English Soccer Club Defends Hiring Italian Coach Known for Fascist Salutes

Alessia Pierdomenico/Reuters After he led the Roman soccer club Lazio to victory over their local rivals A.C. Roma in 2005, Paolo Di Canio greeted fans with a fascist salute.

Just two weeks after a Greek soccer player who celebrated a goal with a fascist salute was banned from representing his country for life, an Italian coach who made the same gesture repeatedly during his playing days has been hired by a club in England’s top division.

The appointment of Paolo Di Canio to manage Sunderland, a club struggling to avoid relegation from the English Premier League, was immediately condemned by at least one board member, the former British foreign minister David Miliband, who resigned in protest over “the new manager’s past political statements.”

The most famous of those statements came in 2005, when Di Canio told an Italian news agency, “I’m a fascist, not a racist,” when he was banned for one game for making what he called “the Roman salute” to Irriducibili, right-wing fans of the club he supported as a boy, Lazio. “I made the Roman salute because it’s a salute from a comrade to his comrades and was meant for my people,” he added. “With this stiff arm I do no want to incite violence or racial hatred.”

Di Canio, who has the Latin word for “leader” tattooed on his arm in tribute to Mussolini, made the fascist salute at least three times in 2005 before being banned. On one occasion he even raised his arm, in in full view of television cameras, at a match in Livorno, where the home team’s fans were known for their left-wing sympathies and the club’s star player, Cristiano Lucarelli, celebrated goals by revealing a Che Guevara T-shirt worn under his jersey.

Paolo Cocco/Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Following victory in the Rome derby in January 2005, the Lazio player Paolo Di Canio gave fans what he called a “Roman salute.”

Several years earlier, Di Canio admitted in his autobiography that he was “fascinated by Mussolini.” In a passage that mixed praise and condemnation for Il Duce, Di Canio told Gabriele Marcotti, the journalist who co-authored his memoir:

I think he was a deeply misunderstood individual. He deceived people. His actions were often vile. But all this was motivated by a higher purpose. He was basically a very principled individual. Yet he turned against his sense of right and wrong. He compromised his ethics.

Despite these apparently frank admissions of his political sympathies in the past, Di Canio’s new employers reacted with indignation when the issue was raised on Monday. “It is disappointing that some people are trying to turn the appointment of a head coach into a political circus,” Sunderland’s chief executive, Margaret Byrne, said in a statement. She went on to blame the media for misrepresenting the coach’s views. “To accuse him now, as some have done, of being a racist or having fascist sympathies,” Ms. Byrne said, “is insulting not only to him but to the integrity of this football club.”

For his part, Di Canio said in a video interview for the club’s Web site that it was “stupid and ridiculous” to accuse him of racism, naming three black players he was friends with during his career. One of those players, however, the Trinidadian-British goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, told the BBC in 2005 that he no longer considered himself friends with Di Canio after the salutes, “because of what those gestures mean and the wider effect of it.” He added, “Paolo was certainly someone I considered a friend who I liked a lot, so I am very disappointed.”

Writing on Twitter on Monday, Di Canio’s co-author argued that even though he does not share the new Sunderland coach’s politics â€" he called the salute “wrong and insensitive” â€" it was incorrect to call him a Nazi or a racist.

@rich_swin @darrenrichman fascistic Yes. Anti-Semitic Pro Mussolini A nazi A racist No.

â€" Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) 1 Apr 13

@Marcotti I’m at a loss to respond to this. This says it all . No ambiguity here Gabby. Pro-nazi #fact http://t.co/dZaGNzvR1P

â€" Stevie (@stevebhoy) 1 Apr 13

@stevebhoy no, not fact. That’s a roman fascist salute to Lazio fans who made same back. It’s their salute. Not making nazi statement

â€" Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) 1 Apr 13

@DannyColclough I’m not defending the salute. It was wrong and insensitive and loaded. But it doesn’t make him a Nazi.

â€" Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) 1 Apr 13

He also thanked another journalist for drawing attention to another passage from the memoir, in which Di Canio expressed some sympathy for the difficulties encountered by immigrants to Italy.

