Putting the shine back on

May 14th 2007
From Economist.com

Can a private-equity firm repair Chrysler?

AFP

FOR SALE: used Chrysler; one owner since 1998; was good runner but now in need of some attention; cost $36 billion; any reasonable offer considered. Call Stuttgart and ask for Dr Z.

Earlier this year when Dieter Zetsche, DaimlerChrysler’s boss, admitted that the company might sell its American arm, he would have been acutely aware of depreciation in the second-hand car market. With the bidding over on Monday May 14th, Daimler (as the German arm will now be called) has accepted an offer worth only $7.4 billion from Cerberus, a private-equity firm, for just over 80% of Chrysler. This values the American carmaker at roughly a quarter of what Daimler-Benz paid for it nine years ago.

Much of Cerberus's money will go to prop up Chrysler's operations and when all the costs of the deal are taken into account Daimler will have to pay $650m to get the American firm off its hands. But at last Daimler can drive away from the failed merger to concentrate on selling profitable, luxury cars. And although Cerberus has bought itself a carmaker with serious problems under the bonnet, the private-equity firm arrives with a reputation for wielding a big spanner.

America’s carmakers have been languishing as Asian firms prosper. This year Toyota it set to overhaul General Motors as the world’s leading car firm, and the proportion of cars that Detroit’s big three sell in America is still declining. But there are signs that all three of the firms are ready to make changes: they have each cut (or at least plan to do so) their workforces, through union-mollifying buy-outs; both Ford and GM have wrested some concessions on health care and pensions from their workers, helping to lower the long-term costs of making cars.

Chrysler responded to a rotten year in 2006 with plans to lay off 13,000 people, about 16% of the workforce. By 2009 the car firm expects to have cut planned production by about 400,000 vehicles a year (last year it sold 2.7m). Tom LaSorda, Chrysler’s boss and the architect of these cutbacks, will stay on. Cerberus stressed its support for his plans, but more audacious cuts both to jobs and benefits cannot be far off. Although Chrylser will come into its hands debt free, the private-equity firm will still have to cope with pensions and health-care liabilities that top $18 billion (another burden of which Daimler is glad to rid itself). Cerberus is expected to challenge the generous terms of employment won by car workers in the days when Detroit dominated the world and competitors were mere specks in the rear-view mirror.

Ron Gettelfinger, the boss of the United Auto Workers union, welcomed the news of Chrysler’s new owners, suggesting it was in the “best interests” of the company and its workers. But he had earlier made it clear that he would have rather seen Magna, a Canadian car-parts firm, become the new owner. Private-equity’s reputation (and its business model) calls both for financial re-engineering and for big cuts in costs, and Cerberus has shown toughness in previous deals. Mr Gettelfinger’s happy endorsement may indicate that the workers are not looking for confrontation, but the union’s four-year contract with Detroit’s carmakers is set for renewal later this year.

So far GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler have all backed away from a showdown with the unions, fearing the costs of strikes and disruption to production. Cerberus might be more willing to push for deep cuts in the workforce, and less troubled by the threat of industrial unrest, as reforming the carmaker is the means by which the private-equity firm can make a profit. Cerberus is keen to stress that it has a “good record” with unions, although it is unclear whether that is the result of conquest or accommodation.

The challenge for Cerberus and Chrysler is to persuade workers that painful reforms, and the design and production of cars that consumers actually want to buy, will produce beneficial results for all involved. If that proves possible, Detroit’s other two car giants may also stand to benefit from private equity’s foray into the mainstream of American carmaking. The alternative, the continued decline of the long-term health of the American car industry, looks far less attractive.

STUTTGART, Germany May 14 — DaimlerChrysler confirmed today that it would sell a controlling interest in its struggling Chrysler Group to Cerberus Capital Management of New York, a private equity firm that specializes in restructuring troubled companies. The price being paid is $7.4 billion, mostly in the form of capital that Cerberus will put into Chrysler.

The deal unwinds a 1998 merger that was meant to create a trans-Atlantic automotive powerhouse.

The agreement will leave DaimlerChrysler, of Stuttgart, Germany, with a 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler. DaimlerChrysler will change its name to Daimler AG. It will be freed of a great amount of pension and health care liabilities in the new Chrysler company.

Cerberus will take an 80.1 percent stake in the new company, to be known as Chrysler Holding.

With the deal, Chrysler becomes the first of the big Detroit automakers to be privately owned. The prospect of private ownership had alarmed Chrysler’s labor unions, which had come out strongly against the sale of the company, fearful that an investor might try to break up the company or seek deep cuts in wages and benefits.

But Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the United Automobile Workers union, said today that the deal “was in the best interests of our U.A.W. members, the Chrysler Group and Daimler.”

Of the $7.4 billion, Cerberus agreed to invest $5 billion in the new Chrysler and $1.05 billion in Chrysler’s financial arm. The remaining $1.35 billion will go to DaimlerChrysler.

DaimlerChrysler’s share of the capital represents a remarkable comedown for a company that paid $36 billion to acquire Chrysler in 1998, in a landmark deal that was initially hailed as a blueprint for the future of the global auto industry.

As part of the complicated sale today, DaimlerChrysler has agreed to lend Chrysler Holding $400 million and will absorb $1.6 billion in costs, related to the ongoing restructuring program at Chrysler. All told, the company said, it will have a net cash outflow of $650 million from the transaction.

DaimlerChrysler, however, will transfer nearly $20 billion in pension and health care obligations for Chrysler’s workers to the new company. That will leave Daimler as a smaller, but financially stronger company.

Dieter Zetsche, the chief executive of DaimlerChrysler, said, “We’re confident that we’ve found the right solution that will create the greatest overall value — both for Daimler and Chrysler.”

The chairman of Cerberus, John W. Snow, said, “We would like to thank DaimlerChrysler for their good stewardship of this American icon over the last decade. We are aware that Chrysler faces significant challenges, but we are confident that they can and will be overcome.” Mr. Snow is the former United States treasury secretary.

The deal is expected to be finalized in the third quarter.

The sale would be a watershed for private equity companies, which have become audacious bidders for businesses as varied as retailers, steel companies and airlines in the last few years. But never before has one of them purchased a company as iconic as Chrysler, whose Dodge and Jeep brands are so embedded in the American culture that the company’s near-bankruptcy led to a federal bailout in 1979 that made Lee A. Iacocca, then its chief executive, a household name.

Daimler-Benz of Germany was an eager bidder for Chrysler nine years ago, attracted by its highly profitable lineup of Jeeps and minivans. The combination was originally portrayed as a merger of equals but ended up being a German takeover.

The merger has never resulted in the savings or market power that its creators envisioned, however, as the company struggled to put a mass market brand, Chrysler, together with Mercedes-Benz, a luxury company, while keeping both prosperous.

Chrysler’s fortunes have been on a constant roller-coaster ride, with profitable years followed by years of losses, including a $1.5 billion loss in 2006, when Chrysler fell to fourth place in the American market behind Toyota. (It had a 12.6 percent share of the domestic market in 2006, from a peak of 16 percent in 1999.) Meanwhile, Daimler’s parallel expansion into Asia ran aground because of troubles at its Japanese partner, Mitsubishi Motors. It thought Mitsubishi might serve as the third leg of its global stool when it purchased a stake in 1999. But Mitsubishi’s legal and financial troubles forced Daimler to take management control in 2002, and Daimler ended that alliance in 2004.

In February, DaimlerChrysler announced that it was keeping all of its options open for Chrysler, including a sale or finding a partner to run the company. At the same time, DaimlerChrysler announced a restructuring plan for Chrysler, the second such plan in the last seven years.

Under the latest turnaround, which calls for the company to cut 16 percent of its work force, or 13,000 jobs, Chrysler is not expected to be profitable again until 2009. DaimlerChrysler is scheduled to announce its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday.

Cerberus emerged as the leading bidder for Chrysler late last week, people involved in the transaction said.

Along with Cerberus, other interested bidders in Chrysler included Blackstone, which was exploring a purchase in conjunction with Centerbridge Partners.

Magna International, the Canadian auto parts company, and the Tracinda Corporation, the holding company owned by the billionaire Kirk Kerkorian , also said they had made bids for Chrysler.

Over the last few days, officials at Cerberus and DaimlerChrysler have been involved in detailed discussions, which have been shepherded by JPMorgan, DaimlerChrysler’s investment adviser.

“We’re confident that we have found the solution that will create the greatest overall value — both for Daimler and for Chrysler,” DaimlerChrysler chief executive Dieter Zetsche said this morning. He called the transaction “a new start” for both companies.

Participants in the talks said on Sunday night that union leaders had been informed of the discussions with Cerberus. DaimlerChrysler officials had pledged to discuss any possible sale with Mr. Gettelfinger before it took place, people with knowledge of the talks said.

Chrysler’s unions, including the U.A.W. and the Canadian Automobile Workers, had said they would prefer that Chrysler not be sold. Mr. Gettelfinger has a seat on the 20-member supervisory board at DaimlerChrysler, along with DaimlerChrysler’s unions in Germany.

A deal with Cerberus “puts an enormous amount of pressure on the union,” said David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The union thought private equity “would be the end of the world, and in some ways it probably would be,” Mr. Cole said. “The union is in a horrifying box right now. There’s got to be some real hardball that’s a part of this to get the rank and file to go along with it.”

But Mr. Gettelfinger’s support will go a long way to assuaging Chrysler workers. Indeed, Mr. Gettelfinger said his union was “pleased this decision has been made” because it meant Chrysler could focus completely on its own future.

Cerberus, whose automotive investment operations are headed by David W. Thursfield, a former executive with the Ford Motor Company, will keep Chrysler’s management in place, at least for now, people with knowledge of the discussions said.

“As a private company, Chrysler will be better positioned to focus on its long-term plan for recovery, rather than just short-term results,” said Chrysler’s chief executive, Thomas W. LaSorda.

Mr. LaSorda said no new job cuts were planned by the new owners.

Chrysler executives will leave the DaimlerChrysler management board, which will be reduced to six people.

Chrysler’s former president, Wolfgang Bernhard, who advised Cerberus, may receive a seat on the board of the new Chrysler or play some other role.

Mr. Bernhard visited Chrysler several times in the last few weeks, and has remained friendly with Mr. Zetsche, who ran Chrysler when Mr. Bernhard was president during the early 2000s.

A sale to Cerberus would mark the company’s latest investment in an automotive-related company. Last year, Cerberus, which owns the car-rental companies National and Alamo, led a consortium that purchased a 51 percent stake in the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, the financing arm of General Motors.

Cerberus also reached a tentative agreement to purchase a controlling interest in the Delphi Corporation, an auto parts supplier that used to be owned by G.M. and is operating in bankruptcy. But that transaction stalled, after Delphi and G.M. were unable to agree on contract terms with the U.A.W.

As private equity firms have appeared more often in the headlines, they have also attracted scrutiny. Along with the unions, government officials have expressed increasing concern over the financial restructurings that are the lifeblood of buyout firms; their overhauls of companies have often included massive cuts in jobs or benefits. In countries like Germany and France, private equity firms have been derided as locusts that strip companies of their assets.

Last month the Service Employees International Union , a politically active organization that represents nearly two million workers, released a report expressing public policy concerns about private equity. Among those were questions about the lack of disclosure and about certain tax breaks for buyout firms.

