Cameron to Outline a Recast European Role for Britain

Weighted down by centuries of entrenched wariness in this island nation toward the Continent — and the knowledge that a gallery of his predecessors as Conservative prime ministers saw their tenures blighted by divisions within the party over the issue — Mr. Cameron is heading for Amsterdam on Friday to set out his vision of a sharply whittled-down role for Britain in the affairs of 21st-century Europe.

The speech in the Netherlands, carefully chosen as a country with a strong historical friendship with Britain, is a watershed moment for Mr. Cameron, and for Britain. It could be a deeply jarring occasion, as well, for other European nations, which have grown increasingly impatient, angry even, with Britain’s policy during the crisis in the euro zone. Some European officials have described as blackmail its use of the crisis — one that Britain, with the pound, has largely escaped — to demand a new, “pick-and-mix” status for itself within the 27-nation European Union.

After months of delay, Mr. Cameron is expected to brush aside the warnings of the Obama administration and European leaders and call for a referendum on whether Britain should remain squarely in Europe or negotiate a more arm’s-length relationship, most likely before the next Parliament’s mandate expires in 2018. In a clamorous House of Commons on Wednesday, the prime minister set out his thinking.

“Millions of people in this country, myself included, want Britain to stay in the European Union,” he said. “But they believe that there are chances to negotiate a better relationship. Throughout Europe, countries are looking at forthcoming treaty change, and asking, ‘What can I do to maximize my national interest?’ That is what the Germans will do. That is what the Spanish will do. That is what the British should do.”

For months, Mr. Cameron has been holding off on a promise to explain just what he wants from Europe. As a reformist Conservative pressing ahead with, among other things, a plan to legalize gay marriage, he has scant common ground with the “little Englanders” in his party, the core of about 100 members who make up a third of its representation in Parliament.

But Mr. Cameron can see votes, too, in the strong anti-Europe currents that run wherever people in Britain gather.

In pubs and bars, on radio and in Parliament itself, talk of the European Union tends to center on the bloc’s real — and, in some cases, apocryphal — abuses: its highhanded, bloated bureaucracy, with nearly 1,000 featherbedded officials earning more than Mr. Cameron’s $230,000 salary as prime minister; its endless proliferation of rules on everything from the length of dog leashes to the shape of carrots; the recent claim by a former high-ranking Cameron aide that government ministers spend 40 percent of their time dealing with the mass of pettifogging European “directives,” many of them widely ignored elsewhere in Europe.

Not only has Mr. Cameron been hemmed in by deep divisions over Europe within the Conservative Party — an issue that helped unseat Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major as prime ministers — but he has also been wary of stirring a fresh wave of anger among other European leaders, particularly Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, a center-right politician and onetime ally in European councils.

Her aides have described her as frustrated with Mr. Cameron’s maneuvering and, as she is said to see it, his bid to take advantage of other European states as they struggle to save the euro and keep the most debt-laden nations, like Greece, Portugal and Spain, from dropping out of the European Union.

Concern about the reactions in Berlin and Paris prompted a last-minute rescheduling of the Amsterdam speech. Germany and France had protested that the original date, next Monday, might overshadow long-planned celebrations that day of the 50th anniversary of the treaty between them, itself a landmark in the building of postwar Europe, that sealed their reconciliation after the wounds of World War II.

Along with this, commentators say, Mr. Cameron has been recalculating the ways in which the European issue can be managed to bolster the Conservatives’ sagging prospects in a general election expected in 2015, in which polls show them lagging as much as 13 percentage points behind the opposition Labour Party. He has also been contending with heavy lobbying by American officials, including President Obama.

The Americans, diplomats say, have told Mr. Cameron squarely in private what made headlines here last week when a senior State Department official, Philip Gordon, who is assistant secretary for European affairs, spoke on the issue with British reporters. Mr. Gordon said a continued “strong British voice” in an “outward-looking” European Union was in America’s interests, and warned specifically against the referendum on Europe that is an important component in Mr. Cameron’s plans. “Referendums,” Mr. Gordon said, “have often turned countries inward.”

For all his delaying, his aides say, Mr. Cameron is ready now to outline a strategy for renegotiating Britain’s status in the European Union in a way that would keep Britain free from the centralizing forces at work. Other major European states, France and Germany in particular, see a new federal Europe with enhanced powers of fiscal oversight as essential to the long-term survival of the tottering euro.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris, and Stephen Castle from London.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 17, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the year that a referendum approving Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union, was held. It was 1975, not 1974.