Thanks to @aasmahmir for this. http://t.co/Uxr4h89AFC As she says, primary source, make up your own mind.

â€" Gabriele Marcotti (@Marcotti) 1 Apr 13

In the interview with Sunderland’s Web site on Monday, Di Canio also claimed that the media was unfairly representing his views by quoting just one portion of the long interview that was used for his biography. “I expressed an opinion in an interview many years ago. Some pieces were taken for media convenience. They took my expression in a very, very negative way - but it was a long conversation and a long interview. It was not fair.”

He added: “What offends me more than everything is not because they touch me; they touch what my parents taught to me; the values they gave to me. This is not acceptable. So, what I can say If someone is hurt, I’m sorry, but that didn’t come from me, it came from a big story that people put out in a different way to what it was.”

Robert Mackey also remixes the news on Twitter @robertmackey.

With Pakistani Schools Under Fire, Renewed Outrage and Action

CNN coverage of school teacher’s killing and family interviews

A recent attack on a female teacher at a girls’ school in Pakistan has renewed calls for better security for educators and students in the country.

On March 26, the teacher, Shahnaz Nazli, 41, was shot dead while she was on her way to the school where she worked in Shahkas, the volatile tribal belt on the Afghan border, a local government official, Asmatullah Wazir, told Agence France Presse.

The shooting death was compared to the Taliban’s attack last October on a Pakistani schoolgirl, Malala Yousafzai. The teenager received medical care in Britain and recently resumed her studies there.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, condemned the killing of Ms. Nazli as well as previous violence targeting other teachers and institutions.

#UNSG Ban Ki-moon condemns violent attacks on teachers in #Pakistan http://t.co/tzXDpPTeeN

â€" UN Spokesperson (@UN_Spokesperson) 28 Mar 13

But after the attack on Ms. Nazli, at least two more incidents were reported at Pakistani schools over the weekend. On Saturday, a principal, Abdul Rasheed, was killed in a grenade attack on his school in Karachi, according to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Parents pulled their sons and daughters from the school, Dawn said in a separate report.

A girls’ school was blown up on Sunday in Bannu, on the edge of the tribal belt, a report by Pakistan’s Express Tribune said on Monday. The newspaper did not report any injuries.

In an echo of the reaction to the attack on Ms. Yousafzai, the death of Ms. Nazli spawned an online response on Twitter. News of the attack circulated via the hashtags #Courage2Teach and #girlseducation, and an online petition was created to demand that more be done to protect students and education officials.

Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister who was named the United Nations’ special envoy for Global Education, called on the Pakistani government in a statement last week to provide further protections.

The petition started by his office after the shooting of Ms. Nazli said: “Mourning the death of Shahnaz Nazli, a courageous teacher shot for wanting to ensure girls have the right to go to school, we call on the president and government of Pakistan to end the killings and violence that prevent girls’ education and to ensure all girls can go to school. We call for all girls and all teachers to be protected and given security to enable them to enjoy their basic right to be educated.”

Mr. Brown wrote on his Web site:

The petition is timely and necessary. This week’s shooting is unfortunately not an isolated incident but a sharp reminder of how a basic right, for girls to go to school, is still being resisted violently by extremist militants. For as I have traveled the world visiting not just Asia but Africa too, I have learned how girls â€" and teachers whose only crime is helping young girls reach their potential through the right to education â€" have been threatened, intimidated and, in some cases, kidnapped, imprisoned, bombed and maimed.

Mr. Brown told the BBC Asian Network in an audio interview last week that not having an education was a “silent emergency” because the damage it did to children was not immediately visible.

CNN coverage of the attack on Mrs. Nazli showed her family in mourning and an interview with her young son, who was with his mother when she was attacked.

Human rights and other organizations said the government needed to do more to protect schools. Human Rights Watch has said there were 96 documented attacks on schools in 2012, most of them in the tribal areas.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.

Image of the Day: April 1

Tsering Topgyal/Associated Press Sunita Williams, an American astronaut of Indian origin, during an interaction with students at the National Science Centre in New Delhi.