Nonetheless, DaimlerChrysler’s shares have climbed 15 percent, to $82 on Friday, since mid-February, when private equity firms entered the bidding for Chrysler. The shares rose again in early trading today in Europe.

At the company’s raucous annual meeting in Berlin last month, a succession of shareholders stood up to demand that the company move swiftly to dispose of Chrysler.

“This marriage made in heaven turned out to be a complete failure,” said Hans-Richard Schmitz, who represented the German Association for the Protection of Shareholders. “What’s missing now is a swift resolution of the issue by the management of the group.”

Hungry tiger, dancing elephant

Apr 4th 2007 | ARMONK, BANGALORE AND DELHI
From The Economist print edition

How India is changing IBM's world

Cyrus Deboo

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LAST June IBM held its annual investors' day in the grounds of the Bangalore Palace, a fake Windsor Castle in India's equivalent of Silicon Valley. Big Blue pulled out all the stops to impress the 50 or so investors and Wall Street analysts who turned up, gathering 10,000 employees to hear speeches by the president of India, the country's leading telecoms entrepreneur and IBM's own boss, Sam Palmisano, all hosted by a Bollywood babe in a red sari.

The annual investors' day is usually held in New York, though it once took place in faraway Boston. By going to Bangalore, the technology giant was sending a strong message. With 53,000 employees, India is now at the core of IBM's strategy. With other big developing countries, including China, Brazil and Russia, it is fast becoming the firm's centre of gravity.

Just three decades earlier, IBM had quit India, which was in the grip of corporatist and nationalistic industrial policies. Only in the early 1990s did it gradually start to return, as the government began to deregulate and reconnect with the world economy. Now, as Mr Palmisano pointed out to his investors in Bangalore, the domestic Indian market has become one of the fastest-growing in the world for IBM, with revenues rising by 40-50% a year, albeit from a very small base. The firm now has more employees in India than in any other country except America.

Mr Palmisano announced that IBM would invest a further $6 billion in India over the coming three years, up from $2 billion in the previous three. That sum does not include any acquisitions of Indian companies. (It has already struck some big deals, notably buying Daksh, an Indian outsourcing company, in 2004.) Some locals wondered how IBM would manage to spend all that money. But booming demand is pulling wages higher in India and costly training is now needed to lure workers being courted by other companies.

IBM's Indian adventure highlights three overlapping themes. Emerging economies increasingly count as a threat to established global firms, as well as an opportunity. Indian services firms such as Infosys and Wipro are starting to give IBM—and its old rivals, Accenture, EDS and Hewlett-Packard—a run for their money. As globalisation accelerates, this is forging a new vision of what it is to be a successful multinational company. Last, regardless of how well Big Blue fares, its strategy for growth has suffered because of those first two. The big, career-threatening question facing Mr Palmisano—and the reason other multinational companies will want to study IBM closely—is whether he can find a new way to realise the growth that his shareholders demand.

In a speech last year at INSEAD business school in France, Mr Palmisano set IBM's Indian move in the context of the modern multinational company. This, he said, had passed through three phases. First was the 19th-century “international model”, whereby firms were based in their home country, but sold goods through overseas sales offices. Then came the classic multinational firm, in which the parent company created smaller versions of itself in countries around the world. This was how Mr Palmisano found IBM when he joined it in 1973.

The third model, argues Mr Palmisano, the IBM he is now building, is the “globally integrated enterprise”. Rather than have a parent with lots of Mini-Mes around the world, such a firm shapes its strategy, management and operations as a single global entity. It puts people and jobs anywhere in the world “based on the right cost, the right skills and the right business environment. And it integrates those operations horizontally and globally.” In this approach, “work flows to the places where it will be done best”, that is, most efficiently and to the highest quality. The forces behind this “are irresistible”, he says. “The genie's out of the bottle and there's no stopping it.”

IBM's big investment in India is not just about getting cheaper workers. If it were, IBM might have been in and out of India almost as fast as Apple, which closed its Bangalore offshoring centre last year after about three months, apparently because rising labour costs meant that the expected savings failed to materialise. IBM is doing cutting-edge research and development in India and writing valuable software, as well as running low-cost call centres. One reason for holding the investors' day in Bangalore, says Mr Palmisano, was to show Wall Street analysts that “places like India do not simply mean ‘cheap labour’.”

Places like India: the other message that Mr Palmisano was keen to get across was the part other emerging economies are playing in remaking IBM—which he admits will take many years. Thus, IBM's financing back office is in Rio De Janeiro. It has call centres round the world. Last April, when Bangalore was paralysed by rioting over the death of Rajkumar, a movie star, IBM shifted data-centre operations to its facilities in Brazil and Colorado.

IBM used to have separate supply chains in different markets, now it has one for the whole company. Reflecting the growing importance of China, John Paterson, IBM's chief procurement officer, moved to Shenzen in October. He is the first head of a company-wide function to base himself outside America, though other top IBM executives may soon follow. Asia already accounts for one-third of IBM's $40 billion purchasing budget. Mr Paterson felt he needed to raise the quality of IBM's purchasing staff in the region and to develop its base of suppliers.

Yet when history judges Mr Palmisano's time at the helm, IBM's Indian strategy may prove far more important than what the firm does elsewhere in the developing world. Becoming a globally integrated enterprise is necessary for its success, but not sufficient. Cutting costs is crucial—and globalising the supply chain has saved IBM about $8 billion a year. But to grow in the newly integrated world, as Mr Palmisano puts it, the burning question becomes “what will cause work to move to me? On what basis will I differentiate and compete?”

So as well as realising “global integration”—no easy task in a mature company with 330,000 staff in 170 countries—IBM will also need the right products. It is here that India poses a special threat, not least because of its prowling, hungry home-grown tiger companies.

When Mr Palmisano became IBM's boss in 2002, the firm seemed to have a perfectly good strategy. It was the legacy of the famous turnaround of IBM engineered by the previous boss, Lou Gerstner, and described in his book, “Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?”.

When Mr Gerstner took the helm in 1993, IBM was in deep trouble, on the verge of selling itself off in pieces. In particular, the legendary mainframe business was perceived to be in terminal decline, while the firm's hardware (personal computers and the like) were rapidly becoming commodities. Mr Gerstner stabilised the mainframe business, which today is expected to see modest growth thanks to greater openness to independent software vendors, clever pricing and demand from emerging economies, including India. More fundamentally, he shifted IBM's focus from selling hardware to the fast-growing IT-services market, including outsourcing. In 1992 hardware generated around 55% of IBM's revenues, and services 25%. By 2001 hardware was down to about 30% and services up to 42%.

Meanwhile, IBM's share price rose from $11 in March 1993 to $125 in December 2001—a price it has never since matched. Last July it fell below $74, although it rallied after that—perhaps as the message that the firm is taking India seriously started to get through. Having briefly touched $100, it slipped back to $93 during the recent market wobbles. That is not the sort of performance to make a boss feel secure in his job, especially in this era of trigger-happy boards. (Though, if rumours are to be believed, a record-breaking bid from private equity may yet rescue Mr Palmisano's reputation.)

Cyrus Deboo

When IBM bought the consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002, it seemed like the final piece of the jigsaw needed to complete the services strategy. The consultants' industrial expertise and their relationships at the top of all manner of industries would help IBM move upmarket and lead to the more lucrative work of solving complex business problems. Rapid growth seemingly beckoned. In fact, IBM's services business suffered at the lower end of the market, owing not least to unexpectedly strong competition from Indian IT firms, many of which first got started in the IT business thanks to the vacuum created when IBM quit the country.

Even now, the Indian firms are a limited form of competition. The biggest, Infosys, has a stockmarket value of only $28 billion, compared with IBM's $144 billion. IBM also has lucrative businesses the Indian firms can only dream of. These include the lease-like revenues from licences relating to its mainframe computers and its pioneering “multi-core” semiconductors, which feature in (among other things) the three leading video-games consoles.

Yet corporate IT departments are continually being pressed to cut costs. The Indian suppliers' credibility with international firms was boosted by their sterling work in inoculating networks against the Y2K computer bug. Indian firms have started to win big outsourcing contracts, some of which IBM had counted on as its own. Just as troubling for IBM has been the effect on contracts that the company managed to win, many of which were at far lower prices than they would have been without an Indian alternative. The prospect of falling margins on services contracts prompted IBM—and the other big multinational suppliers—to pledge a large amount of money to India.

Even IBM's Indian rivals concede that so far, despite teething troubles, the American giant has done well—certainly better than Accenture and EDS. If nothing else, the company has proved that you do not have to be Indian to manage a low-cost outsourcing business in India. Under IBM's ownership, the Indian workforce of Daksh, which runs call centres and does other basic “business process outsourcing”, has grown from 6,000 in April 2004 to over 20,000.

According to Pavan Vaish, its boss, IBM has largely allowed Daksh to carry on as it was, rather than imposing on it the IBM way, as might have happened in the past. “They studied the way we did business and said we don't have to do everything here the way we run our other businesses. Certain core functions were added, such as finance, but the rest was left alone.” Indeed, IBM is now trying to export the Daksh way to other parts of the empire, such as its call centre in Okinawa.

At first IBM paid too much for Indian workers, adding heat to an already sizzling labour market. Now it is trying to attract and retain talent by offering training and a career path that leads up the corporate ladder. (IBM's Indian rivals counter by telling potential recruits that they offer better training and quicker career progression than an American company run out of Armonk, New York.)

This is paying off. According to Sanford Bernstein, a research firm, IBM has already increased profit margins from its services business, thanks to the cost reductions it has made in India.

Yet these are early days in the evolution of the Indian outsourcing industry. IBM will probably have to cope with two other new trends. The first is the decline in “mega deals”, outsourcing contracts that are worth more than $1 billion over several years. These were common in the first wave of outsourcing a few years ago, but many are now due for renewal. Some companies are said to feel they ceded too much control to the outsourcing firms last time and now plan to manage the work more carefully, not least by parcelling business out to several firms. Contracts that would have gone to IBM alone may now be shared by IBM and, say, Infosys.

Nobody is really sure how significant this shift will be. After a slow year for mega deals, IBM signed three in the final quarter of last year—with the German army, Vodafone and the state of Indiana. But the consensus in the industry is that deals will be split, which is bad for IBM and good for its rivals.

The second big change is that Indian firms are rapidly moving upmarket. IBM's great strength is in offering total outsourcing. This includes everything from simple call centres to remote infrastructure management (over 40,000 servers outside India are managed from IBM's Bangalore operations) to “business transformation”, in which IBM re-engineers and manages a company's entire operation, including its staff. The company has made much of one such deal, to run the back end of Bharti AirTel, India's leading mobile phone firm, whose boss spoke at IBM's investors' day.

But the Indian firms are rapidly acquiring the skills and connections they need to compete for these deals. Infosys now has a consulting operation. Its smoothly effective boss, Nandan Nilekani, spends time building the sort of friendships with other chief executives that IBM bosses have had for decades and regard as crucial in winning contracts.

