NYT#INYT#12-20-2017#JapanPlus#1#FrontPage#1#luis.arzeno · INTERNATIONAL EDITIONWEDNESDAY| DECEMBER 20, 2017, QUATRE FIRST JEWELER OF THE PLACE VENDÔME In 1893, Fr d ric Boucheron

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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2017

QUATRE

FIRST JEWELER OF THE PLACE VENDÔME

In 1893, Frédéric Boucheron is the first of the great contemporary jewelers to open a Boutique on the Place Vendôme

SUBWAY BOMBERHIS CRYPTIC TRIPIN BANGLADESHPAGE 4 | WORLD

ANTWERP’S RISEDISTILLERY TURNSINTO SHOWPLACEPAGE 13 | CULTURE

EXTREME WEATHERA LOOK AT 5 CALAMITIESLIKELY CAUSED BY HUMANSPAGE 6 | SCIENCE

The first promising vaccine for dengue— a disease that afflicts hundreds of mil-lions of people around the world — is injeopardy after the Philippines sus-pended it, amid widespread fears aboutits safety and growing public anger overits use in 830,000 schoolchildren.

The Philippines government has be-gun investigations into the rollout of theimmunization program by the Frenchdrug maker Sanofi, which has come un-der fire for discounting early warningsthat its vaccine could put some people atheightened risk of a severe form of thedisease. The newly revealed evidence,confirmed recently by Sanofi’s review,found that in rare cases, Dengvaxia canbackfire: If people who never haddengue are vaccinated and later becomeinfected, the vaccine may provoke amuch more severe form of the illness.

The situation has become a public-re-lations debacle for the drug maker,which spent decades developing theworld’s first dengue vaccine, Deng-

vaxia. Politicians in the Philippines aredemanding information about Sanofi’sadvertising campaign and their govern-ment’s aggressive push, against the ad-vice of some experts, to vaccinate a mil-lion children. The backlash has alarmedresearchers who worry that Sanofi’sstumble could stoke mistrust in vac-cines around the globe. Sanofi’s vaccineis approved in 19 countries and is thefirst to combat dengue, a disease spreadby mosquitoes that infects about 400million people worldwide. Dengue puts500,000 people in the hospital each yearand kills 25,000, mostly in Latin Amer-ica and South Asia.

Infection rates can reach 90 percent inthe Philippines, according to Sanofi.

Death rates are highest among chil-dren, and just last week a 7-year-old girlwho had not been vaccinated died fromdengue in the Philippines, according tonews reports there.

Late last month, Sanofi said its newanalysis showed that vaccinationshould not be recommended for peoplewho have never had dengue, advice thatwas echoed last week by the WorldHealth Organization. But that only addsto the confusion, because there is no rap-id test to tell if someone has had the dis-ease. Even though the risk from the vac-cine is low, families fear it has turnedtheir children into time bombs, in whom

the virus could set off a life-threateningillness.

Leovon Deyro, whose youngest sonreceived his last injection of the vaccinetwo weeks ago, said he suspects thatSanofi conspired with corrupt Phil-ippine officials to circumvent regula-

tions, something the company has de-nied. “We weren’t told it was not safe,”Mr. Deyro said. So far, he said, his son,who is 10, has had no worrying symp-toms. But, he added, “They made myson and other students as guinea pigs.”DENGUE, PAGE 5

When a vaccine causes harmA creek south of Manila. Dengue is a disease spread by mosquitoes that infects about 400 million people worldwide. Infection rates are high in the Philippines.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JES AZNAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Anger rises in Philippines after warnings on danger of Sanofi’s dengue drug

BY DENISE GRADYAND KATIE THOMAS

Iran Lustre at home near the creek. He had dengue a few years ago and has since re-ceived the dengue vaccine. When he got sick, his parents feared he had dengue again.

Beth Rudin DeWoody, the art world doy-enne born into a New York real estatefortune, was walking through theBunker Artspace, a renovated Art Decobuilding here that she recently openedas an exhibition space for her renownedand eccentric collection.

Although just two miles from Mar-a-Lago, the building is another world, andan indication that this serene, largelyresidential area is making a play forsome of the art scene pizazz of Miami, abit more than an hour’s drive south.

“This is the X-rated area,” Ms. De-

Woody, a slim woman in her mid-60s,was saying downstairs in a cornergallery of the Bunker. Dressed in tropi-cal-fruit colors, and with her third hus-band, Firooz Zahedi, a photographer,and their small white poodle following,she passed a Paul McCarthy white sili-cone bust with a sex toy. A Nick Cave as-semblage had one, too.

There was a painting depicting a cru-cifixion by George Condo that might notbe pleasing to some of her more conser-vative neighbors, and a deer’s headmade of zippered black leather likelyonly to please a sadomasochist. Nearby,were John Waters’s doll-size sculpturesof Michael Jackson and Charles Mansonhaving a play date.