Health Care Advocates Cheer Supreme Court Decision

Reuters The office of Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis in Basel, Switzerland.

NEW DELHI â€"Lawyers fighting against a Swiss drug manufacturer’s effort to patent an amended version of a cancer drug expressed relief on Monday after India’s highest court rejected the patent, in a case that has been closely watched by pharmaceutical companies, makers of generic drugs and health care activists.

“We’re very happy. A seven-year battle is over,” Anand Grover, a lawyer who had been arguing the case on behalf of the Cancer Patients Aid Association, told India Ink. “The drug is not novel, it’s not inventive.”

The ruling, which allows Indian makers of generic drugs to continue making cheap versions of the Novartis drug Gleevec, also known as Glivec, helps maintain India’s position as the largest exporter of generic drugs.

The Supreme Court’s landmark decision was welcomed by health care nonprofits, who said it would mean that medicines would be more affordable to poor patients in India and other developing countries.

The case represents a high-stakes showdown between defenders of intellectual property rights, who say generic versions stifle innovation by drug makers, and Indian drug companies and international aid groups, who warned that a ruling in favor of Novartis could have dried up the global supply of inexpensive medicines to treat AIDS, cancer and other diseases.

Indian patent law prohibits a newer form of a known substance from receiving a patent unless it significantly improves the medicine’s efficacy. The standard is aimed at preventing a practice known as evergreening, in which a pharmaceutical company makes minor changes to an existing drug to gain a new patent, and many more years of protection from generic competition.

“It’s a new form of an old substance, and that’s what the Supreme Court has upheld,” said Mr. Grover, the Cancer Patients Aid Association lawyer.

Gleevec, a cancer treatment heralded as a breakthrough for people with a deadly form of leukemia, can cost each patient up to $70,000 per year. Indian generic versions cost only about $2,500 a year.

The Novartis Patent Case: The Full Supreme Court Ruling

Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images A demonstration against Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on Dec. 21, 2012.

India’s Supreme Court ruled Monday against Swiss drug-maker Novartis, which was seeking patent protection for a form of its popular cancer drug Gleevec.

The highly-technical 112-page ruling delves into the intricate chemistry of drug compound formulation, the definition of efficacy, confusing changes to India’s patent laws since before Independence, the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in India and the need to protect India’s role as a cheap drug provider. On page two, the court notes:

The Court was urged to strike a balance between the need to promote research and development in science and technology and to keep private monopoly (called an ‘aberration’ under our Constitutional scheme) at the minimum. Arguments were made about India’s obligation to faithfully comply with its commitments under international treaties and counter arguments were made to protect India’s status as “the pharmacy of the world.”

Novartis first applied for patent protection for a form of Gleevec, which is based on the chemical compound Imatinib Mesylate, in India in Chennai in 1998, the court noted:

In the application it claimed that the invented product, the beta crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate, has (i) more beneficial flow properties: (ii) better thermodynamic stability; and (iii) lower hygroscopicity than the alpha crystal form of Imatinib Mesylate. It further claimed that the aforesaid properties makes the invented product “new” (and superior!) as it “stores better and is easier to process”; has “better processability of themethanesulfonic acid addition salt of a compound of formula I”, and has a “further advantage for processing and storing.”

In fairness to Novartis, the court notes, the application was made under a different patent regime, and lay dormant under something called “the mailbox procedure” until January 2005. But that, too, worked against Novartis’s push to differentiate it:

It is seen above that in the US the drug Gleevec came to the market in 2001. It is beyond doubt that what was marketed then was Imatinib Mesylate and not the subject product, Imatinib Mesylate in beta crystal form. It is also seen above that even while the appellant’s application for grant of patent lay in the “mailbox” awaiting amendments in the law of patent in India, the appellant was granted Exclusive Marketing Rights on November 10,2003, following which Gleevec was marketed in India as well. On its package, the drug was described as “Imatinib Mesylate Tablets 100 mg” and it was further stated that “each film coated tablet contains: 100 mg Imatinib (as Mesylate)”. On the package there is no reference at all to Imatinib Mesylate in beta crystalline form. What appears, therefore, is that what was sold as Gleevec was Imatinib Mesylate and not the subject product, the beta crystalline form of Imatinib Mesylate.