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Conversation: A Founder of the Soap Maker Method Discusses Its Sale

For Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry, the quest began in 2001 in what they call a “dirty little flat” in San Francisco, where the two childhood buddies from Detroit first plotted to disrupt the all-but-impenetrable cleaning products industry long dominated by giants like SC Johnson and Procter & Gamble.

They started by mixing soap formulas in beer pitchers labeled “Do Not Drink” and wound up creating Method, an irreverent, design-driven, environmentally minded company that outsourced manufacturing. The company grew to $34 million in revenue and 39 employees in 2005, and more than $100 million and 100 employees in 2012. Those numbers remain modest compared to those of Big Soap, but a walk down the cleaning aisle in almost any supermarket reveals not just Method’s reach (Ginger Yuzu dish soap, Pink Grapefruit hand wash) but its impact on competitors (Clorox Green Works).

“We showed up at the party with a very different proposition,” Mr. Ryan said. “We’re superproud that we’ve had an influence.”

That influence will continue, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Lowry suggest, even though Method was acquired for an undisclosed price in September by the Belgian company Ecover, creating what they claim is now the largest green cleaning company in the world, with revenue “north of $200 million.”

In a conversation that has been edited and condensed, we recently asked Mr. Ryan why he and Mr. Lowry chose to sell, how they identified the right suitor, and what will happen to the Method brand.

Q. Was selling the company always a primary goal?

A. When we started the company, we knew we had two choices. One was to grow organically, which a lot of businesses do, and you control the business and grow slowly and steadily. We fundamentally believed that we would not have success in this competitive space unless we went after it fast and aggressively. So we had to take outside capital. And when we took that outside capital — at some point, you have to give it back with a return.

Q. You make soap, you sell it, you make more soap, you sell more of it. Why couldn’t you grow without being acquired?

A. Two primary reasons. One is just economies of scale. In the early years, we lost money on every product we sold. We were competing against companies that not only have a 100-year head start but have just built incredible efficiencies. They own their own plants. When you walk in a grocery store and that bottle of dish soap sells for $1.99, we could not make it for $1.99 in the beginning. We needed capital to accelerate growth, to get our volume to a place where the business would be profitable. Two is that the cost of doing business in the mass channel is really expensive. When you sell in a grocery store, you have to pay an upfront fee called slotting charges. And that takes a fair amount of capital. So growing organically is possible, but it’s really, really tough.

Q. You’ve built a brand that seems to resonate with consumers. Are you concerned about their reaction to the sale?

A. It was something that was heavy in our minds for a lot of years. The typical script for a socially driven company like ours is you get acquired by a major strategic. So look at Honest Tea, acquired by Coke. Kashi by Kellogg. Burt’s Bees by Clorox. Even Mrs. Meyer’s, in our space, by SC Johnson. I always justified it by saying, “Well, if that happens, it’ll give us the chance to work from a bigger, global stage, and we’ll try to change those companies from the inside out.” And once we did this deal, I was just so thankful we never had to go down that path. We recognized we had a partner at the table with identical mission statements, identical values and a real long-term commitment. It was just an opportunity too good to pass up.

Q. Did you say no to other offers because you didn’t see that cultural fit?

A. We can’t name names, but we did have, over the years, conversations with those usual suspects. And the movie looked pretty similar — full integration, we go from being a company to being an operating unit within a larger organization. The culture, the team, “the Method Method” that we spent the last 10 years building would have been nonexistent within 12 months.

Q. Will the Method brand continue to exist?

A. Very much so. We’ll be building our own plant in North America. We’re turning on TV advertising for the first time in our history. We’re expanding more aggressively in Europe and Asia than we would have done otherwise. We’re creating a company with a long-term focus on the future. When you’re private equity-backed, it’s a much more short-term focus in how you invest and build the organization. The big thing that’s changing now, we’re a house of brands, which is Method and Ecover. And we have to set up a business where they coexist in a way that they don’t cannibalize each other and reach a broader audience collectively.

Q. Obviously, you’re in the honeymoon phase. How do you protect against something going wrong?

A. At the end of the day, it’s like a marriage — there is a leap of faith. And the way that you can protect yourself the most is just really trusting your instincts of who you’re jumping in bed with. It’s just like a job interview or any other relationship. If you’re getting to a point where you’re having to lean on a lot of legalities or other ways to try to protect yourself, it’s probably not the right relationship. It just comes back again to, are these people you trust, who share the same vision?