IBM and the other multinationals are becoming increasingly nervous about the fifth-biggest Indian outsourcer, HCL Technologies. It is leaving the world's 200 biggest firms to the likes of IBM, and instead going after the next 800, which HCL's boss, Vineet Nayar, says tend to feel a bit neglected by the big traditional outsourcers. Largely unnoticed, HCL has won several contracts worth $300m-700m for infrastructure management and business transformation. In a recent deal with Cisco, HCL will take on risk from the American hardware company, using a contract that forsakes a fixed fee in favour of sharing revenue. According to IDC, a technology-research firm, HCL “may very well be one of the contenders to lead the IT services world of the very near future”.

As the Indian tigers improve, the pressure on IBM to innovate is bound to grow. That may get harder, which is why there is speculation that it will buy one of those Indian tigers. So far, adding jobs in India has not meant shedding many jobs in costlier places, such as America. And innovating may be harder when the corporate headquarters is in cosy New York rather than in the heat of the action in India. IBM's chief procurement officer may be in China, but no one who reports directly to Mr Palmisano is based outside America. Yet.

Hoping to get IBM's share price up, Mr Palmisano has promised double-digit growth in earnings per share over the long term. That is a tall order, and feasible thanks only to IBM's progress in other businesses, which has partly offset the difficulties in services. Huge savings have come as the company has broken down the barriers between its various operations. It has bought vast quantities of its own shares. It has continued to sell low-margin commodity businesses, such as hardware. In these businesses, IBM does not feel threatened by the rise of domestic competitors in countries such as China. On the contrary, it was delighted to sell one of them to Lenovo, which bought IBM's personal computer business in 2005.

Cyrus Deboo

But the future gains from selling low-margin hardware businesses may be limited. That puts a greater burden on IBM's high-margin software business. In the past four years it has spent about $16 billion on over 50 acquisitions, mostly small software firms that have thrived after having been stitched into the company. It has done this so well that (the growth story in services having become a little hollow) IBM is now claiming to be the next great software company. In 2006 software accounted for 20% of its revenue and for 40% of profits, up from 35% two years earlier. Much of the growth is in “middleware”, software that helps all a firm's different software to run together.

But the strategy on which IBM is pinning its hopes is more complex than just software or services. The company is betting that it can produce synergies from the three business lines—hardware, services, software—in which, unlike any of its competitors, IBM is a global leader. That means prising the firm's employees out of their traditional product-driven business “silos” and getting them to work together. This strategy is articulated in the IBM way, ie, using plenty of jargon: “service oriented architecture”, “solutions” and so on. Rather than simply push products at customers, the new approach means sorting out customers' difficulties using whatever mix of services, software and hardware leads to the best outcome.

One important part of this is especially relevant to the threat posed by India. IBM is trying to write software that automates many of the activities companies now outsource. It has picked 17 industries, two of which, health care and insurance, are being primarily addressed by software engineers in India. Examples include software developed in IBM's research lab in Bangalore that tests the language skills of applicants for call-centre jobs, greatly reducing recruitment costs; and a mortgage-origination business, launched last week, which is designed to automate lending by building on technology and software from two recent acquisitions, Filenet and Palisades Technology Partners. When processes are automated in software, they become an “asset”, the firm says, in the sense that programs generate licence fees and can be reused with other customers. This solves at a stroke the difficulty matching the Indians in labour-intensive outsourcing.

Analysts are divided about how successful IBM's overall strategy will be. An IBM executive complains that most of the analysts who follow the company are “legacy hardware guys who don't get software”. One who does is Barry Rubinstein of IDC. He suspects that the Indian firms are too focused on short-term profits to make the best long-term bets, which may well include automation. “Things may look very different in five to seven years' time, and much better for IBM,” he says.

In the meantime, the big Indian IT firms are delighted that IBM is taking them seriously. “Palmisano has authenticated our model,” says the boss of one of them. “We have convinced the global investment community that our model is the future,” he says. That keeps his share price rising and raises questions about IBM's value. Automation, among other things, may be a good long-run strategy, but in the short term IBM has to keep growing and get its share price up. “Palmisano's problem is timing,” he concludes, with a smile. And to dance well, you have to get the timing right, as every elephant knows.

By WAYNE ARNOLD and THOMAS FULLER SINGAPORE — Some countries have strategic oil reserves; others stockpile rice or wheat. The island nation of Singapore has emergency reserves of imported sand. The sand is there to secure Singapore’s insatiable demand for concrete, a reminder of its vulnerability as a nation without a hinterland to supply it with vital resources. The government is now being forced to tap its sand hoard after its usual supplier, Indonesia, abruptly banned exports in February, citing the impact of a recent Singaporean construction boom on Indonesian beaches and island environments. The ban touched off the latest in a string of disputes between Singapore and its neighbors over water, land reclamation, satellite concessions, corporate takeovers and the flight patterns of the Singapore Air Force, just to name a few. A Malaysian politician has blamed Singapore for worsening floods. A top politician in Indonesia has sought the recall of Singapore’s ambassador there. The general in Thailand who led the coup there last September has accused Singapore of tapping his phones. Tiffs between Singapore and its neighbors are nothing new, and analysts say the latest ones are unlikely to seriously harm relations. But the analysts say the recent quarrels highlight the rifts that continue to thwart Southeast Asia’s ability to compete collectively against the economies of India and China. If Singapore and its neighbors cannot agree to share basic resources like sand and water, they say, the dream of a single market by 2015 — the stated goal of the 10 member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations — may be illusory. “They’re more competitive with each other than natural allies,” said Robert Broadfoot, managing director of the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in Hong Kong. The disputes also raise questions about Singapore’s drive to expand its investments in the region. Singapore’s advances appear to be aggravating what may be described as a personality conflict between one of the world’s richest countries and its much larger but much poorer neighbors. “We see Singapore in two ways,” said Drajad Wibowo, an Indonesian legislator. “On one hand as a role model for development; on the other hand, many see Singapore as an arrogant economic giant, which is prepared to use its financial muscle to undermine neighboring countries.” Singapore’s problems with its neighbors are as old as the country itself, which became independent from Malaysia in 1965. Singapore’s leaders took advantage of their city’s historic role as a trading post to lure investment and manufacturing, vaulting it to the ranks of the world’s most affluent nations within 20 years — and breezing past Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand along the way. In his memoirs, Singapore’s founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, said his goal “was to leapfrog the region, as the Israelis had done.” With its predominantly Chinese population in a mainly Malay region, Singapore has become a magnet for ethnic Chinese talent and wealth from around Southeast Asia. But while part of the region, it often seems to be apart from it. In a part of the world where politics are ruled by nuance and consensus, some people in nearby countries say, Singapore can be self-servingly rational, legalistic and seemingly tone-deaf to local sensitivities. “Singapore doesn’t really care about the opinion of its neighbors,” Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian prime minister, complained to a Thai television station in January. “Singapore believes the most important thing is what profits Singapore.” Mr. Broadfoot said, “Their values and their efficiency don’t export well.” Singapore’s officials, for the most part, are not apologetic. “For Singapore, the rule of law and the protection of property are absolutely important, from the days we were established as a trading post for the British East India Company,” Foreign Minister George Yeo said in a written response to questions. “Why else would this piece of rock, amidst thousands scattered in the archipelago, flourish?” In Singapore’s Parliament, legislators recently complained that the country was being picked on unfairly. One member blasted efforts by neighbors to make it a “scapegoat for their own domestic troubles.” But as the disputes accumulate, there are also voices here calling for a change of approach. A March 12 editorial in Business Times, which like all Singaporean newspapers is state controlled, proposed that the government’s investment arm, Temasek, create a charitable foundation. While that might not eliminate “nationalistic responses” to Temasek’s activities in the region, the editorial read, “giving back rather than merely extracting profits, legitimate though that may be, yields a huge payoff for companies in terms of building good will, respect, networks, and in the end, profitability.” What brought the ban on sand exports from Indonesia is unclear. The official explanation is damage to the environment there. Indonesia began restricting exports of sand in 2002 after reports of entire islands disappearing as Singapore expanded. But Indonesia’s maritime affairs minister, Freddy Numberi, later said the ban was also aimed at pressing Singapore into signing a longstalled extradition treaty. Wealthy Indonesians, particularly ethnic Chinese, have long used Singapore as a haven from their country’s periodic strife. Indonesians are the leading foreign property owners in Singapore, and wealthy Indonesians keep as much as $87 billion in Singaporean banks, according to estimates by Merrill Lynch. Many Indonesians suspect Singapore of harboring white-collar criminals, though there have been no publicized cases of fugitives living here. Indonesia’s foreign minister denied the maritime minister’s claim, but Singapore bristled, calling the mixed signals “puzzling and disappointing.” Singapore says the two countries have already agreed that the extradition treaty will be negotiated, together with a military cooperation pact. Foreign Minister Yeo told Singapore’s Parliament recently that an agreement was near. The confusion over Indonesia’s policy is only growing, though. In late February, the Indonesian Navy detained 13 tugboats pulling barges full of granite, used in concrete, saying it was were searching for smuggled sand. The speaker of Indonesia’s Parliament, Agung Laksono, then urged the recall of Singapore’s ambassador, “in protest against that country’s unfriendly attitude,” according to Indonesia’s state news agency, Antara. Now, with the price of sand nearly triple what it was before the ban, Singapore is drawing down its sand stockpiles while looking for new suppliers. “From time to time we must expect other countries will pressure Singapore in the hope that we will then give way to their demands,” Mr. Yeo told Parliament. “Singaporeans know that if we give in to such pressures we would only invite more such pressures.” Wayne Arnold reported from Singapore, and Thomas Fuller from Bangkok.

BERLIN, N.H. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton signs autographs meticulously, drawing out each line and curve of “H-i-l-l-a-r-y,” “R-o-d-h-a-m” and “C-l-i-n-t-o-n.” She leaves no stray lines or wayward marks.

“Hillary, over here, over here,” called out a young woman from the mob that formed outside the Berlin Town Hall when Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, arrived for a “conversation,” in the parlance of the made-to-order intimacy of her presidential campaign. “Can you sign my Hillary sign, please?” the woman asked.

Mrs. Clinton autographed the poster, carefully. It took a full seven or eight seconds, none of the two-second scribbles of other politicians. She is the diligent student who gets an A in penmanship, the woman in a hurry who still takes care to dot her i’s.

To watch Mrs. Clinton up close during these “rollout” weeks of her presidential campaign is to see a familiar political figure try to reclaim her name.

“I’m Hillary Clinton, and I’m running for president,” she says at campaign appearances. Lamenting that her public image has been distorted by caricature, she often says, “I may be the most famous person you don’t really know.” In the cliché of contemporary politics, Mrs. Clinton is “reintroducing herself to the American people.”

She is, in this latest unveiling, the Nurturing Warrior. She displays a cozy acquaintance (“Let’s chat”) and leaderly confidence (“I’m in it to win it”). She is a tea-sipping girlfriend who vows to “deck” anyone who attacks her; a giggly mom who invokes old Girl Scout songs and refuses to apologize for voting for the Iraq War Resolution in 2002. Her aim, of course, is to show that she is tough enough to lead Americans in wartime but tender enough to understand their burdens.

Over the years, Mrs. Clinton has evolved through a series of female personas. Her outspoken feminism and perceived putdown of cookie-baking mothers provoked fierce criticism. She became the classic “woman wronged” after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

As a Senate candidate in 2000, Mrs. Clinton embraced the role of an attentive “listener” as opposed to the power-hungry climber many had suspected. In the Senate, Mrs. Clinton has applied herself to winning over colleagues and becoming one of the boys.