If that be so, then the case of the appellant appears in rather poor light and the claim for patent for beta crystalline form of Imatinib Mesylate would only appear as an attempt to obtain patent for Imatinib Mesylate, which would otherwise not be permissible in this country.

Top Court in India Rejects Novartis Drug Patent

NEW DELHI â€" India’s Supreme Court rejected a Swiss drug maker’s patent application for a major cancer drug Monday in a landmark ruling that allows cheap copies of important medicines to continue being distributed in much of the world.

The ruling allows Indian makers of generic drugs to continue making copycat versions of the Novartis drug Gleevec â€" also spelled Glivec in other markets, like Europe â€" which can have a seemingly miraculous effect on some forms of leukemia.

But the ruling’s effect will be felt well beyond the limited number of patients in India who need Gleevec because it will help maintain India’s role as the world’s most important provider of cheap medicines, which is critical in the global fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

Novartis had hoped that India’s adoption under international pressure of a new patent law would lead the country to grant the company an exclusive license to produce Gleevec, which can cost up $70,000 per year. Indian generic versions cost about $2,500 year.

But the court’s ruling confirmed that India’s criteria for the granting of such patents remain far higher than those in the United States, where patents are so easy to win that one was given in 1999 for a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich. Which country’s patent system does more to protect the sick and encourage invention has become an increasing source of international debate.

In recent decades, the United States has become increasingly insistent that countries wishing to do business there adopt far more stringent patent protection rules, with the result that poorer patients often lose access to cheap generic copies of medicines when their governments undertake trade agreements with the United States.

The ruling Monday is bound to be seen with some concern by the United States and the international pharmaceutical industry and may be yet another blow to India’s standing among major multinational companies, many of whom view protection of their intellectual property as vital to their business interests.

India’s Ad Industry Shaken After Ford Figo Controversy

Manish Swarup/Associated Press Joe Hinrichs, vice president of Ford, right, and Michael Boneham, then president and managing director of Ford India, at the launch of the Ford Figo car in New Delhi, on March 9, 2010.

MUMBAIâ€"A series of controversial advertisements made by the WPP subsidiary JWT India for Ford Motor has shaken up India’s fast-growing, multibillion-dollar advertising industry.

The ads, which featured cartoons of women bound and gagged in the trunk of a Ford Figo, prompted the resignation of Bobby Pawar, an industry veteran and the chief creative officer and managing partner at JWT India, and Vijay Simha Vellanki, the creative director at Blue Hive, a WPP unit dedicated to managing the Ford business.

“The industry is under serious stress right now on this issue, because Mr. Pawar is such a respected figure,” said Nitesh Thattasery, an execute vice president at Leo Burnett India. “It is a very severe step, asking someone of Bobby Pawar’s stature to leave,” he said, adding that it would not have been a local decision.

Courtesy of afaqs.com Bobby Pawar.

The incident has raised questions about ethics in Indian advertising, an industry that has grown by as much as 11.4 percent each year between between 2006 and 2010, generating revenues of 279 billion rupees ($5.2) in 2011. The industry is expected to grow to 525 billion rupees by 2016.

Indian agencies have embraced a global trend of creating controversial advertisements specifically with the aim of winning international awards, perhaps too zealously, some executives say. These ads, known in India as “scam advertisements” because they are not created to sell products, caused international controversy in 2007, for example.

Then, McCann-Erickson India created three advertisements for Hanes, the underwear company, featuring racist words and anti-gay slurs that were published in the Free Press Journal. “A young team in its excitement and passion for winning awards went overboard. The intention was never to hurt anyone’s sentiments and it was done in complete innocence,” Prasoon Joshi, then the chairman and national creative director of McCann India, said in an apology.

However, Hanes said the incident had been a breach of trust and it resulted in McCann- Erickson losing the Hanes account.