Q. While this was developing, how open were you with your employees?

A. You just can’t talk openly. It can do damage to the deal, but also, it’s a roller coaster, and you don’t want everyone riding the roller coaster with you. It’s incredibly distracting. There was a very small group that was in the know, and those were only the ones that were needed for due diligence. People knew we were looking and we were upfront about that, but they didn’t know to what extent, because we didn’t know to what extent. So when we did the announcement, there was initial shock, but over all it went well. And then for the next week, it was really challenging because what happened — what we were completely blindsided by — was how many people in their careers had been through a bad M.& A. transaction. There were a lot of bad movies that started being replayed. What I told everybody was, “Look, I’ve never been through a bad merger in my life, and I’m not about to start now.”

Q. Things have been tough in Europe. Any concerns about partnering with a European company and expanding there?

A. I like the idea of investing when something is at its lowest. [Laughs.] No, we have not had too many concerns about it. This business is firing on all cylinders. I was definitely, in the back of my head, concerned that things would get derailed by the European crisis, but who we’re dealing with is very long-term focused and they’re also very globally minded. Europe is a big part of their business, but they’re also expanding aggressively in Asia — we are as well — and North America.

Q. And everyone needs soap.

A. And everybody needs soap. It’s a dirty world out there.

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The New Old Age: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Face masks help prevent people from getting the flu. But how much protection do they provide?

You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.

In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious disease circles since the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, also known as swine flu.

As the government noted in a document that provides guidance on the issue, “Very little information is available about the effectiveness of facemasks and respirators in controlling the spread of pandemic influenza in community settings.” This is also true of seasonal influenza — the kind that strikes every winter and that we are experiencing now, experts said.

Let’s jump to the bottom line for older people and caregivers before getting into the details. If someone is ill with the flu, coughing and sneezing and living with others, say an older spouse who is a bit frail, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the use of a face mask “if available and tolerable” or a tissue to cover the nose and mouth.

If you are healthy and serving as a caregiver for someone who has the flu — say, an older person who is ill and at home — the C.D.C. recommends using a face mask or a respirator. (I’ll explain the difference between those items in just a bit.) But if you are a household member who is not in close contact with the sick person, keep at a distance and there is no need to use a face mask or respirator, the C.D.C. advises.

The recommendations are included in another document related to pandemic influenza — a flu caused by a new virus that circulates widely and ends up going global because people lack immunity. That is not a threat this year, but the H3N2 virus that is circulating widely is hitting many older adults especially hard. So the precautions are a good idea, even outside a pandemic situation, said Dr. Ed Septimus, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The key idea here is exposure, Dr. Septimus said. If you are a caregiver and intimately exposed to someone who is coughing, sneezing and has the flu, wearing a mask probably makes sense — as it does if you are the person with the flu doing the coughing and sneezing and a caregiver is nearby.

But the scientific evidence about how influenza is transmitted is not as strong as experts would like, said Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director of adult immunization at the C.D.C. It is generally accepted that the flu virus is transmitted through direct contact — when someone who is ill touches his or her nose and then a glass that he or she hands to someone else, for instance — and through large droplets that go flying through the air when a person coughs or sneezes. What is not known is the extent to which tiny aerosol particles are implicated in transmission.

Evidence suggests that these tiny particles may play a more important part than previously suspected. For example, a November 2010 study in the journal PLoS One found that 81 percent of flu patients sent viral material through air expelled by coughs, and 65 percent of the virus consisted of small particles that can be inhaled and lodge deeper in the lungs than large droplets.

That is a relevant finding when it comes to masks, which cover much of the face below the eyes but not tightly, letting air in through gaps around the nose and mouth. As the C.D.C.’s advisory noted, “Facemasks help stop droplets from being spread by the person wearing them. They also keep splashes or sprays from reaching the mouth and nose of the person wearing them. They are not designed to protect against breathing in the very small particle aerosols that may contain viruses.”

In other words, you will get some protection, but it is not clear how much. In most circumstances, “if you’re caring for a family member with influenza, I think a surgical mask is perfectly adequate,” said Dr. Carol McLay, an infection control consultant based in Lexington, Ky.

By contrast, respirators fit tightly over someone’s face and are made of materials that filter out small particles that carry the influenza virus. They are recommended for health care workers who are in intimate contact with patients and who have to perform activities like suctioning their lungs. So-called N95 respirators block at least 95 percent of small particles in tests, if properly fitted.