In Mrs. Clinton’s campaign now, her operative conceit is “the conversation.” It is impossible to attend a Hillary-for-president event and forget you are joining a “conversation,” instead of hearing a conventional political speech. Mrs. Clinton relentlessly repeats the catchword, and for those who missed it, there are huge “Let the Conversation Begin” signs on the wall.

After each presentation, Mrs. Clinton engages in a frenzy of 20-second conversations with the rhythmic efficiency of an assembly line.

“What kind of solar panels do you use?” she asked a woman in Berlin, a small city in the mountains of northern New Hampshire. “And do you sell to the grid?” Then she moved to the next person.

She contrasts the give-and-take of her chitchats — even though she does most of the talking — with what she suggests are the pig-headed pronouncements of a male bogeyman, George W. Bush. She rails against what she calls the “one-sided conversation” of Washington during the Bush years, bemoans President Bush’s “stubbornness,” speaks of her frustration at getting him to hear opposing views. She essentially portrays him as an exasperating husband who is beyond marriage counseling.

It is not easy, though, to humanize a juggernaut, which Mrs. Clinton’s well-financed and hyperdisciplined campaign most certainly is. And it is difficult to appear authentic in tightly controlled settings, or conduct intimate conversations amid mobs of people, many wearing press credentials.

But the senator is trying hard. In appearances in Washington and around the country, Mrs. Clinton — Version 08, Nurturing Warrior, Presidential Candidate Model — is speaking more freely of her gender than she has in years. Her campaign knows that Democratic women are her most loyal supporters. Ann Lewis, a senior campaign aide, points out that women made up 54 percent of the electorate in 2004; Mrs. Clinton garnered 73 percent of female voters in her re-election campaign last year, compared with 61 percent of male voters, according to exit polls.

At a Capitol Hill ceremony in February to honor Sojourner Truth, the 19th-century slave turned abolitionist, Mrs. Clinton enveloped a series of women in hugs. She bestowed the “best-dressed and most-stylish” status on one guest and commented that an old, departed friend “has got one of those turbans on, showing that style all over Heaven.”

Mrs. Clinton then looked to the ceiling and spread her hand wide over heart, performing a little side-to-side jig with her head.

She invoked Sojourner Truth’s iconic quotation, “Ain’t I a woman?” and added, “Well, I’ve been saying that a few times lately, too.”

There were whoops, applause and shouts of “you go, girl” for Mrs. Clinton.

As she spoke, a press aide, Philippe Reines, held her purse.

The Listener

Mrs. Clinton is a prodigious nodder. She is always nodding, in an array of distinctive flavors: the stern, deferential nod (at a Senate news conference, when her colleague Evan Bayh described conditions in Afghanistan); the empathetic, lips-pursed nod (when a man in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, tells her about his son’s epilepsy); the squinty, disbelieving nod (when a general testifies on Iraq before the Senate Armed Services Committee); the dutiful acknowledgment nod (when being applauded); and the blushing nod (when a veteran in Des Moines tells her “I think you look very nice”).

When bored, Mrs. Clinton will occasionally fall into a far-off gaze before catching herself, defaulting to a nod.

The nodding appears unconscious, but not always. She nodded through a news conference with New York lawmakers discussing medical care for Sept. 11 relief workers.

“Nine-eleven was an act of war,” Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said as Mrs. Clinton stood by, head bobbing.

“The villains aren’t the terrorists,” Mr. Nadler continued. “The villains live in the White House.”

At which point Mrs. Clinton, perhaps sensing that the rhetoric had gotten too hot, stopped nodding.

Bill Clinton was also a great nodder, known for his “I-feel-your-pain” empathy and seeming ability to summon a misty-eyed visage on demand. He will pretty much hug anyone. His wife, who regularly invokes him on the campaign trial — “When Bill had his heart surgery,” “Bill used to love Dunkin’ Donuts,” “Bill always reached out to other people who would be patient and listen” — can suffer by comparison. She keeps a more cautious distance, although when she does hug, she also tends to air-kiss (with a loud “mwwwwwahh”).

The former president has a gift for the quick connection, making people feel special. Mrs. Clinton appears more interested in exchanging information. She is quick with questions (“When did you graduate?”) and rejoinders (“You’re the second person I’ve met from Park Ridge today!”).

Numerous attendees seem to know people who went to college or law school with Mrs. Clinton, or used to live in Arkansas, or the Chicago suburbs, or who have a daughter named Chelsea.

She impresses them and others with her listening prowess.

“She connected with me much better than I expected she would,” said Rachel Stuart, in Berlin. “She was right there. There was a real sense of her as a great listener.”

Mrs. Clinton clearly likes that portrayal. In face-to-face campaign settings, she brings her head close in, appearing engaged. After the Berlin conversation, Mrs. Clinton stopped in for one of those “spontaneous” campaign drop-bys at a local cafe (thoroughly scoped out by advance-people and Secret Service agents). She sat at a corner table and chatted with a group of local reporters.

When cameras approached, Mrs. Clinton nodded intently and squinted hard, the look of a listener.

The Sister Act

“Conversation” audiences are predominantly female. At her events, Mrs. Clinton is more likely to call on women than men. She gets physically closer to women who approach her. She compliments their clothes and asks about their children.

She is proper and polite, diligent about thanking everybody, including “the janitor who got up at 5 a.m. to open the facility,” at Berlin Town Hall, “Tea Birds for the delicious food,” and “everyone in Berlin for making me feel so welcome.”

In Keene, N.H., in February, Mrs. Clinton said she was so thankful to all of the people “who gave me confidence,” not something that male politicians typically say. Nor do they worry aloud about gaining weight.

“I really don’t understand why people hate her so much except that they don’t like strong women,” said the Rev. Eleanor McLaughlin, the rector at St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church in Berlin. “I get a lot of that myself.”

Ms. McLaughlin taught at Wellesley College in the 1960s and remembers Mrs. Clinton as a firebrand undergraduate. A few feet away, the senator was between autographs. She popped a red lozenge into her mouth, took a sip of water and shouted out after someone for whom she just signed a copy of her book (“Young man, I have your pen!”).

Her eyes bugged out when Ms. McLaughlin introduced herself. “Oh my God,” Mrs. Clinton exclaimed.

Afterward, Ms. McLaughlin said: “It’s great to be able to talk to her for a few seconds. To be able to say, ‘You go, girl.’ Wow.”

The senator regularly mentions familiar female grievances. “I don’t think I’m the only woman here who thinks you have to work harder,” Mrs. Clinton said at a high school in Des Moines.

“I expect,” she added with a sigh, “there’ll be more stories about my clothes and hair than the other people running.” That elicits scattered jeers.

The comedian Jon Stewart questions whether her “conversation” conceit will work with men. “I think the typical response would be ‘Now?’ ” he joked recently on “The Daily Show,” adding that Mrs. Clinton’s new Iraq policy is “America, let’s just pull over and ask for directions.”

But she tries to connect with women by expressing her frustration with those men now in charge. In Berlin, she waves her hands in the air when discussing Mr. Bush’s — and Vice President Dick Cheney’s — seeming infatuation with invading Iraq from early on in their administration.

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” she declared, “so I don’t know all the reasons behind their concern, some would say obsession, with Saddam Hussein.”

There is a larger lesson here, girls. “You’ve got to be willing to talk to bad people,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to deal with people you don’t agree with.”

She asked, “Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a difficult person?”

She nodded for emphasis, and many in the audience nodded back at her.

Tough Hostess

She cannot appear mushy. She drops in periodic tough-talk, glibly mentions the time “my husband bombed Iraq,” or says she is willing to “shoot down” violators of a Darfur no-fly-zone. When asked in Des Moines how her campaign would differ from that of Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and presidential nominee in 2004, she vows, “You can count on me to stand up and hold our ground and fight back.”

Everywhere she goes, Mrs. Clinton is invited to apologize for her Iraq vote in 2002, but no dice. “There are no do-overs in life,” she says. Tough self-love, in other words, implicitly chiding her girlie-men opponents for running around, saying they had made a mistake.

“I’m in the arena,” she said in Concord, quoting Theodore Roosevelt, one of the enduring political alpha-males in American politics. She says so in the high, insistent pitch of a fed-up mom.

Her constant “I’m in to win” affirmations convey a calibrated confidence. She prefers the “when I’m president” construction to the humbler “If you elect me president” qualifier.

“I want to have universal health care by the end of my second term” she announced at an education event in Nevada in February.

She is not above trash talk. In Nashua, Mrs. Clinton boasted that the Republicans Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker; Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader; and Karl Rove, the president’s adviser, had “privately” said “I am the one person they are most afraid of.”

But there is also a discernible sense of nervousness at the conversations. Her aides are fiercely protective of her, as are many of her supporters.

The crowd booed reflexively, for instance, after Mrs. Clinton called on a man in Keene who promised that he would not ask her whether she wore boxers or briefs — as a young woman once famously asked Bill Clinton on MTV.

The joke fell predictably flat, and Mrs. Clinton smiled tightly amid more boos.

Her staff members hunch visibly and look up from their BlackBerries when audience members unfurl their questions, as if every conversation could be ruined at any moment by an unwelcome remark — about impeachment, Monica, Whitewater or some other unpleasantness. But in an odd way, Mrs. Clinton’s unspoken vulnerability also enhances her ability to forge affinities.

“You have to feel bad for her after what she went through with her husband, you know?” said Bruce Bunnell, a forestry worker, in Berlin.

He handed Mrs. Clinton photos of his young son and daughter. She said they were beautiful, asked how old they were, went over the spelling of their names and then signed her own, slowly.

[sda] - Das ist deutlich mehr als 2005, als der Zuwachs gemäss definitiven Zahlen bei 1,9 Prozent gelegen hatte. Im Jahr 2000 lag das Wachstum bei 3,6 Prozent.

Die Zusammensetzung des BIP-Wachstums der vergangenen Quartale lasse deutlich erkennen, dass die gute Konjunktur der Schweizer Wirtschaft bislang sehr stark vom Beitrag der Banken und Versicherungen abhängig sei, teilte das SECO mit. Die Wertschöpfung in den anderen Sektoren habe sich zwar positiv, aber nicht besonders ausgeprägt entwickelt.

Im vierten Quartal 2006 gingen ebenfalls positive Impulse von der Finanzbranche aus. Auch der private Konsum und die Ausrüstungsinvestitionen entwickelten sich gut. Das BIP nahm gegenüber dem Vorquartal real (teuerungsbereinigt) um 0,5 Prozent zu. Im Vergleich zum Vorjahreszeitraum stieg das BIP um 2,2 Prozent.

by DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

A new, cheap, easy-to-take pill to treat malaria is being introduced today, the first product of an innovative partnership between an international drug company and a medical charity.

The medicine, called ASAQ, is a pill combining artemisinin, invented in China using sweet wormwood and hailed as a miracle malaria drug, with amodiaquine, an older drug that still works in many malarial areas.

A treatment will cost less than $1 for adults and less than 50 cents for children. Adults with malaria will take only two pills a day for three days, and the pill will come in three smaller once-a-day sizes for infants, toddlers and youngsters.

In Africa, malaria kills 3,000 babies and children each day, but combination drugs like this are not available for children under 11 pounds, and they require taking a larger number of pills each day, as many as 24 for some adult versions.