Controversies arise in India because of a difference in sensibility between the Indian advertising industry and international agencies, executives said. “International advertising people play it a lot safer,” said the creative director at another WPP company in Mumbai, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he didn’t want to be seen criticizing his peers. “They wouldn’t take as many risks as a developing country like India as they are often more aware of the political implications,” he said. In India, “we lack the knowledge about international icons, we don’t know where to draw the line - here you’ll see people wearing Hitler t-shirts. We don’t always understand the implication of what we are saying and doing,” he said.

While JWT India did not disclose the total number of people fired over the Ford Figo ads, one industry executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said an entire creative team of about 10 from New Delhi were let go. Mr. Pawar had resigned because his team had been asked to leave, he said. “Bobby Pawar is one of the finest and most respected people in the industry and it is sad that he is taking the fall for what his juniors have done,” he said.

“As a leader, this incident happened on my watch,” Mr. Pawar told The Hindu. “I have to take moral responsibility for it.” Mr. Pawar was not immediately available for comment.

Ad executives in India rushed to Mr. Parwar’s defense. “I think it is a gross overreaction on the part of the client and the agency,” said Naresh Gupta, a managing partner at Bang In the Middle, a digital advertising agency based in New Delhi. “It should have been handled far more sensitively and with far more judiciousness.”

The most controversial of three advertisements for the Ford Figo, meant to allude to the Indian hatchback’s spacious trunk, showed former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy flashing a victory sign while driving a vehicle with three scantily clad gagged women in the rear. Two other versions of the advertisement show the reality television star Paris Hilton kidnapping the Kardashian sisters and the Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher abducting three of his rivals.

The advertisements in question were never used for a Ford campaign, but were uploaded by JWT employees on Ads of the World, an international advertising Web site which gives awards for ads submitted by users. They have since been removed from the Web site. Soon after posting, they spread quickly through social media and attracted criticism for their sexist message, particularly as India grapples with numerous high-profile incidents of violence against women.

Ford executives were displeased, to say the least. “All of us were shocked,” said Ford’s global marketing and sales chief, Jim Farley, at the New York International Auto Show on Wednesday, “We’ve updated, of course, all of our creative review process. We take this matter very seriously.” The Indian unit of Ford said, “The posters are contrary to the standards of professionalism and decency within Ford and our agency partners.” They added that they were reviewing their approval and oversight processes to ensure that the incident is not repeated.

The practice of “scam ads,” or advertisements created specifically with the aim of winning awards and augmenting the portfolio of creative executives, has become common because advertisements that appeal to a broader market and are used commercially do not often win awards, Indian executives said. “Great advertising - the kind that wins awards - is generally creative, evolved and thought provoking,” Mr. Thattasery said.

“However such ads do not always work with the target group, say for example in rural audiences in India.” When an agency decides an idea will not work in the market, it is often put aside for awards. Part of the award criteria is that the ad be published somewhere, rather be just a conceptual idea, and the Internet has changed the type of attention these ads receive, executives said.

“It’s almost accepting in advertising that you will create some ads specifically for awards - it’s almost like a cottage industry and every agency does it,” Mr. Gupta said. Earlier, the ads would be published in obscure newspapers and go unnoticed, he said, but “the Internet makes it easier to track such things down.”

Whether Ford executives had actually send the Figo “scam” ads before their publication remains an issue of much speculation in India.

According to procedure followed by most advertising agencies, advertisements created for such award shows are sent to the client for approval before being submitted as entries for award shows. “These ads would have had to be approved by Ford India - they could not have been entered for awards without their approval,” said an advertising executive on the condition of anonymity. “There are legal procedures for submissions for awards that include a letter from the client certifying the entry.”

However, JWT India denied this. “These were never intended for paid publication, were never requested by our Ford client and should never have been created, let alone uploaded to the Internet,” they said in a statement. “These posters were created by individuals within the agency and did not go through the normal review and oversight process.”

Advertising executives believe that Indian agencies will tread more cautiously, after the Ford Figo incident. “The industry will be far, far more cautious in making sure that in the future no ad goes for an award without clear client approval,” Mr. Thattasery said. “Award bodies will also be more careful in the future that the unreleased work submitted by agencies has explicit clearance from the client.”