Training in how to use respirators is mandated in hospitals, but no such requirement applies outside, and consumers frequently put them on improperly. One study of respirator use in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when mold was a problem, found that only 24 percent of users put them on the right way. Also, it can be hard to breathe when respirators are used, and this can affect people’s willingness to use them as recommended.

Unfortunately, research about the relative effectiveness of masks and respirators is not robust, and there is no guidance backed by scientific evidence available for consumers, Dr. Bridges said. Nor is there any clear way of assessing the relative merits of various products being sold to the public, which differ in design and materials used.

“Honestly, some of the ones I’ve seen are almost like a paper towel with straps,” Dr. McLay said. Her advice: go with name-brand items used by your local hospital.

Meanwhile, it is worth repeating: The single most important thing that older people and caregivers can do to prevent the flu is to be vaccinated, Dr. Bridges said. “It’s the best tool we have,” she said, noting that preventing flu also involves vigilant hand washing, using tissues or arms to block sneezing, and staying home when ill so people do not transmit the virus. And it is by no means too late to get a shot, whose cost Medicare will cover for older adults.

Read More..

The New Old Age: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Face masks help prevent people from getting the flu. But how much protection do they provide?

You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.

In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious disease circles since the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, also known as swine flu.

As the government noted in a document that provides guidance on the issue, “Very little information is available about the effectiveness of facemasks and respirators in controlling the spread of pandemic influenza in community settings.” This is also true of seasonal influenza — the kind that strikes every winter and that we are experiencing now, experts said.

Let’s jump to the bottom line for older people and caregivers before getting into the details. If someone is ill with the flu, coughing and sneezing and living with others, say an older spouse who is a bit frail, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the use of a face mask “if available and tolerable” or a tissue to cover the nose and mouth.

If you are healthy and serving as a caregiver for someone who has the flu — say, an older person who is ill and at home — the C.D.C. recommends using a face mask or a respirator. (I’ll explain the difference between those items in just a bit.) But if you are a household member who is not in close contact with the sick person, keep at a distance and there is no need to use a face mask or respirator, the C.D.C. advises.

The recommendations are included in another document related to pandemic influenza — a flu caused by a new virus that circulates widely and ends up going global because people lack immunity. That is not a threat this year, but the H3N2 virus that is circulating widely is hitting many older adults especially hard. So the precautions are a good idea, even outside a pandemic situation, said Dr. Ed Septimus, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The key idea here is exposure, Dr. Septimus said. If you are a caregiver and intimately exposed to someone who is coughing, sneezing and has the flu, wearing a mask probably makes sense — as it does if you are the person with the flu doing the coughing and sneezing and a caregiver is nearby.

But the scientific evidence about how influenza is transmitted is not as strong as experts would like, said Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director of adult immunization at the C.D.C. It is generally accepted that the flu virus is transmitted through direct contact — when someone who is ill touches his or her nose and then a glass that he or she hands to someone else, for instance — and through large droplets that go flying through the air when a person coughs or sneezes. What is not known is the extent to which tiny aerosol particles are implicated in transmission.

Evidence suggests that these tiny particles may play a more important part than previously suspected. For example, a November 2010 study in the journal PLoS One found that 81 percent of flu patients sent viral material through air expelled by coughs, and 65 percent of the virus consisted of small particles that can be inhaled and lodge deeper in the lungs than large droplets.

That is a relevant finding when it comes to masks, which cover much of the face below the eyes but not tightly, letting air in through gaps around the nose and mouth. As the C.D.C.’s advisory noted, “Facemasks help stop droplets from being spread by the person wearing them. They also keep splashes or sprays from reaching the mouth and nose of the person wearing them. They are not designed to protect against breathing in the very small particle aerosols that may contain viruses.”

In other words, you will get some protection, but it is not clear how much. In most circumstances, “if you’re caring for a family member with influenza, I think a surgical mask is perfectly adequate,” said Dr. Carol McLay, an infection control consultant based in Lexington, Ky.

By contrast, respirators fit tightly over someone’s face and are made of materials that filter out small particles that carry the influenza virus. They are recommended for health care workers who are in intimate contact with patients and who have to perform activities like suctioning their lungs. So-called N95 respirators block at least 95 percent of small particles in tests, if properly fitted.

Training in how to use respirators is mandated in hospitals, but no such requirement applies outside, and consumers frequently put them on improperly. One study of respirator use in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when mold was a problem, found that only 24 percent of users put them on the right way. Also, it can be hard to breathe when respirators are used, and this can affect people’s willingness to use them as recommended.