“This is a good thing,” said Dr. Arata Kochi, chief of the World Health Organization’s global malaria program, who has publicly demanded that drug companies stop making pills that contain artemisinin alone because they will lead to resistant strains of malaria. “They’re responding to the kind of drug profile we’ve been promoting.”

Doctors like to treat diseases with multidrug cocktails because it cuts down the chance that resistance to any one drug will develop.

Adm. R. Timothy Ziemer, coordinator of President Bush’s $1.2 billion Malaria Initiative, said the program would be willing to buy the new pill, assuming it meets international safety standards and is requested by countries the initiative supports.

Sanofi-Aventis, the world’s fourth-largest drug company, based in Paris, will sell the pill at cost to international health agencies like the W.H.O., Unicef and the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The rollout of the drug is the result of a two-year partnership between Sanofi and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, a campaign started by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders to find new drugs for tropical diseases.

Doctors Without Borders, better known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, has long been one of the harshest critics of the pharmaceutical industry, charging that it spent billions on drugs like Viagra, Ambien and Prozac for rich countries and almost nothing on diseases killing millions of poor people.

But, recognizing that new drugs would have to come from the industry’s major players, Doctors Without Borders founded the initiative in 2003 and began seeking partnerships. This is the first to come to fruition.

“This was not a love wedding, it was a reasonable wedding,” said Dr. Robert Sebbag, Sanofi’s vice president for access to medicines. “But reasonableness is often more important for a long marriage. They’ve seen we are not nasty people working against poor countries and seeking only profits.”

In an unusual move, Sanofi has decided not to seek any patents so the pills can be freely copied by generic companies like those in India. The drugs themselves are too old to patent, but the one-pill formulation could have been.

Sanofi will also produce a branded version, called Coarsucam, for the private market, to be sold at three or four times the public price. It will be sold only in Africa, Indonesia and the Philippines, the company said, not in the United States or Europe.

In another innovation, Sanofi will meet with pharmacists’ organizations in poor countries and give them incentives to sell Coarsucam at two different prices — at less than $1 to very poor customers and $3 to $4 to wealthier ones.

It will leave it to the pharmacists to estimate which of their customers lived on less than the cutoff income, which is about $40 a month, Dr. Sebbag said.

“Even in these countries, you always have some people who can pay,” he said.

The company has already experimented with the idea in six African countries, from Mali to Kenya to Madagascar, when selling its previous version of the drug combination, which was separate pills of each drug in a blister pack.

“It’s not a perfect system,” Dr. Sebbag admitted. “But we had about a 50-50 division, and we have not seen any cannibalization of the private market by the public.”

The company will package the cheaper Coarsucam differently and have its sales staff check to make sure that pharmacies are not selling the cheap product at the high price.

Neither version, at either price, will bring Sanofi much profit, “but in terms of symbolism, it means a lot,” Dr. Sebbag said.

One reason for keeping the price low, he said, was to remove the incentive for counterfeiters to produce fakes, which is a serious problem in Asia and a growing one across Africa. Fake malaria drugs — most offered as artemisinin — may be involved in up to 200,000 deaths from malaria each year.

ASAQ and Coarsucam will not replace a rival drug, Coartem from Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, that has been sold cheaply to the W.H.O. since 2001. Coartem combines another form of artemisinin with lumefantrine, another Chinese drug, and in East Africa, it works better than ASAQ because resistance to amodiaquine is common.

“But ASAQ is much more easy to use,” said Dr. Bernard Pecoul, director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. “And it is nearly half as expensive.”

Novartis used to sell Coartem to public health agencies at close to $3 per adult treatment; its price has dropped recently to about $1.70 as Indian companies announced the development of generic versions. Dr. Kochi said he expected prices to fall further with the competition from ASAQ.

“It’s the chain reaction of market competition,” he said. “This is exactly what we wanted.”

After suffering its steepest drop in nearly four years, the stock market showed some tentative signs of recovery today, rising slightly in early trading.

At the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange at 9:30, share prices advanced enough to push both the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index above Tuesday’s closing levels. The gains were small, however, and sometimes fleeting as both indexes fluctuated in and out of positive territory.

The broad global sell-off of stocks on Tuesday wiped out the gains the Dow and the S.& P. made for the year. At the end of the trading day, both indexes had values about equal to where they stood at the end of November. The Dow lost 416 points, or about 3.3 percent. The broader S.& P. lost about 3.5 percent of its value.

The Nasdaq composite index, heavy with technology stocks, fell 3.9 percent on Tuesday and continued to slump in early trading today.

Across the world, stock markets continued to feel the fallout from Tuesday’s global dive. Stock markets fell sharply across most of Asia again and continued to decline in Europe.

But share prices rebounded in Shanghai and Shenzhen, the mainland Chinese stock markets that had been the first to tumble in Tuesday’s global sell-off, when they each fell nearly 9 percent.

Both mainland Chinese markets rose nearly 4 percent today after state-controlled media reported that the government might allow greater foreign investment in Chinese stocks and would not impose capital gains taxes on stocks soon.

Stock markets elsewhere fared much worse today.

In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 4.1 percent in early trading, before recovering a bit to end the day down 2.9 percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 2.5 percent. It, too, showed a slight recovery from heavier losses in morning trading.

Practically every other stock index in Asia outside of mainland China also fell.

Major European markets opened with swift, steep falls, but soon began to retrace some of losses, and by early afternoon had pared their losses to around 1 percent. Investors in Asia and Europe appeared to pay less attention to the Chinese markets than to the drop on Tuesday in American stock indices, and to a Commerce Department report on Tuesday that manufacturing in the United States is ailing more than had previously been realized.

Given the rebound today in mainland Chinese stocks, “this morning’s price reaction in Europe shows it is not just China,” Nigel Richardson, the Hong Kong-based chief investment officer in Asia for AXA Investment Managers, said.

The managing director general of the Asian Development Bank, Rajat M. Nag, said in an interview in Hong Kong this morning that the economic fundamentals of most Asian economies were strong. But the region remains dependent on exports, especially to the United States, Mr. Nag said. China is among the most dependent of all, he said, with international trade in goods equal to 65 percent of its economic output last year.

“We are still fairly bullish on the Chinese economy’s growth potential,” Mr. Nag said, but he added that its dependence on exports “is a vulnerability.”

China’s current difficulties are partly a case of the Beijing government getting what it wished for, only to regret it.

The Chinese government has limited the appreciation of the country’s currency, the yuan, by buying dollars on a massive scale. As a result, it has accumulated more than $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

To pay for the dollars, the Chinese central bank has issued hundreds of billions of yuan.

The central bank has been able to absorb some of these extra yuan by selling more government bonds to Chinese banks and the public. But part of the extra cash issued to pay for currency market intervention has made its way into the financial system.

This has contributed to steep rises in stock prices — the Shanghai stock market rose 130 percent last year — and in real estate prices. The slump in share prices on Tuesday has raised questions about the long-term sustainability of high prices for Chinese assets.

But it remains unclear how much the rest of the world should care about mainland Chinese stock market prices.

Government regulations have kept foreign investment in these markets to insignificant levels by international standards. In addition, most Chinese still put their money in bank accounts or in real estate instead of buying stocks, and Tuesday’s plunge, while dramatic, merely returned the Shanghai stock market to where it began the month.

The consensus of economists today was that the volatility in mainland stocks would have little if any effect on the enduring strength of economic growth in China.

The stocks of Asian companies that export to the United States, such as the Sony Corporation, suffered particularly heavy losses today following the report on Tuesday from the Commerce Department that orders for cars, washing machines and other durable goods dropped 8 percent in January.

“There is a worry that U.S. consumption could slow substantially, and that is a much bigger factor than China’s stock market,” the chief Asia economist in the Hong Kong offices of Credit Suisse, Tao Dong, said.Analysts said the biggest factors were concerns about a possible downturn by the American economy and whether that would lead to cuts in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. That could in turn undermine the value of Japan’s currency, the yen. They said the effect of the Shanghai drop was felt indirectly via its impact on New York.

Many investors in Tokyo took a wait-and-see attitude on Wednesday, staying on the sidelines and watching for signs of whether the sell-off would continue in New York.

“What comes next here really depends on New York, not Shanghai,” said Eiji Kinouchi, chief technical analyst at the research arm of Daiwa Securities in Tokyo. “If Shanghai had been the real cause of the sell-off, it would have happened yesterday, not today.”

Tokyo and Hong Kong markets had barely seemed to blink on Tuesday as Shanghai fell. The Nikkei 225 index slipped a mere 0.5 percent that day and the Hang Seng fell 1.8 percent.

Analysts pointed out that Tokyo and even Hong Kong have rarely taken their cues from Shanghai, a small and highly volatile market that often seems to sit on the fringes of global capital flows because of the government regulations that have limited foreign investments to less than 1 percent of the market capitalization.

One factor behind the rebound today in mainland markets was a report in the Shanghai media that the government might increase the cap on foreign investment to 10 percent of the market. That report, together with signs the government would not move quickly to impose capital gains taxes, helped offset continuing nervousness about the Chinese central bank’s ongoing campaign to put the brakes on the economy by pushing banks to slow their rapid growth in lending.

Elsewhere in Asia today, the Indian market fell 4 percent, Singapore dropped 3.7 percent, South Korea was down 2.8 percent, Australia dipped 2.7 percent and Thailand crept down by 1 percent. Most markets pared their losses in the afternoon following steeper declines in the morning.

The worst performer for the day in Asia was the Philippines, the market with the earliest closing time. It fell nearly 8 percent without benefiting from the afternoon rebounds elsewhere. Foreign investors were the main sellers in the Philippines and many other markets.

Luz Lorenzo, an economist in Manila at ATR Kim Eng Securities, said that were it not for purchases by domestic institutions in the Philippines on Wednesday “it could have been worse.”

The broad extent of the decline in Asia underlined the region’s deepening connection to global financial markets and growing reliance on exports to the industrialized world.

“Every morning, most traders will get a fix on how the Asian markets are trading and how did the Nasdaq close — I think people have gotten more globalized,” Sandeep Nanda, head of research at Sharekhan, a large retail brokerage firm in India, said.

Some customers at brokerages in Asia admitted to being mystified by the sharp movements in share prices. “I am buying in the hope that the share price will rise — I really feel like a gambler sometimes,” said Moon Chung-lien, a 65-year-old retiree who wore a puzzled expression and knitted brow as he busily punched stock codes into a computer at the Hong Kong offices of the Shanghai Commercial Bank early this afternoon.

Tim Condon, the head of financial markets research at ING Financial Markets in Singapore, said that the most significant feature of the worldwide drop in stock markets was that it was the first such global shock to financial markets that has emerged from China.

“It’s a recognition of the fact that China is a big part of the rally in risky assets,“ Mr. Condon said.

The sharp drop in durable goods orders in the United States prompted concerns that Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, may be forced to cut interest rates to reinvigorate economic growth. Lower interest rates would be likely to drive down the dollar versus the yen, hurting the profits of exporters, such as Toyota and Sony, by eroding the yen value of overseas profits.

The prospect of lower American interest rates brought a sharp rise by the yen overnight in New York, where it climbed from about 120 yen per dollar to around 117.93 yen. In Tokyo trading, the yen yielded some of those gains, slipping to 118.32 yen.