Ms. DeWoody, who is president of theRudin Family Foundations and on theboards of the Whitney Museum ofAmerican Art and the Hammer Mu-seum, owns more than 10,000 pieces ofart, including a vast array of work that isART, PAGE 2

Beth Rudin DeWoody, the owner of the recently opened Bunker Artspace in West PalmBeach, Fla., an area trying to get a piece of the art scene pizazz of Miami.

YSA PÉREZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

An oasis of provocative artin a playground of the richWEST PALM BEACH, FLA.

Not far from Mar-a-Lagois the Bunker Artspace, packed with eccentricities

BY BOB MORRIS

The New York Times publishes opinionfrom a wide range of perspectives inhopes of promoting constructive debateabout consequential questions.

DUBLIN This month, as Arctic windshave swept down through Britain,Brexit has led the government ofPrime Minister Theresa May into ablizzard of humiliations.

It is two weeks since the NorthernIrish Democratic Unionist Party, whichis propping up Mrs. May’s minoritygovernment, made a show of her. Shewas in Brussels for a working lunch,about to smile her way through thecarefully choreographed announce-ment of a deal that guaranteed “regu-latory alignment” between NorthernIreland and the Republic of Ireland.

But Mrs. May was called offstage totake a call from the leader of the D.U.P.,Arlene Foster, who told her that theparty would not tolerate a deal thatdistinguished Northern Ireland from

the rest of Britain.Ms. Foster’s concernwas that the dealwould effectivelymove the border tothe Irish Sea, creat-ing the illusion thatIreland was unitedand separate from“the mainland.” Thatwould be anathemato unionists, forwhom the border

that winds across the island of Irelandis the last frontier of the empire. (TheD.U.P. has loved the way that Brexit,with its strutting nationalism, hasbrought out in the rest of Britain theUnion Jacks that festoon the parts ofNorthern Ireland that are loyal to thequeen.)

Four intense days after the D.U.P.’sintervention, the European Union andBritain reached a new deal that weak-ened the British Brexiters’ position,strengthened that of the Irish govern-ment and had the support of the rest ofthe bloc. This time it spelled out thatthere would be “full alignment” be-tween Britain and Ireland in relation tothe rules of the single market and thecustoms union; and that NorthernIreland’s peace deal, known as theGood Friday Agreement, would behonored.

But Brexit Secretary David Davispromptly and breezily confided on aBritish television show that this hard-won deal was “much more a statementof intent than it was a legally enforce-able thing.”

The European Union’s chief negotia-tor, Michel Barnier, shot back thatthere would be no final deal unlessBritain respected the agreements ithad made. Rubbing it in, the European

Brexit takesmore thanjust blusterSusan McKay

OPINION

MCKAY, PAGE 11

There hasbeen nothingclear aboutstrategies forleaving theE.U. Theremay not evenbe any.

When Craig Chung, an up-and-comingSydney city councilor, meets with for-mer American officials, neither the me-dia nor his constituents seem to care.

But for events with Australia’s ethnicChinese community, he errs on the sideof caution. He researches the people in-volved. He sidesteps certain photo-graphs and publicly declares whom hetalks to and why — all to ensure that hedoesn’t end up accused of associatingwith someone tied to the Chinese Com-munist Party.

“There is this fear that we may workclosely with somebody who is accusedof being an agent of another govern-ment,” said Mr. Chung, 49, who is ethnicChinese. “We’re in a position now wherepeople are running scared.”

Australia has been thrown into tur-moil over allegations that China is try-ing to buy its politicians and sway itselections, charges that have led to in-creased scrutiny of the rising superpow-er’s efforts to influence Australia. Butthere are also fears that a campaign tostamp out Chinese influence risks be-coming a McCarthy-esque witch hunt.

The Chinese government has been us-ing proxies in Australia for years to pol-ish its image and press for its priorities,including reunification with Taiwan andsovereignty over much of the SouthChina Sea. These efforts have intensi-fied under President Xi Jinping, whoseems to view Australia — which hasbenefited greatly from trade with China— as a laboratory for efforts to swayopinion abroad and increase China’sglobal influence.

In practice, that means tycoons bornin China with ties to the CommunistParty have exploited Australia’s weakcampaign finance laws to donate mil-lions to Australian political parties. Chi-nese diplomats have also mobilized Chi-nese students for rallies and to speakout against what they see as anti-Chi-nese views, while local Chinese-lan-guage media tends to follow the fiercelynationalistic tone set by China’s state-run outlets.

But a thunderous backlash has nowarrived, with a public outcry condemn-ing anyone accused of links to Chineseinfluence, and a series of new measuresthat would strengthen espionage laws,outlaw foreign political donations andcriminalize efforts to interfere in Aus-tralia’s democracy.

Critics, including human rightsgroups, worry that the legislation, andthe intensity of anti-China sentiment,will stir hysteria and unfairly targetAustralia’s large and diverse ethnic Chi-AUSTRALIA, PAGE 2

In Australia, fervor over China risksgoing too farSYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Legislation aims to curbBeijing’s influence, butmany fear a backlash

BY DAMIEN CAVE