Unfortunately, research about the relative effectiveness of masks and respirators is not robust, and there is no guidance backed by scientific evidence available for consumers, Dr. Bridges said. Nor is there any clear way of assessing the relative merits of various products being sold to the public, which differ in design and materials used.

“Honestly, some of the ones I’ve seen are almost like a paper towel with straps,” Dr. McLay said. Her advice: go with name-brand items used by your local hospital.

Meanwhile, it is worth repeating: The single most important thing that older people and caregivers can do to prevent the flu is to be vaccinated, Dr. Bridges said. “It’s the best tool we have,” she said, noting that preventing flu also involves vigilant hand washing, using tissues or arms to block sneezing, and staying home when ill so people do not transmit the virus. And it is by no means too late to get a shot, whose cost Medicare will cover for older adults.

Read More..

Pushing France Onto the Digital Stage

PARIS — When the most prominent new face in France’s effort to oversee the new economy speaks, her pronouncements may be followed almost as closely in Silicon Valley and Seoul as in Paris.

Fleur Pellerin, a deputy finance minister, is the point woman in President François Hollande’s campaign to stimulate innovation. But in trying to put a French imprint on the digital economy, she has been drawn into a growing number of disputes with U.S. technology companies like Google, Twitter and Amazon.

In South Korea, it is Ms. Pellerin’s personal story that fascinates. Abandoned on the streets of Seoul as a newborn, she was taken in by a French family who raised her in the suburbs of Paris. While more than 150,000 South Korean children have been adopted by foreign parents since the Korean War, only one, Ms. Pellerin, has risen to the top ranks of the French government.

In one of the clearest signals yet from the French Finance Ministry that the government is intent on making the Internet conform to French law and custom, Ms. Pellerin last week waded into a dispute involving Google, whose advertising had been blocked by a French Internet service provider, Free.

The move was widely seen as an attempt by Free to force Google to pay for network access. As a preliminary step, Ms. Pellerin ordered Free to restore full service, but she made it clear that she thought the French company had a legitimate grievance.

The appointment of Ms. Pellerin last May, after Mr. Hollande’s election, prompted talk of a new orientation in French technology policy, where mistrust of foreign companies has sometimes been the guiding principle.

Ms. Pellerin, 39, is the first French government minister of Asian extraction. Although she has never visited the land of her birth, in French technology circles her rise fostered a perhaps naïve hope: Might Ms. Pellerin transform France into a European version of South Korea, where ultrahigh-speed broadband is ubiquitous and electronics giants like Samsung and LG have become world-beaters?

“I would like to make France one of the top nations in terms of digital innovation,” Ms. Pellerin said during a recent interview in her office at the Finance Ministry, which juts out over the Seine in eastern Paris like a giant, modern version of a medieval river toll barrier. “If we don’t act in the next few years it will be too late.”

Yet anyone expecting a drastic break with French governing traditions might be disappointed by Ms. Pellerin. After her unusual arrival in France, her upbringing and rise through the system were largely indistinguishable from that of many native-born members of the French administration.

Raised by middle-class parents — her father, who has a doctorate in nuclear physics, is a small-business owner — Ms. Pellerin grew up in two Paris suburbs, gritty Montreuil and wealthier Versailles. A promising student from the start, she was educated at elite institutions, including Sciences Po and the École Nationale d’Administration, which serve as finishing schools for the country’s ruling class. Before joining Mr. Hollande’s government, she was a magistrate at the Cour des Comptes, a body that audits the public finances, and worked in public relations.

Ms. Pellerin’s husband, Laurent Olléon, is also in government service, as an official in the office of Marylise Lebranchu, the minister for the reform of the state and decentralization. Ms. Pellerin has an 8-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.

In her new role in government, Ms. Pellerin has become the central figure in Mr. Hollande’s drive to establish “digital sovereignty” — the principle that French rules should apply to international Internet companies, which sometimes hover elusively beyond the reach of the national authorities. This has prompted clashes with a growing number of American technology companies.

Overseeing investigations of these companies on taxation and other matters, even while wooing them to invest in France, is a balancing act, Ms. Pellerin acknowledged.

“It’s not a crusade against Americans,” she said. “We are just trying to put everyone on a level playing field.”

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French and Malian Ground Troops Confront Islamists in Seized Town

Eric Feferberg/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

French soldiers rode in armored vehicles as they left Bamako and started their deployment to the north of Mali on Wednesday.

BAMAKO, Mali — French ground troops battled armed Islamist occupiers of a desert village in central Mali on Wednesday, a Malian army colonel said, in the first direct combat between them since France launched its military operation here last week to help wrest this nation back from an Islamic jihadist expansion.