The possibility of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve also kindled concerns that American interest rates might eventually fall far enough to significantly close the gap with Japan’s rock-bottom rates. That gap is wide now. Japanese overnight lending rates are 0.5 percent compared to 5.25 percent in the United States.

But if the gap shrinks, it could slow or halt the so-called yen carry trade, in which investors borrow hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Japanese money to invest in stock markets across Asia and around the world in search of higher returns.

If this flow of money stops, or reverses, it could prompt larger sell-offs on Wall Street and drive the yen even higher, hurting Japanese exporters even more, analysts said.

“Bernanke holds the trigger,” said Kiichi Fujita, a strategist in Tokyo for Nomura Securities. “If he cuts interest rates in America, the worry is that the yen carry trade will unwind.”

Part of the financing for the abundant cash flowing through global markets has also come from what many economists say is a surplus of savings by China, including China’s more than $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. China is now a leading source of global capital, with the money funneled back into global financial markets through Chinese investments in Treasury bonds and other securities. “So when people get anxious that China may turn that tap off, we get market reactions like yesterday,” Mr. Condon said.

In Thailand and many other southeast Asian countries, a major concern is the prospect of further weakness in the dollar, combined with weak demand from the United States. Thai exports of cars, rice, sugar, and electronics have already become more expensive on the world market after a 17 percent rise by the baht against the dollar in 2006.

There is less concern in Thailand about the stock market. The Thai market has been dragged down by the country’s long-running political crisis. It fell about 5 percent in 2006, even as Shanghai’s market rose 130 percent last year.

Supavud Saicheua, the managing director of Phatra Securities, which conducts research for Merrill Lynch in Thailand, said that the Thai market was unlikely to fall much further. But he cautioned that it was hard to predict how long international stock markets would continue to be worried by broader concerns.

“The problem,” Mr. Supavud said, “is that we don’t know how big of a worry this is going to be.”

Als Auslöser für den Ausverkauf nannten Händler die massiven Verluste an der Börse von Schanghai, wo die Kurse um knapp neun Prozent abgesackt waren.

Dazu kamen noch Sorgen der Anleger vor einer stärkeren Konjunkturabschwächung in den USA, der Atomstreit mit dem Iran, Zinsängste, die steigenden Ölpreise und der angeschlagene Dollar. «Es ist eine Fülle von Faktoren, die zusammen gekommen sind und die zu Gewinnmitnahmen geführt haben», sagte ein Händler.

Alle Standardwerte im Minus

Der Blue Chip-Index SMI schloss 3,4 Prozent tiefer mit 8909,80 Punkten. Das ist der grösste Rutsch seit März 2003. In der Spitze war der SMI vorübergehend sogar 3,6 Prozent abgesackt. Alle 25 Standardwerte beendeten den Handel im Minus. Der breite SPI sank um 3,51 Prozent auf 7058,26 Zähler.

Die weiteren Aussichten seien ungewiss, hiess es im Markt. «Geld ist nach wie vor vorhanden. Und Bonds sind nach wie vor keine wirkliche Alternative», sagte ein Händler.

Der Abgabedruck kam überwiegend vom Terminmarkt. «Es wurden in jüngster Zeit so viele Warrants und andere Derivate emittiert, mit denen vor allem in Nebenwerten spekuliert werden konnte. Das hat den Markt lange gestützt. Aber die Spirale kann sich eben auch nach unten drehen», sagte ein Börsianer.

Grösster Abschlag bei Spekulationsobjekten

Darum kamen vor allem die Werte unter die Räder, bei denen die Spekulationen am heissesten waren oder die am stärksten gestiegen sind. Dazu zählten etwa ABB mit einem Abschlag von 6,4 Prozent.

Aber auch Sulzer, Bâloise, Swissmetal, Ascom, Meyer Burger, Oerlikon, Von Roll oder Schmolz + Bickenbach brachen zum Teil über acht Prozent ein. Die am Vortag wegen Übernahmegerüchten noch gesuchten Clariant und Ciba büssten ebenfalls über vier Prozent ein.

Zu den grossen Verlierern zählten auch Finanzwerte wie Credit Suisse, UBS, Julius Bär, Vontobel oder Zurich. Pharmaschwergewicht Novartis schwächte sich ebenfalls um 2,9 Prozent ab. Roche hielten sich mit einem Minus von zwei Prozent vergleichsweise gut. Auch Nestlé mussten Federn lassen; sie sanken um 3,3 Prozent auf 464.50 Franken.

Georg Fischer, Affichage und Valartis legten Geschäftszahlen vor. Händler stuften die Zahlen von Fischer und Affichage als besser als erwartet ein. Fischer drehten nach anfänglichen Gewinnen allerdings und lagen zuletzt 5,3 Prozent im Minus.

Kurssprung bei Affichage

Dagegen honorierten die Marktteilnehmer den Bericht von Affichage mit einem Kurssprung von vier Prozent auf 232 Franken. Damit waren die Aktien des Aussenwerbers der Tagesgewinner.

Valartis hingegen büssten 5,6 Prozent ein. Das Ergebnis der früheren OZ Holding entsprach zwar in etwa den Erwartungen. Nach einem Kursanstieg von einem Fünftel seit Jahresanfang reiche das aber nicht, hiess es.

Holcim büssten 3,7 Prozent ein. Holcim legt am Mittwoch den Jahresabschluss 2006 vor. Ebenfalls am Mittwoch berichtet der Rückversicherer Converium über das abgelaufene Jahr. Mehr wird allerdings interessieren, wie Converium das unerwünschte Übernahmeangebot der französischen Scor abwehren will. Converium sanken um 4,1 Prozent.

Fluglärm-Verhandlungen in Berlin: Neue Lösungswege Die Schweiz und Deutschland wollen ihre Gespräche über die Fluglärm-Problematik des Flughafens Zürich weiterführen. Die Verkehrsminister der beiden Länder sind in Berlin übereingekommen, neue Lösungswege zu beschreiten. Anzeige [sda] - Bundespräsident Moritz Leuenberger sagte nach dem Treffen, dass die Probleme rund um die Nutzung des süddeutschen Luftraumes für Flüge von und nach Zürich die schweizerisch-deutschen Beziehungen "ernsthaft zu stören drohen". Man habe sich zum Ziel gesetzt, gemeinsam zu einer dauerhaften, für beide Seiten besseren Lösung zu kommen. Die Gespräche, an denen die Zürcher Volkswirtschaftsdirektorin Rita Fuhrer, Raymond Crohn, Direktor des Bundesamts für Zivilluftfahrt (BAZL) und EDA-Staatssekretär Michael Ambühl sowie Vertreter des Bundeslandes Baden-Württemberg, teilnahmen, sollen im März 2007 in der gleichen Runde fortgesetzt werden. Grundlage für das Treffen sollen die Ergebnisse des laufenden Koordinationsprozesses des Sachplans Infrastruktur Luftfahrt (SIL) sein. Eine Arbeitsgruppe unter der Leitung des Bundesamtes für Zivilluftfahrt (BAZL) und des deutschen Bundesministeriums für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung soll auf der Basis dieser Ergebnisse Lösungsansätze entwickeln. In welcher Form die künftige deutsch-schweizerische Vereinbarung zustande kommen soll, steht laut Leuenberger noch nicht fest. Die Gespräche "können, müssen aber nicht in einen neuen Staatsvertrag münden", sagte er. Fest stehe, dass sich die Schweiz und Deutschland gegenseitig Rechtssicherheit garantieren wollen. Ob für die Anwohner des Flughafens Hoffnung auf eine Reduktion der Süd- und Ostanflüge besteht, bleibt offen. "Das zukünftige Betriebsreglement des Flughafens haben wir nicht besprochen", sagte Fuhrer. Baden-Württembergs Innenminister Heribert Rech bekräftigte seine Forderung, die Zahl der Anflüge über Süddeutschland von derzeit über 100 000 auf 80 000 im Jahr zu senken. Die Schweiz und Deutschland wollen ihre Gespräche über die Fluglärm-Problematik des Flughafens Zürich auch in Zukunft fortsetzen. Die Verkehrsminister der beiden Länder sind in Berlin übereingekommen, neue Wege zu beschreiten. Bundespräsident Moritz Leuenberger sagte nach dem Treffen, dass die Probleme rund um die Nutzung des süddeutschen Luftraumes für Flüge von und nach Zurich die schweizerisch-deutschen Beziehungen "ernsthaft zu stören drohen". Um zu einer dauerhaften, für beide Seiten besseren Lösung zu kommen, wolle man neue Wege beschreiten. Ausgangspunkt für die Suche nach Lösungen sollen die Ergebnisse des derzeit laufenden Koordinationsprozesses des Sachplans Infrastruktur Luftfahrt (SIL) sein. Gestützt auf die Ende des Jahres vorliegen Ergebnisse soll eine Arbeitsgruppe mögliche Lösungsansätze für eine Regelung der An- und Abflüge entwickeln. Die Arbeitsgruppe steht unter der Leitung des Bundesamtes für Zivilluftfahrt (BAZL) und des deutschen Bundesministeriums für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung. Die Resultate der Arbeitsgruppe sollen laut Leuenberger an einem nächsten Verkehrsministertreffen im März 2007 besprochen werden. In welcher Form die künftige deutsch-schweizerische Vereinbarung zustande kommen soll, steht noch nicht fest. Die Gespräche könnten, müssten aber nicht in einen neuen Staatsvertrag münden, sagte Leuenberger. Fest stehe, dass sich die Schweiz und Deutschland gegenseitig Rechtssicherheit garantieren wollen. Bundespräsident Moritz Leuenberger und die Zürcher Regierungsrätin Rita Fuhrer trafen sich in Berlin mit dem deutschen Verkehrsminister Wolfang Tiefensee und mit Heribert Rech, dem Innenminister des Landes Baden-Württemberg.

Thür: Schweizer Datenschutzgesetz in SWIFT-Affäre verletzt In der so genannten SWIFT-Affäre wurde in der Schweiz das Datenschutzgesetz verletzt. Zu dieser Schlussfolgerung kommt der Eidgenössische Datenschutzbeauftragte Hanspeter Thür. In einer Stellungnahme kritisiert er die Schweizer Banken scharf. Diese hätten die Kunden informieren müssen, dass bei einer Transaktion ins Ausland die Banken-Schaltstelle SWIFT mit Sitz in Belgien die Daten an Dritte weitergeben könnte, heisst es in der veröffentlichten Stellungnahme. "Wohlgemerkt löst bereits die Kenntnis einer blossen Möglichkeit der Zugriffnahme durch Dritte eine Informationspflicht aus", schreibt der Datenschützer. Damit dürfte Thür vor allem die Grossbanken UBS und Credit Suisse gemeint haben, die im Verwaltungsrat der SWIFT sitzen. Die Banken hatten sich auf den Standpunkt gestellt, dass sie die Kunden nicht über den CIA-Zugriff auf Bankdaten informieren konnten, weil die SWIFT-Verwaltungsräte ihre Banken nicht über SWIFT-Internas informieren durften. Thür hält dagegen fest, dass die SWIFT sowohl Banken als auch Datenschützer hätte informieren müssen. Da es innerhalb des SWIFT-Zahlungssystems "ausschliesslich die Finanzdienstleister sind, die mit den betroffenen Personen überhaupt in Kontakt stehen", unterlagen diese laut Thür der Informationspflicht gemäss Datenschutzgesetz. Auch nachdem der Zugriff verschiedener US-Behörden, namentlich des US-Geheimdienstes CIA, nach den Anschlägen des 11. Septembers 2001 auf Bankdaten öffentlich bekannt wurde, entlässt Thür die Banken nicht aus ihrer Pflicht. "Es kann nicht als allgemein bekannt vorausgesetzt werden, dass auch nach Aufdeckung der Angelegenheit durch die Medien ein Datentransfer durch die SWIFT weiterhin stattfindet", schreibt er. Über den Zugriff wussten die Schweizer Behörden längst Bescheid: Die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB), die zusammen mit anderen Zentralbanken die SWIFT beaufsichtigt, hatte in Sommer 2002 das Eidg. Finanzdepartement und die Bankenkommission informiert.

