement but spoke with “great dignity, great concentration and great understanding of the significance of the moment.”

At the time of his election, Benedict was a popular choice within the college of 115 cardinals who chose him as a man who shared — and at times went beyond — the conservative theology of his predecessor and mentor, John Paul II, and seemed ready to take over the job after serving beside him for more than two decades.

In the final years of John Paul II’s papacy, which were dogged by illness, Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger has said if the pope “sees that he absolutely cannot do it anymore, then certainly he will resign.”

When he took office, Pope Benedict’s well-known stands included the assertion that Catholicism is “true” and other religions are “deficient;” that the modern, secular world, especially in Europe, is spiritually weak; and that Catholicism is in competition with Islam. He had also strongly opposed homosexuality, the ordination of women priests and stem cell research.

Born on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, he was the son of a police officer. He was ordained in 1951, at age 24, and began his career as a liberal academic and theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council, supporting many efforts to make the church more open.

But he moved theologically and politically to the right. Pope Paul VI named him bishop of Munich in 1977 and appointed him a cardinal within three months. Taking the chief doctrinal job at the Vatican in 1981, he moved with vigor to quash liberation theology in Latin America, cracked down on liberal theologians and in 2000 wrote the contentious Vatican document “’Dominus Jesus,” asserting the truth of Catholic belief over others.

The last pope to resign was Gregory XII, who left the papacy in 1415 to end what was known as the Western Schism among several competitors for the papacy.

Benedict’s tenure was caught up in growing sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church that crept ever closer to the Vatican itself.

Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Rome, and Alan Cowell from London.

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