The Malian colonel, who also said his army’s ground troops had joined the French forces, reported that they had ringed the village of Diabaly, which Islamist fighters had seized the day before, and were engaged in fighting to extricate them. “It’s a very specialized kind of war,” said the colonel, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The town is surrounded.”

The ground fighting expanded the confrontation between the Islamists and the French forces, which had been largely limited to aerial assaults since President François Hollande of France ordered an intervention in Mali last Friday to thwart a push to the south by Islamist rebels controlling the north of the country.

The Diabaly battle followed a northward push by a French phalanx of armored vehicles from the capital of Bamako to confront the Islamist expansion. It came as news reports from the region said Islamist militants from northern Mali affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had seized a foreign-run gas field near the Algeria-Libya border, hundreds of miles away, and had seized dozens of foreign hostages in retaliation for the French intervention in Mali and for Algeria’s cooperation in that effort.

The developments came soon after Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian of France forecast a protracted campaign to turn back a southward thrust by the rebels from their redoubts in the northern Malian desert.

“We’re in a better position than last week, but the combat continues and it will be long, I imagine,” he said Wednesday on RTL radio. “Today the ground forces are in the process of deploying,” he said. “Now the French forces are reaching the north.”

Adm. Edouard Guillaud, the French chief of staff, told Europe 1 television that ground operations began overnight.

He accused jihadists of using civilians as human shields and said, “We refuse to put the population at risk. If there is doubt, we will not fire.”

In Paris, Mr. Hollande said Wednesday that he took the decision to intervene last Friday because it was necessary. If he had not done so, it would have been too late. “Mali would have been entirely conquered and the terrorists would today be in a position of strength."

On Tuesday, witnesses in Mali reported, the insurgents had regrouped after French airstrikes and embedded themselves among the population of Diabaly, hiding in the mud and brick houses in the battle zone and thwarting attacks by French warplanes to dislodge them.

“They are in the town, almost everywhere in the town,” said Bekaye Diarra, who owns a pharmacy in Diabaly, which remained under the control of insurgents. “They are installing themselves.”

Benco Ba, a parliamentary deputy there, said residents were fearful of the conflict that had descended on them. “The jihadists are going right into people’s families,” he said. “They have completely occupied the town. They are dispersed. It’s fear, ” he said, as it became

clear that airstrikes alone will probably not be enough to root out these battle-hardened insurgents, who know well the harsh grassland and desert terrain of Mali.

Containing the rebels’ southern advance toward Bamako is proving more challenging than anticipated, French military officials have acknowledged. And with the Malian Army in disarray and no outside African force yet assembled, displacing the rebels from the country altogether appears to be an elusive, long-term challenge.

The jihadists were “dug in” at Diabaly, Defense Minister Le Drian said Tuesday at a news conference. From that strategic town, they “threaten the south,” he said, adding: “We face a well-armed and determined adversary.”

Mr. Le Drian also acknowledged that the Malian Army had not managed to retake the town of Konna, whose seizure by the rebels a week ago provoked the French intervention. “We will continue the strikes to diminish their potential,” the minister said.

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako, Mali, Alan Cowell from Paris and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Steven Erlanger and Scott Sayare from Paris, Julia Werdigier from London, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Madrid.

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DealBook: Goldman Retreats From Plan to Award Bonuses Later in Britain

LONDON – Goldman Sachs decided on Tuesday that it would not delay the payment of bonuses to its staff in Britain, a move that would have helped investment bankers and other highly paid employees to benefit from a lower income tax rate.

The decision came as lawmakers criticized banks that were considering paying bonuses later than usual. The top tax rate in Britain is scheduled to drop to 45 percent, from 50 percent, on April 6.

Goldman Sachs’s compensation committee had considered delaying the bonus payments but decided at its meeting on Tuesday not to proceed, said a person with direct knowledge of the decision, who declined to be identified because the meeting was not public. Goldman Sachs is due to report fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday and usually announces the size of the annual bonuses to its staff shortly afterward.

Even the consideration of such a move had threatened to turn into another public relations problem for the banking industry, whose top executives had pledged to try to rebuild their reputations tarnished by the financial crisis. Goldman Sachs was already drawing scrutiny in the United States after it distributed $65 million in stock to 10 senior executives in December instead of January, when the firm typically makes such awards. That move helped the executives avoid the higher tax rates that will now be imposed on income of $400,000 or more.

Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday morning that even though any delay in bonus payments was not against the law, it was “a bit depressing that people who earn so much seem to think that it’s even more exciting to adjust the timing of it.”

A Treasury minister in Britain, Sajid Javid, called Goldman Sachs this week to urge the firm not to delay the payments, a person briefed on the discussion said.

The British government announced last year that it would scrap the 50 percent top tax rate for income above £150,000, or $181,000, which was introduced by the last Labour government to help plug the budget deficit. The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, had called the tax “cripplingly uncompetitive” because it cost jobs and failed to raise any money.

A spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

Mr. King said that investment banks were privileged because a lot of their compensation was made up of bonuses, which they can decide to pay whenever they want. But he also said that delaying bonuses to benefit from the upcoming tax cut “would be rather clumsy and lacking in care and attention to how other people might react.” “In the long run, financial institutions, like all large institutions, do depend on goodwill from the rest of society,” he added. “They can’t just exist on their own.”

Earlier, several Labour Party politicians had criticized the banking industry for considering a delay of bonus payments. John Mann, a member of the Labour Party, said such a step would be an “opportunistic money grab,” The Financial Times reported on Monday.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 15, 2013

The headline on an earlier version of this article referred mistakenly to the timing of the bonuses awarded by Goldman Sachs in Britain. As the article correctly noted, the investment bank decided to award bonuses before the tax rate is adjusted on April 6, not after.

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Well: For DTaP Vaccine, Thigh May Be Better Injection Site Than Arm

Children are less likely to develop bad reactions to the DTaP vaccine, a routine immunization shot that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or whooping cough, if they get it in their thigh instead of in their arm, a new study shows.

The research looked at more than a million children who were given injections of the vaccine. In many cases it causes some degree of redness or swelling around the injection site, which typically goes away after a day. But in rare instances a child can develop a more pronounced reaction, like severe pain or a swollen limb, that may require medical attention.

In the new study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that children between the ages of 1 and 3 who were given the DTaP vaccine in their thigh instead of in their upper arm were around half as likely to have a local reaction that warranted a visit to a doctor, nurse or emergency room. Previous studies of children who received the vaccine between the ages of 4 and 6 found that they, too, had a lower likelihood of developing a local reaction requiring medical attention if they got the shot in their thigh instead of in their arm.

Why the vaccine would be less harsh on the thigh than the arm is not known for certain. But one possibility is simply that in children at that age, the thigh muscle is much larger than the deltoid, the muscle in the upper arm where shots are typically administered. If any inflammation ensues, it has more room to diffuse in the thigh, said Dr. Lisa A. Jackson, the lead author of the study and a senior investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle.

“In little kids the upper arm is very tiny,” she said. “You’re injecting the same volume of vaccine in the upper arm as in the thigh, which is a larger area. I think it’s just that it’s a larger muscle mass.”

The benefits, however, may not extend to other immunizations. The study, for example, also looked at shots for influenza and hepatitis A, and in those cases there was no meaningful difference between vaccinating in the arm or thigh for either toddlers or children ages 3 to 6.

In many cases, doctors choose where to administer a shot according to their own preference. But in the case of DTaP, at least, it makes more sense in general to give the shot in the thigh, Dr. Jackson said.

“Unless there’s a compelling reason not to, I would say veer toward giving the DTaP vaccine in the leg,” she said. “There’s less chance of a concerning reaction if you give it in the thigh versus the arm. So that should be the normal practice.”

Dr. Jackson stressed, however, that the absolute risk of a child having a reaction severe enough to warrant medical attention is still quite small, regardless of whether the shot is given in the arm or leg. The study found that it occurred in less than 1 percent of vaccinated children over all.

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Well: For DTaP Vaccine, Thigh May Be Better Injection Site Than Arm

Children are less likely to develop bad reactions to the DTaP vaccine, a routine immunization shot that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or whooping cough, if they get it in their thigh instead of in their arm, a new study shows.

The research looked at more than a million children who were given injections of the vaccine. In many cases it causes some degree of redness or swelling around the injection site, which typically goes away after a day. But in rare instances a child can develop a more pronounced reaction, like severe pain or a swollen limb, that may require medical attention.

In the new study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that children between the ages of 1 and 3 who were given the DTaP vaccine in their thigh instead of in their upper arm were around half as likely to have a local reaction that warranted a visit to a doctor, nurse or emergency room. Previous studies of children who received the vaccine between the ages of 4 and 6 found that they, too, had a lower likelihood of developing a local reaction requiring medical attention if they got the shot in their thigh instead of in their arm.