CNN: Erste Beweise für Radioaktivität auf Testgelände in Nordkorea Die US-Regierung hat bei vorläufigen Luftuntersuchungen Hinweise darauf gefunden, dass Nordkorea tatsächlich einen Atomtest unternommen hat. Dies berichtete der US-Sender CNN unter Berufung auf eine Erklärung des Geheimdienstes. Die Proben seien am Mittwoch von einem US-Spezialflugzeug gesammelt worden und stützten Angaben Nordkoreas über den Test am vergangenen Montag. Weiter hiess es, zusätzliche Analysen seien im Gange und in ein paar Tagen abgeschlossen. Ein Sprecher des Geheimdienstes stellte unterdessen klar, dass es sich um keine offizielle Erklärung handle, sondern um einen Entwurf zur internen Information von Kongressmitgliedern, der nicht für die Öffentlichkeit bestimmt gewesen sei. Eine offizielle Verlautbarung sei nicht geplant, da es sich erst um vorläufige Analysen handele, sagte Sprecher Chad Kolton in der Nacht auf Samstag der Nachrichtenagentur dpa. Stunden vorher hatten US-Medien unter Berufung auf Regierungsbeamte mit Geheimdienstzugang gemeldet, dass die USA nach einer ersten Auswertung von Luftproben über Nordkorea keine Bestätigung für einen Atomtest sähen. Diese Proben zeigten keinen Hinweis auf Radioaktivität. Nach Geheimdienstinformationen und geologischen Messungen war die Sprengkraft bei dem Test so gering gewesen, dass Zweifel an den nordkoreanischen Angaben über einen nuklearen Versuch aufgetaucht waren. So wurde es für möglich gehalten, dass es sich lediglich um die Zündung eines konventionellen Sprengsatzes handelte. Nach Experteneinschätzungen könnte die Entdeckung von Radioaktivität in der Luft bedeuten, dass Nordkorea zwar einen Atomtest unternommen hat, er aber praktisch fehlschlug.

Ausserrhoder Regierung verzichtet auf Steuerprivilegien für Reiche Appenzell Ausserrhoden wird nun doch nicht zum Steuerparadies für Grossverdiener: Die Regierung verzichtet in ihrer neuen Vorlage auf die umstrittene Degression für Reiche. Die Gemeinden erhalten 51 Millionen Franken. Das Bundesgericht hatte im September die Ausserrhoder Nationalbankgold-Abstimmung für ungültig erklärt. Die vom Volk angenommene Finanzvorlage verletzte laut Bundesgericht die Einheit der Materie, weil die Goldverteilung mit einer Steuergesetzrevision verknüpft worden war. Gegen diese Verquickung hatte der frühere Ausserrhoder Staatsanwalt Willi Rohner Stimmrechtsbeschwerde erhoben. Die Regierung erläuterte ihre weiteren Pläne punkto Goldverteilung: Die Gemeinden erhalten 51 Millionen Franken. Darin enthalten ist eine Entschädigung für die wegen des Bundesgerichtsurteils eingetretene Verzögerung. In den Kulturfonds fliesst eine Million Franken. Das Volk entscheidet Ende 2007 darüber. Die Revision des Steuergesetzes wird dem Kantonsrat (Parlament) als separate Vorlage unterbreitet. Die Regierung verzichtet darin auf die umstrittene Steuerdegression für Reiche. Degression bedeutet, dass Personen mit sehr hohen Einkommen prozentual weniger Steuern bezahlen müssen. Ab 2008 sollen Familien und Wohneigentümer sowie Unternehmen steuerlich entlastet werden.

Ungarische Polizei nimmt mindestens ein Dutzend Skinheads fest Die Proteste gegen Ungarns Regierungschef Ferenc Gyurcsany gehen unvermindert weiter. Wie an den beiden Vortagen verlangten die Demonstranten den Rücktritt des Premiers. Die Kundgebung in Budapest verlief zunächst friedlich. Nach Schätzungen der ungarischen Nachrichtenagentur MTI versammelten sich etwa 15 000 Demonstranten auf dem Kossuth-Platz. Die Polizei sei mit mehr als 600 Mann präsent. Sie riegelten die Gebäude des staatlichen Fernsehens MTV und des Rundfunks sowie die Zentrale von Gyurcsanys Sozialistischer Partei (MSZP) grossräumig ab. Nach zwei Krawall-Nächten hatten Gyurcsany und Präsident Laszlo Solyom am Nachmittag vor weiteren Kundgebungen gewarnt. Die Organisatoren der Proteste sollten sich vergewissern, dass kein Teilnehmer die Grenzen der Legalität überschreite, teilten der Sozialist Gyurcsany und der parteilose Solyom mit. Die Proteste gegen den Regierungschef waren nach Polizeiangaben am Dienstagabend zunächst friedlich verlaufen. Als die meisten der rund 10 000 Menschen abgezogen waren, kam es aber wie in der Vornacht zu Krawallen. Einzelne Demonstranten bewarfen Einsatzkräfte mit Steinen, die sie aus dem Kopfsteinpflaster lösten. Die Polizei setzte daraufhin Tränengas und Wasserwerfer gegen die Randalierenden ein, die versuchten den MSZP-Sitz anzugreifen. Der ungarische Soziologe Miklos Tamas Gaspar sieht die Demonstranten als heterogene Gruppe: friedliche Kundgebungsteilnehmer, Anhänger der Oppositionspartei Fidesz, Schaulustige, Hooligans und Rechtsextreme. Die Proteste waren durch die Veröffentlichung eines Tonbandprotokolls ausgelöst worden. Regierungschef Ferenc Gyurcsany hatte demzufolge kurz nach der Wahl im April freimütig erklärt, er habe die Öffentlichkeit belogen, um seine Wiederwahl zu sichern. Sein Gegenspieler, der rechts-konservative Oppositionsführer Viktor Orban, verurteilte am Dienstagabend die Gewaltexzesse der vorangegangenen Tage, forderte aber seine Anhänger dazu auf, "sich nicht in ihre Häuser zurückzuziehen und ihre Interessen zu verteidigen".

Ehrlichkeit gilt im politischen Geschäft als seltene, aber lobenswerte Eigenschaft. Was Ungarns Premier Ferenc Gyurcsany mit schockierender Ehrlichkeit über seine Lügen im Wahlkampf sagte, trug ihm freilich keine Anerkennung ein. Mit Zorn nahmen vor allem Anhänger der Opposition die ungeschminkten Worte Gyurcsanys auf, und Budapest erlebte in der Nacht zu Dienstag die heftigsten Proteste seit dem Volksaufstand 1956. Noch ist unklar, wer Gyurcsanys Rede hinter verschlossenen Türen aufzeichnete und in den Medien lancierte. Klar ist aber, dass der Ministerpräsident brüskiert ist. Für den 44-Jährigen ist es ein tiefer Fall: Erst im April hatte der Sozialist die Parlamentswahl gegen die oppositionellen Konservativen gewonnen. Der Sieg wurde ihm persönlich zugeschrieben, seine jugendliche Art kam gut an. «Offensichtlich gelogen» Laut den Tonaufzeichnungen, die nun in den Medien veröffentlicht wurden, baute Gyurczany den Sieg vorsätzlich auf Lügen: «Es ist offensichtlich, dass wir in den gesamten vergangenen anderthalb bis zwei Jahren gelogen haben», sagte er kurz nach dem Votum vor Parteifreunden. Den Wählern sei wissentlich verschwiegen worden, dass die Regierung nach der Wahl eine strikte Sparpolitik verfolgen würde, sagte der Sozialist weiter. «Wir haben alles getan, um das Geheimnis bis zum Ende des Wahlkampfs zu bewahren.» Jungkommunist und Kapitalist Seinen Rücktritt lehnte Gyurcsany nach den Protesten ab. Die Proteste seien keine politische, sondern eine kriminelle Aktion gewesen, sagte er am Dienstag. Die Ordnung werde «mit allen Mitteln» wiederhergestellt. Seine Sozialisten stellten sich einmütig hinter ihn. Allerdings ist fraglich, wie lange die Geduld mit Gyurcsany halten wird. Am 1. Oktober sind Kommunalwahlen, und in Umfragen führen die oppositionellen Konservativen mit mehr als zehn Prozentpunkten. Aus dem einstigen Wunderkind Gyurcsany, der vom Chef der Kommunistenjugend der 80er Jahre über den millionenschweren Erfolgs-Geschäftsmann der 90er zum reformorienierten Linkspremier aufstieg, könnte letztlich eine Belastung für die Partei werden. Ziel Euro - Verärgerte Ungarn Schon vor dem Lügen-Eingeständnis waren die Ungarn verärgert. Nach der Wahl hatte Gyurcsany schmerzhafte Finanzreformen eingeleitet: Die Mehrwertsteuer soll steigen, Hochschulbildung soll künftig Geld kosten, die kostenlose Krankenversicherung soll bald der Vergangenheit angehören. Viel Spielraum hatte Gyurcsay dabei nicht: Das Haushaltsdefizit soll in diesem Jahr mehr als zehn Prozent betragen. Dabei will Ungarn bis 2009 das Maastricht-Kriterium von drei Prozent erreichen, und das geht nicht ohne tiefe Einschnitte in die Ausgaben. Er wolle sein Land für die Einheitswährung fit machen, auch wenn es weh tue, sagte der Ministerpräsident vor zwei Wochen in einem AFP-Interview. Andernfalls sehe er Gefahren für eine Region, die traditionell «sehr offen ist gegenüber einem radikalen Nationalismus, der mit sozialem Populismus einhergeht».

Gewalttätige Proteste nach Lügenskandal in Budapest Ein Tonband mit freimütigen Äusserungen des ungarischen Premiers Ferenc Gyurcsany über Lügen in der Politik hat wütende Proteste ausgelöst. Tausende rechtsgerichtete Demonstranten stürmten den Sitz des nationalen TV-Senders in Budapest. Erst in den frühen Morgenstunden konnte die Polizei sie wieder aus dem Gebäude drängen. Gemäss amtlichen Angaben gab es bei den Krawallen mehr als 150 Verletzte, unter ihnen über hundert Sicherheitskräfte. Ein Polizist wurde schwer verletzt. Das öffentlich-rechtliche Fernsehen (MTV) musste in der Nacht 80 Minuten lang den Sendebetrieb einstellen. Verkohlte Autowracks, aus ihren Verankerungen gerissene Bänke und umgestürzte Mülleimer zeugten von der Gewalt der Nacht. Der sozialistische Premier Gyurcsany kündigte an, die Ordnung "mit allen Mitteln" wieder herzustellen. Meinungsfreiheit rechtfertige keine Gewalt, sagte der Regierungschef laut der ungarischen Nachrichtenagentur MTI. Die Erstürmung des Fernsehgebäudes und die damit verbundenen Gewaltakte bezeichnete er als "Angriff auf eine Institution der Republik". Das Land blicke auf die "längste und dunkelste Nacht" seit der demokratischen Wende vor 16 Jahren zurück, sagte Gyurcsany nach einer Sitzung des Kabinetts für nationale Sicherheit. Einen Rücktritt lehnte er ab und kündigte statt dessen an, dass die "notwendigen Reformen" beschleunigt würden. Gegenüber Reuters erklärte der Regierungschef, er habe in der Krawallnacht kurz darüber nachgedacht, ob er zurücktreten solle: "Und ich bin zum Entschluss gekommen, dass ich absolut keinen Grund dazu habe." Seine Partei stehe voll hinter ihm und seinem Reformprogramm. Allerdings habe er die Wähler nicht umfassend genug über die Massnahmen informiert, die dem Volk viel abverlangten, räumte Gyurcsany ein. Den Zorn der Demonstranten hat er genau deswegen auf sich gezogen. Intern hatte er zugegeben, die Ungarn über die prekäre Haushaltslage bewusst im Unklaren gelassen zu haben, um sich die Wiederwahl im April zu sichern.

Papst Benedikt XVI. predigt Deutschen Rückbesinnung auf die Bibel Papst Benedikt XVI. hat sich mit kritischen Worten über den Zustand des Glaubens in Deutschland an seine Landsleute gewandt. Bei der Messe unter freiem Himmel in München forderte er die Deutschen auf, sich wieder mehr auf die Bibel zu besinnen. Insgesamt beklagte der Papst dabei eine "Schwerhörigkeit Gott gegenüber", die heutzutage bei den Menschen herrsche. Das Soziale und das Evangelium seien nicht voneinander zu trennen, sagte der Papst in seiner sonntäglichen Predigt vor 250 000 Gläubigen. Der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland bescheinigte er, sie zeichne sich durch ihre sozialen Aktivitäten und ihre Hilfsbereitschaft aus. Doch herrsche offenbar hier "bei manchen die Meinung, die sozialen Projekte müsse man mit höchster Dringlichkeit voranbringen; die Dinge mit Gott oder gar mit dem katholischen Glauben, die seien doch eher partikulär und nicht so vordringlich". Benedikt XVI. beklagte einen zunehmenden "Zynismus, der die Verspottung des Heiligen als Freiheitsrecht" ansehe. Die Völker Afrikas und Asiens seien schockiert "vor einer Art von Vernünftigkeit, die Gott total aus dem Blickfeld des Menschen ausgrenzt und dies für die höchste Art von Vernunft ansieht, die man auch ihren Kulturen beibringen will". Die Messe zelebrierte der in ein grünes Gewand gekleidete Papst auf einem erhöhten Altarpodest, das ein 22 Meter hohes Zeltdach überspannte. Ein buntes Bild boten auf dem 62 000 Quadratmeter grossen Areal die 60 Bischöfe und Kardinäle verschiedener Nationen sowie Trachtengruppen. Bei einer Vesper mit Familien am Sonntagabend im Münchner Liebfrauendom appellierte das katholische Kirchenoberhaupt an Eltern, Lehrer und Priester, sich um die religiöse Erziehung zu kümmern. Die drei Lernorte Familie, Schule, Pfarrgemeinde gehörten zusammen, um zu den Quellen des Lebens zu finden. Am Samstagabend war der Papst mit Bundespräsident Horst Köhler, Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel und dem bayerischen Ministerpräsidenten Edmund Stoiber zusammengetroffen.

Süddeutschland will der Schweiz im Fluglärmstreit Grenzen zeigen Mit einem gemeinsamen Positionspapier wollen sechs südbadische Landkreise ihre Haltung im Fluglärmstreit verteidigen. Sie reagieren mit der Initiative auf die ihrer Ansicht nach starre Haltung der Schweiz. Die Landkreise wollen der Schweiz mit dem Papier zeigen, "wo die Grenzen sind". "Wir wollen ein Signal setzen, dass die deutsche Seite mit einer Stimme spricht", sagte der Landrat des Kreises Waldshut, Tilman Bollacher, in einem Gespräch mit der Nachrichtenagentur dpa. Das Papier werde am Dienstag, 12. September, in Waldshut-Tiengen unterzeichnet. "Die Schweiz darf ihren Fluglärm nicht nach Deutschland exportieren", sagte Bollacher. "Die Belastungen müssen in erster Linie in der Schweiz konzentriert werden." Schon jetzt trage die deutsche Seite 80 Prozent der Belastungen, die vom Flughafen Zürich-Kloten ausgingen. Eine Aufweichung der bestehenden Regeln, wie sie von den Schweizern gefordert werde, dürfe es daher nicht geben. "Die von Deutschland verhängten Flugverbote für die Nacht sowie für die Morgen- und Abendstunden müssen auch zukünftig gelten", sagte Bollacher: "An ihnen darf nicht gerüttelt werden." Dies zeitlichen Beschränkungen dienten dem Schutz der Bevölkerung und dem Erhalt des Tourismus. Sie seien nicht verhandelbar. Derzeit dürfen die Maschinen an Werktagen nur zwischen 7.00 und 21.00 Uhr, an Sonn- und Feiertagen von 9.00 bis 20.00 Uhr im Anflug auf Zürich deutsches Gebiet ansteuern. Gleichzeitig müsse die Zahl der Flüge reduziert werden, sagte Bollacher. "Jährlich dürfen höchstens 80'000 Nordanflüge auf Zürich-Kloten über deutschem Gebiet erlaubt werden." Derzeit würden mehr als 100'000 Schweizer Flüge über Deutschland gelenkt. "Wir wollen mit unseren Papier der Schweiz zeigen, wo die Grenzen sind", sagte der parteilose Landrat. "Nur wer klare Regeln schafft, sichert eine gute Nachbarschaft." Ziel sei es nun, die deutsche Bundesregierung von den im Papier verankerten Forderungen zu überzeugen. Damit würde die Grundlage geschaffen für Verhandlungen mit der Schweiz über einen Fluglärm-Staatsvertrag.

Fünf Jahre nach den Anschlägen - Auftakt zu Trauerfeier in New York Auf dem des "Ground Zero" an der Stelle, an der die zerstörten Türme des World Trade Centers standen, traten US-Präsident George W. Bush und seine Frau Laura Hand in Hand an ein quadratisches Becken und legten schweigend zwei Blumengebinde in den Nationalfarben Rot, Weiss und Blau ins Wasser. Hier war im September 2001 der Schauplatz der schwersten Anschläge, die je auf amerikanischem Boden stattgefunden haben. Nach einem Moment des Verweilens verliess das Präsidentenpaar in Begleitung des New Yorker Bürgermeisters Michael Bloomberg und seines Vorgängers Rudy Giuliani den Ort. Das Ehepaar begab sich zu einem Gottesdienst in die nahe gelegene Saint-Paul-Kirche. Im Hintergrund spielte Musik aus Dudelsäcken. Bereits am Nachmittag hatten sich in New York mehrere Demonstranten versammelt, die gegen den "Krieg gegen den Terror" der US-Regierung protestierten. Sie forderten auf Spruchbändern den Abzug der US-Truppen aus dem Irak. US-Aussenministerin Condoleezza Rice und US-Vizepräsident Dick Cheney betonten erneut, es gebe Verbindungen zwischen dem Irak und dem Terrornetzwerk El Kaida. Dies habe die US-Regierung aus Geheimdienstberichten gewusst, sagte Rice im US-Sender Fox. Die Kranzniederlegung im Herzen New Yorks bildete den Auftakt zu den für zwei Tage angesetzten Trauerfeiern. Am Montag sollte um 08.46 Uhr Ortszeit - dem Zeitpunkt als am 11. September 2001 das erste von Flugzeug ins World Trade Center raste - das ganze Land in einer Schweigeminute verharren. Angehörige werden in einer jährlichen Zeremonie die Namen der Toten verlesen. Nach Sonnenuntergang sollen zwei helle Lichtscheine an der Stelle senkrecht in den Himmel leuchten, an der die beiden Türme standen. In New York ist zunächst eine längere Begegnung mit Angehörigen der Feuerwehr geplant. Danach sollte der Präsident erneut an einer Gedenkfeier teilnehmen. Im Laufe des Tages will Bush von New York aus an die beiden anderen Anschlagsorte in Pennsylvania und Washington reisen.

Tragödie am Nationalfeiertag in Budapest Nach noch nicht endgültigen Berichten verloren drei Menschen ihr Leben, vier Schwerverletzte wurden eingeliefert, zahlreiche leichter Verletzte versorgt, ein Mensch wird vermißt Der Sturm beschädigte auch das Sándor-Palais in der Burg, den Sitz des Staatsoberhauptes und andere Gebäude in der Burg. Ein Wettersturz mit orkanartigem Sturm forderte am Sonntagabend in Budapest mindestens drei Menschenleben und zahlreiche Verletzte. In der ungarischen Hauptstadt beging man gestern den Nationalfeiertag, den 20. August, die Feier des Staatsgründers, des Hl. Stephan. Nach jahrzehntealten Traditionen schließt ein großangelegtes Feuerwerk am Abend die Feierlichkeiten am Donauufer. Tragischerweise erreichte der von Westen ankommender Sturm die Hauptstadt gerade gegen 21 Uhr, genau zu Beginn des Feuerwerks. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt waren viele Hunderttausende am Donauufer, am Burghügel, an den Brücken und all den Gebieten der Stadt, die einen guten Ausblick für das Spektakel bieten, versammelt. Der plötzlich eintretende Sturm knickte mehrere Bäume und Gerüste, zertrümmerte Fenster der großen Hotels am Donauufer. Viele begleiteten das Feuerwerk von Schiffen an der Donau, doch vier der Schiffe stießen im Sturm zusammen. Das forderte mehrere Verletzte und einen Vermißten, nach dem im Wasser gesucht wird. Nach noch nicht endgültigen Berichten verloren drei Menschen ihr Leben, vier Schwerverletzte wurden eingeliefert, zahlreiche leichter Verletzte versorgt. Der Sturm beschädigte auch das Sándor-Palais in der Burg, den Sitz des Staatsoberhauptes und andere Gebäude in der Burg. Die Katastrophe löste eine Panik aus, viele Kinder wurden von ihren Eltern getrennt, der öffentliche Verkehr, der auch mit Schwierigkeiten zu kämpfen hatte, konnte die Menge nicht bewältigen, der Autoverkehr wurde durch die Ereignisse auch stark eingeschränkt. Inmitten des Sirenenheulens in der Nacht wurden erste kritische Stimmen laut, warum man das Feuerwerk nicht abgesagt habe. Die Meteorologische Zentralanstalt hatte schon seit Sonntag Morgen vor dem Sturm gewarnt und dessen Eintreffen für die Abendstunden vorhergesagt.