Why the vaccine would be less harsh on the thigh than the arm is not known for certain. But one possibility is simply that in children at that age, the thigh muscle is much larger than the deltoid, the muscle in the upper arm where shots are typically administered. If any inflammation ensues, it has more room to diffuse in the thigh, said Dr. Lisa A. Jackson, the lead author of the study and a senior investigator at the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle.

“In little kids the upper arm is very tiny,” she said. “You’re injecting the same volume of vaccine in the upper arm as in the thigh, which is a larger area. I think it’s just that it’s a larger muscle mass.”

The benefits, however, may not extend to other immunizations. The study, for example, also looked at shots for influenza and hepatitis A, and in those cases there was no meaningful difference between vaccinating in the arm or thigh for either toddlers or children ages 3 to 6.

In many cases, doctors choose where to administer a shot according to their own preference. But in the case of DTaP, at least, it makes more sense in general to give the shot in the thigh, Dr. Jackson said.

“Unless there’s a compelling reason not to, I would say veer toward giving the DTaP vaccine in the leg,” she said. “There’s less chance of a concerning reaction if you give it in the thigh versus the arm. So that should be the normal practice.”

Dr. Jackson stressed, however, that the absolute risk of a child having a reaction severe enough to warrant medical attention is still quite small, regardless of whether the shot is given in the arm or leg. The study found that it occurred in less than 1 percent of vaccinated children over all.

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Media Decoder: Resignation Suggests Rift Between CNET and CBS

There are companies with divisions that spend billions of dollars on entertainment. There are also companies with divisions that review new gadgets and sometimes champion the spectacular ones — even those that challenge the status quo.

And when those divisions are owned by the same company, there is a chance that they will wind up in the kind of predicament that the CBS Corporation found itself in last week.

A senior writer for CNET, the technology news Web site owned by CBS, resigned on Monday after the site was barred from presenting an award to a company being sued by CBS. Greg Sandoval, a former reporter for The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times who has spent the last seven years at CNET, said on Twitter that he no longer had confidence “that CBS is committed to editorial independence.”

Mr. Sandoval did not respond to an interview request. His resignation announcement came half an hour after another technology news site, The Verge, laid bare the details of the conflict.

The case started to unfold on Jan. 9, when CNET’s employees did something they do every year: cast votes for the Best of C.E.S. Awards, the official awards program of the Consumer Electronics Show. For the Best in Show award, the employees chose the Hopper, a digital video recorder sold by Dish Network that allows users to skip ads on prime-time network television shows. Dish had showed off the newest version of the Hopper at C.E.S., and CNET’s reviewers were impressed by it.

But CBS claims the Hopper is illegal. Along with several other network owners, it went to court last year over the ad-skipping feature; the litigation is pending.

The vote created a “legal conflict for CBS,” the CNET editor in chief, Lindsey Turrentine, said in an editorial on Monday afternoon that confirmed the substance of The Verge’s article. (The site suggested that “CNET’s reviews could be used by Dish in court to embarrass CBS or possibly refute the company’s evidence.”)

“All night and through to morning,” Ms. Turrentine wrote, “my managers up and down CNET fought for two things: to honor the original vote and — when it became clear that CBS corporate did not accept that answer — to issue a transparent statement regarding the original vote.”

But her managers were overruled. The case went all the way to the CBS chief executive, Leslie Moonves, who said that CNET should disqualify the Hopper and choose a new award winner.

CNET acquiesced. When it announced the winners on Jan. 10, CNET acknowledged that the Hopper was “removed from consideration due to active litigation involving our parent company,” causing an outcry by the Dish chief executive, Joe Clayton, who said Dish was “saddened that CNET’s staff is being denied its editorial independence because of CBS’s heavy-handed tactics.”

But CBS did not allow CNET to reveal that the Hopper had won Best in Show before being removed; when The Verge reported that on Monday, further cries of censorship sprang up on the Internet. Ms. Turrentine said she wished she could have overridden CBS’s decision. “For that I apologize to my staff and to CNET readers,” she said.

Mr. Moonves declined an interview request, but a statement from CBS called the case “isolated and unique” and noted that the Hopper “has been challenged as illegal” by it and other major media companies. The statement added, “In terms of covering actual news, CNET maintains 100 percent editorial independence, and always will.”

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/15/2013, on page B7 of the NewYork edition with the headline: CNET Clashes With Its Owner, and a Reporter Resigns.

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